The White privilege to terrorize

CunningCanuk

Well-Known Member
As a parent, I can tell you that the reality is always new and awful. It’s possible to be a good honest parent and still turn out a Kyle.

I do not support holding the parents to account unless exceptional circumstances can be proven. “Innocent til proven guilty” is something I unconditionally support, even while the current news is griping my liver.
Yet the parents of the Kyles and the Ethans are almost always bad people. Coincidence?
 

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
Yet the parents of the Kyles and the Ethans are almost always bad people. Coincidence?
Just as the sins of the father's are not those of the son, the son's are not those of the father. Parents might be shit, but it's sometimes a tough call to make when it comes to criminal liability, moral judgements are another matter. Mental issues often run in families, genes can make the impact of conditioning worse and if the parents are nuts the conditioning and emotional health usually are not good.
 

HGCC

Well-Known Member
I have known plenty of people that were terrible and did terrible things, but had fine parents. A pretty good number of people with terrible parents went on to be terrible. A few had terrible parents and shrugged it off and turned out good.

You can't always blame the parents, but its pretty clear that shitty parents do often have shitty kids.

To put it in Canadian ricky, shithawks of a feather fly together. bongsmilie
 

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
they are when the son is a minor...parents are responsible for the actions of their children, civily and morally.
To a point, lot's of kids have good upbringings and turn out bad and then there are those who pass down hate and prejudice. Each case is different and that's why we have judges and juries, to determine their culpability. Lot's of kids have their own cars (some even have jobs) and teenagers have more rights than kids, they also party, drink and drive, all without their parents approval. Parents can be sued for the actions of their kids here in NS, but there are limits to liability.
 

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
Yes and if the kid thinks it’s cool to dress up and act like the kkk, there’s likely been a failure in parenting.
Once a kid reaches the teen years parental influence wanes, in deed kids spend more time with the internet than their parents and peer influence becomes a big factor. I'm not absolving parents of moral and ethical responsibility either and when they fail it becomes obvious. However many people teach their kids to be racist or some other form of bigot, be it a religious or ethnic one and there's no law or accountability for it in most cases. Teaching kids bigotry is a form of child abuse that sets kids up to be suckers and fools, marks for con artists.

Each case must be weighed on the facts, sometimes kids turn out bad through no fault of the parents, other times they are directly responsible, that's what judges and juries are for. There is no law against being an asshole however, or turning your kid into one, even if it's a rich banker teaching his kid to be a greedy prick.
 

CunningCanuk

Well-Known Member
Once a kid reaches the teen years parental influence wanes, in deed kids spend more time with the internet than their parents and peer influence becomes a big factor. I'm not absolving parents of moral and ethical responsibility either and when they fail it becomes obvious. However many people teach their kids to be racist or some other form of bigot, be it a religious or ethnic one and there's no law or accountability for it in most cases. Teaching kids bigotry is a form of child abuse that sets kids up to be suckers and fools, marks for con artists.

Each case must be weighed on the facts, sometimes kids turn out bad through no fault of the parents, other times they are directly responsible, that's what judges and juries are for. There is no law against being an asshole however, or turning your kid into one, even if it's a rich banker teaching his kid to be a greedy prick.
I was specifically referring to racist behaviour. The vast majority of racists are taught to hate in the home. That said, there are exceptions to the rule. Sure, some kid could be influenced by an outside force but a lack of awareness of your child’s influences is another failure in parenting, IMO.
 

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
I was specifically referring to racist behaviour. The vast majority of racists are taught to hate in the home. That said, there are exceptions to the rule. Sure, some kid could be influenced by an outside force but a lack of awareness of your child’s influences is another failure in parenting, IMO.
In many cases they are not taught bigotry directly, but absorb it from the behavior and speech of their family, friends and local culture, they conform to the culture. Because of mass communications and the internet, this is having less of an impact than it did in the past, however in some cultural enclaves like the American south, larger trends can be resisted because of local history and conditions. For most people the larger culture gets them in the end and they conform to that, but just barely, they go underground to a point and we see the usual smoke and mirrors reflected in "culture wars", mostly created and drummed up by hate media. Others try to do better, but are deeply conditioned and somewhat conflicted. It's the clash between traditional local cultures and our modern global one to some degree, but in America, historic racism drives much of it.
 

Fogdog

Well-Known Member

‘Tell everyone on this train I love them’: the meaning of a hero’s final words

After he was stabbed and lay dying on a train, Taliesin Myrddin Namkai-Meche had a message I will never forget.

It was 26 May 2017 on the Portland MAX light rail service when a white supremacist named Jeremy Christian began threatening two teenage girls; one of the girls was black, the other in hijab. Three other men, all strangers on the same train, stood up to Christian, defending and ultimately saving the girls. Christian attacked the three men with a knife, killing 53-year-old Ricky John Best and 23-year-old Taliesin Myrddin Namkai-Meche and injuring Micah David-Cole Fletcher.

As Taliesin was bleeding, another passenger, a woman named Rachel Macy, knelt with him, comforting him and staunching his wounds. Taliesin knew he was dying. “Tell everyone on this train I love them”, he said to Macy in his final moments.

These beautiful words stopped me in my tracks when I first heard them.



Not even one week after the events described above occurred, Patriot's Prayer with Proud Boys acting as goon enforcers held a rally and attempted a march through the streets of Portland. The city was still in shock over what a white terrorist had done and here they were, about to march in our streets carrying Nazi flags, for christ's sake.

I attended and witnessed the beginnings of all the turmoil that continues through today. I had the sense that I was witnessing a historically important event but no idea how bad it would get:

Numbers matter.

The Portland rallies yesterday, white supremacists numbered in hundreds; anti fascist and those demonstrating against hate speech numbered in the thousands. White supremacists and neonazis were outnumbered 10:1.

Cops kept the nazis away from peaceful folk. Antifa taunted them and pelted the haters with whatever they could get hands on. We let the haters leave with the message that their hate speech is not safely repeated on our streets without cops to protect them.

I suppose at the Dew Drop Inn at Ringle in Bumfuck-Nowhere, you can proudly proclaim hate to the toothless welfare mooches who play for nickels on the torn up pool table but that shit is not tolerated here. Boulder and Denver will own your proud boys. But most likely they will be protected by police and allowed to leave with only a few broken noses.
I was so much older then but younger then than now.
 

CunningCanuk

Well-Known Member

‘Tell everyone on this train I love them’: the meaning of a hero’s final words

After he was stabbed and lay dying on a train, Taliesin Myrddin Namkai-Meche had a message I will never forget.

It was 26 May 2017 on the Portland MAX light rail service when a white supremacist named Jeremy Christian began threatening two teenage girls; one of the girls was black, the other in hijab. Three other men, all strangers on the same train, stood up to Christian, defending and ultimately saving the girls. Christian attacked the three men with a knife, killing 53-year-old Ricky John Best and 23-year-old Taliesin Myrddin Namkai-Meche and injuring Micah David-Cole Fletcher.

As Taliesin was bleeding, another passenger, a woman named Rachel Macy, knelt with him, comforting him and staunching his wounds. Taliesin knew he was dying. “Tell everyone on this train I love them”, he said to Macy in his final moments.

These beautiful words stopped me in my tracks when I first heard them.
What a beautiful story.
 
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