It looks like there's little evidence Bannon hates Jews. The problem with the left yelling racist is that they're now the boy who cried wolf. — Hanover

Yesterday I read a very interesting article accusing the liberals and left of crying wolf over Trump's racism. It takes each accusation and examines it quite thoroughly:

http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/11/16/you-are-still-crying-wolf/

Anyway, I made bomba rice for dinner this evening.

Bomba rice is a variety of rice cultivated in the Valencian region of Spain, where I'm currently living. I'd never heard of it till I moved here recently. It was brought here by the Arabs a long time ago, and it's the kind of rice to use in paella, a dish that originates here. It's quite similar to risotto rice, like Arborio, but I seem to get on with it better. It just behaves well, in the pan, on the plate, and in the mouth. It's got character.

What I do is chop an onion and some garlic, fry the onion, after a few minutes add the garlic, and then add some chopped or grated tomatoes. Then I add the rice, stir it around for a minute, and then add some stock/broth. I tend to make it kind of in the way you make risotto--adding the liquid gradually--just because I find it easier to watch over what I'm cooking rather than calculate the amount of liquid I'll need and then just leave it. (I hate leaving a meal just cooking while I do nothing. I can't relax.) So I just add stock whenever it's getting too low. In between stirring it I cover the pan, because the great thing about bomba rice is that the grains absorb a lot of liquid and expand in size without losing their shape and integrity. So I mostly keep the lid on so as not to boil away the liquid.

Saffron is a good addition towards the end, for both colour and flavour. I also like some heat, so chilis, paprika and cayenne pepper work well.

I've found it goes especially well with morcilla, which is a Spanish blood sausage. One way to incorporate this is to fry the chunks of morcilla in the same pan even before you put the onions in, and just leave them in there while the rice cooks. So long as you don't burn the morcilla to a crisp, it seems to be impossible to overcook it.

Rub it in, jerk

Cooking aside, that trump/racism article is very interesting but I think it's wrong. The way I see it, the problem with Trump and race isn't that he's actually racist but that he's perceived as being so by people who harbor deep racial animus, which goes well beyond registered white nationalists (and he very clearly encourages this perception while also maintaining plausible deniability) - what this does is foster an environment where it feels ok to be racist or whatever-ist. The president can say on tv he never meant that, but you still feel safe lashing out in public. The national tone or mood shifts. I personally don't think he's that much more racist than your average American. But that's irrelevant. If the argument is that by accusing Trump of strengthening racist sentiments*, we forfeit the right to be taken seriously if we call a candidate who endorses the kkk racist (i.e. we won't be able call people who declare that they're racist racist) - well that's a bad argument. isn't it? Don't say 'racist' until the president commends lynching during the state of the union? If someone is openly endorsing the kkk and still has a shot at winning, then things would have gotten bad enough no dissenting voice would make much of a difference.

The discussion of the "I love Hispanics" taco pic seemed so tone deaf I couldn't tell if the author was trolling. (what? that frat bro is a misogynist? he posted on facebook about how much he loves women! we'll know it's bad when he stops posting stuff like that...)

*To be fair, the author mentions those who accuse Trump of spearheading a white nationalist agenda, with white nationalist priorities. Those voices are out there, sure (as were the voices of those who thought Obama was an african-born radical socialist) but by and large people are more worried about the nonchalant integration of people with racist/xenophobic views into positions of power, and how that will play out, not about a conscious and concerted effort to make the US a white ethnostate)

Just as a matter of personal phenomenology, the insult 'racist' has become so oversaturated that my first response is always not to take it seriously, because I have no idea what it means. Being alive is, on many respectable accounts, racist for certain sorts of people.

I think maybe people on the left project their own racism onto everybody else. It reminds me of that Avenue Q song, Everyone's a Little Bit Racist. On hearing it, I got the feeling I was supposed to laugh along and think, 'yeah, I've totally thought those things!' but I hadn't, so the impression was more like, no, that's just you that's racist, retard.

So I agree with all of that (except the Avenue Q part, just because I've never heard the song.) But I get the sense you're trying to gesture toward a point beyond what you've explicitly said?

Not really. I just think that there are tendencies on the left that favor perpetual hysteria, and perpetual hysteria isn't sustainable in trying to make any point, because you have no modulation of your tone. It's just egregious outrage at absolutely everything, forever, which leaves everything you say without scope or interest. I think that some of the responses to Trump, especially after he won the election, might genuinely qualify as mass hysteria and delusion, of the kind that historians and psychologists need to document for progeny.

That and I think it has to do with misdirecting one's own fears and prejudices at other people. If all you think about is race, it's impossible to think that everyone else doesn't also. I guess, also, there might be something to be said that it is the left that has been inflaming racist sentiments in recent years, for more than Trump ever has. I don't know, I'm so tired of these people.

I think maybe people on the left project their own racism onto everybody else. It reminds me of that Avenue Q song, Everyone's a Little Bit Racist. On hearing it, I got the feeling I was supposed to laugh along and think, 'yeah, I've totally thought those things!' but I hadn't, so the impression was more like, no, that's just you that's racist, retard.

Listening on youtube. I think this is interesting. You accuse the educated left - a lot - of condescendingly scolding poor whites for their views. But you seem more than a little irked at the racist ideas in Avenue Q which you don't harbor - but hey, they're 'projections'

Let's go through the racist ideas in the video.

(1) People with similar 'ethnic' names must be related (or at least this is a solid thing to joke about)
(2) Rap is bad for kids because of the language and ideas
(3) foreign workers should learn to speak english
(4) Asian people say words funny
(5)Jews control finance
(6)White people have all the power
(7) Ethnic taxi drivers have bad BO

Poor whites are on board with almost all of this. I hear this kind of stuff day in, day out (when I dispatch a call, part of that involves giving the name of the person who placed the call. Goldstein, chang, mohammed, and nyongo all get reactions. Often.)

So what do I make of this? You clearly on aren't on board with these ideas (or even admitting that people beside projecting privileged whites harbor them!), but you also aren't on board with ivory tower libs calling out poor whites for having these ideas - so what do you want?

This is my suspicion You don't care either way - you just want an angle to attack other people on campus. All this shit is just fodder for intracampus sniping, fuel for local resentments. Which is ivory tower thinking on steroids.

Prove me wrong! Walk me through it.

I agree that a lot of people have casually racist attitudes. I think people who are educated in certain ways have racist attitudes that are more than casual, i.e. more than reactions to personal experiences and casual bigotry based on superficial differences or stereotypes. They have systematic, ideologized racist ideas that are deeply ingrained in them and that they are actively seeking to spread.

Casual racists who grow up around it, and don't have it inflicted upon them as a matter of curriculum, are not dangerous in the way that educated racists are. I personally don't like the casually racist ideas, and don't participate in them. But whereas I think those are uncouth or unproductive, or even mean or sometimes a pathway to violence (and I think these attitudes also come from being educated in a certain way), I think the educated attitudes are seriously dangerous. Casual racism comes from contact with other ethnicities, noticing differences, having ingrained biologically-driven preferences, and having bad experiences with an out-group. All of that is unfortunate, but it's part of life. The educated racism is not, it's pathological and insane. I'm just really, really tired of these sorts of people.

But yeah, the Avenue Q song doesn't resonate with me. I mean, look at this:

https://youtu.be/vqn9rXu1TCM?t=3m1s

The joke is literally that South African languages have clicks in them (the name, so far as I am aware, is made up, and is a parody of Xhosa). How is that funny? I mean, it doesn't offend me, but there does seem to be this weird sort of racism to it in that the very notion that a language might make use of a sound that yours doesn't is enough material for a standup routine. Likewise, how is it 'funny' that Mandarin speakers sound like Mandarin speakers?

Casual racism comes from contact with other ethnicities, noticing differences, having ingrained biologically-driven preferences, and having bad experiences with an out-group. All of that is unfortunate, but it's part of life.

The joke is literally that South African languages have clicks in them. How is that funny? I mean, it doesn't offend me, but there does seem to be this weird sort of racism to it in that the very notion that a language might make use of a sound that yours doesn't is enough material for a standup routine. Likewise, how is it 'funny' that Mandarin speakers sound like Mandarin speakers?

I guess, If I were you responding to yourself, I'd say that noticing differences is unfortunate but part of life? Are you outraged? I'm assuming you'd want to say no, based on earlier posts. So what's your point? (See, I agree with you, but you seem to also want to go beyond this and chastise other college ppl for chastising non-college ppl.)

You suggested that the Avenue Q stuff was left projection. It really isn't, not at all, not even close. And so I agree that the systematized ideological racism of certain well-educated people is pernicious in a whole other way. For sure. But I'm still not sure how you're reconciling the it's-wrong-to-look-down-on-poor-whites-for-their-ideas stance with the I-can't-stand-people-who-make-jokes-based-on-arbitrary-cultural-differences stance. (I'm assuming you're not trying to do a thing of the guy in that video wasn't white while libs at college specifically hone in on poor whites?)

Idk man, you can't have your cake and eat it too.

You suggested that the Avenue Q stuff was left projection. — csalisbury

I was introduced to it in high school by a neighbor of mine, who was pretty much the gold standard of what you might call a bourgeois southern Californian – liberal, college educated, gay, and so on. It seemed to serve, to me, a function of 'whew, I'm glad they said it so we can all admit we feel this way,' but my reaction on hearing it was not that.

I-can't-stand-people-who-make-jokes-based-on-arbitrary-cultural-differences stance. (I'm assuming you're not trying to do a thing of the guy in that video wasn't white while libs at college specifically hone in on poor whites?) — csalisbury

It's not that I can't stand it, it's just not something that resonates with me or that I have a desire to join in with. Like I said, I think it's unfortunate, but it's of a different quality from educated racism (which I think this particular neighbor was not a party to – he was not young enough).

Ok, that's fair - but to circle back around: I think it could be problematic to view concerns over racism in the Trump Administration (and what that means for racism all over the states) through the lens of a deep distaste for others within academia or similar social strata. It's not like there isn't a lot of racism outside the rich liberal enclaves.

Not my fault that everything is terrible. — Wosret

I'm the anti-Sturgeon--I say that 90% of everything is pretty good.

We need to clone this guy.

- talking about hypocrisy

I have interests. Just like everyone else. Some interests I am more interested in than others.
You think I'm some kind of invader, trying to get to everyone to agree with me and I suppose in a way you are right, but only insofar as everyone else with an opinion does, to some degree or another. Convincing people and being convinced is part of the point of a place like this. Is it not?
Also as someone with mildly(?) controversial views, I have more reason to speak them then someone with less controversial views.
So as not to derail this thread: if you want to reply, it should be here