This election is beyond surreal. First we had Taco-gate, now we have skittle-gate !
Hey your neo-nazi alt right white supremacist ideology is making me hungry! Can we please have pizza-gate next?
None of those cites make any kind of case. They just make a unsubstantiated statement. The crooksandliars article contains:
But the article linked does not in fact say anything like that. In fact, it notes that the meme is quite obviously overgeneralizing bullshit right from the start.
Like I said, it doesn’t fit the timeline. I know awful and racist skittles jokes made the rounds in 2012 but none that I saw had anything to do with a bowl with some poison ones. I can believe that the skittles is a little extra anti-black dog whistle but it’s not obvious. Syrians aren’t considered black after all.
They are “other”
That is all that matters in the minds of Trump supporters.
Sure but Rick Kitchen said “The meme changed from M&M to Skittles when Trayvon Martin was gunned down in the street carrying a bag of Skittles.” Since the M&M bowl meme came out 2 years after Martin was gunned down, that really doesn’t make a lot of sense. Besides, if this skittles bowl meme had been first posted on a neo nazi site, I expect one of his “cites” would have linked to or at least discussed that. Like I said, I wouldn’t find this unbelievable, I was initially skeptical of that Jewish star one but changed my stance when i was shown it’s origins.
Not all Trump supporters see different people as “other”.
The refugee problem is a real one and that meme was probably in poor taste, although I don’t find it so inaccurate.
The fact that we are arguing about memes is probably not a good look either. Just saying. :smack:
I really think the Syrians are not Skittles outrage is a bit of a stretch. Quite a bit.
If you want to make a point that some percentage of things chosen at random are potentially harmful, a handful of candy works pretty well. He could have used a deck of cards, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
The problem is it exaggerates to a ridiculous degree the actual risk.
You don’t get it. It dehumanizes refugees and makes them as disposable as tainted candy or tainted cards (what is the card analogy again?). Throw them all out is not a compassionate act towards defenseless victims of war.
The real issue with the metaphor is that it vastly overstates the percentage of refugees who pose any threat. Three out of a “bowlful” (a hundred or so), or three out of a deck of playing cards, is a very real threat, but it’s more like three out of a swimming pool filled with candy.
Any time someone expresses a real world situation in terms of levels of risk, they’re dehumanizing people and turning them into numbers. I’m not sure how else it can be said.
I agree that Junior got the odds wrong, but I don’t have problems with his metaphor.
The fact is that it the “Skittles” analogy is extraordinarily inaccurate.
According to that statistic, if Obama accomplishes his plan to increase the number of refugees to 110,000, then maybe 3.3 terrorists would enter the country. After an extremely long wait (18-24 months) and a more thorough vetting than nearly any other immigrants undergo. It simply isn’t a practical way to get into the country.
Sure, I can agree with that, in principle, but he didn’t do that. He happened to choose Skittles. As soon as I saw the image on Twitter, I immediately connected it to the racist memes and images that went around about the Trayvon Martin killing. Maybe it was an unfortunate coincidence in his choice of images, but you have to admit, it’s a little close to home.
Secondly, it’s not even accurate as a graphical representation of the threat. A more accurate picture would have probably been to have an entire olympic-sized swimming pool full of candy, and then saying there are three poisonous ones in the mix. Not so scary now, is it?
In the end, it’s just another example of the disconnectedness and tone deafness of the Trump family.
Damn it, ninja’d again. Yeah, what they said.
I’ve been astounded at how little traction Donald Trump’s fraudulent business practices have gotten, but using charitable donations to fund for-profit legal bills just might have crossed a line, and I don’t mean just a legal one.
What makes this especially devastating is that this apparently relates to Donald’s Florida businesses, so this may well dominate the news cycle there in a state that has been going back and forth as of late.
Remember folks, this is a state in which a lot of people got burned badly by Madoff and other shysters. The elderly white population might have a pathological distaste for the Clintons but they also hate hucksters as well and if nothing else this might be what convinces people to just stay on the putting greens instead of taking a trip to the voting booth.
Fear Itself is right, the real issue isn’t that the metaphor inflates the actual risk (which it does, tremendously), it’s that it ignores the benefit of a) treating refugees like humans who need our help, and b) the global benefit of not having camps full of impoverished people that will both be a drain on the global economy and a breeding ground for anti-American sentiments.
On the Google News front page right now:
Donald Trump spent more than a quarter-million dollars from his charitable foundation to settle lawsuits that involved the billionaire’s for-profit businesses. Remember, the Trump doesn’t even contribute to his own Foundation, the (tax deductible?) contributions come from his fans.
The justice system is a failure if this serial fraudster isn’t locked up in prison.
Exactly this. Framing the issue as “Skittles” (or peanuts, as Huckabee did a while back), presents the issue as a trivial question of “take it or leave it.” Whether or not you choose to eat a handful of snacks doesn’t have much bearing on anything. A better analogy would be evacuating people from a burning building. How many people would let them all burn on the off chance that one is a serial killer?
Also, I realize my math was off in my last post. It wouldn’t be 3.3 terrorists getting in with 110,000 refugees. It would be 0.00003 of one terrorist. Have some fucking Skittles.
I mentioned those this morning - they appear to be getting some traction through the day.
Speaking of Florida, the $25,000 that Trump paid to Pam Bondi which totally coincidentally resulted in fraud charges not being pursued against Trump is not going away. Bondi who is somewhat under fire to explain her actions here explained that if she had returned Trump’s $25,000, it would have looked like it was a bribe, but keeping it was A-OK. This explanation, needless to say, is not satisfying anybody.
“Satisfying”, no. “Chucklesome”, oh, yeah. Gotta love the creative rationalization, though, that’s some top-level weaselthink.
Campaigns are about narratives. I am not in Florida and would be curious to hear from a poster who is (an objective one preferably), but I would imagine that between the donation to Bondi and this latest bombshell, the perceptions of Donald are probably drawing parallels to a Ponzi scheme scam artist who preys on retirees. Not exactly the kind of character Floridians have a lot of adoration for, even if they hate Hillary’s guts. And without Florida, any speculation about Trump’s chances are just an online subjunctive circle jerk.
Well, as the article said: