[golergka]

I may be a bit out of context of American politics, so an honest question here: how a threat to looters, who actively commit a crime, without any reference to skin color, can be racist?

Seeing how violent these riots can get, that phrase is exactly what I would love to hear from authorities as black business owner, for example.

[hackissimo123]

Trump used the the phrase "when the looting starts, the shooting starts" as part of a longer series of Tweets about the riots. The same phrase was also said at least once before, by an obscure racist 70 years ago whom no-one had heard of before the Tweet. Some have drawn the conclusion that Trump was in fact making a deliberate reference to this obscure racist.

[golergka]

> The same phrase was also said at least once before, by an obscure racist 70 years ago

I have to come clean: I haven't been completely intellectually honest in asking the question above. I have already known about it.

The point is, I have a problem with the way present-day american political life has a way with meanings of words. You guys seem to put so much importance on imaginary dog-whistels and connotations, and are willing to interpret the original phrases in such bizzare and far-fetched ways.

And if we continue to play this game, the only ones who win are the people that are willingly interpret anything in the most offensive and divisive way.

[hackissimo123]

I fully agree; was just trying to give a direct answer to what I perceived your question to be.

[aebtebeten]

speaking of interpretations, this is what I read in the local paper: "Facebook removes Trump Ad due to Nazi symbol" https://www.srf.ch/news/international/wegen-nazi-symbol-face...

[082349872349872]

found in english: https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-facebook-trump/facebook-ta...

As you all point out, this could simply be highly unfortunate coincidence. I would advise the white house to try internally circulating campaigns for feedback before running them.

(a flight of fancy: the infamous Antifa agent Max Isayev, as part of a highly structured plot —supported not only by the FBI, but also by Thurn und Taxis and the Trans Scouts of America— to prevent Trump's reelection, has gone deep undercover at Fox under the name of Seymour Buttz, and has been both circulating memes with unfortunate connotations among the Base and flashing subliminal emoji during programming, confident that in the US things that happened in WW2 are even less part of common knowledge than things that Ancient Astronaut theorists believe, making it more likely his nefarious "suggestions" will intermittently seep into campaign material with the innocents none the wiser.)

[hackissimo123]

Too late to edit: it was actually 53 years ago, not 70. My bad.

[nix0n]

The references to skin color are usually implicit (especially after his presidential term started), but they are always there.

I can understand how a non-American might miss Trump's racist phrases, but he's pandering to a white supremacist base who are sure to see them.

I don't have a specific link to reference, but the tactic he's using is often referred to as a "dog whistle".

[z9e]

Do we have an estimate as to how many white supremacists there are in the US? I’m genuinely curious, because the popular march in VA had what, a few hundred? I realize that may not be the entire population. There’s probably more anti-vaxxers than white supremacists at this point.

I don’t understand how people think there’s a white supremacist base that has a ton of power in this country.

[pjc50]

If there aren't very many white supremacists, where is all the racism coming from?

> I don’t understand how people think there’s a white supremacist base that has a ton of power in this country.

The police can shoot people dead, lie about the circumstances, and not even face trial or suspension? Have you missed all the protests and the wall to wall news coverage of the past few weeks?

[z9e]

> If there aren't very many white supremacists, where is all the racism coming from?

Where is the ubiquitous racism being seen? I am in no way trying to be facetious, but we need to be accurate here. Only reason I ask is because I see racism being thrown around at people who aren't racist, and only because they disagree with a narrative. That word doesn't really mean anything anymore.

I haven't missed it, I just don't think police brutality is purely a race issue. I think it comes down to poor training and not enough vetting so psychopaths like Chauvin don't get the job. There's also not enough accountability for those in charge to fire these cops after multiple civilian complaints are filed against them.

[082349872349872]

There are people with LE background who have ideas for how to improve it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23429390

(my current theory as to why the US military is more enlightened than US police is (a) they normally operate in situations where they have to win hearts and minds, and (b) "up or out" gets rid of bad apples)

For what it's worth, I have colleagues who have gone through police academy. It's 2 years here, which may correlate with the <1 per 10mm rate on: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforc...

[aebtebeten]

I agree (being an amateur crowd counter) that there is a wide difference in the observed popular support for white supremacist and for anti-lynching demonstrations.

(How well people in the streets translates into political representation, we'll discover at the end of this year. For a while after 2016 there was a cottage industry of german TV reporters going to the US to interview Trump voters, and finding they often had strong views on minorities despite not having known any themselves. That may or may not be true in general, but it's the picture we got here.)

However, it does seem that even though the soviets haven't been with us for several decades, the subject of their favourite whataboutism fallacy didn't end when the cold war did.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes

"Police brutality" was common enough to be portrayed in 2004 childrens' pop culture (note the knee on the neck) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sg3NFHv7ASo

[hackissimo123]

This blog post[1] tried to figure out a number back in 2016. (Warning: that's not the only thing the post discusses; avoid if you've already had too much culture war.)

To quote: "My guess is that the number of organized white supremacists in the country is in the very low five digits." It's just the thoughts of some random blogger, not an academic study, but he lays out his methodology in detail and it seems reasonable.

Of course that was four years ago, but the estimate seems consistent with the evidence from the 2017 Charlottesville rally, which only drew a few hundred attendees despite being the biggest, most prominent and well-publicised white supremacist rally in the USA for decades.

Of course this is only talking about active, open white supremacists, not the full gamut of racism. But I find it hard to believe that the number of Richard-Spencer-style racists in the USA is anything other than tiny - far too small to have any influence at the ballot box. And by the way, does anyone seriously think that there was ever any chance of these people voting for Hillary Clinton (or Joe Biden) in the first place?

To quote the same blog post:

> Dog whistling seems to be the theory that if you want to know what someone really believes, you have to throw away decades of consistent statements supporting the side of an issue that everyone else in the world supports, and instead pay attention only to one weird out-of-character non-statement which implies he supports a totally taboo position which is perhaps literally the most unpopular thing it is possible to think.

> And then you have to imagine some of the most brilliant rhetoricians and persuaders in the world are calculating that it’s worth risking exposure this taboo belief in order to win support from a tiny group with five-digit membership whose support nobody wants, by sending a secret message, which inevitably every single media outlet in the world instantly picks up on and makes the focus of all their coverage for the rest of the election.

[1] https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/11/16/you-are-still-crying-w...

[AnimalMuppet]

Ah, that turned on a light bulb for me. They're finding dog whistles by deconstructing the text. That makes perfect sense.

Since there are so many possible deconstructions (as many as there are readers), it also means that it's a game that the speaker cannot win. Someone will always be able to deconstruct what you say to be a dogwhistle, no matter what you say. So the only possible approach is to just ignore them, because if you try to play their game, you are going to lose, and to continue to lose.

[golergka]

> he's pandering to a white supremacist base who are sure to see them

At this point, it seems like a non-falsifiable hypothesis. I constantly see how in american politics anything Trump says gets interpreted in most bizzare way possible, rationalizing it that he's speaking in secret code for his white supremacist friends. What really got me whas the point where american media quoted Trump on praising General Lee, as if Trump was gloryfing Conferedacy - while the quote in context was clearly intended to paint Lee as a worthy adversary and by that, praise the Union.

I'm sorry, but after that, all accusations of "racism" and "white supremacy" sound like the boy who just cries wolf again. And the most saddeing part about it is, I know for a fact that after saying that, I will be accused of being a closeted nazi too.

[898420938988]

You may already know this, but when people say "white supremacy" they might not mean what you think they mean. For a certain strand of activist, "white supremacy" doesn't just mean the KKK, lynching, Jim Crow, apartheid, black slavery, all the other obvious and overt forms of white racism. It refers to a vaguely-defined sense of racism that supposedly is omnipresent in American (and more generally Western) society, affects everything we do and is apparently inescapable. These people will tell you that we live in a white supremacist society, that white supremacy is at the core of most if not all of our social, political and economic structures, and if you disagree then this only proves that you support the system and are therefore a white supremacist.

This might sound ridiculous but it's taken very seriously by a growing number of people; it has its roots in a certain strain of postmodern thought called critical race theory that's been slowly emanating out of academia for the last decade or two and is now seriously spilling over into the mainstream. See e.g. Robin Diangelo's book White Fragility (which is currently back on the bestseller lists) which asserts that all white people are racist, and if you're white and don't admit that you're racist then this is just you demonstrating "white fragility" which proves... that you're a racist. This is of course divisive, harmful, unfalsifiable garbage but if you don't think these kind of ideas are becoming very influential then you haven't been paying attention.

So basically the reason why it seems like people are constantly throwing around terms like "racist" and "white supremacy" like they have no meaning is because they have consciously and deliberately stripped these words of all meaning. Of course that's not how they'd describe it, but if think this is just me being a conspiratorial right-wing nutjob I highly encourage you to learn more about critical race theory (newdiscourses.com is a good place to start) and understand what these activists are saying. This stuff is coming for you eventually whether you like it or not so you'd better be prepared.

[golergka]

I have a personality trait of always playing devil's advocate, regardless of my final opinion on the matter, so don't be surprised, but I'll switch sides here a bit.

Don't we all have some implicit biases? I know I do. I have had (and probably, unfortunately still have) biases about women and non-binary people, biases about people from other ethnicities and countries, and although I try to work them out, it's not something that can be done completely.

However, I can't find a rational reason to name these biases "racism" or "white supremacy", words that for any sane person mean not some subconcious thought process, but a fully concious evil. Using these terms in such a way is a very dishonest moat and castle tactic.

[oakejp12]

> that phrase is exactly what I would love to hear from authorities as black business owner

If you want your fellow neighbors gunned down, you should move to China! You'd absolutely love it there! You'd love to know their government murders their dissenters. I think you'd have a little trouble being a black business owner, but the pros outweigh the cons.

[golergka]

> your fellow neighbors

But that phrase wasn't referring to fellow neighbors. It was referring to looters.

I would absoltely want people who were threatening me with robbery and violence to be threatened with violence back, yes. That's the function of police in any modern society.

[082349872349872]

If it's the same threat I'm thinking of, the phrase apparently has a history for americans, like "Лес рубят, щепки летят" might for russians (or maybe not? is the Stalin association a purely anglophone one?). "Racially charged" is a thing in the US. I read russia freed the serfs in 1861, does anyone beyond historians have an interest in cultural influences of serfdom now?

The US military doctrine differs with you on how armed authorities should approach crowd control: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23347585 (an older manual, but the doctrine seems to be up to date: they have shown themselves unwilling to play cossacks for their czar, both in word and in deed.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23412986

https://www.military.com/benefits/military-legal/can-militar... )

By the way, speaking of shooting, what did you think of "Брат 2"?

[golergka]

> If it's the same threat I'm thinking of, the phrase apparently has a history for americans, like "Лес рубят, щепки летят" might for russians (or maybe not? is the Stalin association a purely anglophone one?).

It has a Stalin association, yes - but in russian culture, this phrase would first and foremost judged in context and with intended meaning. I would never call someone a stalinist just because of the fact that he used that saying, it would be insane on my (or anyone's) part.

> The US military doctrine differs with you on how armed authorities should approach crowd control

That's a good point. Come to think of it, yes, it makes sense to me that shooting to kill all the possible looters (because you can't know for sure what's going on in a rioting crowd) is not the best approach to the problem. However, the phrase "when the looting starts, the shoorting starts" doesn't neccessarilly mean "kill all the looters".

And regardless, discussion of different ways the law enforcement should react to military seems like a good thing, and if you allow such discussions, you should allow bad ideas too.

> By the way, speaking of shooting, what did you think of "Брат 2"?

I consider this movie to be a work of genius, but I also am completelly apalled that there's a lot of my fellow citizens who seriously consider the main hero an inspiration. He's a completely broken man with clear signs of PTSD and sociopathy, a classic anti-hero, and you can absolutely admire the movie without admiring him.

[aebtebeten]

Spasibo for the review. I'll have to watch it beyond the "is power money or truth?" scene now :) Incidentally, your last sentence reflects upon the US police problem, because some of them seem to have taken a comic-book anti-hero "The Punisher" as an inspiration, or at least someone whose symbology to wear.

I agree that bad ideas should be allowed in discussions[1]. If we're still talking about the same poor idea, it's probably a good idea if one quashes the ideas (whether poor or good) that run afoul of a platform's violence[2] policy https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/glorification... "You may not threaten violence against an individual or a group of people" (maybe reword your poor ideas to avoid saying "the shooting starts" in a country that distinguishes between assault and battery?) before publishing on that platform. I believe Theodore Roosevelt found his office a bully pulpit (note: not a bully pulpit) despite his lack of FB and TWTR.

Thanks also for the clarification of russian culture[3]. That sounds more advanced than anglophone (I am guessing the UK is not significantly more advanced than the US on this front, as Orwell makes it abundantly clear in both his fiction and nonfiction that he is a product of the english middle class), but I have no good suggestions for anglophones beyond education, which takes time. (not to mention that in the world of unvaccinated coronavirus, a two-student schooldesk is unlikely to be introduced in the US), time which is probably beyond the US Buxton Index[4].

[1] an advantage earlier US politicians had is that journalists would routinely rewrite even their on-the-record spoken comments to be more palatable in print. ("more" is an important qualifier here; Earl Butz resigned despite the fact that his jokes had been edited for taste when being reported)

[2] one amusing thing comparing US and USSR 70's and 80's movies is the completely different censorship. On one side you get very little blood, on the other very few breasts. (as for beasts, they're either scary or befriended. both systems agreed pirates are always villains) I was surprised by the ending to White Sun of the Desert because it was the first I'd seen a soviet shoot-out.

[3] I've learned some russian from Lavrov's poetry. Does anyone have suggestions for which pieces of Pompeo I might improve my english with?

[4] I learned of the Buxton Index from Dijkstra. Something else that stuck with me is that he said, as a young dutchman, he was educated to never start speaking a sentence before one knows how one is going to finish it. Maybe the equivalent for twitter should be "don't start typing before you've thought through the 140th character?" More cynically, the old IBM slogan ought to be revived: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/how-f...

[hackissimo123]

It has no history for Americans. It's a completely obscure reference that no-one had heard of a month ago and Trump almost certainly didn't make intentionally. Anyone who pretends otherwise is either deliberately lying or deranged.

[082349872349872]

these are what a web search gives me: https://www.newspapers.com/clip/52372056/walter-everett-head... or, for general sentiment: https://www.newspapers.com/clip/52393672/the-los-angeles-tim...

as well as cause for optimism: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/18/politics/peggy-wallace-ke... (about George "segregation forever" Wallace's daughter and grandson)

I know americans who truly believe it is a colour-blind country where everyone is middle-class. I hope they can make it so.

[hackissimo123]

I'm not denying that the phrase was uttered at least once by someone in the US at some point in the past. I refer you to my other post in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23573675