Shit that Pissed me Off – 8/25/17

Woman Rearranges Dolls on a Shelf to Complain There Aren’t Enough Toys for White Children

I just think you should look at the picture first. Because it says a lot.

First off, the doll section in Target is way bigger than that. Second, what is that behind the doll in the yellow top? Isn’t that a white doll? Third, interesting how she chose names that are traditionally “ethnic” to make her point. Fourth, who stocks dolls lying sideways? Maybe someone taking a picture to share on Twitter so she can become internet famous for being racist?

And fifth – even if what she said was true (and it wasn’t) – wouldn’t “too many” dolls of color be a good thing? I mean these are probably all of the black dolls in the toy section. I’m not sure how many Hispanic or Asian ones there were. Maybe more. Probably less.

The number of white dolls (outside the frame) were likely at least twice the number of dolls of any other ethnicity.

But this girl thought it would be great to point out how racist it was that there were eight dolls for black girls who may have wanted a toy that resembled them.

Once it was pointed out that her picture was bullshit, she apologized for being insensitive (good) and eventually deleted the Twitter account.

This is what People of Color deal with every day. When there is a little bit of representation, someone complains there is too much representation. There is this idea that being white is supposed to be the default setting and any time someone who isn’t white shows up, they are stealing what is supposed to be ours.

We get to play life on the easy setting but we feel like it isn’t easy enough.

Meme that Pissed me Off

This week, the far right is getting creative. They are creating memes for the left that imply we are a bunch of violent haters. The goal here is to shift the dialogue away from the fact that the far right is full of Nazis, white supremacists, and KKK members who are, oddly enough, a bunch of violent haters.

So they (meaning the right) created this meme that was, supposedly, from Antifa. Specifically – it was the picture on the left.

I still shake my head when I think about 53% of white women voting for serial sexual predator but I’m going to try to ignore that for the moment.

So what this fake meme implies is Antifa thinks anyone who voted for Trump is a Nazi and we should, therefore, beat all of them up.

Not everyone who voted for Trump was a Nazi. Anyone who still defends him is a Nazi sympathizer or, at best, an appeaser, but, again, that is another conversation.

But it’s pretty scary, right? I mean all those criminals on the left who are walking around saying things like “Black Lives Matter” and “Nazis killed millions of people in concentration camps so we really don’t like them very much” are just itching to beat up white women.

But this is all a lie. Once again, the political party that is beating the “fake news” drum is the one that is most responsible for creating fake news.

The underlying implication, if you missed it, is that the people beating up these white women are black men. It is meant to inflame the culture wars and support the white supremacist argument that white people and black people just aren’t compatible. They don’t hate black people, you see. They just think it is better for both races if we spend some time apart.

Kindergarten Bans a Boy For Having Long Hair

Now I hate to spend a lot of time complaining about the plight of white boys in America but this particular story speaks to a larger issue of gendering.

In this story, we have a four-year old boy with long hair. I mean, it is very long. And clearly it is that long on purpose. I guess he likes it that way.

Which should be cool.

Except it turns out that it isn’t cool. He was sent home from Kindergarten even though his mother had been assured he’d be able to have long hair for personal and/or religious reasons.

The policy against long hair is, apparently, for both boys and girls. So good on them for forcing all children to comply. I imagine they are concerned about kids pulling hair or maybe too much hair in the play doh. I don’t know.

The policy also says boys can’t wear “hair accessories.” So maybe it’d be OK if his hair was in a pony tail but he’s a boy so he can’t actually put his hair in a pony tail?

It’s all bullshit that is meant to create specific gender identities for children. We know this kind of thing can damage kids as they are trying to learn who they are but we don’t care because we are very worried about where transgender women pee.

Or something.

Man Who Videotaped Vehicular Homicide in Charlottesville Becomes Fake News

If you want to understand how Trump has twisted our nation, you need to look at everything that has happened in the wake of Charlottesville. The fact we are having conversations about how choosing to stand up to Nazis is somehow as bad or worse than being a Nazi is horrifying. It makes no sense.

But when you have a situation like the one described by Brennan Gilmore, you can begin to understand just how much we are fighting against.

Gilmore was able to film the attack in which a Ne0-Nazi drove his car into a group of counter protestors, killing one of them. He posted the video to Twitter.

Then the alt-right went into action. They looked up Brennan’s work history and found out he’d once worked for the state department and put that together with other details in his work history to fashion a narrative that he was planted in Charlottesville to shoot that video. They further argue that the Neo-Nazi who killed a woman wasn’t actually a Neo-Nazi but instead, he was a leftist operative there to make Nazis look bad!

Think about that. We now have a conspiracy theory out there that our President probably believes that implies the far left (he calls them the alt-left) killed a woman to make Neo-Nazis look bad.

I feel like they can make themselves look bad all on their own.

Gilmore and his parents have been receiving death threats since this theory was put forward.

This is the environment in which we live. It is an environment in which we are supposed to feel sorry for Nazis because the left is bullying them into shutting up. We are supposed to feel sorry for white supremacists because People of Color are using their voice to call for change.

We are having arguments on the left about how horrible some of us are for suggesting it is time to resist the alt-right in the strongest possible way because these people are violent, they are advocating violence, and they will use violence. The fact some people on the left are suggesting sometimes they only way to resist violence is with violence is considered a smear of the legacy of Ghandi and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Hell, I don’t know. Maybe it is.

What I do know is right now we have a President who is suggesting both sides are to blame when one of the sides is made up of violent bigots and the other side is made up of people who remember what happened the last time these fuckers were in power.

I apologize if this final rant isn’t very funny. Nazis aren’t funny. Nazis are dangerous. They had the chance to show what they would do when nobody shut them up. It turned out pretty badly for all of us. I’m on board with anyone who wants to ensure that doesn’t happen again.

Douchebag on the Radio Pisses on People Who Wanted to Watch the Eclipse

Hopefully this is a little lighter way to end things. Over the weekend, I was listening to sports radio as I sometimes do.

They started talking about traffic jams in Oregon as people tried to get to a place where they could see the total eclipse.

Full disclosure, I had at least a dozen friends (including my mom, my wife and one of my kids) who were driving all over the country chasing the eclipse. They thought it was pretty cool. So did I and I was bummed I didn’t get to go.

Anyway, this guy talked about the “morons” in the traffic jam going to see the eclipse and I thought “what about everyone who was ever in a traffic jam to see a football game? Were they morons, too?”

I mean seriously – if you aren’t interested in the eclipse, that’s fine. But why do you need to shit on people who were? For one day, science nerds won. Sports nerds win pretty much every other day of the year. Why do you have to be a jackass about it?

So I’m going to end my article this week with a picture of the eclipse taken by my good friend Melissa Kaercher.