The “woke mob” didn’t kill 10 people in Buffalo.
A transgender swimmer didn’t kill 10 people in Buffalo.
A teacher talking about CRT didn’t kill 10 people in Buffalo.
No, the biggest menace to Americans continues to be an angry white man echoing Fox News talking points.
In this case, the justification for mass homicide was a favorite among conservatives: replacement theory.
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I have lived in my neighborhood in Los Angeles for 12 years, far longer than I’ve ever lived anywhere else. Obviously, I love it.
Yes, I know — according to right-wing suburbanites, there is no greater hell than California, where you can’t go a day without being carjacked by crackheads, shot by MS-13, and swallowed whole by an earthquake. Worse of all, our gas is six dollars per gallon.
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Have you ever felt disrespected?
Perhaps someone mocked the color of your skin. Or morons in positions of authority dismissed your good ideas. Or everyone laughed when you said that Avatar is a masterpiece.
Actually, check that last one. You kind of had it coming.
In any case, from toddlers to world leaders to hardcore rappers, everybody wants the same thing:
Respect.
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Some jerk cut me off in traffic today, so I chased him at high speed until he crashed. Then I pulled him out of his car, punched him bloody, and smashed his windshield with a rock.
Well, no, that didn’t actually happen. Yes, I got cut off in traffic, which is a near-daily occurrence because I live in Los Angeles. But I didn’t chase the guy.
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Here’s some good news: We Americans are officially happier than the French. A recent report that measures happiness says the USA ranks well above France with all its existentialism, ennui, and heavy smoking.
Ok, the Parisians have a dark side, so maybe that’s not a fair comparison. Well, how do we compare to the rest of the industrialized world? To be honest, not so great.
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With the country going to hell, nobody would get judgmental if you wanted to take the edge off. Maybe it’s a beer after work, or a quick hit on the bong, or a couple of happy pills. Regardless of the specific drug you prefer, the fact is that humans like to get buzzed, and almost every culture has a method of altering our consciousness.
But like most aspects of contemporary life, racial and class differences are prevalent in this most basic of activities. For example, both the government and big businesses have a growing interest in the pharmaceutical, medical, and psychological benefits of psychedelics. Apparently, eating shrooms and dropping ecstasy can be good for you, at least under the right circumstances.
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Perhaps you remember the bombshell news story from a few months ago that revealed the top 1% of America’s wealthy “got way richer during the pandemic.” Yes, even as millions of citizens were begging for a few hundred bucks to alleviate the devastation of Covid-19, our billionaires raked in so much money that they were in danger of suffocating in their golden bathtubs as their servants shoveled piles of cash over them.
Yes, wealthy people have some odd kinks.
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Decades ago, my mother emigrated to America to attend college. She never moved back to El Salvador, but that had less to do with chasing the American Dream and more because, you know, life stuff happens. Oh, my mom also stayed because she discovered that she had been lied to her entire life.
You see, growing up in El Salvador, my mother was never educated about some of the more horrendous facts of her country’s history. These unfortunate episodes had been hidden from her. Once in America, however, she had access to this forbidden knowledge, and after finding out how atrociously her government had acted, she was not in a big hurry to move back. Understandably, she was angry that she had to move to another nation to learn her own country’s history.
However, this cultural behavior—the active covering up of disturbing historical facts—is not unique to El Salvador. Almost every society has a problem admitting its mess-ups, failures, and outright barbarism.
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In what can only be described as a failed gotcha moment, an anti-vaxxer recently emailed me a diatribe that contained the following question: “Name one time that the people forcing compliance on others were on the right side of history.”
It took approximately 1.9 seconds for me to think, “Brown vs. Board of Education,” but I didn’t bother to email him my answer because I don’t engage with trolls.
In any case, the anti-vaxxer’s sad attempt to stump me did have an unintended effect. It got me thinking about the reverse scenario: “Name one time that White conservatives fighting social progress were on the right side of history.”
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With luck, this will be the last time I write about Covid-19.
You see, some experts believe that we may finally be nearing the end of this wretched, soul-crushing, nation-defiling pandemic. That means no more news stories about thousands of Americans dying daily, no more anti-maskers punching people out, and no more Facebook posts about robots in your bloodstream (ok, that last one will probably stick around).
Of course, this doesn’t mean that the virus will magically go away. Hey, it was supposed to do that 18 months ago.
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