It's ODD how just this week alone we're violence and toxic hateful talk about black female judges, bomb threats against HBCUs, disparate firing and hiring in the NFL, a black man's murderers trying to cut deals on their sentences, howling against CTR black...
...history, classic books about black history or about the Jewish experience like Maus are removed from libraries and classrooms while people remain silent about To Kill a Mockingbird and Mein Kampf, voter nullification stemming from outrage at black voters...
...and controversy on The View - and that just scratches the surface.
But white supremacists, their enablers, and apologists pretend that there's no racism here, nothing to see. The want everyone else to believe that they're the ones being hyperbolic and hysterical.
Everyone's heads in the American public screw on backward, but the fascists and racists.
The Spotify CEO has it all wrong. He apparently sees the company's controversy as a "news cycle" and thus temporary. And because managing content means spending money and accepting responsibility, they won't even consider it within their business model or scope.
What he either ignores of could care less about is Rogan's antics affect people's lives and deaths. It's not a passing fad. Some people take that seriously, especially those who have lost loved ones to #covid racist or homophobic violence, and are having their rights denied.
Therefore, while some people may leave the platform eventually to return, some never will. Spotify will forever wear that stigma.
No matter what they do or claim, all social media companies want the same things:
1. Take in as much information as possible, 2. Sell information and access for a profit, 3. Not take responsibility for the information they handle, and
4. Minimize or eliminate competition whenever and wherever possible while generating unlimited growth.
When their business practices do harm to the public, the government needs to step in because only the government has the mandate and authority to protect the public good.
All business chafe against regulations, restrictions and guardrails. But the whole point is to protect the people, not provide space unfettered behavior for corporations. That's why regulations exist.
Race and racism are artificial constructs that we're always intended to divide. And no matter how you cut it, racism always cuts to the advantage of the racist.
Here's at least part of the reason:
I just listened to someone explain how under the European conceptualization of racism, while Nazism treated - treats Jews as an inhuman sub-race and themselves as a superior race - some Jews consider themselves to be white.
Whereas, the same individual explained that the Americanized version of racism is somewhat different, despite the fact that white supremacists still perpetuate hate against Jews. Therefore, racism may be perceived and applied depending on where you are and who applies it.
There's a serious problem with "corporations as people" and the abuse of the 1st and 14th amendments.
That's especially true when corporation amplify disinformation and lies for profits, then use the power of money to drown out the voices of real humans under the first amendment and speech.
Then those same corporations claim equal protection under the law when even the smallest corporation is always far more equal than the average person and real voting citizen.
Reagan promised to nominate a woman to SCOTUS. Obama was determined to nominate a Latina. Even Trump promised to nominate a woman, even though his choice is a dollar store brand, low brow, misogynistic, unprepared ideologue.
But the biggest worry people conservative Americans have is every that Biden candidate is far intellectually superior to their potential conservative colleagues already on the court.
That puts a serious dent in the notion of "white supremacy."
Consequently, republicans will nut up completely, and do their best to character assassinate and destroy the candidate no matter who she is.
Aside from coming to greatness through historically black colleges and universities and decades of hard work at the grassroots, Thurgood Marshall appears to be the last (and perhaps only) member of SCOTUS to have attended public colleges and universities.
It's no wonder the court almost never works for the regular folks because most don't have blue blood pedigree, or the greed and pretentiousness to strive for it.
What must be acknowledged is that Justice Sotomayor has humble roots, and she continuously makes the people proud.
What's also clear is all of the ivy league credentials on the court right now do nothing for their quality, integrity, humanity or, what they're actually there for, judgment. Maybe it's time for a regular Joe (or Jane) to sit on the court and represent the people.