Racism Rearing Its Ugly Face In The Washington Post

edvard-munch-the-scream-1893The prior days I have written about an incident that occurred in New York City between two people occupying apartments one underneath the other on  floors five and six of a building. One workday night between one and two in the morning the tenant in the sixth floor apartment made sufficient noise to wake up the tenant in the fifth floor named David. David left a note telling the sixth floor tenant he did not appreciate it and that he was going to notify the management and if it happened again call the cops.

The sixth floor tenant decided that letter was a direct threat to his personal and psychological well-being and an act of violence against him. He denied making noise to wake them up, said if he did their aggressive note was unnecessary, and he intends to make whatever noise he desires in the future.

Poor David, not only did he get woken up but he now has had thrust in his hand a letter accusing him of an act of violence by the person who he complained to about waking him. This was the last thing David needed.

He wrote back: “I know this was probably dictated by the tone of my note, but please do not perceive me as just another narrow-minded white p—- scared of anything outside of his little white world. I have nothing in common with such people, and I would like to emphasize it once (again) that my note yesterday, rude as it was, was nothing more than a response to a late-night disturbance.”  He left his name, his number and his email address and encouraged his neighbor to knock on his door and chat: “You know where we live.”

 

I suppose you can figure out by David’s response that the sixth floor neighbor was black and suggested that David complained about the noise because of that. David admits he is white but emphasizes he is not “narrow-minded”  and has nothing to do with white people “scared of anything outside of his little white world.”  In the face of the sixth floor tenant’s aggressiveness David folds his tent, apologizes for his letter, and suggests to his sixth floor neighbor it is all right if he makes all the noise he wishes to make. David’s timidity reaffirms in the guy causing the trouble that he is the aggrieved party.

This article in the Washington Post written by a black reporter noted that the letter of the sixth floor tenant which he put on Facebook was: “This is a perfect example of how to keep your cool when you confronted ignorance. Don’t stoop to their level… To quote the FLOTUS “When they go low we go high!” Rock on Richard with your bad self!”

#CLAPBACKOFTHESEASON Towanna Williams Thompson called it.

Josmar Trujillo, a New York writer and activist with the Coalition to End Broken Windows said: “The interaction between the neighbors in a gentrifying community is “emblematic of what people see as this oil and water relationship between people who are gentrifying into neighborhoods of color. You’re basically asking me to adhere to your norms. You’re coming in with what you feel is the right volume and the right temperature for the community and you’re trying to hang that over my head. The police are the tool that can be used to bash people over the head with those new norms.” 

Get that the gentrifying people are asking the people of color to “adhere to your norms.” You know like not raising a ruckus at between one and two in the morning during a workday. I thought those were universal norms to have respect for people who have to sleep to be ready for work.

I thought the idea was for us to get along as people not to be finding reasons not to. This whole episode between two neighbors was a tempest in a tea pot. It should have remained as such. That the Washington Post thought it was newsworthy and the letter of the noisy tenant worth producing in full suggests its goal is not racial harmony but is stirring up racial hatred.

I suppose we must keep that in mind in its coverage of the newly elected president. It aims to tear down rather than build up. Maybe that is good for business but it sure isn’t helpful for a country trying to survive.

19 Comments

  1. A guy named Jackson dreamed up e-gold. He was a former oncologist who liked running an illegal INTERNET bank better than practicing medicine.

  2. FSB hooked up with the remnants of the old Shadow Crew to trick out the 2016 presidential election. They hack huge amounts of financial data, and, cut it into chunks for resale on the dark-side of the INTERNET. If anyone would like to research the Shadow Crew, look up the history of the e-gold company. Besides being data thieves, the Shadow Crew people were/are stone fascist, Neo-Nazis. Glorious Leader runs with the best.

  3. Matt
    Have you read any parts of this report and if so what are your thoughts?

    https://www.congress.gov/108/crpt/hrpt414/CRPT-108hrpt414-vol1.pdf

    • Roger:

      Read all of it. It was a big publicity stunt by some Congressmen who were bored. They started our investigating the FBI’s involvement in the Teddie Deegan murder. Has as witnesses some of the lawyers for the Mafia guys who were convicted who as expected told how evil the FBI was in convicting four of the defendants. One of the defendants, Salvati, might have been frames but it is clear to me that the other three were involved, two gave the OK for the hit. The FBI tapes showed that happened but a federal judge found all of them not involved and gave each of them 25 million.

      So the select committee was formed with the intent to excoriate the FBI. As the hearings went on they suddenly shifted to go after Billy Bulger, the brother of Whitey Bulger, because doing that they were able to get good publicity in the Boston newspapers. The result was nothing changed because the Committee like all committees in Congress is afraid of the FBI.

      • Matt
        Appreciate the feedback. Do you recommend I read through the 1812 pages? Merry Christmas to you and your family. Till next time.

        • Roger:

          Merry Christmas to you and your family. It is a lot of pages but if you are interested in the subject it is pretty good reading. You just have to understand everyone has an agenda. FBI Agent Rico’s testimony is worth reading. He went in without a lawyer and faced aggressive questioning. He would be called back again but he refused to testify the second time recognizing that the committee was not interested in getting the facts but in getting him. He would eventually be indicted in Oklahoma, wrongfully I believe.

          Billy Bulger got immunity. Before the testified the first time in Boston the U.S. Attorney leaked to the Boston Globe his grand jury testimony where he admitted he received a call from Whitey while he was on the lam. He too saw that he was being set up and took the Fifth. He would receive immunity and then did testify but spoke very cautiously knowing the knives were out for him. After his testimony the committee sent investigators to Boston looking to trap him.

          You will note that like all Congressional investigations they tell us how wonderful most of the FBI agents are which makes you wonder if that is the case why they investigate it at all. They try to pretend that it was only a handful of agents who were bad when anyone with knowledge of the FBI knows how each office has agents going in an out all the time so it is hard to pull out one or two as the committee liked to do.

          Keep in mind the committee had a goal and worked toward it; it was not seeking the truth. Enjoy reading it but try to look at the motives of all the people testifying before accepting what they say as the full truth.

  4. All you Putin haters, where’d you disappear to? Oh, I see, now, that he’s swapping spit with Glorious Leader, everything is forgiven. Do you think Trump will help Putin seize Ukraine? How soon will Kiev be betrayed? Is there any doubt that abandoning Ukraine will be Glorious Leader’s dowry for the marriage of Russian and American interests?

    Elmer: What do you think?

    • Khalid:

      First the West Bank will go and then Western Ukraine. No doubt Trump will be telling us that the Ukrainians are a break away province from Russia and he is facilitating its return to the motherland. With 37% of the Republicans now thinking positive thoughts of Putin who will be left to object. And look at all those Russians without a vote in the Balkins – didn’t Britain invade the Orange Free State because it deprived its citizens of the vote so expect Trump to explain to his starry eyed Trumpeteers that Putin is only doing what is right and by the way it is good they are leaving NATO since they did not pay their share for its defense.

  5. Lets face it, people are weasels. Big deal the guy was woken up one time you live in an apartment building sometimes that happens. What makes this “white guy” more of a weasel he throws all those “other” white people under the bus. If David truly has ventured out his “little white” world he would see in many black neighborhoods a simple noise complaint can turn into a homicide faster than he can say, “Sorry I am a white man”

  6. Didn’t the downstairs neighbor use a white man’s version of black dialect to render his complaint to the upstairs neighbor? That’s bound to elicit a bad reaction from an educated African-American person. In fact, it’s a serious insult, evoking both racism, and, class animosity.
    You guys just don’t get it. White people don’t have the right to determine what constitutes racism. That dubious privilege is reserved for the folks they shit on.

    • Halloooo Comma-rad :

      Not for knockin’, but you never use a comma after a coordinating conjunction, particularly when you have already used a serial , or ” Oxford ” comma , as you undoubtedly know , before your conjunction …” and” … and your preceding word. To place a comma both before and after that conjunction is … not good.

      That said as a gentle raillery at your starchy grammatical precision regarding rules you fly by the seat of your pants by, let me say this , who gives a F*** ?

      I do not particularly bother as to race or speech codes with people. I have known warriors, weasels. wasters and greatsters of every race, creed, description and conviction. I started adverserially with you several years ago, being one of the first contributors to this blog. When you came on, we wrangled. I told you to STFU then, and when you piss me off, I still speak plainly to you. Yet, it was clear to me that you ” got ” that I realized you had a good working brain, whatever your race or my race, and that I knew you, like me, had been in the trenches ; different trenches, different times, same old dirty, beautiful , inescapable World! So, and I let you know this, there is Respect .

      This blog has ” morphed ” to use yet another of my words, that Matt loves to borrow, into a whimsical vehicle for mundane musings about really trivial shit.

      Yep, We all cringe a little when our beloved moderator, a poky old gus whom we can’t help liking somehow, posts his Trump post election fantasy parody : bearding the Big Man, and not simply ” Carmen ” in Trump Tower no less. Waxing on about “mick” Romney as a post election ” brown nose” gives us a sympathetic shiver for our fearless moderator as we recollect that he engaged in the same wholesale reviling of Trump pre-election, as Mick the Brown Nose. And then, like ” Mick ” …. paid a … Visit. There is a poetical and symbolic justice in what the Unconscious threw up on Donald’s carpet.

      Now, It’s BIG NEWS that we have a ” Race Baiting Media ” , and Matt has not only jumped on that bandwagon, he is trying to convince all he is leading the charge. Gimme a break. Get REAL.

      I can forgive a great deal with people who I know, like myself, are imperfect, but have a goodness about them. I saw the face of an old woman, tearstained and agonized, in the Herald today. She is the Widow Morlock, wife of a Brink’s Guard allegedly gunned down by Ralph DiMasi twenty five years ago. Described as a ” Whitey Bulger ” friend and pen pal by the Blood Press, we realize just how wide ” Whiteys’ ( plural possessive intended) World ” is. Ralph was allegedly a Bulger gunshot victim on Morrissey Boulevard nearing fifty years ago.

      There are many victims in the Whitey saga. Some are barely distinguishable , like Ralph, from the , allegedly, stone killers. But not All. Some got taken for a serious ride, by the Blood Press, and their minions.

      ” THE PAST IS NOT DEAD, THE PAST IS NOT EVEN THE PAST. ” Faulkner

    • Khalid:

      Why do white people have less a voice than others. I thought in America we all had the right to speak out on any subject. Who is now going to determine who can speak about what?

  7. The most disturbing aspect of the story has not been remarked upon: the cowering of the White David when faced with the liberal nuclear weapon – you’re a Racist. This is being taught to White children in schools, in entertainment and the news media. Hopefully the election of Donald Trump and the emerging of the AltRight will start the long, painful reversal of the suppression of White consciousness and self-assertiveness that created this country we call America.

    Successful societies require a dominant culture. Thousands of histories proclaim this simple fact. America is at its core a White Christian nation. When it ceases to so be, it ceases to be America. None of the minorities that are unfortunately growing in numbers have the cultural or genetic background to continue it.

    A nation is not an agreed proposition which can be nothing more than a papering over of reality. A nation is a nuptial between Blood and Soil. The elites have succumbed to the lure of global money and degenerate Hollywood razzle-dazzle. The common people have been weaned from their heritage which has enervated their souls.

    Confidence needs to be reinstalled in Whites. The doleful legacy of America’s worst generation – the fools that voted for the Continental Liar, Franklin Roosevelt, in 1940. They allowed themselves to be drafted as Bolshevik allies, trained to be obedient and then rewarded with either a grave or a parade. This decline must be reversed.

    The advent of Donald Trump is a sign that the pendulum is to swing back. The Davids of the world may be lost. Maybe they can put on big boy pants someday. He should not have accepted Black ghettoization as a fact of life. He owes it to his forebears and his progeny even if he has not the dignity to demand it for himself and his wife.

    Those following the Davids, however, are awakening and understand the value of being assertive and unafraid of dominating. The kids in high school today get it as they become politically aware. The system is screwing them big time. They want change. They know what needs to change. Trump is showing them how – America First! They feel themselves to be the true America, a happy land of confidence, unapologetic, unfazed by self assertion.

    No society can long prosper without a habit of No Apology, No Retreat, No Surrender. I have faith in the young. They should trust no one over 25, especially those with a college degree. I don’t trust them either and I’m in my 70s.

    • There’s no fool, like an old fool.

    • Tadzio:

      Agree that David made a big mistake in not sticking to his guns. Agree that terms like racist, anti-Semetic, homophobic, and the like are meant to back people down. Some do, some don’t.

      Agree America is a white Christian nation but it is more than that. It is a WASP country and culture. The Irish, Italians, Eastern Europeans, Russian Jews had very little part in making its culture. Catholics were not considered Christians — as you know we took over the Philippines to save those dark souls from their papist beliefs and one of the reasons we did not annex Mexico was there were too many Catholics there.

      Over time the WASPS control was whittled down by all those excluded groups. The culture became one of a vast Judeo-Christian group added to by the many who came from Asia who blended in which went far beyond whites but also included many black Christians who until the 1960s were mostly second class citizens. Since then they have added to the American culture along with the Hispanics and like with the first wave after the WASPS they have made America into what it is today which is a better culture than what went before.

      The American culture is unique since it does accept all into our own mini-world and that is what makes America the great country that it is today. We cannot go back but must move forward. The people here are all Americans and have the same rights as you and I. No one is being screwed. Certainly the whites who still hold most of the wealth and power in the country are not.

      You seem to suggest blacks, Latinos and Asians are not true Americans. How can you possibly suggest that. Many of them have been here since the founding of our country. Do we now have a special classification of Americans by the color of their skin or by their nationality or by religion? Are those the days you want to go back to where the Irish Catholics could not get jobs because of their faith and heritage?

      Trust no one over 30 was the cry of youth in the sixties. The Asians society accept the wisdom that comes with age. What does a person under 25 really know of life? No one has to apologize, surrender or retreat. We only have to recognize that in this country all Americans are equal regardless of race, color, creed or sexual preference. That is the way it should be.

  8. Agreed with Matt and GOK;
    The press sinks lower and lower. More false stories and hysteria. Just scan the web!

  9. As Jeff Bezos, I mean the WaPo, fights for its life, it goes back to the tried and true, time-tested approach : muckraking.