That's a pretty passive aggressive post. Are you saying that it's up to the individual to decide their own fate and there is no such thing as white privilege? Just say that then, plenty of people are willing to talk about it. (Source for all of this is Parker's articles; which no, I did not independently fact check.) If a similar percentage of blacks and whites do drugs, and yet way more blacks go to prison for it, does that not make it seem like there's something going on? Forget individual cases you know or have heard about, does that statistic not point to some level of ingrained racism in the society? And the enormous income inequality between blacks and whites… I'm not going to go back and find the numbers, but it's huge. Do black people just not care about working hard and getting good jobs as much as white people? If there isn't some sort of institutionalized inequality going on, wouldn't it be logical to say that black people are simply naturally predisposed to be lazy criminals? I'm honestly not trying to put words in your mouth. That just seems like the logical conclusion to me if someone doesn't believe in institutionalized racism or white privilege, and it's pretty much the definition of racism.
Nothing. You, we, I, everyone, can do nothing. You could exercise your right to peaceful protest, but to the extent that it impedes traffic and commerce you wouldn't make yourself and your cause look very smart. And if it didn't impede traffic/commerce, it wouldn't be noticed, so it'd in effect have never happened. If anything, just turn off the news (unless you are in one of those protest areas and what to know what's going on around you), don't freak out, get a good night's sleep and be productive at work tomorrow. Don't make anyone mad. Don't shove your opinion down anyone's throat. Just wake up, go to work, and be nice and polite to people of every race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, intellect and physical attractiveness on the 1-10 PUA scale.
Right, if you see something that you think is really wrong with your society, just don't do anything about it. History shows us that civilizations glide towards peaceful harmony on their own anyway. Why not talk about it as much as possible? Try to influence public opinion in whatever small way you can. Convince people to care about the issue. Don't ram it down their throats, but say something with some amount of conviction when the topic comes up. You say "there's nothing I can do," and yet look how many people don't even think there's a problem. In this case, awareness absolutely is helpful. If you don't think there is a problem, then of course you don't think people should do anything. Asking "what can I do?" without really believing in the issue is kind of silly.
To a point, they are willing to talk about it. And what they're willing to say is "You don't get it...you're white. If you question it, or don't agree to it, you don't get it." Do *I* believe in white privilege. There's a level...Probably, yeah. I don't feel white guilt anymore than I feel American guilt for being born here instead of in Afghanistan as a female under the Taliban or in China under Communist rule. I can't help being born white any more than anyone else can help being born whatever they are. I'm stuck living near Baltimore and with the Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson crap, I get to hear rationalization about how 'cultures are different, white people don't understand that'. So am I privileged because my white culture believes that punching your fiancee/wife in the face is bad? Or are they just fucked in the head and need to come around to not punching people? But I also believe (quite firmly, I'll add) that there is a certain level of choice involved as well. How one behaves, how one treats people, how one works, how one pursues education, how one handles ones family...those things are all choices we can make, regardless of our skin tone. It seems (and maybe this is my privilege seeping in again) that when one handles those things properly, one's life isn't so at odds with the rest of the world. Why is is racism? Is it racism because more blacks are investigated? Is it racism because more blacks are convicted? Is it racism because of both? What makes it racist? Additionally - I just don't have any sympathy for that, black OR white. The law's pretty clear on that shit. Don't do it and then cry because you got caught. That's not victim blaming, btw. They aren't victims. Black or white, they're criminals. I don't know. That seems to fall back onto that cultural issue people keep telling me about here. How the family unit is different. Maybe it has something to do with my kids coming home from school and talking about how different the black kids are here from back home. Back home, in the last schools the boys were in, the black kids participated in the educational process...and so did their families. Here, so many of the kids are in school and distracting other kids from the process, they're not taking it seriously. Is that racism? Or is it something they and their families are responsible for fixing? But you did a great job anyway, amirite? Listen. I grew up in ranch country. We didn't have black people. We didn't talk about black people. We didn't see black people. My first exposure to black people (or brown or any other color people) was when I was twenty years old and joined the army. I had no frame of reference for any of it. No background in hate, or love. Just nothing. Because it never came up. Maybe that is privilege. But it's also afforded the people I've met since then the privilege of interacting with me without any biases or preconceived notions on my part. I simply believe that people are people. Unfortunately, systemic racism doesn't work that way. There are a LOT of cards stacked against blacks in this country, and they're cards I don't even know about or see or experience. I recognize that completely. I'd like to think that by treating people - regardless of skin color - with respect, kindness, and compassion I'm at least doing SOMETHING to not be an active part of that. I do have to ask though... How do you change something as deeply ingrained and instinctive as mistrust for something that's different?
I'm actually in the process of writing a paper about white privilege and it's effects, I kinda hope this thread stays open long enough for me to post it. The links parker put up are great, but there are even more and varied opinions if you put forth even the minimum effort to educate yourself on something you may not know about. http://www.onlyin.us/2014/09/politics/c ... privilege/ http://diverseeducation.com/article/66757/ http://amptoons.com/blog/files/mcintosh.html http://www.thewrap.com/jon-stewart-expl ... ews-video/ http://www.timwise.org/2014/08/nativist ... rn-racism/ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennifer- ... 19818.html http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opin ... tml#page=1 and of course, the big white gun of authority on white privilege, Time Wise: http://live.huffingtonpost.com/r/segmen ... 4db000049b
If the same number of white people and black people do drugs, and yet WAY more black people go to jail for it, how is that not racism? It means they're either being targeted more, sentenced harsher, or both. I'm not saying I sympathize with people getting felony drugs charges, I'm just saying those stats are a pretty clear indicator that America is more suspicious and more willing to believe that a black person is a criminal than a white person. As for the huge income gap, that also tells me that on a national level, in the big picture, black people face more obstacles than white people in achieving gainful employment. I'm not saying that's true for every black person or even every black community, but it looks like an overall truth to me. Well, come on. If you want people do understand your position on something don't be so passive aggressive in making your point. I agree with that 100%. That's what I'm saying, from up here, it looks like "there are a LOT of cards stacked against black people in your country, and they're cards a lot of white people don't even know about or see or experience." Not because they're stupid or personally racist, it just doesn't seep in to their lives that much. A lot of people don't acknowledge that though, and I think that's something that should change.
So the system is broken, but black people need to just be better. They need to make all the right choices and do all the right things. To fix this black people have to be twice as good as everyone else. That seems fair. And while we are talking about education. Anyone interested in the issue should read The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America by Jonathon Kozol to understand how systemic some of these problems are, and how unwilling we are as a country to fix them. Let's use Michael Brown's high school as an example. I'm quoting a full blog post on it below. Blog post makes it sound dumb. The lady who wrote the post just wrote a book about the history of education that has been highly reviewed. Spoiler Source.
First, the people in here saying "but what can I do? Whats the point? Why is everyone just bitching?" seem to think there is some magic cure or answer for this that will fix it overnight. No. The Civil Rights movement in the United States during the 50s and 60s wasn't something that just happened and magically fixed everything for black people everywhere. It has taken literally 150+ years to get to the point we are at, and the point I believe Parker and others are trying to make is that the journey isn't over. They're trying to explain to people that yes, racism does in fact still exist. Just burying your head or saying we live in a "post-racial society" isn't going to change anything. Look, here is the bottom line: there is NO magic answer or single event that will automatically change things for black people. None. It doesn't exist. If it were as simple as changing a law, it would've happened decades ago. Does that mean the conversation should end? Fuck. No. If that were the case, the conversation would've ended with the passage of the 13th amendment, outlawing slavery. The country would've brushed its hands and said "There! Magic! Racism is over!" That was back in the 1860s. Then came the 14th and 15th amendments, because people realized, to use a metaphor, "this isn't a sprint, it is a marathon." They had to ban poll taxes and literacy tests that kept black people disenfranchised, and even then it didn't work. Then came Jim Crow Laws, and Plessy v. Ferguson, and "separate but equal" and all that bullshit. Two steps forward, one step back. This was followed by the Springfield Riots and then formation of the NAACP, people being outraged that Teddy Roosevelt would dare invite Booker T. Washington to the White House, the Freedom Riders, Emmett Till, Sit-Ins, Rosa Parks, Selma, Montgomery, and Martin Luther King, Jr. And that just covers 1900 until the 1960s. Things didn't change overnight. None of those events magically "fixed" racism, but that doesn't mean the conversation should end. In the aftermath of the Brown v. Board of Education decision, several black students enrolled in school in Little Rock, Arkansas. They had to have armed escorts for most of their high school lives, because they were under constant threat. But, hey, schools were de-segregated, we were done, right? Why are we even still discussing this? A lot of people recently decided that, because we have a black President, racism is over. As someone from a predominantly white area of a very conservative state, I can tell you for a fact racism exists and is fucking insane (if I had a nickel for everyone I heard call Obama the N word, which I refuse to even type, I'd be a fucking billionaire). The point I'm trying to make is simple. This is a marathon, not a sprint, and we are still in mile 18. A lot of people want to say "What can I do?" or "Why even discuss this?" The reason is because every once and a while, the discussion fades into then background, and shit like what happened in New York happens, and it reminds us that, hey, it isn't perfect yet. Black people still can't walk down the street without white people automatically being suspicious, and it is even worse if those white people happen to have badges and guns. YOU may not be suspicious, so YOU don't see the point in discussing it. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist and the conversation should end. As for why we have the conversation? What are people like Parker doing? They're starting a conversation, a conversation that NEEDS to happen, because at the end of the day, THAT is what is going to change things. Awareness will change things. We live to shit on people for being "slacktivists" because all they do is try to raise awareness on their computers, but what we fail to realize is that IS doing something. Yes, it is something small, and YOU may see it as insignificant, but you ALSO don't notice the Earth spinning or moving around the sun, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. You don't notice the water slowly eroding the rock, all you see is the Grand Canyon and think "wow, that's awesome." It didn't get there overnight. The conversation isn't always pleasant, but that doesn't mean it should stop. That's all the more reason to keep the conversation going. Nothing changes if we ignore it. Keep the conversation going; slowly but surely, generation by generation, things will get better, as long as the conversation keeps going. It won't happen overnight. It will take decades, and maybe longer, but the only way it happens is if the conversation doesn't stop. If we don't shrug and think "fuck it, I can't do anything, so why bother?"
I was not trying to say in my post that racial inequality doesn't exist, but it was a bit of rant, mainly because I do think Ferguson is being way over reported on right now. I literally haven't seen CNN talk about anything else over the last week. That is until they started talking about the New York incident. I was not trying to just ignore American history and pretend there was some do x poof magical solution, so sorry if it came across that way. That being said, I don't see why it's so off base and unreasonable to say it's a good idea to address and talk about issues regarding joining gangs, getting people more interested in education, getting a better distribution of money for funding schools, etc. These are important issues as well and they seem far less discussed. Sure, police brutality and profiling can be pretty awful, (and while I didn't feel this was the case in Ferguson I didn't mean to imply it never happened or it wasn't disproportionate) but as you've said too it's only one small part of the problem. I suppose I'm just more of the mind set that it's better to try to address a little bit of everything at once rather than take a hammer to one issue. The article too, while more focused on racial inequality, at least skated on the idea of personal responsibility. So yeah, I'm white as the pure driven snow. I don't know what it's like to be any minority, much less black, but I do think it's a fair talking point like everything else. And in other areas, while I agree that it's bullshit that blacks get arrested more often when they commit crimes I can only feel so bad for someone when they knowingly break the law and are aware of the consequences. Basically, what Shimmered said. The cases of innocents getting harassed and convictions being forced through the system are a much more important issue to me. I would say grow the fuck up, but I find your terrible jokes slightly less annoying than the self righteous crap you used to post on here.
We just indicted a white county sheriff for shooting an unarmed black man. Y'all need to get your house in order.
I am so torn on whether to say something intelligent and thoughtful, or just make horribly offensive jokes...
Leads to... While Kampf wasn't doing himself any favors by not quoting you directly, in all fairness Nom, your post wasn't exactly screaming "hey everyone let's have a peaceful, intelligent, and completely unbiased and non-judgmental conversation!!!" either. I'm claiming mod brutality. Let's all protest that by refusing to post in the Boobie Thread and the Guns and Ammo Thread. Which hipsters du jour are with me?!?
The best comedy comes from when you combine the horribly offensive jokes with an intelligent thought. Like the "Bill Cosby is a rapist" joke.
I have a problem with seemingly intelligent people who claim they can do nothing to change the system. America is a democratic republic where a few people who get the support of a whole bunch of people get the power. While there is probably little that you can do individually, it is possible to work with other like-minded folks to effect change in a meaningful way. Having said that, I do believe the political system in America has stagnated. The people with the power set up effective institutional barriers to maintain the status quo.