New "Let It Go" Rule in GD?

[monstro]

@Abby_Emma_Sasha

I don’t really understand why you think Zoe is ill because she sounds very lucid to me.

If someone said this to you:

@jsgoddess

Honestly, that sounds like a perfect illustration of monstro’s point. You didn’t see an individual student. You were so “color blind” that you started absentmindedly assuming everyone was like you. It’s definitely better than putting on a pointy hood or saying “I’m not racist but…” but it’s also ignoring people’s identities for the sake, in many cases, of a sort of artificial togetherness.

.

Would you say you were being discriminated against? If so, would you be very surprised if people thought you were off your rocker?

If you were to start not one Pit thread but two within days of each other OVER THE SAME TOPIC, pitting someone who’s gone out of his way to be very cordial and gentle with you, then would you be surprised if someone thought you were batshit insane?

If your response to someone casually mentioning the “one drop rule” is to say that they were making it all up because curly-headed belles were fashionable once upon a time (we were talking about racism, just for context), and then when that poster brings in a cite to educate you, you engage in absurd semantic quibbling that spills over into multiple posts and derails the entire thread, you have absolutely no right to complain when someone questions your intelligence and sanity, right?

She has had a vey long and rewarding career as a teacher and that career includes teaching many black students in a time when that could get you killed. Why do some of you ridicule her for this?

Who has ridiculed her for this? I’ve expressed fatigue about hearing it so much, yes, but that’s not ridiculing her. Actually, I think if she were any other poster, people would have told her to shut up a long time ago. And I explained why it’s so tiring. It’s like she expects her background to give her a special pass on everything. No, she will be subject to the same scrutiny that applies to everyone else. If she doesn’t like it, she can choose to stay out of GD.

Are you insane? Are you not willing to give this woman (whom I assume is white) the respect she desrerves for her service to all kids in her care? Fuck you if you can’t get what she represents. Fuck you if you don’t get it.

Being a teacher doesn’t make you fucking Mother Theresa. She deserves respect, but not any more respect than any other poster. You don’t think jsgoddess, who’s also a classy person, has things she could brag about? What about you with the face? She has dated a bunch of white guys and has spent her whole life being a racial minority. Does that mean she can use this as evidence that she’s never wrong in race discussions?

Zoe is a Southern belle. She’s a staunch defender of her culture and is proud of her role in shaping young lives. She no doubt has reached out to other Dopers as she has done me. These are all great things, and that’s why I like her. But she has her faults just like anyone. If she expects people to treat her special because of who she is, she needs to rethink why she comes here. We’re about fighting ignorance, and that includes ignorance coming out of the mouth of Southern bells. Beating people over the head with all the things she’s done in the past does not do anything to advance a discussion. It’s a way for her to win respectability points, but it doesn’t count for anything in intellectual discourse.

Sorry, but twins have a tighter bond than internet friends*. I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, but if I’ve got to do it I’d rather it be the feelings of the person who clearly is in the wrong. And that’s not my sister.

*and I hope I haven’t lost one but I will understand if I have.

[you_with_the_face]

@Left Hand of Dorkness

You know, I owe you an apology.

Thanks. You’re cool.

[Abby_Emma_Sasha]

Being a teacher doesn’t make you fucking Mother Theresa. She deserves respect, but not any more respect than any other poster. You don’t think jsgoddess, who’s also a classy person, has things she could brag about

Pardon me moistly for not being able to pick and chooose what I can quote. Mother Teresa is not exactly on my to do list but I am afraid you will accuse me of me of being on Chruis Hitchen’s payroll.

Okay, next thread I will pay attention to

[VinylTurnip]

Twins are fascinating. Every so often you’ll see a mildly disturbing puff piece about some octagenarian twins who’ve worn matching outfits their entire lives—which is newsworthy because the opposite is usually the case: at a certain age most twins seek to distinguish themselves from each other, perhaps employing something as superficial as a nose ring or different hairstyle. Unlike her generally more reasoning, level-headed, and eloquent sister, you with the face has opted (at least on this board) to be strident, intractable, choleric, and generally unpleasant to deal with, as a constant reminder that she is the evil twin. (I personally think the Van Dyke is overkill, but that’s just me.)

[Abby_Emma_Sasha]

@you with the face

Thanks. You’re cool.

You seem to like that apology, don’t you?

[you_with_the_face]

@Vinyl Turnip

Unlike her generally more reasoning, level-headed, and eloquent sister, you with the face has opted (at least on this board) to be strident, intractable, choleric, and generally unpleasant to deal with, **as a constant reminder that she is the evil twin. **

And I hope it is never forgotten.

Evil twins rock.

[newcrasher]

@Zoe

In this thread in Great Debates you with the face used personal insults toward me several times. Someone else, perhaps more than one, called attention to it. Although Tom was posting to that thread, he said nothing about it.

I reported her most damning post as Tom often suggested that we do. And because I saw someone “Moderated” for calling someone else a “goofball,” in another thread, I called it to his attention in the Pit.

Instead of her insulting remarks being called to her attention, both sides were scolded for “fighting.”

When I pointed out to Tom that I had said nothing insulting to anyone, he agreed.

you with the face, on the other hand. said that I am ignorant of race relations. She is aware that not only is that an insult, but it is a blatant lie. I asked for and was assigned to teach in an innercity high school that was 90% black before you with the face even had a face or a racial identity. When I retired from teaching after twenty years for health reasons, she was still in elementary school.

At the time that I started teaching, I faced things that she never had to face – the very real fear of bombs in the schools. There was a bomb that exploded in one of our feeder schools the year before I started teaching. And the teachers had to stay and look for bombs for a long time whenever a threat was made. There was another bomb that was dismantled that was one block from my classroom that explosive experts said would have taken out a city block if it had not been found.

I had to cross picket lines of protesting parents when white students were bused in. I had to pack up a school and move it out when black kids were moved out. (The janitors had it in their contracts that they did not have to move books. The teachers didn’t.)

I was in the hallway when a student poured mimeograph fluid down the hall and was about to set fire to the building. I have been in a building that was on fire and the principal didn’t turn on the alarm. I’ve had a student threaten to slit my throat. I was beaten up by trespassers and hospitalized for three days.

But I sent a kid to Harvard and kids to Vanderbilt and even to the Board of Trustees at Vanderbilt. And Rory danced with me down the hall when he passed his proficiency test. And parents and kids hugged me and cried at graduation or they do still when we recognize each other in a store or on the street. I had wonderful, wonderful times.

And I never had one single fight in my room in those twenty years. Not one. I did take a knife away from a student.

So when you when the face said I was ignorant of race relations, I knew that she was talking out her ass and that she knew she was. Besides, she needs to be aware that there is more than one race to relate to. I continue to relate to several in the neighbohood that I choose to live in. We are very multicultural. She should be so lucky.

Did Tom say anything to her for saying I was ignorant of race relations? No. He says I should “let it go.”

She also said that I am stupid and that others here think I am stupid. She mischaracterized my argument into the exact opposite of what I was saying. She twisted something else by saying I had implied it was eeevilll. She described my posts as being “madness.”

Finally, she quoted me as having said words that I never said. She just made something up entirely and put quotation marks around it: “you’re deliberating misunderstanding me, you big ole meanie.”

There was still no word of moderation.

A word fight without insults was what I used. Isn’t there a name for that?

Making rules that are enforced on whelm is poor, Tom.

Your email suggestion of how to deal with this was unbelievably condescending and indicates to me that you have absolutely little grasp of some of the issues I’ve mentioned recently. Try to find something more sexist and ageist next time. It also lets me know how insignificant this is to you. It is not to me.

I haven’t followed this saga, and I don’t intend to look into it any further. But based on Zoe’s service as illustrated in the OP, I would like to say thanks for fighting the good fight. We need more people willing to take a stand for justice.

[askeptic]

Abby, are you drunk already? It’s not even noon in Kansas…

[monstro]

@Vinyl Turnip

Twins are fascinating. Every so often you’ll see a mildly disturbing puff piece about some octagenarian twins who’ve worn matching outfits their entire lives—which is newsworthy because the opposite is usually the case: at a certain age most twins seek to distinguish themselves from each other, perhaps employing something as superficial as a nose ring or different hairstyle. Unlike her generally more reasoning, level-headed, and eloquent sister, you with the face has opted (at least on this board) to be strident, intractable, choleric, and generally unpleasant to deal with, as a constant reminder that she is the evil twin. (I personally think the Van Dyke is overkill, but that’s just me.)

This may come to you as a shock, but in real life I’m much more of the “evil twin” than she is. I’m not being self-deprecatory either. She is easier to get along with than I am, more friendly and less moody, and a better communicator. I sit on fences and try not to offend; she says what needs to be said, damn the pleasantries. Shortfly after I joined up, I invited her to the board because I knew she would be a great contributer and be able to say things I’m too chicken to say. That she ruffles feathers sometimes just means that I was right.

When I look at her, I see how I could be if I only worked harder. Not every one has a look-alike role model. It’s a blessing as well as a curse.

This whole board could disappear tomorrow, but I will always have ywtf. She might be the more caustic, less diplomatic version of me in some people’s eyes, but she’s the very best person I know.

[Sarahfeena]

A lot of the discussion in that original GD thread was a little on the bizarre side. I know, Zoe, that you have a life history of standing up for justice and racial equality. However, I think what you must not realize is that your attempt to deny the “one drop” rule ever existed sounded very much like someone who was trying to deny the realities of race in this country. I doubt very much, given your life history, that you intended to make it sound that way, but I think you need to know, from a non-participant in that thread, and as a white person who would not be personally affronted by that notion, that that is what it sounded like.

ETA: Wow…monstro and you with the face are twins?! Learn something new every day.

[wonky]

I can’t believe there’s yet another thread about this and, it seems, all because I thought it strange that Zoe told a black student she had a nice tan then used that as an example of how racially colorblind she was. Yowsa.

[Abby_Emma_Sasha]

@askeptic

Abby, are you drunk already? It’s not even noon in Kansas…

I’m always drunk, honey, what’s your point?

[El_Cid_Viscoso]

@you with the face

Thanks. You’re cool.

Nope, you know who’s cool? You. And your restraint is admirable.

I have a take on this. When people are accustomed to a way of life that commoditizes race, a concept such as “one drop of black blood” is allowed to persist. For my part, sometimes I avoid this kind of battle by relating myself to a loaf of Wonder Bread. Here’s my makeup: Take 16 slices of white bread, replace two of the slices with a pack of Red Man Chewing Tobacco. Seems to make perfect sense to folks in Junction.

Anyway, given my racial profile I sometimes feel it’s not my place to get into this sort of scrum, especially considering the target of the rebuke is a batty (ma’am) old low-level bureaucrat who traded a system of cotton plantations for a system of little brown butts in school chairs but didn’t meantime upgrade her goddamned ignorance.

Props to you and monstro.

[SkipMagic]

@Abby_Emma_Sasha

You seem to like that apology, don’t you?

Ooh, yeah, you like it, don’t you? Those apologies, they excite you, don’t they? Just one more, huh? You need one more apology–oh, hey, you’re purring. Well, okay.

“I’m sorr–” Oops. There I go teasing you again. You like that, don’t you, that half-apology? I’m asking forgiveness and then, bam!, I take it away. I’m so naughty. You just wait, though; after the apology, I’m going to Beg. Your. Pardon.

Oh.

Looks like you’re done.

[Abby_Emma_Sasha]

@SkipMagic

Ooh, yeah, you like it, don’t you? Those apologies, they excite you, don’t they? Just one more, huh? You need one more apology–oh, hey, you’re purring. Well, okay.

“I’m sorr–” Oops. There I go teasing you again. You like that, don’t you, that half-apology? I’m asking forgiveness and then, bam!, I take it away. I’m so naughty. You just wait, though; after the apology, I’m going to Beg. Your. Pardon.

Oh.

Looks like you’re done.

Oh? Do you think that means something to me. Sorry, you lose.

[you_with_the_face]

@monstro

This whole board could disappear tomorrow, but I will always have ywtf. She might be the more caustic, less diplomatic version of me in some people’s eyes, but she’s the very best person I know.

And you’re the best person I know, monstro. I shudder to think the kind of person I’d be without your influence in my life. You continually inspire me and I have yet to find anyone else who has that kind of effect on me. And the beautiful thing is that you are completely unaware of it. Every thing that you admire about me, it has come from you. You are the original. I’m just your copy.

But enough with this love fest.

Please don’t feel the need to defend me anymore. It’s not serious. This too shall pass. None of it bothers me.

[wonky]

@Abby_Emma_Sasha

Oh? Do you think that means something to me. Sorry, you lose.

No one told me we had entered the No Humor Zone.

I guess I’ll keep these knock-knock jokes for later.

[enipla]

I have been around here for a bit, as both lurker and poster. I’m a very basic middle age guy.

But I gotta say this. Oye Vey Maria!

That’s Hebrew for ‘What the Fuck!’ (I think, but you know what I mean)

Really. This needs a rest. We are all friends here, right? Let’s treat each other that way.

[Abby_Emma_Sasha]

Hey Skip guess what? I never asked for anything. if we have some spelling muistsaks, hey. why?
Huh? Ask?

[wonky]

@Abby_Emma_Sasha

Hey Skip guess what? I never asked for anything. if we have some spelling muistsaks, hey. why?
Huh? Ask?

Mars licks the blue fruity.