Current Events > Why White Supremacists Are Chugging Milk (and Why Geneticists Are Alarmed)

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/17/us/white-supremacists-science-dna.html

I'm not gonna bother copy pasting this shit. Dat headline tho
---

Maybe they drink it to keep their skin milky white.
---

is it possible the dairy industry is funding these white supremacist movements?
---

He needs milk.
---

I ain't reading all that shit.
---

lol
---

As a liberal, I'm personally very offended by the idea of white supremacists drinking vast quantities of high-fat milk. Especially if it's unpasteurized, and kept in unsanitary conditions + containers. Hope they don't start doing that...
---

russia has been funding the got milk campaign this whole time
---

---

So glad I'm vegan and not a white supremacist.
---

If I drink chocolate milk, would that make me a black supremacist?
---

Frito corn chips with chocolate milk is a really good meal
---

Milk is racist now? What. The. Hell. Is. Wrong. With. You. People.
---

Shit, I drink half a gallon of Choco milk every two days.
---

glitteringfairy posted...

Shit, I drink half a gallon of Choco milk every two days.

A salami likem
---

o..........k............

White supremacists misinterpreting science to push their racial superiority narrative?

No fucking way!
---

HiddenLurker posted...

Milk is racist now? What. The. Hell. Is. Wrong. With. You. People.

No, white supremacists found out other races are less tolerant of milk and are using milk drinking to push their racial supremacy angle. Racists using a thing doesn't make thing racist. It just means they are being racist while using thing.
---

hockeybub89 posted...

HiddenLurker posted...

Milk is racist now? What. The. Hell. Is. Wrong. With. You. People.

No, white supremacists found out other races are less tolerant of milk and are using milk drinking to push their racial supremacy angle. Racists using a thing doesn't make thing racist. It just means they are being racist.

IIRC, the meme started as a response to SJW white-hating articles about how milk is racist for the reason you mentioned. but it's been a while
---

You are what you drink I guess *shrug*

So do we call these dweebs milk chuggers now.
---

Funbazooka posted...

hockeybub89 posted...

HiddenLurker posted...

Milk is racist now? What. The. Hell. Is. Wrong. With. You. People.

No, white supremacists found out other races are less tolerant of milk and are using milk drinking to push their racial supremacy angle. Racists using a thing doesn't make thing racist. It just means they are being racist.

IIRC, the meme started as a response to SJW white-hating articles about how milk is racist for the reason you mentioned. but it's been a while

I do vaguely recall the milk = racist thing. Last year I think.

https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/mar/17/milk-new-symbol-racism-donald-trumps-america/
---

Darmik posted...

So do we call these dweebs milk chuggers now.

Milk drinkers just for the extra lulz
---

What about milk slurpers.
---

They're doing the Tommy DeSimone bulking method.
---

Nowhere on the agenda of the annual meeting of the American Society of Human Genetics, being held in San Diego this week, is a topic plaguing many of its members: the recurring appropriation of the fields research in the name of white supremacy.

Sticking your neck out on political issues is difficult, said Jennifer Wagner, a bioethicist and president of the groups social issues committee, who had sought to convene a panel on the racist misuse of genetics and found little traction.

But the specter of the fields ignominious past, which includes support for the American eugenics movement, looms large for many geneticists in light of todays white identity politics. They also worry about how new tools that are allowing them to home in on the genetic basis of hot-button traits like intelligence will be misconstrued to fit racist ideologies.

-----

In recent months, some scientists have spotted distortions of their own academic papers in far-right internet forums. Others have fielded confused queries about claims of white superiority wrapped in the jargon of human genetics. Misconceptions about how genes factor into Americas stark racial disparities have surfaced in the nations increasingly heated arguments over school achievement gaps, immigration and policing.

Instead of long-discounted proxies like skull circumference and family pedigrees, according to experts who track the far-right, todays proponents of racial hierarchy are making their case by misinterpreting research on the human genome itself. And in debates that have largely been limited to ivory-tower forums, the scientists whose job is to mine humanitys genetic variations for the collective good are grappling with how to respond.

Studying human genetic diversity is easier in a society where diversity is clearly valued and celebrated right now, that is very much on my mind, said John Novembre, a University of Chicago evolutionary biologist who has taken to concluding his visiting seminars by illustrating how one of the fields textbook examples of natural selection has been adopted for illiberal ends.

One slide Dr. Novembre has folded into his recent talks depicts a group of white nationalists chugging milk at a 2017 gathering to draw attention to a genetic trait known to be more common in white people than others the ability to digest lactose as adults. It also shows a social media post from an account called Enter The Milk Zone with a map lifted from a scientific journal article on the traits evolutionary history.

To be continued in the next post, but before that, let's break down each bolded sentence.

1: White supremacists are hijacking genetic research talking points to spread their hateful ideaology.

2: New tools are helping to home in on genetic traits that may show how different aspects of the human mind develop depending on your DNA, which people are worried will be hijacked by racists to claim racial superiority over others, essentially vindicating their views with hard science.

3: Genetics papers and studies have been showing up on right-wing forums, reframed with racist language and connotations, which is gaining enough traction that other non-right people who are ignorant to these alterations think that this angle is being assumed by the scientists themselves.

4-5: Rather than the old pseudosciences like phrenology, the modern white supremacist movement are making their points of racial superiority by misconstruing the evolutionary traits of white people and other races. This is where the milk comes in, as white Europeans developed a mutation which allowed them to better process dairy well into adulthood - hence the title of the news article. White supremacists are chugging milk to show off the supposed genetic advantage of being able to digest dairy as an adult.
---

I'm pretty sure the milk = whites are superior thing was a 4chan troll that a few media outlets thought were serious.
---

In most of the world, the article explains, the gene that allows for the digestion of lactose switches off after childhood. But with the arrival of the first cattle herders in Europe some 5,000 years ago, a chance mutation that left it turned on provided enough of a nutritional leg up that nearly all of those who survived eventually carried it. In the post, the link is accompanied by a snippet of hate speech urging individuals of African ancestry to leave America. If you cant drink milk, it says in part, you have to go back.

In an inconvenient truth for white supremacists, a similar bit of evolution turns out to have occurred among cattle breeders in East Africa. Scientists need to be more aware of the racial lens through which some of their basic findings are being filtered, Dr. Novembre says, and do a better job at pointing out how they can be twisted.

But the white nationalist infatuation with dairy also heightened Dr. Novembres concerns about how to handle new evolutionary studies that deal with behavioral traits, such as how long people stay in school.

Anticipating misinterpretations of a recent study on how genes associated with high education attainment, identified in Europeans, varied in different populations around the world, the lead author, Fernando Racimo, created his own frequently asked questions document for nonscientists, which he posted on Twitter.

And in a commentary that accompanied the paper in the journal Genetics, Dr. Novembre warned that such research is wrapped in numerous caveats that are likely to get lost in translation.

Great care, his commentary concludes, should be taken in communicating results of these studies to general audiences.

Already, some of those audiences are flaunting DNA ancestry test results indicating exclusively European heritage as though they were racial ID cards. They are celebrating traces of Neanderthal DNA not found in people with only African ancestry. And they are trading messages with the coded term race realism, which takes oxygen from the claim that the liberal scientific establishment has obscured the truth about biological racial differences.

This is by no means the end of the article, so if you're interested enough to keep reading into this, keep going. I just wanted to point out how kneejerk you'd have to be to jump to the conclusion that "Oh, SJWs/White Nationalists are saying milk is racist now!"

The story is about a bunch of white folks drinking milk to prove that the act doesn't make them want to shit their guts out and die, and using it as an example of genetic superiority over other races who might not be able to digest dairy as well. And the funny thing is that white people have begun to lose this gene, rendering a ton of white folks lactose intolerant - not to mention that a similar mutation found its way into East Africa around the same time as it did in Europe, so this isn't even an example that's unique and beneficial solely to white people. It's just the ignorant hollerings of the alt-right trying to make that case.

But the white supremacists don't care - they're going to chug gallons of heavy, full-cream milk until they're churning butter in their guts while they walk, because it's the only genetic perk to being white that they can objectively parade around as being a thing - again, despite the fact that it isn't just a caucasian thing.
---

Ideological soy allergy. Fantastic.
---

https://www.wired.com/2017/05/alt-rights-newest-ploy-trolling-false-symbols/

Yeah. I was right. This " drinking Milk is white supremacy" thing was a 4chan troll job that the media took seriously, because most mainstream journalists don't understand trolling. They think trolling is just being an asshole to people on the internet.

The article in the OP is just hilariously late to the party. Hell, that image of alt-fighters chugging milk are 4chan trolls just fucking with Shia LeBeouf at his HWNDU art project.
---

Someone should convince the losers chugging milk to film themselves partaking in the gallon challenge. Tell them it's to trigger the libs or something
---

The Great Muta 22 posted...

Someone should convince the losers chugging milk to film themselves partaking in the gallon challenge. Tell them it's to trigger the libs or something

To be fair, actual mainstream news outlets falling for such a blatant troll is pretty funny.
---

yeah, this whole "milk is an alt-right white supremacist hate symbol" thing is like a year old
---

The same people who can't be in the sun without a protective screen? lmao.
---

Ving_Rhames posted...

The same people who can't be in the sun without a protective screen? lmao.

Real talk though, everyone should wear sunscreen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTy6f_HyuQU" data-time="
---

I keep seeing people oh they are just trolling. When real racist pick up the Troll it is not longer a troll, it is racist people being dumb racist people. Just like that white power hand thing, while it might have started off as troll real racist are now using it, so you can't fall back to say oh it is just troll anymore.
---

You don't know someone's racist just because you see them drinking milk. That's preposterous.
---

Weirdos.
---

Funbazooka posted...

You don't know someone's racist just because you see them drinking milk. That's preposterous

No one is calling normal Milk drinkers racist.
---

I thought this was going to be a joke like this video my friend showed me lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzb-TXk7K_c" data-time="
---

YUHH posted...

Darmik posted...

So do we call these dweebs milk chuggers now.

Milk drinkers just for the extra lulz

I've been playing Skyrim, so this is great.

Anyway, I like milk but I can rarely drink it by itself. Needs to go with a meal/snack.
---

Esrac posted...

I'm pretty sure the milk = whites are superior thing was a 4chan troll that a few media outlets thought were serious.

Yeah most of this garbage starts on 4chan I don't know why people don't do more research before flying off the handle.
---

Interesting read.
---

I drink a lot of milk but that's to avoid capsaicin cramps and a flaming asshole.

glitteringfairy posted...

Shit, I drink half a gallon of Choco milk every two days.

@Choco
---

SaithSayer posted...

I drink a lot of milk but that's to avoid capsaicin cramps and a flaming asshole.

Drinking milk through the butt is the quickest relief for that.
---

SapphireOfChaos posted...

Weirdos.

There's an uncropped version of this picture by the way.
---