Category Archives: racism

Colonial nostalgia is back in fashion, blinding us to the horrors of empire | Kehinde Andrews | Opinion | The Guardian

Lest we forget: far from being a benevolent saviour, the British empire was based on the exploitation, murder and devastation of people across the globe. Some notable atrocities include, but are by no means limited to: transatlantic slavery, famines in the British Raj, and brutal settler colonial regimes in Zimbabwe and Kenya. Hundreds of millions of people died as a result of Britain’s vicious regime. The empire collapsed after campaigns, rebellions and revolutions from the people who were oppressed by Britain. The natives did not happily accept colonial rule; they resisted at every turn because they understood the cost of the system to their nations.Walter Rodney’s classic book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, goes into forensic detail as to how colonialism set back the continent by creating political and economic systems that impoverished Africa, with the direct purpose of enriching Europe. Even after independence, Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of liberated Ghana, explained in the 1960s that the economic policies of the country had an “Alice in Wonderland craziness about them”, with Britain extracting all the wealth from the resources of the nation.It is essential that the legacy of the British empire is understood because it still plays a key role in the world today. The devastation of nations by European colonialism goes a long way to explaining extreme poverty and conflict in many parts of the world, and is continued in manifestly unjust trade relations. Reminiscing about the days of empire and pining for Britain to be great again is a device to avoid any reckoning with Britain’s terrible colonial legacy and debt.Perhaps a recognition of the brutality, violence and horror at the dark heart of empire would shake the nation out of its postcolonial melancholia. To acknowledge the dark side of colonialism, however, would destroy the nostalgia that is such a strong part of British imperial identity. It is far easier to get lost in national pride from Olympic success than to reckon with Britain’s history and real place in the world.

Source: Colonial nostalgia is back in fashion, blinding us to the horrors of empire | Kehinde Andrews | Opinion | The Guardian

‘Mr Brexit’ meets Mr Brexit: Nigel Farage to stump with Trump | US news | The Guardian “Racist Birds” Gather together the same feathers – apologies to birds. LOL

Nigel Farage, the anti-EU British politician and former Ukip leader, will appear with Donald Trump at a rally on Wednesday, a week after the US presidential candidate branded himself “Mr Brexit” and tapped one of the leading American supporters of Brexit to run his campaign.The Trump campaign confirmed that Farage would appear with Trump at an evening rally in Jackson, Mississippi, to tell US voters “the Brexit story” of how he triumphed over the electoral odds. Farage will not endorse Trump.Trump hopes to ride to victory a populist wave of nationalist enthusiasm comparable to the movement behind Britain’s June vote to leave the European Union. As leader at the time of Ukip, Farage was a key promoter of the Brexit.

Source: ‘Mr Brexit’ meets Mr Brexit: Nigel Farage to stump with Trump | US news | The Guardian

Leslie Jones faces constant abuse – because that’s how racism works | Rebecca Carroll | Opinion | The Guardian

Ostensibly, the initial attacks were the apex of ongoing negative reaction to Jones starring in the all-female remake of Ghostbusters. Trolls went after her looks, her skin, her body – everything that makes her who she is, and makes her black. She was called an ape. The attacks were unequivocally racist. Twitter issued a bland, cookie-cutter response.But this all didn’t happen just because she did a movie. It was because she is a statuesque dark-skinned black woman, sister in spirit and posture to Nina Simone; elegant in her vocal command, towering with a feverish, ebullient talent that cannot be contained. It’s asinine to say that the racists who are targeting Leslie Jones are Ghostbuster purists, and that’s really what this is all about.And while the New York Times reported that Jones “and her white cast mates have endured months of criticism since the announcement of a reboot of the blockbuster franchise,” those same white cast mates were not called a “big lipped coon”. What stopped one or all of these actors from saying during one of the myriad talk shows they appeared on: “You know what’s not cool? Racism. You know why? Because it targets and maims people we love and respect and live on the planet with.”The film’s director, Paul Feig, did come to her defense, tweeting: “Leslie Jones is one of the greatest people I know. Any personal attacks against her are attacks against us all.” But again, if it really were an attack against us all – assuming he means himself and the rest of the mostly white cast – and it actually felt like an attack in the same way these feel like attacks to Leslie Jones, you can be sure he’d be doing more than tweeting about it. You’ll note he didn’t mention the R-word.Here’s the thing: those who limit their allyship to tweeting their support when we’ve been targets of online racism have absolutely no idea how far removed they are, and yet how intricately tied they are to this thing that is killing us. Racism’s unceasing power lies in the way in which it can weaponise words: now, in 140 characters.By all means up the Twitter support, which is all well and good, but then go deeper. Particularly those in positions of power or who have public platforms – call your friends, call your state representatives, send group emails and reply all to everyone; be vigorous in your accountability and encourage the same in those around you, call into radio shows, launch Kickstarter campaigns, think about ways you can help dismantle racism all the time. Because it is happening all the time.

Source: Leslie Jones faces constant abuse – because that’s how racism works | Rebecca Carroll | Opinion | The Guardian

Danish MP: EU a bigger threat than Russia – The Local – You have to wonder – who is paying who for good words about Putin? Or are these people who would have also welcomed support for their ideas by Hitler or Stalin?

In an interview with Mandag Morgen, Krarup said that the EU is an existential threat to Denmark and is a much bigger problem than Russia. “For Denmark? Yes, without a doubt. Just Schengen alone is a catastrophe. It’s something that will make Denmark disappear from the world map if we don’t pull ourselves together. That national borders have been disbanded is a threat against Denmark’s existence,” she told the magazine.  She went on to that although she views Russian President Vladimir Putin as “an exponent of an despotic, non-democratic system that we don’t want in Denmark”, she would welcome his help in dismantling the EU in its current form.  “I don’t want an EU like the one we have time. I want the EU buried and replaced by a forum for free trade. That’s our policy. If Putin or Marine Le Pen [France’s most powerful Eurosceptic, ed.] can help with that, that’ just fine,” she told Mandag Morgen, adding she’d also except help from “Satan himself”. This isn’t the first time that Krarup, who is DF’s defence spokeswoman, has made controversial comments about Russia. Last month, she told broadcaster DR that Russia should be viewed as a “future ally” and accused the West of “a demonizing of Putin that has been grotesquely ridiculous and really stupid”.

Source: Danish MP: EU a bigger threat than Russia – The Local

Woman fined for wearing headscarf on Cannes beach – The Local – French racism rules over idea that French are cosmopolitan and freedom loving.

A journalist for France 4, Mathilde Cusin, watched the incident unfold. “I felt like I was watching a pack of hounds attack a woman who was sitting down, in tears, with her young daughter,” she said.”Racist terms were used freely,” said Siam. “I was stunned. I heard things which no one had ever said to me, like ‘Go home!’ and ‘we’re Catholics here!'”While some people defended the 34-year-old, Siam says around three quarters of beachgoers took the side of the police and demanded that she remove the veil or leave the beach. In the end, she paid the €11 fine, and has since contacted the Collectif Contre l’Islamophobie, a French organization which protects Muslims’ rights.Siam said the incident left her feeling “humiliated” and that she felt she was fined simply for being a Muslim.The mayor of Cannes, David Lisnard, has supported the police officers, arguing that they were within their rights to fine anyone considered to be wearing an “ostentatious” symbol of faith, and that he had “no reason to doubt their judgment,”, according to La Depeche newspaper.

Source: Woman fined for wearing headscarf on Cannes beach – The Local

Donald Trump Cues Up Another Conspiracy – The New York Times

Mr. Trump did not invent paranoia; he did not create the Republican meme of fraudulent minority voting. He just took it — as he so often does — to an extreme. Senator John McCain made similar warnings in 2008, and murmurings of cheating go back at least to 2000, a close national election, botched in Florida, decided for George W. Bush by the conservative majority of the Supreme Court. And long before Mr. Trump entered the presidential race, Republican legislators were busy passing voter ID laws based on the fallacy of widespread fraud.Mr. Trump’s brain is a pincushion for conspiracy theories, so maybe it’s no surprise that he thinks the Clinton campaign will be sending African-Americans and foreigners into booths across the country to fake their votes over and over, millions of times.Now, more than ever, the country needs responsible political leaders and the courts to defend and expand voting rights, rather than sitting silently while Mr. Trump further demolishes public confidence in the foundations of our government.

Source: Donald Trump Cues Up Another Conspiracy – The New York Times

France’s Burkini Bigotry – The New York Times

After bans on full-face veils, head scarves in schools and rules about students’ skirt lengths, France’s perennial problem with Muslim women’s attire has taken its most farcical turn yet with a new controversy over the “burkini,” body-covering swimwear whose name is an amalgam of burqa and bikini. As of Thursday, five French mayors had banned the burkini, calling it, variously, a threat to public order, hygiene, water safety and morality, tantamount to a new weapon of war against the French republic. Thierry Migoule, an official with the city of Cannes, the first to ban the burkini, declared the swimwear “clothing that conveys an allegiance to the terrorist movements that are waging war against us.”This hysteria threatens to further stigmatize and marginalize France’s Muslims at a time when the country is listing to the Islamophobic right in the wake of a series of horrific terrorist attacks. And with presidential elections scheduled for next spring and the right-wing National Front’s popularity on the rise, French officials and politicians have leapt to support the mayors.

Source: France’s Burkini Bigotry – The New York Times

American Xenophobic Racist Murders Lebanese Man Because He’s “Filthy Lebanese Ay-rab” | A Separate State of Mind | A Blog by Elie Fares

Vernon Majors did not kill Khalid Jabara because he had an “unusual fixation” with his Lebanese neighbors. He killed them because he was a xenophobic racist terrorist murderer.If the tables were turned and Khalid had been the person to whom all those criteria apply, you wouldn’t have hesitated to apply them. You’d have even decided what his entire background was judging by his name, the color of his skin, and the country where he came from.That’s not different from what Vernon Majors did. It’s not “unusual fixation,” it’s him making sure Khalid’s family knew they were: ‘dirty Arabs,’ ‘filthy Lebanese,’ ‘Aye-rabs,’ and ‘Mooslems,’ as he told them repeatedly to make sure they knew their place in his world. Not that it matters in the grand scheme of things, but the Jabara family is Christian.The story goes back to last year when Vernon Majors willingly ran over Khalid Jabara’s mother trying to kill her. Unfortunately for him, she did not die, and he ended up in jail, but like the good white American that he is, Vernon Majors saw himself out of jail a few weeks ago, back to the same streets, neighboring the Jabara family, and wanting to take out his revenge on them.Picture this: a man who willingly ran over a woman trying to kill her ends up in jail for one year, with no conditions on his bond — no ankle monitor, no drug/alcohol testing. It was as if he never entered.The Jabara family learned of his release. They also knew he had a gun. They also notified the police who informed them they couldn’t do anything, because second amendment and all. Minutes after the police left, Khalid went outside of his house to get the mail, and he was fatally shot by Vernon Majors, who has since been apprehended.

Source: American Xenophobic Racist Murders Lebanese Man Because He’s “Filthy Lebanese Ay-rab” | A Separate State of Mind | A Blog by Elie Fares