On a regular basis, conservatives (and liberals on occasion) claim that the United States is a post-racial country. In other words, racism, racial discrimination, and prejudice based on race are all things of the past. Leaving aside the fact that people who feel this way have an incomplete understanding of racism (seriously, they need a 101 lesson), these ignoramuses are also blind to the individual examples of racism (rather than institutional or structural) that occur all the damn time. Here are five recent incidents that put the lie to the notion that racism is a thing of the past:
AT&T fires president for over racist text; $100 million lawsuit continues
AT&T Inc. on Tuesday confirmed that it has fired Aaron Slator, a president who became the subject of a $100 million discrimination lawsuit for using his work phone to send racially offensive images.
“There is no place for demeaning behavior within AT&T and we regret the action was not taken earlier,” the company said.
The images in question were found on Slator’s phone by an assistant who was asked to transfer data to a new phone, according to the lawsuit filed Monday by Knoyme King, a 50-year-old black woman who worked for Slator.
One of the images, apparently of an African child dancing with the caption “It’s Friday …” followed by a term offensive to African Americans, had been sent in a text describing it as an “oldie but a goodie,” the lawsuit said.
The suit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, names as defendants Slator, the company, CEO Randall Stephenson, other executives and board member Joyce Roche.
Slator was president of content and advertising sales, managing its multibillion-dollar budget for content acquisition that is consumed by subscribers of Dallas-based AT&T’s U-verse TV service.
King’s lawyer, Skip Miller, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the lawsuit will continue. He said the company failed to take action earlier, despite the issue being brought to the attention of its board of directors and human resources department.
“This is an AT&T problem, it’s not just an Aaron Slator problem,” he said.
The lawsuit alleges that King was passed over for promotions and given inferior raises because of her race, that she was mistreated and that attempts were made to have her leave the company. King has worked 30 years for AT&T and is still employed there, Miller said.
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A group of American Indians recently walked off the set of Adam Sandler’s film Ridiculous 6. They were angry that the film perpetuated racial stereotypes of Indians. One of the actors took a photo of one of the pages of the script:
EXT. CREEK OUTSIDE APACHE VILLAGE – LATER
The Creek area is busy. Braves spear-fish while children play in the water.
Smoking Fox is on the banks of the creek, doing laundry with her best friends: a 30-ish chubby woman, BEAVER BREATH, and a younger woman, NEVER WEARS BRA (both Apache).
BEAVER BREATH
I have a big idea for your wedding: we decorate trees with toilet paper!
SMOKING FOX
What is this “toilet paper”?
BEAVER BREATH
Paper used to clean your chi-wat after taking a chungo.
NEVER-WEARS-BRA
That what dead squirrel for!
BEAVER BREATH
Why we all so afraid to try something new in this village? Must I speak with the spirits to see if it “okay” to have clean chi-wat without murdering innocent rodent?
NEVER-WEARS-BRA
Whoa somebody “on the raccoon” today…
As they all laugh, smoking Fox looks over at Tommy. He is surrounded by kids. He shoots an arrow in the air, and catches it with his teeth. The kids are impressed.
NEVER-WEARS-BRA
You lucky, Smoking Fox. White Knife all man. Bravest of all braves.
SMOKING FOX
Not brave, foolish. I want to be wife, not widow.
Some people said the actors were being too sensitive. Me, I think the people involved in the film weren’t being sensitive enough. They don’t care that the script contains racially offensive stereotypes of Indians. But then people who are not on the receiving end of racism often fail to understand why those who are take umbrage at the perpetuation of racial stereotypes.
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Colorado’s ACLU says this video shows two black men were victims of racial profiling
The video recorded by passenger Ryan Brown begins by showing footage of the driver of the car, his brother Benjamin Brown, being placed in handcuffs after a March 25 traffic stop in Colorado Springs.
The ACLU said the incident took place within a block of the brothers’ home and began over an apparent cracked windshield.
The Colorado Springs Police Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The video emerged as police departments are under increased scrutiny following a series of deaths of unarmed black men at the hands of officers across the United States.
Benjamin Brown was ordered by police to exit the vehicle at Taser-point, immediately handcuffed, searched, held in the back of a police car, and finally issued a citation for an obstructed view, the ACLU’s Colorado chapter said.
Ryan Brown, the passenger, was dragged from the car, held at gunpoint, and now faces a criminal charge for “interfering with official police duties,” the group said.
Having watched the video, I can say that the excessive force used against Ryan Brown appears to be unjustified. He presents no threat and is not obstructing justice in any perceptible way (though I am not a cop or lawyer). I think he was definitely mistreated and hope he wins in any potential lawsuit against the city. While the video doesn’t show the events surrounding the initial stop, Ryan Brown continually notes that the officers failed to explain why the brothers were being stopped. Nor is there any explanation for the treatment of Benjamin Brown. While there could theoretically be some form of reasonable justification, the fact that the officers were not being transparent in their actions is problematic, and supports the notion that the Brown brothers were victims of racial profiling.
You can watch the video for yourself:
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Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush is a fan of social scientist Charles Murray. Yes, that Charles Murray-the author of the controversial book The Bell Curve.
Bush lauded Murray’s books on two separate occasions during an interview with National Review editor Rich Lowry, at a forum sponsored by the conservative magazine.
Lowry asked Bush, “… is there any policy or anything public officials can do to help turn back what has been a rising tide of family breakdown crossing decades now?”
“Absolutely, there is,” Bush, a likely 2016 Republican presidential candidate, said. “It’s not exactly the core. My views on this were shaped a lot on this by Charles Murray’s book, except I was reading the book and I was waiting for the last chapter with the really cool solutions — didn’t quite get there.”
Later in the interview, Lowry asked Bush what he likes to read. Again, he cited Murray.
“I like Charles Murray books to be honest with you, which means I’m a total nerd I guess,” Bush said.
Bush didn’t say which of Murray’s books he was referring to. His political team did not immediately respond to TPM.
Murray is the author of the highly influential 1984 book Losing Ground: American Social Policy, 1950-1980 which argued that social welfare programs of the 1960s and 1970s actually hurt the poor rather than helped. It was and remains a seminal work in the conservative policy canon.
Ten years later Murray authored the highly controversial The Bell Curve, which he co-authored with Richard Herrnstein. Critics denounced it as racist, saying it essentially argued that African-Americans aren’t as intelligent as white Americans because of genetic differences. In 1994 Bob Herbert, then a columnist at The New York Times, described the book as a “scabrous piece of racial pornography masquerading as serious scholarship.”
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Closing out this edition of racism is totes a thing of the past comes a story that showcases the intersectional nature of many bigoted beliefs. I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen a bigot display multiple forms of bigotry. Racism against blacks or Jews is often accompanied by misogyny, homophobia, transphobia (or all of the above). Such is the case with a notorious white supremacist:
Twitter has banned promoted tweets that were being used to push white supremacist messages on the website. The tweets were sent and promoted through the company’s advertising tools by Andrew ‘weev’ Auernheimer, a former president of the trolling group known as the “Gay Nigger Association of America”.
Among the tweets promoted by Auernheimer was one that read: “Whites need to stand up for one another and defend ourselves from violence and discrimination. Our race is dying.” A second promoted tweet read: “White pride, world wide. Do you know the 14 words?” – a reference to the white nationalist credo: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.”
There are certainly a great many issues that affect white people. They are affected by poverty, income inequality, homophobia, transphobia, and many other social ills. Here’s the thing though-their race/ethnicity is not the reason they are affected by those social ills. White people aren’t being targeted with violence or facing discrimination because they’re white. White people aren’t dying off (they’re intermingling with people of other races/ethnicities, which has been going on for, oh, let’s just say a very, very, very long time). It’s a mix of sad, pathetic, and scary that someone actually thinks such rubbish is true. What’s worse is that many others share in Auemheimer’s views.
But racism is totes over.
