Against the advice of my cardiologist, I occasionally look at the on-line comments at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch website. No surprise the comments are heavily dominated by right-wingers, but the extremism and racism never fail to shock me.
It is especially appalling when it comes to the issue of race. It is 100% guaranteed that whenever racism is mentioned in an article, commenters will twist themselves into pretzels to deny that race has anything to do with it. No matter the topic, no matter how clear and obvious. Law enforcement, housing, banking, education, health care, you name it.
Apparently, there is no racism. Any cries of racism are false. Racism must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt before you even raise the possibility. What racism there might be is the fault of black people. (I know this is not news to black people.)
It obviously never even occurs to these folks to just once, stop and think about the perspective of a black person.
Here are several posts from recent articles about Martin Luther King:
“Not sure what can be done further. An African American was elected President twice and racial intermarriage is widely blessed in America as it should always have been. Seems like this battle is over.”
By the way, the quote above was from someone I know to be a well-off well-educated white man.
“A lot of the gaps between blacks and whites have to do with the state of the black family. That can not be blamed on racism or a president. . . And your racists claims about Trump are pathetic and fake news. False claims of racism by the left are as much to blame as anything for the state of race in this country. The PD is part of the problem, not the solution.”
“I would think MLK and Jesus would be happy with the compassion we have for the poor and lower income in this country.”
“Sad article considering we had a black president for 8 years. Although progress is still needed, there are a lot of successful black people in this world.”
And in response to an article about a black candidate for school board in a largely-white suburb being questioned by the police when he was knocking on doors (in fairness, he did win!):
“When you play the race card so much it gets boring. I only see two racists in this story and it’s not the police or the neighbors.”
“I actually did some investigation and know that Police were called because of another person that had asked to help a woman with her groceries and then wanted to enter her house for a snack. JASON WILSON KNOWS THAT AS WELL. He just likes to tell his tale of being the victim of racism. It’s old, very old. He owns a business in Clayton and St. Louis. He has a degree from Wash U. He lives in the City of Clayton. His children attend Clayton Schools. Stop wearing you hair shirt Jason. You are a success. Get over it and celebrate.”