In 1998, a brutal, controversial indie film portrayed a bleak vision of race relations in the US that appears to have predicted a growing 21st-Century movement, writes Tom Joudrey.
A brilliant film emerged from these skirmishes – but its core insight still takes work to unpack. For generations, a persistent myth that black families were irreparably broken by sloth and hedonism had been perpetuated by US culture. Congress's landmark 1965 Moynihan Report, for example, blamed persistent racial inequality not on stymied economic opportunity but on the "tangle of pathologies" within the black family. Later, politicians circulated stereotypes of checked-out "crackheads" and lazy "welfare queens" to tar black women as incubators of thugs, delinquents, and "superpredators". American History X made the bold move of shifting the spotlight away from the maligned black family and on to the sphere of the white family, where it illuminated a domestic scene that was a fertile ground for incubating racist ideas.
Israel... I mean was founded in coalition with nationalist terrorists so I don't know where that's coming from.
I hate to tell you, but this isn't hyperbolic. Israel was absolutely founded in part by an ultra-nationalist, ethno-supremacist, terrorist organization. Founding members of Lehi went on to form Likud as well.
I'm calling Irgun nationalist terrorists, who were in coalition in founding Israel alongside Labor Zionists(who I don't believe are nationalist terrorists). If you don't think that label applies to Irgun you're a whole hell of a lot more fascist adjacent than I am.
Being 20 years older than me and ignorant ain't something I'm impressed by.
It just continues to blow my mind that people are so unwilling to look at the beyond questionable ethical underpinnings surrounding the formation of Israel. It is and was an extension of western colonialism. I don't even see how this is remotely controversial to say, and yet a lot of people lose their fucking minds if you even bring it up.
It is and was an extension of western colonialism.
YuuuUUUup. Spot on. The longer we go without recognizing the flawed foundation on this construct, the more it's going to fall apart. And as long as the two populations continue to accept rule from the religious zealots dedicated to promoting violence on both sides it's never, ever going to end.
Not going to claim to know their thoughts, but they said Israel, not Jews. There is a real difference. One is a government the other is a cultural identity/religion.