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namman siggins

We need to talk about race

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Because we desperately do. After the Charlestion shooting and continual offenses by cops and this country's inability to see that there is a gapping racial wound that needs to be addressed; we need talk.

I don't know. As an Arab and Mexican whose had to have his name and lose his native tongue and country to this country, this shit will always hit close, if not directly, to home.

I think I need to vent and this forum is a place where I feel we can have some discussion on this topic

PS that morherfucker is a homegrown terrorist and I wish the media will say that; anyone who says otherwise, is objectivity wrong.

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I agree but I also don't have much to say. I guess I'll say the confederate flag is a white supremacist symbol and it's fucking shameful we still let it fly over government buildings.

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Most of this discussion is happening in the Ferguson thread, which was recently revived in talking about Charleston.

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I don't understand the logic of people who think that flying the Confederate flag is an act of honoring ancestors and celebrating tradition and history. They seem to readily admit that not everything about the Confederacy is good or perfect, but they're just so committed to being proud of their heritage that their symbol of the past should be accepted.

 

Basically, my lack of understanding in their logic is rooted in what makes the Confederacy in particular worth honoring over any other shitty historical thing. Like, should I be celebrating my ancestor who fought in many "legitimate", sanctioned by the actual government wars against the Native Americans? I would think that (if their logic was applied universally) one of these Confederate flag wavers would want us to appreciate their service to the country despite essentially forwarding genocide. I haven't asked any of them what they think about their Nazi ancestors, American Indian War ancestors, Japanese internment camp operator ancestors, etc but I suspect that they wouldn't be as proud of those shitty people as they are of the shitty generals of the Confederacy who apparently deserve to have streets named after them.

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I'm having a hard time expressing my feelings about Charleston. I just wanna say that it seems like the terrorist made a lot of racist jokes, rants, and eventually threats to a lot of people close to him; and none of them took him seriously. That's a real problem.

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I don't understand the logic of people who think that flying the Confederate flag is an act of honoring ancestors and celebrating tradition and history. They seem to readily admit that not everything about the Confederacy is good or perfect, but they're just so committed to being proud of their heritage that their symbol of the past should be accepted.

Basically, my lack of understanding in their logic is rooted in what makes the Confederacy in particular worth honoring over any other shitty historical thing. Like, should I be celebrating my ancestor who fought in many "legitimate", sanctioned by the actual government wars against the Native Americans? I would think that (if their logic was applied universally) one of these Confederate flag wavers would want us to appreciate their service to the country despite essentially forwarding genocide. I haven't asked any of them what they think about their Nazi ancestors, American Indian War ancestors, Japanese internment camp operator ancestors, etc but I suspect that they wouldn't be as proud of those shitty people as they are of the shitty generals of the Confederacy who apparently deserve to have streets named after them.

Americans are generally taught in school that race is a solved problem. We abolished slavery, ended segregation, stopped saying black people are only 3/5 of a human, ended Jim Crow... come on, we passed the Civil Rights Act! Everyone is equal!

That's the way history is taught in a lot of history classes. Race is a glaring blind spot because of things like that, which in a lot of people in the South's makes referring to the Confederacy in the modern age absolutely okay -- racism ended, so what's the issue? There's a huge gulf between what even well meaning flyers of the Confederate flag think and what you or I think. There's a massive chasm between people in this country, and I have absolutely no idea how to approach it without falling into oblivion.

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I don't understand the logic of people who think that flying the Confederate flag is an act of honoring ancestors and celebrating tradition and history. They seem to readily admit that not everything about the Confederacy is good or perfect, but they're just so committed to being proud of their heritage that their symbol of the past should be accepted.

 

Basically, my lack of understanding in their logic is rooted in what makes the Confederacy in particular worth honoring over any other shitty historical thing. Like, should I be celebrating my ancestor who fought in many "legitimate", sanctioned by the actual government wars against the Native Americans? I would think that (if their logic was applied universally) one of these Confederate flag wavers would want us to appreciate their service to the country despite essentially forwarding genocide. I haven't asked any of them what they think about their Nazi ancestors, American Indian War ancestors, Japanese internment camp operator ancestors, etc but I suspect that they wouldn't be as proud of those shitty people as they are of the shitty generals of the Confederacy who apparently deserve to have streets named after them.

 

As far as I understand it, and I'd have the slightest bit of sympathy for it if it weren't for the great historical and social evils also represented therein, it's because other Americans shit on the South like no other cultural region of the United States. Only the experience of the Midwest comes close, and calling that region "flyover country" or "the flatlands" points more towards disregard than active antipathy. Being from the South, even the "exception" to the South that Texas views itself to be, has been an immense social handicap anywhere else that I've lived, and I've seen other Southerners band together under any conceivable symbol of that cultural difference, for mutual support and protection. Even if it tars them with the same brush as racists, many Southerners are willing to embrace the Confederate flag because it is the most identifiable standard for Southern culture, alone and triumphant. It's undeniably gross, but the processes behind it are easy to see.

 

Honestly, I've had a lot of trouble lately feeling okay with the tendency of people to equate white supremacy with and confine it to the Confederacy and its sympathizers. Tamir Rice was shot in Cleveland and Eric Garner was killed in New York, but somehow it's always the South that is the real heart of darkness for America's problem with race. I certainly agree that the South has older and more systemic edifices for the preservation of white supremacy, but this is emphatically an American problem to me. Even if I were to limit my focus to Republicans and conservatives as the font of racist feelings in America, which I don't actually believe in full, it's still worth pointing out that most states' constituent counties are red by majority.

 

red-states-vs-blue-states-map.png

 

I know this is a bit of a derail, but... I don't know. I might delete this later.

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No I think it's a good point: While fetishization of the confederate flag and what it represents certainly contributes to the kind of overt racism that lead to the Charleston shootings, trying to pretend that that's the whole story is eventually just giving a free pass to the 'good' white people to address that and then say "OKAY RACISM'S SOLVED YAY", ignoring that the systems that killed Trayvon Martin and Mike Brown and so many others are still in place and getting stronger. Still, if we can attack this most visible facet of white supremacy, it at least is a way to show that these are not traits we want to encourage in our police and armed forces.

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I saw a thread on twitter which I cannot now find which I'm going to try to paraphrase: Whiteness is regarded as civilization and grace by excluding the poor people who don't live up to that standard as 'white trash'. 'White trash' culture then becomes a focal point for racism as a way of still maintaining pride, essentially saying "Well I may be trash but I'm still white [and therefore superior]." Because of this, even progressive whiteness supports the white supremacy by propping up a class system that incubates it.

 

I'm not sure how to address that problem, beyond doing what we can to abolish poverty and class.

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Honestly, I've had a lot of trouble lately feeling okay with the tendency of people to equate white supremacy with and confine it to the Confederacy and its sympathizers. Tamir Rice was shot in Cleveland and Eric Garner was killed in New York, but somehow it's always the South that is the real heart of darkness for America's problem with race. I certainly agree that the South has older and more systemic edifices for the preservation of white supremacy, but this is emphatically an American problem to me.

Along these lines, I spent most of my life in the south and I've met many, many racists down there, but holy shit the people in southeast Michigan. Holy. Shit. I live in statistically the most liberal city in Michigan, and I used to work with a guy who would openly carry a pistol when he had to go to well-off black academics' houses because "you never know with those people." That's an extreme example, but I meet people like that at least once a week. It's mind boggling. I mean, with the history of where I am (it's where white people fled to when they didn't want to be around black people in Detroit, the only major American city to basically stop existing because of racism), it makes sense, but holy shit. Hooooooooly shit the Midwest.

It's really not just a Southern problem at all.

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... Even if it tars them with the same brush as racists, many Southerners are willing to embrace the Confederate flag because it is the most identifiable standard for Southern culture, alone and triumphant.

Sweet-tea is a more unifying symbol of Southern culture.

Also: grits.

Folks need to forget the flag and start bragging about the food.

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In St. Paul MN where I went to school there were kids from the neighboring college who would prominently display confederate flags on their porches and in their homes. You could see them through the windows when you would walk by. As a lifelong Northerner who is dating a Southerner, I do a lot of defending of the south 'cause got damn that fried okra.

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I understand and appreciate where you're coming from Gorm and those of you who agree with him, but I don't think it's unfair to say that a subculture that chooses to adopt and even fetishize the symbol (and culture, these guys admire the heroes of the Confederacy too) of a government whose ideals strictly allowed the slavery of blacks in America has some problems. This is not to say that any other white Americans that aren't from the South are exempt from the potential of being racist or that tearing down the flag will solve racism in the South, but I do think that there are some specific issues with this situation.

 

Put another way, I think that we can safely criticise people who proudly fly the flag without calling them "southerners". Call them what you like.

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I understand and appreciate where you're coming from Gorm and those of you who agree with him, but I don't think it's unfair to say that a subculture that chooses to adopt and even fetishize the symbol (and culture, these guys admire the heroes of the Confederacy too) of a government whose ideals strictly allowed the slavery of blacks in America has some problems. This is not to say that any other white Americans that aren't from the South are exempt from the potential of being racist or that tearing down the flag will solve racism in the South, but I do think that there are some specific issues with this situation.

 

Put another way, I think that we can safely criticise people who proudly fly the flag without calling them "southerners". Call them what you like.

 

Nah, I agree with you, but like you alluded to in your first post, there are exponentially more people who worship the flag of the United States, which has always stood for manifest destiny and native genocide, even if they did get rid of the parts of the Constitution that said blacks were three-fifths the people that whites were. At the end of the day, flags have got to be a blind alley, if we in the United States will still be living under one that represents a larger if more diffuse set of historical evils.

 

I also agree that it's a problem if the Confederate flag serves as a rallying point for racists, bigots, and white supremacists, but then again Roof had no Confederate flag on his jacket, just Rhodesia and Apartheid-era South Africa. Humankind is fortunate enough to have created so many banners of intolerance and hate over the years, enough to fill a festival hall.

 

Sweet-tea is a more unifying symbol of Southern culture.

Also: grits.

Folks need to forget the flag and start bragging about the food.

As a lifelong Northerner who is dating a Southerner, I do a lot of defending of the south 'cause got damn that fried okra.

 

Most Southern cooking is way too heavy for me, so I mostly express my Southernness through Western wear, excessive politeness of speech, and long vowels. There really needs to be an explicitly anti-racist Southern advocacy group, but that's enough digressing in this thread.

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I knew a woman who kept the Rhodesian flag around to remind her of how not to act, until she succumbed to breast cancer. On the other hand, I know many people who fly the American flag and have no respect for Japanese internment or the First Nation genocide. I know people who fly the Confederate flag and are willing to engage people on issues of race, siding with activists in Ferguson, Baltimore, New York, Charlotte, etc.

 

What meaning does a flag really have? I mean, I admit that the Confederate flag has baggage tied to it a significant history of racism, but what does a flag really mean when flown by an individual? It shouldn't be flown by a state, but on an individual level -- what does that actually mean?

 

EDIT: Also, I'm familiar with and agree with the argument that the South lost the war and won the Reconstruction, and think the Confederate flag is a disgusting display of racism, but people of all stripes fly flags of all kinds. I just don't think modern nationalist ideals bear a lot of meaning.

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I suspect, in this time of tragedy, that what we need the very least is my dumb opinions about America's problems.

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Another thing I briefly wanted to mention: The terrorist was also noted as specifically referring to the Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin shootings when referring to why he hated black people. I feel like I have a much deeper understanding of the costs of the demonizing and blame-shifting that the media tried to pull in those cases.

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I suspect, in this time of tragedy, that what we need the very least is my dumb opinions about America's problems.

I think we need them more than ever, and even if we don't I still want to hear them.

I don't mean to pick on you specifically, but I think part of the problem is people's general reluctance to talk about these things. Personally I never thought about race critically until a few years ago when I met a guy who simply didn't allow me to stay silent. I said some stupid, downright racist things in retrospect, thankfully he was patient with me, and to this day those couple of months remain a transformative experience. If we want things to get better, we can't be afraid to make mistakes.

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I suspect, in this time of tragedy, that what we need the very least is my dumb opinions about America's problems.

I'm interested in hearing them, but I won't assume you are much of an authority since saying that americans find David Letterman and Saturday Night Live funny is like saying australians travel by kangaroo.

Also, the only thing I know about race relations in Australia is from a Vice documentary about Wadeye

https://www.vice.com/video/heavy-metal-gangs-of-wadeye-1-of-2

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As far as I understand it, and I'd have the slightest bit of sympathy for it if it weren't for the great historical and social evils also represented therein, it's because other Americans shit on the South like no other cultural region of the United States. Only the experience of the Midwest comes close, and calling that region "flyover country" or "the flatlands" points more towards disregard than active antipathy. Being from the South, even the "exception" to the South that Texas views itself to be, has been an immense social handicap anywhere else that I've lived, and I've seen other Southerners band together under any conceivable symbol of that cultural difference, for mutual support and protection. Even if it tars them with the same brush as racists, many Southerners are willing to embrace the Confederate flag because it is the most identifiable standard for Southern culture, alone and triumphant. It's undeniably gross, but the processes behind it are easy to see.

 

Honestly, I've had a lot of trouble lately feeling okay with the tendency of people to equate white supremacy with and confine it to the Confederacy and its sympathizers. Tamir Rice was shot in Cleveland and Eric Garner was killed in New York, but somehow it's always the South that is the real heart of darkness for America's problem with race. I certainly agree that the South has older and more systemic edifices for the preservation of white supremacy, but this is emphatically an American problem to me. Even if I were to limit my focus to Republicans and conservatives as the font of racist feelings in America, which I don't actually believe in full, it's still worth pointing out that most states' constituent counties are red by majority.

 

I am not at all convinced that you have the correlation and causation matched up in this case. I live on the coast, but I don't identify with people from the other coast. I'm not a Coastie or a Coasterner or (word that doesn't exist). My cultural identification is with a city more than a state, and certainly not an entire sub-region of the country. When I think about it, I would say I'm from the North, but unless someone is talking about the South I don't think about it. My state is so small that by the time we could reach an agreement on how we identify ourselves regionally, we've accidentally driven through two other states.

 

Is the stubbornness of people determined to identify themselves as Southerners by culture creating the handicap, rather than as you say being viewed as a Southerner causing people to embrace it?

 

"Southerner" feels more like a state of mind. I know people from Indiana and, like Mangela, Michigan who identify themselves as Southerners or with that culture.

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Along these lines, I spent most of my life in the south and I've met many, many racists down there, but holy shit the people in southeast Michigan. Holy. Shit. I live in statistically the most liberal city in Michigan, and I used to work with a guy who would openly carry a pistol when he had to go to well-off black academics' houses because "you never know with those people." That's an extreme example, but I meet people like that at least once a week. It's mind boggling. I mean, with the history of where I am (it's where white people fled to when they didn't want to be around black people in Detroit, the only major American city to basically stop existing because of racism), it makes sense, but holy shit. Hooooooooly shit the Midwest.

It's really not just a Southern problem at all.

OH yeah, my parents and my family (on my Dad's side) are like this. My Uncle uses Nigger left and right. Hell, Nigger is practically a comma, period, semicolon, colon and the like in Cinny and Kentucky and Indiana. 

 

Midwest, especially the Rust Belt areas have always had a problem with race; at least they're somewhat upfront about it. California the racism here is a bit more under-the-skin, subtle, and insidious. Also, Californians' live in this weird bubble that when I talk about my racist experiences from Ohio or Mexico, their jaw drops and act like it's something new or that it still happening. 

In St. Paul MN where I went to school there were kids from the neighboring college who would prominently display confederate flags on their porches and in their homes. You could see them through the windows when you would walk by. As a lifelong Northerner who is dating a Southerner, I do a lot of defending of the south 'cause got damn that fried okra.

I used to see this all the time when I was living in Cinny. It was especially predominant when I would go to Kentucky or Indiana. I know people would get into words with the flag wavers and it would sometimes turn out ugly.

 

What blows my fucking mind is seeing the flag in California. Seriously? Yes, some may be out-of-staters, but some are not. California was a free state and they even had to rename lake back to it's OG name because the person they named it was a Southern sympathizer!

 

I suspect, in this time of tragedy, that what we need the very least is my dumb opinions about America's problems.

The worst thing to do; speak.

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I knew a woman who kept the Rhodesian flag around to remind her of how not to act, until she succumbed to breast cancer. On the other hand, I know many people who fly the American flag and have no respect for Japanese internment or the First Nation genocide. I know people who fly the Confederate flag and are willing to engage people on issues of race, siding with activists in Ferguson, Baltimore, New York, Charlotte, etc.

 

What meaning does a flag really have? I mean, I admit that the Confederate flag has baggage tied to it a significant history of racism, but what does a flag really mean when flown by an individual? It shouldn't be flown by a state, but on an individual level -- what does that actually mean?

 

EDIT: Also, I'm familiar with and agree with the argument that the South lost the war and won the Reconstruction, and think the Confederate flag is a disgusting display of racism, but people of all stripes fly flags of all kinds. I just don't think modern nationalist ideals bear a lot of meaning.

This! The flag talk is such a kaleidoscopic talk that depending on who--and the context of the situation--talk to, you'll get a hundred different answers. 

 

I... I'm on and off with the issue and at times, I don't know where I stand.

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Midwest, especially the Rust Belt areas have always had a problem with race; 

 

This forever and always amen.  The collapse of Detroit was pretty much completely due to racism against Black people who moved north during the great migration. If anyone wants to talk about Detroit specifically, I am super interested and passionate after reading this book: http://www.amazon.com/The-Origins-Urban-Crisis-Inequality/dp/0691162557 for an urban geography class I took

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As far as I understand it, and I'd have the slightest bit of sympathy for it if it weren't for the great historical and social evils also represented therein, it's because other Americans shit on the South like no other cultural region of the United States. Only the experience of the Midwest comes close, and calling that region "flyover country" or "the flatlands" points more towards disregard than active antipathy. Being from the South, even the "exception" to the South that Texas views itself to be, has been an immense social handicap anywhere else that I've lived, and I've seen other Southerners band together under any conceivable symbol of that cultural difference, for mutual support and protection. Even if it tars them with the same brush as racists, many Southerners are willing to embrace the Confederate flag because it is the most identifiable standard for Southern culture, alone and triumphant. It's undeniably gross, but the processes behind it are easy to see.

 

Honestly, I've had a lot of trouble lately feeling okay with the tendency of people to equate white supremacy with and confine it to the Confederacy and its sympathizers. Tamir Rice was shot in Cleveland and Eric Garner was killed in New York, but somehow it's always the South that is the real heart of darkness for America's problem with race. I certainly agree that the South has older and more systemic edifices for the preservation of white supremacy, but this is emphatically an American problem to me. Even if I were to limit my focus to Republicans and conservatives as the font of racist feelings in America, which I don't actually believe in full, it's still worth pointing out that most states' constituent counties are red by majority.

 

red-states-vs-blue-states-map.png

 

I know this is a bit of a derail, but... I don't know. I might delete this later.

Man, where did you get that map? Mostly just asking because I know in general Dallas/Houston (Bexar/Harris Country) tend to be blue, at least now, keeping with the idea of big cities sort of being a different place than the rest of the country. A blog post I found on with the image says it changed to blue in at least 2012 but 2014 kind of reversed a few things.

 

Even though you can't blanket a whole party as racist, I think there's a lot to be said about Republicans being a "hate group" and a lot of what's wrong with the United States. While in theory they should be for small government, states rights and such, they tend to be big government whenever it comes to wasting time on creating discriminatory and bigoted legislation. It seems like more than anything the party is based on harboring everyone's fears of their fellow man as a motivator for political action than actually discussing something like fiscal policy. I've heard a Libertarian described in many ways as basically a Republican who actually isn't all hung up on what black people and gay people are doing.

 

Anyway, I guess just to jump off on it, concerning the South pride or Texas pride, I feel like I don't see or really understand that growing up in Houston but could totally make out what that kind of feeling is when stopping around small towns going on camping trips or visiting Arkansas or family in Oklahama (I'm totally with you guys on the Midwest reflection of it). I suppose it's an amount of inherent small mindedness and xenophobia that comes with living so far from a densely populated city, not to mention a complete lack of identity because of how little people you've met and how far you haven't traveled.

 

This is not to say someone is immune to any of this harmful thinking in a big city, as gentrification and wealth disparity can do a grand old job on making it hard to mix with people different from you and therefore seeing they are okay. But it is something where most city living means you are going to have to interact with someone who is a different color than you. If you interact negatively, it just causes problems for the rest of us. Learn to love your neighbor.

 

I distinctly remember this incident in gym in high school where this total hick white kid who just moved from whatever town/city transferred to my school and thought it would be awesome for him to wear a bandana with a confederate flag on it. That lasted until the end of the period until getting back into our regular clothes in the locker room when a group of black kids approached him. One dude was trying to explain to him why the bandana was seen as racist and the new kid refused to understand or stop wearing it. The black kid did actually give time for a lengthy discussion until the group started beating up the new kid. The coach comes in pretty quickly and tells the kid he can't wear his confederate flag bandana anymore.

 

I just can't see anything like that happening in a school in a small town in Alabama. However, in that situation it's not like any of the other races (white, mexican, or asian kids) in my gym class said anything. I think maybe I said something to my friend insinuating it was pretty idiotic of this kid to wear that, but that's really ineffective. Racism is everyone's problem, no matter what race, but I still don't know what to do about yelling at other white people to stop being dumb bigoted shits. It's such a culture shock, my parents coming from a small town in Oklahoma and a small town in Michigan say such terrible things sometimes and I even had to correct them when I was young. I chose to stop visiting all of my relatives in Oklahoma (on my mom's side) when I was 14 because of this big cultural wall. I remember at maybe 9 years old my grandma there was yelling at me to stop singing "eenie meenie minnie moe" wrong because it's ACTUALLY "catch a nigger by the toe." And then nine year old me is arguing with my idiotic grandmother about her racism and she would not be phased and no other adult in the room would dare correct her. It's just bullshit. Everyone should know better.

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I think we need them more than ever, and even if we don't I still want to hear them.

I'm interested in hearing them, but I won't assume you are much of an authority

The worst thing to do; speak.

 

I'm sort of dismayed that my attempt to acknowledge the thread but not derail it seems to be backfiring.

A key part of wisdom is in understanding when it's better to listen rather than speak. For me, this is one of those times, especially for someone who's already derailed one thread talking about American problems.

I don't want this to be about me and whether I should be contributing, because that seems like part of the problem: taking an important discussion and making it all about how the white guys feel.

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