Erin Schrode is Jewish.
She has received countless, vitriolic emails from people who know she’s
Jewish, and says this is how online racism & anti-Semitism by trollers
reach many. She sees them each day,
because she’s run for political office, and is a founder of an environmental
nonprofit. She must keep up with Social
Media to do her job.
Among the sites that have impacted her are trolling,
racist-mode content, such as the Daily
Stormer; then, of course, we have Bannon’s site, the Alt Right, that stirs up white nationalism and racism; by the
way, remember? Bannon’s one of Trump top
aides.
But, think about it for a minute: if you were (or are) Jewish,
who had family, friends, and ancestors killed in the Holocaust, how would you feel receiving one of these anti-Semitic
emails? Does it harm, or does it cause
good? There’s not really many positives
on this one.
My opinion is that the Far-Right Websites are attempting to
change our cultural reality (they came to mainstream
around 2014). They are trying to make
the fact of people with ethnicities different from ours, something to joke
about, something to laugh at-if they can reach this goal, they’ve managed to
de-fang any kind of “ism” that promotes exclusivism, hate, bias towards others,
stereotypes, racial slurs, and indirect racism-it now doesn’t exist!
Historians and textbook writers & editors have avoided “x-ing”
out the exceptionalism from
textbooks, they’ve mislead people by their nuancing of American Colonialism,
and their explanations of slavery and democracy. Shame on you!
Andrew Auernheimer, a notorious hacker and digital hitman
said, “Being offensive is a political act, if something pushes up against
polite civilization, it’s for purpose.”
But does that mean we should go “low” by laughing at groups and people
we think are abnormal-they’re not white!
Going “low” appears to label the dynamics of politics today. Humor is humor, because it levels us all at
the same place-we have common mishaps and foibles-so we can learn to laugh at
ourselves.
A poor use of humor, however, may come across just as
oppositional as a “put down” or any other kind of insult or innuendo. So, it can backfire. The trollers ought to
Walk with wise hears, and hear the possibilities of their
cultural demise.
©Christopher Bear-Beam April 1, 2017
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