It was Friday night, 22 February 2015. My friend Nuha (a Sudanese American) and I (an Egyptian American) walked into a restaurant in Jackson, Mississippi. Both of us are different shades of non-white. The scene could have taken place anywhere in America.
The waitress seated us at the corner of the hibachi table, next to a white man who appeared to be in his mid-30s and his two young sons. As I reached to pull my chair away from the table, the youngest boy, the one sitting adjacent to my seat, looked at me and said: “White skin don’t marry brown skin, but it’s OK, you can sit here anyway.”...
Nuha asked the boy: “Who taught you that brown skin and white skin don’t marry?” The little boy looked confused, as though we had asked an unnecessary question. He then timidly looked to his right and slowly lifted his finger, pointing at his father.
“You did, Dad!”
He stuttered. “N-no, no I didn’t. I never taught you that. Maybe it was your mom, but I didn’t teach you that.”...
May 17, 2018
"What do you say to a four-year-old white supremacist?"
"A child’s uncensored racist commentary is a harsh reminder that while society has moved forward, the book on discrimination isn’t closed yet" (The Guardian):
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109 comments:
The Stasi never sleeps.
I "binged" Craig Hicks and Chapel Hill, he was a nut so bad that his neighbors were concerned and an anti-theist who hated Christianity. So, not a anti-muslim or racial angle. In addition, I call bullshit on a four year old spontaneously making the remark about skin color and marriage. I don't believe it happened.
Have no proof of this, of course, but I might be willing to bet some money that the story about the boy and the hibachi is bullshit. Also, the author's efforts to make the 2015 Chapel Hill shootings some kind of Islamophobic attack are not born out by the evidence.
@Ron Winkleheimer:
Holy shit, Ron. Same.
Is this the guy that used to write books that Oprah raved about for her book club?
Its all Bullshit !
4-year olds often say stupid things. Normally, we give them a mulligan, not write a stupid article to advance a leftwing agenda.
Just sayin'
The chances of this anecdote actually being true are tiny.
slow day at AA.
This is the tell:
"Nuha and I continued to dialogue with the boy, telling him that black, brown and white are simply “outside colors”. We both felt uncomfortable lecturing someone else’s child, especially when the father was sitting at the same table. But you cannot not speak up when someone who’s only been in this world for four years thinks he’s more valuable than you. And so we talked. We had an hour-long conversation with a four-year-old boy, while his dad sat in silence."
You are a huge racist who teaches your child that miscegenation is wrong, and then you sit in silence as some people of color contradict you to your own kid? This is absolute fantasy. Sounds like fan fiction to me. Next thing you know they'll be demonstrating their superior knowledge of the Bible to some knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing fundamentalist, to the applause of all right-thinking Christians in ear shot. "Yeah, tell him how it is my brown, Islamic brother!"
Where's Art linkletter now that we need him?
No one else was at the table other than the five of us and Jim Comey.
I guess we're supposed to believe those tales? Sad.
At least the guy at Starbucks who made national news by telling the waitron that his name was "Beaner" had a picture of a Starbucks cup with "Beaner" on it.
Probably more interesting, what do you do with a racist cat.
Our cat dislikes the Indian Hindu neighbors - and hisses at them. However, she accepts everyone else. Sorta.
What should I do?
"We had an hour-long conversation with a four-year-old boy, while his dad sat in silence."
I bet they did.
All the father had to do was pay his bill and leave, but as a huge racist, he thought he would let some total strangers who he despised, because of their skin color, teach his son things that directly contradicted the father's believes. Cause that happens all the time.
She of course is full of "Cat Privilege" and demands certain kinds of American canned cat food. She turns her nose up at ethnic foods.
He might have been a brown supremacist. You can't tell from the story.
Anyway he's a separatist, not a supremacist, from the data given.
(Eaglebeak)
THIS is why I don't read The Guardian.
In their desperation to show how ghastly America is, especially Trump's America, they try to make the South look like a cultural disaster.
Yet these are the same people that bitch about a black child being raised by a white parent, or Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, or a thousand other things they use to claim endemic and unrelenting racism in the U.S.
Insufferable twits. Or a word very similar to twits.
Not buying this.
In the first draft of this story, when he asked the kid who taught him that, the kid slowly raised his finger, pointed at his dad's MAGA hat and said, "Donald Trump!"
These guys aren't Americans, they are Muslims. Americans believe in the Constitution. Muslims believe in the Koran. The two are incompatible.
I am fucking sick and tired of the ideas that all White people are racist and only White people are racist.
"it's OK, you can sit here anyway" - has a Huck Finn / Scout Finch quality to it.
rcocean said...
Probably more interesting, what do you do with a racist cat.
If it's a white cat it should be killed. If it's a COC (Cat of Color), it should be repatriationized for the pain and suffering caused by the white cats.
I love how the dad throws mom under the racist bus. Classic!
The only other interpretation is that in the US racism is so reviled that a racist father would rather allow his son to be taught the evils of racism by two people of color than be reveled to be a racist.
Just sayin.
I am certainly overstating the obvious, but a four year old has very limited cognitive capacity. Only an idiot (or a hoaxter) would question them.
Related story: When I was about fours old, my mother took me on a bus trip from our small town in Wisconsin. An African-American woman got on the bus. I had never seen such a person and I loudly exclaimed, "Look Mommy. She's so black!" My mother said that she was never so embarrassed in her life.
I do not remember the incident. As I said, four year olds have limited cognitive capacity and very poor memory.
Blaming the absent parent - I am amused by the way that the Dad throws the Mom under the racist bus. I am taking split/divorced in the betting pool.
But let's assume it was Dad. The real lesson here is to never conspire with a 4-year-old, they'll rat you out every time.
i think the Egyptian should marry (white) Jewish skin in Egypt. I'm in a pissy mood.
Racism is taught. The hatred of WASPs has been carefully taught for many years. But no one buys into that BS anymore.
Good luck with that.
Also, the author's efforts to make the 2015 Chapel Hill shootings some kind of Islamophobic attack are not born out by the evidence.
I know that neighborhood fairly well. The houses are large but the lots are small. The people who live there have money enough for many cars, but not much room to park them. The curbside parking is ridiculous. A 2000 sqft house has barely 50 feet of frontage. If a resident has guests the overflow will inevitably intrude on a neighbor's curbside. Violent arguments over parking aren't unusual, the only thing different in the Chapel Hill incident was the complication of religion.
It doesn't sound like white supremacy, it sounds like racial separatism.
The difference is important because while there are no black/minority white supremacists there are many black/minority racial separatists. The left's general acceptance of unrestrictedly translating separatism to racism shows they are supporting racism when defending black / minority separatism.
I used to take my daughter to work and she'd sometimes hang out with (pester) this black guy I'd often hang out with, who dressed in regular "office casual" clothes. Then at a Safeway we were talking about him and she said "Bill's not black - that guy's black!" and pointed to a full-blown Rastafarian, dreadlocks, clothes, the whole bit. "Clothes make the man". For 5-year-olds at least.
Ah yes, the wayward South. Something like this would never happen in Boston or Chicago.
@Ron W,
You are a huge racist who teaches your child that miscegenation is wrong, and then you sit in silence as some people of color contradict you to your own kid? This is absolute fantasy.
But it's a very common lefty fantasy. Remember the scene in Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing where the Spike Lee character calls out John Turturro's character on his racism & gives him this lecture that goes on & on while JT's character stands there in silence? Absolute nonsense.
I grew up with old-guard Southern white racists in northern Alabama in the 60s & 70s. Not many, but a few. Not the uneducated, poor "I jes' hate them n****rs" farm boy type, but men & women of education & means. All of them could talk for hours about what they disliked about blacks & black culture & with an alarming array of facts & figures.
What none of them would have ever done is to take correction in silence. They all loved to argue their points with any captive audience present.
A four year old might have precisely this interaction without ever hearing such a thing from his parents. It is a myth that children have to be taught racism. Also, a four year old may often attribute his own whimsical thoughts to his parents.
Rick said...
It doesn't sound like white supremacy, it sounds like racial separatism.
The POCs at Evergreen are up to it again: "POC Only"
He growled that they had woken up his wife, lifting his shirt to reveal a holstered gun. The students did not call the police, but there was little the authorities could have done if they had. Mr. Hicks had a concealed-carry permit.
From the NYT, for some reason I can't cut and paste the URL.
Anyway, actually they could have. What he did is called "brandishing a firearm" and it is illegal. Clearly he was trying to intimidate them.
And apparently the NYT has a special, one time offer, disdain for atheism.
" There is no question Mr. Hicks had a problem with religion. His Facebook page was full of quotations and memes denigrating Christianity. On Jan. 27, he shared a graphic that may have made reference to Islam: “People say there is nothing that can solve the Middle East problem ... I say there is something. Atheism.”"
Walk like an Egyptian author of fake news.
kids are little assholes. I was checking out with my (then) four year old daughter who pointed to the cashier and said “she’s ugly. I don’t like her”. I had to make my older child take her to stand by the door until I was finished. That four year old is twenty now and is the nicest, kindest person. Who knows why kids pop out with the things they do. Maybe this kid was trying to work out things in his own mind? Kids can be pretty black and white (no pun intended) in their thinking. Calling a four year old a white supremicist says more about these two people than about the kid.
This is just Guardian BS. Remember their excessive coverage of the UK’s first black Prime Minister?
Me neither.
Why would an editor accept such a patently biased and probably embellished piece of writing? Apparently the Guardian is not much more than the lefty equivalent of the Völkischer Beobachter. In the 1930s it was an almost daily feature of that National Socialist press organ, a Jew reveals in his own words the worldwide Jewish/Bolshevik conspiracy. A typical example: a poor but hard-working Arya father of four asks his Jewish landlord for an extension on his rent, but is instantly refused. Why? Because the Jews need the money to forward our plan for world domination, says the Jew.
Hitler's periodicals, there were dozens, existed to promote the core mythology of the Nazi party. Likewise, the Guardian exists to promote the core mythology of its political outlook.
Someone hates human nature.
Or has a tribal axe to grind.
My 10yo daughter's best friend is mixed white/black. Her parents are wonderful people and we've spent a lot of time with them at sports and school events. We routinely have each other's kids over for play or shuttle them around to various activities. We're not best friends or anything, but in the busy family life of middle-age, how many best friends do you honestly have outside your spouse?
My 14yo daughter's best friend is Lebanese. She's second-generation, but her parents didn't move here until they were both in their 40's. Again, we're not best friends with them, but given our daughters' relationship, we end up spending a lot of time with them.
We're just living our lives both with decent people and being decent ourselves. In the SJW's worldview though, most stridently repeated ad infinitum by TaNeshi Coates, "You don't get credit for doing the right thing". In other words, you can get slammed, excoriated, publicly flogged for wrongthink, but if you rightthink, there's no upside.
Most of us, regardless of skin tone, just want to live our lives and get along with everyone.
I totally believe this actually happened.
True story. I was walking down a dark street with two black men approaching. It was dark. There was a big mud puddle between us. I jumped over it and a bit to their right. One of the gentleman spoke up and said “ you don’t have to be afraid of us because we’re black. “ But I was actually afraid of the mud puddle.
And Chinese culture is built around the idea of bamboo door bamboo door, wooden door wooden door.
It pays better to error on the side of good intent.
I cannot wait until Tennessee Coates starts taking umbrage at the things dementia patients say.
That is a rich vein to mine.
Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.
The dumbest thing Rousseau ever wrote.
Yeah, it is funny how White Separatism = White Supremacy.
Its like if white stay in the Big City they're accused of "Gentrification". If they leave, its "White Flight".
I could see a 4 year old saying this. Because 4 year olds are silly little people who have a poor understanding of the world in general. If your parents are the same race, and since the vast majority of couples are of the same, it makes sense that a young children might think, "I guess people marry within their own race." Or maybe his parents are outspoken racists.
And I'm sure an outspoken racist dad is perfectly comfortable with two non-whites lecturing his young child for an hour about the evils of racism. Riiiiiiiiight.
If this story is true, the most plausible explanation is the child had a childlike understanding of marriage, the child said something dumb to strangers, the strangers corrected the child, the dad watched on with mild annoyance or maybe bemusement, and if they spoke to the child for an hour it's because they were having a good time discussing many different things.
That kid's going to grow up to be Thomas Friedman's cab driver if he doesn't shape up.
Fiction. People in Mississippi do not speak like this.
The perfect anecdote! Truth is stranger than fiction, but when it comes to SJW morality plays, nothing beats fiction. Don't try to replicate this anecdote in any restaurant in the real world.
The same thing you say to any other diversitist: don't judge people by the "color" of their skin, but rather by the content of their character (e.g. principles). Teach him or her the moral axioms: individual dignity and intrinsic value (i.e. life deemed worthy).
#ThatHappened
The story needs to end with "and then everybody clapped." There's a certain style to these types of stories and they need to follow the conventions.
I could see a 4 year old saying this. Because 4 year olds are silly little people who have a poor understanding of the world in general.
"Kids say the darndest things...but so would you, if you had no education." - Eugene Mirman.
And then the two-year-old said, "I concur. It's unwise, perhaps unnatural, for a light-skinned individual to take a swarthy partner in matrimony. But, of course, have a seat. And try the Reuben."
In my daughter's school (northern California public school) it's as diverse as it can be. As part of her early kindergarten lessons (pre-math) they practiced dividing blocks into sets of different colors. She was very interested in categorizing by color for a while. That she was already adding and subtracting made the lesson all the more useless for math, while unfortunate for her social classification.
My wife was out with her once when she was four and she said loudly in the store, "I don't like black people". She meant it seems people who were wearing black clothing, but it should didn't sound like it!
Kids pick up all sorts of lessons intended and unintended, and don't always mean what we think they mean.
I still can't imagine having an hour long conversation with a four year old about any deep topic. Makes me think this story is like those that pastors tell about something that happened to them during the week.
I don't believe it.
I doubt if it is true; but if it is, the woman had no right to question a 4 year old. It was rude and improper.
I wonder if mixed race couples ever considered the problems they might be creating for their future offspring? Probably much easier today for the kids than it was 30 years ago.
I'll take "Stories that never happened" for $500, Alex.
Nothing worse than a snitch. I'd beat that kid. Beat him good.
The young lady in Airplane certainly knew better.
TheGuardian is famous for its deep, nuanced understanding of America, particularly the South. Based on this history I am completely confident that this happened just the way it was described.
Next up in the Guardian a feature called “The Klan Wives of New Orleans. “
By all means, let's dig up as many racist comments as possible, even if we have to get them from small children. Or invent them, as seems to be the case here.
What is shit that didn't happen that was 100% made up by left-wing racists, Alex.
Ron Burgundy
"And then the whole restaurant clapped."
Children are never too young to be taught that they're not allowed certain opinions.
"Remember the scene in Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing ..."
Spike is one of the worst filmmakers ever. Most of his characters don't converse like normal humans; they stand on soap boxes and give speeches.
No one has to teach kids to say stupid things. When my son was three or four, he pointed to two men at the grocery store and said, "that is a boy, and that is a man" regarding a black and white man, respectively. He had NEVER heard anything like that from me or his father, I have no idea where he got it. Also, having rarely seen black children, he was watching some kids get off a school bus from a different part of town, and exclaimed, "Mom, look at all the brown kids!"
Mead- "Ann let's have fun today with your right wing followers(majority of followers"
Ann - "sounds good"
Mead - I think a subject that gets those wahoos riled is "mixed marriages"
Ann - "yea. Let me search on goggle for mixed marriage news. Great i found this British news agency has an article. "
Mead - Jackson, Mississippi., little racists kid, red-neck dad - who is going to believe this is factual?"
Ann - " The hell with authenticity, lets have some fun"
Seriously Ann, you insulted the intelligence of your audience.
I don't know about the racism, but when I was a young girl the little boys certainly were misogynist.
They were all steadfast in the belief that the female would only contaminate their manhood.
That, with but a brief touch from a young girl, they would get 'cooties', an irreversible disease which would bring them great shame and weakness.
I did not realize until I got older that some of my strength as a woman derived from these same 'cooties'.
Once young boys became men they could become frenzied in their desire to contract 'cooties' from a woman. Or at least to engage with women in the activities that would seem to transmit 'cooties' to them.
They were like mosquitoes, drawn to sweet, sweet 'cootie' juice.
Not coincidentally, one of my ex-boyfriends in college stole two pairs of my panties from the laundry.
-LWL
Kids Say The Darndest Things When You Make Up Fake Bullshit!
If an Indian/African/brown skinned parent doesn't want their child to marry a white person, are they a supremist? Believing in not mixing races is not necessarily supremist thinking.
Hey, it could have been a true story. That's enough to get published these days.
I caught my friend's seven year old child reading this post on my laptop and when I walked up he turned to me and said, "I call bullshit."
Ergo, Jackson, Mississippi is a hyphenated-American shithole.
I'll take shit that never happened for $1000, Alex.
My daughter couldn't identify people by race until sixth grade. She had a biracial friend (black/white), who was much lighter skinned than her Asian-American friends. I caught myself teaching her how to put people in the right boxes and wondered: Why do I think she should know this?
When she was three or four, she pointed to an obese woman walking down the street and said, loudly, "She's fat." I shushed her. She said again, even louder, "She is fat." I told her it was rude to say it out loud. In the next three minutes, we saw more very fat people than I've ever seen at one time. She stage-whispered "She's fat," "he's fat," etc. for every single one. Finally, she got bored and stopped. She never again felt the urge to identify fat people.
The scene could have taken place anywhere in America.
VOIDH.
The kid is young enough to tell the truth and not worry about the consequences.
Look it is obviously bullshit but I still blame the Dad for sitting with those people because you know they are going to be nasty and demanding and the gook cooking that swill is going to spit on the Shrimp.
If you want to see what it is like dealing with black people when you are in the service industry check out last weeks "Below Deck Mediterranean,"
Our ancestors had those separate lunch counters for a very good reason.
Learn from his mistakes. Stick with your own kind.
"What do you say to a four-year-old white supremacist?"
Well you might start over by rewinding the headline back to "old..." and just substitute "racist," and try again.
I am sorely disappointed that there are no comments on the Guardian piece; I was looking forward to the howls of derision that a 'respected' media outlet published this steaming wet pantload of obviously fictional hot garbage.
And they laugh at us as unsophisticated rubes for believing the Bible. As though they don't have their own pretend fables to support their worldview. Hahaha!
"'it's OK, you can sit here anyway' - has a Huck Finn / Scout Finch quality to it."
You do realize that they were both just as fictional as this four year old boy, right?
It just goes to show you that no good can come from sitting down at a table with them.
It is the same reason why you should not be out partying at 4 in the morning.
Only bad things can happen.
"Egyptian-American"? "Sudanese-American"?
Wouldn't that make them African-American?
Unless they are recent (legal?) immigrants. In that case Egyptian and Sudanese seems OK. Tacking American on sounds close to cultural appropriation.
John Henry
Michael, started on history of disease last night. About half way through chapter 1.
Very well written and interesting, even to a layman like me.
Thanks.
John Henry
One time I was at a movie theater when a group of black teenagers were making a scene. I stood up and went to the front of the theatre, I explained how we were all there to enjoy the movie and should show respect and good manners. The kids immediatley began to behave, the theatre owner, in tears, gave everyone free popcorn, and I later learned all those kids graduated college with high honors.
Hey I saw the same thing last year.
These kids were making a scene and this very earnest millennial hipster guy stood up in the front of the theater and explained how we were all there to enjoy the movie and we should all show each other respect and good manners.
He got stabbed.
Funny enough all of the youtes that stabbed him were filling out college applications even though they were 25 and still in the fifth grade. Just like that hero Michael Brown.
Now which story is more believable.
Sometimes you can't even avoid trouble if you are just out with your daughter enjoying dinner and minding your own business.
The animal who stabbed this father in front of his child was named Jamal Jackson.
Obviously a racist cracker.
How come we don't get any posts about that?
Here is the latest story of another fine upstanding citizen stabbing someone in the bucolic setting of Madison Wisconsin. Just the type of person you want sitting next to you at the grill where the knives are flying all around.
I could find hundreds of similar stories. That happened since the beginning of the year.
Buried in the back of the paper. Most often without a photo or a description of the perp. Or at least an accurate descriptive portrait of the perp.
What a heartwarming bit of fake news that will please everyone, confirming a crap-can sound-byte whirled-view
Have they doxed the little boy yet, so he can get the vitriol and death threats he deserves? I'm not buying this story either.
Ummm...yeah...I'll take "Things That Never Happened" for $500, Alex.
Ctmom4: "Have they doxed the little boy yet, so he can get the vitriol and death threats he deserves?"
Just wait until LLR Chuck shows up and opens a can of whoop ass and doxxing on that kid...
And now we have the truly horrifying situation of a Mexican-American getting a coffee cup at Starbucks with the word 'Beaner' on it. That should be good enough for free coffee for every MA in the US.
My younger daughter, who is biracial [black/white], has a best friend who is Mexican-American and she has always called her 'Beaner' since elementary school days. She also calls another friend 'Stumpy' because she had a leg amputated. Maybe someone else wouldn't get away with such 'insensitive' remarks but her genuine empathy and generosity are well known as is her humor.
Blogger I Have Misplaced My Pants said...
I am sorely disappointed that there are no comments on the Guardian piece; I was looking forward to the howls of derision that a 'respected' media outlet published this steaming wet pantload of obviously fictional hot garbage.
Hey, Jake -- it's Chinatown.
I confess, I started to write one myself. Which part of that preposterous drivel struck you as the most bizarre? The bit where the tag-teaming Muslim activists managed to keep a 4-year-old's attention for a full hour of sententious harangue? the fact that the presumably-Oriental table chef (who was apparently invisible to the writer) tolerated the complete loss of his table tips for that length of time without offering to use his elegantly-sharp chef's knife in a non-customer-friendly act of violence? The bit where our activist champion, stung to the core by The Horror of his experience, turns lemons to lemonade by OVERNIGHT!!! researching, data-collecting, compiling, analyzing, and authoring FOUR ENTIRE original works of serious scholarship on the effects of racism on public health? The bit where ...
Aaah, Forget it, Jake. It's the Grauniad.
@mockturtle,
My younger daughter, who is biracial [black/white], has a best friend who is Mexican-American and she has always called her 'Beaner' since elementary school days. She also calls another friend 'Stumpy'
When I was in high school I had a Cuban American friend. I also, rather rare in Northern Alabama for the time, had a long mane of curly, big head, hair. He affectionately referred to me as "Freak" & I called him "Spic". The terms were never, ever used in anything but affection. I remember him giving me a pep-talk after I was broken hearted by being dumped by a girl "Freak, Freak, don't get shook, man. It'll be okay. There's other chicks out there".
Nowadays, we'd be called into the office for a trip to the gulag. Back then, the school authorities were like, "What? You're expecting good taste & decorum from teenage boys? That's a lost cause right up there with the Confederacy! Get back to me when they start hitting each other over it. I'm a busy man".
They were, of course, correct
But let's assume it was Dad. The real lesson here is to never conspire with a 4-year-old, they'll rat you out every time.
My money is on neither. When I was an adolescent, I had a relative about the same age as the kid in this tale who figured if she pointed the finger at me anytime she was asked, "Who taught you to do/say/think that?" then she might not get in trouble.
Has anyone actually had an hour long conversation with a 4 year old? Find a 4 year old, try it, get back to me. Tell me then you believe they had an hour long conversation with the kid in a Japanese restaurant.
She also calls another friend 'Stumpy' because she had a leg amputated.
Shouldn't she instead be called Eileen?
Schooling a strangers 4-year old on morals could easily get your ass kicked in Jackson or most anywhere except California.
Maybe the father did tell the kid that or maybe he didn't. My four-year olds said some weird stuff that could be construed as politically incorrect, or just odd, stuff that surprised me or sometimes embarrassed me. Sometimes I had an inkling of why he said it, sometimes I had no clue what made him say stuff. Jumping to call a four year old a "white supremacist" is over the top.
This comment thread was gold, comedy gold!
Bad Lieutenant said...
She also calls another friend 'Stumpy' because she had a leg amputated.
Shouldn't she instead be called Eileen?
No, she was Japanese.
Call her Irene.
Shouldn't she instead be called Eileen?
Actually, she considered that. ;-)
And she's not Japanese.
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