I don’t think I’ve ever read a series of opinion articles in my life worse than what stained the pages of The Washington Post after the Charleston shootings. Many of the authors are nothing more than ‘experts’ who majored in Reinforce-My-Biased-Point-Of-View Studies and now make a living either teaching their own nonsense to a new crop of future agitators, or freelance writing trolling.
These articles hit it big, in that many folks read them. But that hardly means they’re smart.
Black America should stop forgiving white racists… This writer is arguing for more hate, and apparently opposed to Christian values of forgiveness. I can’t think of anything more honorable than the children of a murder victim to forgive the racist killer and release themselves of this hatred. But, this writer would prefer anger and bitterness on behalf of an entire race of people, because THAT will show other racists out there that they won’t so easily be let off the hook the next time they commit mass murder.
How benevolent sexism drove Dylann Roofs racist massacre… This writer is actually taking the words of a killer, “You rape our women,” to complain about sexism. Because his words carry sooooo much credibility and we have sooooo much to learn from her on how sexist he is because of that. I’m not entirely clear what she’s trying to accomplish other than pointing out that the words of racist killer are bad.
Only white people can save themselves from racism and white supremacism… This comes from a white-guilt narcissist, who is basically blaming every white person for not doing everything possible to somehow beat the racism and white supremacism out of someone.
Of course, 99 percent of southern whites will never go into a church, sit down with people and then massacre them. But that 99 percent is responsible for the one who does.
Aside from the writer not understanding basic math and grossly overstating the number of southern whites who will massacre people, to even suggest that 99% of a population is responsible for the actions or thoughts of 1% is unrealistic at best, absurd at worst.
Shooters of color are called terrorists and thugs. Why are white shooters called mentally ill?… Weird, cause I don’t seem to remember John Allen Muhammed, Lee Boyd Malvo and Aaron Alexis being referred to as terrorists (despite the fact that John Allen Muhammad was Muslim). These glaringly obvious examples didn’t work for this writer’s argument, so instead she cherry-picked examples from the oh-so-credible likes of Geraldo Rivera to support her claims.
While I would never argue that what the Charleston shooter did wasn’t a brand of terrorism, the lone-wolf-loser who didn’t even have any white supremacist friends and acted alone is hardly in the same ballpark as ISIS or al-Qaeda. Contrarily, the lynchings, church-burnings and crimes of the Ku Klux Klan back in the day can’t be described as anything but terrorism.
As for the mentally ill part? It’s simply not normal behavior to massacre people. The killers are either brainwashed into a cause (which seemed to have happened here) and/or are mentally ill (yes, even the black ones). But the writer instead is more concerned with name-calling while withholding way-too-obvious counter examples.
Charleston, Dylann Roof and the racism of millennials… Hear that folks? An entire generation of Americans are racist and this 21-year-old just proved it.
As long as society refuses to confront this legacy of the ugly sin of racism today, we cannot depend on tomorrows generations to come to our rescue.
The writer ignores every last positive movement and law in the last half century that was clearly designed entirely to confront the sin of racism. She ignores any single fact that shows that 2015 is NOT 1960s Mississippi. She ignores the state-funded education about the nation’s ugly history involving slavery, Jim Crow laws, etc. To even suggest that society hasn’t confronted this issue undermines decades of irrefutable progress. By the way, she’s an editor. And you wonder why people claim the media are bias?
Death of a Nation “” white supremacy is slowly killing us… To me this is the worst article, because this writer is an employee of The Post and paid to regularly spew out highly refutable arguments with broad generalizations. On top of that, I’ve seen her regularly withhold fact-based points that run contrary to the story she wants to tell, but I digress. For this example, I’ll skip to the part where she essentially pats herself on the back for writing the same tired drivel that other writers also covered.
On our way to school, my 17-year-old daughter implored me to write about race, “in order to let people know.” “Will things change if people know?” I asked. “Possibly,” she said, “but nothing will ever change if they dont.”
The writer doesn’t seem to understand that her articles, filled with bitterness and blame, are more likely to be received with resentment and anger by folks who obviously don’t respond well to accusatory fingers pointed at them. I really tried to find some positive messages in her article, something that would enlighten me and make me a better person. But I was having a hard time doing that because all I hear is that I’m a privileged oppressor, along with all other white people, and all black people are victims who can’t possibly succeed because of us.
For these articles, which are far more likely to fan the flames of resentment than ‘enlighten’ anyone, I blame the editors. Any idiot can write an opinion article, but that doesn’t mean every opinion deserves to be published. Why bother looking for well-written, logically-inclined, intelligent articles that even make the opposition appreciate the thought, when it’s so easy to find aggravators who are sure to deliver page views? Now keep in mind, I’ll fully acknowledge good arguments when I see them, even if I disagree. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar made me do that earlier with this article.
But these articles on The Post’s site… these blame-spewing, hypocritical, drunken rants that do nothing but deepen a divide and cause way more harm than good… the editors should be ashamed of themselves for giving these the green light. They needn’t resort to trolling for page views when there are plenty of intelligent writers out there who can put together a coherent argument.
But page views is the name of the game, so perhaps these were brilliant decisions after all.