Five members of the white-nationalist “Proud Boys” showed up at the New Hanover County School Board meeting, dressed up in their organization’s colors.
They did not speak, but they gave a standing ovation to anyone who spoke against the mask mandate.
Ironically, the meeting occurred on November 10, the same date as the infamous “Wilmington Massacre” of 1898.
NPR wrote about this sordid episode in North Carolina’s history.
On Nov. 10, 1898, a mob descended on the offices of The Daily Record, a Black-owned newspaper in Wilmington, N.C. The armed men then moved into the streets and opened fire as Black men fled for their lives.
Finally, the rabble seized control of the racially mixed city government. It expelled Black aldermen, installed unelected whites belonging to the then-segregationist Democratic Party and published a “White Declaration of Independence.” Historians have called it a coup d’etat. The number of people who died ranges from about 60 to as many as 250, according to some estimates.
Will teachers in North Carolina be allowed to teach about the Wilmington Massacre, or will they be punished for teaching “critical race theory”?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
SA tactics. Be an intimidating, ominous presence at public gatherings. This is right out of the playbook. It’s trial run for when they pull out their guns and start political killings. And the will be let off with a slap of the wrist, if not celebrated for their “vigilance.” Those people who give you dirty looks in public for wearing a mask out of consideration to others will become their supporters, whether over or not.
overt or not
History lining up to repeat itself.
Sent from my iPhone Brian Preston
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The SA Sturmabteilung standing back and standing by.
In the news this morning is a warning from DHS about call for attacks on members of Congress, school officials and health officials. Home grown terrorism continues to be a serious issue. What is interesting is the calls for attacks on school officials as they are mostly state, not federal employees. While I sincerely hope none of these attacks happen, people must understand the reason for the attacks on public schools is due to the fact that they represent opportunity for all and facts based education.
An attack on public schools is an attack on democracy. Politicians should defend public education as a matter of national security. A variety of splinter schools under the false flag of so-called choice will result in greater dissension including more radicals who would upend our democratic republic, a less informed electorate and increasing mistrust. Public education has an essential unifying civic function we cannot afford to jeopardize.
The far right neo-Nazi slime have crawled out from under the rocks and brazenly out into the open. Trump and the GOP insurrectionist party have given aid and comfort to the far righties, libertarian goon squad, Nazis, camo-clad militia zombies and the ammosexuals who value guns more than life itself. They are just itching to use their guns on the “libtards,” Democrats, Biden, Harris and especially people like AOC, Ilan Omar and Bernie. It has been a decades long dream of the far right to cause a huge race war so they can have an excuse to slaughter blacks and people of color with impunity. They are close to achieving that goal and especially if Trump or some other GOP ghoul wins the presidency in 2024.
I worked for a time in a company that did construction jobs all over the Southeast and midwest. One of the managers of the company was a guy who was reputed to be a member of the KKK. Once he needed a driver to the airport and I was picked to do the task. I know he asked for me on purpose, because he had requested me to do a particular job before.
On the way, he carefully broached the topic of a potential race war. You could tell he was searching for a fellow traveler. He wanted to know what I thought about the idea. He was very careful in 1979.
I wonder if he would be so careful now?
Reminds me of an episode of Seinfeld
Race is a proxy to kill democracy, a tactic. Discrimination is not the goal. Fascism is. Race is just one of long list of contrived grievances.
Bingo
Read Wilmington’s Lie, a great history of this event, which started in the minds of white supremacist newspaper editors like Josephus Daniels who spewed falsehoods until a majority of their unwitting public believed them.
Usually, when extremist groups think about history, they attach significance to particular dates. Thus modern civil defense authorities are particularly watchful when the anniversary of Columbine High School or 9-11 nears, understanding the symbolic thinking of extremists in general. While I do not know what (if anything) was in the minds of the proud boys at this meeting of the school board, it may be more than irony that they showed up as they did and behaved as they did.
History is full of irony. The good intentions of Robert Livingstone becoming the depredations of King Leopold comes to mind. The defeat of the mighty Bismarck by the slow-flying Swordfish is another type of irony that makes real stories often better than those deliberately contrived. But history is also full of deliberate attacks on symbolic representations of power. Statues are pulled down in revolutions. buildings are attacked because of what they represent.
Remember the ________! is just as ubiquitous in history as accidental occurrence.
Propaganda Minister Stephen Miller was a master of the racist dog whistle–choosing places and dates for Trump rallies that coincided with white-on-black carnage. Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge.
We are in grave danger. We must stay vigilant to attempts to divide us.
I recommend today’s Charles M Blow’s column in the NYT, “The War on Wokeness”.
“Language is extremely powerful.
The stories it tells become our greatest religions, the credos of great nations and the mantras of our greatest wars.
The ways in which we define people and things can be liberating or trammeling; they can advance the cause of liberty and equality or cause societies to regress.
Perhaps no other word of the moment is so under attack as “woke,” a word born as a simple yet powerful way of saying, be aware of and alert to how racism is systemic and pervasive and suffuses American life. Wake up from the slumber of ignorance and passive acceptance.”
It goes on. Very astute article. (And if it wasn’t a manufactured war against “wokeness”, the far right would find some other word to demonize.)
We shouldn’t be having the fake “debates” the far right wants, like “Is this random diversity workshop for kindergarten teachers worthless? Here’s a 3 sentence description – discuss” Or “scientists have not come up with a scientifically valid way to measure implicit racism – discuss”.
The far right celebrates violence and the media normalizes it and gets the rest of us to debate whether to blame “wokeness” or “diversity training”.
^^^and the comments section in Blow’s NYT essay are a prime example of the “debates” that right wing anti-CRT advocates – or their enablers want us to have:
Is teaching children that people are inherently victims or victimizers based on their race a good thing or a bad thing? Discuss.
If the many wise folks here don’t notice the false framing of this kind of “debate” , then our country may already be lost.
This whole wokeness nonsense is manufactured labelling, an easy to remember catch-word akin to the Let’s go Brandon craze. Just label someone as being woke and the person and his or her arguments are devalued, mocked and marginalized. It’s no longer about the actual issues or arguments it’s about woke which is “bad,” according to the wing nuts. Sadly, even a Democrat like strategist James Carville blamed “wokeness” for Terry McAuliffe’s defeat. I was totally disgusted with his observation and it is false, wrong and bogus. Terry McAuliffe was defeated by the GOP and the massive GOP propaganda machine, progressive Democrats had nothing to do with it.
Better to be awake to injustice than to have a hard, cold heart.
Even James Carville, DINO, got on the woke bandwagon and blamed the wokeness of the progressive wing of the party for McAuliffe’s defeat. Total nonsense and baloney. Blame the GOP and its massive well-funded propaganda machine; they just pump up the red meat issues and repeat, repeat and repeat ad nauseam. Examples of GOP false framing: socialism, communism, CRT, transgender bullies, gay marriage, abortion, guns, blah, blah, blah, ad nauseam.
Joe Jersey,
Thank you. James Carville needs to be marginalized, as do all folks who just want to amplify and legitimize false right wing narratives so the right wing can point out that “even Democrats” or “even those on the left” agree with those narratives.
Did you see that James Carville said that the fact that a white moderate Democrat lost to a Republican in Virginia proves that the Democrats better nominate a white moderate Democrat in the 2024 election if they want to defeat the Republican?
It’s not just that Carville says these inane things. It is that the media treats it as if it is a wise observation and doesn’t challenge it!
The false framing that the right wing often gets us hapless folks on the left to fall for (and I include myself) causes us to “debate” whether a candidate is defeated by a Republican because that candidate was too conservative or not conservative enough or that candidate was too progressive or not progressive enough or that candidate was too white or not white enough.
The democrats run perfectly good candidates, regardless of whether they happen to be progressive or moderate. Those candidates are chosen because they got the most votes in the primary – that’s how democracy works.
Youngkin didn’t defeat McAuliffe because the Republicans chose a “better” candidate. As you so aptly point out, Joe Jersey, “Terry McAuliffe was defeated by the GOP and the massive GOP propaganda machine”.
That’s it. A massive GOP propaganda machine. That GOP machine defeats wonderful progressive dems who run against lousy Republicans and that GOP machine defeats mediocre moderate dems who run against lousy Republicans. That GOP machine defeats wonderful moderate dems who run against lousy Republicans and that GOP machine defeats mediocre progressive dems who run against lousy Republicans.
When we all work together to shut down that machine, and stop legitimizing it, progressive and moderate Democrats win. That’s why Biden won. That’s why Ralph Northam won the last election in Virginia. That’s why a progressive NJ Governor became the first Democrat re-elected in over 40 years.
I do question the motives of those who legitimize and amplify the attacks that the GOP propaganda machine directs at democrats. It doesn’t matter whether those who amplify that GOP propaganda are anonymous internet trolls who claim to be progressives, or overhyped aging Democratic strategists whose “success” was 30 years ago who are trying to remain relevant, or are “concerned Republicans trying to offer advice” — they need to be marginalized when their “helpful contribution” is to amplify and legitimize GOP talking points.
We need to marginalize those who want us to spend our time having meaningless “debates” that start with a completely false premises like:
“Is teaching children that people are inherently victims or victimizers based on their race a good thing or a bad thing? Discuss.” “Is this random workshop that a Kindergarten teacher is offering to other Kindergarten teachers a good thing or a bad thing? Discuss”. “Is $6 per student too much or too little for this county in Virginia to spend on this diversity training for administrators and teachers? Discuss”.
I’m not going to discuss non-issues because people who want to divide us say we should. I am going to question the motives of why someone thinks a discussion of the merits of a random Kindergarten teacher workshop is of value to anyone but the far right,
Has there been a more overblown voice in the Democratic party than James Carville? He was a failure who lucked out and got Harris Wofford as a candidate in the right place at the right time. He didn’t do too well in getting Wofford reelected. He and Begala parlayed that into consulting for the first Clinton campaign. He’s been riding this wave for more than 20 years and hasn’t done a damn thing to help Democrats since. He’s a hypocrite whose 15 minutes of fame have gone on decades too long. Just look at his wife. If that doesn’t demonstrate that politics is a money game for him, not a contest of principles.
Carville has been coasting on his Clinton credentials for 30 years, not 20.
Thanks for that correction! Spot on. And while we’re at it:
Sorry for any double posting, Word Press AND my iMac are acting weird.
It’s WordPress, not you.
The meeting should have been stopped until they left the premises, either on their own or with assistance. Nazis tend to show up where they feel welcome. Their presence is an indicator of the given environment. By not removing them, the participants at this board meeting may as well invite them and more of their buddies to the next one.
Let’s look at it another way. If those “persons” had been Black, I think they might well have stopped that meeting. White reactionaries: welcome or tolerated. Black radicals: fill in the blank with very obvious answers. No extra credit.