Kinja reply list

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BobbySeriousJ.K. Trotter
8/20/15 12:10pm
Regardless of whether this dude lied about his race or not....can you imagine the pathetic state of your life and career when the best writing gig you can land is a job at Breitbart.com, spending your life looking through the profiles of anti-racism activists to see “how black” they really are?

You’d probably end up with a Twitter profile pic like this... (I know, a white, blonde haired douchebag is the last thing you expected)

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  DNA_HNIDNAHOGSDIADNASGAFBobbySerious
  8/20/15 12:12pm
  About as bad as outing a CEO as a secret homo.
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  hamiltonsSmellyFartsBobbySerious
  8/20/15 12:29pm
  probably as pathetic as spending the past few days skimming through the Ashley Madison dox looking for names, like Gawker has.
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JVBaseballSuperstarJ.K. Trotter
8/20/15 12:18pm
I mentioned this on another post, but it bears repeating. My friend is listed as his sons father on the child’s birth certificate. He is not the real father. He knows he’s not the real father, everyone knows he’s not the real father. He was with the child’s mother though when he was born.

This was a choice him and the mother made. It’s worked out wonderfully, by the way as they are still married and happy (with 4 more kids!).

The point is this; a birth certificate isn’t the smoking gun it’s made out to be.
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  Charlie JVBaseballSuperstar
  8/20/15 12:31pm
  Amen. check out @sil_lai’s timeline on twitter today. she speaks to that.
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  audenJVBaseballSuperstar
  8/20/15 12:32pm
  I have a similar situation. The person listed on my birth certificate as my father is, in fact, not my father. He and my mother broke up, he had moved away, but she was still married to him when she had me. I’m not sure how it works now, but when I was born, the state assumed that a woman’s husband was the father of any children she had.
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Sean BrodyJ.K. Trotter
8/20/15 12:13pm
1. The suggestion that Shaun King might not actually be black or biracial is not based on a “white supremacist conspiracy.” It’s based on a public record, King’s birth certificate, which lists a white woman and a white man as his biological parents. Vicki Pate may be a white supremacist (or worse), but her argument relies on a government document that appears to contradict King’s public statements about his racial background. That’s not a conspiracy, white supremacist or otherwise.
With respect, yes it is. A conspiracy is the act of plotting and conspiring.
That this conspiracy, this confederacy of hate, uncovered the birth cert doesn’t change that it began as a conspiracy - a secret plan to do something harmful. They wanted to get dirt on this guy and they got it. The search was the conspiracy, not what was found.

I have no skin in this game, but these Breitbart cronies are shitbags.
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  Sean BrodySean Brody
  8/20/15 12:19pm
  The classic move of reactionaries is to play the man and not the ball.
  
  Can’t win an argument, then argue the opponent’s bona fides. It’s also what kids in playgrounds do.
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  foucaultronSean Brody
  8/20/15 12:31pm
  “legally black or white”—this sounds so segregationist on the face of it. Should anyone be dictating by law what race someone supposedly is? Many Hispanics, for example, are either none or all races, depending on how you look at it, hence Mexican philosopher Vasconcelos’s expression ‘the cosmic race.” Race is an abstraction that cannot, on the face of it, be legally pinned down—to attempt to do so is ipso facto fascist.
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heywhatJ.K. Trotter
8/20/15 12:09pm
Out of LOVE for my family, I’ve never gone public with my racial story because it’s hurtful, scandalous, and it’s MY STORY.

I take this to mean mama’s baby, daddy’s maybe. Perhaps they found out later on that Jeffrey wasn’t his father but since he already signed the birth certificate they didn’t want to rock the boat. A white woman having an out of wedlock child with a black man in 1979 was still kind of taboo.
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  7 Degrees of Yesheywhat
  8/20/15 12:18pm
  Right? That’s the first thing that came to mind. I mean, “he looks like the milkman” jokes don’t exist for nothing (or whatever the more modern equivalent may be).
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  sour duckheywhat
  8/20/15 12:25pm
  It seems all the evidence is circumstancial. People are acting as if every lineage is clearly defined and written down clearly on paper. This of course is not always the case.
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HypnoCatJ.K. Trotter
8/20/15 12:12pm
Who fucking cares? The race of Shaun King’s parents does not negate his conviction or passion.

Move on, race trolls.
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  LangostaHypnoCat
  8/20/15 12:29pm
  If you lie about your entire existence, I’d say your credibility is shot.
  
  Also, the scholarship to Morehouse - that doesn’t bother you?
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  thekidsareallwrongHypnoCat
  8/20/15 12:29pm
  Yeah, it does. He’s positioned himself as a black spokesman for the black experience who has personally suffered violence at the hands of racists. If he’s not actually black, and knows it, that makes him an unreliable narrator at best. At worst, a scam artist. And the vague, angry denials about conspiracies is just weird and narcissistic. The dude just ain’t that important.
  
  And as someone who is actually mixed race I can tell you that I’ve looked at that guy all along and thought “maybe, possibly 1/4 black, if that.”
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Graby SauceJ.K. Trotter
8/20/15 12:30pm
So many thoughts:
1. How does anyone obtain another person’s birth certificate?
2. The “white supremacist conspiracy” is the effort (that JK is apparently signing onto) to derail an activists’ work through focusing on issues that are largely irrelevant.
3. There is no requirement for activists who care about black lives to be black. None. People were upset with Dolezal not for being white, but for LYING about her background and possibly about supposed hate crimes she’d been the victim of.
4. There is no requirement for Oprah to give scholarships only to black people. There is no requirement for Morehouse to accept only black students. White students go to HBCUs. I’m not sure why this is controversial.
5. From King’s tweet-storm, I gathered that the man on his birth certificate is the man who raised him when another man is his biological dad. In other words, his mother had an affair with a black man and would be an appropriate guest on Maury Povich.
6. Part of the “black experience” is being treated as black. Many multi-racial people raised by white parents or guardians have reported that, even though their parents didn’t necessarily raise them to identify as black, the reaction of the world to their physical being lets them know unequivocally THEY ARE BLACK. Shaun’s friend has written that Shaun grew up being treated by white people as black. He said he’s been called “nigger” more times than black people. For some reason, JK failed to include this testimony from Shaun’s friend.
7. What white people fail to realize about black families is that phenotypically, we run the gamut. Within one family, there may be people who are dark-skinned and people who could pass for white. I have cousins who could pass for white but have black parents. I have cousins with green and blue eyes. It is certainly not a scandal to have a fair-skinned person who is African-American.
8. It is pretty appalling that people who claim that black activists are “the real racists” are SO CAUGHT UP on skin color.
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  humanSuitcaseGraby Sauce
  8/20/15 12:36pm
  What white people fail to realize about black families is that phenotypically, we run the gamut.
  
  Absolutely. A wide gamut. Gawker’s previously own Caity Weaver (RIP dear sweet sweet Caity) is a great example for any questioning commenter to recall.
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  PorcupineEeyoreGraby Sauce
  8/20/15 2:30pm
  #6 seems super important to me too, although I’m with you on all these points, and I was also a little perturbed that the FB post you refer to was left out along with one from another person who grew up with them describing the brutal attack he was dealt in high school. Vox.com actually has those linked and quoted in their story:
  
  http://www.vox.com/2015/8/19/9180…
  
  They also include his wife’s post on FB which seems to me to be pretty unequivocal as to supporting him and should be read by anyone interested in this story:
  
  https://www.facebook.com/RaiKing/posts/…
  
  But regarding his race, he has never lied. Not once. His story is beautifully difficult, and painful. And I’ve actually encouraged him to tell it publicly because it is a unique expression of this country’s sordid and ridiculous history with race. But it’s his story to tell. On his own terms. When he’s ready to tell it. Out of respect for his mother, and all involved, I hope he continues to let the talking heads talk while he does the real work of holding judicial systems accountable for the 742 women and men they’ve gunned down this year alone.
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Flow BeeJ.K. Trotter
8/20/15 12:23pm
1. It is obvious just by LOOKING at him that this man is biracial.

2. His last tweet makes it obvious why the man listed on his birth certificate may not be his real father and why he’s avoided discussing that publicly.

Non-conservative media picking up this stuff up is smh-worthy.
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  polywalaFlow Bee
  8/20/15 12:43pm
  This kid looks white
  
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  IT'S ALL ABOUT LOVEFlow Bee
  8/20/15 1:11pm
  The only thing that’s obvious is that he goes to a black barbershop like every other day.
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ww1383J.K. Trotter
8/20/15 12:14pm
So why do conservatives care? Is this a modern day “Nigger Lover” trope.
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  BaggyTrousers3ww1383
  8/20/15 12:26pm
  I take it as a Tower of Babel thing. If they break down the “structure,” everyone involved will walk away, unable to function together anymore. “Threat”- erased.
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  ww1383BaggyTrousers3
  8/20/15 12:33pm
  So talking about police reform is the threat and not actual police misconduct. Yeah that sounds like them.
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A House In VirginiaJ.K. Trotter
8/20/15 12:14pm
1: “nativist site Breitbart.com”— BRILLIANT (and accurate) descriptor;

2: It’s humorous to me that Don Lemon would question ANYONE’S race.
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  SmellydogpissA House In Virginia
  8/20/15 12:31pm
  Don Lemon is pissed that black people made fun of him on twitter for being stupid. He wants revenge.
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  GurvinderA House In Virginia
  8/20/15 12:36pm
  
  GIF
  
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Natalie ShureJ.K. Trotter
8/20/15 1:27pm
I’m glad you wrote about this story honestly. Yes, Milo and Breitbart are total garbage, and are probing Shaun King so hard out of a desire to discredit the anti-racism movement as a whole. But, given the very real public documents and King’s very real dodging regarding racial identity questions, I’m a bit surprised by how unified the left has been in their rejection of the allegations. It is true that the birth certificate issue could be explained by a secret biological father and/or family trauma surrounding his parentage, but something about the way King addressed everything feels like he’s trying to plant that idea without actually lying. It’s quite possible the truth here could fall on either side - and if King has been dishonest, the disparity between the reactions to him and Dolezal strikes me as more than a bit sexist.
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  shannonsplanetNatalie Shure
  8/20/15 4:31pm
  YES! You encapsulated my thoughts on this matter 100%, Natalie. There’s no other explanation for why Rachel Dolezal gets a pass and he doesn’t. My additional two cents: he seems VERY upset but unwilling to do anything to address the allegations specifically. If he didn’t care and was ignoring these right wing bottom feeding blowhards, that would be one thing. But, instead, he alluded to a scandal in his family that effected his parentage but then doesn’t say what it was. I don’t see how that’s protecting his family because he’s saying that a scandal did occur that he can’t discuss, which leaves people to assume scandalous things about his mother! His behavior only makes sense if he’s being evasive.
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