Michael Harriot
Friday 3:31pm

No matter how infinitely imaginative I may consider myself, there are some things I am still unable to fathom. I cannot imagine feeling so loyal to a political party that I don’t care if people lose their health care or if a man molested little girls. I can’t picture myself being so sensitive that I needed to remind myself that “It’s OK to be white.” I am unable to envision a world in which I have every societal advantage but am still butt-hurt by the simple use of the words “Black Lives Matter,” even when they are uttered by an inanimate object.

Apparently, my imagination isn’t big enough.

I recently found out that some of our beloved Caucasian brethren are upset because Alexa believes black lives matter. Not the woman named Alexa who works at the Starbucks near your house and spells your name wrong every time. (It’s Michael, not Michel!) I’m referring to the Amazon assistant whose brain was sucked out of her body and put into the Amazon Echo. She’s Siri’s cousin who went to a good college so she can actually understand what you’re saying.

I only use my Alexa to control a few household devices, but apparently, there are people who have whole conversations with their Alexa, and someone discovered that she responds when she hears, “Alexa, black lives matter.”

I mean, really mad.

https://www.theroot.com/white-people-are-upset-that-amazons-alexa-believes-blac-1821133078

Michael Harriot

When diehard Republicans engage in the often fruitless exercise of soliciting black and minority voters to buck the stranglehold of the Democratic voting bloc and join the constantly shrinking tent of the Grand Old Party, they always resort to the same tactics. They declare themselves “the party of Lincoln” and mention how they ended the two-and-a-half centuries-long genocide of chattel slavery. They remind their black and brown constituents of how Republicans led the passage of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. They make a convincing argument that the Democratic Party lives off the legacy of the legislative achievements that were actually enacted by the Republican Party.

And they are absolutely correct.

However, what they fail to mention in their back-patting stroll through history, is how they took their legacy of fighting for equality and civil rights, stuffed it into a box and locked it into the vault of history. They never acknowledge how they tossed aside this noble legacy for power and survival.

The south has become an unbreakable Republican confederation and it is the biggest reason the party is still relevant on a national scale. Loyal GOP acolytes will tell you their slave state stronghold is because of conservative Christian values and small-government independence. But they are aware that those catchphrases are all euphemisms for “white supremacy.” And nowhere is that truth being laid more bare than in Alabama.

The electoral death match between Senate candidates Roy Moore and Doug Jones is billed by news outlets across the country as a fight between a child molester and a civil rights hero. Every article written about it alternately examines how Moore preyed on junior varsity cheerleaders or Doug Jones convicted the bombers of one of the most heinous acts of racial terrorism in the history of this country.

It is all a ruse.


https://www.theroot.com/roy-moore-vs-doug-jones-has-nothing-to-do-with-little-1821161758

Watch: Police body cam of innocent woman clamped in K-9’s jaws. She’s suing.
By MARA H. GOTTFRIED | mgottfried@pioneerpress.com | Pioneer Press
PUBLISHED: December 6, 2017 at 10:02 pm | UPDATED: December 8, 2017 at 11:59 pm

A regular Saturday morning turned into a nightmare for a St. Paul woman as she took her garbage out and found herself being attacked by a police dog looking for a male burglary suspect, according to a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday.

Desiree Collins, 52, suffered multiple bites to her arm and one to her lower leg.

Right after it happened, Collins asked the officers, “What did I do?”

Nothing, said one. “Just at the wrong place at the wrong time, ma’am,” said another.

Collins’ attorney, Andrew Noel, said his client wants to make sure other innocent people aren’t similarly harmed.

“Part of the reason for the lawsuit is she says, ‘If this can happen to me, it can happen to anyone,’ ” Noel said. “She wants St. Paul to make the appropriate changes to makes sure it doesn’t happen again.”

http://www.twincities.com/2017/12/06/lawsuit-woman-taking-out-garbage-attacked-by-st-paul-police-dog-searching-for-male-suspect/

When you're exhausted from debating race with strangers, they step in
By Cassandra Santiago and AJ Willingham, CNN

Updated 9:27 AM ET, Wed December 6, 2017

(CNN)Social media conversations on race typically take one of two routes.

The first, and the one less traveled, leads to a thoughtful, fact-driven exchange of ideas. The second (more popular) route leads to bitter back-and-forth filled with tired stereotypes or racially inflammatory barbs.

But now, when discussion swerves in the second direction, there's a group of white allies prepared to do the rerouting.
White Nonsense Roundup is a social media watchdog group with about 100 white volunteers. Its goal: to relieve people of color from the emotional labor of engaging with a person's racist or racially insensitive thoughts.

Say, a person of color makes a post about Black Lives Matter. Then others respond with ignorant or offensive comments. That person can tag White Nonsense RoundUp to snatch some edges -- or, better put, to educate people with context and fact-based views.
close dialog

Think of it like roadside assistance for social media debates you're tired of having.
"It's really unfair that we expect people of color to experience racism, but then also explain it to us," the group's co-founder Terri Kempton, a book editor and college instructor, told CNN.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/06/health/social-media-race-debate-allies-trnd/index.html