By opening up a dialogue to racists and letting them post over and over again, they are simply giving racists another forum:
The newest flood probably comes from this thread on Stormfront
But that’s the problem when you leave open threads and ask for people to report the abuse–it’s too late.
But even without the flood from a White Supremacist group is that several of the problems in the thread are people who post racist comments quite regularly. If you pay attention to who is writing the comments a few regulars show up: Batson, A. Patriot, Mick, taxpayer, foxydrummer, bud fox and probably a few others are consistent in their racism. But they continue to post.
For that matter, there’s still a post in that thread talking about bones in noses referring to Africans.
The argument Greenbaum seems to be making is that you have to confront racism to defeat it. In general, I don’t disagree and have a history of doing just that in Saint Louis from confronting the Council of Conservative Citizens and exposing Frank Weltner’s support of Tom Bauer during an aldermanic election. Exposing racism is important, but that is an entirely different situation than providing racists a forum which is exactly what the Post-Dispatch is doing.
It’s ineffective in a forum or in comments to stories because often good people aren’t there to fight racism-often times they are there to read the news. Interaction is important as Greenbaum has said in relation to a newspaper and its readers, but the quality of that interaction matters. I don’t want to go to every story on East Saint Louis and know at the end I’ll read some ignorant fool talking about how those people are beyond help or worse–see people writing about violent imagery like the need to blow up the town.
Lord knows East Saint Louis is place with problems including corruption, poverty, and crime and at times those conditions are going to result in hyperbole or something inappropriate when people comment. The kind of callous discussion of violence when a story about it or North Saint Louis or other troubled communities are published is far beyond that and it’s an accepted tone at the Post-Dispatch on line–something they would never print in letter to the editors. It doesn’t lead to discussion–it leads to many people avoiding those stories.
Criticism of East Saint Louis leadership is certainly a valid point and something I’ve made in the past on this blog (including the white establishment from Belleville that is complicit in the problems). What is not valid is the dehumanization of the people and communities that a subset of commenters constantly undertake. Unfortunately, they have a haven at Post-Dispatch.
The other thing I’m saying is this: Deleting comments because they express ideas that are distasteful, or even repugnant, or because I disagree with them, is a slippery slope. The line isn’t as easy to draw as you might think. I just ask you and your readers to consider that. One of the comments you highlighted falls in that category as far as I’m concerned.
Which one:
1) Additionally, you are a statistical anomaly, an outlier on the Bell Curve of minority intellectual measurement.
So the claim is that minority intellectual measurement and capacity is lower. Is that going to be the debate you want?
2)All black men want white women because black women aren’t as pretty. Their hair is kinky black, and their facial features are more primitive.
— Bryant Gumbel
I think we can all agree on that one.
3) Interracial relationships present a disinterest in societal integrity and morals. One who engages in miscegenation and relations with people of different races have no concern for their kids. These people are the lowest of humans on the ladder. Portraying this on top of a obviously well known magazine degrades the magazine integrity. The magazine should issue an apology to all those offended. We are bombarded by interracial relationships on a daily basis and eventually we will draw the line and finish the job.
Advocating violence and mixed marriages are by the lowest of the low.
4) You have children who look for all intents and purposes as though you are not their mother. That’s okay, but why should I be forced to live in a society where it’s shoved down my children’s throats that they must do the same?
Children who don’t look like their mother? Really? Because of extra melanin? That’s a pretty offensive claim.
5) I find the picture repulsive. To each their own.
— Steven 8:03 pm April 15th, 2009
Maybe that one can stick around. He could be talking about one of them being ugly. I guess.
6) Race mixing is the cause of great civilisations like Egypt,Greece, Britain,America downfalls.
All race mixers should be made to live in other racially mongrelised countries such as mexico,middle east,brazil.
Race mixers produce low iq’d mongrel children that do not resemble themselves.
Race mixers are nothing to be idolised as they are nothing but genocidal maniacs.
I would assume we don’t have a disagreement on this one.
7) The worst case is when the ones that have engaged in this aberrant behavior pretend they are somehow better than those that actually have a sense of pride in themselves and who they are, those that don’t want to bastardize their progeny.
Loving another human being is aberrant behavior and the children of such relationships are bastards because of the color of their skin.
8) Interracial relationships are simply disgusting. For every “Barak Obama” (Whom was a bastard, mind you) there’s 900 ugly kids wondering why their mother’s would destroy their sense of identity.
I doubt there is any question on this one.
9) One day, when her children ask her why they don’t look like her, she can show them a picture of their father as an explanation.
One shouldn’t have to be a WN, to just look at that picture, and just know in their gut, “that just ain’t right.”
Overt reference to white nationalism and the whole kid doesn’t look like the mother again.
10) The Origins of “Racism” in the West: The Curious Beginnings of a Useless Word
http://www.amren.com/mtnews/ar.....s_of_1.php
It’s certainly by no coincidence that the term “racism” became a dirty word during and after the Civil Rights
movement in America, since it was Jews and communists (communism essentially being a Jewish phenomenon) who
played instrumental roles in orchestrating the Civil Rights movement in America.
Jews, Blacks, Communism and the Civil Rights Movement
http://www.stormfront.org/foru.....ost5309473
In short: We’re not communist constructs. We’re free-thinking white people. We’re racial realists. I think
most people are, especially when we remove political correctness from the equation. That begs the question,
what is political correctness and why is it necessary?
Jewish conspiracy, links to two different white supremacist cites.
11) “We Jews must realize that our party’s most powerful weapon is racial tensions. By propounding into the consciousness of the dark races that for centuries they have been oppressed by whites, we can mold them to the program of the Communist Party. In America we will aim for subtle victory.
While inflaming the Negro minority against the whites, we will endeavor to instill in the whites a guilt complex for their exploitation of the Negros. We will aid the Negroes to rise in prominence in every walk of life, in the professions and in the world of sports and entertainment.
With this prestige, the Negro will be able to intermarry with the whites and begin a process which will deliver America to our cause.”
Israel Cohen, A Racial Program for the Twentieth Century, 1912. Also in the Congressional Record, Vol. 103, p. 8559, June 7, 1957
Anti-Semitic conspiracy theory.
12)Really “unbelievable” and others? You can’t believe that in 2009 White people would become upset over the flaunting of the GENOCIDE of their race and culture by a group of people who are GUILTY of that same crime under CURRENT international law?
Claims of genocide against whites and later calls for a White Homeland
13)matter of fact everywhere low iqd negros inhabit the society around them crumbles.
The bronx was once a nice white dutch area, now filled with negros its gangbangers paradise.Same as with once beautiful detroit.
Oh and by the way, martin luther king was an anti white communist fraud.Who delighted in sodomising white females.Kings speec hes were written by jewish communist pigs who continue to destroy white America as we speak.JEWISH SEMITES ALSO BROUGHT THE MAJORITY OF NEGRO SLAVES TO AMERICA, NOT WHITES.
So much, but an anti-Semitic screed
14) o you read the unfiltered news? are the you aware of the Black on white rapes that are being perpetrated in this nation, it’s disgusting, and you in your liberalness have a hand in promoting this kind of behavior. Yes we do have a bi-racial president,whose black father abandoned him at an early age and then his race mixing mother deposited him on her parents before she deserted him. You want to promote this and hold it in esteem. Wake up. Your liberal tendancies will be our epitaph
I hope we agree again, so much in so little space
15) What a base lack of standards. Women with standards do not date black men – it’s always a shock when you see a white girl with a black guy because everyone is intuitively repulsed by it.
Women who date black men have no moral standards.
16-17) This is possible one of the most disgusting things I have ever seen.
— Beavis
10:04 pm April 15th, 2009
This is quite possible one of the most disgusting things I have ever seen.
— Wow 10:05 pm April 15th, 2009
I suppose you could claim that this was in reaction to the racism in the thread
18) Every day they shove their power in our face. The slut White female with her “black boyfriend”, or her mixed-race child on television shows, in commercials, and in movies. These GENOCIDAL tyrants hide behind the full force of the U.S. government! Where is MY PROTECTION? Where is the protection for WHAT I LOVE? This country is HELL, a living HELL. The U.S. is now NOTHING BUT SLAVERY for any White person who is even semi-aware of the GENOCIDE being committed against his people.
These EVIL people have the power to destroy the White race, one weak-minded, thought-controlled White female at a time. And they are doing it. Their plan is going ahead full speed. The enemy strikes where their opponent is most vulnerable, inside the mind of the domesticated, indoctrinated, submissive female.
Completely bonkers anti-Semitic conspiracy theory and white supremacist pablum.
If you are standing on the three I pointed out as possible exceptions I’m not sure what this proves other than if you try really hard you can divorce those from the context they appeared in.
Many of those comments are still up and so is the bones in the noses comment.
Beyond that, look at the comments on stories today about East Saint Louis. Can you take them in isolation as not being racist. Sure, but then you’d be kidding yourself. If that’s what the Post-Dispatch wants for its web site, that’s the choice for the Post-Dispatch to make. However, it’s not one that will attract more readers over time than it repels.
You also haven’t addressed the repeated racist comments by specific commenters. Have you done a search on their posts? It’s fascinating in a sick trainwreck sort of way.