That passage really bugs me. I’m a white guy who grew up in a heavily white suburb, and this kind of racism is so pervasive in that environment. It’s hard to describe, but this is a good example of it. It’s like, maybe not overt hostility to others who aren’t white, but just sort of treating them as an “other” who doesn’t belong in your group; all the while just perpetuating stereotypes because why not, they’re an “other” after all.
Also bugs me that on some superficial level, people like Shapiro and damn near every white person I knew growing up would look at that selection and vigorously defend it as being totally not racist.
It’s the old fascist propaganda trick of imagining an enemy who is simultaneously impossibly strong and incredibly weak.
This guy is a massive ogre, a high school terror, impervious to sanction because he’s a jock and a favorite of the football coach and aware enough of his ahem privilege ahem that he can casually abuse it.
At the same time, he’s “headed straight for a lifetime of prison”, implying that he has no self-discipline or street sense. He’s operating on the low-cunning of a high school athlete and doomed to run afoul of Righteous Law Enforcement Officers. He’ll inevitably get outside the ahem safe space ahem of high school football and be exposed to the Real World where people rise and fall on their own individual merits and are held truly accountable for their actions.
The whole paragraph is just dripping with ideology. If it wasn’t so obviously reactionary, you’d almost think a :LIB: wrote it.
Yard went to practice with his teammates: Scrimmage, End Zone, Tackle, and of course, Mr. Football.
“and looked like he was headed straight for a lifetime of prison workouts” HOLY SHIT BEN CHILL WHAT THE FUCK
