It’s completely trivial. Public record plus reporters/paparazzi following these people’s every move means you could find every address the bombs were sent to over lunch if you wanted to.
I can confirm that finding people’s addresses and the like is generally relatively easy provided you know how to actually look for these things. The average person might not know how to do it, but plenty of shitheads do.
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Mail bomb suspect’s van decorations annotated:
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Except… not white? I honestly didn’t see that one coming.
Are the images posted on twitter and in the windows of his van good enough to be considered a manifesto?
Okay, not white, so yep, he’ll probably be labeled a terrorist.
The Vanifesto is definitely enough.
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On the topic of finding the addresses and such. I think it’s good to remember that in this connected age of Internet even a lone actor is not acting alone. That person probably got help and advice, ether directly and knowingly helping him or indirectly just putting information out there for him to find.
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Three for four so far. THough they do seem to be pressing the idea of him being a magaot harder than they normally do in these cases, but we’ll see if that sticks.
I’m actually surprised they’re pushing the troubled loner thing, given that he’s not white.
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I feel like this guy could probably be a bit of an illustrative example of the absurdity of race itself.
Like is he white? What does that even mean? He claims to be part of group called “Unconquered Seminole Tribe” though they say he’s not a member so, whatever. So that makes him not white right? Maybe. I don’t know.
I could claim to be part of that group, would that make me not white? Does it have to do with some stuff in his genetics? Well I’m far from an expert but from what I’ve been reading, a genetic view tells a story not remotely consistent with our cultural ideas about what race is.
I’m so far from qualified to talk about this, but this guy and the confusion over his race has brought these thoughts to the front of my mind.
Mass murder at a synagogue. Right wing terrorist screaming about killing the Jews. This the day after the Magabomber was arrested.
If the Republicans keep power, it’s all over.
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“Whiteness” is a complicated, social thing. It’s definition has varied over the years and among various social groups. The notion that “European == White” seems to be relatively new in America and perhaps even in Europe itself. It’s certainly more complicated than just skin color.
Please keep in mind that what I’m saying consists of my own interpretations and memories of history and society and not necessarily my own personal beliefs. I also don’t promise to be completely accurate here as, frankly, this isn’t an area of expertise for me.
I mean, at one point, the only truly “white” Americans were the classic “White Anglo-Saxon Protestants,” or WASPs. You can see this by the way the Irish, perhaps the first major immigration wave to America post-revolution, were originally treated. They were certainly “white” in skin color, but they weren’t Anglo-Saxon (they were Celtic), and they weren’t Protestant (they were Catholic). While they weren’t treated worse than African-descended slaves, they were certainly only a small notch above them. “No Irish Need Apply” (NINA) signs were common back in the day. “Race” riots between so-called “nativist” WASPs and Irish sometimes took place.
Of course, nowadays, the Irish are considered part of the “white” mainstream by most of America.
The next big wave that introduced a bunch of other traditionally not “white” immigrant groups were what I call the “Ellis Island” years of the late 19th and early 20th century, when Ellis Island was at its peak of processing immigrants. Large numbers of Italians (like you, @Naoza, if I remember correctly), Jews, and other Eastern and Southern Europeans came in. Much like the Irish before, they weren’t considered “white” by those already here. Sure, they often had the “white” skin color, but they lacked in the other areas due to geographic ancestry, religion, and so on.
Nowadays, at least most of the Christian Southern Europeans are considered “white” by the mainstream.
People of Jewish ancestry are a more complicated and subtle scenario. Sure, they don’t pass the “Anglo-Saxon” and “Protestant” metric, but, especially Ashkenazi Jewish people (who I believe are the most common Jewish ancestral group in America), they do have “white” skin color. If one was seen walking down the street in everyday, Western clothes, without any Jewish-specific clothing, hairstyles, or accessories, they probably would be assumed to be part of the “white” majority. In my personal case, I’ve never just looked at a person and thought they were Jewish just by appearance, for example. Not that I particularly care unless I later become friends with them and find out. At that point, the most I pretty much do with respect to them being Jewish is respect their beliefs if I’m inviting them to my house for a meal and wish them well on Jewish holidays.
Of course, if someone really hates them, such as the horrendous incident in Pittsburgh today demonstrates, there’s nothing keeping evil people from seeking them out at a time and place where the fact that they aren’t truly “white” in the minds of said evil people becomes obvious.
Even in the case of my own ethnicity, Portuguese, it gets a bit complicated. There was a major immigration wave to New England in the mid 20th-century and we often got treated much like the Irish back in the day or Latin Americans today. As recently as the 90s, my mom was getting racist crap from her boss and had to take up the issue with her teachers’ union. We, as well as Brazilian Latin Americans, also share a lot of common names with Spanish Latin Americans due to the similarities between Portuguese and Spanish and often get lumped together with them, both by “non-Latins” (for lack of a better term) and by Latins. In European movies, Portuguese are often only cast in roles like housekeeper, fisherman, laborer, etc. (sound familiar). There was some controversy a few years back involving a respected Portuguese actress playing the part of a housekeeper in a British movie because of that. Even more recently, while listening to a podcast about the history of the Hawaiian shirt (which was quite interesting, believe it or not), the history of how Hawaii became a US state was recounted. They talked about how “white” Europeans and Americans set up sugar plantations in Hawaii and brought in non-white laborers such as Japanese, Latin-Americans, and Portuguese to work the plantations. Yes, the Portuguese were lumped together with the other so-called “non-white” groups.
Another complicated example is the Cape Verdeans. If you’re not familiar with it, Cape Verde is a former Portuguese colony off the coast of Africa where, due to the Portuguese habit of intermarriage with the locals, you could argue that most, if not all, of the population is actually of mixed Portuguese/African ancestry. As a result, despite having relatively dark skin, many of them considered themselves “white” when they immigrated to the US. When they got here, they were surprised to be considered “black.” It got worse when some local, non-Cape Verdean African-Americans started trying to date Cape Verdeans. This literally also resulted in various race riots.
So yeah, this is all a horrendously complicated issue that involves far more than just skin color, although skin color is probably the quickest way to make a determination if someone is part of the “whites” group or not. It’s all bullshit, obviously, and I wish everyone realized it, but I doubt that’s going to happen anytime soon for a large number of reasons.
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I have relatives who go to that synagogue. They are safe now but I’m fucking numb and angry.
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I’m glad you’re relatives are safe… and I’m with you on being angry.
I just got back after a long day cleaning out a storage unit and attic, I see this. I’m glad I’m in good company here. You’re right about my being Italian, and I somewhat experienced… a bit… of the vestiges of racial issues being Italian. Not to me personally, not really anyway.
My mother came to Canada in the 70s with her family and experienced roughly what she may have gotten in america at the same time.
I was raised by her mother for a few years, and one memory that’s always stuck with me was not being allowed to play in the sun. I had to stay in the shade or inside. “Diventari nero!” she used to yell at me. Literally “you’ll become black”. This was in the 90s, when we were white by any reasonable measure, but she still didn’t speak English, she didn’t really know.
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You know, go figure, I used to get “Tu vá se tornar negro,” literally Portuguese for “You’ll become black” form my grandmother too, back in the 80s, when I spent a lot of time playing in the sun. And yes, I did tan pretty dark at times.
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I mean normally I would say what you do is get more involved. However I know your situation and in those cases where you can’t do a lot, you might want to disengage a bit and focus on the problems in front of you that can be solved and change you focus away from National issues.
If I do that, I start focusing on leaving the country…
Not to be flip about it, but that’s the only thing I have control over at this point.
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He’s going to sign an executive order ending birthright citizenship.
That’s directly unconstitutional, but he controls the majority of the Supreme Court…
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