My advice would be to use your gut and moral compass. If you begin to sense and feel that the mood is darkening, then you need to leave the area and seek safety. Allow the trained authorities to handle the disturbance. Do not do a foolish thing in thinking that you have the skills to handle such a fluid and conflict filled event. These events can erupt in an instant but usually give off a few signs before the explosion. Listen to these signs and flee.
History was often a lot darker than that. Sometimes, there was no safe place to be, and sometimes, there was no unambiguously best (in a moral and ethical sense) choice of effective action.
TatinG: be aware that if you support any grounds the right to protest the removal of any statue of any confederate, you are now morally equivalent to a Nazi sympathizer or a white nationalist. that ship has sailed.
What’s next, one may wonder: former slaveholders (Washington, Jefferson), segregations (Woodrow Wilson, Robert Byrd, Richard Russell), initiators of Japanese-American internment (FDR).
No news yet about removing the statues of Lenin in NYC, Seattle or LA, though…
It may a long road to safety, and not everybody makes it, and the way may not be clear, but in the end “justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
279 Wow, just wow. This is exactly what I am afraid of. That somehow standing up for the First Amendment will be seen as bigoted because bigoted groups are allowed to hold rallies and speak. Now standing up for the freedom of speech is apologizing for the alt-right? Unless you are willing to stand up for the right of all to speak (not violence, just speak) you are not for freedom of speech.
279 Your argument makes the ACLU an alt-right apologist group.
@TatinG - a very specious commentary above. I’d like to remind you that upthread you questioned the very need and validity for protest of any kind.
And BTW, I actually do pro bono work for the ACLU. I’m quite sure I’m more familiar with what it stands for than you do, based on many of your comments.
I don’t see free speech people as bigots.
For me sometimes it is hard when the real pain of my family feels to be disregarded when discussions turn to who says gets to say what under the first amendment. That is on me. I am still processing the weekend, perhaps more slowly than others.
People, please remember that we here are CC are all working towards a common goal of educational and economic opportunities for all with equal standing in the eyes of the laws. We may disagree with each other over methods and tactics and sense of urgency but I do not think that anyone here harbors ill will. We are all on the same side in our condemnation of the people emboldened to speak hate.
@lololu – one of my faves… the one below has given me a lot of food for thought:
"I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action…”
The remarks today at Heather’s memorial service by her mother were very inspiring. Two well deserved standing ovations. What grace under such horrible circumstances.
This wasn’t/isn’t an issue about free speech. That is a straw man argument. This is about people who are white supremists and Nazis and all their supporters who are trying to draw equivalencies between themselves and those who protest/speak out against these vile groups.
MLK Jr., Letter from a Birmingham Jail.
Re #287
It may not be that the “white moderate” agrees with the goal of racial equality but is unwilling to do anything (they could vote against racist candidates and those who endorse them, if nothing else). It may be that many “white moderates” are racially conservative and agree with many of the alt right worries and goals, even if they are centrist or left leaning on other aspects.
“Racially conservative”???
You mean racist.
Yes, obviously.
The term was meant to contrast with the description of such people as “moderate”.
I think it’s important to stick with the correct term and call them what they are - racists.
Not on campus but hate at large-
He felt the Somalis had taken over his town. 2015 census shows that blacks are just 15% of the population.
Another town was profiled back around the election. It too had people wanting to stop the rate of immigration. It too was 15% Somali. Is that the tipping point for racists?
Could be.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3704191/pdf/nihms482504.pdf (reply #203) indicates that white people from other midwest areas (Chicago and Detroit) tend to consider an all white neighborhood more desirable than a mixed (60% white 40% black) neighborhood, so it is certainly believable that a threshold lower than 40% is enough to activate racism.
Of course, the article indicates that religious hatred is also mixed into the incident.
If I had children I would remind them of Edmund Burke’s quote:
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Then I would let them decide how they want to proceed from that point on.
And in the midst of the discussion, we’re unfortunately seeing some folks…even here on this very thread and some political leaders channeling Neville Chamberlain by arguing “both sides are at fault”.
What’s ironic is that back in 1938, many in the British establishment and ignorant portions of the public who supported appeasement made the same arguments vis a vis Czechslovakia and taking Nazi claims of the “oppression” of the Sudeten Germans at face value without accounting for the following:
- One major reason for the dissatisfaction of Sudeten Germans after the creation of Czechslovakia was that it meant they lost the social and economic dominance they had under the Austrian-German dominated Austro-Hungarian Empire which once occupied what became Czechslovakia. The German dominated Austro-Hungarian Empire also did their utmost to suppress Czech/Slovak culture and marginalize its people.
- Nazi agents at Hitler's behest fomented the unrest(including providing weapons and false flag operations to manufacture supposed "Czechoslovak oppression" of Sudeten Germans who were actually carrying out armed rebellions...including attacking, kidnapping, and killing Czechslovak border police and troops.) and thus, plated a lion's share of the role in creating the Sudeten Crisis in 1938 as a pretext fo annex the Sudetenland which provided natural barriers facilitating Czechslovakian defense against invasion. Hitler and the Nazis knew that if they successfully annexed to Sudetenland, the rest of Czechoslovakia would be ripe for the taking as they demonstrated less than a year later.
- Sudenten German resentment over the loss of privileges they had during the Austro-Hungarian Empire combined with Nazi taking advantage of that fact with local collaborators to foment the unrest meant a high proportion of Sudeten Germans identified strongly with the Nazis. Recalled a statistic that proportionally, there was greater support for the Nazis among the Sudenten German population of the period than was the case in Nazi Germany in the same period.
In short, many interesting parallels between White Supremacists claiming “oppression” and what transpired in the Sudeten Crisis back in 1938…
Back to hate on campus- The president of the University of MN Duluth’s College Republicans found that the vice president had posted hateful things on their webpage. She removed them and notified university officials as well as the state wide College Republicans and the GOP. Good for her!
"The vice president of the University of Minnesota Duluth College Republicans stepped down after racist and nationalist posts on the group’s Facebook page…
…One from July 30 under the group’s banner, College Republicans at UMD, showed white young women carrying red, white and black flags with unrecognizable markings. Across the bottom of the image were the words: “Nationalism is beautiful” and “Generation Europa.”
A second post, from Friday, showed an image of President Donald Trump and another man aiming handguns above the words, “Fire and fury.” The post said there is a “cozy thought to the U.S. killing millions” and suggested the U.S. make North Korea a colony. “I mean we spend all this money on the miltary [sic], why not use it?”