Right-wingers smear Brandon Scott, who was elected with over 70%, as a diversity hire after Key Bridge collapse
Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott hit back at critics who called him a “DEI mayor” after the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse this week.
Right-wing social media users bizarrely labeled Scott, who was elected with over 70% of the vote, “Baltimore’s DEI mayor” following a press conference on the collapse.
MSNBC host Joy Reid noted that Scott was overwhelmingly elected in a predominantly Black city.
“So by right-wing logic, a ‘diversity hire’ would have been a white man,” Reid said Wednesday.
“I know, and we know, and you know very well that Black men, and young Black men in particular, have been the bogeyman for those who are racist and think that only straight, wealthy White men should have a say in anything,” Scott told Reid.
“We’ve been the bogeyman for them since the first day they brought us to this country, and what they mean by DEI in my opinion is duly elected incumbent,” he continued. “We know what they want to say, but they don’t have the courage to say the N-word, and the fact that I don’t believe in their untruthful and wrong ideology. And I am very proud of my heritage and who I am and where I come from, scares them, because me being at my position means that their way of thinking, their way of life of being comfortable while everyone else suffers is going to be at risk, and they should be afraid because that’s my purpose in life.”
I know nothing about this man other than this quote, but it’s fucking awesome that he came out and said it.
Notwithstanding the unfathomable depths of racist wingnuttery (or possibly depths of unfathomable racist wingnuttery), what.
No, really. What. What’s the angle here? Are they implying that somehow the mayor of Baltimore somehow personally caused the ship to hit that bridge?
Or that he was responsible for how it was built in 1972? 12 years before Brandon Scott, Mayor of Baltimore was born?
Much much simpler than that. Remember how just a few months ago everything the right didn’t like was “woke”? And a few months before that how everything the right didn’t like was CRT?
Well, we are here now. All problems are a result of DEI. It really does not matter that it’s completely insane to view the world like this. Right wing media has it’s current swear word of the month and that word (or in this case acronym) is DEI.
What’s super effective about this tactic is exactly what the mayor hints at. It’s a way to say the n-word without saying it.
The angle here is the right is a bunch of racist bigots and framing all the ills of the world in terms of that racist bigotry makes their lizard brained viewers happy (well, angry, but at the right people).
Quiet literally how Nazi propaganda worked. Blame all the problems of germany on the jews and the non-jews right wing morons will happily nod along with “yer right, it is the Jews’ fault our society is crumbling!” It did not have to make sense or be reasonable. You just constantly plant that fear and suspicion in your dumbass follower’s brains.
Who cares. Let’s focus on what’s actually important here: racist shitbags.
It’s similar to how they’re using the disaster to decry open borders allowing terrorists in. Meanwhile, the crew on the bridge that died in the disaster, on their night shift lunch break from fixing potholes, was made up almost exclusively of immigrants… everything is just an opportunity to grab engagement for your talking points now, no matter how absurd. The idea that this disaster is being used to fan hatred of immigrants, while the people who were killed were literally hard-working immigrants… it just breaks my brain.
So basically I guess, no surprise that they’re also somehow connecting the bridge to Brandon Scott, and diversity hires (lol, he won an election fuckos, not an HR hiring process). It’s all a part of the unreality we now live in.
Baltimore was one of the cities which suffered the most from redlining and white flight in the 60s and 70s, and has been an anti-civil-rights talking point for racist assholes since then. The city literally ran interstates through black neighborhoods to have an excuse to tear them down, and then refused to sell the property in other areas. Then, when the civil rights act happened, the county worked very hard to set up demarcation boundaries for city services to make sure that the tax revenue from the wealthy suburbs would stay completely separate.
Basically white people in Baltimore were told they had to live near Black people and they threw a massive tantrum about it.
That platform is getting so toxic and racist now. The mayor’s speech thanked first responders and tried to give condolences to people who lost loved ones. Basic stuff that any good human does.
America’s right is getting fucking scary.
It’s been scary for the last 100 years. They previously plotted overthrowing and killing FDR in the 30s. And suffered nothing for it when caught. In fact a few got elected to Congress post plot. Since then, they’ve been the defacto home for American fascism and neo Nazis in general.
Throughout the 50s and 60s they stirred up fascist, anti socialist propaganda. Smearing, and attacking anyone they didn’t like regardless of facts or evidence. Ending careers, livelihoods and even a few lives through the persecution.
There’s plenty to say about the 70s as well. Though “Nixon” covers a lot. Even as we consistently find out more and more as time goes on. Combined with starting to court their soulmates. The murderous KKK and lynching Dixiecrats post 1964 exodus from the Democrats. Culminating with Reagan. Who also courted extreme, fascistic anti christian fundamentalist “Christian” cults.
It’s been a constant terrifying push from them. To which the American public has largely ignored, waffled, and had zero appetite to acknowledge or address. Even as they overthrew democratically elected governments around the world. Jr Bush and trumple orangeskin are just the most recent, less competent legacy of the last American century. And it’s fucking terrifying how “normal” it’s been.
But yes, it does seem to be a bit more visible to some these days. So that good. Just wish more could see and acknowledge.
George W. Bush couldn’t be blamed for 9/11, even if he had been given a briefing marked "Osama Bin Ladn targeting the USA.’
Donald Trump can’t be blamed for Covid, even though he closed down the White House pandemic office.
This Mayor, he’s the responsible one!
Not enough people have been asking the real question: What was this DEI mayor doing on 9/11? How could he have let that happen? Does he hate America?
(/s shouldn’t be necessary, but these days I can’t risk leaving it out since reality has become indistinguishable from satire)
It’s an elected position, how much more obvious can you be?
