All purpose news and politics thread part VI: This Is Not The Time For Posing

[Tami]

A Black Belgian Student Saw a White Fraternity as His Ticket. It Was His Death.

GHENT, Belgium — Sanda Dia saw a fraternity as a doorway into a different life. The son of an immigrant factory worker, he was an ambitious 20-year-old Black student at one of Belgium’s most prestigious universities. The fraternity, Reuzegom, was home to the scions of Antwerp’s white elites.

Access to that rarefied world, he decided, was worth enduring the fraternity’s notoriously vicious hazing ritual.

He did not survive it.

After being forced alongside two other pledges to drink alcohol excessively, chug fish oil until he vomited, swallow live goldfish and stand outside in an ice-filled trench, Mr. Dia died in December 2018 of multiple organ failure. His death was seen as a tragic accident, an example of hazing gone wrong.

In recent weeks, however, an even uglier story has emerged. Fraternity members had used a racial slur as they ordered Mr. Dia to clean up after a party. A photo surfaced purporting to show a fraternity member wearing Ku Klux Klan robes. A fraternity speech referenced “our good German friend, Hitler.” A video showed them singing a racist song.

And deleted WhatsApp messages, recovered by the police, show fraternity members — the sons of judges, business leaders and politicians — scrambling to cover their tracks.

“This was not an accident,” said Mr. Dia’s brother, Seydou De Vel.

The details, uncovered recently in a string of local news stories, have forced the nation’s Dutch-speaking region, Flanders, to confront rising racism and xenophobia, even at such renowned universities as this one, the Catholic University of Leuven, now known as K.U. Leuven.

Belgian universities, like their American counterparts, are generally seen as left-leaning. But campuses and clubs here have also reflected and fueled the conservatism of Flanders, where a nationalist movement is increasingly openly racist and anti-immigrant — and growing in power.

“They thought, ‘He’s just some Black guy,’” said Sanda’s father, Ousmane Dia, speaking French. “‘We are powerful and nothing can happen to us.’”

[Revolutionary_Jack]

SNL is back. Jim Carrey is totally the Joe Biden. Perfect casting,

You know SNL is even more important this month than before. It's basically a way to keep news stories like taxes, Trump supporting white supremacy and other stuff on-air. It also serves as a barometer for the Trump sympathy effect. The opening episode basically milks about how nice it would be if Trump was silenced for a bit. "I'm not saying I want it to happen but imagine is science and karma teamed up".

[PaulBullion]

I don't even think it will be 43% after the votes are counted. I'm thinking he struggles to even get 41%.

Today's poll by Rupert Murdock's Wall Street Journal has Biden 53, Trump 39. Biden's lead growing 6 points from their last poll.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Colin Jost and Michael Che are back.

Michael Che (who lost his grandmother to the coronavirus) points about Trump, "There's a lot funny about this. Maybe not from a moral standpoint. But mathematically, if you were constructing a joke, this is all the ingredients you need...if anything it's too funny".

[Tami]

I'm gonna rant a little, I hope you don't mind.

We are ten months into the Pandemic. What recently happened to Trump and his wealthy white supporters, family, and lackeys ... an entire thesis can be written on it.

To start with is the Illusion of Invulnerability, or Illusion of Privileged Invulnerability. In this case, it can be applied to Trump and everyone around him. They had convinced themselves that nothing bad could ever happen to them. So much so that they treat risk as a suckers game for the poor and for people of color. They can go anywhere and not where a mask, not social distance, defy rules in regards to traveling. No rules apply to them because they are invulnerable. Their wealth, privilege, and self-created racial identity make them untouchable.

Well, that is an illusion. It's not real. COVID doesn't discriminate, only they do. While it is real and factual that certain populations have been hit harder than others, it's not based on any structural measurement like genetics (for example, some medical conditions are inherited). People are hit harder because they are forced to work in high risk jobs, because they lack access to the same quality level of health care that the wealthy do, because poverty and other social pressures have set them up to have a higher level of per-existing or high risk conditions, like Asthma or Obesity.

COVID doesn't discriminate, and when given an opening to attack, like all of Trumps' fund raisers and that super-spreader event at the White House, it will go after everyone and anyone it can.

Despite the illusion being shattered, odds are they will still see their survival as a sign of invulnerability. They will recreate their illusion, remake it so as to protect their sense of self.

Which brings me to White Fragility. The need to play the victim instead of accepting responsibility for themselves and their own actions. This si pretty obvious, buy now everyone has seen Trump blame everyone and not take responsibility for anything. if something bad does happen, it's not his fault. Others around him have acted the same. Lindsey Graham is a classic example, whining that no one loves him anymore. Not understanding why that is, or not accepting it.

Most probably still can't believe that COVID would dare come after them. That it has to be a plot against them. That everyone and everything is against them.

Reality has hit them over the head over and over, and they are still walking around like zombies. The walking dead of Washington DC. It's like a horror movie, where main characters don't realize they are the monsters.

[Iron Maiden]

A Black Belgian Student Saw a White Fraternity as His Ticket. It Was His Death.

I never understood why the pledges would put up with this and just stop participating. I would never join an organization with those practices. I admit I don't understand college life....I worked during the day and attended classes at Purdue's extension in NW Indiana.

[ed2962]

They already are. Going on about how healthy and strong Trump is because he is doing so well after getting covid. Already saying this is proof the Dems are making a huge deal about covid for no reason. A few hinting Biden gave Trump the virus. The fact that Trump went to Walter Reed proves he takes covid seriously and cares about the people in the WH and does not want to exposé them. Rudy this morning on Fox News saying the news of Trump having covid reminded him of how he felt on 9-11. Its a disgrace SNL would make fun of Trump when he is going through illness. How dare people care more about Cam having covid but not Trump. Hannity saying Trump never called covid a hoax and it is shameful of The Dems to make a political issue out of a man having a deadly disease (While at the same time saying covid is not a big deal by the way)

And it goes on and on.

I can't remember his name but one of the guys in Trump's campaign was on Meet The Press and This Week today going on about how Trump went out there and took the virus "head on" and how Trump didn't hide in the basement or upstairs. And about how Trump always took the virus seriously. Just trying really to spin this as an example of the president's bravery.

[Amadeus Arkham]

BREAKING: Doctor says President Trump was treated with a steroid on Saturday after second 'transient' drop in oxygen levels.

His physician says he’s gotten better now, and if his condition continues to improve he could be released as soon as Monday.

That’s good. The President will be fine.

[PaulBullion]

BREAKING: Doctor says President Trump was treated with a steroid on Saturday after second 'transient' drop in oxygen levels.

His physician says he’s gotten better now, and if his condition continues to improve he could be released as soon as Monday.

That’s good. The President will be fine.

Several of my friends who had it described it as a rollercoaster.

Sure, the president might get better from here on out.

But he might also get much, much worse. And considering how it's been going and his pre-existing conditions, my bet is that he will struggle for a while.

[Robotman]

Colin Jost and Michael Che are back.

Michael Che (who lost his grandmother to the coronavirus) points about Trump, "There's a lot funny about this. Maybe not from a moral standpoint. But mathematically, if you were constructing a joke, this is all the ingredients you need...if anything it's too funny".

“If it was Biden who had gotten sick, Trump would be at a maskless rally right now getting huge laughs imitating Biden on a respirator.”

100% true.

The pearl clutching that the right is doing at the mere thought of people saying a disparaging word about Trump is truly remarkable. You have a person who mocks the disabled, who flaunts the fact that he didn’t wear a mask, who just this past week made fun of Biden for wearing his mask too much, and a guy whose followers verbally assault frontline workers. Now they’re shocked and appalled that he’s not getting everyone’s sympathy.

[Tendrin]

That’s good. The President will be fine.

He might be. I certainly want him to live to see the inside of a jail cell.

[A Small Talent For War]

Several of my friends who had it described it as a rollercoaster.

Sure, the president might get better from here on out.

But he might also get much, much worse. And considering how it's been going and his pre-existing conditions, my bet is that he will struggle for a while.

The severity of residual effects has also been a concern. Younger adults who've had it have described lingering fatigue and respitory/vascular trouble weeks after getting over the viral infection. Older people only have it worse as far as recovery and most of them don't face a national presidential campaign when they get out of the hospital.

[Joker]

Look, Trump was 99% always going to survive. A team of doctors, dedicated to that one task, most people are going to survive.

Surviving Covid was never the real concern. It was always about overwhelming the hospitals. Running out of ventilators, hospital beds, and staff to do the work. That's where the "death panels" come in and people start dying.

But you're never going to get facts to matter to Republicans. They haven't cared about them so far, and we're six months and 200,000+ dead Americans into this. It is what it is at this point.

[Jack Dracula]

“If it was Biden who had gotten sick, Trump would be at a maskless rally right now getting huge laughs imitating Biden on a respirator.”

100% true.

The pearl clutching that the right is doing at the mere thought of people saying a disparaging word about Trump is truly remarkable. You have a person who mocks the disabled, who flaunts the fact that he didn’t wear a mask, who just this past week made fun of Biden for wearing his mask too much, and a guy whose followers verbally assault frontline workers. Now they’re shocked and appalled that he’s not getting everyone’s sympathy.

Let's not forget the mockery of Hillary Clinton who contracted pneumonia while on the campaign trail and had to take a couple of weeks to recover.

[CaptainEurope]

Look, Trump was 99% always going to survive. A team of doctors, dedicated to that one task, most people are going to survive.
.

That is a bold statement. I wonder how Herman Cain would feel about it.