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Former President Donald Trump is facing backlash for holding rallies in places described as "sundown towns."

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[-] thomas@lemmy.ca 79 points 2 months ago

As a non American, thank you. The headline made zero sense without that context.

[-] nokturne213@sopuli.xyz 62 points 2 months ago

If it is American and does not make sense, it is probably racism.

[-] ricecake@sh.itjust.works 10 points 2 months ago

Depressingly true, but largely because our popular culture is so pervasive that anything weird that you'd talk about openly is already pretty commonly known.

Like, the Netherlands don't have a particularly pervasive culture, so anything you learn about them that's not "everywhere" won't make sense at first. It dilutes the whole "wait, what the fuck is 'black pete'?" thing.

All that to say, not all of our nonsense is racist, just the unfamiliar nonsense we don't talk about anymore.

[-] deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz 2 points 2 months ago

what the fuck is ‘black pete’?

[-] ricecake@sh.itjust.works 7 points 2 months ago

Bizarre Dutch Santa Claus helper. Like an elf, except canonically a black person with curly hair, silly mannerisms, bright clothing, big red lips and played by a white person wearing blackface.

It's almost over the top how racist it is, and there's controversy around if they should keep doing it.

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2020/12/4/the-netherlands-black-pete

Turns out if you have a history selling slaves, you'll pick up some stuff.

Point being less about pivoting this to the Dutch, and more that not hearing much about a culture also means you don't hear as much about their awful stuff, and when you hear a lot about a culture you tend to mostly hear about the parts that people want to share in public.

No one's gonna make a movie that just casually drops the wide variety of ethnic slurs for the Italians or Irish that have existed.

[-] deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz 2 points 2 months ago

OMG.

I can understand an elf covered in soot.

But full on black-face caricature?

[-] hitmyspot@aussie.zone 2 points 2 months ago

Almost like institutional racism is a thing.

[-] ricecake@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 months ago

No no no, didn't you read the statement from the spokesperson for the far right xenophobic organization in the article?

Wagensveld does not believe there is systemic racism.

“Eighty to 90 percent of the Dutch population see Zwarte Piet as non-racist,” he claimed. “When I dress up as Zwarte Piet most people like it … Black Pete is absolutely not racist.”

It's not systemic racism if the people not impacted by it don't think it's racist, obviously.

🤦

[-] Coach@lemmy.world 45 points 2 months ago

As an American, I had no clue what a "sundown town" was, but I do know how far American media will go to obfuscate Führer Drumpf's outright racism and bigotry.

[-] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 15 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Dude it’s a SUPER old term. Like, Civil War old. They’re using the term because it’s highly associated with slavery-flavored racism.

Edit: I’m not saying it’s an archaic or disused term. I’m saying the term was coined well over a century ago.

[-] Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world 11 points 2 months ago

As an American, I had no clue what a “sundown town” was

Same... I figured it was one of those retirement communities where people go to die. TIL.

[-] IphtashuFitz@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

You are by no means the only one who thought that before reading the comments…

[-] ech@lemm.ee 11 points 2 months ago

Obfuscate? Just because you don't know what something means doesn't mean it's a malicious attempt to hide anything. Sundown towns are widely known as racist ordinances.

this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2024
248 points (97.3% liked)

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