would someone in addition to Chaz pls show me how the statements below are racist? thank you.
>The question is why do you spend so much energy trying to show that they
weren't >racist ?
huh? when was i doing this. said over and over again that they were racists. show me where i've been trying to show they weren't. i've been arguing that they probably weren't seriously, aberrantly, virulently racist. i've explained why, one of the quote from a 4.22 post explains it YET again.
Charles, once again you are portraying me as saying things I never said. I have never said that racism wasn't an important issue. I never made racist arguments either. In fact, I called for a more nuanced, sophisticated understanding of how race was a factor, rather than reaching for easy answers like "they were neo-nazi's" or "they wanted to kill blacks, but killed whites too to cover it up" as for the media, i said that i think we should attend to *HOW* the media deals with race 'cause they certainly weren't denying it or ignoring. didn't read one account that failed to deal with the n word, that failed to talk about nazi ties, that didn't ask if these kids were racists, etc. You got all bummed about the fact that they weren't making enough of racism and of the nazi connection. my arguments have been, "hold on here, wait a minute, let's look at what might be going on here when they make these kids out to be nazis"
here's what i said: 4/22 " it's pretty clear that there was more to this than racism. that's surely *part* of it, but certainly not what prompted them to kill 11 jocks and a teacher--all white,"
4/22 "what better way to explain this bizarre event than to write them off as racist nazi sympathizers rather than the typical altogether too normal products of capitalist, racist, sexist society. in other words, it's not yer normal racism --which heaven forbid, white middle class people in the suburbs surely aren't, {sarcasm there charles, m.a} but when they are then hell it *must* be because of something abnormal, something weird like nazism, etc.
4/22 "what i'm pissed about in the media representation of this is that they have dismissed the shooting of a black student and the use of the word n-word and, indeed, the entire incident by attributing it to their connections to some neo-nazi youth cult. skinheads *are* big in Denver. but these kids were goths. not skinheads."
"it is absurd to tell kirsten that you see nothing wrong with overemphasizing racism. it is absurb because it only fuels the fires of those who are already extraordinarily and aberrantly racist and it only confirms the suspcions of those who are just yer normal racists that the left is comprised of a bunch of PC wankers who'd rather grind an axe on any media event rather than take the time to provide nuanced, complex, sohpisticated analyses of the conjunction of racism and capitalist exploitation and oppression.
kelley