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Black Kos: Racists demand outrage & protests only when a white teen is killed [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-04-11
Commentary by Black Kos editor JoanMar
Throughout history, racists have employed demonizing and dehumanizing language to attribute criminal and violent behavior to Black people. This is no accident. This strategy has been central to justifying the subjugation and brutalization of Black folks. Five hundred years since Christopher Columbus stumbled into the “new world” and still melanated people are portrayed as inherently savage, animalistic, and incapable of self-control. You think this is just hyperbolic language on my part? Check out the racist shithole that is that site formerly known as Twitter and see the responses to the stabbing death of Austin Metcalf.
FRISCO, Texas -- A 17-year-old student charged with murder in the fatal stabbing of another student at a track meet allegedly confessed to the killing and officers say he told them he was protecting himself, according to the arrest report. The incident occurred Wednesday morning at a Frisco Independent School District stadium during a track and field championship involving multiple schools in the district. Austin Metcalf, 17, an 11th grader at Frisco Memorial High School, died after police said another student stabbed him during an altercation in the bleachers at the meet.
The death of this young man is tragic. One white teen dead and a Black teen behind bars awaiting his fate as it will be decided by others. Despite the fact that Karmelo was arrested at the crime scene, racists are incensed that there is no nationwide protest and no burning down of cities to bring attention to this story. Had this tragedy happened in the 1920s (or even much later), young Karmelo’s remains would already be decorating some hanging tree and bits and pieces of him would already be proudly displayed on various mantelpieces.
MAGA-types getting apoplectic that a 17-year-old Black boy dared to have a knife on his person is next-level hypocrisy — but then, what’s new? Do we even have enough fainting couches and smelling salts? “Oh, my lawds! A knife?! He was armed with a knife! Proof positive that he’s a murderer who was just waiting to murder our poor defenseless white boy.” This from the same people who continue to lionize Kyle Rittenhouse; who give their teenagers semi-automatic weapons for their birthdays, and who proudly pose with their preteens armed to the teeth.
x Can't get any clearer than that. pic.twitter.com/JJKHXprRS0 — Nicole's View 🇺🇲 (@BLKLiberation84) April 10, 2025
x To be 17…. pic.twitter.com/scoCDZxP2r — Conscious Lee (@TheConsciousLee) April 9, 2025
x KKKyle Rittenhouse would be rotting in prison if he looked like this. pic.twitter.com/yS5psurPbI — Rev. Ray Cistman ✊🏾🙏🏾 (@RevRayCistman) April 10, 2025
Of course, what MAGAverse conveniently decided to ignore, is that unlike the countless cases where white perpetrators have killed Black people with near total impunity, Karmelo was arrested on the spot and is currently being held on a $1M bond. That is the system working (for them) as it was intended, no? In fact, their willful ignorance only highlights the double standard: when Black people are accused of violence, the justice system (formal or informal) moves swiftly, decisively, and without hesitation. The protests surrounding Black victims of police violence and white vigilantism were never because the accused weren’t punished harshly enough, it was always because law-enforcement agencies refused to act at all. It took sustained protests to get the a Florida prosecutor to bring a case against vigilante Zimmerman for stalking and murdering Trayvon.
The performative outrage, fueled by Fox, of course, is not about mourning Austin Metcalf; it is about reasserting a narrative that paints Black people as a threat. It’s about continuing the old lie that Blackness is synonymous with violence. And, most importantly, it is about underscoring that white pain is the only pain worthy of acknowledgement and righteous anger. Karmelo Anthony is not just an accused teen; he is to be remade into the personification of white supremacists’ caricature of Blackness. In this narrative, neither boy truly mattered. Both Karmelo Anthony and Austin Metcalf are victims and pawns of forces who couldn’t give a damn about them personally, except for their usefulness in perpetuating the narrative.
Condolences to the family of Austin Metcalf. Austin’s father has shown nothing but class as he mourns his son’s passing. Strength and fortitude to Karmelo’s family as they embark on this very challenging journey.
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News round up by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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Its legacy, and its making, are explored in a new Disney+ documentary about the animated film. Slate: Why A Goofy Movie Is So Beloved by Black Fans
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There is a running joke within the Black community that Disney’s first true Black film is, believe it or not, A Goofy Movie. The 1995 animated movie is a coming-of-age story that follows Goofy (Bill Farmer) and his son, Max (Jason Marsden), as they embark on a fishing trip despite having trouble connecting. On its surface, there’s nothing particularly Black about the film—after all, it was directed by a white man (Kevin Lima), written by three white men, and stars an almost entirely white cast. So how did this little Disney picture end up so beloved by Black viewers? After decades of rumination, speculation, and even an Atlanta episode about it, Disney has finally offered some of its own insight, in the form of a Disney+ documentary, Not Just a Goof (available to stream on Disney+), about the making of A Goofy Movie and its legacy 30 years later.
The first thing you need to understand about A Goofy Movie is that Black people don’t play about it. There are dozens of YouTube essays explaining how it is, as one creator put it, the “first Disney movie starring a Black character (unless you count the racist ones)” not only because of the Black music and references used within the film, but also because its depiction of friendship and familial relationships speaks to how Black ’90s kids related to each other and to their parents. TikTokkers have commented on how the film is Black-coded, and there are even academic articles that explore how a widely established “Black reading” of a film such as this came about. There are a number of blog posts and think pieces referring to the film as “the Blackest, most underrated nerd classic of all time.” Hell, VICE even likens it to “August Wilson’s Fences, except with talking dogs and a happy ending.”
The reasons why are tantamount. There are the on-the-nose clues: Max Goof is said to be dressed like a “gang member” for wearing a hoodie and jeans; his favorite musician is Powerline, a fictional pop star inspired by Michael Jackson, Prince, and Bobby Brown; Powerline’s songs are performed (with homages to Black gospel roots) by Tevin Campbell, a famous Black R&B singer of the era; Max’s love interest, Roxanne (Kellie Martin), not only has the curves often associated with Black women but she was also designed by one. Then, there are the more subtextual hints, like the way “coolness” is depicted with a certain swagger embodied by Max and his friends, which manifests in both the way they dress and the way they embrace courtship—a side character even catcalls a schoolmate with a Jodeci reference—at a time when the cultural zeitgeist of “cool” was, really, Black culture. Even Max’s strained relationship with his father has been pointed to as reminiscent of the ways in which plenty of Black ’90s kids felt alienated from their parents while coming of age. All of these factors shaped the reading of A Goofy Movie as a canonically Black film, a claim that is both sincere and a massive inside joke among Black millennials and zillennials. Atlanta, Donald Glover’s critically acclaimed surrealist comedy series, broke this inside joke wide open in its fourth season with the episode “The Goof Who Sat by the Door”—one of the best stand-alone TV episodes of all time—which stages a mockumentary that tells the invented story of a Black animator who became the CEO of Disney and strived to make make “the Blackest movie of all time,” resulting in A Goofy Movie.
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A federal appeals court says a civil rights lawsuit against St. James Parish over alleged racial discrimination in Louisiana’s "Cancer Alley" can proceed. The Grio: Lawsuit alleging environmental racism in Louisiana parish allowed to proceed, federal court says
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A civil rights lawsuit alleging a south Louisiana parish engaged in racist land-use policies by placing polluting industries in majority-Black communities can move forward, a federal appellate court says. On Thursday, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans ruled that a trio of faith-based community groups could proceed with a lawsuit alleging racial discrimination in the petrochemical buildout in St. James Parish, a region in the heart of Louisiana’s heavily industrialized Chemical Corridor. It is often referred to by environmental groups as “Cancer Alley” for its high levels of pollution. The lawsuit calls for a moratorium on the construction and expansion of petrochemical plants in St. James Parish. When the lawsuit was filed in March 2023, 20 of the 24 industrial facilities were in two sections of the parish with majority-Black populations. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency found in a 2003 report that St. James Parish ranked higher than the national average for certain cancer deaths. Both majority-Black sections of the parish are ranked as having a high risk of cancer from toxic pollutants according to an EPA screening tool based on emissions reported by nearby facilities, the lawsuit notes.
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The congresswomen warn in a letter the "heightened health risks" for Black women exposed to the chemical, formaldehyde. The Grio: Reps. Pressley, Brown push FDA to finalize a bill to ban harmful chemical in hair relaxers
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U.S. Reps. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., Shontel Brown, D-Ohio, and Nydia Velásquez, D-N.Y., are urging the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to move swiftly on advancing an already proposed federal rule that would ban a harmful chemical found in some hair products.
“Ensuring that regulatory actions align with the best interests of public health remain the goal and we encourage promptly finalizing the proposed rule,” said the letter to FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, urging him to follow through on a March deadline to advance the rule making process in order to ban formaldehyde, a known carcinogen found in hair relaxers, straighteners, keratin treatments, Brazilian blowouts, and straightening creams.
The congresswomen say the delay is “concerning” given the “established links between formaldehyde exposure and serious health conditions.” The letter cites a 2022 study from the Department of Health and Human Services that found that the chemical could be connected to myeloid leukemia and hormone-sensitive cancers such as breast, uterine, and ovarian cancer.
Pressley, Brown and Velásquez said they are particularly concerned about formaldehyde exposure to Black women, who they noted having a “heightened health risk” and are more likely to “receive or provide formaldehyde-based hair treatments, which has a disparate impact on both workers and their customers.”
Shontel Brown, D-Ohio
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The Mississippi Library Commission ordered the deletion of two research collections on race. NewsOne: Mississippi Library Commission Deletes Research On Race And Gender From Library Databases, Citing Law Against ‘Obscene Materials’
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The state of Mississippi — where white cops are still torturing Black men for living with white women, and Black bodies are being buried in unmarked graves without families being notified — has ordered its libraries to delete academic research on racism from their databases. Also ordered to be scrubbed from library databases in Mississippi — the state that provided the case the U.S. Supreme Court used to abolish women’s reproductive rights — was research on gender studies.
Why was all of this academic research being done away with? Well, apparently, the only justification a state commissioner could muster up was a vague state law prohibiting “obscene materials.”
A March 31 internal memo obtained by Mississippi Today reveals that the Mississippi Library Commission ordered the deletion of two research collections on “race relations” and “gender studies” from publicly funded schools, libraries, community colleges, universities and state agencies because, somehow, the research might violate state law. (You know your state is backward and bigoted when it’s illegal to provide research on backwardness and bigotry.)
“In this challenging time with many different viewpoints concerning library materials and material content your willingness to work with these issues is appreciated,” Mississippi Library Commission Executive Director Hulen Bivins wrote in the memo. “The deletion of these two databases shall be permanent until such time as when the Legislature changes their position regarding the content of materials made available in Mississippi libraries.”
Bivens did not once mention a specific law that the Mississippi legislature-funded database known as MAGNOLIA might violate by including the findings of race and gender research, but he did cite a 2023 law that regulates digital resources available to minors in public libraries, focusing on “obscene materials.” Bivens’ memo did not specify why data on race relations and gender studies would be panned as “obscene,” but considering this is the same state where a Republican auditor classified “Women’s Studies” and “African American/Black Studies” as “garbage fields,” it’s not difficult to imagine the non-reasoning here. Bivens reportedly told reporters there were other state laws that warranted the deletion, but he conveniently was unable to recall what any of those laws were.
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