Overheard on the bus: "I can't believe that so many people voted for that nigger."

[Leftist Agitator]

And I quote.

Overheard on the Morgantown, WV Mountain Line Bus that I rode home today. His buddy said, "Yeah, that's pretty fucked up, ain't it?"

Enter the dainty woman (me) with serious rage emanating from her mouth:

"What the fuck did you just say?"

"Nothin'. I was talkin' to m'friend here."

"No, you racist asshole, you were talking to me! I heard it, you were fucking talking to ME!"

"Y'ever heard of mindin' yer own business lady?"

"Yeah. Sure have. Have you heard that you racist pieces of shit are on the way out?"

"We'll see, won't we?"

At this point, an elderly white woman sitting behind me pipes up:

"Honey, don't worry. I've seen these fellas' type my whole life. They'll get drug kickin' an' screamin' into today's times, and you won't hear talk like that no more."

That shut him up.

:)

[Name removed]

1. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[hootinholler]

47. Yeah, take your cheap shot asshole.

Now this won't post because the thread was deleted.

[Lars39]

2. hehe...all that's missing is the "bless their hearts"

:rofl:

[curse of greyface]

3. Well a lot of bus riders make more than 250k a year.

Just saying...


Honestly I can't imagine living in a place where people speak like that.

[Leftist Agitator]

5. Welcome to West Virginia!

And I live in arguably the most liberal city in WV, Morgantown, the home of WVU.

Two good ol' boys in their camo overalls, thinking that everyone has the same bigoted views as they do.

I will no longer hold my tongue as I have on so many occasions over the past eight years.

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.

EDIT: Camo overalls. Oh, and the other guy was wearing a Carhartt jacket. Rednecks, I'll tell you...

[old mark]

9. You already do - the USA. nt

[madeline_con]

11. There are people who speak like that all over the country. n/t

[phantom power]

4. Mark my words, they'll assassinate Obama if they can.

[MaryEllen9399]

8. they can always go to Gitmo nt

[kestrel91316]

22. Don't speak those words. You'll give them power.

I know what you mean, but don't say it out loud. Too much bad stuff floating in the ether now as it is.....

[MaryEllen9399]

27. sorry nt

[crikkett]

6. Good on you!!!

Like roaches, these comments need to be stomped out of existence on sight.

[Le Taz Hot]

7. Did you know

that Obama is going to destroy the world? So sayeth a woman at the bus stop when she saw my Obama pin. (What is it with bus people??):eyes:

[Leftist Agitator]

12. What is it with bus people?

Ooh! Ooh! Me! I know the answer!

Bus people are poor. Poor means uneducated, usually. Uneducated means susceptible to cheap scare-mongering tactics. Susceptible to... You get the idea. I am fucking done putting up with bigotry, ignorance, and conservatism. Any time I hear comments like this, I'm going to jump down the commenters throat.

No more. I will see to it that this idiocy dies, once and for all, in any way that I can.

[Le Taz Hot]

25. I've no idea what your rant is all about.

*I'm* a bus people. Have been for years. We were talking about inappropriate comments made during the "bus experience." Now, if YOU want to read all that other stuff into it, that's on you.

[Leftist Agitator]

30. Let me clarify...

Around here, there are two kinds of people who ride the bus.

A. Poor College students, like myself. Lots of foreign exchange students.

B. The working poor who cannot afford to own an automobile.

These clowns were from the latter category.

You asked, "What is it with bus people?"

In my rather limited experience, most of the white folks who ride the local city buses are decidedly bigoted (with many exceptions, of course), because they lack an understanding of human unity. The politics of division and hatred run deep in that demographic.

Also, I'm in WV, perhaps the most overtly racist of the marginally Southern states. Your mileage may vary.

In any case, I was certainly not trying to slander those who utilize public transportation.

Suffice it to say that I'm still quite pissed off at today's bullshit.

[Le Taz Hot]

35. Well, let me blow your stats.

I'm neither a college student, an exchange student nor working poor. The woman who made the comment to me was a Latina. As a white female I was recently told, "Why don't you go back to your own neighborhood?" (Answer : "Because I'm on the bus leaving my own neighborhood because I have to go some place? Is this a trick quesiton????")

Additionally, the older, under-educated female members of my family, who always rode the bus (they didn't drive), would never think of using racist terms like that, much less even think in those terms. And they were perfectly capable of understanding human unity.

The point here, of course, is that we need to take each person on his/her merits . . . or lack thereof in some cases.

The "bus people" comment on my part was tongue-in-cheek. Unfortunately, we don't have a corresponding emoticon.

Peace

LTH

[ORDagnabbit]

10. mannington is my home town so I feel for ya. Very different out here in oregon. :)

[MountainLaurel]

44. Monongah girl here!

:hi:

[pitohui]

13. wow that's classy you wonder about people sometimes

good for you to speak up, it gets old hearing asshats yapping in public when decent people are afraid to speak


the other day a man gave me a whole long speech about obama the socialist, then announced that he was too busy to vote, he's an important man, don't have time to stand in line

then why did he bother to blast us with his bigoted opinion, then? like...he thinks we're going to vote for him and his out-dated idiotic ideas???? he just assumes that everyone is going to agree w. his nonsense???

who even knows?

i finally just said i had voted early and my mind was made up that mccain was out to tax my company health insurance plan so i would have to vote aga. mccain even if the other guy was a little green space alien from mars -- there wasn't much mr. important could say about that!

[Leftist Agitator]

17. I'll never be afraid to speak up ever again.

I am DONE with these racist dickheads. I am done with putting up with any nonsense from the conservatives. I WILL NOT LET THEM CONTINUE
THEIR BULLSHIT.

Times have changed, and it's far past time that they realized that.

[pitohui]

26. well you done good

i have to admit i'm somewhat intimidated because i'm tiny and some of these asshats are physically scary to me

but if no one ever tells them that they're acting like asshats in public, they'll never figure it out

too bad their moms didn't bring them up to know better!

[codjh9]

14. Jee-sus! Good on you for fightin' 'em!

[sonias]

15. Good for you for standing up to those ractist pieces of shit!

:yourock:


Sonia

[unpossibles]

16. I had some girl in Skyline last night tell me that

Obama was a "towelhead." First, she tried to just describe it ("one of them guys who wraps their heads..."), so I suggest, "he's not a Sihk" and she said "no, a towelhead".

After being stunned for a moment, my friend and I tried to explain to her that he is American and Christian, and that his father was Kenyan and his mother American. She wouldn't shut up, and while I normally would have said something, just decided to leave. What sucks is, our actual waitress had this look on her face, like she wanted to tell that girl to shut up before she blows our tips, as she could see we weren't having it. I still tipped, but if the bigot had been our waitress, I may not have - and it takes a LOT for me to stiff a server, but that would have done it.

I guess I felt sorry for her, so just left. She said she didn't vote - something I also normally would have said something about - but it just shocks me how openly racist people can be, or think they can be. I do plan on writing a letter to her manager and company HQ though.

[nadinbrzezinski]

18. GOOD FOR YA... they need to be shamed!

Publcally shamed

I did that to a young lady the other day... two weeks ago before the election

[orleans]

19. good for you, speaking up. (i probably would have gotten my ass kicked

because i would not have been nearly as diplomatic as you were)

sorry you even had to hear those pricks.

[Leftist Agitator]

24. Thanks...

But I feel that over the next four years, overt racism in the vein that I experienced today will go the way of the dodo.

Diplomatic? Hardly. I was ready to claw the guy's eyes out, but the words of that wonderful woman older and wiser than I allowed me to regain my composure, and inwardly smile sadly at the dinosaurs who cannot realize that they are nearly extinct.

[southernyankeebelle]

20. Yep

I was just txting with my educated sister who had a smart remark about Obama. I told her that there are a lot of idiots out there and some have medical degrees (like she does). Education level really doesn't matter. Our parents raised us to be good citizens. 3 of us are democrats and 2 are republicans. Funny how the ones that are republicans are more religious than the rest of us. We all go to church. Except they go every day of obligation and every sunday. The rest of us don't. Its funny when they were younger none of them went to church. I did but am not extreme. I don't know what has happen to my catholic church. They never used to be so involved with politics to the extreme.

[Leftist Agitator]

40. Welcome to DU!

:hi:

I too was raised Catholic. I am the only totally unobservant sibling of the three of us. Yet I'm not an atheist, which seems to confuse people... But I digress.

I got on my brother about two years ago for listing his religion as Catholic on some Army form that he was filling out.

"Catholic? When the hell is the last time you were even in a church?" I asked.

"Ummm... Stinoski's wedding?" he said. Stinoski's wedding was in 2003.

"How exactly does that make you catholic?"

"You know, that's how Mom and Dad and Grandma raised us, y'know?"

Suffice it to say, I do NOT know, but I marvel at the power of religion and dogma to produce people of a certain ideological bent.

In any case, from this erstwhile catholic to a presumably practicing one, again, welcome!

[southernyankeebelle]

21. Yep

I was just txting with my educated sister who had a smart remark about Obama. I told her that there are a lot of idiots out there and some have medical degrees (like she does). Education level really doesn't matter. Our parents raised us to be good citizens. 3 of us are democrats and 2 are republicans. Funny how the ones that are republicans are more religious than the rest of us. We all go to church. Except they go every day of obligation and every sunday. The rest of us don't. Its funny when they were younger none of them went to church. I did but am not extreme. I don't know what has happen to my catholic church. They never used to be so involved with politics to the extreme.

[Generic Other]

23. This is how we all fight racism--one battle at a time

You will not know if you changed that man's heart, but you will always know you tried. qand that's really what matters.

[Telly Savalas]

28. They sound kind of bitter.

[Leftist Agitator]

31. I am not butter.

And aren't you supposed to be dead?

:)

[Bluebear]

29. Just tell people like that "Get over it. Sore losermann!"

:)

[onethatcares]

32. if it wasn't for people with attitudes like that,

Obama would have had 84% of the popular vote.

[lpbk2713]

33. I love it.

Wish I was there to see it. I wouldn't have said a thing because you handled it just right.


:thumbsup: :hi: :thumbsup:

[blackbooks]

34. Living and working in a Minnesota college town

most racism I hear usually comes from some of these young freshman just in from the country, many who don't know any better. I say "some" and "many" rather than all, because I was one of them a few years ago, and my father would have whupped my ass if he'd heard me say what your new 'bus friends' said. Then my mom would have had a go.

Usually, these kids' racist tendencies can be handled early on by a "Dude, not cool." That usually lets them know they've got some learning to do. They're not bad, just young and ignorant.

If they're older, I usually don't even try, unless they've got kids. I can't help this generation, but I might have a chance with the next.

[Hubert Flottz]

36. They don't call this a "RED" state for nothing...

I was pretty sure, from what I was hearing out of some people I spoke with here around Charleston, that Obama would have his work cut out for him if he planned to carry West Virginia. It's a shame that such a pretty state is so far behind the times.

The crazy thing is that West Virginia became a state in the first place on June 20th 1863, right in the middle of the Civil war, because most of the folks here in what was then called Western Virginia, were not slave holders and did not agree with slavery or the "Confederate Cause". West Virginia became the 36th state of the Union about 2 weeks before the battle of Gettysburg and the surrender of Vicksburg.

I guess you have ignorant people anywhere you go. Too sadly though, West Virginia, burial place of John Brown, is no exception.

[noamnety]

37. A couple links I wish you would read

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1722134#1722326
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=258x4168

[Leftist Agitator]

42. I understand why you posted these particular links.

The first is quite relevant.

The second is even more relevant.

I feel that by bowdlerizing racist thoughts, words, and deeds that one denies the ugly hateful power that such vitriol can inspire.

I have only reproduced, verbatim, the words of a bigot. I will not grant his hate speech any special treatment. I prefer to replicate it in its entirety, so that others may more fully realize how hurtful, hateful, and abominable such thoughts and words are.

The "N" word is a symbol of centuries of hatred and foul prejudice. By ignoring it, or softening the blow dealt to society as a whole upon its utterance, we do no favors to anyone.

Let them say it. Let the racists have their slur.

And let us mock, deride and ostracize them for it.
Very soon, they will say it no more, because none but them will think and feel that way any longer.

[noamnety]

43. My concern, and I hope something you will consider

Is that the people who have been most hurt be these words are likely to experience them as triggers.

Normally when we are talking about, for example, details of a rape to emphasize how ugly a crime it is, we don't want to whitewash the nature of the crime, but neither do we want to further hurt existing victims. So we do things like put *Warning - possible trigger* in the subject line, or in front of a link or above a story.

The special treatment is not for the bigot or for their words; it's for people dealing with PTSD, flashbacks, for people who are already flooded with the experience of that word, and for whom it is damaging to never be able to get away from it.

I have myself used that word here and elsewhere in the past for exactly the reasons you listed. I wanted it to be ugly, angry, to convey the bigotry in the strongest way.

I don't do that anymore, I came to understand that my need to use the word in that way was trumped by something else, that I couldn't be fighting for the rights of someone while simultaneously being dismissive of their statement that I was causing them additional pain.

[Name removed]

38. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[MaryEllen9399]

41. you seriously need to turn that in to the Army and Secret Service

He is making a threat and refusing to take orders from The Commander in Chief

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

39. West Virginia is a very beautiful state that is an easy commute

for DC area people looking for second and vacation homes. I also understand that real estate in West Virginia is unbelievably cheap. I can't understand why these 2 factors haven't brought about a little bit of gentrification (the good kind) to at least some parts of the state.

The good kind of gentrification is where new urban or rural yuppies go in and buy and improve land and buildings and raise the tax base a bit and contribute to better schools, etc. Suddenly new little shops and cafes spring up, etc. They can add a nice infusion of new blood and thinking to tired old areas that are dying economically and spiritually. I am NOT talking about hit and run real estate speculators, to be clear.

Maybe a bunch of nice liberals just need to resettle in West Virgina.

[MountainLaurel]

45. They have . . . at the other side of the state

The area where the OP is talking about is a 3.5-hour drive from DC, on a good day with no traffic (I should know, I made that trip several times a year for 13 years). The Eastern Panhandle area, the part nearest DC, has gentrified to a large extent, to the extent to which the people working there can't afford to buy homes there anymore. Some of the new people are native West Virginians from other parts of the state who have college degrees; they wouldn't be able to find jobs back home, but still have a bit of psychological comfort knowing that they're still within the Mountain State. Others are folks from the DC area who have been priced out of the market there.

The cheap housing in other parts of the state comes at a high cost: There are few jobs, particularly for the more highly educated folk you're talking about. That's why most of the educated people who grew up there have left. It might be 40-minute drive to the nearest grocery store. High-speed Internet access is a dream. The schools are badly underfunded, and if you're a newcomer, you probably wouldn't want to send your kids there anyway.

[Omnibus]

46. Every year, their numbers get fewer and their hate gets weaker.

Racist pieces of shit, meet the dustbin of history. Tell the slaveholders I said, "Hi."

Then show them a collection of national headlines (with color pictures).

Then tell them I said, "AAAAAHH-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA EAT IT ASSHOLES HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

[guitar man]

48. It may be wrong of me

but I have a sometimes uncontrollable habit of just hauling off and knocking the living piss out of crackers like that. I know that I may be charged with assault and battery for it, but I guess it's my form of "civil disobedience", so if I get hauled to jail and have to pay the consequences for it someday, so be it. Sometimes I just cannot resist the urge to jump in their shit when I hear them spout it. :evilgrin: