I just don't get people
Sep. 20th, 2005 11:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumA kid in Jacksonville, Fla. got a beating.
I can't say as I'm surprised, he was wearing a shirt I might have been willing to end up in a fight over, and I'm a fairly non-confrontational guy.
The shirt, it showed, on one side, a confederate flag, with the motto, "Keep it flying." On the other side it showed some klansmen, in the stereotypical garb, waving at a car with the words just married on it. Behind the car, where one might expect to see cans, or old shoes, were a couple of black men, being dragged in nooses.
His explantation: He forgot he was wearing it, and had it on to go to a party later. We'll get back to that party.
He larger explanation, "I'm not racist or anything," he said. "It's just, some people I hate, some people I don't get along with. And black people just happen to be the ones because they think they're better than everyone else."
He also says he has a black friend.
Now, about that party..."He said he put the shirt on in the morning because he planned to wear it to a party that night with others who, like him, had enlisted in the Marines."
I'm glad he didn't say Army, because I don't want him. It isn't just that his attitudes offend me, nor yet his blithe stupidity (if one is going to wear fighting words on one's shirt, it behooves you to not forget that and end up getting your ass kicked), no it's that people like that are a menace to the unit, in a way that gays aren't.
I know a lot of homosexuals. Some have made passes at me. None have been rude about it, some have been very quiet about it and I might never have known, had they not chosen to tell me. I've never known a closeted bigot who managed to pass, and someone as willing to be vocal about it as this little twerp, well he won't be able to keep it to himself. We can only hope he spouts off in Boot Camp (where odds are he will have at least one black Drill Instructor... he'd better believe thost men think they are better than he is, because the are) and gets kicked out. He'll blame, "the blacks," (though I suspect it will sound more like, "those damned niggers," when he says it) but neither I, nor the Corps will care.
Because if he makes it to the Corps, he is a liablilty. Even in a rear unit (and there are precious few of those these days) you have to be able to depend on your fellows. In 13 years in the Army, I've only known two-guys I couldn't trust to cover my back if it dropped in the pot. Neither of them stayed in very long.
This didn't go where it was supposed to, but that't the way of things.
I can't say as I'm surprised, he was wearing a shirt I might have been willing to end up in a fight over, and I'm a fairly non-confrontational guy.
The shirt, it showed, on one side, a confederate flag, with the motto, "Keep it flying." On the other side it showed some klansmen, in the stereotypical garb, waving at a car with the words just married on it. Behind the car, where one might expect to see cans, or old shoes, were a couple of black men, being dragged in nooses.
His explantation: He forgot he was wearing it, and had it on to go to a party later. We'll get back to that party.
He larger explanation, "I'm not racist or anything," he said. "It's just, some people I hate, some people I don't get along with. And black people just happen to be the ones because they think they're better than everyone else."
He also says he has a black friend.
Now, about that party..."He said he put the shirt on in the morning because he planned to wear it to a party that night with others who, like him, had enlisted in the Marines."
I'm glad he didn't say Army, because I don't want him. It isn't just that his attitudes offend me, nor yet his blithe stupidity (if one is going to wear fighting words on one's shirt, it behooves you to not forget that and end up getting your ass kicked), no it's that people like that are a menace to the unit, in a way that gays aren't.
I know a lot of homosexuals. Some have made passes at me. None have been rude about it, some have been very quiet about it and I might never have known, had they not chosen to tell me. I've never known a closeted bigot who managed to pass, and someone as willing to be vocal about it as this little twerp, well he won't be able to keep it to himself. We can only hope he spouts off in Boot Camp (where odds are he will have at least one black Drill Instructor... he'd better believe thost men think they are better than he is, because the are) and gets kicked out. He'll blame, "the blacks," (though I suspect it will sound more like, "those damned niggers," when he says it) but neither I, nor the Corps will care.
Because if he makes it to the Corps, he is a liablilty. Even in a rear unit (and there are precious few of those these days) you have to be able to depend on your fellows. In 13 years in the Army, I've only known two-guys I couldn't trust to cover my back if it dropped in the pot. Neither of them stayed in very long.
This didn't go where it was supposed to, but that't the way of things.
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no subject
Date: 2005-09-20 06:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-20 06:53 pm (UTC)I've been following the active racists in the country, more or less, since high school, Dave Niewert has made a career of it, and he points out the way it has been being mainstreamed by politicians winking and nodding to racists who support them.
Depressing.
TK
no subject
Date: 2005-09-20 07:04 pm (UTC)The case in question is Michelle Malkin and the idea of locking Arabs up, because they happen to be Arabs, and since some of them want to attack us, we have to lock them all up.
TK
no subject
Date: 2005-09-20 08:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-20 06:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-20 07:01 pm (UTC)TK
no subject
Date: 2005-09-20 07:00 pm (UTC)Oh man, I wish I could be a fly on the wall when he's training...hee hee!
American by birth, Southern by the grace of God
Date: 2005-09-20 07:07 pm (UTC)But I think chalking that flag up to one big racial conflict is an enormous slight to the South, and its history. I think its fairly obvious I'm not your typical beer swilling redneck, with plans for the South to rise again. I'm well aware that isn't going to happen, and wholeheartedly believe the issue at hand should be becoming united as Americans.
Someone in my journal likened displaying the flag to displaying a swastika. Maybe I have my head pleasantly in my Southern sand, but that is a ridiculous comparison. I am not willing to forget my history, or turn my back on it, despite whatever blemishes and imperfections in may have.
This kid is an idiot, and yes, deserved every blow he likely got. People like him make people like me look like shit.
Re: American by birth, Southern by the grace of God
Date: 2005-09-20 07:19 pm (UTC)For one, that's not the actual flag, it's the battle flag: the CSA had separate banners for that.
The other problem (and I understand the non-identification lots of people have with this aspect) is that the core documents of the CSA were about slavery forever.
The way, however, this kid wore it (and I would say so absent the picture on the flip side of the shirt) with that motto, is meant to provoke. "Keep it flying," is alluding to all of the things for which it stood, the most prominent of which was maintaining chattel slavery.
TK
Re: American by birth, Southern by the grace of God
Date: 2005-09-20 09:10 pm (UTC)First, it would be nice to know who this future jarhead is, so that the USMC can be contacted and his enlistment canceled. If I am not mistaken, they have regulations against prejudice and displays of racism, specially in the open like that bonehead did.
The only thing I can compare this confederate flag deal is like this.
Heritage, pride, honorable display of a symbol representing a stance in time and space, a mind set if you will.
The Nazi Swastika represented all of that. But the Nazis lost the war, and now they cannot display that particular symbol anymore (not even in video games). The south lost the Civil War. Any parallels?
Just a thought.
Re: American by birth, Southern by the grace of God
Date: 2005-09-20 11:07 pm (UTC)But, as a graduate of the College of Parris Island, a really vicious part of me would love to see him go there. With his attitude he'd end up in the brig in no time at all, where he could experience the tender mercies of Marines who'd make sure he understood just exactly how wrong he was.
Re: American by birth, Southern by the grace of God
Date: 2005-09-21 01:07 am (UTC)Thanks for the updates on this situation. I've heard about it a while back on the radio, but did not get too much airtime.
Re: American by birth, Southern by the grace of God
Date: 2005-09-21 12:06 am (UTC)The Nazi swastika is forever tainted. Not by the actions of the Wehrmacht, but by the actions of The State.
The Stars and Bars (more commonly called the Confederate Flag) has much the same problem, for secondary reasons.
There are banners used in WW2, by the Werhmacht, which the Bundeswehr still uses. They predate the Third Reich, and with a small emmendation (usually the removal of a lozenge with the swastika in it) they are innoffensive.
The Stars and Bars could be that way. It could be used to address a few of the other issues the Civil War was about (the 9th Amendment, and what it means) but people like the Klan took that, tolerably neutral, symbol of a slew of ideals (like loyalty and duty and patriotism) and hijacked it to stand for keeping blacks in their place.
There are those who don't have that association with it, and I feel for them, but when I see someone flying it, what I see is the Southern Strategy, Jim Crow and all the baggage which goes with the racists who use it as code.
Your Mileage May Vary.
TK
Re: American by birth, Southern by the grace of God
Date: 2005-09-21 03:23 am (UTC)Re: American by birth, Southern by the grace of God
Date: 2005-09-21 12:01 pm (UTC)In Europe, models of WWII planes come with all the decals except the swastika. I never painted one on though.
Re: American by birth, Southern by the grace of God
Date: 2005-09-21 04:47 pm (UTC)The planes used only one (per side). It seems wrong to censor it like that, it isn't as if anyone else was using those planes, so one can't pretend it wasn't a weapon of the Reich.
TK
Re: American by birth, Southern by the grace of God
Date: 2005-09-21 07:43 pm (UTC)Re: American by birth, Southern by the grace of God
Date: 2005-09-21 12:24 am (UTC)If you're willing to equate the history of the South to the events between 1861 and 1865, I'd buy that. But the real problem with the Battle Flag is that it was used as the standard of many racist organizations in the years after the War Of Northern Aggression ended. So the baggage is not so much what the flag stood for during the War, as what it came to stand for after the War was over.
If you want to honor the Great Cause, fly the Bonnie Blue Flag, or the Stainless Banner. The Battle Flag has been forever dishonored by the evil men who carried it for decades and decades after General Lee said that the struggle was over.
Re: American by birth, Southern by the grace of God
Date: 2005-09-21 12:27 am (UTC)Hear! Hear!
TK
Re: American by birth, Southern by the grace of God
Date: 2005-09-21 01:43 am (UTC)If it's just about heritage, how do you account for the fact that the Stars & Bars wasn't added to various southern state flags until the Civil Rights era? It just happened, by coincidence, that this particular "heritage" symbol was chosen at a time when Southern blacks were starting to get uppity?
And, in any case, why would you want to celebrate the heritage of a nation that was formed specifically on the idea that human beings had a right to own other human beings as property?
Welcome to the Marine Corps, maggot...
Date: 2005-09-20 11:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-20 11:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-21 12:00 am (UTC)Does he have a bar to all enlistments? Just to the Corps? Is it a chapter (which would let him come back in two-years, as if nothing had ever happened)?
Enquiring minds want to know.
Heck, I want to be there when his recruiter tells him the deal's off.
TK
no subject
Date: 2005-09-21 12:04 am (UTC)Apparently the Recruiter has already passed the word to Wonder Boy.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-21 12:10 am (UTC)I tend to think the recruiter talked to the shrinks, set up an interview and he failed.
Which is a permanant bar to enlistment. At least, were I his recruiter, that's the way I'd do it. Heck, if I knew the shrinks, I'd talk to them and tell them he wasn't fit.
I've seen it done for those who weren't mentally right as interrogators. if they passed the first phase of the course, they failed the second.
If they came back they could try again, but if they still had the bad attitude, they'd fail again.
TK
no subject
Date: 2005-09-21 12:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-21 12:15 am (UTC)TK
no subject
Date: 2005-09-21 12:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-21 12:23 am (UTC)And they're in Iraq, where, to hear it told, the writ of American law doesn't run. Pity that.
TK
no subject
Date: 2005-09-21 12:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-21 12:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-21 12:14 am (UTC)The food, was Brit-rats (the same sort sent to folks stuck in New Orleans, which are being burned as unfit for human consumption). He'd been detatched for a couple of weeks and snagged a couple, one of which he saved for me.
The pasta with white sauce needed to be hot, the vegetable broth was wonderful, and I knew what I was getting with the treacle tart. Were I a Brit, I'd've swapped for an MRE, because I'm sure it gets dull, but since I'm not, it was the best meal I had until I got back to Germany.
TK
no subject
Date: 2005-09-21 12:07 am (UTC)And, quelle surprise, not one of the three of us had to lift a finger (
TK
Sometimes you need a shithead
Date: 2005-09-21 01:12 am (UTC)Nice to meet you Mr. WCG. Sorry, you worked for a living, but I still respect.
Terry, there is an opportunity with the 20th Group. Lemme know if you like to play in the rocks (nah... forget it. Maia will castrate me).
no subject
Date: 2005-09-23 05:07 am (UTC)