I, for one, welcome our new PoC overlords.

The data has come in, and it shows that only 49.6% of last year’s new babies were non-Hispanic white. If you’re like me, you look at those numbers, say “Oh. Okay,” and then go in for another workday in your office in which you are the only native Anglophone in your department. If you are a racist asshat, however, then you look at those numbers and start spraying turds all over the Internet which make me embarrassed to be counted as white.

If you want to see how bankrupt an idea white supremacy is, look no further than the spewings of white supremacists.

Injustice has been served.

According to Colorlines, CeCe McDonald has pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter. While this charge is far less appalling than murder, and a 41-month prison sentence is less damaging than 80 years, it is, nonetheless, wrong. They attacked first, and she acted in self-defense. She has been prosecuted for having refused to take their abuse sitting down. This is a great way to send a message to trans people, especially black trans women: “We do not want you here.” It is an act of erasure, far less gradual and subtle than most.

How did I not hear about this before?

Via Natalie Reed, I’m just now hearing about CeCe McDonald.

What.

The.

Fuck.

I’m trying to sign the petition, but change.org is having technical difficulties.

If you are not outraged on CeCe’s behalf, you are part of the problem.

In which I spend a little while talking about racism.

News sources in Britain (I use the term “news source” very loosely for the Mail) would like to show us divergent twins born to biracial parents. First, we see these cute little girls who just turned seven:

It's like baby pandas holding hands under a rainbow.

The kids are perfectly huggable, but I find it rather distracting how the Mail is so set on making sure we know they don’t face any racism! No, not at all, their differing colors are never an issue, thank you much!, but hey, maybe this really is their experience so far. They’re only seven and are still several years away from secondary school.

It hasn’t been quite so easy for these young men:

"We're twins and we're different colors because fuck you, that's why."

It’s interesting how their all-white school was so much easier for James (the darker one) than for Daniel (the pale one). Sometimes, it isn’t really difference so much as ambiguity that attracts hostility. Small-minded people want to be able to store others securely in neat little boxes, and a guy like Daniel upsets their sense of order.

And then there’s this shit:

But I'm sure you let them use your bathroom.

I haven’t read the books, but fortunately we have Dodai Stewart to show us the parts where Rue’s and Thresh’s physical descriptions were given in the text. One is left to wonder why it is such a goddamn surprise to these “fans” to see the characters portrayed by black actors.

Let’s be clear about what we’re dealing with: these are horrible people, and their reading comprehension is pathetic. Two separate issues, both disturbing in their own ways.

Between Joel “Adults should not enjoy books which I have not deigned to try” Stein and these asshats, I kind of want to read the series just to spite these ridiculous bigots.

Furthermore, as the author of a novel with a multiracial-black protagonist, this knee-jerk reaction bugs the shit out of me. Yes, it’s very nice to know that blond children can be seen as “innocent” whereas little black girls who look like this are not so hard to see killed. It’s very nice to know that characters who are portrayed on screen as African-Americans are not “good.” So I made it easy for everyone and put my highly intelligent, thoughtful, more-a-lover-than-a-fighter guy on the cover so no one runs the risk of reading a novel about a black dude without realizing it.

NOM are a pack of slimy mofos, but that’s hardly news.

I am still trying to write an impressive amount of text into Fait Accompli, but I’d just like to point your attention to this find by Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters. The hilariously named NOM, which uses “marriage” as a euphemism for homophobia, has chosen a deliberate strategy of divide and conquer. Specifically, they’ve chosen to turn African-Americans against gays.

The strategic goal of this project is to drive a wedge between gays and blacks – two key democratic constituencies. We aim to find, equip, energize and connect African American spokespeople for marriage; to develop a media campaign around their objections to gay marriage as a civil right; and to provoke the gay marriage base into responding by denouncing these spokesmen and women as bigots. No politician wants to take up and push an issue that splits the base of the party.

Their goal is to portray the “gay marriage base” as racists, to frame opposition to marriage equality as a “black issue,” and frighten Democratic politicians away from supporting equality. This will do nothing good for race relations, but as far as NOM is concerned, whatevs. It will also make life increasingly, needlessly difficult for African-American LGBTs, but NOM cares even less for them.

No, it doesn’t end there. I just had to follow the link to the HRC document, which gives us this precious nugget:

“The Latino vote in America is a key swing vote, and will be so even more so in the future, both because of demographic growth and inherent uncertainty: Will the process of assimilation to the dominant Anglo culture lead Hispanics to abandon traditional family values? We must interrupt this process of assimilation by making support for marriage a key badge of Latino identity – a symbol of resistance to inappropriate assimilation.”

“Interrupt this process of assimilation by making support for [institutionalized bigotry] a key badge of Latino identity”?

We wouldn’t want America’s fastest-growing ethnic group to get too comfy with an increasingly non-homophobic dominant culture, would we?

There are times when I am embarrassed to be white. This is one of those times. NOM, you suck. You suck so incredibly hard. You are all a disgusting waste of food, housing and oxygen. Short pier. Long walk. Go. Now.

If you don’t want to be called racist, then don’t say shit like this.

Presented without comment:

“I do find it amazing and entertaining that one of our stickers has become a racist thing,” Ms. Smith told Forbes.

She even tried arguing that the dictionary does not define the “N-Word” as racist. Wisely, Friedman posted the actual definition from dictionary.com, which says the word, “is now probably the most offensive word in English. Its degree of offensiveness has increased markedly in recent years, although it has been used in a derogatory manner since at least the Revolutionary War. Definitions 1a, 1b, and 2 represent meanings that are deeply disparaging and are used when the speaker deliberately wishes to cause great offense.”

Her protestations aside, Ms. Smith appears to have removed the bumper sticker from her site. Under the  ”Anti-Obama” section of the site (advertised as her No. 3 bestseller), you’ll now only find a sticker reading, “I was Anti-Obama Before It Was Cool.”

In what may be a reference to the controversy her other bumper sticker has caused, the description below reads, “Show the world how you feel! (but be careful, you may hurt someone’s feelings).”

Ms. Smith then goes on to argue that President Obama is “not even black,” but rather, “a mixture of race.” When Friedman asks Smith if she thinks the N-Word is offensive or derogatory, she says no, but then claims that she herself does not even use the word.

“I have kids here around me that are black kids. I call them my own kids. I’ve helped black families…to guide them in the right direction,” Smith told Forbes. “We like to laugh and have a good time. That’s our way of life.”

[Emphasis mine]

 

WTF, Retreat at Twin Lakes?

The “suspicious” person who was shot and killed by the neighborhood watch captain was a 17-year-old boy who had just bought some candy for his younger brother.

Chief Bill Lee of the Sanford Police Department on Thursday evening said the account given by Martin’s family and attorney is correct, that Zimmerman saw the young man walking home from the store. He said that Zimmerman did indeed call 911 and report a suspicious person, and that he was told not to follow him.

“For some reason he felt that Trayvon, the way that he was walking or appeared seemed suspicious to him,” Lee said. “He called this in and at one part of this initial call [the dispatcher] recommends him not to follow Trayvon. A police officer is on the way at that point.”

Lee said that Zimmerman instead followed Martin.

“I believe that Mr. Zimmerman was trying to, by his account, find an address to give the officers and also trying to keep Trayvon in eyesight.”

Zimmerman told the police that Martin noticed that he was being followed and asked, “what’s your problem?”

That’s when a physical confrontation ensued, Lee said. And moments later, Martin was shot.

Lee said that Zimmerman has a legal permit to carry the weapon used in the shooting, and that he told police that he shot Martin in self-defense.

I guess the lesson here is that if you’re an African-American teenager whose father lives in a gated community, do not go to visit your father at his home. If you must visit your father, do not think about leaving the house after dark. You will be considered “suspicious,” you may be followed, and if you argue about being put under this scrutiny, you may be shot. The shooter will continue to be in charge of the neighborhood watch, and he will be allowed to continue carrying a loaded gun. Your presence in the neighborhood will be considered “out of place” and will accordingly be reported.

 

Arizona, please tell me you’re joking!

Tucson, what is that I don’t even.

Outrage was the response on Saturday to the news that Tucson schools banned books by the nation’s award winning Chicano, Latino and Native American authors.

What the? Do you need to have an Anglo surname and pale face to have your books allowed in the school system now?

But wait, it’s not just Tucson:

The decision to ban books follows the 4 to 1 vote on Tuesday by the Tucson Unified School District board to surrender to the State of Arizona, and forbid Mexican American Studies, rather than fight the state’s threat to extract millions of education dollars from Tucson schools if it continues ethnic studies.

The state of Arizona is threatening to pull education funds from school districts that continue ethnic studies? Why is it that I am appalled and yet no longer surprised?

This is cited from a Salon article by Jeff Biggers:

Other banned books include “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” by famed Brazilian educator Paolo Freire and “Occupied America: A History of Chicanos” by Rodolfo Acuña, two books often singled out by Arizona state superintendent of public instruction John Huppenthal, who campaigned in 2010 on the promise to “stop la raza.” Huppenthal, who once lectured state educators that he based his own school principles for children on corporate management schemes of the Fortune 500, compared Mexican-American studies to Hitler Jugend indoctrination last fall.

When you have elected as your state superintendent a guy who loses the argument via Godwin’s Law, Arizona, something has gone seriously wrong in your state’s cultural discourse.

 

Anti-choice bill has idiotic name.

Our old buddy Rep. Trent Franks (R-idiculous) is riding that hobby-horse again, using his highly salaried time in Congress to write bills to combat problems that don’t exist.

The Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act of 2011

…

restricts sex-selection abortion and race-selection abortion, and the coercion of a woman to obtain either. The woman seeking an abortion is exempted from prosecution, while abortion providers are held to account.

Right. There’s a real epidemic of abortion providers rounding up pregnant women and coercing them into aborting their female and/or black fetuses. Sure.

The use of Frederick Douglass’s name in the bill’s title, however, is especially hilarious. From what I recall of his writing, the rape and forced breeding of enslaved women was one of the horrors of slavery that he set out to expose. I don’t think he would have been on-board with this legislative hand-wringing over black women having too much abortion access.

I’ll say it again: Trent Franks does not care about black people!

 

If you don’t want to be called racist, then don’t pull racist shit.

Gulnare Free Will Baptist Church has been given the smackdown by their denomination’s governing body and will just have to find other ways to promote the unity of their church body.

Did the church itself change its mind on the issue? Not really.

Stepp said the Sandy Valley Conference of Free Will Baptists declared the vote on Thompson’s resolution null and void during a meeting on Saturday.

The former pastor of Gulnare got the church members to pass a resolution that says, “We don’t have a problem with those people, we just don’t want them marrying our girls!” and the Sandy Valley Conference effectively took the matter out of their hands. It doesn’t matter if they’ve changed their minds, it doesn’t matter whether the sudden uproar from all four corners of the Earth has persuaded them that cross-racial marriage should not be considered a bad thing, and it doesn’t matter whether they’ve considered that the resolution they’d passed was a really crappy message to send to their church secretary about his family. In this case, it’s not their decision. Their church WILL NOT bar interracial couples from church membership, as long as they’re a member of the Sandy Valley Conference.

On the one hand, I don’t think they actually have to worry about any interracial couples trying to join their church any time soon. The message has already been sent that the church environment will not be a welcoming one. On the other hand, at least their current pastor has his head screwed on tight w/r/t race relations.

The response to having All the Internet gape in horror at them has been thus:

[Pastor Stacy Stepp] said he told church members on Sunday about the decision and proposed a resolution to promote “peace, love and harmony.”

…

Stepp said about 30 people who attended church services voted on a new resolution that welcomes “believers into our fellowship regardless of race, creed or color.”

Where were those 30 people, I wonder, when the anti-interracial-couples resolution was passed 9-6?

I would like to note that the new resolution is not exactly a reversal of the previous one. In spirit, yes, but in letter, not really. Former Pastor Thompson would probably argue that he’s not racist, and the effect of the resolution was not racist, because it wouldn’t have stopped people of color from joining the church—just as long as they’re not married to white people.

Realistically, if you actually believe that all racial groups are human first and foremost, and that all groups are equally good and worthy, and that it’s the variation between individuals that really means something, and that no one group needs to be protected from contamination by another, then you should have no problem with people of different colors getting married and having mixed-race kids together. And if you have no problem with their families, then you should not have any problem attending church with them.

However, the new resolution is about welcoming believers. It doesn’t say anything about their spouses. It shows that the church has been reprimanded, but not that it’s thinking differently.