Is history just repeating itself?

In this essay, I will argue that Republicans are just repeating Lee Atwater's (RNC Chair, aid to Bush Sr and Regan) Southern strategy all over again, against things "woke", Blackness, LGBT rights, Socialism, Communism, etc. Also, what must be done to combat such nonsense? It's a bit long, but please bear with me.

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A Little History
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So let's start with the Southern Strategy.

"You start out in 1954 by saying [ HARD R ][ __ ] [ __ ] by 1968 you can't say [ __ ], that hurts you backfires, so you say stuff like forced busing, "states rights" and all that stuff and you're getting so abstract now you're talking about cutting taxes, and all of these things you're talking about are totally economic things and the product of that may blacks get hurt worse than whites and subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that, but I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract and that coded, that we we're doing away with the racial problem one way or the other uh you follow me? cuz obviously sitting around saying we want to cut taxes we want to cut this and we want as much more abstract than than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than [ __ ] [ __ ] you know? So any way you look at it race is coming on the back burner." - Lee Atwater

While America's war against communism was being waged in Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh was writing about Black oppression and the struggle for our liberation. 'Under imperialism “Black lives don't matter.' is a good read! They at least won that fight.

lets go back a few more years to 1969 Illinois, where prospective Chicago mayor and Cook County's state attorney and Edward Hanrahan was coordinating with the Feds and Police to raid the Black Panther's, where they drugged and assassinated Fred Hampton. They did find the guns the FBI were tipped off about, but while the police fired over 90 shots, the party only fired one. Hampton was critical of Hanrahan, accusing him of using a tough on gang crime approach to target Black people, as Hampton had successfully negotiated a truce between rival gangs on TV and went to form the Rainbow coalition with the BPP and said gangs (an anti-racist, working-class multicultural movement ). Now let's go 800 miles away, in NYC. Stonewall was a "riot", was it? Against the police? I don't think we need to touch on that subject more, at least for now.

"You don't scare negroes today with no badge, or no white skin, or no white sheet, or no white anything else. The police the same way. They put their club upside your head and then turn around and accuse you of attacking them. Every case of police brutality against a negro follows the same pattern..... 

Our brothers and sisters we have to put a stop to this, and it will never be stopped until we stop it ourselves. They attacked the victim and then the criminal who attacked the victim accuses the victim of attacking him! This is american justice, this is American Democracy. American democracy and those of you who are familiar with it, know that in America democracy is hypocrisy. now if i'm wrong put me in jail but if you can't prove that your democracy is not hypocrisy, then don't put your hands on me" - Malcolm X

When MLK spoke of the three evils of society, economic exploitation, militarism, and racism "We must also realize that the problems of racial injustice and economic injustice cannot be solved without a radical redistribution of political and economic power."

"We must further recognize that the ghetto is a domestic colony. Black people must develop programs that will aid in the transfer of power and wealth into the hands of residents of the ghetto so that they may in reality control their own destinies. This is the meaning of New Politics. People of will in the larger community, must support the black man in this effort."

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Present day
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The whole CRT thing outrage was manufactured by right wing propagandists at the Manhattan institute, a conservative think tank. Chris Rufo literally bragged on Twitter about his agenda, straight out said how he was going to take CRT, and twist it's definition to fit their needs, bringing in other unpopular ideas with it. I do believe that they've replaced it with "Woke" now. "Woke" includes such ideas as....equality for minorities (racial, religious, or LGBT), socialism, and communism of course.

Please do remember now that Elon Musk clawed his way into the Government after turning Twitter into a right wing propaganda outlet, that $25B wasn't a loss, it was an investment. He's always been on a crusade against "woke" as he believes "The woke mind virus killed my S**on****"**. Not only is he proud of never going to therapy, his oldest transgender DAUGHTER took her moms surname and disowned his ass. After Grimes broke up with him, she started trans woman Chelsea Manning. He is going to take out his family issues on the rest of us, starting with the LGBT community. Also 6,000 Black factory workers were given the go ahead by the state to SUE Tesla, after the state of Californias two year long investigation found "rampant racism" and over 300 cases of discrimination. He used his massive audience to exclaim that Kamala Harris is a communist! Y'all remember that yt rage protest in Little Rock Arkansas, 1959 I believe? Holding up signs such as "Race mixing is communism". hm.

Sure, it's easy to blame Harris's loss on misogyny and racism which were obviously a factor, looking at the data now (while early), points to this loss being completely avoidable if Harris promised more for working class Americans, and promising to withhold arms to Israel would have helped her, as well. When we were at the point were some Arab/Muslum voters were straight up saying "If you don't stop contributing arms to the IDF, I'm going to tell others in our community to not vote, or even to vote TRUMP". She literally didn't address voters needs, even responding with a direct trans rights question with "I believe we should follow the law" (states rights?), because she didn't want to alienate transphobes on the right who disagree with Trump. If she won't even stand up for either of those groups, who exactly will? Throwback, to 2009, President Barack Obama said he favored abortion rights for women but that passing a law guaranteeing those rights was not his top priority, trying to avoid inflaming divisions over the issue.

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The end, or a new beginning?
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History is repeating itself because yt America never learned it in the first place. They whitewash our leaders and their message, then say "I agreed with them" after the fact. "Capitalism has outlived it's usefulness" - MLK jr. "wooooah, what are you a communist?"

The "Democratic party" at its current stage, only exists to push this country further to the right, while fighting LIKE HELL against any meaningful attempts at change. Wont somebody think about the corporate donors! Corporations are legally people now too! I don't see any CEOS getting prison time for their crimes against humanity? Workers south of the border just won a legal case against Chiquita Banana for using death squads against labor organizers. The people at the top, and the rich don't really care, they can survive another 4 years of Trump and all the bullshit that he does, and massively benefit from his tax cuts as well. Bernie was our only out, as they'd much rather have Trump in office than someone who's spouting the same socialist garbage and woke nonsense that MLK, and many others spoke of. As Sanders said in response to our election results "It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them,”. Now combine that with the now anti-woke Southern strategy tactics, and it's no surprise why Harris Lost. Like it or not, much like Obama, Trump represents change for America. Harriss, the shitty status quo which finds Black/Brown people both overseas and domestically, murdered by the state. Where working class people cannot afford basic needs, like housing or food, where a good chunk of the population was still "fine" with Trump after all his crimes. We've always been a yt supremacist state, the only thing that's changed is that with Trump , the racism, and misogyny that were ALWAYS here, were ALWAYS baked into our culture were allowed to flourish.

Call me crazy, but when Biden was elected with Harris, I knew Trump was going to win next season. Biden was senile (and racist) from the start, it was only a matter of time before he was replaced with the wildly unpopular Harris. She couldn't even double digits in her home state of Cali, one of my friends was arrested for protesting a war under her office, and Black leftists have spoken about her critically, I even saw an article about it from a Oakland native "Kamala Harris isn't tough on crime, she's tough on Black people" that was later deleted. If you check the internet archive, it's an interesting blast from the past, complete with sources!

So I guess what I'm saying is, Trump was going to win this from the start. Yeah, call my cynical for thinking that the Dems can't put together a successful campaign, "vote blue no matter who" led to this. It definitely mattered who now, didn't it?

The current day Democrats, while losing 9ish points from Black Trump supporters compared to Biden, have around 85% of the Black vote. Let's face it, the Dems put Biden into office because he was the only person who could defeat Bernie Sanders, who's working class policies, and democratic socialist principles were war more in line with the public, even today. He is the only one who'd be able to defeat Trump. "'I beat the socialist': Biden reminds voters 'worried about socialism' that he won the party nomination, not Bernie Sanders"

"Rep. Adam Smith - "Joe Biden was not picked in 2020 because he was the only person that could beat Donald Trump. He was picked because he was the only person that could beat Bernie Sanders"

At this point I think we ALL need to face the facts, the modern day Democratic party is to the right, or dare I say it, the FAR RIGHT of MLK's message. Out of the three evils, I would say both parties are militaristic, both are for economic exploitation under capitalism, and both are RACIST. They just manifest their racism differently.

"I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection." - MLK jr.

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Conclusion

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I do believe that yt America especially, refuses to learn from history, using the evidence I've provided, how much has really changed? Those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

I'll end it on a brighter note, I suppose.

"We don’t think you fight fire with fire best ; we think you fight fire with water best. We’re going to fight racism not with racism, but we’re going to fight with solidarity. We say we’re not going to fight capitalism with black capitalism, but we’re going to fight it with socialism. We’re stood up and said we’re not going to fight reactionary pigs and reactionary state’s attorneys like this and reactionary state’s attorneys like Hanrahan with any other reactions on our part. We’re going to fight their reactions with all of us people getting together and having an international proletarian revolution.” ― Fred Hampton

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk. I'm also a fool so nothing I say should be taken too seriously.

I literally do not have an interest in associating with anyone white or Latino after the last election! I tend to get hit on my a lot of white and Latino guys but now I feel like they are all low key racist and I just can’t allow myself to be their fetish and feeling like they all voted for trump… am I wrong for feeling this way???

The election sucks and my version of coping is by asking "alright since that didn't work out, what's next?" Which isn't great when there's literally nothing you can do to change the government 🥲👍🏾. But this forum has honestly given me hope and made me feel less alone.

Ik there's a lot of people saying to stop putting energy into everyone else and focus on uplifting each other and I'm wondering if we've hopped on to that train fr? I live in the deep south unfortunately so I'm thinking about making a network with liberal black women and queer individuals to keep each other safe and I was thinking about maybe taking it a bit further by learning how to become self sufficient further understand banking, saving and overall financial knowledge. Maybe someone who could help those trying to leave the USA and provide guidance? I can't think of anything else rn my brain is fried from trying to balance it all and I'm losing steam while typing this out lol. Either within these next two months or early next year in going to get the ball rolling probably on Discord though. I was wondering if anybody else was putting something similar in the works and wanted to join forces, be willing to educate, or just interested in joining when I start it up?

I’m gonna be spending the next 4 years getting ready to either leave the country or at least move to a blue state. Because while the orange peel won’t be able to run again you bet that Vance will. They aren’t gonna stop so we need to hope for the best and prep for the worst. Stay ready so you don’t have to get ready

I sure as hell ain't staying in my state, its definitely in the top 5 of the most bigoted states in this country. Very pro-baby handed dictator w/a bad tan. I planned on relocating but I was gonna hold it off a little longer, however, I think I need to speed up the process here soon. I'm close to getting my bachelor's then working on my MBA in healthcare next year. I wanna settle somewhere before I make my move to live in another country or do some expat work. I often see the DMV when it comes to these types of things, should I start there? I've been yo-yoing between Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina. I'm curious if anybody else has any other suggestions or advice?

Hello, I am a bi Black college student studying in Nashville, originally from Kentucky. I’m wondering how I can make a difference in the world, especially given the outcome of the recent election. I've always seen myself as a quiet activist, but I want to change that—I’m not sad but angry at the state of the world. I feel let down in every aspect of my life, particularly by the government, the older generation, the education system, and my country. This anger has ignited a deep passion within me to confront these injustices.

The only question is, how? How can I bring change to something that feels so broken? How can I inspire my peers to join me? How can I become a true, vocal activist? My primary goal is to work toward preventing further division in our country.

I'm currently in a very white, small town. While it's always been a bit dangerous, it's only going to get worse the next 4 years and being closer to family is likely out of the question. Where can I move where there's a decent black queer community within the us?

I wish I had the God like powers to create another world where black and brown LGBTQIA+ people would be free and themselves without having the fear of being hate crime on the spot just for approaching someone. I’m tired of this world.

It irritates my fuckin mind, body, spirit, & soul that me and many other LGBTQIA+ people grew up with abuse or fear to some degree, and be categorized as ‘other’ than what these dumbass ignorant warm bodies think and society deems to be “normal”.

I wish I was the black version of Wiccan cause I make another world just for us, and for us only to fuck it up and slay and have our desired/deserved life.

Edit: Also I’ll get rid of the racism cause that’s still a major issue🙄

Hmm I've notice something a lot lately. I know A LOT of white gay, trans, ftm, mtf etc who claim to be allies and parade themselves to be BLM. But yet literally voted for the one person who will stripe every living rights you fought and cried for. White supremacy is inherently ONE HELL OF A DRUG

What we really need to be worried about (as well as Trump), is Elon Musk. As I was saying earlier, he bought Twitter to control the flow of information and manipulate our election, Twitter has become a far right propaganda outlet. It doesn't matter if it's operating at a 25B loss, it's serving its purpose.

Now we all know Musk is proud of never going to therapy. After his daughter (oldest child) disowned him and transitioned, he's since sworn to fight against the "woke mind virus". I believe he thinks that woke communists trans'd his daughter? Yes, I used it as a verb lmao.

That being said, a key component of fascism is when capitalist forces team up with the government, while we're lucky Maye Musk wasn't born in America, dudes still going to try and weasel his way into a a high level government position, and the only way he can do that is through Trump.

Now I'm sure y'all heard he moved to Texas, do you know why? Sure, easy to say he's tired of California and prefers Texan laws when it comes to regulations and workers rights, but here's my counterargument. After a 2 year long investigation into Tesla, the state of California found over 300 cases of discrimination and a workplace of "rampant racism", and just now the state is allowing 6,000 Black Tesla workers to SUE. The media has barely been reporting on it.

Also his mom was on Twitter telling conservative voters to vote 10 times with 10 different fake names to get 100 votes a person, while claiming voter fraud was perfectly legal. But I digress.

As a Californian in the bay area, everyone knows Tesla employees, be it friends or family. I've heard enough horror stories. Even needing a job at points, I refused to work there for obvious reasons.

Just keep this in mind, as I'm sure he's going to start doing some fascist anti-worker shit soon enough.

I, for one, am on the side of the "woke mind virus". Now the question is, are you?

This is not hyperbole. We've all seen this happen before in the past. With conservative control of the executive, judiciary and legislative branch the lack of checks and balances in the United States may cause violent and irreparable harm to our community. We can't hide our skin color and some of us can't hide our queerness.

For those with the means to flee the country when is the time?

Are there certain signs or laws we should look out for?

How fast can these people inact travel bans on us?

I refuse to be round up and killed for who I am and who I chose to love.

Yeah ever since trump getting elected all of racist is getting comfortable now with the slave jokes so uhm yall get some 🔫 and we ride out I love yall make sure everyone and their love ones is safe

My (27F) gf (26F) chose not to vote. I’m side-eyeing her so bad rn & I’m very disappointed in her. Lowkey pissed. I don’t believe we can afford to be politically passive as black lesbians in this country. She wasn’t registered to vote but had been saying for weeks prior to Election Day that she was going to do so and I guess she just didn’t. She had the opportunity to help put a Black woman in the highest political seat in the country & the most powerful position in the world and again she just… chose not to. As well as the aspect of voting simply due to the obvious struggles our ancestors went through… maybe I’m dtm but it’s reallyyyy bothering me. It feels like she handed them ppl our rights. This election was too important and she just chose to sit it out for no apparent reason. I told her I didn’t want to hear her complain about anything for the next 4 years but I haven’t actually talked to her about it yet. I really don’t know how to have that conversation. Any advice is appreciated!🫶🏽

EDIT: Don’t get me wrong, she’s a great partner & has all the qualities someone would want in their s/o. I’ve never felt this way about her/our relationship, & although a dire one, this is literally her 1st offense. So this feeling is very different to me!

EDIT 2: Where did I say I’d break up with her, especially without even having a conversation about it?? Y’all aren’t reading & are jumping to conclusions lol

LOVE YOU GUYS

Saturday Night Live is gonna be insufferable for the next four years.... And just when I was starting to like them

I don't know if anything i can say will give you a bit of hope or solace but know this the fight isn't over even though the evil right wing has taken over and will seek to harm majority of the black and brown queer communities You can still take steps on the local level and organize and luckily there still some safe blue states for now

Sending you all love🫂

Most likely trump is winning the presidential I do not want to be here so I am going to apply for a student visa and move to Canada and apply to citizenship so any tips

tldr; First time hooking up with a slightly controlling guy who was a bit of a dick but later asked to be my boyfriend and to hang out a lot. I felt pressured to say yes but I'm not emotionally ready for a relationship. How do I break up with him in a nice way?

22M autistic (yes i am black as well)

I just want to preface I know how bad hookup apps can be but I was curious and only wanted a one and done gay experience with someone. I got Sniffies and eventually found this guy around my age who asked to meet up on campus. I was super nervous and when we met up I remember apologizing to him that I'm not your typical toned, fit, handsome gay dude (I have really low self confidence and being on social media a copius amount during 2019 did not help).

Anyways he was super kind about it all and kept trying to calm me down, even offering to hold hands. It was my first time doing oral on someone and making out with another guy and I... honestly didn't enjoy making out with him. The oral also wasn't mutual the first time, I remember he only sucked me off for about 5 seconds. When I finished him off he said his Dad was here to pick him up all of a sudden and I was pretty upset he didn't finish me off.

I should add he's very discreet and downlow which is understandable with his religion and all, but again I thought these hookups were just one and done. He messaged me a week later to meet back up on campus to do stuff again and something kept telling me not to but I did. We did the same stuff again but this time we didn't make out and I gave him another blowjob - he didn't even bother to blow me either.

After that he started telling me how he wanted to hang out more with me and talk; he told me bluntly if I ever wanted to be with a guy I needed to be "hot", he told me one plus about me was that my cock was big which was such a low blow, like the one way I'd ever really get with someone is my dick size. He made comments about my general appearence and said he can help me style mysellf etc. while proposing to hang out again.

It was early and by then it already made my day super shitty hearing that because I've been dealing with a lot of body dysmorphia, being autistic and not understanding verbal cues very well and have very low self-esteem. I told him "Well I've never entertained the idea of getting with another guy," which is true. It's another reason why I got Sniffies/Grindr, I just wanted to have a one off experience with another dude since I've told myself outside of hookups no one would want to be with me physically.

I know it's not the entire gay community but I do know how very important looks are and how body concious gay men are so I stopped caring about ever truly find someone because I'm not all that attractive.

I ghosted the dude for about 17 days on Sniffies (didn't even log in during that time) because I wanted to forget about him or hope he would have taken it as a hint to leave me alone. I remember we traded numbers over on Sniffies beforehand and he messaged me on WhatsApp about 2 weeks ago saying he hasn't seen me in a while and was wondering where I was.

I shouldn't have replied at all, but I did feel horrible for ghosting him despite him digging at already low self-esteem and told him I had been sick. I tried my best to reply as dry as possible to maybe hammer in the fact I wanted him to fuck off. Anyways we kept messaging off and on and I kept making excuses about not wanting to meet up. Still being sick, midterms, family emergencies, etc. He eventually reeled me in this weekend by saying he wanted to talk to me in person and wanted to ask an important question.

I tried to press him about the question and he said it would be better to ask in person and how he was excited about it and how he'd hope "yes" would be my answer as a small hint.

Well, I didn't want to assume but I kinda figured out he wanted to ask to be my boyfriend but I wasn't too sure. We met up on Monday and he started asking questions like if I were single or if I was interested in anyone.

I'm not good at verbalizing myself but I told him how I wanted to work on myself and how I'm not ready for anything yet. He kept deflecting me and said we could work on ourselves together then asked to be my boyfriend.

I won't lie, I was excited about having my first "boyfriend" but I wasn't attracted to this guy plus with what the other things he said to me a while back but I still said yes. He kept saying he was happy I said yes and was excited and how he had found me cute.

He talked about making plans for us to hang out, asked to see my schedule (which, my fault again he knows where my classes are now) and even went to as far as talking about dating for a while... mentioning to our 30s.

From the time we've talked/spent he seems very controlling and talked about changing up my appearence again and I wasn't happy.

I'm not sure how to say no to people. I'm not interested in this guy in the slightest and I just wanted one hookup. I felt like I kept digging a hole for myself and I want to tell him as nicely as possible I'm not interested. I'm scared though because now he knows all my classes and he mentioned how his previous hookups were assholes but he could "be a bigger bitch." I know he seriously can't do anything crazy but I'm not sure what to do.

I didn't mean for this post to be so long, if there's any advice or anything I could really use it. I don't want to meet him in person and tell him, I'd rather do it over text.

Before Laverne Cox was an award-winning actress and activist, she was just a kid growing up in Mobile, Alabama. Though she regularly endured harassment and bullying from her peers, she found life-saving solace in schoolwork and dance. And many years later, she also got the one thing she always wanted: her mom being proud of her. 

“I have people around me who are supportive and who are amazing who love me and are like no, what these people are saying about you is not who you are. And I know that that’s not who I am.”

Check out more of Laverne’s story here ➡️ https://youtu.be/6B6abyTQMlA

Experience more inspirational first-person LGBTQ stories 🏳️‍🌈 http://imfromdriftwood.com/

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