Political Memes

I love that they think that. Mere acceptance is too far? K. Then the are no limits on how too far we can go. Y'allqaida moved the goalposts so far that there's no point in attempting to appease them anymore

Nominative Determinism

Everybody wants to rule the worrrrld

Shout, shout, let it all out!

I would suggest not starting with the premise that the problem is "White America." These folks don't speak for White people, not even remotely, and buying into that falsehood is exactly what they want.

Require public middle schools to include mandatory courses or seminars about empathy, emotional wellbeing, and basic social skills.

or

Put them with the other white-supremacists on a square of land and let them be an independent territory, on the condition that anyone who wants to leave must be allowed to leave to the US. And point and laugh as they realize only white men would want to live in a society that arbitrarily puts white men at the top.

or

Kindly ask the media to stop using the same 5 "scary SJWs who want to kill all men!!!!" to convince half the country that they are being persecuted by all women and minorities everywhere.

(disclaimer: results may vary.)

I was sitting in a McDonalds restaurant in the late morning on a weekday in the Midwest USA. There was a group of older white men drinking coffee and having discussions. I wasn't really following their conversation, but one man made one of the stupidest and out-of-touch statements I've heard in months. Its a turn of phrase that sounds like he heard it somewhere else and was parroting it like it was clever. It isn't, of course.

It was this: "We spend so much effort trying not to offend anyone anymore. Why can't we just get back to just offending everyone?"

This man was an older version of the OP; white, cis-gendered male. He's been the recipient of privilege his entire life any may not even be aware of what others go through or think that those that do "deserve it". He doesn't get that "Why can't we just get back to just offending everyone?" was when white males like himself were immune to being criticized in society for their gender and skin color while every group that wasn't white and male was on the receiving end of bigotry and misogyny. Of course he wants to go back to that, where he can insult and belittle others others without any consequences.

I have no idea why these people can step outside of themselves for even a short time to listen to the experiences of others, and put themselves in their place to feel what it would feel like to be on the receiving end, to experience institutional racism and misogyny limiting what they can do in life in our society. I don't know how these old white men, who many claim to be instilled with a strong sense of justice, and see their fellow citizens being treated differently by our society and our justice system.

How can these people possibly become better versions of themselves when their identity is built on the premise that they are intrinsically better than other people just because of their male genitalia and lack of skin pigmentation?

At the risk of explaining the joke, you're not far off. Become an organizer at your workplace/apartment complex/community. Creating working class solidarity is the best way to fight against fascism. If you have extra time on your hands, you can volunteer at your local polling place, join a local group of antifascists that infiltrate fascist communities, or lobby government to make changes like making it easier to vote. There's a lot of options, but none of them are particularly easy to accomplish.

It's really hard to found any kind of movement that aims to respect and accept "cis-gendered, white, straight men". Because, factually and in the public eye, those people just generally need less help than various minorities that each get oppressed.

But for any individual person, it's horribly demeaning to come home from a hard day at work not making enough to buy the PlayStation you want, aching for someone to talk to, and all the support groups out there are for "Black Engineers of America", or "Help for Transgenders afraid to come out to their parents". I say that as someone who absolutely respects and values the benefit those groups bring. Keep in mind: People looking in from the outside of those orgs probably also have a hard time seeing or understanding the amount of societal pain people have just by being in those minority groups, before and after those organizations started forming.

The boringly sad way of putting it is, if you are white, cis-gendered, male, and straight, (in short, the "majority"), and you happen to not have a talent that makes you unique, you literally can't finish the sentence "I am PROUD to be ____" without coming across as a bit of a demon in some people's eyes.

My post is longer than it should be for a meme comment, but I do want to end on a positive / plan of action: At the very least, one step is acknowledgment, and that never has to come at the cost of those minority groups - each of whom need their own, often more urgent help. A big one I'd want is to completely shut down the "male negativity" that's kinda formed in media, as a backlashing response to the "women negativity" in terrible old media. We often say we want men to open up and be more emotional, yet it's still played for laughs on TV.

Does anyone have any ideas how to make improvements in the sorry state of white America?

If you see a nazi punch them in the fucking face.

Fixing something difficult and complex is always harder than breaking it more.

How do we fix white america? I don’t know. But I know that teaching each other that it’s not white vs black, but it’s not racist vs racist and that as white people we’re gonna have to prove which side we’re on regularly. Similar with every other axis of oppression.

I think we also have to remember that the fascists are actively recruiting these boys. Antifascists need to counter that. Idk how, but we need to find out. Antifascism is at its best when it’s like the rainbow coalition. We all understand who the real enemy is: fascists.

These chucklefucks seem to always say shit like "lean right" or "moderate conservative" and then go on about Hitler did nothing wrong and Regan is God's gift to man...

Pretending to not be far-right is a deliberate strategy. Once upon a time it was "hiding your power level", these days it's probably known as being "mask on".

You've already worked out at least one reason why -- nobody wants to fuck a neo-nazi. So they masquerade as "moderates" to try and get their dicks sucked and seethe whenever women see through it.

Another reason is deplatforming -- nobody wants to listen to a neo-nazi either. What are they possibly going to contribute to a conversation? "The problem is minorities and the solution is to kill them".

Finally, they work hard to try and normalise their beliefs. They want to convince actual moderates that demonising the LGBT community is what good conservatives do. They want to convince children playing games online that it's normal to hurl racist slurs at strangers.

The entire "alt-right" thing was just a way of creating plausible deniability about who they really were and what they really think.

When the "unite the right" rally happened, they were feeling braver than they had in decades. They had a top 50 subreddit. They'd been on television. People weren't spitting on them.

So they triumphantly dropped the act, waved around swastikas, chanted about jews, killed an innocent woman who disagreed with them and readied themselves for their spots of honour in the fourth rieche.

But it never came. Instead, they got fired from their jobs and disowned by their families. People went back to calling them Nazis and spitting in their faces. All their progress was wiped out in an instant.

They learned their lesson; unless you're about to do a mass shooting, never admit what you truly are.

Presumably the KKK thought of themselves as moderate. And of course they tend to fall back when called out to the good old cowardly, "We're only saying what everyone else is thinking", whilst conveniently ignoring what everyone is actually thinking.

If it makes you feel any better, we're probably not in the dumbest one.

This is why the onion is struggling, how do you satire the news when the news feels like satire.