New Hotline Helps Lefties Discuss Racial Justice at Thanksgiving Dinner
Worried about how to handle political discussions at the Thanksgiving dinner table? Have no fear! There’s a new hotline that helps you talk to your relatives about racial issues while they’re trying to enjoy family time together!
There is that famous old saying that one should never discuss politics or religion at the dinner table. But an organization created to help white people talk to other whites about race is urging the opposite approach this Thanksgiving.
Many Americans have expressed anxiety over attending this year’s holiday meal if the company’s politics will be mixed. But Showing Up for Racial Justice, or SURJ (pronounced Surge), is urging that people not shy away from uncomfortable conversations.
And if the conversation hits a stalemate, SURJ has created a hotline that provides real-time support to keep the dialogue going.
Inspired by Butterball’s decades-old hotline that provides turkey-cooking help over the holiday season, SURJ’s version invites anyone to text SOS to 82623 to receive a menu of hot-button topics including immigration, the economy, a “Muslim ban” and when someone says “I’m not a racist.” Then SURJ will send a brief talking point on that topic to help guide the conversation.
If the text prompt won’t do, there will also be representatives standing by to call the person and coach them through how to respond thoughtfully and not aggressively.
I read the above passage to my millenial daughter, and she asked me if it was from The Onion. It sure reads that way, doesn’t it? But it’s not. It’s from the Washington Post. Below, I have imagined how a call to the hotline might go.
MILLENIAL: Hello, I have an emergency. We’re here at the Thanksgiving dinner table and my Uncle Frank doesn’t want to have a discussion about racial justice.
HOTLINE: Not to worry, I can help you through this. Is he white?
MILLENIAL: Yes.
HOTLINE: [Sighs] White people are the worst when it comes racial issues. I should know. I’m one myself.
MILLENIAL: Me too.
HOTLINE: Let’s see. Have you told him about the history of racial oppression in this country?
MILLENIAL: Of course!
HOTLINE: Did you mention that as a white male, he has white privilege that he can’t get rid of?
MILLENIAL: More than once.
HOTELIN? And that he needs to be aware of that and atone for it?
MILLENIAL: Yes. He told me to shut up about politics for once and pass the stuffing.
HOTLINE: That’s a typical reaction. Here’s what you do. Write this down and tell Uncle Frank this, word for word. “Uncle Frank, this dinner is on hold until you admit the white man’s history of racial injustice, and promise to do better, starting with attending tomorrow’s Rally Against Racism.” Tell him that and let me know how it went.
[Noises in background, yelling.]
MILLENIAL: [Crying] He says I can’t have any pumpkin pie if I don’t stop talking about this. I gotta go. [Click and dial tone.]
HOTLINE: [Sighs] White people.
EXEUNT ALLES
Happy Thanksgiving!
[Cross-posted at RedState.]
I think we owe it to this great nation of ours to each take one hour from our busy Thanksgiving Day and prank call this hotline.
JVW (6e49ce) — 11/23/2016 @ 11:15 am“Hello, SURJ? My Uncle Frank is with us at Thanksgiving, and as we were passing around the turkey I noticed that he took only white meat. When I confronted him on this he had the nerve to tell me to my face that he doesn’t like dark meat. I know that’s really racist and stuff, but I when I told him that he was behaving like a heteronormative privileged white male he just lifted his right buttock off the chair and passed gas. Now what do I do?”
I think when we call it should always be “Uncle Frank” who is the problem. See how long it takes for them to catch on.
JVW (6e49ce) — 11/23/2016 @ 11:19 amI have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
Not class diversity, but diversity.
n.n (4015ed) — 11/23/2016 @ 11:47 amNo, JVW, for the love of Mike! Don’t tell them that people are eating the flesh of animals without a trigger warning.
nk (dbc370) — 11/23/2016 @ 12:02 pmShould be “Exeunt Omnes” 🙂
Chuck Bartowski (211c17) — 11/23/2016 @ 12:30 pmOh, JVW, I think they need many, many phone calls.
Truly Heinlein’s “Crazy Years.”
Simon Jester (c63397) — 11/23/2016 @ 12:53 pmThis is still all politically-barby, but it makes me laugh:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2zyjbH9zzA
Simon Jester (c63397) — 11/23/2016 @ 12:54 pmAnd it occurs to me that I have had many, many relatives that had opinions very different from my own. And they would say awful things that upset me when I was younger.
Now they are passed away, and I miss them.
Simon Jester (c63397) — 11/23/2016 @ 12:59 pmPoke fun if you want, but there also needs to be a hotline for people getting all bent out of shape over the color of Starbuck’s holiday cups! Talk about a bunch of whiny babies… They’re on both sides of the isle, take your pick.
Tillman (a95660) — 11/23/2016 @ 1:02 pmWorried about how to handle political discussions at the Thanksgiving dinner table? Have no fear!
There are no worries and nothing to fear– all the relatives voted for Trump.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 11/23/2016 @ 1:07 pmPoke fun if you want, but there also needs to be a hotline for people getting all bent out of shape over the color of Starbuck’s holiday cups!
Get back to us when that hotline is set up, Tillman, and we’ll all joyfully mock it together. Until then, all we have is the precious snowflake crybullies.
JVW (6e49ce) — 11/23/2016 @ 1:20 pmJVC, I don’t hold it against them that they’re more technologically savvy than the right in this case.
Tillman (a95660) — 11/23/2016 @ 1:46 pm(memo goes out to all prosecutor’s offices in the US) “Brush up on the rules in our jurisdiction about justifiable homicide defenses, because if this hotline is used a lot this weekend a *lot* of people will be claiming justifiable homicide come Monday.”
M Scott Eiland (1edade) — 11/23/2016 @ 4:03 pmhttp://thefederalist.com/2015/11/10/nobody-is-actually-upset-about-the-starbucks-cup-stop-saying-otherwise/
Pious Agnostic (e9063c) — 11/23/2016 @ 5:26 pmSadly, there are probably a number of ‘precious snowflakes’ out there who have the hotline
Bill M (906260) — 11/23/2016 @ 10:30 pmnumber already programmed into their smartphones so they’ll be prepared for the trauma of
all the political discussions over the potatoes and gravy.
Here’s a liberal commentator from the UK who Actually Gets It — best way to handle the liberal idiots who push this shit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLG9g7BcjKs
IGotBupkis, "Si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses." (668532) — 11/26/2016 @ 5:58 am