Last week, Donald Trump authorized the killing of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani. The story kept changing about why the killing – or some would say, assassination – needed to happen, or needed to happen at that particular moment. There were arguments made about “imminent danger” but there doesn’t seem to be any evidence to back up that claim, and if anything, America and American troops are in a much worse position now, post-Soleimani, with Iran vowing revenge and everything going to sh-t in spectacular fashion. Donald Trump is so stupid, petty and incompetent, I tend to believe the theory that Trump ordered Soleimani’s killing because Soleimani mocked Trump online. I’m not even joking.
As everything went to hell everywhere, various celebrities, athletes and pundits chimed in. Colin Kaepernick was one of them. He still doesn’t have a job. The NFL still won’t hire him because he dared to suggest that perhaps blind jingoism isn’t the same as patriotism, and that black and brown people are oppressed and murdered by white supremacy. He tweeted this over the weekend:
There is nothing new about American terrorist attacks against Black and Brown people for the expansion of American imperialism.
— Colin Kaepernick (@Kaepernick7) January 4, 2020
America has always sanctioned and besieged Black and Brown bodies both at home and abroad. America militarism is the weapon wielded by American imperialism, to enforce its policing and plundering of the non white world.
— Colin Kaepernick (@Kaepernick7) January 4, 2020
These are… factual statements about the history of American imperialism, from slavery to world wars to the Cold War to our modern wars and modern foreign policy. Well, everybody’s favorite White-Santa defender Megyn Kelly decided to chime in because HOW DARE Kaepernick make a factual statement about race.
Because everything is racist. Everything. Even fighting back against terrorists who kill Americans. Nike, feeling proud? https://t.co/sfc1Yz3phY
— Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) January 4, 2020
Ava DuVernay was quickly on the thread:
No, I will not be shamed over calling out bullshit claims of racism – which undermine the legitimate claims. Killing a terrorist is not about skin color; it’s about protecting our country from a guy who murdered hundreds of Americans, period.
— Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) January 5, 2020
If you think Soleimani was killed because of his skin color, you’re the one who needs to educate herself. Work on shaming someone else.
— Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) January 5, 2020
Imagine being a white woman who calls herself a journalist and literally TALKING OVER a black man and a black woman for making valid and factual statements about racism and American imperialism. Imagine thinking that in the year 2020, there are people who are going to fall for jingoistic and nativist appeals to start another f–king war in the Middle East. I’m just really f–king tired.
Photos courtesy of WENN, Avalon Red and Backgrid.
Ouf. Ava’s second tweet has to burn because it’s so true.
But TRUMP DOING ANYTHING IS RACIST AND SICK. ANYTHING. Don’t make that old sick fuks choices anything but evil.
And Ava is truly one of the nicest people, to be so ridiculous as to get scolded by her has to smart.
Sheesh. I’m glad I never saw Bombshell now!
IMO I think Bombshell being taken seriously as it should) and the actors being interviewed by the news media makes her think she has been forgiven. Many people are disagreeing about Trump’s dumb behavior with Iran, but Meygan deliberately picked on a POC hated by Fox viewers-yeah, girlfriend can’t hide her White hood.
It points out the fact that just because White women are fighting for women’s rights, doesn’t mean they aren’t just as racist as their White male counterparts! Many Whites including women are blind to their White privilege, some are aware and lord it over Black women and Black men.
👍🏽 👍🏾
Someone wanted attention. What, the higher ups at Faux News are not returning her calls.
The sad thing is that she likely believes her words. I walked into my local Wawa the day after the killing and there were two men beating their proverbial chests over the action. One actually said the words “We should have turned the whole place into a parking lot back in the 70’s when the took our hostages.” I just cannot convey how effing ignorant most people are. And once you start banging that war drum it all gets amplified.
megyn kelly is a jackass, full stop.
Was JUST going to comment this!
Me too!
Ditto. She is the queen of jackasses
Megyn Kelly is a racist. Racism is born from fear and insecurity, but blooms into evil in the hearts of men/women.
Also, my computer is wonky, b/c I can’t see Ava’s tweets above.
Ava blocked me on Twitter….
And regarding Ava…that is ALL I have to say about that…
Megyn is being her stereotypical racist and inflammatory self…so glad that movie bombed at the box office…
Lol, Lala why did she block you?
So glad Bombshell bombed at the box office. Megyn is vile.
I have been reading this part a lot here. I don’t think Megyn had any investment in that movie. She didn’t gain anything from it, not even noteworthy publicity.
Man Colin, keep going
Maybe Nike should pay their workers a living wage. If your gonna be woke then be woke all the way
Boom!
Another one. SIT DOWN TRICK.
I’ve been saying all along that I cannot believe they made Bombshell because everyone, including the women, at Fox News uphold and support a bigoted empire. So glad that movie bombed. Megyn “Jesus is white, Santa is White” Kelly keeps showing us what racism looks like.
I don’t think Bombshell was made to glorify Megyn Kelly or Gretchen Carlson so much as to draw attention to their complex situation, with that said, no we most definitely didn’t need *another* movie with conservative white women at the center of the Me Too movement. I used to work at a university where sexual harassment was rampant, by white male professors of female students of color. Almost everyone I spoke to, including white women and women of color in positions of power up to and including Senior Vice President, just wanted to ignore it. Like completely ignore it! At the time I felt so angry at them and so frustrated, because it was really hurting vulnerable women, but now I look back and understand they were trapped too (at least in their own minds) because they just couldn’t see a path forward for their professional survival if they spoke up. Ended up leaving, it was such a bad situation. I still wish they would do something but I literally went to everyone I could think of, including the speaker of the legislature, and nothing resulted. So I honestly think this topic has to be addressed but I don’t agree that white women should be centered. While they are certainly also affected, sexual violence of all kinds is so much more severe for women of color as a group due to intersectional factors. Obviously the right wing is horrific, but I will tell you that nominally liberal men and women were the majority of the criminals and complicit people at my university.
Totally agree that it wasn’t made to glorify them, but my problem is that that is the perhaps unintended consequence. People will walk out thinking Megyn “Jesus is white, Santa is White” Kelly (sorry, can’t forget that one) is some kind of hero. I’ve said on other posts that there are no perfect victims, and I really believe that and I know that women at Fox were victims. However, kind of like you say, this isn’t the Me Too story we needed.
I actually work in Title IX at a college, so I TOTALLY hear you on the sexual harassment and sexual violence that occurs on a college campus or between members of a campus community. Sexual misconduct doesn’t discriminate at all based on political affiliation. It occurs everywhere, so we could have had a much better high-profile Me Too blockbuster that had nothing to do with Fox f*cking News. 🙂
Back when Megyn took it upon herself to destroy minority children’s belief in Santa Claus and Jesus as a figure other than Saintly and white there seems to be some sort of delusion in her head as well as the people who keep trying to sell her as some sort of likeable figure. NOPE! She’s Kellyanne Conway with a better Hairstyle and access to make-up
Uh, I’m so tired of this “they were terrorists”. Yes, they are ugly people, extremists, everywhere. I’m sure the US government can be called terrorists considering the arm they have done to so many countries for so long.
I’m confused. He was killed over race? I mean Im with y’all on the go away Trump train, but do you guys actually believe he killed that guy over his race? I think killing him was stupid and opened a huge can of worms, but I don’t see how race has anything to do with it. Someone please explain to me how it’s race related because I see none.
Okay, so are you just gonna ignore the skin color of the casualties when a inevitable war breaks out.
Iranian and Iranian Americans are already getting the lockdown treatment from TSA agents at the airport so it has already started.
Nobody remembers how America backed the Shah of Iran. The Shah was very Western, but he was a horrible leader to his people. Iran’s people have a right to govern themselves without outside interference, but White leadership in the United States didn’t think that the brown people in their own country should control the natural resources that they live on, oil. We wanted control over their resources, and that is why it’s so complicated and ugly. Imperialism is generally White-lead countries (US, Germany, England) going to the countries with brown or Black people (Iran, Africa, India) being bullied and having resources stolen. That’s all Kaepernick was saying, but does he have to give a history lesson every time he says it? Many White people across the US don’t care about history or education because it is complicated, and they want to believe that these conflicts are about gut morality in a vacuum.
It isn’t in the interests of White Supremists like Megyn Kelly to review the history. She may not be a card carrying member of the KKK, but the KKK thrives because of people like her who say that they aren’t racist, only they believe what the KKK stands for and twist themselves in knots to justify it, like this broad is doing in her tweets. She and her ilk need to focus on the short term justifications because looking at it in the terms that Colin outlined, and which the harmed people see and remember, don’t serve their feelings of superiority. Kelly makes it clear that she believes that this is justified, but she doesn’t want to focus on the white supremacy part because it negates her feelings of supremacy. Exhausting…
There was no “good” time to kill that guy, but he orchestrated wars that hurt/killed a lot of Americans. Strategic assassination can cripple a country’s ability to wage war (direct or proxy), and Iran’s dictatorship is hardly peaceful nor democratic. We don’t really know the true cost of this move, or whether Iran can respond beyond superficial blustering.
I’m also hoping we can go deeper than simple black/brown vs. white in these political discussions?
Vulpecula, it’s true that Suelimani was doing exactly what you are saying, and that Iran is no democracy, but the government in place there now is a direct result of our meddling in their politics in the 1960s and 1970s. This stuff doesn’t happen for no reason, and they remember. We train ourselves to forget and we claim superiority. Being American doesn’t mean that we have the right to mess around with other nation’s politics. And the reason Honduras is falling apart is the US’s history of backing the wrong people. And our taste for drugs doesn’t help.
Iranians have been trying to change the government from the inside and from other countries. Plenty of Iranians spent don’t want religious or military leadership. But US politicians don’t have a right to choose the leadership in Iran. Iranians do. Why do we think we should influence that? The answer is money, oil, resources that white people feel entitled to control and brown and Black people see it. We don’t want folks meddling in our elections, but we have the right to do it in other countries? Manifest Destiny is a dangerous concept that should be taught as a failure instead of an aspiration in American secondary schools.
@christina Agreed, US meddling during the Shah’s era started this mess. Did you read the recent NYT story about how a banker pressured the Carter administration to admit the fleeing Shah to the US, which doomed his presidency and prevented the US from building a relationship with the new Iranian regime? And now we’re paying the price.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/29/world/middleeast/shah-iran-chase-papers.html
Haven’t read the article, but I have a little passing knowledge about it. I have a lot of Iranian friends who fled when the Shah was overthrown. I will read the article you posted. It was a sad time. It IS a sad time.
And Megyn Kelly is an idiot.
Vulpecula, Susan Rice has come out saying this is an act of war and she’s not alone. It is extraordinarily stupid and dangerous to assassinate someone out of nowhere. This was a tremendously unnecessary escalation in a region already torn by conflict. Look at the statements from Merkel and other European leaders, everyone is shocked and disapproving. He was an Iranian major general, a state official. Iran can absolutely react, and creating a martyr from a well known and charismatic figure will only increase terrorism. Look at Iraq now pushing to remove US troops entirely. Look how Iran now has an excuse to completely discard the nuclear deal. Look at the crushing crowds in Iran now unifying around their formerly disliked government. This benefits Putin and other chaos actors. It does not benefit regional stability. It does not benefit democracy. You can’t just kill a country’s major general and expect that to conclude the matter. Imagine if another nation assassinated one of our major generals or someone on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. There would be hell to pay.
@Vulpecula – when is it OK to assassinate a top Iranian General? It would be like Iran assassinating Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It’s a different situation when a rogue terrorist like Osama bin Laden is assassinated, but when you go after a military leader with no explanation given other than “we had credible reports that he was planning *something* big” it is considered an act of war.
@christina love your thoughtful responses!
@elizabeth Yes, targeted assassinations are technically against US law but happen often due to vague definitions. Everyone condemns them but you can’t argue with the strategic gain here. Given that general’s role in leading clandestine and proxy wars in the region, and this being Iran’s primary operating model due to its inability to go toe to toe against the US, I am not sure Iran is in a position to retaliate in a serious way. If they did, they’d go after Israel and be wasted instantly by the IDF. Even Hezbollah is making peaceful noises because they know this. So let’s wait and see rather than imagining the worst?
@jaded Nothing about war is okay. But whacking this general does have strategic value because he ran a lot of Iran’s military operations and can’t easily be replaced. And as much as Iran saber rattles, there’s not much they can do unless they have some custom malware to hit US critical infrastructure (like the power grid). There have already been minor cyberattacks against USG websites but they look like independent Iranian ops. It’s all terrible but assassinations are pretty common and most war these days is low-grade, cyber, and covert – to avoid “declaring”
😍 😘
When was the last time we declared war on a country that was white? Germany? Yes, we helped defeat the Nazi ‘s 90 years ago and then proceeded to let their war criminals hide in plain sight in our “great” country. Americans need to get their heads out of their own asses and WAKE UP! Trump is going to turn our country into a living hell if he is not stopped. Don’t underestimate the evil of this man and the entire Republican party.
@chillywilly The US does not exclusively pursue war with non-white countries. Cold war with Russia has been going on for a while except for a brief warming in relations around the 90s – early 00s. And this includes the whole Iron Curtain (e.g. East Germany). All white. And there is a military, technological and economic cold war with China (not black/brown). And there’s North Korea too. So if everyone is just drawing white vs. black/brown lines because that racial discourse dominates in the US, a lot gets missed about US foreign policy goals, like anti-Communism, protecting the US economy, protecting American allies like Israel, etc.
Just in general, I would caution against applying a racist/colonial view to US foreign policy, because it oversimplifies and obscures the truth. The US has never been colonial like European countries, even if they aspire to be the world’s economic and military superpower.
It’s just not accurate to make every situation a demonstration of why “white people are bad” because you miss a lot about why humanity in general is bad.
No, no one is suggesting that he was killed over race. They are saying that when the target is a person of color, and the escalation will mean the deaths of nonwhites and middle easterners, very litte deliberation goes into the decision of whether to kill. Do you feel safer now that he’s dead? With Iran promising retribution? I sure don’t – which is precisely why he hasn’t been killed until now.
And Middle of the Road, please don’t forget that he discriminated against Black people as a NY landlord, or that he wanted the Central Park Five thrown back in jail after they were exonerated by DNA evidence.
Donald Trump is an open racist who isn’t ashamed of it, and he knows that if he just lies and repeats that he isn’t a racists that it comforts the people who believe what he believes, and they will agree because they don’t want people to think that they are racists, just “patriotic”.
Middle of the Road, intersectionality. And world history. White European and white American imperialism in brown and black countries like the Middle East, Africa, the Americas, the Pacific. In fact, the American Anthropological Association has a statement on “race” which points out that it was invented historically as an excuse for European colonialism. Look at the history of colonized countries, always the excuse of “civilizing” non-white people with Christian religion and European culture, but really very clearly about resource appropriation.
I’m glad I boycotted Bombshell. Any movie that depicts the racist foot soldiers of Fox News as heroes does not get a cent of my money. I’ve also stopped watching movies that lack POC as fleshed out characters. My movie watching has dropped off considerably but I’m also happy to not be inundated with images that don’t reflect me, my family or friends.
Megyn is too racist to understand what Colin and Ava are saying. Megyn is also too obtuse to understand what Colin and Ava are saying.
She should just go roll around in the stacks of cash NBC gave her and live her ignorant, basic, white lady life and keep her bullshit away from the rest of society.
She looks like she came from the same “Turn a lizard into a human facsimile” factory that gave us Melania T. WIth apologies to lizards, which I actually like.
Always with the smug on her face.
Um, this is no surprise. This is a typical white response to any comment on racism or truths told about skin color.