Senate "Race" Relations (was "U.S. Society and Black Men")

Stupidity.

 

It reminds me of when the media changed the spelling from Usama Bin Laden to Osama Bin Laden, because idiots were outraged that the first three letters of Usama are USA, and apparently that's just blasphemous. What an outrageous coincidence, morons. Who was outraged over a coincidence then, btw? The patriotic right.

Maybe it's oversensitive and needless, but obviously ESPN was just playing it safe and avoiding any possible unfortunate coincidences. You know idiots would have tried to make a big deal out of it on social media, and indeed ESPN has to watch out and try to avoid bad optics (like idiots getting upset over an announcer named Robert Lee after what happened in Charlottesville). So, damned if you do, damned if you don't. It may have been better if they didn't let this get out at all, then they wouldn't have to worry about optics.

That said, I generally don't give a **** what the alt-right will think of it, I'm not big on catering to their thoughts or reactions. Anyone who can't see that it is in actuality a harmless precaution and tries to make a big deal out of it is already biased, and every bit as ready to make a fuss out of nothing as the pampered babies on the left.

In actuality, it's a non-issue. The alt-right can't do anything significant with this. No1curr, except for those who already have an ax to grind. It's just yet another of life's little annoyances, so count me as unconcerned.

 

Setting aside your personal beliefs, you realize that this not even slightly accurate from a factual standpoint, right?

Usama bin Laden or Osama bin Laden?

Slate, CNN, AP says Osama. The FBI, the CIA, and FOX News says Usama.

As most everyone knows, the Arabic alphabet differs from the Latin alphabet. The Arabic alphabet has 28 letters rather than 26, and it uses completely different characters—some of which, including the first character of Bin Laden's first name, do not have directly corresponding sounds in English. Changing letters or words from one alphabet into the corresponding letters or words from another alphabet is called transliteration. Rendering a language from another alphabet (or from a pictographic system such as Chinese) into the Latin alphabet is called Romanization. A variety of systems exist to Romanize Arabic letters and words, but there is no dominant one.

The International Journal of Middle East Studies offers one system, the Library of Congress a slightly different one. And not all publications consistently follow one system, either. Historical tradition for a particular place or name can win out, and so can personal preference. Or the ad hoc spelling established by the Associated Press can become the standard, as the case with Osama. For example, the official IJMES transliteration of the al-Qaida leader would be "Usama ibn Ladin," but the journal uses "Osama bin Laden" for consistency with other publications.

The difficulty in Romanizing Arabic was illustrated in the 1980s by the multiple spellings for Libyan strongman Moammar/Muammar Gadaffi/Gaddafi/Gathafi/Kadafi/Kaddafi/Khadafy/Qadhafi/Qathafi. The official Library of Congress transliteration would be "Qadhdhafi," but the library opted for "Quaddafi" instead, because the "dhdh" looked so strange in English. In 1986, the AP adopted "Gadhafi" as its standard, which became the most common translation used by media.

This all seems quite reasonable, and nary a "patriotic anything" in sight. But why let that get in the way of a good conspiracy?

 

Yeah, Arabic doesn't have a standardized Romanization. I thought that was pretty well-known due to Qaddafi and bin Laden's names.

 

First, I got the lesson on Arabic from darth boy years ago.

Second, I literally saw it live on 9/11. Actual messages scrolling the ticker of people outraged that Usama started with the letters USA. People were hysterical about it. This actually happened. This isn't some conspiracy I made up over 15 years later.

 

And in typical American fashion, stories started to circulate that bin Laden hated the US because he tried to hook up with an American girl and she laughed him off.

There's not much point to it. Yes, some US sources were comfortable with USAma bin Laden, but your country has a capacity beyond what is reasonable for stupidity. The US defence/intelligence community though commonly called him UBL, so I guess there's a clue there about right wingers and his name.

 

Same.

 

The police and the state stand with fascism and white supremacy, treating racists wielding firearms and preaching genocide with undue deference while reacting violently to non-violent Occupy, BLM, anti-Trump, etc. protests. Unfortunately this is still news to people.

 

Merk, I wish there was a function that would automatically give you a "like" every time you posted. Thank you.

 

So.....

http://kotaku.com/new-south-park-ga...urce=Kotaku_Twitter&utm_medium=Socialflow

Going to be interesting to see what response this gets.

 

He decided to 'retire' rather than get fired.

 

http://chicago.suntimes.com/news/hate-crime-charges-filed-against-man-for-racist-rant-at-starbucks/

and the guy Trump put in charge of elections overtly says Jim Crow laws were Good

 

Wrong thread. Nothing to see here.

 

An interesting argument I found on the subject of Confederate statues:

 

Thankfully, they removed the Robert E. Lee statue in downtown Dallas.

 

A black musician is talking about his experience in befriending and educating members of the KKK on Reddit if anyone is interested in giving it a read: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/70vcr0/im_daryl_davis_a_black_musician_here_to_discuss/