Conservatives programed to trigger at words "Black Lives Matter" by Russian trolls.

BNC News host Marc Lamont Hill challenged Christopher F. Rufo, an outspoken opponent of critical race theory, to explain what he likes about being white.

During an interview that aired on Tuesday, Rufo argued that critical race theory -- a form of social justice education -- is "state-sanctioned racism" because it teaches white children that they are more privileged than Black children.

"If I were to say to you right now, Christopher, what do you like about being white? What would you say?" Hill asked.

"I don't know," Rufo laughed. "It's such an amorphous term."

"You surely recognize that the world sees you as white," Hill pressed. "The world reads you as white and if you were to ask me about some things I like about being Black, I could talk about cultural norms, I could talk about tradition, I could talk about the kind of commonalities I feel."

"If you're saying whiteness is a thing that is being constructed as negative and shouldn't be," the host continued, "name something positive you like about being white."

"Well, sure," Rufo replied. "There are a lot of documents floating around public schools that say timeliness, showing up on time is a white supremacist value or a white value, things like rationality, things like the enlightenment, things like objectivity, and these are very strange things to be ascribed to a racial identity. My view is that these are actually -- should be ascribed to every individual human being"

"That doesn't answer the question," Hill pointed out. "You are making strawmen [arguments] about things that are ascribed to whiteness. I'm saying if whiteness isn't a negative thing, and you're saying whiteness shouldn't be constructed as all negative. Name something positive about being white."

"I don't buy into the framework that the world can be reduced into these metaphysical categories," Rufo insisted. "I think that's wrong. I think that we should look at people as individuals. I think we should celebrate different people's accomplishments."

He added: "The reason I'm not going to answer your question is that I reject that categorization. I think of myself as an individual human being with my own capabilities and I would hope that we could both judge each other as individuals and come to common values on that basis."

"Fair enough," Hill said. "But I would argue that ability to say, 'I don't see race, I don't recognize or own whiteness,' is an extraordinary white thing to be able to do. It's an exercise of power and privilege. You can ignore the label of whiteness and still be able to enjoy all the spoils of whiteness."

Watch the video below from BNC News.

Click to expand...

hanimmal said:

https://www.rawstory.com/marc-lamont-hill-christopher-rufo/View attachment 4910378

View attachment 4910379

Around 18 minutes in he starts his 'whiteness' snow flaking.

Click to expand...

A video uploaded to Instagram this Thursday shows a white man in an affluent San Francisco neighborhood harass and interrogate a Black delivery man, repeatedly asking him to show ID and to demand where the packages he's delivering are going to.

"Why do you think that I have to identify myself?" the deliveryman, whose has not been identified, asks the man.

"Who are you with? Who are those addressed to?" the man asks the deliveryman.

"It's none of your business," the deliveryman replies. "Every time I come around here, motherf—s like you make my job harder."

According to the caption of the video, which was uploaded to the Lost Soul Courier Collective's Instagram page, the delivery man was trying to deliver Narcan in the in the neighborhood of Pacific Heights.

"For those who don't know it's reputation, pac heights is one of the most affluent, snobby, and white neighborhoods in San Francisco," the video's caption reads. "It's a neighborhood of old money, unlike the heavily gentrified neighborhoods where new tech money has displaced historically black and brown communities. Everyone who grew up here knows that There is an invisible line drawn on the corner of Fillmore and Sutter that separates pac heights from uptown Fillmore, a line which I rarely care to cross (because this type of thing is a common occurrence in my everyday life)."

The delivery man says the man "asked me what I was doing, and I replied my job. He asked me who I worked for and I told him to mind his business. He then followed me to the halfway house I was delivering to and stood in my way as I tried to leave. I've never seen this guy before in my life."

"I posed no threat to his safety or his property. He threatened to call the cops on me, and after I talked some shit to him he admitted that it was an empty threat. He explained that things have come up missing in the neighborhood, so it must have been me who stole his shit. I'm guessing that in his mind I had no right to be walking down his street, and I must be looking for something to steal. I have a strong feeling that he wouldn't have harassed me of I was of a lighter complexion, but this is an everyday thing when you're a man of color living in America."

Click to expand...

mooray said:

Italy is pretty conservative. Not really a great place to go if you're wanting global diversity. Non-whites or non-hetero or non-whatever are generally better off in countries like Spain and Portugal. There's a bit of a dichotomy in how diversity is generally thought of as a positive, but so are the strong identities of EU nations. I know diversity and identity are a bit apples to oranges, because a person could enhance diversity while simultaneously strengthening a nation's identity, but reality says that's easier said than done.

The diversity in the make up of the US is a good thing and has provided much needed reprieve for millions, but we also don't agree on much when we come from such different backgrounds and experiences, which leads to us not being unified in ideas for the future. I see this all the time with people from the eastern bloc countries that come to the US, because "the left" are considered the authoritarian oppressors over there, they love the right over here and they have it backwards as fuck, becoming and supporting the very thing they were trying to escape.

I'm a bit envious of countries like New Zealand where they're so well unified that they were able to pass a semi-auto ban with just one opposing vote in their parliament, and it's just an example, not intended to start a gun convo. And I do understand that I'm blending culture and ethnicities a bit here when they don't entirely overlap. Perhaps NZ does a better job helping people embrace their culture, or perhaps people already attracted to NZ culture end up in NZ. Whatever it is, it works much better over there. Perhaps it's a lack of fervent Rob Roy individualism embedded into their foundations which fuels inflated self-importance and narcissism.

Click to expand...

mooray said:

Wasn't so much a gun convo, just an example of ideological unity within a nation. Did the laws you mention fly right through with universal acceptance?

Click to expand...

Senate Republicans are blocking a quick confirmation for President Biden’s nominee to lead the federal personnel agency, targeting her past emphasis on the concept of systemic racism known as “critical race theory” that has become a lightning rod for conservatives.

Republicans also are pushing back on Kiran Ahuja’s support for abortion rights at a time when a long-standing ban on federal funding for the procedure — known as the Hyde Amendment — has emerged as a renewed flash point for the right because of Biden’s support for overturning it.

The delay on Ahuja’s nomination is being led by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), although several Republicans objected to a quick confirmation vote for her, according to senior Democratic and GOP officials. The move will force Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) to go through procedural hurdles on the Senate floor, rather than move quickly with a pro forma vote that is more common for nominees to lower-profile posts.

Ahuja’s candidacy to lead the Office of Personnel Management, which cleared a key committee nearly two months ago, is now in a long queue of Biden nominees pending in the Senate. She probably will be confirmed in the evenly divided Senate unless a Democrat defects and all Republicans oppose her, but it’s unclear whether a vote will be scheduled on the crowded docket before senators leave for their next recess at the end of June.

Democrats grapple with the enemy within: What to do about the filibuster rule that could kill their agenda

The delay deals another setback to Biden’s pledge to rebuild the federal government after the tumultuous Trump years, which left many departments in the government short-staffed.

With no nominee to head the White House Office of Management and Budget and no one confirmed to lead the General Services Administration, which handles federal procurement and real estate, the three agencies in charge of overall management of the vast government and its 2.1 million career employees are without permanent leadership six months into the administration.

“OPM plays a key role in carrying out President Biden’s efforts to rebuild and revitalize our federal workforce, which includes many of my constituents,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D), whose Maryland district includes tens of thousands of federal employees, said in an email. “It’s crucial that the Senate move quickly to confirm her.”

The White House has pressed Schumer to bring the nomination to a quick vote, but Ahuja is competing for a spot on a heavy Senate calendar.

“Kiran Ahuja is a qualified, experienced, and dedicated public servant who we are looking forward to leading the Office of Personnel Management in its work protecting the safety of the workforce, empowering federal employees, and building a federal workforce that looks like America,” Chris Meagher, a deputy White House press secretary, wrote in an email.

Biden’s budget boosts feds and sidesteps civil service reform backed by Trump, Obama for now

Ahuja did not return an email seeking comment. Her husband, Javier Guzman, the deputy general counsel for Harvard University, is Biden’s nominee to lead the Department of Justice’s civil division.



“Democrats sought to fast-track a vote, but Senator Hawley believes adequate debate time and full Senate consideration is needed for this nominee,” Ford wrote. The senator is expected to speak against Ahuja’s appointment on the Senate floor.

Grievance, rebellion and burnt bridges: Tracing Josh Hawley’s path to the insurrection

Republicans have targeted critical race theory as divisive and false, and have moved to ban its teaching in schools through measures in GOP-led state legislatures. In a speech last week to a Republican group in New Hampshire, former vice president Mike Pence, like Hawley a potential candidate for president in 2024, called systemic racism a “left-wing myth” and said critical race theory is teaching young children to “be ashamed of their skin color.”

Hawley has targeted Ahuja’s leadership of Philanthropy Northwest, the umbrella group connecting charities in Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming.

Her confirmation hearing, paired with vetting of three nominees to the board of the U.S. Postal Service, drew little public attention. But Hawley told Ahuja he worried she would weave the language of critical race theory into federal directives.

Hawley focused on Ahuja’s support for Ibram X. Kendi, a professor at Boston University whose writings about racial equity have come under fire from conservatives. Kendi gave a lecture on “antiracism” as part of Philanthropy Northwest’s Equity Speaker Series in 2018, highlighting concepts concluding that racist policy is any policy that yields a racially unequal outcome, regardless of intention, and that race-neutral policies do not exist, according to the group’s website.

In a blog post last year, Ahuja linked to an article by Kendi that claimed Donald Trump’s election was an example of white supremacy. Her blog post also spoke of freeing Black, indigenous, gay and transgender Americans from the “daily trials of White supremacy.”

As schools expand racial equity work, conservatives see a new threat in critical race theory

At Ahuja’s hearing, Hawley called diversity training for federal employees deeply divisive and said it was cleaving federal employees along racial lines.

“Do you agree that the election of Donald Trump was an example of ‘racist progress’ in this country?” the senator asked the nominee.

“No, I can’t speak to that particular position that Dr. Kendi has made,” she responded. She said she did not recall the article he was referring to and said, “I would not make those type of statements, no.” But she said Kendi has advised charities, including Philanthropy Northwest, on how to advance “greater equity.”

“Do you think the United States is a systemically racist country?” Hawley continued.

“I’m a big believer that we seek to ensure that everyone has an equal opportunity,” Ahuja replied. “I understand and appreciate the historical challenges many individuals have experienced, based on their race and ethnicity.”

What is critical race theory, and why do Republicans want to ban it in schools?

Other senators have sought assurances that she would follow the Hyde Amendment, assuming it was still federal law. Before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee approved her nomination in April, Sen. Rob Portman (Ohio), the committee’s ranking Republican was one of several Republicans to cite critical race theory and Ahuja’s support for abortion rights as reasons for his “no” vote.

Ahuja said during her hearing that “The Hyde Amendment is the law of the land, and I will follow the law.”

In his fiscal 2022 budget request, released late last month, Biden omitted the Hyde Amendment language, thus attempting to void a decades-old ban on federal funding for abortions that he long supported before reversing his stance during the presidential campaign.


“You’re assuming there is systemic discrimination versus assuming that if discrimination exists, let’s rid the government of it,” Fuller said.

He called the emphasis “an evolving process” that the new personnel agency leader would have a role in shaping.

Max Stier, president and chief executive of the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service, said the lack of a federal personnel director is already “slowing things down,” particularly as other key agencies tasked with coordination of the government’s workings have no confirmed leaders. He ticked off a list of Biden priorities that are behind schedule, from changing the slow federal hiring process to recruiting a diverse workforce.

“You have four years,” Stier said, “and we’re losing a big chunk of time.”

Click to expand...

In the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder, the phrase “Black Lives Matter” began to appear everywhere: on front lawns and back bumpers, on NBA players’ warm-up shirts during pregame shoot-arounds, on gamers’ title screens when they fired up “FIFA 20,” on the tongues of longtime activists, college coaches, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah). On the chests of Black people asserting their humanity and White people professing their allyship.

After former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of Floyd’s murder, Lisa Granade, a 40-year-old White woman, finally got around to putting up a sign on her property, in an overwhelmingly White Seattle neighborhood. Granade chose a black flag with a rainbow-colored fist clenched in solidarity, hanging it on a street-facing fence alongside banners supporting LGBTQ rights and opposing gun violence.

And that’s how she ended up standing in front of her house getting yelled at and called a “racist” by another White woman in athleisure wear.

“Put your little signs up, you . . .” the woman screams — and continues her taunt with three words, one of which is “instigating” and the other two of which cannot be repeated here.

Granade took a video capturing part of the incident, which later went viral online. It shows the stranger yelling while walking down a sloping street, whipping around intermittently to yell some more.

“I was very shocked,” Granade told The Washington Post, “because honestly there’s more BLM flags than there are Black people in my neighborhood.”

Political signs, when they are ubiquitous, can make support for a candidate or cause seem overwhelming. Support for Black Lives Matter may indeed be high: A March poll conducted online by The Washington Post and the University of Maryland found 65 percent of Americans said they supported Black Lives Matter — similar to the 63 percent who indicated support in a Post-ABC telephone poll last July.



So, he started Flags For Good, a company that sells a variety of BLM flags, in addition to flags supporting other causes (feminism, gun control, the environment) and regular state flags. He says he donates a portion of his sales to causes such as the House of GG, an Arkansas retreat for Black trans women.

When Green calls himself a flag nerd he’s not exaggerating. He’s given a TED talk on the subject. “Even if you don’t think about flags, you do,” he says in one talk. “They make us swell with pride or burn with hatred.”



“I got into brouhahas with family members that didn’t understand why I was so upset about Charlottesville,” she says. To her, the persistence of American racism was only becoming more apparent. “The more I saw it, the more I saw it,” she says.

After the Chauvin conviction, Granade decided, for the first time in her life, to express her political convictions in the form of physical banners. She wanted to remind people that the work of fighting racism wasn’t over just because the trial of Floyd’s killer had ended with a “guilty” verdict.

“I kind of had this concern that people are gonna act like, ‘All right, racism’s fixed,’ ” she says.
It’s not. The signs are everywhere.

Click to expand...

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/critical-race-theory-invades-school-boards-help-conservative-groups-n1270794

Click to expand...