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billvon

Bud Light and the Wilmington Insurrection

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So by now everyone is sick of the Bud Light controversy.  After seeing images of Bud Light cans with a trans person on them, conservatives showed their outrage by shooting up Bud Light cans, boycotting Anheuser-Busch and sending death threats to Dylan Mulvaney.

Underlying all the alarums is the phenomenon of conservative backlash.  Whenever society makes progress (more rights for blacks, voting for women, gay marriage, a black president etc) there is an inevitable backlash by people who feel that nothing should have changed, and that if others gain rights, they lose them.  And to some degree of course this is true; if the opinion of a black person is given as much weight as that of a white person, the weight of the white person's opinion and their influence is very slightly diluted, and their privilege is decreased by a slight amount.

This has happened throughout history and is happening now.  On Facebook, an otherwise-reasonable woman I know is saying that recognizing trans women harms women because then "fake" women get lumped in with "real" women and "real" woman lose power.  I've asked her about a dozen times how she, personally, will be harmed by trans women, and she hasn't been able to answer other than "you're not a woman so you wouldn't understand."

One of the most famous examples of this is the Wilmington Insurrection, a conservative backlash against the rise of black people into that city in the late 1890's.  Black people began to prosper, getting jobs as craftsmen and businessmen.  A few were even elected to government positions.  This was intolerable to the rural conservative anti-black democrats of the time, who saw the biracial republican party, the party of blacks, civil rights and big-city liberals, taking over and subordinating whites to blacks.  This led to a riot by those whites that did a tremendous amount of damage to the mostly-black sections of town and killed at least 14 people.  Predictably this was blamed on black people.

A fascinating document to come out of Wilmington just before the riot was the White Declaration of Independence, and it makes for an excellent example of the origins of conservative backlash.  It is reproduced in part below.

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Believing that the Constitution of the United States contemplated a government to be carried on by an enlightened people; believing that its framers did not anticipate the enfranchisement of an ignorant population of African origin, and believing that those men of the state of North Carolina, who joined in framing the union did not contemplate for their descendants subjection to an inferior race.

We the undersigned citizens of the city of Wilmington and county of New Hanover, do hereby declare that we will no longer be ruled and will never again be ruled, by men of African origin.

 . . .the time has come for the intelligent citizens of this community owning 95 percent of the property and paying taxes in proportion, to end the rule by Negroes.

 . . . the Negro has demonstrated by antagonizing our interests in every way, and especially by his ballot, that he is incapable of realizing that his interests are and should be identical with those of the community.

 . . .the giving of nearly all the employment to Negro laborers has been against the best interests of this county and city, and is sufficient reason why the city of Wilmington, with its natural advantages, has not become a city of at least 50,000 inhabitants.

 . . . we white men expect to live in this community peaceably; to have and provide absolute protection for our families, who shall be safe from insult or injury from all persons, whomsoever. We are prepared to treat the Negroes with justice in all matters which do not involve sacrifice of the intelligent and progressive portion of the community. But are equally prepared now and immediately to enforce what we know to be our rights.

A climax was reached when the Negro paper of this city published an article so vile and slanderous that it would in most communities have resulted in a lynching [referring to an editorial saying interracial relationships were OK] and yet there is no punishment, provided by the courts, adequate for the offense. We, therefore, owe it to the people of this community and city, as protection against such license in the future, that "The Record" cease to be published and that its editor be banished from this community.

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The parallels to today are remarkable.  The demonization and threats against blacks then, and trans people now.   (i.e. "drag queens teaching your kids to be gay" vs "black rape" which is how the white supremacists referred to interracial relationships.)  The statement that REAL people, not blacks, should run things - compared to the statements that only REAL women should be recognized as women.  The claims that the goals of both blacks and trans people are primarily to antagonize the interests of normal people by doing things like voting, posing for pictures and existing.  The demands that books (now) and newspapers (then) be banned for spreading vile and filthy concepts.

The one good thing about all this is that the history of progress shows that such backlashes are the dying throes of that sort of bigotry.  Almost no conservative today would voice an opinion that blacks did not deserve to vote, or that an interracial marriage was "black rape."  And in time the thought of threatening to kill trans people would be similarly almost unthinkable.  But sadly, as the Bud Light thing demonstrates, we have a ways to go to get there.

 

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(edited)
51 minutes ago, billvon said:

This has happened throughout history and is happening now.  On Facebook, an otherwise-reasonable woman I know is saying that recognizing trans women harms women because then "fake" women get lumped in with "real" women and "real" woman lose power.  I've asked her about a dozen times how she, personally, will be harmed by trans women, and she hasn't been able to answer other than "you're not a woman so you wouldn't understand."

Also popularly known as TERFs, or trans-exclusionary radical feminists. Notable TERFs include J.K. Rowling.

They somehow think that the 0.5% of population that might identify as trans are just men trying to get into women's spaces. They're usually traumatized by some past event - usually a man - violating their space, hence the extreme reaction. So unfortunately there's no reasoning with them, since it's an emotional reaction. Which wasn't caused by a trans person in the first place...

It explains the bizarre spectacle of these "feminists" then teaming up with the far-right to pretty much target trans people, although I'm not so sure they're aware of the far-right's stance on feminism.

Edited by olofscience

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5 minutes ago, Slim King said:

I love women ... Men with penises and testicles are not women even if they claim to be ... They are mentally ill individuals that need counseling ...

I hope someday you meet some.  You will change your tune.

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 Follow the Science of 1000 years.

So you still use leeches when you're sick, eh?

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