The news tends to make me run for the Xanax. Years ago, I stopped watching the nightly news, partly because of the spread of yellow journalism, an extreme right-leaning slant and a dearth of trust on my part. My car was sporting the bumper sticker ‘Mass Media Breeds Mass Deception’, a fact in which I still believe. Newspapers are lousy for trees, light colored clothing and landfills, so I gave them up as well. They are mostly ads these days anyway. I began to go to Yahoo news as a starting point. Today I found this story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110326/ap_on_re_us/us_the_battle_for_windy_ridge
I was captivated by a woman much like myself. Wigena Tirado’s story is one we have heard many times, single mom, kids and desiring a peaceful home. The house she rented was in a neighborhood of starter homes in Charlotte, NC. She paid her bills and through no fault of her own, faced eviction because her lousy landlord didn’t pay his/her mortgage. Ms. Tirado is fighting for the neighborhood even though she no longer lives there. I say good on her.
What nauseated me was reading the responses to the story. Angry tirades about welfare queens, too many kids and people that don’t pay their bills. WTF?? Did we read the same article? The appalling amount of Reagan-esque rethugspeak made my eyes glaze over. Then it dawned on me…these nimrods really believe this crap. Orwell’s Ministry of Truth is alive, well and feeding those too freaking stupid or lazy to dig deeper into that about which a politician is speaking. I sincerely wonder if the article had been written about a white woman, would there be the same venom. Sadly, I think not.
I get that the human animal is by nature xenophobic. We don’t like that which is different. What I don’t get is hatred and fear based on a shade of skin, accent, big butt or sexual orientation. Have we come full circle and reverted to the ‘Yes, they are nice but I wouldn’t want my daughter/son dating/living next to/working with one’ mentality of yesteryear? How do you fight that? Highway blogging? A bullhorn? Skywriting? I’m at a loss. To paraphrase Cole Sear: I see stupid, willfully ignorant people. They only see what they want to see. They don’t know they’re stupid and willfully ignorant.
Here is my question: What do we do?
Related articles
- Mortgage crisis lessons in Charlotte, N.C. (sfgate.com)
- Neighborhood hit by mortgage crisis battles back (sfgate.com)
Coffee, I know of something very similar to this happening to a neighbor of mine, but to pour salt into the wounds the family was not just paying rent but doing a rent to own deal. They were putting a lot of money into remodeling, landscaping, painting. The landlord,a “property management” company, defaulted on the mortgage and they lost everything.
As too the comments on yahoo!, what can one say? So many sites are filled with disparaging, disgusting comments they aren’t worth reading. Would anyone of these people say such things to a the persons face? Do they talk to their co-workers/family/strangers this way? I think not.
Thank you for the post.
Coffegod– good post! Enraging!There are now 10% of houses in America in foreclosure. One in ten.
It’s sad, isn’t it, coffeegod?
b’ito posted a news article yesterday in which a Wisconsin legislator who was in favor of their union-busting policies was whining about not being able to live very well on $174,000. The reason he gave? He had 6 kids.
But since he was white, affluent, male and Republican there wasn’t the same reaction.
Unfortunately “those people” have bought in to the propaganda that the right has been spewing for the last decade, it feeds into their fears and uncertainties. I think it emboldens them to post such vile statements, where as years ago they would have never thought to do so.
MSM does nothing to help the situation, which has become nothing but “infotainment” with a right slant, that elevates people like Christine O’Donnell and Sarah Palin to pop culture goddesses by giving them a platform…because the ratings are good when they are on, not because they have anything that is important or true to say.
All I can say is, don’t worry, times they are a changing, look at Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, I can go on and on…the “real people” with real voices and real concerns will eventually drown out the drivel of “those people”….truth will win out, it always does.
And yet when I do my “gay separatist” shtick, the same people go absolutely bonkers being compared to Ted Bundy, Britney Spears, and Jimmy Swaggart.
I do that shtick, in order to illustrate what it is like to paint an entire subpopulation as being exactly the same as one idiot who does something criminal. A person who *might* be gay ran over a child the other day, so that is proof that all gay men are homicidal maniacs intent on running over children for a sexual thrill.
One person is caught ripping off the government in a scam using food stamps and child care vouchers, so every person on welfare is doing the same thing.
Momo Gaddafi is straight, right? And so are his murderous sons? Obviously, as far as I can see, psychopathic urges towards genocide is not only a heterosexual trait, it can be passed down through the genes.
Trust me, if you want to win the war, honey, you have to use their tactics against them.
Now, excuse me, I am supposed to be at a demonstration to get Newt Gringrich neutered.
Great rant, and I agree with you 100%. While I don’t live in the south, I do live in deep red PA (part of the so-called “T”). Racism is rampant here, (I am not a native) as I found out in 2008 making calls for Obama. Really ugly, and sadly getting worse since then. These folks seem to have been empowered by Fox News and RW radio, and the mainstream media as well. Somehow making a racist joke about POTUS is tolerated in some circles these days, when just 3 or 4 years ago it wouldn’t have been.
The southern strategy is alive and well and is at work right now in these parts. It hurts everyone, especially the kids.
What do we do? The only answer I have right now is call it out loud and often whenever I encounter it. I don’t give hoot about being accused of playing the race card anymore. We do need some national “movement” or discussion about this though.
This class warfare propaganda and legislation is getting out of control, thank goodness it’s inspiring many to stand up and oppose it.
I read about how debtor prisons are back, people who don’t pay their mortgages are ending up in jail.
And under the Bush Admin, with corporate owned Dems in the banks pockets aqs well, they changed the bankruptcy laws to prevent many from claiming bankruptcy and limiting recourse for those that do. Meanwhile, if corporations like AIG or Goldman Sachs default on mortgages they’ve bought…not only aren’t criminal charges applied, they get billions handed to them to help them.
What’s going on is really perverse.
However, as to comments on Yahoo News articles, their boards have been overrun by the pawns of the wealthy for a long time. They spew noxious, frothing saliva on every story. You should have seen the hatred there when Gabby Giffords was shot and after Japan got hit by this earthquake and tsunami, there were posts that were gleeful, some boasting that it was God’s will for not being Christian.
Because of course, real Christians are like them and celebrate the deaths of tens of thousands of people and danger to millions of people. I’m sure Christ said something about that, just can’t remember where it is in The Bible.
My policy is to never read the comments on Yahoo News stories unless I want to raise my blood pressure for no good reason at all. These “people” are the lowest dregs of internet denizens, they are meaningless haters with nothing to offer. They are beneath giving attention to.