cduggles
Bluelight Crew
I had a chuckle when I read this. You’re already there dude. At least halfway.
Social Justice Black Lives Matter Discussion Thread
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✿Dai₷y✿
Bluelighter
Do you find it easier to use personal attacks than to respond to his questions?
I read that 3 times, dont fully understand some points , what repatriation would resolve racial issues? You'd have an answer to this, wouldn't you?
Maybe there IS no amount of repatriation that can make up for past misdeeds, ever.
*shrug*
Xorkoth
Bluelight Crew
I am saying that the reason for this has its roots in racism and hundreds of years of oppression, a long history of factors that led to a population being the way it is today. Sure, individual black people who grew up in ghettos are more able to get out than they once were, but it's really easy to say "pull yourself up and get out of that life" if you weren't shaped by that culture. Some of the purposeful deeds against black communities happened recently, well after civil rights, in the 80s, especially, with the crack that was flooded into communities for various reasons (which I have stated earlier in this thread).
It IS a very complicated problem, and you can't look at it in the vacuum of right now. It is a systemic problem that has taken hundreds of years to establish itself. The answer is not to call all white people racist, or to go overboard, which some are doing. But the answer is also not to deny there is a racial problem.
If the problem has nothing to do with race and racial history, then what do you propose it IS because of? What are the factors that led to the fact that black people are more likely to be stopped than any other race? That they're more likely to commit crimes? If it's not because of systemic issues related to their race, then it's hard to see how one would argue that it isn't simply because of some inherent aspect of them as people, which is quite a racist way of looking at it, no?
birdup.snaildown
Greenlighter
There is a racial component to every problem.
I never said it has nothing to do with race.
The way it is discussed is false and that doesn't help the cause. Black people aren't being gunned down by police. That's not what is happening. Black people are committing more crimes so they are being shot disproportionately (to white people) and it appears - falsely - as if they are being gunned down in the streets.
I don't look at it that way.
There has been a dramatic cultural shift in black America over the past century. Gangster rap doesn't help and neither does the idea that people are being oppressed because of the colour of their skin. If you believe the odds are against you, it's easy to give up before you get started.
The best way to fix this problem is to stop pretending it exists.
As usual, left wing politics just makes shit worse.
If there's something we can identify that white people are "doing" to black people, that's great... but it makes no sense (to me) to just assume that is the case.
People need to stop thinking in terms of black/white, unless it happens to be relevant. If there's potentially a case of racial misconduct by the police we should investigate it.
In Australia they did a royal commission into systemic racism. The data does not support the idea that significant racism exists, but people just assume that's wrong. The commission is corrupt or something.
BLM should be PLM.
This is about money not skin colour... So, how do you solve an economic issue like this? Throwing welfare at it certainly doesn't help. Telling people they deserve something (that they aren't going to get) because of the colour of their skin doesn't help either.
Xorkoth said:
I never said it has nothing to do with race.
The way it is discussed is false and that doesn't help the cause. Black people aren't being gunned down by police. That's not what is happening. Black people are committing more crimes so they are being shot disproportionately (to white people) and it appears - falsely - as if they are being gunned down in the streets.
Xorkoth said:
I don't look at it that way.
There has been a dramatic cultural shift in black America over the past century. Gangster rap doesn't help and neither does the idea that people are being oppressed because of the colour of their skin. If you believe the odds are against you, it's easy to give up before you get started.
The best way to fix this problem is to stop pretending it exists.
As usual, left wing politics just makes shit worse.
If there's something we can identify that white people are "doing" to black people, that's great... but it makes no sense (to me) to just assume that is the case.
People need to stop thinking in terms of black/white, unless it happens to be relevant. If there's potentially a case of racial misconduct by the police we should investigate it.
In Australia they did a royal commission into systemic racism. The data does not support the idea that significant racism exists, but people just assume that's wrong. The commission is corrupt or something.
BLM should be PLM.
This is about money not skin colour... So, how do you solve an economic issue like this? Throwing welfare at it certainly doesn't help. Telling people they deserve something (that they aren't going to get) because of the colour of their skin doesn't help either.
birdup.snaildown
Greenlighter
Burnt Offerings said:
Equality of opportunity should just exist now. Equality of outcome is the thing that people work towards forever because it is impossible. We should just focus on opportunity.
Xorkoth
Bluelight Crew
Australia is not America.
You're right that there is also a problem with wealth inequality that has nothing to do with race. But again, WHY is there a far higher percentage of black Americans in poverty? You said we should stop pretending the problem exists to solve it. But yet, the data says is DOES exist, for whatever reason. There is a problem. Are you saying that hundreds of years of racial oppression (which you certainly admit happened, right?) which ended very recently in history doesn't affect the current state of things?
A combination of statistics, listening to people's stories, and what I have actually seen shows me that we still have progress to make in getting rid of systemic racism, at least in America. I also think a lot of people are pushing too hard and going too far. I also think some people are attributing racial problems to more than they should be. We have many problems aside from racial problems and I believe the biggest problem we face is wealth inequality that has nothing to do with race. But it is possible to see all the shades of gray. As you say, it is complicated. It seems like willfully shutting out a lot of evidence and the experiences of others who are not you to try to just state "nope, none of the problems facing these people has anything to do with race, it's just a variety of other problems". I'm admitting to the existence of all of these problems and it seems like you're really interested in outright denying one aspect of the problems facing American society.
So what are the answers? We already have lots of institutional stuff in place to help minorities. I think monetary reparations are not a good idea as it is punitive of people who did not cause these problems and would create a lot of further resentment. I think we need to work on changing police culture and training and intelligently allocate funds to be more heavy on treatment and mental health and rehabilitation instead of punishment, and de-militarize the police. And we need to work on discriminatory attitudes in individuals and various communities, which is a much harder problem to tackle. I also think that tackling the general wealth inequality problem would lead, indirectly, to improved outcomes for everyone and better relations between all sorts of people. The growing wealth gap (not race related) and the institutional policies that have engineered this is the biggest problem we face, I think. In America anyway. But there still exist other problems of various sorts and they don't affect all groups of people equally.
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That's basically what I meant.
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How is it a personal attack, when they literally said as much in their post?
I could go on and on about how white privilege is real and they're just trafficking in racist trite, but would they read it?
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✿Dai₷y✿
Bluelighter
What recompense do you feel will solve all racial inequalities in America right now ?
I doubt any amount of anything would do anything to heal America.
It just takes generations and shifts in population demographic over that time to become as part of history as slavery was.
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Criminal justice reform would be a start.
birdup.snaildown
Greenlighter
@Xorkoth
They are similar in this context. Both countries are young so they don't have a long colonial history. Their history is simple. They came and "stole" land and did horrible things. Europe is a mess of overlapping wars and falling empires. Australia is just white vs black.
I don't believe you want wealth to be equal.
Welfare certainly doesn't help. There are more black Americans (percentage wise) now in poverty than there used to be fifty/sixty years ago.
Nobody moves back to Africa.
Define it and show me it.
The system is structured around fairness. If there is systemic racism, define it. Show it to me. Anecdotes mean nothing. Not because I'm soulless. They mean nothing because we're not talking about the individual. We're talking about trends. We're talking about the big picture.
When there is a racist cop (of course they exist) we deal with that cop. Beyond that, I'm not sure what to do. That's a specific problem. That's the anecdote. The racist cop. You deal with him. But show me the systemic stuff that is complicated. In a population of over 300 million, show me the evidence of it.
I agree to some extent - you can't take power away from the police in the US - but this police thing isn't a racial issue. The police are a work in progress. Generally they are good people trying to do the right thing for their communities. Same as teachers. Sometimes there are bad eggs. Training can always be better.
Casual racism is not a systemic problem that can be solved and it shouldn't be mixed in with serious issues that require practical solutions. Not to say that it doesn't occur in that context (as it does in every context) but it doesn't help calling everything racist. We need to be able to see what is racist and what isn't.
If America is racist - not individuals in America - show me.
Specificity is important.
They are similar in this context. Both countries are young so they don't have a long colonial history. Their history is simple. They came and "stole" land and did horrible things. Europe is a mess of overlapping wars and falling empires. Australia is just white vs black.
I don't believe you want wealth to be equal.
Welfare certainly doesn't help. There are more black Americans (percentage wise) now in poverty than there used to be fifty/sixty years ago.
Nobody moves back to Africa.
Define it and show me it.
The system is structured around fairness. If there is systemic racism, define it. Show it to me. Anecdotes mean nothing. Not because I'm soulless. They mean nothing because we're not talking about the individual. We're talking about trends. We're talking about the big picture.
When there is a racist cop (of course they exist) we deal with that cop. Beyond that, I'm not sure what to do. That's a specific problem. That's the anecdote. The racist cop. You deal with him. But show me the systemic stuff that is complicated. In a population of over 300 million, show me the evidence of it.
I agree to some extent - you can't take power away from the police in the US - but this police thing isn't a racial issue. The police are a work in progress. Generally they are good people trying to do the right thing for their communities. Same as teachers. Sometimes there are bad eggs. Training can always be better.
Casual racism is not a systemic problem that can be solved and it shouldn't be mixed in with serious issues that require practical solutions. Not to say that it doesn't occur in that context (as it does in every context) but it doesn't help calling everything racist. We need to be able to see what is racist and what isn't.
If America is racist - not individuals in America - show me.
Specificity is important.
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If you can't surmise how America is racist on your own, no one's going to be able to show you anything to shift your opinion. Desegregation was not that long ago, and we still have a political system that's been redlined and gerrymandered around racial lines. You understand that the black community is still overcoming slavery and Jim Crow right? That is what people are talking about when they talk about white privilege. White families have had generation after generation to build wealth and achieve economic success. Black families have had significantly less time, and thus their communities are still trying to overcome poverty.
It's no wonder so many white people struggle to understand what racism is. You don't have to listen, you don't have to care.
✿Dai₷y✿
Bluelighter
I read his posts with an open mind. If you have succumbed to the temptation of writing him off as a racist no matter how much effort he puts in then that's on you.
That's the problem with being labelled as a racist yet not being one at all is theres nothing that can be done to repair that and he may as well not come back here, right?
A simple matter of an odd posting style different language shouldn't be that hard to handle.
His reference to being a '"white supremacist" read as a sarcastic rhetorical question, not that he actually is one.
White privilege might be real yet so is the sentiment that it's just a brush off and put down which shouldn't happen because of EQUALITY. Not everyone is American you know .
Can you address his questions without reaching for the "OMG OMG RACIST "WHITE SUPREMIST' panic button?
Probably not eh?
Anyway, glad.
birdup.snaildown
Greenlighter
People should stop separating people into white and black. BLM is an economic issue more than a pigment issue.
This statement seems alien to me because I do not think of people in terms of colour.
The problem with white and black privilege (rather than individual privilege) is: there are a lot of poor white people that are suffering. The term "white privilege" is unnecessary and inaccurate. You are not privileged because of the colour of your skin. White people don't have equal privilege (within themselves) and black people don't have equal privilege either. This is precisely why we should treat people according to their individual circumstances rather than the colour of their skin.
Black kids from good neighbourhoods shouldn't have advantages with college entrance exams. If you take race out of it, you can still help people according to class. This is a better approach.
This statement seems alien to me because I do not think of people in terms of colour.
deficiT said:
The problem with white and black privilege (rather than individual privilege) is: there are a lot of poor white people that are suffering. The term "white privilege" is unnecessary and inaccurate. You are not privileged because of the colour of your skin. White people don't have equal privilege (within themselves) and black people don't have equal privilege either. This is precisely why we should treat people according to their individual circumstances rather than the colour of their skin.
Black kids from good neighbourhoods shouldn't have advantages with college entrance exams. If you take race out of it, you can still help people according to class. This is a better approach.
birdup.snaildown
Greenlighter
✿dai₷y✿ said:
It reads pretty fucking weird, honestly.
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cduggles
Bluelight Crew
Do you think everyone thinks like you?
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I did read his post with an open mind. Did I reach for a panic button? I merely echoed what he himself said. The post is full of "waahh white genocide" bullshit. White people aren't under attack. People are being held accountable and they don't like it.
Am I supposed to answer for every contradiction that happens in the modern struggle against racism? Sure I'll grant that some people get called racist or cancelled for petty shit. But the original post is clearly written by someone that doesn't understand how racism works and isn't willing to learn.
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Again, classic misunderstanding and bankrupt "color blind" philosophy. This is a common sentiment of middle class white folks over the past 40 years. Of course there's poor white people. But they are not poor "because" they're white.
I suggest you should read a book called The New Jim Crow, and come back and maybe you'll have a more rounded understanding of the lived black experience. It's easy to wish color blindness when you are in the majority group and don't have to live the experience.
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Here is a collection of quotes from Michelle Alexander, who puts all of this better than I could.
“In the era of colorblindness, it is no longer socially permissible to use race, explicitly, as a justification for discrimination, exclusion, and social contempt. So we don’t. Rather than rely on race, we use our criminal justice system to label people of color “criminals” and then engage in all the practices we supposedly left behind. Today it is perfectly legal to discriminate against criminals in nearly all the ways that it was once legal to discriminate against African Americans. Once you’re labeled a felon, the old forms of discrimination—employment discrimination, housing discrimination, denial of the right to vote, denial of educational opportunity, denial of food stamps and other public benefits, and exclusion from jury service—are suddenly legal. As a criminal, you have scarcely more rights, and arguably less respect, than a black man living in Alabama at the height of Jim Crow. We have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it.”
“When we think of racism we think of Governor Wallace of Alabama blocking the schoolhouse door; we think of water hoses, lynchings, racial epithets, and "whites only" signs. These images make it easy to forget that many wonderful, goodhearted white people who were generous to others, respectful of their neighbors, and even kind to their black maids, gardeners, or shoe shiners--and wished them well--nevertheless went to the polls and voted for racial segregation... Our understanding of racism is therefore shaped by the most extreme expressions of individual bigotry, not by the way in which it functions naturally, almost invisibly (and sometimes with genuinely benign intent), when it is embedded in the structure of a social system.”
“Arguably the most important parallel between mass incarceration and Jim Crow is that both have served to define the meaning and significance of race in America. Indeed, a primary function of any racial caste system is to define the meaning of race in its time. Slavery defined what it meant to be black (a slave), and Jim Crow defined what it meant to be black (a second-class citizen). Today mass incarceration defines the meaning of blackness in America: black people, especially black men, are criminals. That is what it means to be black.”
“African Americans are not significantly more likely to use or sell prohibited drugs than whites, but they are made criminals at drastically higher rates for precisely the same conduct.”
“Seeing race is not the problem. Refusing to care for the people we see is the problem. The fact that the meaning of race may evolve over time or lose much of its significance is hardly a reason to be struck blind. We should hope not for a colorblind society but instead for a world in which we can see each other fully, learn from each other, and do what we can to respond to each other with love. That was King’s dream—a society that is capable of seeing each of us, as we are, with love. That is a goal worth fighting for.”
“In the era of colorblindness, it is no longer socially permissible to use race, explicitly, as a justification for discrimination, exclusion, and social contempt. So we don’t. Rather than rely on race, we use our criminal justice system to label people of color “criminals” and then engage in all the practices we supposedly left behind. Today it is perfectly legal to discriminate against criminals in nearly all the ways that it was once legal to discriminate against African Americans. Once you’re labeled a felon, the old forms of discrimination—employment discrimination, housing discrimination, denial of the right to vote, denial of educational opportunity, denial of food stamps and other public benefits, and exclusion from jury service—are suddenly legal. As a criminal, you have scarcely more rights, and arguably less respect, than a black man living in Alabama at the height of Jim Crow. We have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it.”
“When we think of racism we think of Governor Wallace of Alabama blocking the schoolhouse door; we think of water hoses, lynchings, racial epithets, and "whites only" signs. These images make it easy to forget that many wonderful, goodhearted white people who were generous to others, respectful of their neighbors, and even kind to their black maids, gardeners, or shoe shiners--and wished them well--nevertheless went to the polls and voted for racial segregation... Our understanding of racism is therefore shaped by the most extreme expressions of individual bigotry, not by the way in which it functions naturally, almost invisibly (and sometimes with genuinely benign intent), when it is embedded in the structure of a social system.”
“Arguably the most important parallel between mass incarceration and Jim Crow is that both have served to define the meaning and significance of race in America. Indeed, a primary function of any racial caste system is to define the meaning of race in its time. Slavery defined what it meant to be black (a slave), and Jim Crow defined what it meant to be black (a second-class citizen). Today mass incarceration defines the meaning of blackness in America: black people, especially black men, are criminals. That is what it means to be black.”
“African Americans are not significantly more likely to use or sell prohibited drugs than whites, but they are made criminals at drastically higher rates for precisely the same conduct.”
“Seeing race is not the problem. Refusing to care for the people we see is the problem. The fact that the meaning of race may evolve over time or lose much of its significance is hardly a reason to be struck blind. We should hope not for a colorblind society but instead for a world in which we can see each other fully, learn from each other, and do what we can to respond to each other with love. That was King’s dream—a society that is capable of seeing each of us, as we are, with love. That is a goal worth fighting for.”
birdup.snaildown
Greenlighter
There's no lived black experience or lived gay experience. There are lived black experiences and lived gay experiences. Read Thomas Sowell and tell me every black person thinks the same.
This makes no sense. No white people are poor because of their ancestry?
No I suspect diversity of thought is extremely vast. That statement just struck me as odd. We're trying to discuss race. Obviously we perceive them quite differently so I know the odds are against me. Sometimes it becomes even more obvious all of a sudden that people are worlds apart.
This makes no sense. No white people are poor because of their ancestry?
cduggles said:
No I suspect diversity of thought is extremely vast. That statement just struck me as odd. We're trying to discuss race. Obviously we perceive them quite differently so I know the odds are against me. Sometimes it becomes even more obvious all of a sudden that people are worlds apart.