The world’s shittiest silver lining is no longer having to argue with people about whether or not racism exists. Because, yes, that’s an argument I used to have with people all the time. And, of course, the irony is that if someone was trying to tell you that racism is no longer a thing, it’s generally because they were racist. All of the people who used to make that argument are now just openly racist because they’re emboldened
I have been told racism was gone until Obama brought it back. Yea, there are people who say that.
And those same people probably would cite Obama’s election as proof racism no longer exists.
The amount of people who thought voting for Obama would somehow give them a lifetime pass for all their racist behaviors and actions is just… well it’s still surprising.
I also find it surprising how mad people get around here about the fact that President Obama got rich. It’s proof that he was corrupt and did favors for money. When you point out that he got a big book deal, which is totally legit, you get some version of “you really think that many people are interested in his book? No he did a lot of countries favor, and in return they’re going to pre-order millions of books of his so he gets his money from them”.
In Obama, everyone has a black friend!
Yeah, that’s pretty much the Trumpistas’ talking point on race: everything was peachy till Obama, simply by occasionally mentioning that racism was still a thing, “ruined race relations.” When I hear or read that I cannot roll my eyes hard enough.
Fuck me, what are they teaching cops these days?
What a weird conversation. I’m Mike Moore.
So he’s not even from the city and yet he belongs there I guess? It took balls just for those guys to go up to the cop. They literally could have been shot in this day & age for much less than walking towards a cop that’s been following you. What was that about the dog? Was he warning them that he was about to get the dog out because of them? Or he just happened to be getting his dog out and was providing a friendly warning? Given the context, it seems the former but why was that even necessary? Jesus, at least the guy is no longer a cop (in the small town of England but has probably been rehired by another town’s police force by now.)
He’ll be hired somewhere else.
Don’t worry, it appears everything has been solved! Sorry, this may belong in the idiot conspiracy theory thread instead…
Please, white man, tell me more.
Well he clearly indicated “Americans” in his tweet and I doubt his definition of it includes anyone actually affected by it anyways.
I’ll post this here, though it arguably could be in a couple other threads.
My 16-year-old daughter is looking for a gym to work out in. She is a pretty thorough person, so she’s been pricing out various programs at a number of places.
About a half-mile from our house, a brand-new Gold’s Gym is opening up in what used to be an old Kohl’s department store in a nearby strip-mall. It formally opened up tonight, though they have been selling “advance” memberships for several months now. It’s a nice place with a sauna, an indoor lap-pool with several lanes, and of course an acre or two of free-weights.
Now, my wife belongs to a small gym called “The Women’s Club”, which I thought was a chain, but maybe not. As the name suggests, no Y chromosomes are allowed past the front desk. My daughters have both been there a couple of times with my wife, and they’re lukewarm on it because it’s not the type of place you go to “be seen” working out. In fact, there are no windows.
So the guy at Gold’s Gym is giving my wife and daughter the hard sell – you know the drill, “what will it take to get you to ‘yes’?” and all that crap. As part of his spiel, he’s asking about what other places they’ve been looking at and doing the whole “that place is fine, BUT…” routine.
My daughter mentions that she’s been looking at Lifetime Fitness (the guy: “I used the be the manager there; the place is fine BUT our equipment is a lot better”), the local rec center (the guy: “You have to pay as you go, and if you work out more than once a week, we’re a much better bargain.”), and she also mentioned the Women’s Club.
So the guy knows that he’s got a tough row to hoe for this one - Gold’s Gym around here is the muscle-head’s chain, and they struggle to attract women. So he shakes his head and say, “Well, that place is fine, but… because it’s women-only it attracts a certain type of person, and a lot of folks get really nervous working out with them.”
And of course he’s not wrong – because it’s women-only, has an all-woman staff, and no windows, a fair-number of Muslim women frequent the place. Of course a lot of Mormon women go there for the same reason… and for that matter a bunch of atheists like my wife.
Anyway, not a great sales pitch to use on my wife and daughter. They’ll never set foot in another Gold’s Gym.
For the record, I’m not implying that the corporate stance of Gold’s Gym is anti-Muslim; I imagine it was just this one guy. It’s just that here in Indigo-blue NOVA, you don’t expect to hear such naked Islamophobia/racism.
My first thought was a certain type of people like… women, maybe not athletic women…
Oh dear.
I don’t know why women would care what other women are wearing, like at all.
Give the guy some benfit of the doubt! He might have been merely homophobic rather than racist.
That was my take from the story as relayed.
Huh. Maybe.
I asked my wife and kid and they’re adamant that he was referring to an ethnic group and not a sexual preference. They were racking their brains to come up with the exact phrase that he used… something like “uncomfortable and afraid” or what have you. Not to say that they couldn’t have misunderstood his meaning, but it’s not any better one way than the other.
How would someone even know someone else’s sexual preference? Because of the required dress code for some religions, I would think that’s a lot easier to point out than guessing someone might be say, a lesbian at a gym he can’t go to because he’s man. Perhaps a woman left the other gym and bitched about her terror at the new one… (huge assumption here, don’t hold me to it! heh).
I had no idea where he was going with the statement and only came up with nuns or something.