Who is the racist? What is free speech?

I just got the link and message below from my Fox-News and Donald Trump loving uncle.  Apparently Fresno State is famous again for controversial speech of one of the professors.  You can read more about this at the link.   I had to post a new response, but this is an old issue -- if you scroll down you will see a lengthy post about this same topic when it happened last year. 

https://nypost.com/2018/04/18/this-college-professor-is-happy-racist-barbara-bush-is-dead/
Who's the racist here? Loving compassionate Progressive communist. I wonder if Fresno State                        would invite her to speak. Oh no they would have to go to their safe space. But she has tenure. A                    get out of jail card. It's sickening.

Here's my response:

So what!?  I don't understand the problem.  So the professor was uncivil.  So what.  And disrespectful.  So what.  And wrong.  So what.  What is the problem?

 If you don't like what she said, then argue back and espouse your alternative viewpoint.  Or ignore her.    

I'm not sure what she said was that outrageous anyway.  She was basically attacking the first lady's son.  George W. wasn't the greatest president, and getting us into the war in Iraq under false pretenses was catastrophic -- costing trillions of our tax dollars, and hundreds of thousands of lives (including lives of over one hundred thousand Iraqi civilians). 

Perhaps commenting on the first lady's passing wasn't the place to re-open the attack on George W., but again, its just speech that is perhaps given at the wrong time or context.  We've all heard these statements attacking W. before, so the real problem is that it was done in a new context that apparently bothers people.

  Its not like there was any threat of violence, or any threat to public order in what the professor said.  The professor just ruffled social norms that say that we should show respect for the dead.  They are just social norms.  There's nothing remotely illegal about what the professor said.  She was offensive.  Oh boo hoo.  Our virgin ears.

Do we really want to live in a world where the only free speech is speech that doesn't offend someone? 

If that's the standard, then nobody would have any free speech.  Everything you say is offensive to someone.  

The whole point of free speech is to protect controversial speech.  A free speech law that only protects uncontroversial speech isn't a free speech law, its a horribly-restrictive censorship law. 

 So what bothered me the most is the bullshit statement in the news article by our campus president that the professor's comments were   “beyond free speech. This was disrespectful.”  

Is our campus president saying we have to be respectful when we speak?  To say that is an example of behaving or showing a great lack of intelligence or common sense  It seems like it -- to suggest that free speech must be respectful, that's an example of showing a lack of intelligence or common sense.

Of course, I don't support disparaging speech as a goal, but I realize that all speech can be defined as disparaging by someone.  

What's that, you like puppies?  There are plenty of people that find that unethical and offensive and critical of their way of life. 

 If disparaging speech wasn't allowed, where would we be today?  What would have been the message and legacy of Jesus Christ, Mahatma Gandhi, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, Cesar Chavez, Nelson Mandela, Alice Paul, and other heroes of social change?  

If it were not the right of free speech, would we ever have abolished slavery or given women the right to vote?  One of the truisms of power is that those with power do not willingly give it up.   To quote another hero of social change, 

"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will."  Frederick Douglass, 1857

 If people on the bottom do not even have the right to say anything that those with power find disparaging, then we are truly in a society that believes in repression of speech far more than freedom of speech, and a future that looks increasingly bleak for those who find themselves without money or power in today's society.

Also, if we can't be disparaging, then we also can't call out injustice. 

 I guess next time I mention Hitler, I better not say anything bad because that's disparaging to some people. But to NOT call Hitler a mass-murderer is disparaging to Jews.  There are so many similar examples.  I wrote a book about this with the figure of Columbus.  Each group has a unique view of this historical figure and often these views are diametrically opposed.  To criticize Columbus as guilty of genocide is disparaging to Italians and Spaniards, but to NOT criticize Columbus as guilty of genocide is disparaging to Native Americans.  My view has always been to do my best to hear both sides and let both sides speak freely, even though both sides call the other's perspective an important component of a hate crime.  Now with President Castro's statements, I don't feel comfortable telling anybody's side of the story, because all sides are seen as disparaging by some other side.  Unfortunately, if we are realistic about this, the same pattern happens with all controversial figures and issues.  That's why we need our president to act as a staunch advocate for free speech.   

Do we really want to live in a world where people are fired from their jobs because they say something on social media that others find disrespectful?  Wow, have you been on social media lately?  Its filled with vitriol.  If that's the new standard, then there's going to be an awful lot of people losing their jobs . . .   

 And this is a professor whose job it is to say controversial things to challenge people.

  If professors can't say controversial things, then we might as well just turn professors into robots who can only say exactly what is approved by the government.

 Perhaps robot professors would make more sense than humans.  Why even have people in these positions?  All we need is a group of government censors to write the approved words, and then professors can be fired and lectures can just be a recording that plays  the government-approved messages.  And then students can be graded on their ability to memorize the government-approved messages.  Yep, then we would have a system where everybody only learned the "right things" and nobody had a wayward thought or were even given the ability to think anything offensive.  Perfect.  And then we could all have "free speech" and nobody would be offended. 

By espousing this idea, am I being disrespectful to our social norms of free speech?  Oh no.  Don't tell my campus president or I might be fired. 

---

Feel free to leave your comments below.  I appreciate free speech and debate, even though our campus president doesn't

Uncivil discourse: Does it matter?

This was originally published in April of 2017, but was bumped.

"You have the right to free speech as long as you're not dumb enough to actually try it."- Know Your Rights by The Clash

Uncivil discourse has become a popular problem.

(click to enlarge)

How does uncivil discourse (polemics, invective, hate speech) influence actual behavior?

April 2017 was a rough month for Fresno -- Fresno State was in the national news for the professor that tweeted death threats against Trump, and Fresno was in the news for a mass-murderer that targeted four white males. This isn't quite as embarrassing as having one of our students get caught having sex with a sheep on campus, because he was stressed from finals, but its right up there.

The above cartoon was printed in the student newspaper.  Yea, we made headlines that time.  You can read more and catch a wonderful headline here.

The Professor, the gunman and other' bad hombres'.

I've heard a few people suggest the professor's tweets and the mass murderer are related, and ask the question: Did the gunman do the work advocated by the professor?

The Fresno State professor's statements on Twitter that Trump should be hanged and Trump and other politicians should be assassinated were beyond the pale and I'm glad he's been fired from our university. Regardless of free speech rights and the need for us to be protected so we can teach controversial stances on subjects (and controversial subjects), advocacy of murder and violence should not be tolerated -- especially by someone that is supposed to be an intellectual leader of our community. Of course, there are sometimes when advocacy of killing and violence is acceptable, such as support for war, death penalty and punishment for treason, as just a few examples. That does confuse the issue a bit, doesn't it?

If the professor had said this in the course of a class, and given reasons for the advocating the killing, such as treason, and explained what the treasonous behavior was, I would say that is protected speech and worthy of intellectual debate. But the faculty wasn't in class and there was no charge of treason and no intellectual reasoning to support the violent statement -- the closest thing to that was that Trump's policies were bad for America and ruining our democracy. Advocating violence for political purposes (or with political justification) is unacceptable and the basic definition of terrorism. But again we are ignoring all sorts of people that are employed to kill for political purposes (or with political justifications) such as soldiers, police, or prison guards who pull the lever for capital punishment.

I remember many people saying that Hillary and Barack Obama should be hung for treason. The following image was among the many that were spread on social media,

And this uncivil discourse was not just among outsiders; a Republican candidate for the Florida House of Representatives repeated the charge on Twitter,

Making such a charge, and giving the reasoning behind it, I think would be legally acceptable, but the Fresno State professor didn't do that: Just saying people should be hung and asking for donations for committing such murder as did this professor, all because of policy differences or to assuage some general harm to society is outrageous and worthy of a non-tenured professor losing his job. A tenured professor, I think, would be punished but not fired.  Tenure gives you some protection so a firing for your detested speech would be much harder to do. Remember Ward Churchill?

ward churchill

Professor of ethnic studies at University of Colorado, Boulder, and leader of the American Indian Movement, Ward Churchill said, the day after 9/11, that the attack was our own fault because of our bombing of little babies overseas, that the World Trade Center was a legitimate military target because the military is only used when we have world trade interests, and that the people working in the World Trade Center were complicit. He called them "Little Eichmans" to compare them to the Nazi Adolph Eichman who was convicted for crimes against humanity and hanged, even though he didn't hate Jews and was just doing his job as a bureaucrat who ran the trains that took people to the concentration camps. Churchill's statement was widely publicized by the now-unemployed Bill O-Reilly, which caused a national controversy for Churchill's university. Churchill had tenure and was able to keep his job through years of witch hunt investigations and trials, but eventually he succumbed to the pressure and was fired. He tried to take his case to the U.S Supreme Court, but they refused to hear his case.


OK, back to the Fresno case:.  Are the Fresno killer and the Fresno professor related? Why did the killer decide to kill now as opposed to some other time? Could the statements advocating violence by the professor have served as some sort of short-term motivation?

How hate speech is related to actual violent actions is hard to know.  Often there is not any direct connection, but an indirect connection may still occur, even if people don't acknowledge it.

The killing of 4 whites in Fresno gained national attention, I think, largely because the victims were white. It has also been suggested that the victims were chosen at random, which belies the truth that the victims were chosen because they were white males.

 This is another example of how whiteness (and to a lesser extent gender) is invisible in this country -- when whites are targeted it is commonly but wrongly described as totally random. Similarly when males are always the perpetrators (E.g., school shootings) gender is never even mentioned. Many scholars have written extensively on the topic of invisibility for white males, and most describe it as an unearned privilege. Usually they don't talk about privilege in relation to (how we think about) crime and violence, but that relationship is becoming clearer.

Despite the widespread reports that the perpetrator was a terrorist, the Fresno police have repeatedly, and from the very beginning, said this was a hate crime against whites and NOT terrorism, even though the person had a Muslim-sounding name and cried out in Arabic when arrested. Actually we are learning that he wasn't Muslim but was polytheistic. Also, if the gunman had been doing the work of the professor, he would have gone after politicians and Trump, not white males.

Still, I also wonder if there is some relationship between the gunman and the violent rhetoric of the professor, in the same way I wonder if there is a relationship between the right-wing BS spouted by Trump/allies and the rise of violent right-wing militia groups. The difference is that there is no explicit relationship between the professor and the killer, and many members of these militia groups repeatedly and specifically say they are given hope by the rise of Trump. On the opposite side of the political spectrum there are examples of killers who say they were motivated by support for the black lives matter rhetoric. During the 1960's and 1970's members of the American Indian Movement, Black Panthers, Young Lords, and Weathermen are just a few examples of the "liberal" "activist" groups that used violence for political ends. I'm not sure of an Asian focused group, but these groups courted young liberals from all the other major race/ethnic groups -- American Indians, Blacks, Latinos, and Whites.   They gained members, motivation, and justification from violent or revolutionary rhetoric. Some members of these groups took part in violent political actions, and some have been charged with murdering police. Many of them have a long list of members murdered by government or political enemies, and members jailed as political prisoners.


cointelpro The counter-intelligence program (cointelpro) part starts at 39 minutes and 20 seconds.

The government created a counter-intelligence program that used the FBI to send in undercover agents to infiltrate these ethnic movements, and used propaganda to instigate inter-movement discord and violence.  They also used disinformation campaigns in the national media, and even instigated violence that ended in deaths among the activists, as well as government agents.

And there are other cases where the connection between uncivil discourse and violent behavior have been documented, such as during the November 2016 election, the wacko that believed the fake news story that Hillary Clinton was organizing a satanic child sex ring out of the back of a pizza parlor, and traveled hundreds of miles to the pizza shop with an automatic rifle to stop the crime.

Dylan Roof -- the convicted mass murderer who killed parishioners in a South Carolina Black church said his main motivation was what he had learned from propaganda websites about how Blacks were killing and raping Whites so much that it was a genocide. He felt he was compelled to stop it.

Causes

The violent rhetoric comes from dehumanization of adversaries, which is the same kind of propaganda that we are constantly fed by the national media during and before war.

Slavery was justified for decades by prejudiced beliefs about Black and Native inferiority.

Sociologists teach that prejudice is an outcome and justification for inequality.

Solutions


If we want to stop prejudice, we need to look at the distribution of resources in society. Addressing inequality won't stop uncivil discourse, but likely it will make uncivil discourse less likely. There is a lot of evidence that it is not the lack of money or poverty that causes the most common social problems in a U.S. state or society, but rather it is those states or countries that have the most inequitable distribution of resources that suffer the most social problems. I would guess that uncivil discourse could be added, alongside crime, obesity, smoking, and other social problems as an unintended consequence of inequality.

Another simple solution is censorship.  We could censor uncivil discourse, and we could outlaw all public display of bias.  This sounds outrageous to us, but probably wouldn't to the French who place all sorts of restrictions on the right to speak about or even wear religious symbols or clothing in public.

 I hope the loss of free speech rights is not the end result of our misuse of our freedoms.

The U.S. Supreme Court has even upheld the rights of the KKK to burn a cross on their own land and even to hold a birthday party for Hitler in  public spaces within Jewish neighborhoods.

Despite the constitutional protections, free speech is under assault by uncivil discourse.  Whether hate speech is free speech is at the cornerstone of this debate.

On one hand, we should not tolerate speech that promotes hate.

On  the other hand, if we only allow speech that someone doesn't define as hate, then nobody will have any free speech rights.

This poses a dilemma -- whose speech -- or what speech -- is protected?   Should we censor some speech?  Whose -- or what -- speech should be censored?  If we decide to ban speech that poses a real threat to some individual or group of people, then how do we define "threat" and who gets to decide if some speech is a threat?

Restricting free speech -- to some extent -- has to be part of the solution.  I would hope that it would be a small part of the solution rather than a large part of the solution.


How would you resolve this free speech dilemma?  How could that solution be put into place?

Another solution is violence.  This horrible solution is becoming popular.

Recently there have been violent events on college campuses in reaction to conservative speakers who say they are exercising their rights to free speech.  Earlier this year in Berkeley there were violent protests in reaction to a planned campus speech by an offensive writer for Breitbart News.  More recently, Berkeley cancelled a speech by Ann Coulter because of concerns over her safety, and even more recently a pro-Trump rally was disrupted by anti-Trump protesters who used violence to break up the pro-Trump rally..  There seems to be a growing belief that conservatives that advocate inequality and white hetero male privilege should be defined as hate speech, and that hate speech not only should be censored but also should be met with violence.

I certainly do not agree with the violent solution advocated by some college students who suggest violence is warranted to stop the hate speech,

   Buttressed by an ideology that views “hate speech” as violence                                         and its suppression as self-defense, students increasingly are                                           resorting to the destruction of property and assault to keep                                               conservative speakers quiet.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/apr/20/wellesley-students-push-hostility-to-silence-conse/

I would like to remind everyone that the basic definition of a terrorist is a non-government person or group that uses physical violence against citizens to attain a political goal.  Are students that advocate violence against what they define as hate speech advocating terrorism?  Probably not -- mostly because they are targeting property, but the government increasingly defines the targeting of property for political purposes as a terrorist act as well.  I would say that the students are pushing the boundaries of civility and law -- verbally protesting against someone is protected speech, but obviously violence is a crime.  The first amendment protects individual free speech from goverrnment intrustion, not from intrusion by other citizens.  However,  if the university did not sufficiently protect the free speech rights of conservative students, by allowing violent protests to shut down conservative speakers, then that could be interpreted as the government restricting the rights of conservative student groups.  Of course, these are complex phenomena, and I am using all of the examples not to give even a full introduction to each but rather I'm using them rhetorically, as is commonly said, 'they are good to think with'

Only in a perverse world does violence (and terrorism?) become justified as a solution to hate speech.  Obviously violence is not a valid solution to hate speech.

However, that there are so many people advocating this solution shows us the power of the connection between physical violence and hate speech.

Another simple example is to look at the hate crime statistics, which  by definition represent the combination of hateful speech and violent crimes.

https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2015-hate-crime-statistics-released

Violence between citizens should not be seen as part of uncivil discourse, but censorship and overcoming inequality are two viable solutions.  Of course, we might teach people to avoid prejudice but that does not target prejudice at its root cause.  Attacking inequality may be especially effective way to reduce both uncivil discourse and violence

 Regardless of the solution, I can say with certainty that too often, uncivil discourse shapes (or justifies) violent behavior.  Of course the violent behavior must be condemned, but too often we ignore the related uncivil discourse.

Trump and Science

All of the above examples are related to uncivil discourse, and Trump has perhaps been one of the worst perpetrators among mainstream politicians. There are so many different kinds of violent, inaccurate, sexist, homophobic, and prejudiced messages from Trump it is hard to document them all. While most are obviously propaganda, some lies are harder to dissect as they are presented as "facts", such as this,

Documenting all the cases of Trump's uncivil discourse would be interesting, and in fact some intellectuals have already analyzed it and produced some charts comparing Trump to others.  Another interesting tool analyzes how we reacted to the election on twitter: https://www.pri.org/ stories/2016-04-29/just-how- uncivil-election-2016-mits- media-lab-has-some-charts-you- should-see

It is interesting to note that while Trump's supporters have a considerably higher rate of uncivil discourse, for at least a portion of the election season, the differences between Trump and the Democratic Party rivals was not a very large difference. There doesn't seem to be a massive partisan divide -- uncivil discourse is used by both republican and democratic supporters.

Lets remember some basic principles of science.  The rise of Trump and the rise of hate crimes against Muslims and the rise of white supremacist groups does not mean that Trump's rhetoric was the cause.  Correlation does not mean causation.  Because Trump's uncivil discourse was not a singular cause of the rise of these groups, does not mean that Trump's uncivil discourse was not one of several causes of the rise of these violent right wing groups. The same can be said for the uncivil discourse in general -- it is not likely ever the singular cause of violent behavior, but, as I've argued in this essay, it certainly could be one of several important causes.

Conclusion

Anyone that thinks that uncivil discourse doesn't matter needs to look at these cases described above and rethink their position. Sometimes the connections between the violence and rhetoric is explicit and sometimes it is not, but I for one don't hesitate to condemn uncivil discourse and acknowledge that it has intended and unintended consequences.

Please leave your educated thoughts about the topic of uncivil discourse below.
-Tim Kubal

Taking a knee, inter-ethnic distrust, and the culture war

Recently Trump sparked a firestorm of controversy about race when he called the few NFL players that were taking a knee during the National Anthem sons of bitches for their lack of patriotism.  This is similar to many outrageous things that Trump has said about race, such as in Charlottesville when neo-nazis and white supremacists held a rally, and clashed with counter-protesters (some of whom were from antifa, a far-left aggressive movement that sometimes uses intimidation to attempt to silence its enemies).  Trump then said there were good people on both sides, and seemed to repeatedly waver when condemning the neo-nazis and white supremacists.  

This isn't just symbolic politics.  He is working to cut resources for minority communities, such as by working for some horrible changes such as massive dumping of toxics into their water, air and land in ways not seen in decades, cutting government services, responding with weak emergency funding for minority communities, cutting medical care, along with a host of other real policy issues that are disastrous for African American and Hispanic communities.    

But the symbolic politics is hard to ignore.  It is so energizing.  It gets everyone involved in discussions about social issues.  What is legitimate protest?  Where do we have the right to free speech?  How bad is the problem of police brutality?   How can we address issues of police brutality?  etc.

The president insists that people died to fight for our flag and anthem. 

And he insists that kneeling during the anthem is disrespecting the flag. 

Lets not just accept this – people did not die for the flag.  They died because politicians decided we needed another war.   And there is no reason to say that the only way to respect the flag is to stand during the anthem. In fact, if you love something you won’t just shut up when you see something wrong.  And taking a knee isn’t even close to disrespectful.  Taking a crap on the flag would be disrespectful.  Kapernick has made it clear that a veteran told him that the military often takes a knee out of respect, and thus Kapernick chose to take a knee rather than just sit on the sidelines as he had been doing.  Why Trump and others think they have a corner on the only way to be patriotic is beyond me.  Its just as true to say that people died for the right to disrespect the flag.    

Its interesting to see someone like the president who has bucked repeated patriotic traditions tell private businesses how to make personnel decisions to demand more patriotism among its employees.  If Trump is our employee, then perhaps we could demand he act more traditionally patriotic.  

The first amendment does not apply to private citizens restricting speech of other private citizens.   So of course, any business owner can restrict the speech of its employees.  This likely won’t happen in the NFL because of the union. 

But the 1^st amendment does protect people from restrictions on their speech and assembly by government employees. Obviously, the president cannot legally restrict free speech, but he can have an opinion and create a controversy, which he has done.  Perhaps he had an effect in blackballing Kapernick.  He advocated such behavior before and again last week.  If Trump had an influence in getting him blackballed for his speech, then perhaps there is a lawsuit here?

This really isn't about patriotism, but about stoking distrust and responding to fear of a powerful minority among his base of supporters.  Criticizing protesters  -- especially people protesting against him -- has been common for Trump.  He's advocated violence against them and said repeatedly that they should leave the country if they don't like it.  

This motivates Trump's base. 

I know that there has been a shift in strategies used by the political parties when I see the new republicans are wading so heavily into the culture wars.  They are acting like liberals.  For decades it was only the democrats and those on the left that would demonize outsiders (and insiders) for their political speech.  There still remains that streak of anti-tolerance among the left.  You can see clearly amplified among the Antifa activists and other far left or anarchist activists, many of whom are on college campuses such as Berkeley, where the intolerance has grown to the level of self-justified violence: If you represent speech we disagree with, we call that violence and thus your violence justifies our preemptive PHYSICAL violence.  There is no doubt that this ideology of intolerance is a huge problem.  It may be hard for us to address, because there are worse problems on the far right, such as neo-nazis and white supremacists who are responsible for a large portion of homegrown terrorism and most of the citizen militias, most of whom are not patriotic in the traditional sense, and many of whom are ready to overthrow the government through a race war.   But their existence does not negate the problems of intolerance on the far left.  

In Charlottesville, where a white supremacist terrorist killed a peaceful counter-protester, not every person on either side was in alignment with the most radical of their own allies.  Not everyone there on the right was a white supremacist/neo-nazi, and not everyone there on the left was from antifa.  Protests are diverse.  There are always people there just for curiosity sake, legal observers, medics, journalists, undercover police, etc.  Of course there were good people there on both sides.  Of course the aggression and violence by the left is a problem.  We need to acknowledge that.  But lets not get off track here.  Acknowledging that does not negate the much larger problem of the rising white supremacist threat in the US and around the world.  

  In the USA, since the rise of Trump, there has been a massive increase in hate crimes against Muslims, as well as a huge rise in white supremacist groups, many of whom have made it very clear that they feel emboldened, and have gained membership, because they believe they have a friend in the White House.  Trump has repeatedly faltered to condemn them and has repeatedly avoided disavowing their support.  They represent a huge proportion of all homegrown terrorism.

The comments after Charlottesville were just some in a long history of his refusal to clearly criticize the KKK and other white supremacist groups when he is asked if they are a problem or if he disavows their support.   We are seeing the rise of these groups also around the world.  

Earlier this week, Germany for the first time since WWII has elected dozens of members of far right parties that promote xenophobia, forgetting the holocaust and celebrating war and non-war achievements of Hitler and the German army during WWII.  This of course is skirting with legality, as there are laws in Germany (and a dozen other European countries) that outlaw the promotion/denial of the holocaust. 

Yes, the antifa folks are a problem because of their intolerance for ideas with which they disagree. Over the last few months, we've seen this repeatedly on Berkeley campus again and again, but also at Trump rallies.  There does seem to be a desire to silence the right, especially to silence the far right who espouse radical or controversial views.  This really isn't that surprising, as we know over the last few decades there are many examples of the left and members of the democratic party and their attempts at silencing or firing or shaming people for saying something offensive based on race, gender, or sexuality.   For decades its been only the democrats that seemed to have thin skin. 

 In the last few decades, conservatives typically have had much less concern for using symbolic politics as a way to motivate their core supporters.  We have to go back to the 1990s to see conservatives getting involved in the culture wars.  Back then, one of the most important core issues to the culture wars was morality, and it was the republicans that tried to play up symbolically and with policy, their traditional morality against obvious ongoing changes in attitudes and behaviors toward less traditional attitudes and behaviors.  They were stoking fears of the rise of new sexual attitudes, behaviors, and communities.

Couple this with the repeated "bad behavior" of republican politicians that showed the conservative sexual ideology and policy was not something they believed in personally, and it was clearly a losing game for the right.  They could not reach enough of their voters with such old-fashioned views, especially when the advocates themselves didn't even believe in the cause.  But while traditional views of sexuality have become too unpopular for effective politicking, patriotism is still a potentially powerful issue for the republicans.  

Is Trump a racist for so thoroughly condemning the NFL players (most of whom are Black) for merely silently taking a knee in protest while refusing to clearly condemn white supremacist who commit acts of terrorism during a protest?  

Well, first racism is the belief that one race is naturally superior to another.  There is no direct evidence of that in Trumps response, but it surely looks sympathetic to white supremacist and antagonistic to African Americans.  

Why would Trump do this?

Is he a maniac?

Hardly.  He makes calculated political decisions to keep his base on board.

This taking a knee controversy started for most people last week in Alabama when Trump spoke at a rally and got a tremendous response from the crowd when he said the Sons of Bitches should be fired.  Perhaps they were reacting to his catch phrase "You're Fired!", but he took it to mean that his base hates the NFL protest.

His supporters are now calling Trump intuitive for hearing that excitement and then spending the next few days wading into the culture wars of race and patriotism through repeated inflammatory tweets toward the silently protesting players.   He's now tweeted over 20 times on this issue.   While he was doing that he was ignoring the Puerto Rican people -- citizens of the USA -- who are living on an island devastated without power for weeks if not months.  How would you survive without power?  Yet Trump spent his only tweets about Puerto Rican hurricane to condemn them for their problems before the hurricane.  

Is this a sign of racism that he ignores or dismisses issues important to Black and Brown people?  No but it says a lot about Trump's base and definitely shows Trump is taking sides in a culture war.  Trump is using race and patriotism for political purposes.  Trump does not have to be a white supremacist to know that his supporters -- his "base" -- will be politically motivated to support Trump and vote republican if they see a rising left wing state with empowered minorities and people that would rather protest their issues than praise the flag.  Fear is a great motivator.

Every time there is another protest against Trump or against the neo-nazis, or against police brutality, Trump does not ignore it for a reason.  It is good for him because it motivates his base.

  Trump brought up Charlottesville several times after being widely condemned by almost everyone in the mainstream.  Why would he do this? Is he insane?  Insane like a fox, maybe.  

Making sure his base sees these protests and race issues are going on around them, then the base is politically motivated to support trump and vote republican.   If they all vote, and we operate in a two party system, they can win elections, as they have already showed.

Some say that perhaps the biggest problem with what Trump is doing is that the attempt to motivate his base -- only about 1/3 of the country -- has moved sports into a higher political realm that it has been.  Traditionally sports has been a unifier.  Sports was one of the first institutions to integrate racially.  And people who hold racially prejudiced views still root for African athletes.   So sports has been a unifier across race lines.   Trump has disrupted that.  Of course, Trump didn't bring politics to sports.  The anthem is political.  And athletes have a long history of activism, perhaps Ali being the most famous case of athlete who put his career on the line for his activism. 

Using fear of a protesting, powerful minority has worked in the past.  This is a longstanding, winning strategy for Trump.  

Recently Facebook did an about face after months of denials -- now they have uncovered 3000 fake ads purchased by Russians to help Trump before the election.

Lets stop for a second and acknowledge what has happened.  Facebook was paid by Russians to purchase fake news, and that was then used to help the Trump campaign.   Facebook became an agent of a foreign government, and was weaponized as a tool to infiltrate and influence our elections.  

Facebook is a behemoth like a bank too big to fail. How bad would they have to get before they were abandoned, criticized or even fined?

My guess is Facebook will suffer zero penalties for their collusion with foreign governments to influence our elections.  Sad.

We don't know the full content of the ads, but some information has been released.  The general trend is that these were ads promoting black lives matter and other left-wing events.  What?   Why would Russians buy black lives matter ads to help Trump?  

Remember. This is the culture war.  

The ads were targeted not at democrats, but at republicans.  The Russians understood the culture war.  If you can get the republican base to become afraid of the rise of minority power, they will be motivated to support the opposition party (i.e., republicans).  They will buy into the slogan to "make america great again" and vote republican.   The million dollar question is how did the Russians have this same strategy as the Trump campaign?  I suppose figuring this out isn't rocket science, but the connection between the Russians and the campaign in using such an odd and sneaky campaign tactic does warrant further investigation.  I'm sure Mueller's team is looking deeply into what ads were bought, where they were displayed, and if somehow the Trump campaign had any input into this strategy. 

Regardless of the investigation about Russia, Trump is no fool.  He knows how to stoke the culture war for his own benefit.

All of this culture wars conflict also has the added benefit of drawing attention away from the Russian investigation that is plaguing Trump's whole administration, along with drawing attention away from his failing approval ratings, the escalation of conflict with N. Korea, and the failure to accomplish his core campaign promises such as healthcare repeal, the border wall, or tax reform.  

However, wading into the culture war may do more harm to Trump than he thinks.  Likely if we talked a lot more about his failures he would work harder to overcome these failures.   If we don't acknowledge the failures, perhaps he will work less hard to overcome them.   If you don’t support Trump’s policies, perhaps you should actually support these forays into the culture wars, at least until the next election.

Re: uncivil discourse and the Trump Phenomenon

He certainly tries to walk this line between America is broken and I'm going to fix it and patriotism tied to American exceptionalism. I don't know that I would say Trump isn't a racist. I wouldn't say he's a white supremacist, but there's plenty of room to the left of that to still call someone out for their racist tendencies. Such things exist on a continuum and I would argue he leans more towards racist, white nationalist views than towards pro-diversity views. I think we could all be criticized in this way. How many friends do any of us have that are minorities? when was the last time we hired a person who is a minority to work with or for us? has any of us dated a person who was a minority? (though I did date a girl in Jamaica once...) etc. etc. That doesn't necessarily make us "racist" per se, but it does probably move us further to the right than some. This isn't a condemnation of us as there is clearly a level in which we're comfortable with, but others might see us as too far right (assuming white nationalist on the right and super pro-diversity on the left) for their comfort. Trump as President is held to a higher standard than us. When he consistently sides with the police over minority victims of police violence, that's a problem. When he hesitates in denouncing white nationalism/nationalists, that's a problem. When his advisers are a room full of white men, that's a problem. I'm not sure the "racist" label as a black and white term to denounce someone, "you're racist" or to defend oneself, "I'm not racist", is terribly useful anymore. Trump clearly does use race issues for his political advantage along with other issues that inflame the right whenever he seemingly feels a lull in the news coverage of him or if he has something to coverup (like the failure to reform healthcare, for example).

The Spiro Agnew example is interesting as that's a good example of the "protesters are unpatriotic" argument failing in the end. I can't think of another time in our history when anti-war protesters were as effective and widespread as against Vietnam. It always seemed to me like, up to that point, the US Government assumed that no matter what conflict they engaged in, the US public would support them because patriotism and "support our troops" would override any concerns regarding the wisdom of engaging in conflict. 

Matthew Kubal
mkubal@indylaw.net
317-525-5985

On Thu, Sep 28, 2017 at 10:20 AM, denny kubal <jdkubal@aol.com> wrote:

I don't like to see any restrictions on speech, I shudder when I see protests at Berkeley.  I note the far left has also condemned such actions, both Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren condemned the protests.  Warren in effect said let her speak, a few people will show up and she will largely be ignored.   

As one writer in your blog said,    Trump is using race and patriotism for political purposes.   

I don't buy trump is a racist, he above all is fixated on winning, defined as making money, receiving praise,  being labeled a winner.  I know he has a history in Real Estate of discrimination against blacks.  I suggest that was a marketing move, he could sell more condos for more money if no blacks were invited, at least he thought so.   his comments against hispanics, muslims blacks all for the benefit of praise and adoration by the base.  I think his health care plan was in the tank, not going to pass and he comes out with this patriotic stuff about the NFL players.  Kopernick taking the knee was largely old news, in a few weeks completely forgotten.   he resurrected it knowing it would inflame the right and deflect criticism from his failing efforts to repeal obamacare.   I think he has no principals conservative or liberal, racists or progressive.  he does and says whatever he needs to stoke his ego.  

I watched the Vietnam doc. last night and saw Spiro Agnew spouted off about how the anti-war protestors were not only unpatriotic, putting our soldiers at risk but dangerous.  they all want to destroy our country.   in response the black student  president of the Northwestern University  explained she and her followers condemned violence, and were just wanting a civil discussion

  and pointed out that Agnew was trying to frighten the public and thereby divide us in his attempt to promote the war.   I called mom in and played it again.  it all sounded so familiar.   

Denny Kubal
jdkubal@aol.com

Reaction to Blog

So the blog was written, in my opinion, to get a rise out of the audience while bringing a different perspective to the table on the latest issue the Trump has. At the moment it's how the players of the NFL have taken a knee during the National Anthem. In a rally in Alabama, he said that the owners of the teams needed to fire the S.O.Bs. Such strong language is used to keep his followers happy. I don't agree with the statement that the "politicians decided that we needed another war". We didn't go into World War One and Two because we needed another war, we went into those wars in order to help those how couldn't fight and win without help. I think the blog served the purpose it was meant to, inform while making a stance that is a sure way to get a reaction from the readers.

Fwd: white christians v. black christians and the protests

Thanks for sending this link

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/heres-what-many-white-christians-fail-to-understand-about-the-nfl-protests_us_59cbbd56e4b02aef6cd6a031

Its an interesting story / idea, suggesting that Black and White Christians have different attitudes about protest.

I thought I would compare it to one national survey, the General Social Survey.  I did a few quick tables looking only at people that identified as Christian (Protestant, Catholic, or other Christian were the answer choices), then examining how Blacks and Whites within these Christian groups responded differently to questions about protest.  While I think the author may be right, the evidence in this national random poll suggests that Black Christians are more likely to support protest in most cases, but that the difference is small and not statistically significant.

This first question asks if youthful protest is good. You can see that Blacks are more likely to strongly agree, but that whites are more likely to agree.  Also, the P value (below the chart on the right) is .09, which is above .05, thus showing that the difference between Black and White Christians in regards to their answer on this question is not a statistically significant difference.  

Black Christians would rather go on a protest march than white Christians, and this difference is not statistically significant.  Among Christians, Blacks are more likely to say they definitely would, and whites are more likely to say they probably would not.  The difference is not statistically significant.  

 

While Black Christians are more likely to say they would join a protest, white Christians are more likely to say they have actually attended a protest (but again the difference is not statistically significant), 

The last chart I ran asked if anti-government protest should be allowed.  There is a small (statistically insignificant) difference whereby Blacks are more likely to support protest,

My conclusion is that while I think the author of the Huffington Post article has some interesting ideas, the General Social Survey shows very limited support. 

---------- Forwarded message ----------

From: denny kubal <jdkubal@aol.com>
Date: Thu, Sep 28, 2017 at 1:36 PM
Subject: white christians v. black christians and the protests
To: mkubal@indylaw.net, tkubal@csufresno.edu


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/heres-what-many-white-christians-fail-to-understand-about-the-nfl-protests_us_59cbbd56e4b02aef6cd6a031

Denny Kubal
jdkubal@aol.com

uncivil discourse and the Trump Phenomenon

I don't like to see any restrictions on speech, I shudder when I see protests at Berkeley.  I note the far left has also condemned such actions, both Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren condemned the protests.  Warren in effect said let her speak, a few people will show up and she will largely be ignored.   

As one writer in your blog said,    Trump is using race and patriotism for political purposes.   

I don't buy trump is a racist, he above all is fixated on winning, defined as making money, receiving praise,  being labeled a winner.  I know he has a history in Real Estate of discrimination against blacks.  I suggest that was a marketing move, he could sell more condos for more money if no blacks were invited, at least he thought so.   his comments against hispanics, muslims blacks all for the benefit of praise and adoration by the base.  I think his health care plan was in the tank, not going to pass and he comes out with this patriotic stuff about the NFL players.  Kopernick taking the knee was largely old news, in a few weeks completely forgotten.   he resurrected it knowing it would inflame the right and deflect criticism from his failing efforts to repeal obamacare.   I think he has no principals conservative or liberal, racists or progressive.  he does and says whatever he needs to stoke his ego.  

I watched the Vietnam doc. last night and saw Spiro Agnew spouted off about how the anti-war protestors were not only unpatriotic, putting our soldiers at risk but dangerous.  they all want to destroy our country.   in response the black student  president of the Northwestern University  explained she and her followers condemned violence, and were just wanting a civil discussion

  and pointed out that Agnew was trying to frighten the public and thereby divide us in his attempt to promote the war.   I called mom in and played it again.  it all sounded so familiar.   

Denny Kubal
jdkubal@aol.com

participation assignent

When it comes to this issue I think that the way that Trump handled it was way out of proportion. He could have said things in a different way and not call them the things that he did. Personally I don't think that taking a knee is offensive but everyone has a different view and different perspective on the issue. When you said ,"Is this a sign of racism that he ignores or dismisses issues important to Black and Brown people? No but it says a lot about Trump's base and definitely shows Trump is taking sides in a culture war." I disagree with you that he is not racist, I believe that is a form of racism in some sense. This is because in all if you weren't even a little bit racist you would do anything to help anyone despite the color of their skin, especially since he is the president. He is so quickly to defend and help white but anyone he couldn't care less. In all this is an issue that is occurring and I think that he needs to reconsider the way that he came upon the situation and repress his opinion the the NFL.