Who could have guessed that the rich white South African would turn out to be a white supremacist?
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And Space Karen also believes he has diplomatic immunity.
Sorry but, no. Stereotypes are bad.
He’s a white supremacist. That’s all that matters here.
Except South Africa has a specific history where being a white South African, raised in the era in which he was raised, can be expected to have a very relevant influence on how he sees the world.
Imo the rich part matters too
It matters in the same way that fire can kill you. If you’re in a house fire, you died of smoke, not fire. But…fire can still kill you, and is dangerous.
Wut?
Username checks out
Where the attitude comes from matters a lot actually. It informs the conversation and gives relevant context that can be used to determine the veracity of the claim that, no he’s not just some awkward guy making a weird gesture, he’s a fucking rich white South African who grew up believing that some people are more important than others.
The (white) African I know said that virtually all south Africans they spoke with would be casually racist without a thought about it
Doesn’t make it true for all white South Africans.
If we’re ever going to move forward, I think we need to stop seeing others as only members of various groups, each of which we have prejuidces about.
Not all white South Africans are rich.
Darthelmet specifically talked about rich white South Africans.
And in the time that musk’s family lived in South Africa, apartheid was still a thing.
No one here is doing that. What was said is that if a south African does a racist thing, you shouldn’t go out of your way to give them benefit of doubt.
WHO is downvoting this??? You’re absolutely right!
I am! Because the fact that his family, the figures he looked up to, and he himself, all directly benefitted from the system of apartheid that was a specific integral part of the system in South Africa from which they derived their gains?
That is relevant in the same way that saying “he was born in Alabama in the 1850s, is the son of a slaveholding knight of the golden circle, and owns a lot of bedsheets with eyeholes cut in them” would be a valid set of concerns, all of which can be used as valid identifiers that, why, yes, these add together to paint a picture of the culture that this hypothetical man is most likely to espouse. So when he “accidentally” lights a cross on fire while holding a rope with a slipknot in his offhand, do we really think that the tied slipknot at the end of his rope is to lead cattle, or is it more likely that he intends to lynch someone?
That’s all too many words. You don’t need all the exposition. You know how you know the guy you described is a racist? By the the fact that he’s a racist. Doing racist things.
All that other stuff is extra padding.
Sorry use many words. I see question, think want answer. Am wrong?
Depends on your goal. Short communications make bigger impacts.
You’re right! You know what I could have said instead?
Who could have guessed that the rich white South African would turn out to be a white supremacist?
See the flaw in using too few words?
Says someone who’s brain is rotten from the internet. “Nah miss me with those books fam, if you can’t say it in one sentence like a viral tweet then I simply can’t use my brain.”
Of course it’s “not all <thing>”
Stereotypes are bad.
Patterns are real.
Judge every individual as an individual
Still protect yourself and know the odds.
Educate yourself on the real odds.
The US saw the civil rights act get passed in 1964. 60 years on, we’re still horribly racist on the whole, especially among the super wealthy. South Africa has only been on the mend for 30 years. It’s a very good bet that they’re not different.
Fuck off. Being South African has nothing to do with this guy’s bullshit.
I don’t think they’re saying each item individually.
“He probably did it as a joke.”
Actual excuse I’ve heard from multiple people.
I thought the point of a joke was to be funny? What is funny about memeing a Nazi salute?
People are goddamn morons.
They’re lying. The joke is on you.
“Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”
Jean-Paul Sartre
Jokes on them. I feel sorry for stupid people.
Cognitive dissonance, baybee.
I don’t think it’s lack of intelligence, but people just following the path of least resistance. It’s uncomfy to come to terms with the fact that a Nazi is in an extremely powerful unelected position, so obviously he can’t possibly be a Nazi and everything is fine :D
Some people are just goddamn morons though.
I have asked a similar question many times in the past when people excuse such things as jokes:
What is the effective difference between doing a Nazi salute like that “as a joke” and just doing one?
Same thing I ask when people claim they are being racist as a joke.
The difference between the public and private spheres. There is absolutely no way to make a Nazi salute jokes in public spheres, full stop. In the private sphere I can imagine it.
“What’s the difference between a dog and a Nazi? One goes like this [does Nazi salute] and one goes like this [raises leg]!”
What is the effective difference between doing a Nazi salute like that “as a joke” and just doing one?
Plausible deniability. Pushing a boundary instead of breaking a taboo.
That is not an effective difference, that’s an excuse.
Correct, but so long as people keep favoring decorum over decency, it doesn’t matter.
I’ve also heard the excuse “he’s autistic”
An excuse is all it is
Ah yes, the spectrum between pet the dog, hailing a taxi, and exterminating bad races.
I mean he did. It was a shitty ass hole joke. He just wanted to piss the woke people off it definitely worked.
Woke is now defined as being appalled by Nazis? I thought that was just common sense.
He just wanted to piss off anyone who he thinks is his enemy. Is what I meant by woke.
Probably should just drop the term altogether then. It basically implies that being a moron is somehow virtuous.
You mean like the antisemitism he spewed like a day ago?
What?
Oh, you didn’t see that? Go do a search. Musk is a fascist and saying otherwise is just running interference.
Are you mistaking my comment for someone else? When did I ever defend him or say anything good about him.
Can you explain how people being upset about credible threats of terrorism is funny?
I didn’t say it was funny.
Sure 👌
Still not a fan of pizzacakecomics. The ones that are supposed to be funny aren’t, imho, and the political ones are way too heavy-handed for my taste.
I mean, don’t get me wrong, I agree with the content, but for a comic that’s on the reddit frontpage all the time it’s an incredibly crude way of getting the point across.
Pizzacakecomics is on the frontpage of reddit exactly because it’s heavy-handed and only mildly funny. But this is one of those “if Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favorable reference to the devil” kinda situations, so I give them proper recognition for speaking up.
Pizzacakecomics is on the frontpage of reddit exactly because it’s heavy-handed and only mildly funny.
Okay, fair. I just wish I could escape them – which is rather hard if the people voting stuff to my Lemmy frontpage have just as poor taste as the average redditor.
Pizzacakecomics buys upvotes and will ban from /r/comics for bringing it up. The worst part is that even after you’re banned from /r/comics you still have to see their unfunny garbage.
It’s an incredibly crude lie they’re telling you when they say they don’t see it.
Youre right, but that doesn’t make this comic – or the others made by the same creator – any better.
That’s like, your opinion, man
It is indeed, yes.
Well, that’s just, like, your opinion, man.
Sad thing is that, regardless of what he is or isn’t, people are answering his attention whoring with attention.
He’s the richest man in the world who has untold influence over the most powerful office in the world. It’s hard to ignore him at this point sadly. Ignoring the problem isn’t going to make it go away.
He certainly made this motion to get attention, as you said, in possibly the least crafty dog whistle in recorded history.
It’s like when a toddler learns a naughty word that makes all the grown ups laugh.
Edit: I redact that, he fucking knows what a Nazi salute is. There is no child like innocence at play, as some may interpret it.
he is a digital frotteur (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frotteurism). at the same time this is where everyone should draw the line.
The only reason I think it was a nazi salute is that it was done by a nazi…
So if people made shirts of musk nazi salute and wore them around, would they get kicked out of places? Like the DMV or any government office?
It would be even more effective if it were a photo of the actual president doing it.
I am not hoping that it happens. But when it does happen, I hope the photographers have some good angles.
But it is a photo of the actual president doing it!
No, soon they all will throw their hearts too.
I dont know what this means
The media is trying to downplay the blatant nazi salute by saying he was “throwing his heart to people”
In the immortal words of Buffy: “I didn’t jump. I took a tiny step and there conclusions were”
He could have meant anything.
50 years from now Mexico City will love to ride Teslas around the place. The US will make a movie about an enchanted Tesla called 8. Mexico will make their own called Ocho. Kids all over will grow up having their dads teach them how to do a full Tesla battery replacement. Dead batterys will litter every backyard. You’ll be able to just go to the local open market to buy replacement parts.
Meanwhile in the US, NASA will employ Ex X workers to build their first rocket to fly our first Astronauts. Our astronauts will be using very expensive pens, unlike the ruzzians who used to use pencils. And everyone will know this.
After the war is over Elon shoots his own head off and they make a movie about that too…many movies with different sad endings. Ruzzia would dedicated decades to making a Vladimir Godzilla movie and then the best radios there ever will be, followed by the best TV monitors and also small cute cars called Vlad Kei cars.
The US history books will tell us all how we finally beat Elon after he sunk a sub. The US public will then give the president full mandate to drop the bomb. All girls give up their pantyhose material… Somehow that’s very important for wars. And chickens.
Guys! I cracked the code! Its all happening again! Look for books called His Tory. I don’t know who’s Tory, but the one I found was in my basement. Its a little encoded but its all happening like the book predicted!
Guys, guys, guys! You got it all wrong! He was clearly slapping his chest to activate the homing becon to send a request to his home planet, so they can send a UFO to come pick him up! Then he used his arm as an antenna!!!
See? The whole space exploration obsession was just his way of trying to fund a way home.
Nazism on steroids!!
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Coward and a Nazi apologist? Color me surprised.
Awfully brave of them to delete their comment.
He isn’t a nazi. He is a fucking loser. His kids, ex wives and girlfriends all hate him. He is clearly incompetent which is why Trump has just given him an unofficial agency to throw him a bone to get him to shut up, maybe giving him a crumb every so often. The only friends he can find now are the Hitler youth and I expect they will get bored of him soon too.
I don’t understand how those things make him not a Nazi.
I doubt he genuinely believes in much at all, but is willing to pretend.
That’s Trump. Elon is extremely ideological.
People can be two things
