Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Elie Mystal Gets It Wrong. Again.
It might come as no surprise to many when Race-commentator and voluntary segregationist, Elie Mystal decides to race-bait Twitter. He says:
Now.
To any reasonable person, we question: “okay …so … was she wearing a shirt that looked like a CVS employee?” or “Was she the only one around?”
Turns out, she was. But you don’t find that out until you read the article; it’s part of the scene-setting.
Instead, we get a lovely article on how it’s been a joy to exclude white people from his life. That his home is a “Wakanda” where he must only interact with white people by choice (or for work, which pays him to write this stuff). He fears having to go back to the normal racism that is exemplified by his witnessed interaction. He fears having to go back to whiteness (?).
He then goes on to malign people on Twitter for asking questions about the interaction that might add detail or cause, instead accusing them of playing into the general default racism of America. Sometimes, to be fair, they do play into racist interactions. But this was not one of them. He discusses how any reasonable person would be polite(again, what?):
“Excuse me, young lady, would you happen to know where I can get a vaccine?” That’s just etiquette 101.
Well then, he’s never managed to work in either healthcare or in retail. Anyone who has worked in either knows exactly how people ask for things. There is no please. No “excuse me”. No “would you happen to know”. This is not to say that the kid was being treated like an employee. She was being treated like a random stranger when someone is in a rush and is, generally, kinda rude. When an employee, a person has an expectation that a supervisor of some kind might deny them services for being verbally abusive to staff. When a random person?
There is no Etiquette 101 for most of us commoners in this country.
What it must be like to live in a world where anyone not phrasing things politely constitutes racism? What it must be like to live in a world where literally any interaction can be boiled down to whiteness or expectation!
Indeed. Mr. Mystal has managed to segregate himself from the outside world long enough that he seems to assume that people are actually more polite, inoffensive, and pleasant than they ever have been. Almost as if a pandemic might make humanity a little more, well, humane.
Shame that isn’t so.
But it isn’t racism.
Published in General
He’s a major race-baiter. I think it must be sad to go through life living that way but for some reason he has this level of internet clout that is hard to explain when you read his work from an open mind. I’d say that should refute his major theses regarding race in America but I’d also be wrong– since it hasn’t.
Indeed
And the young girl – did she not read Etiquette 101? No response is rude, even if it is to say, I don’t know. Or is being polite only restricted to/expected of white people?
I’m glad the odds are against me ever having to ask him for anything.
Holy cow! That piece in The Nation is so ridiculously, over-the-top racist, I’m almost surprised it was published.
Almost.
How tiresome.
Although this Mystal idiot is not worth engaging, for the benefit of trying to improve thinking when encountering people who express similar sentiments: Besides the questions about whether the black girl might have looked like an employee (watch what happens if you happen to be wearing a red shirt and khaki pants when you visit a Target store :) ), as to the “shouting,” how far apart were they? (The CVS that is dispensing Covid vaccines in my town is inside the Target store, and the benches on which people might sit while waiting for a ride are also used by staff on breaks, and are a good 25 feet back from the curb, so a person in a car is probably going to need to shout to be heard at the bench.) What was the ambient noise level? Were they in a quiet area far from street traffic? Were there other vehicles moving through the parking area?
Too many people these days seem determined to dig up any reason or no reason to shout “racism.”
[As a guy, I thought the reported wording of the “old white lady’s” question was perfectly reasonable for a business situation – direct, to the point, doesn’t waste time. I thought the real rudeness was the girl not answering.]
I noticed that too @Juliana. Is Etiquette 101 only for certain people or all or ?
All you see is hate when you’re looking at the world through hate-tinted glasses.
This is one of the most reprehensible, racist screeds I’ve ever seen. I’m amazed it was published. Everyone involved in the publication of a tract like this is a very twisted individual.
I guess I am curious in what changes so that he has to associate with white people? He can continue to self segregate and avoid whites as much as he wants. He has been doing so for the last year, it makes him happy, he has the right, more power to him. Personally the self removal of black (or anybody) people with bad attitudes does not bother me at all.
Somewhere Orval Faubus is laughing.
True. But to be fair to the girl, she might not have heard what the woman asked – especially if she was wearing earbuds, listening to something on her phone.
From the article:
“Every Black person I know has some story of when a white person assumed they were staff at a business they were both shopping at.”
Allow me to correct that:
“Every
Blackperson I know has some story of when awhiteperson assumed they were staff at a business they were both shopping at.”What the [redacted] does white/black have to do with that?
There’s a bit from an episode of the Bob Newhart Show, where Bob has a black patient who’s convinced that everybody he meets hates him because he’s black. Bob explains to him that they don’t hate him because he’s black, they hate him because he’s nasty. Patient says something to the effect of “You mean if I were white they’d still hate me?” Bob assures him that’s true, and the patient thanks him, says he feels much better.
A master.
That was, what, thirty years ago? That could never have been done today.
Hilarity abounds… Clearly the Gentleman isn’t from the Northeast. No one of any race assumes anything but the worse of strangers and consider being polite a sign of weakness.
Being polite is a process of exchange in a sane society not a society where the 21st Century Children of 19th Century Agricultural Workers can continue to lament their status while voting slavishly for the Party of Jefferson Davis, The Klan, Copperheads and Segregation.
You mean hate spectacles?
Of course, I just realized that I misspelled one of the tags. How very Don King of me! “But the Volunteriffic Segretation of it all!”
Maybe I should just learn to proof-read just a smidge better. But then, who would make the editors, you know, edit?
Absolootly.
As the Powerline couple (Steve Hayward and Lucretia) bring up all the time, the current CRT is just John C. Calhoun’s theory on race triumphant.
He always looks like he’s about 3 seconds from exploding.
More like 45. TBNS went off the air in the mid/late 70s.
I’ll have to go through my DVD sets and find that episode.
More like 50 years ago: The Bob Newhart Show
Let’s be honest. Elie Mystal is a racist. It’s his rice bowl and he’s done well financially as a result. Unfortunately, our societal elites have been and are encouraging racial bigots of this sort for years.
It can’t be. Am I that old? Dang.
Then he tell us to practice ‘whiteness’ – per the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History & Culture as reported by Byron York.
Oh the humanity – the segregationist Ellie Mystal demanding that everyone act white.
The irony – it burns!
Apparently this person lives in 1920s era England. I’ve heard it’s nice.
Woke Police Summoned To Apprehend Elderly White Woman Who Raised Her Voice To Be Heard Through Mask And Over Sound of Running Car
A few months ago I assumed a guy in the broom and mop aisle of the big-box hardware store was an employee, because he had on a shirt with a name tag and a logo, and it had that peculiar sheen I associate with Unitog products. The store’s color scheme was blue. His shirt was blue. He was about my age. I figured, retired guy, doing this to keep busy.
Turns out he did not work there, but was in fact the owner of a local chain of gas station / garages. We had a nice convo about the city’s ridiculous new tobacco legislation.
Since this wasn’t racist, there had to be another ism at work. Classism? I assumed anyone with his name embroidered on a shirt was an employee? Probably, but, so what? That’s the case, 99 times out of a 100.
There are many times I’ve been asked ‘do you work here?’ Sometimes I picked the wrong day to wear Best Buy Blue, sometimes the way I am looking at stuff happens to resemble straightening, but often it is just wishful thinking on the part of a customer in need of answer or an item.
And of course I’ve done it to other people as well. I usually say, “sorry, you just looked so knowledgeable/competent…” and get a neutral-positive response.