“I don't care if you're liberal, centrist, or a nazi” — someone still using twitter in 2026

I'm a critically white guy who grew up in white suburbs and remember Sesame Street teaching me as a kid to not do racism. I was entirely on board with the whole America is a plurality thing, and it took me a while to figure out that most of my society is totally not going to play along.

In the aughts, my flatmate was Taíno/Puerto-Rican and we had a lot of conversations about systemic racism in the US. But my awareness of US racism really got going after the killing of Michael Brown in 2014 and the Ferguson unrest, during which there were independent press on the ground streaming video directly to the internet (that is, not being filtered by news agencies), and the brutal fuckery that was being pulled by the police. Also the worst trigger discipline I'd ever seen in my life.

It turns out that police, nationwide, really hate black people. More so than other non-whites, poor people, LGBT+ and protestors. (However, I am told, they hate native Americans even worse.)

After Ferguson, news agencies, for the first time, started tracking officer-involved homicide. See FBI was supposed to be tracking whenever a law enforcement officer (of any department) killed someone, and reporting their findings every year to BJS. It was a congressional order from the 1970s, and the Bureau just said nah. Until Ferguson in 2014, volunteer organizations watched for obituaries and news for when a police officer offed someone, those trackers didn't get them all. We still don't.

In 2015, officer-involved violence killed about four people a day, and that's a guess. Precinct coroners routinely cover up for their brethren when a death can be interpreted as something else. The high-end estimation is about 75% of such deaths fall through the cracks, undetected and unreported.

Of course, blacks are disproportionately represented in officer-involved slayings. Of note, Philando Castile was pulled over at least forty-nine times in the thirteen years leading up to his execution by law enforcement in 2016.

Much of the shit ICE is doing now is not new. It's just much more visible now. But there's been precedent for a long time. Heck the DEA is essentially a paramilitary force to harass black neighborhoods.

And that was all before Trump got elected and he collectively gave Americans permission to be openly racist again. Now it's all cranked up to eleven.

Stephen Miller really wants to dispose of all the non-whites. That's what the ICE project really is about. (He also wants to put disabled people into institutions. That how the face-eating leopards come for my face in particular.)

The white Christian nationalists want to strip rights away from women and make them household appliances again. They also want to chase LGBT+ and non-Christians back in the closet. They're also wary of Christians who don't agree with their version of scripture.

Ranty Addendum: And as Corey Doctorow points out, the AI investment-buildout boom is largely fueled by a fantasy by the ownership class to just plumb get rid of workers, period, and replace us all with robots, occupation by occupation.

Peter Thiel and company already have plans for fancy highly developed automated cities where rich people can live in (alleged) paradise. Think Opportinity from Borderlands 2 or Rapture from Bioshock. They also have apocalypse bunkers where they can hide when things go south. (Those who don't get killed off by their security contingent will instead go mad the way everyone did during the COVID-19 lockdown and sequester)

The ultra-wealthy (the 0.01% who look down on the 0.1%) don't care where we migrate to, except they are looking to own all the land. While racism is a factor and distracts common folk from the class struggle, in the end it really is about class.

PS: I commented in the Ask Lemmy post on YouTube creators about Ashly B who does short form videos discussing black history in America. Stories about slavery, institutional racism and hate violence can get pretty graphic.

You know when it comes to racism, people say: " I don't care if they're black, white, purple or green"… Ooh hold on now: Purple or Green? You gotta draw the line somewhere! To hell with purple people! - Unless they're suffocating - then help'em.

• Mitch Hedberg

I would care if you’re purple, would be ready to do the Heimlich

I don't care if you're white, black or blue. But if you're blue you should probably call an ambulance because that means your hypoxic.

You know when it comes to racism, people say: "I don't care if they're black, white, purple or green"… Ooh hold on now: Purple or Green? You gotta draw the line somewhere! To hell with purple people! - Unless they're suffocating - then help'em.

Mitch Hedberg

Alex jones every single time he talks about people even if it makes less sense to include race

Wasn't there a U.K. anti discrimination campaign that said that but with an added "...or normal"?

Even as a white guy, I hear it plainly.

The other day i got one that said he didn't care if the person was polka-dotted.

I was like Steve, I have known you since 1998. I have heard your thoughts on Mexicans. I am certain you'd have an issue with the polka-dotted if they existed.

Everybody's talkin' something very shocking
Just to keep on blockin' what they're feelin' inside
But listen to me brother, you just keep on walkin'
'Cause you and me and sister ain't got nothing to hide
Scatman, fat man, black and white and brown man
Tell me 'bout the color of your soul
If part of your solution isn't ending the pollution
Then I don't wanna hear your stories told
I wanna welcome you to Scatman's World

I like Scatman's version

You don't care if I'm wearing blackface, gangrenous, or so oxygen deprived I've turned purple? You sound like an asshole.

I'd absolutely try and get you a doctor if I saw you were green. I might try heimlick or CPR or something if you were purple. Black is okay if like most of you is black but if its paint I have questions.

How would someone who actually doesn't care about race express they don't care about race?

Nah. I've definitely heard it from people who don't care and people who care a lot. And also for being various types of not straight, for that matter.

Looks narrowly at this post. FINE! I will ask my dad! gets annihilated

Nah.