It seems like a lot of people are having a conniption over the racists who held an “EMBRACE WHITE PRIDE” banner on the Vineyard Drive bridge in Templeton on April 29. Local organizations Little Queer Paso and the SLO County Branch of the NAACP are contacting everyone from Caltrans to the SLO County Board of Supervisors to California state Assembly and Senate members to see what can be legally done to stop the banner’s display. It’s been hung repeatedly.
Even our beloved local daily paper, The Tribune, weighed in with a scathing May 10 editorial, “Racists held up a ‘white pride’ banner in SLO County. Will they dare to tell us why?”
So. Much. Handwringing. And all over a little free speech.
“So we know you’re racist,” the anonymous editorial said directly to the unidentified banner hangers. “But you’re destructive as well, willing to divide your community in public for all to see.”
Wait a minute. Isn’t it better they express their racism in public rather than privately? Makes ’em easier to identify and resist, right?
“Bottom line, there is no excuse for this kind of hate,” the editorial scolded, “and no hiding behind protection of free speech.”
Well, legally they can and are hiding behind free speech, not to mention the masks they were wearing. You’re proud enough to fly your racist banner but not proud enough to show your faces, eh? Pride indeed.
In response to the editorial, the NorCal Active Club, whose members seem to be behind the banner, took to Twitter to write, “Cowardly Jew Stephanie Finucane wrote another defamation article instead of responding. She won’t dare engage in open debate or set up an interview because we have the moral high ground. Good job coward. We’ve had 4 new applicants inspired by your ethnic hatred!”
Sheesh. So much to unpack. So, you wanted to debate? New Times contacted you and asked for an interview and you demanded $100 in return. Moral low ground is more like it. Finucane is the Trib‘s opinion editor. Did she write the editorial? I don’t know, but the racists are holding her responsible. Is she Jewish? Who knows or who cares? I looked it up, and apparently Finucane is of Irish origin and means “blond hair.” Does it matter? Of course not.
See, this is why I love free speech. Now we know these little dinks are both racists and anti-Semitic, because they told us. Keep talking, NorCal Active Club.
Here’s the thing to understand about these—I don’t want to use the word “men” because it still has some positive connotations in some circles—these male humanoids. They are afraid. They’re afraid of people of color; afraid of gay and trans people; afraid of Jews; afraid of women. But, do you know who really makes them quake in their jackboots and stain their tighty-whities? White liberals.
White liberals scare the shit out of racists because they know white liberals care more about people of color, gays and trans people, Jews, and women than they care about them.
And they’re right.
White liberals do care more about people who’ve been historically marginalized, victimized by bigotry, and held back by institutional racism than they care about a bunch of scared, fragile, angry racists whose only thing they can hold onto is this: “Well, at least I’m white.” At least? The thing that should be the least interesting about them—their skin color—is the most important to them. And that’s because it’s all they have to hold onto in the face of an evolving society where white men aren’t the only group with power and pride.
Racists seem to think that by giving people who are different from them equal rights, it will somehow erode their rights, but “rights” aren’t a pie you’re dividing up. Giving equal rights to someone else doesn’t mean fewer rights for you.
What really infuriates racists is they know white liberals are embarrassed by them. It’s absolutely true: White racists are a total embarrassment to normal, openminded, thoughtful, kind white people. They give good white people a bad name.
White liberals are embarrassed by white racists because they know as white people in America, they’ve had every advantage and opportunity, yet white racists act as if they’re oppressed. Pathetic.
When white racists see people of color standing up for themselves, they’re scared. When they see gay and trans people proudly expressing their gender identity, they’re scared. When they see Jewish people holding their chins high in the face of anti-Semitism, they’re scared. When they see women demanding equality, they’re scared. When they see white liberals supporting these other groups, they’re terrified.
Instead of abhorring racists, we all should pity them because they have nothing in which to take much pride, and they know it. Instead of silencing them, we should respond to their hate speech with acceptance speech, tolerance speech, and inclusivity speech.
So, little dinks, you got four new little dink members because of the Trib‘s editorial, eh? Great. Now we can identify four more scared little bunnies. So, fly your banner! It makes it much easier to identify the scared, sad, pathetic manchildren among us. Δ
The Shredder doesn’t express office machine pride because office machines aren’t under attack. Express free speech at shredder@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Summer Guide 2023.
No, these neo-Nazis do not deserve pity.They deserve the utmost contempt. The “free speech” absolutists who claim that anyone has the right to advocate or incite absolutely anything are pitifully naive. In a sane society, sadists & psychopaths who promote genocide & other horrors should be forced back into the cesspools from whence they came, not allowed to display their evil in a public venue. Granting permission to Nazis & other dangerous scum to say whatever they want simply feeds the false narrative that Nazism, communism or any other demonic ideology such as eugenics or social Darwinism are valid viewpoints in the marketplace of ideas. We ought to realize that protecting such “free speech” normalizes what should be unthinkable in a civilized society. Another thing we need to face is that the vermin wearing those Attomwaffen death’s head masks are merely the true faces of today’s republican party. They are examples of hat MAGA truly is. Think of the Nazis in congress like Paul Gosar or Tommy Tuberville. They are not censured or rebuked by Kevin McCarthy, since he needs the votes of every representative of his party, no matter how awful he or she is. Think of the GOP county headquarters in Atascadero with their “Let’s go Brandon” banner in the window. We all know that the party faithful in that building are sympathetic to the racists on the Templeton overpass.We know that they are more outraged over the existence of trans kids or pride parades more than they are toward Hitler loving terrorists. The MAGA cultists worship guns & value thee AR-15 over the lives of little children. The cult is EVIL, its devotees demonic, filled with murderous passion & dangerously stupid. We ignore them at our peril.
The best reaction – too late now – to this banner would be to ignor it completely. After all, it is not a negative statement about any, all or some non white people. That all comes in the reaction, not the sign itself. The organization who put the sign up for all to see did not even own up to doing so leaving panic in charge.
Not seeing or hearing the unstated but implied in the mind of those seeing and hearing denies the writer or speaker the attention they seek.
Try it sometime.
As bad as I feel that both parties are, the MAGA GOP owns these insecure and cowardly racists and many more like them. While they have always been around, Trump gave them permission to do out in the open that which they used to do behind closed doors. Still, one of my biggest complaints is that the GOP, MAGA, Trump, DeSantis et al are so clownishly evil, so obviously obscene, vile and repugnant that they make pointing out how terrible the Democratic Party, Biden, Obama, Clinton et al exponentially more difficult. Both parties play their roles well while the US continues to be the most violent and terrorist nation in the world as well as the least free, most unequal and the least democratic of the top 25 democracies in the world, all while lagging far behind in virtually all indicators of societal well being, happiness, education, health care and infant mortality. The USA continues to burn to the ground while both parties play fiddles…
Chris, I disagree that there is any equivalency between Dems and Republicans when it comes to extremism. The AOC, Bernny Sanders wing seems to advocate for equal right, universal healthcare, acting to combat climate change, tax breaks for the workings, equal rights for Gays, ect. Whereas moderates on the right are about denying science and history, holding onto privilege for and making the wealthy wealthier. I won’t even go into the truly extreme views Margie Greene and that wing, but there is truly no comparison.
A left wing pee in your pants party!
To be treated the same is something all of us are born with. For example, babies know when they aren’t given the equal amount of milk from their mothers or wet nurses. Young children know when they are being treated unevenly or unfairly, without anyone having to teach them the concept of equality. If we take a moment to remember what being treated differently is like, it sucks. But what makes equality complicated is that it is difficult to quantify. Poor whites vs wealthy minorities, for example. Are they equal? What’s needed is racial or ethnic transparency, where race or ethnicity doesn’t matter. Transparency doesn’t have a color and doesn’t need to be measured, it just needs clarity and focus.
Hey Shredder,
I disagree with some of the points you made in your column. But it’s bad form to platform antisemitism by quoting the NorCal Active Club verbatim, attacking Stephanie Finucane, whose name is not in The Tribune Editorial Board byline. And you yourself admit you’re not sure if she wrote the piece. So what’s the point? You could have easily paraphrased their nonsense and left her out of it and still make your point that sunlight is the best disinfectant when it comes to hate. But you didn’t. Now a staffer of a competing media outlet is needlessly exposed to potential hate and threats.