cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/37344898
NEW YORK — Leaders of Young Republican groups throughout the country worried what would happen if their Telegram chat ever got leaked, but they kept typing anyway.
They referred to Black people as monkeys and “the watermelon people” and mused about putting their political opponents in gas chambers. They talked about raping their enemies and driving them to suicide and lauded Republicans who they believed support slavery.
I’d love to say this surprises me, but it does not in the slightest.
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Stole this description from the other post about this.
Thousands of private messages reveal young GOP leaders joking about gas chambers, slavery and rape.
Leaders of Young Republican groups throughout the country worried what would happen if their Telegram chat ever got leaked, but they kept typing anyway.
They referred to Black people as monkeys and “the watermelon people” and mused about putting their political opponents in gas chambers. They talked about raping their enemies and driving them to suicide and lauded Republicans who they believed support slavery.
William Hendrix, the Kansas Young Republicans’ vice chair, used the words “n–ga” and “n–guh,” variations of a racial slur, more than a dozen times in the chat. Bobby Walker, the vice chair of the New York State Young Republicans at the time, referred to rape as “epic.” Peter Giunta, who at the time was chair of the same organization, wrote in a message sent in June that “everyone that votes no is going to the gas chamber.”
Frankly, I used to be on board with folks like this. The world felt immutable to my brief consciousness, and joking about genocide, slavery, and, oddly enough, mandatory Pictionary nights punishable by firing squad, seemed harmless. It was all equally acceptable absurdism, in our eyes. I worry that these kids don’t see the world as an unchanging place where their ideas float around with all the weight of a butterfly. I fear they see their voices as bricks to heave and build. That terrifies me.
I’m not big on Voltaire quotes, but the one about believing absurdities applies here. If you life in a culture long enough, you start to internalize it.
