Revealing the Boogeyman

In a recent post, Post Racial America? Hell to the No!, I focused on a disturbing web site (www.niggermania.com)  that  has the most blatantly racist content that I've seen anywhere on the Internet. My good friend Mark left a comment on that post in which he expressed his mixed feelings about giving the site any attention:  "It is so obviously designed to shock that it would seem that more attention is exactly what they want."

Mark has a valid point, but my focus isn't to give this site attention, at least not of the type that it desires. Ignoring the boogeyman doesn't make it go away; ask any five-year old. The wise parent turns on the closet light and reveals to the child that the boogeyman is just an over stuffed clothes hamper.

The depth of depravity that feeds racism at this level counts on being able to stay in the shadows. They don't want those of us who find their beliefs repulsive to see them. They want to skulk around in dark corners, leaking false information designed to influence the weak minded and fearful into sharing their beliefs. They provide links to studies rejected by legitimate researchers that purport to offer scientific proof of outlandish claims of the inferiority of those whom they hate. Their goal is to recruit followers.

They count on that the people who would find their beliefs reprehensible will remain unaware of their presence. They don't expect to appeal to everyone.  Like any cult, they target the weak, those who believe that they have been marginalized by the larger society. The leadership of racist hate groups may have access to personal wealth but the rank and file followers are working class people. The power of the leadership arises from persuading those followers that the reason that they don't have the job, the house, the car, and all other material measures of success is because of the "lazy, shiftless, violent other" most often identified as Black or Hispanic.
Belief in these conclusions, which are presented as based in irrefutable fact, promotes a climate where legitimate protestations of discrimination made by black people are often met with accusations of "playing the race card."

People tend to form their worldview based on the prism through which they see the world. If you don't hold vile racist beliefs, it is harder for you to imagine the extreme levels of such beliefs as expressed on web sites like this one. We have a need to make sense of the world, to neatly order our belief system. I believe that the reason good people so often fail to take action to stop evil is because we have no frame of reference to help us see and understand the evil. We can't imagine that anyone possesses this kind of hate for others.

We need to open the closet doors, shine a flashlight under the bed and force the boogeymen out into the open to be revealed to be nothing more than sniveling cowards fixated on their own inadequacies. Desperate to persuade themselves that labeling others as inferior will somehow make them recover their long lost dignity.

Came across an interesting article that discusses another racist hate site and why it matters that we call out such sites on their promotion of racism.

Post Racial America? Hell to the No!

It started with a vile comment that I read on a post at Yahoo.com. It was the typical racist crap and I paused to give it a thumbs down vote. The screen handle was "obanana" and the person posted repeated comments featuring the n-word. 

I did a Google search of the screen name, curious as to how prolific the small-brained racist was. My search led me to a website bearing the title, www.niggermania.com. (In order to write about this site, I'm breaking my own rule and spelling out the n-word. You need to register to see all the wonders of the site. It's impossible to fully conceptualize how bad this site is without seeing it for yourself. You may sign in via my registration. User name: Lady J, password: maju2625)

The site proudly proclaims on its home page: Nigger mania is the best site for nigger jokes and facts about niggers since 2003. Please join our nigger-bashing forum too.

I know that this type of virulent hate is difficult to read. This site makes me feel physically ill; however, hate thrives best in the dark. We all know the oft repeated statement in its many variations that evil thrives when good people do nothing. I like this more precise statement by Edmund Burke: When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.

This site boasts that it has thousands of members and is still growing. People make donations to fund hosting of the site. A lot of bad people,men and women, have combined on this web site. The rest of us cannot allow such hate to grow unchecked and unacknowledged. Ignoring it will not make hate go away. 

One of the site founders, Tom Shelly, insists that the site is not about hate. He's a liar. In his own words: 

Personally, I do not hate niggers at all, I just correctly understand that they are not human and treat them accordingly. They are nothing more than wild niggers running around loose and one must act accordingly around them. A hundred and fifty years or so ago, people in this country treated niggers accordingly and kept them contained and controlled. We made them useful by managing their numbers, containing them, and forcing them to work and be somewhat productive. But the natural empathy of the White man caused him to unrestrain (sic) a species of animal (niggers) largely due to the fact they they mimick (sic) humans in their behavior and dress. Now that the genie is out of the bottle, he can't be put back in and we're stuck with living around 30 million wild niggers.--Tom Shelly

This site and its partner sites represent the most insistent, total racism that I've encountered in my 57  years on this earth. I thought that by now I knew racism inside and out. However, it has taken me aback that such blatant, vile racism is freely distributed in 2012. These people are pure evil and I see no possibility for their redemption. I think that they should be isolated from the rest of us. They are an infectious disease.

The blatant lies and twisted views are disseminated across the Internet. No doubt the comment maker who sent me on my journey based his conclusions on "facts" gleaned from niggermania.com. There are parental filters that can be used with some success to prevent children from surfing porn sites but what  prevents them from being subject to the intentional indoctrination of hate sites?

What about black children? As an adult, my pulse grew more rapid and I began to feel that someone was standing on my chest as I read through this site. What about black children who stumble across sites that proclaim that they are not human and which cite to studies by Arthur Jensen featuring his declarations that blacks are inherently intellectually inferior to whites? What psychological damage is wrought by exposure to these unrelenting racist lies?

Sites such as these may make an argument for their right to exist as a first amendment issue. I suspect that they continually assert that the site is not about hate to protect themselves against a possible challenge of their 1st amendment rights based on the use of hate speech to incite violence against a protected class--race, religion, national origin, etc. I lack the skills to mount a cyber attack against the site as one of my friend suggested. Besides, it would accomplish nothing; they would still be slithering around corners fomenting racism. 

What I would like to see is a lot of attention focused on these people. Turn the spotlight on their sickness and expose them for the rotting carcasses that they really are. They are vampires; they don't feed on blood but on ethics, on morality, and everything that makes us decent. A stake through the heart isn't the only way to end a vampire; dragging them into the light will render them into a pile of dust.

So pass along the information about these sites. Tell your friends. Tell anyone who insists that the only issue with race is that black people keep playing the race card. No matter how well intentioned, burying one's head in the sand and pretending that the monster doesn't exist never works out well. To save the day, the heroine must kill the monster and destroy its lair.