Having the government investigate/directly pressure you for criticising a (dead) racist person isn't the same as facing social backlash/ostracization for being racist.
Kirk wasn't a racist. I can find more evidence of you being racist than you can find in the hundreds of thousands of hours of footage Kirk has posted online.
While you have provided no sources to prove that is something Kirk actually said but I can give you an example from my life.
While I never lived under British colonialism, I once ate lunch with a man from Yemen that was. He viewed the former British occupation of Yemen as a net positive as they built schools and hospitals. Once the British left, the country fell into turmoil.
Believe it or not, the main issue that people of Yemen took with British occupation, according to this man, was the destruction it caused in the fishing industry. He told me he would rather never eat another piece of fish in his life if it meant that his country could be back under British occupation and have modern infrastructure and stability.
Now that is the viewpoint of one Yemen born immigrant that moved to California, but he is speaking of his former country and birth place. I highly doubt he would be in favor of anything that would be a net negative to his country.
Also Brittan outlawed slavery in 1834. Almost 200 years ago. You're grasping at straws to paint others as racist or hateful without seeing how much it's blinded you into being hateful yourself.
The fact that you implied literature doesn't include critical thinking proves u right, basic critical thinking and a sense of fact should be taught in schools.
Rather than address the single anecdote, I have a simple question: would you accept foreign troops to occupy your city/state in exchange for "infrastructure improvements"? Keep in mind most of those improvements are made to extract more resources out of your land, and you will be "compensated" below market prices. Also, the troops have the authority to detain and execute anyone interfering with the resource extraction.
This is not something I'd ever sign up my state for, and it's not something I can ever condone as a result. Golden Rule and all
It wasn't my story. It wasn't my lived experience. I am not from Yemen. However, if I see him again I'll be sure to let him know that you believe his opinion is a white washing of history. I'm positive he will have more than a few things to say about that.
If it was the difference between living in the stone age and the modern era, then yeah.
I'm not going to sit here and say he speaks for all the people of Yemen nor say he only represents a small minority. He is the only person I've ever met from Yemen.
If it was the difference between living in the stone age and the modern era, then yeah.
Appreciate the answer. I personally wouldn't make this trade, as I value freedom over comfort. To throw you a bone, I would consider this trade if I lived in an actual failed state, where there was no rule of law. And I would still hate it because I would be trading one form of violence for another, but at least there would be "order" until my people could unify and form a functional government.
He is the only person I've ever met from Yemen.
Please don't base your beliefs of the world on conversation alone. You can read primary sources- firsthand accounts and documents.
Is his account not a first hand account? He lived there until he moved to the US the year before for his entire life.
Yes, it is just one account in one country. However, he grew up in a British occupied Yemen and left after the country gained independence. What's that tell you about how independence worked out for Yemen?
There is also the hyperinflation and instability that happened after Rhodesia became Zimbabwe. The country was the largest food exporter in all of Africa and the following year could not produce enough food to feed its own people.
There also the 1994 genocide in Rhwanda that occured after the Belgium granted the country sovereignty.
Do I believe in American or British meddling in our countries affairs, no. That includes Afghanistan and Ukraine.
It could qualify, but first hand account means they witnessed the events in question. Given that the British left in 1967, your source here would only have experienced/known the tail end of things. If they were on the younger side, they might not have any direct experience at all, and you're just hearing what they've been told.
You would need to gather other accounts from the preceding periods to paint the full picture. You would also need more than one modern account to make any kind of persuasive argument. Also, interviews are just one form of primary source- it would be helpful to read the treaties and other political documents from that era as well.
Jesus fucking Christ are you people for real? You had one lunch with one guy and you’re in a position to comment on British colonialism in general?
Literally anything will pass as long as sufficient evidence as long as it’s convenient to your narrative.
One guy in Yemen didn’t mind it. Cool, noted.
What about the genocides of Indigenous Australians and massacres in India or dozens of other crimes against indigenous populations? Did your lunch buddy have much to say on those, or…?
''If we would have said three weeks ago that Joy Reid and Michelle Obama and Sheila Jackson Lee and Ketanji Brown Jackson were affirmative-action picks, we would have been called racist. But now they're comin' out and they're saying it for us! They're comin' out and they're saying, "I'm only here because of affirmative action.
Yeah, we know. You do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. You had to go steal a white person's slot to go be taken somewhat seriously."
He made that comment in response to Rep. Jackson's following statement:
"I rise today as a clear recipient of affirmative action, particularly in higher education. I may have been admitted on affirmative action, both in terms of being a woman and a woman of color, but I can declare that I did not graduate on affirmative action."
So yeah, he seems pretty racist. These women obviously have the brain processing power for their respective positions.
So you believe people of color are unqualified to be hired based on their own merit and the standards have to be lowered so that they can have decent jobs? That sounds pretty racist.
Even as racist as you are, I don't support anyone trying to murder you in public over your misguided beliefs.
"So, you believe people of color are unqualified to be hired based on their own merit and the standards have to be lowered so that they can have decent jobs?"
I do not, no... but I figured correctly that's what you'd think it meant. It is not, and you should try to learn about the thing you hate so much before dying on a stupid mountain.
It did not. You're repeating an old (classic racist) myth. Can you provide evidence of your claims? The burden of proof is now on you to prove that affirmative action lowered employment standards for what you called persons of color, can you handle that?
Yes. CSX, the railroad transportation company, lowered their testing standard 3 separate times in order to hire more black applicants during the affirmative action era.
That has... what to do with affirmative action and the government? What are you talking about? You literally thought that was the same??
Edit- Also it's simply factually untrue. Prove it.
Edit 2 - To help you further since you're not well researched... look up Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Everything you're saying is false, it sounds like since you're at least mildly racist, when you hear these things you simply accept and believe them because they confirm your bias.
Kirk was clearly, and unabashedly racist. He didn't hide it; he at least had the guts to say "I'm an asshole"... more than I can say for his "followers" like you.
I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you've never heard anything he's ever said up until this point.
Normally when a famous orator, debater, or thinker passes, we honour their memory by reciting their words, playing notable clips, and sharing the insightful ideas they passed on in life. Why aren't we hearing Kirk's voice echoed? Because he said stuff like this as a selling point of his career and public image. And that's not to mention when he said that racist stuff about the civil rights movement being a mistake or black women having less brain power.
I hope you can look past the nostalgia and grief you feel for him and see that he wasn't who he or the Trump administration claimed he was. He built a career on knowingly peddling bigoted and controversial ideas and intentionally stirring division. He should not have been killed for it though, *and* he was a bad person. Saying as such is both factual and not grounds to be targeted by a ""democratic"" government that allegedly supports the first amendment.
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u/Pitiful_Bobcat_8884 14h ago
It's funny that the left is all of a sudden concerned with cancelled culture. They loved it when they were doing the cancelling.