Continued: (Ed) Atheism Plus/Free Thought Blogs (FTB)

[Diogenes]

"...because they will fry my cyborg parts..."

So...was that a joke or are they a self-identified transhuman of some kind?

 

[Joe Random]

"...because they will fry my cyborg parts..."

So...was that a joke or are they a self-identified transhuman of some kind?

Otherkin, expressing as a Terminator?

 

[Empress]

"...because they will fry my cyborg parts..."

So...was that a joke or are they a self-identified transhuman of some kind?

I've been trying to figure out the same thing.

I've helped my octogenarian mother who has had two hip replacements and two torn rotator cuffs that prohibits raising her arms, repeatedly through the TSA checkpoints, and all it means is pushing her through in her wheelchair and giving explanations to the TSA agent about her medical situation and then calmly walking through the scatterback machine myself and waiting for her on the other side.

The TSA agents have been ubiquitously understanding and professional when confronted with my mother's physical maladies, and we have always been quickly on our way in no time, complete with my mother's medically necessary fluids, such as insulin.

Perhaps if the Plussers grasped the simple fact that they are not special snowflakes, other people are not out to get them, and workers are simply trying to do their jobs as reasonably and simply as possible, they might find that getting along in life is a goal we can all work towards.

I've found that granting others the presumption that they are well-meaning, including airport workers even in a post-9/11 world, makes everyone work towards a common aim and get along as best we can. I personally don't like the high security and lack of privacy that modern airports demand, and as a result I have only flown a handful of times since 9/11. But if my mother chooses to do so, and I choose to help her through the checkpoint, then it is my decision to face the difficulties that a personal inspection requires, despite a personal history of physical and sexual abuse. It is not the agent's fault that I have problems with being touched, and when I am even minimally open and honest with them, I have found them to have been unfailingly sympathetic and understanding, not to mention professional.

I can't help but feel that the Plussers inevitably have problems in every walk of life simply because they demand special status without taking the personal responsibility to vocalize their difficulties and work towards a mutually-agreeable outcome. Is it possible that they are all so unlucky as to constantly come in contact with jackasses who are invariably looking for a stooge on whom they can work out their personal demons? Sure. But is is it more likely that they are repeatedly triggered and victimized simply because they are looking for reasons to be outraged and refuse to accept that other people tend to be well-meaning and want to do the best they can if only they were aware of unusual circumstances? I tend to suspect so.

Life if difficult. It only gets more so if we refuse to communicate with one another about our personal struggles and strivings. But the Plussers seem to want to be victimized and outraged. If that is what they like, and that is what they demand, I find it no surprise that that is what they constantly experience.

 

[Wildy]

I don't buy that unless Jen was very very very naive about SJ. Anybody with any SJ experience at all should know that SJ is incompatible with atheism and critical thinking. All we need to do is look at the concept of Islamophobia for evidence of this. I was surprised to see Ceepolk actually come out and say it, ( hands off the brown people's religions ) but Ceepolk was really a gift to those of us critical of SJ machinations.

I think she figured her personal form of social justice was similar to that of her readers.

There's way too many assumptions that have to be made in order to function as an SJW. Just look at the ridiculous concept of "cultural appropriation".

Speaking of...check out this YouTube video if 10 000 Japanese singing Ode to Joy. Would this be considered cultural appropriation and therefore racist ? In Japan by Japanese SJWs maybe ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6s6YKlTpfw

Nope it's fine. It's only "cultural appropriation" when whitey does it.

 

[qwints]

Nope it's fine. It's only "cultural appropriation" when whitey does it.

That's not the case. Take a look at this music video from South Korea. Can we agree that the use of Native American imagery there is offensive? Or consider Hitler chic in Thailand.

The basic principle I'd put forth is, using or mimicking something from another culture without understanding its context can be offensive. I also think there's an interesting discussion to be had over whether any traditions or symbols are worthy of respect.

 

[qwints]

The TSA agents have been ubiquitously understanding and professional when confronted with my mother's physical maladies, and we have always been quickly on our way in no time, complete with my mother's medically necessary fluids, such as insulin.

I'm glad you've had good experiences, but there are too many stories and recordings of TSA agents not accommodating medical need or being abusive towards passengers to believe that everyone having a hard time in security was looking for trouble.

 

[Doubt]

I'm glad you've had good experiences, but there are too many stories and recordings of TSA agents not accommodating medical need or being abusive towards passengers to believe that everyone having a hard time in security was looking for trouble.

I fly a lot. My computer bag gest searched a lot. To many different cables. Never had a problem with the TSA and never seen a problem.

But they are not well paid. They are not highly skilled or well educated. There are going to be people in that job who make problems. But it is not the norm. But there are plenty of people willing to making them a punching bag for their political agendas. In the case of the TSA, they have been victims of fabricated events over and beyond whatever they may have really done wrong:

https://www.nsfwcorp.com/dispatch/tsa-shooting/

And no, there is nothing there that is actually NSFW in the link.

In a way, it was just a matter of time before something like this happened. 

For the past three years, a vicious PR campaign has demonized and dehumanized TSA screeners. Launched by the libertarian-right, this smear offensive sought to equate the TSA in the public mind with the worst people imaginable: Nazis, rapists, gropers, child molesters and sadistic enforcers of a police state.

*SNIP*

But while this anti-TSA campaign was created by the libertarian-right, it was enabled and strengthened by the left. Some of the most prominent progressive and leftie bloggers and journalists took an active part in the TSA media witch-hunt.

 They joined the right in labeling the TSA as America's enemy within, unaware that underneath the big-brother rhetoric and feigned right-wing concern about civil liberties, the anti-TSA campaign was really a union-busting operation with a specific set of political goals: to prevent the TSA from unionizing, to privatize airport security and to introduce Israeli-style racial profiling into the airport-screening process.

 

[Stout]

Uh oh..looks like we have research fail again on A+

The story and thread revolve around a 12 year old black girl attending Faith Christian Academy in Orlando Florida. The girl has a huge puffy hairstyle that doesn't conform to the school dress code and some of the other students were teasing her about her hairstyle so she went and complained to her mom. Mom goes to the school and claims her daughter is being bullied and the school, faced with an issue that they actually can control, states that the hairstyle has to go as they have a section in their dress code that relates specifically to hair.

So, the chemgeek picks up on the story and instead of spending a little time and effort to try and determine if/how multiracial this school is just pulls the idea that the teasing is being done by white kids straight out of her ass and slaps it up on the forum.

Nowhere in any article I read on this is the ethnicity of the kids (presumably girls) doing the teasing mentioned. Yet somehow the chemgeek just knows this.

FCA website.... photo from the site....another photo....school video.

The student population is looking pretty diverse to me. yet only the white kids are doing the teasing. uh uh.

Then it gets even better, an armouredcrumpet comes along and applies some sort of "301" type analysis based on the assumption made by thechemgeek.

Will they ever figure this out that the school, a private institution like A+ has it's own set of rules and if you want to flaunt them then they'll show you the door ? I didn't think so either.

A+ thread.

 

[qwints]

But they are not well paid. They are not highly skilled or well educated. There are going to be people in that job who make problems. But it is not the norm.

I agree that the vast majority of interactions between passengers and TSA agents occur without incident. That doesn't mean that the passengers who are maltreated by the TSA created the problem, which is what Empress implied (saying it's more likely 'they are looking for reasons to be outraged'). Moreover, some people are much more likely to have problems with TSA agents than others because of their characteristics, not their actions.

The source you link is despicable in blaming critics of TSA procedures for violence and we can discuss that further in another thread if you wish.

 

[qwints]

Uh oh..looks like we have research fail again on A+

You're talking about ischemgeek's reference to white classmates? You're correct, I can't find evidence that the students teasing her were white. Doesn't make the policy any less objectionable. I've got very little doubt the policy is legal, but that doesn't mean the school shouldn't be criticized for it.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

You're talking about ischemgeek's reference to white classmates? You're correct, I can't find evidence that the students teasing her were white. Doesn't make the policy any less objectionable.

I'm not generally a fan of school grooming policies since they rarely seem to serve any legitimate pedagogical purpose.

However it seems that the important issue is the racism demonstrated by ischemgeek and the A+ community. (Yes, I know, they claim as part of their ideology that they cannot be racist. However discrimination based on race is still a social evil whether or not you accept their semantic game-playing).

 

[qwints]

So the important issue is that ischemgeek called the people teasing the girl about her hair "white" when no article, including the one they cited, mentions the race of those people? It's a fair point, but I fail to see the significance.

 

[Stout]

You're talking about ischemgeek's reference to white classmates? You're correct, I can't find evidence that the students teasing her were white. Doesn't make the policy any less objectionable. I've got very little doubt the policy is legal, but that doesn't mean the school shouldn't be criticized for it.

Yet at A+ they go on about.

I'd think it simply never occurred to them to consider anything other than white hair. Not least because they never considered anything other than white students.

Trying desperately to cram this into their highly biased view of how the world works. Out of curiosity, I wonder what would happen if I were a student and showed up looking like Ted Nugent.? Would they just let it pass because I'm an evil white guy or would they tell me to get a scrunchie?

Holy crap ! The chemgeek did it again. New thread about FastTailedGirls. A trigger warning for racism. Then in comes Alex quoting a tweet, a tweet that says that 40-60% of black girls are sexually assaulted before they turn 18.

I don't know why the tweeter left off the phrase "by black men" as that phrase appears in the few references to that stat that I managed to dig up. Maybe the tweeter was just assuming everybody knew that as the hashtag ( or whatever you call it ) is for black women only.

So where's the racism then ? Surely they're not "accidentally" missing all that stuff about black men. Could they be reading the word white when it really says black or is this thinly veiled racism against black men but using feminism as a cover ?

 

[Stout]

So the important issue is that ischemgeek called the people teasing the girl about her hair "white" when no article, including the one they cited, mentions the race of those people? It's a fair point, but I fail to see the significance.

The significance is...they're making stuff up about people's motivations and wallowing in it in order to claim moral superiority.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

So the important issue is that ischemgeek called the people teasing the girl about her hair "white" when no article, including the one they cited, mentions the race of those people? It's a fair point, but I fail to see the significance.

I'd say that institutionalised and normalised racism was a bigger issue than school uniform policies. Wouldn't you?

 

[Foolmewunz]

You're talking about ischemgeek's reference to white classmates? You're correct, I can't find evidence that the students teasing her were white. Doesn't make the policy any less objectionable. I've got very little doubt the policy is legal, but that doesn't mean the school shouldn't be criticized for it.

I found that thread depressingly predictable. It took me all of one minute to google-find the school and see that it's a rather racially diverse school. Kudos to you and ....crumpet for injecting a little bit of politics into the nonsense. The rules are made so that school authorities can be "authorities". It had nothing to do with her black hair being too ethnic for them. Have any of the whingers there (A+) ever met a nee-grow? From my experience, she's far more likely to have been teased by the other black students. I don't think Li'l Miss Christian Goodie Two Shoes is going after a Sistah. That'd take a lot of familiarity.

But hey, at least they didn't ask her if they could touch it!

And a bunch of Atheists complaining about "fair treatment" at Bible-Thumping Prep of Orlando? I dare say that if someone posted a similar thread here, four of the first ten posts would have been "Who cares? Let them eat their own, damned Jeebus fans!"

 

[qwints]

The 40-60% number seems to come from two studies, a June 2001 study which consisted of a national survey (N=1821) and found 22% of respondents had experienced sexual abuse as a child, but was quoted in later articles as showing 40%, possibly a reference to its finding that 43% of black women experienced verbal or emotional abuse as a child. The best I can find for the 60% number is that it's from a "ongoing survey" with a N somewhere between 300 and 700. Unlike the first study, the 60% number does seem to be black girls who have been abused by black men. I can't find either study online.

I think the tweets and post ischemgeek linked are worth reading, even if the numbers seem suspect.

institutionalised and normalised racism

Care to explain your use of the term? Because it sounds absurd to me.

 

[Stout]

The 40-60% number seems to come from two studies, a June 2001 study which consisted of a national survey (N=1821) and found 22% of respondents had experienced sexual abuse as a child, but was quoted in later articles as showing 40%, possibly a reference to its finding that 43% of black women experienced verbal or emotional abuse as a child. The best I can find for the 60% number is that it's from a "ongoing survey" with a N somewhere between 300 and 700. Unlike the first study, the 60% number does seem to be black girls who have been abused by black men. I can't find either study online.

I think the tweets and post ischemgeek linked are worth reading, even if the numbers seem suspect.

Cheers qwints, I didn't find the first study, nor did I find the second study ( the n=300+ one ) even when I searched the site that claimed to have done it.

Yes, the links are worth reading but they have nothing to do with racism. Sexism, yes, but not racism as this is an issue that's confined to the black community and it makes the trigger warning for racism very poorly thought out. Or malicious, could go either way as A+ has already twisted one issue around race when there's nothing to indicate that race played any part in it.

 

[Diogenes]

I'm glad you've had good experiences, but there are too many stories and recordings of TSA agents not accommodating medical need or being abusive towards passengers to believe that everyone having a hard time in security was looking for trouble.

That's interesting because that wasn't what Empress wrote and you left yourself the clever little "everyone" out.

 

[GDon]

TSA abuse in Japan on Youtube (almost NSFW):
www youtube com watch?v=at7AtyyTnaA