I didn't know my racist uncle Dale was on here!

I have an uncle, Dale. I remember the last time he came to the family reunion, some four or five years ago. Things went great until just about the first beer, and then he immediately started talking politics. And not intelligently either - you’d think from how he was talking about it, the man was completely shitfaced. For those of us who had seen Dale shitfaced, this was a far cry.

He complained up and down to anyone who would listen about how awful those damn football players were for not just shutting up and playing the game, for caring about political issues and racism, and using their substantial pull to actually change things. Man, did that piss him off! He didn’t even go to or have anything to do with the school whose team he was mad about! And it wasn’t like he had much of a coherent statement. Just “those pansies are pissed about racism? Fuck 'em! They should grow a thicker skin!”

One assumes, he means one with less melanin.

Then he went off on the teachers union. Again, nothing about it particularly coherent pissed him off, he was just mad at the teachers in his locality for standing up and protesting police brutality. He wondered aloud, in his typical angry, drunk fashion, why the teacher’s union should give a damn about what the police were doing, and ignored people pointing out that the police had a fairly large presence in inner-city schools. Again, his drunken, inane ramblings had more than a tinge of “got mine, fuck you”, and several people asked aloud, “What do you care, Uncle Dale? You don’t go to school. You don’t have any kids*. What’s your problem?”

  • (No woman could stand to be around him for more than a few hours at a time. Really almost a tragic story, or at least it would be if he weren’t such a terrible person.)

Apparently they were blocking him from going shopping. He didn’t care that there were more important things in life than 50% off a flatscreen that didn’t even fit in his dingy trailer, he was just mad, mad, mad.

Then he went off on the people protesting racial injustice and police shooting. By then, the few black members of the family were feeling horribly uncomfortable, and asked him kindly to change the topic. But he just kept going, calling them out personally as whiny crybabies, and refusing to acknowledge in any way that racism still existed - after all, it’s Obama’s America, and everyone knows that having a black president makes everything okay.

I never saw Uncle Dale after that. He’s been barred from the family reunions on account of absolutely nobody liking him. It wasn’t even that everyone was opposed to his views. I remember my Grandfather making some arguments not unsympathetic to Dale. But he actually made decent points, and he refrained from making those arguments around Dale, lest people think he was somehow defending the stupid bigot. I removed him from facebook after posting yet another racist screed - ironically, about something which not only was trivial, but which didn’t affect him in the slightest, making him even more pathetic than the “microaggression pansies” he was bitching about.

But it’s nice to see he’s found a new home here at Straight Dope. One hopes the ignorance-fighting machine works well… There’s so many things wrong with this man, and almost all of his problems are self-inflicted. Welcome aboard, Uncle Dale. Just, do us all a favor? For your favorite nephew? Either learn something or go away. Not because this is a safe space, but because there’s a reason absolutely fucking nobody likes you.

Nice OP, but it lacks context. Where is your Uncle Dale hanging out on te SDMB? What’s his handle?

A bit like me then. Only one kid since my personality is more potent than any birth control device, and inviting me to a reunion is more of a memory test. As to the subject offering, I’d rather discuss the environment and current events.

One thing though, I didn’t see that much rabid racism described in the OP, except for that part with black members of the family getting uncomfortable. Interesting though, how they’d deal with a white racist relative.

Nice, beautiful way to sum up that Missouri thread, your picture of the uncle nails it.

Anyone wondering about context:

Notice how he doesn’t actually follow MO football. He’s just chiming in to say that this thing he knows nothing about and has no background on nor personal investment is is incredibly stupid. How dare those stupid whiny babies get upset about this?

And the sad part is, it’s not like there’s a dearth of arguments going on there. There are a lot of people making really reasonable arguments in either direction. Dale has no interest in that.

Even ignoring the tone, the information content here is basically nonexistent. He knows nothing about the situation.

What an asshole.

I endorse this pitting. I finally had enough in the Chicago Teacher Strike thread to smack him down for knowing absolutely nothing about something that he’s so very angry about.

Its fine to be mad about an issue, but at least be a little bit informed about whatever it is your raging about. I can’t understand the mindset to let yourself be so furiously angry about something you clearly know nothing about. Seems kind of insane to me.

Am I the only one picturing this?

Give him his props. Time was, he only ranted about women. Now he’s ranting about black people and public unions, too. Much more inclusive.

Huh! You learn something new everyday I guess. I didn’t know there were places where the school board was appointed. Ours are elected.

Cool story bro. Wanna regale us with stories of other racists in your family?

Not a cheery fellow, dale. Doesn’t… doesn’t like things.

It’s a parable. Or a cautionary tale. Something like that. Look for the deeper meaning.

It’s hard to read between the lines when you have trouble actually reading the lines.

Go easy on him he’s just an “everyday center-left liberal” who’s only vocal due to the alienating nature of BLM. Those blacks really are shooting themselves in the foot here; whenever will they learn.

Perhaps if they stop, shut up, and apologize to liberals like dale here ‘catastrophe’ might be averted.

Anyway, don’t the textbooks in Texas now call their ancestors “migrant workers”, and tell us how good they had it in the old days?

From your lips to Mod’s ears…

He really claims to be center left? I do not think it means what he thinks it means.

Here’s a thread your dumbfuck uncle started as Martin Luther King Day approached:

Center Left? Maybe, among racist shitbags as a whole, on that scale he may skew slightly to the left side of center, among racist shitbags, you know, when you include all of them.

It’s quite possible his shoes have a large “L” and “R” painted on them and he’s just got them on the wrong feet again.

What an OP. In ‘trolling for attention 101’ that would be an example of trying too hard.