Welcome to #SMH Fridays! Obviously, that’s Internet speak for “shaking my head” Fridays, but you already knew that.
Here at Red Alert Politics we spend entirely too much time on the internet and some of the things that we see out there are just absolutely astonishing/mind-blowing/horrifying/disgusting/trendy/weird/insert any adjective here. As such, we have decided to start #SMH Fridays as a way to share those stories with you.
In this weekly series, our staff members will share their favorite “That’s So Internet” story in this post, along with their unfiltered commentary. Here’s last week’s edition for the gist of what it’s all about. Enjoy!
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Taylor Swift has released her latest music video and yet again the internet mob is calling her a racist.
The video tells the story of two 1950s actors having a relationship while shooting a film in Africa.
But people are super mad that the video doesn’t feature any black people even though it was filmed in Africa.
A Fader article about the video is titled, “Taylor Swift Went To Africa To Film A Music Video And There’s Only White People In It.”
Huffington Post’s Lauren Duca wrote, “Instead of the cultural appropriation that has become almost status quo in today’s pop music, Swift has opted for the bolder option of actually just embodying the political exploitation of a region and its people.”
The Daily Dot’s Nico Lang said it “has a major race problem.”
“For a clip that’s set in Africa — it’s about as white as a Sunday morning farmer’s market,” Lang wrote.
Pretty much every time Tay-Tay releases a video there is some big racist backlash.
Remember “Shake It Off”? RACIST. Or come on…does it get more obviously racist than “White Horse”?
Must we always jump to these conclusions?
Isn’t it possible that she just wanted to tell a story about 50s movie stars and have it set somewhere pretty?
Plus, Huffington Post, if I learned anything from Mean Girls, it’s that you can’t just ask someone why they’re white.
The Syrian Civil War has been going on for over four years and has claimed the lives of an estimated 300,000 with an additional 11.6 million people now refugees and displaced, nearly half of the nation’s population.
According to the U.N. 5,000 more flee every day.
This insane situation had largely gone ignored until the image of three-year old Aylan Kurdi‘s lifeless body went viral on Thursday.
Kurdi, as well as his mother and brother drowned trying to flee to Europe.
With over a million Syrians trying to flee to Europe, it has created a huge humanitarian crisis that the West has not had to deal with since the end of World War II.
Germany has agreed to take in 800,000 refugees, thousands more are headed to England but still liberals are demanding more be done. British actress Emma Thompson even called her fellow Englishmen “racist” for not wanting to flood their shores with millions of displaced people.
This is crisis though is not Europe’s problem, this is a Middle East problem and what are the other Arab nations doing to help their Muslim brothers and sisters? Nothing.
The nations of Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain have so far offered to take in zero Syrian refugees. That’s right, absolutely none.
Why should they when thousands could die crossing into Europe, thinning the already fragile states.
Europe shouldn’t agree to hold this burden alone until other Arab nations agree to step up in the defense of their fellow Muslims and take in their displaced millions.
Being a conservative who has lived in New York, there are few people more insufferable to me than New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. Such strong opinions against the man may be nothing new. But, this week de Blasio has me shaking my head (and my fist) for a particular reason.
Now, I’m no fan of the Mets. If I go to their game though, as a proud New Yorker, I’m going to cheer for them. You’d especially expect that of New York City’s mayor, right? Yeah, well not de Blasio.
NBC New York reported that the not so fine mayor of the fine city went to all three Mets-Red Sox games, where he cheered on… the Red Sox?
They also discussed how a Mets’ camera man refused to acknowledge an aide who was, probably idiotically, waving his hands to get the camera man’s attention to point out de Blasio was right behind him. The camera man wisely ignored the aide.
He has not yet attended a Yankees game. GOOD! Even the Mets fans disliked de Blasio, who has received boos in the past. Honestly, I’d boo him even if he were a Mets fan. One could only imagine what would happen if he attended a Yankees game with how beholden he is to their greatest rival.
As a Yankees fan this may be blasphemous for me to say, but I wouldn’t mind waiting until we have a new mayor for them to win the World Series again.
My real smh though may be directed to those who “clamor[ed] for selfies” with de Blasio. What kind of a self-respecting Mets fan are you?
This week the Washington Post reported that the popular pornography website Pornhub.com is offering a $25,000 college scholarship to the student who best answers the question: “How do you strive to make others happy?”
Some feminist groups and sexual violence prevention organizations jumped to attack the company, saying the scholarship’s intention is to collect homemade porn videos from college students.
Corey Price, the vice president of Pornhub, told The Daily Beast that the criteria to win the scholarship is not to submit the best porn video, and said he would be surprised if they received any pornographic entries at all.
Price also told the Washington Post that any applicant who submits a sex video “will not be seriously considered.”
Pornhub is also requiring students to submit official transcripts and a GPA of 3.2 or higher is necessary to be considered for the scholarship.
The company’s “Pornhub Cares” philanthropic effort has previously done a tree-planting contest, a testicular cancer awareness campaign, and a charity drive for breast cancer research.
Seems legit to me.
Another dispatch for this week on the bounder who is Donald Trump.
Trump, like usual, played the role of an impetuous toddler when interviewed by radio host Hugh Hewitt.
After conflating the Quds, an Iranian paramilitary group, with the Kurds, and being generally ignorant on foreign-policy issues, Trump announced that “I will be so good at the military, your head will spin.”
Apparently, Donald Trump imagines that being president is similar to playing Call of Duty. You get the controller, fiddle around a bit, and then you win.
Trump’s bravado and arrogance has gone from a challenge to “politics as usual” to an obtuse cover for his ignorance. One would hope that the American people soon recognize Trump for the shame that he is, but H.L. Mencken comes to mind to temper that hope: “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”
