I think we have to distinguish between revisionist history that is an attempt to white wash the egregious or to hijack a historical event for some other purpose, as with people who try to tell others the South left the Union over states rights, with slavery as the issue used on the point, instead of the other way round, and with efforts to revise a false or white washed narrative and replace it with a more accurate picture, as with our initial and subsequent national treatment of Native Americans, or the Japanese.
Hollywood sold a romantic lie to most Americans. It was entertaining. Then historians came along to spoil the fun, over time.
It's a bit different with black people, because there are still systemic problems and generationally created ones that were rooted in inhumane treatment that gave way to marginalization and disenfranchisement from essential rights by law and social fiat AFTER the issue of their humanity was supposed to have been settled.
I think it was more that with some progress in our society having been made, black people began to speak more freely and to demand what was reasonable to demand, to note ongoing wrongs and call for action, which rankled a lot of white society that had treated that progress and the distance of some of the worst conduct by our dominant culture like an inoculation against the disease of societal responsibility.
His point remains. The hijacking of the BLM standard was, for the reasons offered, a pretty clear attempt to dismiss the complaints and to base that dismissal on the misconduct of some within the movement, turning tables as it were. But when you do that, when you turn tables you had better be sure that they speak to the same degree of abuse. And nothing, nothing like that exists, even if some of the anecdotal occurrences are objectionable.
Rather, it was started in outrage and long festering wounds, given a platform/voice by the slow advances made toward enfranchisement within our shared society and, on occasion not to be confused or conflated with the rule, led to some violent acts. Desperate, paranoid people will do that. Then the question should reasonably be, why are so many desperate and paranoid when it comes to authority in this nation and its relation to them?
Sorry Lon, but that doesn't fly and the most obvious rejection of it is the absence of the use prior to BLM, supra.
Happens more than you appear to realize. Google "rioting and looting in the wake of U.S. sporting events."
Actually, he doesn't. In fact, as a former Marine he has great respect for those who serve the public good. His quote seems to me what it is, a clear indictment of elements in the majority who resisted the examination being called for, who side-barred attempts with outraged speeches about how the conversation came to be in the public eye, had attempted to dismiss the genuine by taking a meaningful slogan and attempting to focus the spotlight on something other than what generated the message.
I think if you do the math you'll find the suffering and death in this particular to be comparatively one sided. That most blacks feel strongly about systemic and generational inequity without harboring any wish to see harm inflicted upon the police. I'm equally certain that most policemen don't go about their business fundamentally desiring to perpetuate those inequities.
And I wouldn't advance that point, supra.
But everything to do with what you actually can't change, your color.
And when they go off duty there's nothing about them that will inherently make that or other abuses more likely, unlike the black person.
To be sure, supra.
I think we honor the idea, the sacrifice or willingness to sacrifice that comes with choosing or accepting the role. We don't really know how the individual comported themselves, absent some special notice from the time to commemorate it.
Anecdotes are only good for illustrating rules found by other means. There are studies aplenty on the imbalance within the justice system in relation to blacks, about the disparity in terms of percentages and poverty, etc. A history of law and social pressures that kept blacks from voting, from prospering, even from being particularly well educated for the most part, from living where they would, from dating and marrying whom they would.
In the U.S. the 'rioting' isn't against people, but tends to be vandalism. It isn't like World Cup rioting where fans attack one another on the field.
1) Black lives matter
| The autopsy report, released to the Daily Southtown in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, also revealed that none of the security guard’s clothing that reached the medical examiner’s office had markings that identified him as security. https://www.chicagotribune.com/subu...roberson-isp-investigation-st-0526-story.html |
I didn't compare it to the World Cup. I was underscoring that you have a violent and lawless element that will even attach to celebrations. It isn't indicative of the larger celebration. The same is true for BLM.
The advance by BLM isn't an advance of violence, but a protest against it and the generational inequity that is the experience of too many blacks in America.
You need to consider what you wrote. Races aren't predisposed to violence. Where you find anger and poverty you find, disproportionately, violence. Where you find that coupled with the sort of frustrating inequity I've noted, you'd expect to find more.
Lon, all people aren't experiencing the racially motivated, historical inequity experienced by many black Americans. And in resting on the "all" you do exactly what those who used it mean for you to do.
Time hasn't done enough. We should.
Had you seen the list of demands (now defunct)?
*(whole article articulates well the need for this discussion)
I've a few personal points in this response as well in the thread. I don't want sympathy, just using such for comparisons. I do know what downtrodden feels like.
Read the article above. By color? No. By socialization? Yes, definitely and much from within. We can't take all blame.
What 'worked' for whites, works for all colors. As much as there is dehumanization in any country, including the point of origin, even a poor America is preferred to a poor Haiti and a poor Philippines.
Generations ago doesn't matter. What happened to my grandfather has not a lot to do with me. We just don't live in those kinds of caste systems any longer. An education is better than giving them our houses. They have access to that education. It is important but few parents encourage their children in that regard. Such is different than the BLM movement that asks for your and my house to be turned over as well as for their family members who have been in trouble with the law, having lives that matter. I realize there are cases where such is beyond the pale, but these should be treated one by one. Rodney King, for instance, was appalled at the L.A. rioting and I remember seeing him crying about the lost lives in repercussion.
As I said above, I don't think you realize where I come from. I was born in poverty. I started working when I was 16, almost full-time while attending high school. I made a GPA of 3.2 upon my last semester of high school by God's grace and miracles with that kind of schedule. I realize what downtrodden looks like. There were black kids better off than I was, and more popular in school besides. I don't want sympathy, this isn't the point. I'm trying to make the point that in this country, we can make something of ourselves, even as the underdog. It isn't as bad a picture as you are painting. We have successful business people of all races in this city I live in.
Hence a difference certainly. I'm not sure if we haven't done enough. I agree we can do more, but again, such is about black lives mattering as opposed to "Black Lives Matter" the movement. They need to be treated separately lest you give up your inheritance and your house based on BLM "demands." Is that how far you personally want to go to accomodate? "Well, no, but we can certainly..." They weren't just concerned with loss of life to police incidents, they are concerned about the house you own bought on the backs of their relatives. It is much different than righting a few perceptions. Even you are going to lose the sentiment and tell them they cannot have your house or your savings. Me? Much more. I've worked hard my whole life and have no inheritance. I'll have a small one for my children, Lord willing. We cannot be going so far as to giving away 'the other guy's house' or paycheck. It has to come down to what we can reasonably do and it should be based on not bleeding anybody to do so.
First, it's a movement, not an organization and some guy anywhere isn't the president of BLM. Secondly, looking for an unskewed perspective by going to the Wire is like asking MSNBC to give you the likely winner of the next presidential election. First clue on both issues, working backwards, this is the headline: "Black Lives Matter Leader Pens List of 10 Demands For White People. They're Insane." Second clue, in the opening paragraph, "A Black Lives leader in Louisville, Kentucky..." (see: some guy from a self designated branch from a smallish Southern city).
In the same way an article by some Tea Party member from Jackson, Mississippi on a bad day would be indicative of conservatism.
He's a fine actor, and it's a fine sentiment. MLK, Jr. wanted it, but he also recognized that you don't arrive at that point by ignoring things that need fixing that aren't about being just another American, that are about the impediments to that reality.
Done and addressed, a hack piece picking the voice to let the author and the agency accomplish a low aim. A great illustration of how power structures resist change when the law is no longer a viable instrument. Not worth much more else, unless people didn't realize there are and will be unreasonable people of color as surely as there are unreasonable people wearing pointy sheets on their head.
"We" can't? That's another thing the article is looking to do, push a lot of very different people together in a common opposition and condescension.
I'm not sure what you meant by the "Some?" part, or the first part of the next sentence, because of that. So I'll take it from "love." That I like. But then you go sideways with, "It cannot be forced." Love? No. But change absolutely can be and often has to be (see: the Civil War, the Civil Rights Movement, etc.) but if we make a place at the table familiarity will follow and from that, respect and an understanding of our greater commonality.
You need to flesh that, because what worked for whites was making a comfortable place and foundation at the expense of minorities, who were routinely worked like pack animals while being denied essential human dignity and the right to participate or benefit from their labor except at the margins. Otherwise it's the old "lazy" minority who just needs to do what we did and work harder error, repackaged. What worked for whites was a system designed for bettering their interests first, and discouraging those seeking to push in from outside the group. It's literally why we had to change laws.
You'd expect the stuff that falls off a great table to be better than the crumbs under a poor one.
Race inequity is driven by it, counts on it.
Three or four out of over 600, according to Forbes. So it's possible, if you're exceptional. But most people aren't exceptional. And most blacks in this country are at a comparative disadvantage from their white counterparts. A lot of that is rooted in the things BLM is addressing.
I came from the other end of things, as a child of privilege. My brother took those advantages into serious wealth. I became an intimate of the lives of the poor by working among and for them for years. And I saw the disparate treatment from landlords with poor tenants of color, what businesses and opportunities were present (and weren't) in those overwhelmingly minority enclaves. It was an eye opener.
Of course not, Lon, you're white. Being denied anything because of your color is as much a part of your experience as landing on the moon, in this society.
One of the reasons racism worked so well for so long was that even the poorest white had someone below him on the social ladder. He was always better than that "N." Too often, the dignity of the poor white rested on the assumption. I'm not aiming that at you, only noting how even a thing that should have engendered sympathy among likened groups failed to and why.
I utterly refuse to infuse the cherry picked list of some doofus in Louisville with the dignity and interest of the movement. It's patently unfair and largely illustrative of something else, supra. Else, civil disobedience has a long history of working better at provoking real social change than any alternative.
You're mistaken on just about every point there. It matters if you have a tradition of college in your family. It matters if you come from poverty, if an entire race is grossly, disproportionately poor and without the sort of traditions that promote success. There are books in nearly every room in my house. It was that way for me as a child. They were a part of the fabric of my life, like wholesome meals, reading time with my parents, and expectations of the many choices that awaited me upon maturation. And the numbers, the poverty, the reality of disparate treatment within our society outside of the exceptional margins speaks to more than a whisper of that caste system remaining.
Giving them our is part of the problem, one that article meant to place, a wedge against serious consideration of real concerns raised that weren't even given a glance by it.
Education is certainly part of the answer. But it's only part. You still have to deal with opportunity, with foundations, with what sort of community the kid trying to get that education is going home to.
It doesn't. That's what the author wants you to take away. Some idiot in Kentucky who is enjoying his moment in the spotlight is telling you that and some calculating jackanape is advancing that for a very different reason.
Now stop and consider how effectively you've been sold one side of the equation here. Your inclination is to consider race relations by an incident when people of color did something angry and inappropriate in response to their frustration and subsequently apologized for it...not, say, a lynching of a black man in Alabama thirty years ago. Not the routine, much more common reality of black people being arrested, convicted, and sentenced differently from whites. Not the economic disparity or the recent history of such fundamental discrimination that it had to be met with legal action, civil upheaval, and even violence to be overcome.
I do. And yet even with those disadvantages you think like a white guy, from a background that just didn't have the fundamental understanding a person of color not born into privilege has to incorporate into their thinking, the limitations and dangers that attend it.
It actually is, but you have to jettison your assumptions and stop considering your perspective of poverty to be determining. Get into the larger numbers. Understand what they reflect. It will alter your impression from the anecdotal.
And they're counting on you to feel that way, to hold, just under the surface, the sneaking suspicion that "they" are different than "us" and that "we" have done enough for "those people" who must just not be enough like "us" not care or work hard enough to warrant "our" respect and action.
Again, one guy in Louisville does not a movement make, or even a spokesman of the larger. The ease with which they got you to make that assumption should warn you about that disparity in perception I've spoken to and what it asks for.
What I want is a world that's as close to color blind and fair as we can get it. We aren't there yet. We're not particularly close when you look at how things actually shake out here for people of color. We're not as deeply in the hole as we once were, things are better, but better isn't necessarily good, especially if you're a child of color born looking toward the future.
Yet it IS the Black Lives Matter website. The movement was grassroots, but I heard these demands echoed on FB, Twitter, etc. The embrace is/was larger than I think you are acquiescing here.
Media may or may not be a better indicator, but as I said, FB and Twitter can't really make it up. It was the sentiment carried by the movement beyond the grassroots. It became, whether you want it to or not (has no bearing for either of us). Rather all I CAN do is watch, read, and understand what I'm reading. All of it.
They/us is part of the language of separation and will continue to 'separate.' I'm not, and never have been a demonstrator at heart. They are reactionary and emotional and I'm ever trying to not be reactionary nor emotional when making very important decisions.
No, in fact, 'they' is the language of separation that is being addressed in the first place. I do Morgan Freeman's point is not at all to downplay black tragedy, BUT to make it an American concern, not a black or white concern. While I do indeed recognize racists in the world, we can't paint the world with that brush. I believe you are 'white'washing here a bit.
I disagree. It was talking simply about the difference between 'blunt' and precision. It 'seems' you are on board the demonstrations/protests idea. I really am opposed to 'angst' marches. It is just emoting without direction. Appropriate? When it comes to national interests and policies we disagree. You see Affirmative Action as doing good. I see the reprecussions of it doing damage. Teachers tried doing similar strong-arming in school to stop bullying. The bullies just did it when it was more convenient behind their backs, and were more brutal. I never figured out a different way, but all the actions didn't really work. Many believe Affirmative Action hasn't worked either. I truly believe what is done in the name of humanity outside of the courts, has much further reaching effect. Hearts have to change. We simply have to become compassionate to all, as Christians. Then, when we see a brother and sister in greater need, we can meet that need.
When Black Lives Matter was in the news, I remember most, the mother who dragged her son off the streets from rioting (demonstrating). As I said, unless it is organized well and lawfully, I'm not a fan of demonstrations otherwise.
It is just as racial for you to say so here. We must talk about the elephant in the room which IS "Black" lives. I am not black. I will never be black. The question is again: is this by God's design? The difference? I believe it is, and that's why Christianity is the only thing that does reach beyond divides. What unites us isn't that we are all the same. What unites us is anything that is the same, amidst diversity. I've no trouble talking about our differences or our mutuality. It is one of the most important talking points for anything race related in conversation. There is no down-talking on my part, however you have conceived it.
Your angst is showing. It was a piece that specifically keyed in on the violent part of the movement 'where a careful surgical instrument is needed.' In effect, you are defending a beating rather than an operation by this, Town. I hope you see that.
"We" the police. "We" whites. "We" privileged. There were demands. Can you guess 'who' the 'we' were? I didn't start this movement. I'm reacting to it because I 'think' I'm part of the 'we' it was addressed to. If you want to call that condescending I've a long way to go to helping you empathize with the 'rest of us.'
ONLY by fear of reprisal. Scripture says that lawbreakers fear law. It is kind of like our child-rearing discussion and in this case, you are the advocate for the spanker who can only accomplish a goal through bludgeoning means. That doesn't seem like the Dream MLK died for to me. There was and is a need, but "MORE affirmative action" isn't necessarily the best answer. The school was able to keep tabs on some bullying, but in the end, the bullying was worse, not better. There are indeed, better ways to stop a bully.
There is a guy I see every day who has done quite well by working hard. He's bought several apartments and takes good care of them. On top of that, he's a really nice guy and cares about his tenants. Does it matter what color he is?
Again, my attention for sure. The landlord is richer than I am.
Again, (and I realize this is important for posterity of the thread), there is a difference between civil and violence. There is a difference between Black Lives Matter and black lives mattering. It is every important to understand, as with the article, what the problem actually is: A baseball bat vs. a peaceable movement.
I've seen this too.
Nope. I was denied access to a church in Texas 'because' I was white. I understood the problem very well. They were afraid for their families and asked me to go. Why? My color. I realize there are differences here, I'm trying to say, however, that I do know what it is like (and several times more) to be the minority color. Enough to empathize? Neither you nor I can qualify that. It is simply our best approximations, but I'd never felt more 'with' colored people than when they asked me to leave their church. There is a difference between their lives, and "Black Lives Matter" the demonstrations.
Agreed. I have seen this too, but yet again, a difference between the plight and the retribution movement.
The movement isn't/wasn't like Martin Luther King's, by comparison. Its angst caused harm.
As I said, it seems quite different here in the North West. In the projects are blacks and whites (and hispanics, etc.).
30 years ago? In 1990? We just have had nothing like that here. I did see there was one in 1981. I remember that now that you've brought it up. It is quite possible we just are too far away from you to understand some of this, but I yet believe the violent way is not the way to get the rest of our attention, especially if we are so far removed that it is a whole other world. We just really don't see these kinds of things here up North. Some? Yes, we still have a disproportionate inmate representation, but I believe it has improved. We still get a lot of people from everywhere else that simply continue criminal activity so I'm not sure how many incarcerated are indigenous Washingtonians.
I'm not sure you, a white guy, has that ability to assess. Not being mean, I'm just seeing 'location' as a bigger problem between what we are experiencing. If I'm 'white' and think 'white' then you've already made the separation in your own mind.
No, I believe your education for me about the difference from your state and mine, but again, I believe you over-assert from your myopic view as well. I, at least, think I can see mine and can realize somethings are quite different. As I said, I'm listening, but for now it looks like a one-way street, especially in light of your reaction to that article.
Again, how far? My relatives likely were not here during the Civil War. My grandfather is French and came with his family through Canada over one generation. How much of 'me' to 'you' want to place with 'them?' :think: How much do "I" owe? Is it just something I inherit from becoming American?
As I said, I'm listening on this note. It does indeed seem that it is not better where you live. It truly is, here. Does it mean its perfect? No.
The website is still up. The 'ease' as I said, was repetition on Facebook, Twitter, etc. One guy told a white girl she needed to give him her house. However isolated you want this to be, it wasn't. Such was represented, at least up here, in the news.
1) No problem believing you nor being on page BUT it isn't this I've been talking about all along. Rather, it is a specific 'movement' that started with a lot of angst and as I said led to deaths, even up here in the NW where a man from the South decided to take out his frustration on blue lives, regardless if they even ever arrested a person of color in their lives. He just took his anger at Southern cops out up here. 2) I'm talking about specifically (and for the most part, only) this movement and nothing of the greater disparity. I can and do separate these in my mind, especially in this particular thread. 3) If I can, I do hope reporting conditions here in the NW does encourage you. Shoot, send us as many as want to come. I think Amazon is hiring another 300k. The transit in Tacoma and Seattle is hiring again at almost $30 an hour.
My slam would be that I think you have it backwards, that exposure to a thing widens your perspective, takes it out of the realm of ideas and into experience relating to those ideas.
It's Louisville. It's a guy. It's selected for a reason, just as much larger, more representative demographics were ignored. You want to show the South one way, you don't interview the mayor after a tornado, you interview the woman whose trailer just blew down the street.
More than half the memes I see on FB are out and out lies, easily fact checked. Few appear to care or bother with that.
I'm fine with emotion, so long as reason rules it. Most things worth fighting for are things we care deeply about.
No should be followed by a rebuttal on the actual point though, Lon. Here it is again:
When did we talk about Affirmative Action? I think making a hole to let the new kid in is a good idea. I think helping to establish traditions is a great idea. I'm not sure AA is the best way to go about that. Maybe, all things being equal, we should create and fund a few extra seats at the table. Not to exclude but to include. So it depends on how you go about it.
I agree that the real work of changing hearts and minds is done where the rubber meets the road, but what facilitates that frequently begins in a courtroom or with a march, where a nation largely underexposed to an evil sees kids and unarmed men and women sprayed with fire hoses and meanaced with dogs for peaceful protest. That's powerful optics. That connects people to the pain and injustice in a palpable way.
I think we're trained to expect and to look for things. It's like some of the language I've noted here.
To say what? I haven't claimed races are predisposed to violence. I think it's a deeply ingrained and mistaken notion. So much so that good men and women, like you, will buy into it on some level without meaning to.
I'm tall. Should that define more than my height? What unites us is the larger part of who we our, unless we let something smaller get in its way.
It's a focus. And the focus is negative. It's like Louisville, except you aren't really trying to harm a group, you're just reflecting something institutional. Whoever wrote the attack piece you offered was doing something different. They got a crackpot from Kentucky and dressed him up like the president of the movement. They could have gotten a Harvard professor to respond to the actual movement. They could have represented a much larger and wider approach. Guess why they didn't do that.
By a guy from Louisville. Otherwise, and beyond that distortion, the demand is for justice, fairness, to break a cycle of institutionalized disparity. That's a good thing.
You'll have to quote me doing that, Lon. Where was it?
I disagree. It's like the guy I quoted to start a lot of this going. He was one way before he entered the Marines and found brothers in arms who were actually brothers in arms, and another after going to war with them, being exposed to their narratives. Protest is one excellent way of beginning that exposure.
King led protests. And not all laws are just. I'm not sure why you keep hammering at AA, which I have mixed feelings about and a different approach to than what we saw when it was being attempted. And trying to address bullying should never make it worse. If it does, you're doing it wrong.
I agree with the first part. But why would you compare this movement with being punched? I'd say for many it's more like being confronted with truths that have been swept under the rug, with half-truths that have become founding principles for systematic error. That sort of thing.
The article is an orchestrated attempt to demean and dismiss by rhetorical slight of hand and misfocus. It's well done, as that thing goes, but it isn't much else.
It depends. What's the point of noting him?
It really doesn't. Maybe your perception filter isn't taking in the larger sweep of things or maybe you just chose an exceptional neighborhood.
I'd say it's the mistaken notion that the movement is this criminal tainted thing, instead of recognizing that wherever you see struggle and power you will find an element of violence attending. Heck, even where all you see is a lot of people and a unifying idea you can get that (see: riots after championships).
Not much of a church then. But you equate that with a lifetime of invisible (and not so) barriers and attitudes among the dominant culture? It's a shadow, Lon. You haven't begun to feel it. It's like this time I went to see Malcom X in Tuscaloosa with my then girlfriend and now wife. We were the only white faces in a packed theater. The opening shots of gleeful lynchings, etc. had me aware of a thrum of hostility in the air, understandable, and aimed at my race. It made me nervous about what someone might do, how they would see me simply because of my color. I related this to a friend of mine, a black lawyer, and he laughed and said, "Welcome to every day of my childhood, when I left the neighborhood."
You mean when a few black people asked you. They weren't elected to represent anyone. I'm betting they didn't approach the rule. I can only say from my anecdotal experience I never saw much of that among the poor, who were disproportionately but not singularly black.
I think you're wrong there, need to go back and review how King's marches were seen by the nation for quite a while.
It may be that you're living in a skewed environment, representationally speaking. There's a reason why the movement is all over the nation though. Because the reality writ large is a different one.
Sorry, 40ish.
California isn't in the South, and the race riots of Harlem weren't either. It's mostly that some of the worst overt racism was practiced here, but the institution was and is much more widely spread.
You may not see them but they're there. Which is why the movement is too. Geography is no more a cause of racism than color is a meaningful separation of human beings.
I don't know what that has to do with the existence of systematic exclusion across generations. It doesn't mitigate any of its impact.
It's not about some bill coming due for past actions, Lon. It's about changing the things that continue the effects of it that continue the cycle of disenfranchisement in our day far too often.
Actually it's pretty great along the coast. But you go north and toward the heavier concentration of population centers and it's a lot like it is in Detroit, or Chicago, or LA.
I'm sure there are all sorts of stupid people in just about any movement. But should we present them as the rule? And when we do it says something about our aim.
You've really got to get your head out of this north/south nonsense. It's just not where that's at.
Because the immediate aftermath of Black Lives Matter wasn't 'just a guy in Louisville.' It was a campus here in WA state of all places, not only bullying, but physically removing whites from campus. It was four police officers who have nothing to do with Southern police actions, losing their lives. It was looting businesses of even Blacks and burning down gas stations. It was nationwide news that one man told twittered whites to give up their homes. The movement was overshadowed with this in the news. It doesn't and will not carry well for the cause of black lives.
If so, I'm naive of it, for it echoed my concerns, that I believe were justified for the damage of the movement. It is very much like trying to listen to a guy who just gut-punched you. I have friends and relatives who are cops and firemen.
It might matter where you are from? It doesn't here, except maybe to encourage you. Would you think perhaps (I've no idea) some of this needs to be taken care of state by state, or does it need national attention?
It really is better here. Perhaps you've not heard me say so, but I hear this often enough in Washington. They tell me it is genuinely better here. You are a white guy, like me. I don't believe you can ignore this.
The news stations didn't help. It is all that was seen in the news, the violent repercussions for about 2 months. The movement? The news gave incidents of men in trouble with the law on multiple counts being shot. One unarmed. Another with a remote that was absolutely terrible, but then two months of taking a bunch of televisions or the like, similar to the LA riots. I'm not sure how taking televisions from someone having nothing to do with events, is a 'good' or appropriate movement. It didn't amount to anything good up here. Maybe in the South? :idunno:
You don't 'get' to say. You get to hear and perhaps listen. I didn't solicite these responses. They just tell me, when I'm being kind, that there is a difference here. Is it just me? Just my mom? I don't know, especially as there is no asking for such comparisons. I believe you are incorrect and wrong on this point. I have no other information in order to think differently.
It's a huge movement. Using a yahoo from Kentucky (again, instead of anyone from a much larger segment of the movement, instead of a guy who uses second tier grammar to make his points, such as they are) and an incident of exclusion or violence to frame the discourse is a huge mistake. It's buying into the message of that article.
It played to your bias filter. It was aimed to. They picked a guy with an opinion that was at the margin, guaranteed to inflame. They picked a voice that came across as feeling entitled, hostile, and not particularly intelligent. None of that was by accident, Lon. The movement isn't about doing damage, and I'm sure there are policemen who feel wrongly in the crosshairs of a measure of hostility, just as I suspect there are some who understand the difference between someone looking for a chance to do something they shouldn't, and those who are looking to see a change in those historic and ongoing inequities.
It's possible. I've read articles indicating racism is more concentrated in the Northeast and South than in other areas. But there's enough of it everywhere else for that to be, at best, a really thin virtue.
They never do. If you lived in some sections of the country your exposure to black people is nominal. Imagine if most of what you knew about any of that was what you saw on the news, where reporting is almost exclusively surrounding negative events. Well, for most Americans their exposure to around 10% of the total population is pretty darn nominal. More so outside of the South and concentrations of blacks in northern and other cities. The hinterlands? Largely disconnected.
I spent years working among the poor and seeing the impact of the laws and traditions those laws established in those communities, dealt with the frequently aggressive and negative reception minorities received and noted the difference, often dramatic, between the poor white and poor minority members when met by the majority. It left an impression.
Yeah, Lon. And worse. Here's another link to an article on it. From that:
The Malcom X thing mostly reflects my interest in film, and Denzel Washington. I'd like to think all men and women of conscience are activists when it comes to issues of equity and equality before the law. You, me, and the horses we ride in on.
I don't know about living among people, but I know I spent a large part of my life working for them, among them, and against the forces I'm speaking to. And according to the Harvard test, I'm as comfortable among the other as I am among the familiar. As for best friends, I've never had them. Don't believe in it. I have a number of friends I'd go to if called and help as I could. Some are white, some aren't. I'm sure it's true for you and may be true for many, but I think you have an idealized view of your surroundings. Ask the BLM chapter in Vancouver, Washington about it, or Portland Oregon. They might provide a different window to look through.
It was. Shocking. According to the Tuskegee Institute, 3,442 black people were lynched between the end of the Civil War and 1968. Seventy-three percent of those happened in the South. The rest were found from California to New York.
Let me help you with that.
If you grew up in Chicago you might feel differently. If you grew up in Montgomery, you might feel differently. And it can depend on when you were in a place. The South I grew up in is a radically different place than the one I move through now though the systemic problems are here as well.
The BLM isn't asking you to do that. The idiot from Kentucky and a few who like the idea are asking you to. And they're the ones certain people want you to see as the rule. They aren't, which is why those people had to find an outlier, instead of asking the larger and more particular representatives of the movement.
It's one issue important to the movement, but there's a lot that's wrong with the relation of the criminal justice system and people of color.
And I answer that BLM hasn't taken anyone's property, that the same sort of blame and marginalization attended the Civil Rights Movement. It was wrong and willfully oversimplified then and it still is. And I'd answer that exclusion isn't the stated aim of the movement, even if there have been incidents of it among people identifying with it.
The sensational will often be repeated by people who have a need for it to make a mischaracterizing point. And so far as it has been demonstrated, it really was a guy in Kentucky, and those willing to repeat it to an audience they mean to influence.
To what end? The second person under CA said it was the only state where he'd been called the N word to his face. The first person said CA was the best. What's the methodological approach that validates the purported conclusion supported by a somewhat contradictory sampling of anecdotes?
In humility, I left it and am going to hit the hay. -Lon
Okay, I've read a bit. As you probably realize, the same "BLM" that is in Vancouver WA is the very same "BLM" website (different area) that gave a list of demands. I think you want "BLM" to be the same as black lives mattering and they just are not. We saw the rioting. We saw the televisions being carried home. I have to ask: "What bias?" :idunno: Am I to believe my own eyes or not? Why is your version 'the only version?' We had angry black kids who in WA who ousted their white classmates and teachers.
No, it doesn't surprise. The one based in Vancouver, WA is 5 minutes from Portland, OR. If you read their stance, it is more of a solidarity statement and stance. Even they would say there is little racial tension, even though Vancouver is a bit closer to being rural than Seattle/Tacoma. Not really arguing here, just giving feedback. I do have some contention with some of the articles quoted, but for the most part, not a lot of argument, but rather perspective.
True of most all of us. Traveling doesn't count. You'd have to have moved around a lot to have any kind of exposure so there are few of 'us' white or black.
I lived in Texas, so I'm aware of the difference in populations. You are correct that there are fewer blacks here. I'm not sure that it significantly affects anything. One is 8% another state is 13% etc.
Did you read the comments from those minorities from Washington? A VERY few say there is racism here. The great majority of the comments says "not here." It should have been an eye-opener for you. Does it really affect much of our conversation? No, just that we disagree on this particular point (Washington was the 6th down).
Even those kids who marched upon Evergreen and demanded all whites leave. However, again read the comments in the link I gave you. Out of 30, there is ONE(1) comment and doesn't mention anything in particular. Am I discounting the one? Not at all. We haven't had rioting and taking television sets. Not really needing to argue these points, but a do think another's perspective is important.I spent years working among the poor and seeing the impact of the laws and traditions those laws established in those communities, dealt with the frequently aggressive and negative reception minorities received and noted the difference, often dramatic, between the poor white and poor minority members when met by the majority. It left an impression.
It's an impression that is supported in those studies I've generally mentioned. Google race and renting and/or race and job applications. If you sound white, or have a white name, life is much easier when it comes to both. Here's an article on one of those by link.
From the article, "Job applicants with white names needed to send about 10 resumes to get one callback; those with African-American names needed to send around 15 resumes to get one callback."
That's a 50% advantage for the white applicant.
Here's one about the response to something as superficial as a name that is indicative of being black (link).
Yeah, Lon. And worse. Here's another link to an article on it. From that:
"Any American of a certain age remembers the race-related riots that tore through U. S. numerous cities in the 1960s. Between 1964 and 1971, civil disturbances (as many as 700, by one count) resulted in large numbers of injuries, deaths, and arrests, as well as considerable property damage, concentrated in predominantly black areas...The most deadly riots were in Detroit (1967), Los Angeles (1965), and Newark (1967). Measuring riot severity by also including arrests, injuries, and arson adds Washington (1968) to that list. Particularly following the death of Martin Luther King in April 1968, the riots signaled the end of the carefully orchestrated, non-violent demonstrations of the early Civil Rights Movement."
King and people involved in the movement were called agitators and worse. Here's a bit from an article on King and how the movement in protest was received that will sound familiar to you:
In August 1966, less than two years before King was gunned down, when a Gallup Poll asked Americans for their opinion of King, 63 percent of Americans had an unfavorable opinion of the civil rights icon. In a Harris Poll that same year, 95 percent of African-American respondents gave King a favorable rating.
In that same Harris Poll, 54 percent of whites said that they would not march or protest if they “were in the same position as Negroes,” and two months later, in October 1966, 85 percent of whites said that civil rights demonstrations hurt Negroes more than they helped. By December, many whites had changed their minds, but 50 percent told Harris pollsters that Martin Luther King Jr. hurt “the Negro cause of civil rights.”
The acceptance of King and his elevation came after his assassination and after people had started to see what the actual changes in law and approach would accomplish, instead of what fear mongers were spreading. There's always been a resistance in the dominant, white culture when it comes to minorities and protest. And it's almost always completely self-serving horsefeathers.
The Malcom X thing mostly reflects my interest in film, and Denzel Washington. I'd like to think all men and women of conscience are activists when it comes to issues of equity and equality before the law. You, me, and the horses we ride in on.
I'm sure it's true for you and may be true for many, but I think you have an idealized view of your surroundings. Ask the BLM chapter in Vancouver, Washington about it, or Portland Oregon. They might provide a different window to look through.
Again, we do have imports. It is not really part of the population here. Do we have neo-Nazi's? Yes. Many? No. We are talking about racial crimes at this point. There are crimes against whites either because or in retaliation. I don't believe these best represent talking points.
James Earl Jones called reverse prejudism: "Racialism." He found Georgia's straight up prejudice 'refreshing????' The better part of the piece was talking about 'priveleged' whites were clueless to racism that mostly have to do with out of state problems. That part is true and I certainly own it BUT it is still the hope that none in my community are part of the problem. The think and drink was set up to help whites understand the plight of race, and that's great, but they left frustrated because they couldn't get them to understand? At least they were willing and wanting to listen.
Anything in light of American terrorism is a different animal. We are also talking about a much larger concern in our population, that of diverse skin color. While WA has less of one particular group, it has more of another and we recognize that Japanese, for instance, were not treated fairly during WW2.
I'm on board on this point, I only want you to realize that articles like found in the Federalist has something important to say. Our conversation began with your Marine friend's quote that said any kind of 'all lives' minimized or marginalized. That was not at all the goal. The goal was to voice concerns. Even the girl's article that you don't like, didn't dismiss the movement but said it was using brutality, which is the wrong way to get anyone to come to your side (again, like a punch in the nose). Nobody wants to join a movement where they are shooting cops and stealing television sets. A movement that actually is aimed at dignity of human life? Yeah. Maybe we need YOU to help start THAT movement. It may simmer down to the BLM movement, but 'messy' is a difficult movement to join.
Yes. I didn't mean that. The sixth one down was WA (we were talking about specifically WA in context). You'll find very little there that will support racism other than the one out of 30 who simply said "there is racism here" without qualification. I'd simply say "yep, and racialism as well, but not a whole lot of it."
Same thing happened during the Civil Rights Movement, if you read what I set out. Are you suggesting that was the message and meaning of the Civil Rights Movement?
Because you're speaking to exception and I'm speaking about the rule. What you're doing is as mistaken as confusing Islam with ISIS because you heard a radical cleric and saw some video of what ISIS was doing.
Okay, and? You have anything like a reason to believe that's the norm? Because I haven't heard or read about it as a common methodology.
When they do that you should publish it. Doesn't match what I found without any particular difficulty and linked to.
It's the difference between theory and practice. In Alabama it's 25% and higher in the northern part of my county, where we live. I think exposure, experience helps.
You mean very few of the number chosen by who knows what means? People who lived where for how long in what period of time? That sort of thing. Without backing methodology to support the claim it's just anecdotal white noise, so to speak.
Two of the nine were from Washington. And that commemoration is in Washington too.
In order, I know. How many?
I think they illustrate the point that Washington has more going on than coffee shops and racial harmony.
In the sense that he prefered to know who the enemy was, the obvious, yes. I'm sure you wouldn't read him to mean he liked either.
American terrorism?
Why is that a concern?
Sure. Any other history of racial problems with Asians? Because that's a slightly wider net.
What part, when and for how long? More, what did you glean from the experience?
I think it's important to recognize that the number bears no demonstrable relationship with anything we can put a value on, because we have no idea how representative any of the chosen voices is in relation to the population there.
A riot, a few blacks who hate whites. You met any whites who feel that way about blacks? I gave you a bit of violence from that side of it. There's more, if you want it.
That explains why you place value in random claims, but it's not actually reason to believe it.
Of course it was, for the reasons offered.
She needs to learn how to distinguish between a movement that uses brutality, like the nazis, and any large movement where you find violence at the fringe.
Or maybe you need to distinguish between the rule and the exception, between the aim and how some choose to ignore it. Otherwise, you advance the same methodology that a guy pointing at a black guy arrested for something who says, "See how they are?" is.
How much do you need?
I'd suggest, as evidenced everywhere, we are stuck with it. Again, I said 'some.' A minimum? Much better. Anecdotal doesn't matter. You'd need to visit here and interview here. You said 30 black voices were white noise (didn't matter). That guy was you. You simply cannot believe a BLM of statements, then dismiss a different 30. Let's cut to the chase: It really doesn't matter if Seattle area is doing better. All it really does is makes a hurdle, like the quote I gave from your article. What does it mean? It means simply that there is frustration because, correctly, we don't as a huge population, get it. Why? Because your experiences are far far away. Now, having said that, I've said and repeatedly that I understand at least a bit, because I lived in Detroit and I lived in Texas. Mom was the kind of person who truly is colorblind. It makes a huge difference in how it affects my perception. Further? It really doesn't care about racism or racialism. It cares about people, one at a time (naive of course, because I believe you correct their is a larger problem).
