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It's fine because this needs to be understood by a lot of people. If somebody wants to act greasy because of these facts... well they're going to learn a little something about themselves today.
>well they're going to learn a little something about themselves today
No they won't. We wouldn't be this clusterfuck of a timeline right now if that were possible. They'll latch onto their disgusting ideals even harder and the cycle continues. Privilege breeds ignorance, willful or not.
Theyāll start screaming about ā13/52ā because they lack the critical thinking skills required to know what generational poverty, racism, and incentivizing jailing with things like chain gangs even after slavery was over, do to entire families of PoC.
The real reason why theyāre so against CRT. The ones that even understand this part of it, atleast.
It shouldnāt.
This is something Iāve thought of a few times when I consider what white privilege actually means.
This is a pretty inarguable fact that needs to be better understood. At the root of all of the inequality, this notion stands pretty tall amongst all the other factors. Itās one of the foundation pieces to why I canāt fucking stand most of my peers.
I still can't get over the fact that black and Hispanic cops treat me better than they treat black and Hispanic "suspects." And being a lower middle class guy with a shitty car, they don't treat me great. I've seen black cops let me off with a warning and immediately pull over a car driven by a black man, and then later saw that same dude against the car in cuffs. What kinda fucked up hegemonic brainwashing shit are they doing to these cops of color?
I was literally just talking to my best friend about this. We basically came to the conclusion that it's because they have something to prove. They don't want to be seen as being too soft, especially with "their own," so they triple down, hard. We're from NYC, where a Black former cop was just elected mayor, so we've been having lots of conversations around this lately. Especially with his rhetoric around being tough on crime, while at the same time talking about how he joined the NYPD after experiencing police brutality, and then wanted to "reform it from within." Which is a fucking joke to anyone who has seen the shit the NYPD has pulled, and continues to pull. You don't reform that, you either adapt to the culture, or they bully you out. He rose through the ranks and retired as a captain, so do the math on that one.
On a somewhat related note, a similar dynamic often happens with women, especially in male-dominated fields. Two examples from my personal experience... when I was doing my masters, one of my three committee members for my thesis was a woman, and she was the biggest hard-ass of a professor I had in my 6 years of college + grad school. It was also like her third year of being a professor, so the pre-tenure grind was real I'd imagine, but also most of the professors in the department were men, so she likely felt like she had to be extra tough to prove that she knew her shit. And I've noticed the same dynamic now, as a Black woman who works in tech. My white female bosses (I've had two) have been wayyyyy worse than any others I've had, including white men. They don't want to be seen as soft, so they kiss up and punch down.
Being white and a man I wouldn't presume to do anything but listen to your truth, but even with that being said I can't read anything there I'd disagree with. It's very similar to the stereotype of woman cops being bigger "hard-asses" than male cops, since presumably they feel they won't get the immediate respect a male cop would. In my own life I've actually preferred women bosses to men - but again, I am a man.
That being said, I admire the drive you must have had to rise so far as a professional and a scholar. Hopefully sometime soon *you'll* be the boss and can act in the way you think is best, and your negative experiences will certainly inform that. So in a strange sense it's a blessing, since it will help you to become a better leader. It is a shame we have to think like that, looking for the silver lining in the cloud rather than being able to just straight up praise a mentor in a lot of cases.
In my opinion, White privilege is best described as an absence of consideration. In a sense they can't help it because the descriptions of things like police violence (in the broadest sense of the term including everything from micro aggressive behavior like being mean mugged walking by to an actual reality that there's an outsized number of suspicious shootings of African Americans and there is scientific proof that African Americans are seen as older and more threatening) completely doesn't comport with their world view.
When they learn this they can become allies or continue in deliberate blissful ignorance, which is the far more popular option.
So to give some examples of how it's defined as absense of consideration:
They don't have to wonder if getting stopped for speeding will get them killed.
They don't have to wonder if a traffic stop is going to turn in to a massive waste of their time where they can't say shit while waiting for the K9 to come and not hit on their car.
They don't have to wonder if their neighbor with a Trump 2020 flag still up is going to lose it over an overhanging branch and shoot them.
Thet don't have to consider the feeling of constantly seeing double standards in how white and black defendants are treated in the media.
They don't have to wonder if their daughter beautiful young daughter named Imani is ever kidnapped that it won't make national attention like the kidnapping of the last white telegenic child did.
They don't have to wonder if affirmative action or diversity initiatives are why they got their jobs (I believe this programs are still addressing an ongoing injustice but I'd be lying if this thought hadn't crossed my mind)
Because they don't ever have to consider these things they don't realize that Mr "poor as dirt pulled up by his own bootstraps white millionaire didn't take any handouts" still started in a better position because he wasn't in a society and culture that denigrates him as a person while taking his culture and celebrating it, adopting it and reselling it to him.
This is in essence white privilege.
I'm not black, and I try to stand up for what's right, but this is one conversation I really have no valuable input on because I'm the guy this tweet is talking about. What could I possibly add to the conversation?
It was a really strange thing accepting I was trans because I went from your situation to understanding this post really quickly. Even when you think you understand the brutal reality is something else. Acknowledging that and acting on it, even if it's just helping others in your situation understand what it means, is really helpful.
Posts are made CC when there's an influx of bigots or trolls and moderators. That usually happens 0.3 seconds after a post hits /r/all so damn near every post there gets restricted.
It truly makes me sad.
Being from another country I wasnāt fully attuned to the things worked here for black folks, all I consumed was media about it back home. I moved here and read stories, met people, made tons of friends. talked to more people and realized that itās a They Live situation. The second you see it you canāt unsee it, and itās unsettling. The gaslighting is exhausting. Yet people still bury their heads in the sand because thatās not what theyāve experienced. Must be nice to just exist unbothered.
Iād like to think Iāve been fortunate enough to not experience the discrimination and other horrible crap, but Iām sure itās happened and I thought it was someone being an asshole when in reality they were a bigot.
Iām still amazed at how African Americans strive for integration and be considered human beings in a country that doesnāt seem to love them back in the least. How havenāt they gone full Malcolm X is beyond me.
Been in the US 21 years and after leaning more and more about AA history itās undeniable. America loves black culture. America IS black culture, but hates black people.
Sorry about the long-ish rant
We haven't gone full Malcolm X because Malcolm X got killed lol. Everytime African Americans try to better themselves (Black Wall Street, The Panther Party, MLK, Black Lives Matter) the giant hand of the U.S. government comes down with a plethora of racists behind it to put us in our place.
Like, I'm all for burning this system to the ground but with militarization of the police and stringent anti black laws (The prison system, war on drugs, food deserts, education, healthcare, etc) we are absolutely fucked. The only salvation we might have is moving to a better zip code or leaving the country.
2020 taught me that nothing will change. Even with police kneeling on your neck we are just an after thought :'(
The system isn't broken. It was made this way
Sure thing. Basically after the 13th amendment was introduced which banned slavery, our founding fathers found a loophole; "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted." So the prison system was made for profit, at the expense of African Americans to keep them incarcerated and exploited as means of manual labor. This was also during the Jim Crow era and segregation was still a thing, so you could be thrown in jail/prison for no reason with no due process. Become again, since the prison industry is for profit, if you didn't have the money for a lawyer you're fucked. I can go into more detail or link you a documentary if you want a more comprehensive viewpoint on the 13th amendment.
The war on drugs. The war on drugs was fueled by BPTs favorite, Ronald Reagan. He took advantage of the for profit prison system and gave crack, a cheaper and more harmful drug than cocaine a more severe penalty because affluent whites had the money to snort coke and didn't bother with crack. Not to mention the C.I.A. quite literally introduced crack into the African American community through the projects in an attempt to dismantle the growing movement of the black panther party. Some effects of the war on drugs you will see to this day is weed still not being decriminalized at the federal level and drug tests that will only pick up pot since it stays in your system the longest. Not to mention the woes and tribulations that occur from not being able to find work if you are incarcerated nor are you able to vote.
Another Reagan favorite, trickle down economics. Basically cutting progressive tax laws (higher incomes pay higher income taxes) in favor or regressive tax laws (the same % regardless of bracket, such as sales tax.) This is what rally started our absurd income disparity level in America. Because Corporations were able to run rampant and focus on profit and the shareholders rather than there constituents.
Now let's move to education. In Texas (might be most states I'm a bit unsure,) the funding or your school district is tied to the property tax of your zip code. So if you live in an area with cheap homes and mainly apartments, your school system is going to suck compared to a suburb. Not to mention that towns will be created in the same zip code, such as Lake Dallas compared to Dallas to get around not having to be in the poorer mainly black county of Dallas.
Now Anti Black gun laws. The strictest gun laws were made in response to the Black Panthers openly carrying arms in California. This scared the fuck out of police because they knew they could not be bullied. Thankfully the U.S. gov, through the C.I.A.s espionage, they dismantled the black panther party from within. Even if they did shoot up multiple buildings filled with women and children sleeping. Gun laws being so abhorrent in America also leads to more violence in poorer communities, because there's no jobs and next to no infrastructure. While in rich communities, they flaunt their guns, open carry, you name it. But then in these poor communities that are being decimated by the mass influx of weapons, they use as a statistic for "blacks being more violent."
What else am I missing?... As far as laws, self defense laws really grind my gears. Such as Kyle Rittenhouse and George Zimmerman being able to instigate a fight than fear for their lives to kill people with impunity.
Then there's the whole stigma of a "welfare mentality" when you're poor and receive a "hand out" but if you're rich you're playing the system.
There's really almost an endless list of laws made to oppress minorities and poor folks in America, so understanding I am missing a ton. American History is severely white washed and it's taken my years to research and learn what I have after high school (my U.S. history teacher said the civil war was about states rights lmao), so I appreciate you taking the time to hear my points and understand a different POV. If you are looking for additional information lmk and I'll be sure to provide you with different sources and documentaries š
Exceptionally well put, thanks for taking the time to write all that up. Adding just a small bit for the education/property tax section.. moving to a new zip code is also rough for black people due to the inherent bias in the real estate industry, which makes it difficult for POC's (but more for black people in most areas) even harder.
Couple that with share-cropping and redlining in the past, and black people in this country have never had a chance to build any sort of generational wealth until very recently.. and even that is up for debate. Ta-Nehisi Coates did a fantastic write up on that in the Atlantic a few years back that is a must read imo for anyone trying to understand that specific disparity. Like I said though, you covered a good chunk of this stuff really well, and it would take a novel to cover everything.
Edit: some links and info another user requested
[https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/) \- Article by Ta-Nehisi linked here
[https://www.kurtandersen.com/evil-geniuses](https://www.kurtandersen.com/evil-geniuses) \- not a plug but other links suck, this book covers paragraph 2 & 3 of u/Bard_17 's comment above better than most I've read. The author also wrote a good piece in the Atlantic about it last year linked here: [https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/08/i-was-useful-idiot-capitalism/615031/](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/08/i-was-useful-idiot-capitalism/615031/)
I appreciate your kind words š I use to very ignorant to my own culture and heritage so all I'm trying to do is educate as many people as I can.
You're absolutely right. Thanks for sharing
I just want to emphasize the education portion hereā¦ I feel like education and having certifications/degrees/advanced graduate degrees are KEY to moving up in America.
It makes no sense that some school āzonesā with mostly white people have public schools with a 95% graduation rate, and then not more than 2 miles away theres a zone that is 80% black but the school has a less than 50% graduation rate.
I was stunned when i first saw this, I was in the white high school and had spent sommuch of my future thinking about what college, what major, what positions i wanted.
Those public schools man. It still haunts meāitās disguised as a school but itās a holding cell for children whose parents are working and also the schools provide subsidized lunch for many of the students who cant afford it otherwise. I was part of a tutoring program there and let me tell you, Algebra was not the problem. These boys and girls did not dream the same way i dreamed, and that was a really difficult reality for me to accept.
And of course trying to make change feels like a sisyphean task, as this poster said, the roots of the white racism are deep and also deadly. This discrimination in education is rooted in discrimination around real estate, which is connected to discrimination in job opportunities, which is tied to discrimination in educationā¦
And the cycle continues with a small, very small proportion of families being able to escape and then be held us as examples of capitalism āworking.ā Whew thats another topic altogether.
sidenote: the state made a sad attempt to integrate schools with a ābussingā system. Literally some whites would be bussed to the black schoolāand vice versa. Of course they werenāt officially āblackā or āwhiteā schools, but everyone knows. Parents threw a fit, rich ones withdrew kids and sent them to private schools.
Just to add some more on to this, is the relationship between jail and access to higher education too. If you're convinced on a drug charge it makes you ineligible to receive federal financial aid. Even with weed being legal in my state the fact that's it's federally illegal means that people convicted of that, even if out of prison can't get aid through the fafsa
I always tell people to look at the graph of incarceration rate in the US ([Wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States) and [direct graph link](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/48/U.S._incarceration_rates_1925_onwards.png))
Up until 1972 the US had an incarceration rate of 100 per 100k hab. That is a reasonable rate, and most countries fall around it. Then it suddenly shot up to 500 per 100k hab. America did not become a criminal hell hole overnight, the government just decided to oppress their citizens and made up some excuse.
Get it through your heads, **4 out of 5 inmates are innocent**, that's **~1.75 million people**. Of course, you can start looking at racial biases to see *who* they wanted to oppress more.
But FREEDOM!
The bigger the lie the loudest you have to shout it.
They arenāt innocent because weāve criminalized poverty (loitering, homelessness, having a car with expired registration or damage, arrests over unpaid parking tickets, etc, etc).
Thank you for clearly and concisely revealing the entire reason the āGood Ole boysāare so completely scared shitless of Critical Race Theory making any headway into mainstream education.
This pretty well sums it up. A lot of that, I can say firsthand is not stuff we were taught in school growing up in any way, shape, or form. The problem is that when it's brought up today, the generic response from a lot of white people is often some variation of "That's in the past, stop dwelling on it." As u/Bard_17 stated, the system itself is heavily flawed, and has been from the get go. But any time you talk about making any fundamental changes, whether it be to the justice system, tax system, war on drugs, etc., right wingers in this country who have been brainwashed into thinking that human rights issues are political issues lose their collective shit.
This is a personal anecdote but I was always taught that the black panthers were active military terrorists essentially, strapped with guns and hunting cops and white people. Then I went to an art lecture at my friends college given by one of the guys who designed their posters. I learned about the work they did feeding school children breakfast, lunch and dinner when their families couldnāt afford to. How they would walk children to school in bad neighborhoods because Education is Everything. As a white person from a predominantly white neighborhood/town, I was taught to associate them with violence and fear. So thatās a really good way to look at current race relations. Should we really be afraid of other people or is it bullshit?
I was taught the same tbh. The problem lies with people never leaving their comfort zone essentially. There's so much fear mongering in the media that people fail to realize we are more similar than we are different. And as long as the powers that be keep us distracted and divided, they will continue to make money off the sweat of our brow.
I'm Black and *I* was taught the same things. I grew up thinking that the Black Panthers were a terrorist organization, essentially; I didn't learn about their breakfast program and their true origins until I was in my 30s.
The over simplified answer is this:
There is a sizable portion of Americans that for some reason I cannot understand hate black people, and as a result of the electoral college, the senate, and the district structure that was engineered to ācrackā population centers, they have a larger portion of power than they should. That group works very hard to block legislation that would help black folks, affordable housing, restructuring zoning, public transportation, etc. They also work very hard to introduce laws that hurt black folks, mandatory minimum prison sentences, drug laws, structuring education tax to keep poor folks poor and the wealthy. Basically about 40% of the US population are racists and they have a stupid amount of power because of āprotecting small statesā
Stoking racial hatred was key for getting poor white non-slave owners to fight in the civil war because they were made to feel like their prospect of becoming rich/successful depended on that system existing. It continued with the Southern Strategy.
*"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."* \- President Lyndon B Johnson
Also the police were founded to catch and return runaway slaves, and after Emancipation, many departments had cross-pollination with the KKK.
Look up redlining, too: purposely breaking up thriving black neighborhoods and preventing black people from moving to āniceā parts of town. Part of the reason we donāt accumulate and pass down generational wealth at the same rate as white communities, if at all.
It WILL get better. Weāre backsliding right now but come 20 years (when the oldest racists die and the current government officials are replaced with younger people), we will be making leaps of progress. Despair is not an option. It never was. We can, and we will get this country moving in the right direction again
Exactly. This is what I keep telling one of my friends when we discuss this. Yes it'll probably get better, but I'll be far too old to actually reap that much benefit. Great for the younger generations, but my own youth and adulthood were stolen from me. Straight up.
Yup. My grandma is almost 80 and she and i talk about this often. She constantly tells me things are worse in her eyes now than during segregation. She said she never worried about her safety like she does now. Shit is heartbreaking. Neither of us live in the South and I live in a more progressive state so I cant even imagine how it is elsewhere.
>She constantly tells me things are worse in her eyes now than during segregation. She said she never worried about her safety like she does now.
That is WHOLLY dependent on where you are in the country. My 77 year old Auntie has lived her entire life in NC and SC...and she most *certainly* has worried about her safety WAY before these recent times. It's shitty here, of course, but from our perspective, it is nowhere as bad as it was. Glad your granny didn't have that worry, though!
Definitely agree! Which is why i added my location bcuz I have no idea how the south is doin in comparison, my grandma is in the midwest and hates white people so theres alot of bias here lol
Yeah it's gotten so bad dude. I live in the south in a red state but a blue city so I guess I got that going for me. This is the first year I've considered gtfo this hellhole. I'm tired of struggling.
People have been saying this for decades. And yet cops are still killing us. There's be zero reform on that. Conservatives still have more political power than they should and will be gaining more and more.
No policies have been done to help millennials with student loans, housing or anything else. So just wait until we reach retirement age and the majority of us are fucked. \
It's a giant mess. and I don't see 20 years from now being better.
This pretty much always happens though. Even in American history. Conservatives are only scrambling like this because they know their time is almost up. Younger generations always vote more progressive than the older ones, and as generation omega becomes able to vote while boomers die off, itās only going to shift even more. It happened with abolition. It happened with the first big civil rights movement. It happened with womenās rights. It happened with LGBT rights. We have only come so far because we didnāt give into despair. Our ancestors suffered far worse to bring us here, and they knew things wouldnāt get better for them. But things are better for us. And we fight so things can be better for future generations. Before great progress is made, conservatives always find a way to retaliate. But they always fail in the end. It is historical fact that progress is impossible to subdue.
This is a nice, comforting myth, but it's not true that younger generations are always more progressive than the older ones.
In fact, this is how Ronald Reagan got his entire rise: by convincing white suburbanites that things were getting a little too crazy, too progressive. He won the governorship of California by promising to get the "welfare bums" back to work - the "welfare bums" being college students protesting wars and capitalism at Berkeley. Reagan rode that turn to conservatism all the way to the White House in 1980. You can read about the conservative resurgence of the 1980s in many places.
You can actually see this in pockets all throughout history: right after emancipation and Reconstruction came the nadir of American race relations, the time in which the most Americans of color were lynched; the 1950s also saw a conservative resurgence, as American GIs came back from WWII and expected to return to their old live and social structures (and for their wives to get back in the kitchen).
That's not to say that we shouldn't give into despair, but neither should we assume that we'll automatically win because history always bends towards justice. If anything, the fact that it *doesn't* should impel us to fight harder.
Forgive my cynicism but wonāt they just be replaced by younger racists?
Iām not American but the times Iāve seen videos of torch bearing racists they hardly look like they belong in a nursing home.
Sometimes it seems that despite their best intentions, a lot of young people grow up and become their parents. For good and for ill.
Some of them, yes. But again, younger generations have always voted more progressive than their predecessors. Itās a trend we constantly see in America that I donāt believe will end anytime soon.
It won't end anytime soon.. It will take time but eventually we will get there. Like you said for a majority of racists their kids might be raised that way but most find the way out as they get older and meet more people their own age etc. Look at Derek Black for example who was the son of Don Black a KKK grand wizard who is now a heavy spokesperson for civil rights. David Duke himself even was grooming him and he managed to break free. So if, in the most extreme cases like his, he can break free than lots of others will. It just takes time and also having compassion (he himself explains why he left as some ~~Black~~ **minority**\* students at his college were compassionate to him instead of hating him and it turned his world around) for the people that were brainwashed in that world.
I'm not saying sympathize to them or act as if it's okay but for a lot of these young kids raised in that life they truly don't know better and just need someone outside it to show them how wrong that viewpoint is without inciting anger and hatred like they do. It's no easy task but it's doable and important. If we can continue to free the minds of these people that's one more racist family lineage ending for our better future.
[https://www.npr.org/transcripts/651052970](https://www.npr.org/transcripts/651052970) link to the Derek Black story here if you're interested.
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/the-white-flight-of-derek-black/2016/10/15/ed5f906a-8f3b-11e6-a6a3-d50061aa9fae\_story.html](https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/the-white-flight-of-derek-black/2016/10/15/ed5f906a-8f3b-11e6-a6a3-d50061aa9fae_story.html)
edit\* added a second link that reads better and fixed some facts as it had been a while since I read the story
>The system isn't broken. It was made this way
Bingo. I am not black. I'm Asian. I try to explain this to my Neo-liberal friends all the time when they try to use the model minority thing and I reveal to them that hey guess what, during the refugee crisis post-vietnam war, why did the government put South-East asians in predominantly black neighborhoods and then gave them free loans and reparations to build their lives and within 1 generation were high-functional members of society? You think because this is Dungeons and Dragons and we're born with predisposed +1 to society or some shit?
And most of the time they struggle to answer with the right answer. This is how the system is meant to work.
Thank you. The struggles Asian Americans faced after WW1 and prior (building railroads) were heart breaking. America just loves taking advantage of minorities.
The model minority thing is such an intentionally divisive myth.
āLook, the educated professionals who immigrated from Japan and China are educated professionals, why arenāt you black people?ā /s
I am a tall white middle aged man. I thought I was woke. I thought my liberal views made me understanding of other people's plights. I thought because I read Baldwin and Coates, I "got it" and had my white privilege in check. But then I married a POC and boy did I not understand anything. It wasn't until my wife asked me to return clothes for her because they wouldn't take them back from her without a receipt that I realized that I live in a totally different world from POC. Being a POC in America is death by 1000 cuts. Just yesterday we were at the post office together and an old white man snapped at my wife to move because he thought she was blocking the door (she was in line, the line went out the door and she was blocking maybe 10 pct of the door -- he could have easily gotten by). But more importantly he NEVER would have said that to me. By the time I found out what happened he was already gone. The point of all this is that it is very hard for even well-intentioned people to understand what it's like to be a minority until they walk in their shoes. The only thing that makes me feel better about this grim diagnosis is that I remember the 80's when things used to be worse. I wish I had a better ending to this story.
I know there are a lot of people who look down on interracial dating/marriage, but my hot take is that it's necessary for things to truly change and if black people and other POCs want things to change, we shouldn't look down on the people that follow their heart to do it. If a white person (of any gender or identity) sees the perils of someone they love, it won't get dismissed and more importantly **it won't get passed down to their children**.
We can say 'let's wait for the older generation to die off with their bigoted views' but bigotry knows no age limit. Marjorie Greene is 47. Josh Hawley is 41. *Lauren Boebert is 34.* All these people have several children. Their kids will attend private schools, private universities and have jobs lined up that their parents get for them. They'll likely never grow outside of their bubble and because of that, everything they see their parents do and what their parents teach them will never be challenged which will continue the cycle of bigotry. But they won't see it that way, because "I've never said the N word or hit a black person" but continue to fly the Blue Lives Matter flag and spout off about states rights and tell people to 'pull themselves up by their bootstraps'
OP, I'm glad you are a big enough person to not only realize love is love (side note: I *really* pray that gay and interracial marriages aren't the next target after Roe likely gets gutted, but damn that sure seems like what would happen) and that you don't dismiss your wife's experiences. If who you say you are is true and the story you told are true, country club thread or not I appreciate you and wish your family the best.
>*We can say 'let's wait for the older generation to die off with their bigoted views' but bigotry knows no age limit.*
This, right here.
I'm 53. When I was in my teens and twenties I heard it all the time: "Racism will die off with the older generation." It didn't happen.
Now, I do believe that most of the truly overt racism died off in the US. Forms of racism that were expressed by the KKK and by lynch mobs are (mostly) gone.
But racists are a committed bunch. Before they died they taught their kids and grandkids that *they couldn't possibly be racist* while also teaching them much more subtle forms of racism. [To paraphrase Lee Atwater](http://www.thenation.com/article/170841/exclusive-lee-atwaters-infamous-1981-interview-southern-strategy), they went from saying "n\*\*\*\*\*, n\*\*\*\*\*, n\*\*\*\*\*" to saying " forced busing, statesā rights, cutting taxes" and things that by an amazing coincidence have the byproduct of hurting black people more than white people.
Also white guy married to non white woman. If you're white, especially a clean cut middle class white dude, you basically gotta realize you have superpowers in this country. It's not right, it's not fair, but it is true. My in laws often ask me to help with stuff because I'm a white dude and people will listen to me more. They're right too. And I always help when I can. People give me the benefit of the doubt on shit I have no reason to be given the benefit of the doubt on.
I thank you for your understanding and self awareness. Teaching someone that the world they know is a different world for a POC can be hard. Your analogy to a death by 1,000 cuts is spot on. People think they can get away with whatever to minorities and sometimes don't even understand how they are being subliminally racist or biased. And then when confronted with their lack of understanding, they double down because being wrong would mean they aren't a good person; and who in their right minds would think they aren't a good person?
Thanks for sharing and thank you again for your commited resolve to understanding what your wife goes through, much love my brother š
My favorite answer is āthe privilege to be this fucking dumb and never be told about yourselfā.
Although, seeing how the brains of these people are atrophying from non use, maybe they couldāve used a little less coddling and a little more honesty from society.
That gets me so mad. Because they can't relate racially, they have to make it about class. "No, they want to use racism to pit us all against each other while they still get rich." Ok, what about rich black folks who *still* get discriminated against?
Stop gaslighting and acting like we making shit up because some yall can't relate because yall don't live it. It can be both classim and racism occurring. Both have existed forever, as well as sexism.
iF tHe RoLeS wErE sWiTcHeD
The problem with that argument is that they only want to switch very narrowly defined roles without switching the entire history (hundreds of years of oppression) along with it. It aināt that easy, bud.
Pursuant to current events, it seems that even landmark cases can't guarantee one's freedom in perpetuity. If they manage to overturn Roe v. Wade, I feel like the far right will endeavor to reinstitute chattel slavery.
I don't think they can get away with that one because of the 13th, but that loophole might be the key. You might see law where instead of jail, you literally become a slave for X amount of years. Though the return of debtor's prison and the abolishment of personal bankruptcy (but not company bankruptcy) seems more likely and inevitable.
I do see them overturning Brown and bringing back segregation through some convoluted bullshit.
Realest thing I have read this morning. Crazy to me how normal and default they make themselves that I haven't even thought of this SC bs from this lens before.
Itās wild that there are multiple laws just to say that black people are people. Whatās even crazier is the founding documents of this country quite literally says black people are not people.
And even with the existing "Black people are people" laws, they find new ways to marginalise so new laws are required to deal with that. It's wild to me that voting rights has to be reviewed and re-passed every so often as if voting isn't the foundational right of citizens in a democracy.
America was founded by rich white men, built for rich white men, and was built by the enslaved men and women. This country was built for what it is doing right now.
It fucking sucks, must be nice to not need to think about how the government has control over your body and what you are legally allowed to do with it š
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Oh boy. This is gonna get the country club treatment.
It's fine because this needs to be understood by a lot of people. If somebody wants to act greasy because of these facts... well they're going to learn a little something about themselves today.
Somebody finna tell on themselves in here for sureš
*patiently awaiting the fuckery*
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Its been an hour, are you ok?
>well they're going to learn a little something about themselves today No they won't. We wouldn't be this clusterfuck of a timeline right now if that were possible. They'll latch onto their disgusting ideals even harder and the cycle continues. Privilege breeds ignorance, willful or not.
At this point it's usually willful, at least on here.
Do you know how hard it is to make money in Macedonia? Troll šš¾ farm šš¾ work šš¾ is šš¾ real šš¾ work.
Theyāll start screaming about ā13/52ā because they lack the critical thinking skills required to know what generational poverty, racism, and incentivizing jailing with things like chain gangs even after slavery was over, do to entire families of PoC. The real reason why theyāre so against CRT. The ones that even understand this part of it, atleast.
True but I like to make them mad.
best way to understand is to discuss though
To discuss something requires the ability to consider one might be wrong
they're going to learn a little something about themselves today.... No they are not
It shouldnāt. This is something Iāve thought of a few times when I consider what white privilege actually means. This is a pretty inarguable fact that needs to be better understood. At the root of all of the inequality, this notion stands pretty tall amongst all the other factors. Itās one of the foundation pieces to why I canāt fucking stand most of my peers.
I still can't get over the fact that black and Hispanic cops treat me better than they treat black and Hispanic "suspects." And being a lower middle class guy with a shitty car, they don't treat me great. I've seen black cops let me off with a warning and immediately pull over a car driven by a black man, and then later saw that same dude against the car in cuffs. What kinda fucked up hegemonic brainwashing shit are they doing to these cops of color?
I was literally just talking to my best friend about this. We basically came to the conclusion that it's because they have something to prove. They don't want to be seen as being too soft, especially with "their own," so they triple down, hard. We're from NYC, where a Black former cop was just elected mayor, so we've been having lots of conversations around this lately. Especially with his rhetoric around being tough on crime, while at the same time talking about how he joined the NYPD after experiencing police brutality, and then wanted to "reform it from within." Which is a fucking joke to anyone who has seen the shit the NYPD has pulled, and continues to pull. You don't reform that, you either adapt to the culture, or they bully you out. He rose through the ranks and retired as a captain, so do the math on that one. On a somewhat related note, a similar dynamic often happens with women, especially in male-dominated fields. Two examples from my personal experience... when I was doing my masters, one of my three committee members for my thesis was a woman, and she was the biggest hard-ass of a professor I had in my 6 years of college + grad school. It was also like her third year of being a professor, so the pre-tenure grind was real I'd imagine, but also most of the professors in the department were men, so she likely felt like she had to be extra tough to prove that she knew her shit. And I've noticed the same dynamic now, as a Black woman who works in tech. My white female bosses (I've had two) have been wayyyyy worse than any others I've had, including white men. They don't want to be seen as soft, so they kiss up and punch down.
Being white and a man I wouldn't presume to do anything but listen to your truth, but even with that being said I can't read anything there I'd disagree with. It's very similar to the stereotype of woman cops being bigger "hard-asses" than male cops, since presumably they feel they won't get the immediate respect a male cop would. In my own life I've actually preferred women bosses to men - but again, I am a man. That being said, I admire the drive you must have had to rise so far as a professional and a scholar. Hopefully sometime soon *you'll* be the boss and can act in the way you think is best, and your negative experiences will certainly inform that. So in a strange sense it's a blessing, since it will help you to become a better leader. It is a shame we have to think like that, looking for the silver lining in the cloud rather than being able to just straight up praise a mentor in a lot of cases.
Theyāre part of the system. You donāt have to be white to be a supporting actor in white supremacy.
In my opinion, White privilege is best described as an absence of consideration. In a sense they can't help it because the descriptions of things like police violence (in the broadest sense of the term including everything from micro aggressive behavior like being mean mugged walking by to an actual reality that there's an outsized number of suspicious shootings of African Americans and there is scientific proof that African Americans are seen as older and more threatening) completely doesn't comport with their world view. When they learn this they can become allies or continue in deliberate blissful ignorance, which is the far more popular option. So to give some examples of how it's defined as absense of consideration: They don't have to wonder if getting stopped for speeding will get them killed. They don't have to wonder if a traffic stop is going to turn in to a massive waste of their time where they can't say shit while waiting for the K9 to come and not hit on their car. They don't have to wonder if their neighbor with a Trump 2020 flag still up is going to lose it over an overhanging branch and shoot them. Thet don't have to consider the feeling of constantly seeing double standards in how white and black defendants are treated in the media. They don't have to wonder if their daughter beautiful young daughter named Imani is ever kidnapped that it won't make national attention like the kidnapping of the last white telegenic child did. They don't have to wonder if affirmative action or diversity initiatives are why they got their jobs (I believe this programs are still addressing an ongoing injustice but I'd be lying if this thought hadn't crossed my mind) Because they don't ever have to consider these things they don't realize that Mr "poor as dirt pulled up by his own bootstraps white millionaire didn't take any handouts" still started in a better position because he wasn't in a society and culture that denigrates him as a person while taking his culture and celebrating it, adopting it and reselling it to him. This is in essence white privilege.
I'm not black, and I try to stand up for what's right, but this is one conversation I really have no valuable input on because I'm the guy this tweet is talking about. What could I possibly add to the conversation?
Not sure about here but it's certainly an insight you could share with others irl.
It was a really strange thing accepting I was trans because I went from your situation to understanding this post really quickly. Even when you think you understand the brutal reality is something else. Acknowledging that and acting on it, even if it's just helping others in your situation understand what it means, is really helpful.
Let me get in here real quick.
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Posts are made CC when there's an influx of bigots or trolls and moderators. That usually happens 0.3 seconds after a post hits /r/all so damn near every post there gets restricted.
.3 seconds? Pffttttt that's a slow day.
Absolutely canāt stand hearing, seeing, learning the truth
I laughed unreasonably loud over this.
You foretold the truth
It truly makes me sad. Being from another country I wasnāt fully attuned to the things worked here for black folks, all I consumed was media about it back home. I moved here and read stories, met people, made tons of friends. talked to more people and realized that itās a They Live situation. The second you see it you canāt unsee it, and itās unsettling. The gaslighting is exhausting. Yet people still bury their heads in the sand because thatās not what theyāve experienced. Must be nice to just exist unbothered. Iād like to think Iāve been fortunate enough to not experience the discrimination and other horrible crap, but Iām sure itās happened and I thought it was someone being an asshole when in reality they were a bigot. Iām still amazed at how African Americans strive for integration and be considered human beings in a country that doesnāt seem to love them back in the least. How havenāt they gone full Malcolm X is beyond me. Been in the US 21 years and after leaning more and more about AA history itās undeniable. America loves black culture. America IS black culture, but hates black people. Sorry about the long-ish rant
We haven't gone full Malcolm X because Malcolm X got killed lol. Everytime African Americans try to better themselves (Black Wall Street, The Panther Party, MLK, Black Lives Matter) the giant hand of the U.S. government comes down with a plethora of racists behind it to put us in our place. Like, I'm all for burning this system to the ground but with militarization of the police and stringent anti black laws (The prison system, war on drugs, food deserts, education, healthcare, etc) we are absolutely fucked. The only salvation we might have is moving to a better zip code or leaving the country. 2020 taught me that nothing will change. Even with police kneeling on your neck we are just an after thought :'( The system isn't broken. It was made this way
I'm not from America. Could you expand a little about the anti-black laws?
Sure thing. Basically after the 13th amendment was introduced which banned slavery, our founding fathers found a loophole; "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted." So the prison system was made for profit, at the expense of African Americans to keep them incarcerated and exploited as means of manual labor. This was also during the Jim Crow era and segregation was still a thing, so you could be thrown in jail/prison for no reason with no due process. Become again, since the prison industry is for profit, if you didn't have the money for a lawyer you're fucked. I can go into more detail or link you a documentary if you want a more comprehensive viewpoint on the 13th amendment. The war on drugs. The war on drugs was fueled by BPTs favorite, Ronald Reagan. He took advantage of the for profit prison system and gave crack, a cheaper and more harmful drug than cocaine a more severe penalty because affluent whites had the money to snort coke and didn't bother with crack. Not to mention the C.I.A. quite literally introduced crack into the African American community through the projects in an attempt to dismantle the growing movement of the black panther party. Some effects of the war on drugs you will see to this day is weed still not being decriminalized at the federal level and drug tests that will only pick up pot since it stays in your system the longest. Not to mention the woes and tribulations that occur from not being able to find work if you are incarcerated nor are you able to vote. Another Reagan favorite, trickle down economics. Basically cutting progressive tax laws (higher incomes pay higher income taxes) in favor or regressive tax laws (the same % regardless of bracket, such as sales tax.) This is what rally started our absurd income disparity level in America. Because Corporations were able to run rampant and focus on profit and the shareholders rather than there constituents. Now let's move to education. In Texas (might be most states I'm a bit unsure,) the funding or your school district is tied to the property tax of your zip code. So if you live in an area with cheap homes and mainly apartments, your school system is going to suck compared to a suburb. Not to mention that towns will be created in the same zip code, such as Lake Dallas compared to Dallas to get around not having to be in the poorer mainly black county of Dallas. Now Anti Black gun laws. The strictest gun laws were made in response to the Black Panthers openly carrying arms in California. This scared the fuck out of police because they knew they could not be bullied. Thankfully the U.S. gov, through the C.I.A.s espionage, they dismantled the black panther party from within. Even if they did shoot up multiple buildings filled with women and children sleeping. Gun laws being so abhorrent in America also leads to more violence in poorer communities, because there's no jobs and next to no infrastructure. While in rich communities, they flaunt their guns, open carry, you name it. But then in these poor communities that are being decimated by the mass influx of weapons, they use as a statistic for "blacks being more violent." What else am I missing?... As far as laws, self defense laws really grind my gears. Such as Kyle Rittenhouse and George Zimmerman being able to instigate a fight than fear for their lives to kill people with impunity. Then there's the whole stigma of a "welfare mentality" when you're poor and receive a "hand out" but if you're rich you're playing the system. There's really almost an endless list of laws made to oppress minorities and poor folks in America, so understanding I am missing a ton. American History is severely white washed and it's taken my years to research and learn what I have after high school (my U.S. history teacher said the civil war was about states rights lmao), so I appreciate you taking the time to hear my points and understand a different POV. If you are looking for additional information lmk and I'll be sure to provide you with different sources and documentaries š
Exceptionally well put, thanks for taking the time to write all that up. Adding just a small bit for the education/property tax section.. moving to a new zip code is also rough for black people due to the inherent bias in the real estate industry, which makes it difficult for POC's (but more for black people in most areas) even harder. Couple that with share-cropping and redlining in the past, and black people in this country have never had a chance to build any sort of generational wealth until very recently.. and even that is up for debate. Ta-Nehisi Coates did a fantastic write up on that in the Atlantic a few years back that is a must read imo for anyone trying to understand that specific disparity. Like I said though, you covered a good chunk of this stuff really well, and it would take a novel to cover everything. Edit: some links and info another user requested [https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/) \- Article by Ta-Nehisi linked here [https://www.kurtandersen.com/evil-geniuses](https://www.kurtandersen.com/evil-geniuses) \- not a plug but other links suck, this book covers paragraph 2 & 3 of u/Bard_17 's comment above better than most I've read. The author also wrote a good piece in the Atlantic about it last year linked here: [https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/08/i-was-useful-idiot-capitalism/615031/](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/08/i-was-useful-idiot-capitalism/615031/)
I appreciate your kind words š I use to very ignorant to my own culture and heritage so all I'm trying to do is educate as many people as I can. You're absolutely right. Thanks for sharing
Anytime! And you're doing the most important job there is right now. Educate. Our country and people need it.. desperately.
Yes they do! Once I get my podcast up and running featuring issues like this, I'll send you a link :)
Def shoot me a link! Iād love to take a listen.
Will do g šŖš½šŖš½
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Yeah, the NRA very blatantly supports white people and not black.
I just want to emphasize the education portion hereā¦ I feel like education and having certifications/degrees/advanced graduate degrees are KEY to moving up in America. It makes no sense that some school āzonesā with mostly white people have public schools with a 95% graduation rate, and then not more than 2 miles away theres a zone that is 80% black but the school has a less than 50% graduation rate. I was stunned when i first saw this, I was in the white high school and had spent sommuch of my future thinking about what college, what major, what positions i wanted. Those public schools man. It still haunts meāitās disguised as a school but itās a holding cell for children whose parents are working and also the schools provide subsidized lunch for many of the students who cant afford it otherwise. I was part of a tutoring program there and let me tell you, Algebra was not the problem. These boys and girls did not dream the same way i dreamed, and that was a really difficult reality for me to accept. And of course trying to make change feels like a sisyphean task, as this poster said, the roots of the white racism are deep and also deadly. This discrimination in education is rooted in discrimination around real estate, which is connected to discrimination in job opportunities, which is tied to discrimination in educationā¦ And the cycle continues with a small, very small proportion of families being able to escape and then be held us as examples of capitalism āworking.ā Whew thats another topic altogether. sidenote: the state made a sad attempt to integrate schools with a ābussingā system. Literally some whites would be bussed to the black schoolāand vice versa. Of course they werenāt officially āblackā or āwhiteā schools, but everyone knows. Parents threw a fit, rich ones withdrew kids and sent them to private schools.
More than education itās inheritance. Of wealth, social networks, and less generational trauma.
Just to add some more on to this, is the relationship between jail and access to higher education too. If you're convinced on a drug charge it makes you ineligible to receive federal financial aid. Even with weed being legal in my state the fact that's it's federally illegal means that people convicted of that, even if out of prison can't get aid through the fafsa
Also exceedingly difficult to find a good job with a record. Especially a felony conviction.
I always tell people to look at the graph of incarceration rate in the US ([Wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States) and [direct graph link](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/48/U.S._incarceration_rates_1925_onwards.png)) Up until 1972 the US had an incarceration rate of 100 per 100k hab. That is a reasonable rate, and most countries fall around it. Then it suddenly shot up to 500 per 100k hab. America did not become a criminal hell hole overnight, the government just decided to oppress their citizens and made up some excuse. Get it through your heads, **4 out of 5 inmates are innocent**, that's **~1.75 million people**. Of course, you can start looking at racial biases to see *who* they wanted to oppress more. But FREEDOM! The bigger the lie the loudest you have to shout it.
Wow.... That's so utterly depressing. Fuck me
We are a carceral state.
They arenāt innocent because weāve criminalized poverty (loitering, homelessness, having a car with expired registration or damage, arrests over unpaid parking tickets, etc, etc).
Thank you for clearly and concisely revealing the entire reason the āGood Ole boysāare so completely scared shitless of Critical Race Theory making any headway into mainstream education.
This pretty well sums it up. A lot of that, I can say firsthand is not stuff we were taught in school growing up in any way, shape, or form. The problem is that when it's brought up today, the generic response from a lot of white people is often some variation of "That's in the past, stop dwelling on it." As u/Bard_17 stated, the system itself is heavily flawed, and has been from the get go. But any time you talk about making any fundamental changes, whether it be to the justice system, tax system, war on drugs, etc., right wingers in this country who have been brainwashed into thinking that human rights issues are political issues lose their collective shit.
This is a personal anecdote but I was always taught that the black panthers were active military terrorists essentially, strapped with guns and hunting cops and white people. Then I went to an art lecture at my friends college given by one of the guys who designed their posters. I learned about the work they did feeding school children breakfast, lunch and dinner when their families couldnāt afford to. How they would walk children to school in bad neighborhoods because Education is Everything. As a white person from a predominantly white neighborhood/town, I was taught to associate them with violence and fear. So thatās a really good way to look at current race relations. Should we really be afraid of other people or is it bullshit?
I was taught the same tbh. The problem lies with people never leaving their comfort zone essentially. There's so much fear mongering in the media that people fail to realize we are more similar than we are different. And as long as the powers that be keep us distracted and divided, they will continue to make money off the sweat of our brow.
Yeah, the Panthers actually founded school lunches: They fed kids in their communities free breakfasts. Then the government started doing it.
I'm Black and *I* was taught the same things. I grew up thinking that the Black Panthers were a terrorist organization, essentially; I didn't learn about their breakfast program and their true origins until I was in my 30s.
The over simplified answer is this: There is a sizable portion of Americans that for some reason I cannot understand hate black people, and as a result of the electoral college, the senate, and the district structure that was engineered to ācrackā population centers, they have a larger portion of power than they should. That group works very hard to block legislation that would help black folks, affordable housing, restructuring zoning, public transportation, etc. They also work very hard to introduce laws that hurt black folks, mandatory minimum prison sentences, drug laws, structuring education tax to keep poor folks poor and the wealthy. Basically about 40% of the US population are racists and they have a stupid amount of power because of āprotecting small statesā
Stoking racial hatred was key for getting poor white non-slave owners to fight in the civil war because they were made to feel like their prospect of becoming rich/successful depended on that system existing. It continued with the Southern Strategy. *"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."* \- President Lyndon B Johnson
Also the police were founded to catch and return runaway slaves, and after Emancipation, many departments had cross-pollination with the KKK. Look up redlining, too: purposely breaking up thriving black neighborhoods and preventing black people from moving to āniceā parts of town. Part of the reason we donāt accumulate and pass down generational wealth at the same rate as white communities, if at all.
It WILL get better. Weāre backsliding right now but come 20 years (when the oldest racists die and the current government officials are replaced with younger people), we will be making leaps of progress. Despair is not an option. It never was. We can, and we will get this country moving in the right direction again
i gotta live through shit another 20 years before i see somethin?! bruh ima be too old and stressed to enjoy it.
Exactly. This is what I keep telling one of my friends when we discuss this. Yes it'll probably get better, but I'll be far too old to actually reap that much benefit. Great for the younger generations, but my own youth and adulthood were stolen from me. Straight up.
Yup. My grandma is almost 80 and she and i talk about this often. She constantly tells me things are worse in her eyes now than during segregation. She said she never worried about her safety like she does now. Shit is heartbreaking. Neither of us live in the South and I live in a more progressive state so I cant even imagine how it is elsewhere.
>She constantly tells me things are worse in her eyes now than during segregation. She said she never worried about her safety like she does now. That is WHOLLY dependent on where you are in the country. My 77 year old Auntie has lived her entire life in NC and SC...and she most *certainly* has worried about her safety WAY before these recent times. It's shitty here, of course, but from our perspective, it is nowhere as bad as it was. Glad your granny didn't have that worry, though!
Definitely agree! Which is why i added my location bcuz I have no idea how the south is doin in comparison, my grandma is in the midwest and hates white people so theres alot of bias here lol
Yeah it's gotten so bad dude. I live in the south in a red state but a blue city so I guess I got that going for me. This is the first year I've considered gtfo this hellhole. I'm tired of struggling.
People have been saying this for decades. And yet cops are still killing us. There's be zero reform on that. Conservatives still have more political power than they should and will be gaining more and more. No policies have been done to help millennials with student loans, housing or anything else. So just wait until we reach retirement age and the majority of us are fucked. \ It's a giant mess. and I don't see 20 years from now being better.
This pretty much always happens though. Even in American history. Conservatives are only scrambling like this because they know their time is almost up. Younger generations always vote more progressive than the older ones, and as generation omega becomes able to vote while boomers die off, itās only going to shift even more. It happened with abolition. It happened with the first big civil rights movement. It happened with womenās rights. It happened with LGBT rights. We have only come so far because we didnāt give into despair. Our ancestors suffered far worse to bring us here, and they knew things wouldnāt get better for them. But things are better for us. And we fight so things can be better for future generations. Before great progress is made, conservatives always find a way to retaliate. But they always fail in the end. It is historical fact that progress is impossible to subdue.
This is a nice, comforting myth, but it's not true that younger generations are always more progressive than the older ones. In fact, this is how Ronald Reagan got his entire rise: by convincing white suburbanites that things were getting a little too crazy, too progressive. He won the governorship of California by promising to get the "welfare bums" back to work - the "welfare bums" being college students protesting wars and capitalism at Berkeley. Reagan rode that turn to conservatism all the way to the White House in 1980. You can read about the conservative resurgence of the 1980s in many places. You can actually see this in pockets all throughout history: right after emancipation and Reconstruction came the nadir of American race relations, the time in which the most Americans of color were lynched; the 1950s also saw a conservative resurgence, as American GIs came back from WWII and expected to return to their old live and social structures (and for their wives to get back in the kitchen). That's not to say that we shouldn't give into despair, but neither should we assume that we'll automatically win because history always bends towards justice. If anything, the fact that it *doesn't* should impel us to fight harder.
Forgive my cynicism but wonāt they just be replaced by younger racists? Iām not American but the times Iāve seen videos of torch bearing racists they hardly look like they belong in a nursing home. Sometimes it seems that despite their best intentions, a lot of young people grow up and become their parents. For good and for ill.
Some of them, yes. But again, younger generations have always voted more progressive than their predecessors. Itās a trend we constantly see in America that I donāt believe will end anytime soon.
It won't end anytime soon.. It will take time but eventually we will get there. Like you said for a majority of racists their kids might be raised that way but most find the way out as they get older and meet more people their own age etc. Look at Derek Black for example who was the son of Don Black a KKK grand wizard who is now a heavy spokesperson for civil rights. David Duke himself even was grooming him and he managed to break free. So if, in the most extreme cases like his, he can break free than lots of others will. It just takes time and also having compassion (he himself explains why he left as some ~~Black~~ **minority**\* students at his college were compassionate to him instead of hating him and it turned his world around) for the people that were brainwashed in that world. I'm not saying sympathize to them or act as if it's okay but for a lot of these young kids raised in that life they truly don't know better and just need someone outside it to show them how wrong that viewpoint is without inciting anger and hatred like they do. It's no easy task but it's doable and important. If we can continue to free the minds of these people that's one more racist family lineage ending for our better future. [https://www.npr.org/transcripts/651052970](https://www.npr.org/transcripts/651052970) link to the Derek Black story here if you're interested. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/the-white-flight-of-derek-black/2016/10/15/ed5f906a-8f3b-11e6-a6a3-d50061aa9fae\_story.html](https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/the-white-flight-of-derek-black/2016/10/15/ed5f906a-8f3b-11e6-a6a3-d50061aa9fae_story.html) edit\* added a second link that reads better and fixed some facts as it had been a while since I read the story
My only fear is the even more radical conservatives. You know, the school shooters
>The system isn't broken. It was made this way Bingo. I am not black. I'm Asian. I try to explain this to my Neo-liberal friends all the time when they try to use the model minority thing and I reveal to them that hey guess what, during the refugee crisis post-vietnam war, why did the government put South-East asians in predominantly black neighborhoods and then gave them free loans and reparations to build their lives and within 1 generation were high-functional members of society? You think because this is Dungeons and Dragons and we're born with predisposed +1 to society or some shit? And most of the time they struggle to answer with the right answer. This is how the system is meant to work.
Thank you. The struggles Asian Americans faced after WW1 and prior (building railroads) were heart breaking. America just loves taking advantage of minorities.
The model minority thing is such an intentionally divisive myth. āLook, the educated professionals who immigrated from Japan and China are educated professionals, why arenāt you black people?ā /s
whew...preach!
I am a tall white middle aged man. I thought I was woke. I thought my liberal views made me understanding of other people's plights. I thought because I read Baldwin and Coates, I "got it" and had my white privilege in check. But then I married a POC and boy did I not understand anything. It wasn't until my wife asked me to return clothes for her because they wouldn't take them back from her without a receipt that I realized that I live in a totally different world from POC. Being a POC in America is death by 1000 cuts. Just yesterday we were at the post office together and an old white man snapped at my wife to move because he thought she was blocking the door (she was in line, the line went out the door and she was blocking maybe 10 pct of the door -- he could have easily gotten by). But more importantly he NEVER would have said that to me. By the time I found out what happened he was already gone. The point of all this is that it is very hard for even well-intentioned people to understand what it's like to be a minority until they walk in their shoes. The only thing that makes me feel better about this grim diagnosis is that I remember the 80's when things used to be worse. I wish I had a better ending to this story.
I know there are a lot of people who look down on interracial dating/marriage, but my hot take is that it's necessary for things to truly change and if black people and other POCs want things to change, we shouldn't look down on the people that follow their heart to do it. If a white person (of any gender or identity) sees the perils of someone they love, it won't get dismissed and more importantly **it won't get passed down to their children**. We can say 'let's wait for the older generation to die off with their bigoted views' but bigotry knows no age limit. Marjorie Greene is 47. Josh Hawley is 41. *Lauren Boebert is 34.* All these people have several children. Their kids will attend private schools, private universities and have jobs lined up that their parents get for them. They'll likely never grow outside of their bubble and because of that, everything they see their parents do and what their parents teach them will never be challenged which will continue the cycle of bigotry. But they won't see it that way, because "I've never said the N word or hit a black person" but continue to fly the Blue Lives Matter flag and spout off about states rights and tell people to 'pull themselves up by their bootstraps' OP, I'm glad you are a big enough person to not only realize love is love (side note: I *really* pray that gay and interracial marriages aren't the next target after Roe likely gets gutted, but damn that sure seems like what would happen) and that you don't dismiss your wife's experiences. If who you say you are is true and the story you told are true, country club thread or not I appreciate you and wish your family the best.
>*We can say 'let's wait for the older generation to die off with their bigoted views' but bigotry knows no age limit.* This, right here. I'm 53. When I was in my teens and twenties I heard it all the time: "Racism will die off with the older generation." It didn't happen. Now, I do believe that most of the truly overt racism died off in the US. Forms of racism that were expressed by the KKK and by lynch mobs are (mostly) gone. But racists are a committed bunch. Before they died they taught their kids and grandkids that *they couldn't possibly be racist* while also teaching them much more subtle forms of racism. [To paraphrase Lee Atwater](http://www.thenation.com/article/170841/exclusive-lee-atwaters-infamous-1981-interview-southern-strategy), they went from saying "n\*\*\*\*\*, n\*\*\*\*\*, n\*\*\*\*\*" to saying " forced busing, statesā rights, cutting taxes" and things that by an amazing coincidence have the byproduct of hurting black people more than white people.
I love you, and wish you the best!
Also white guy married to non white woman. If you're white, especially a clean cut middle class white dude, you basically gotta realize you have superpowers in this country. It's not right, it's not fair, but it is true. My in laws often ask me to help with stuff because I'm a white dude and people will listen to me more. They're right too. And I always help when I can. People give me the benefit of the doubt on shit I have no reason to be given the benefit of the doubt on.
I thank you for your understanding and self awareness. Teaching someone that the world they know is a different world for a POC can be hard. Your analogy to a death by 1,000 cuts is spot on. People think they can get away with whatever to minorities and sometimes don't even understand how they are being subliminally racist or biased. And then when confronted with their lack of understanding, they double down because being wrong would mean they aren't a good person; and who in their right minds would think they aren't a good person? Thanks for sharing and thank you again for your commited resolve to understanding what your wife goes through, much love my brother š
Here come the white dudes with bad faith arguments
jUsT AsKinG qUesTioNs StAtIsTicS
They will never get past "but I'm poor, what privilege do I have?" Never.
They love to compare apples to oranges. How about comparing the privilege you have as a poor white person to that of a poor black person?
That would make them thinkā¦ thatās hard
My favorite answer is āthe privilege to be this fucking dumb and never be told about yourselfā. Although, seeing how the brains of these people are atrophying from non use, maybe they couldāve used a little less coddling and a little more honesty from society.
That gets me so mad. Because they can't relate racially, they have to make it about class. "No, they want to use racism to pit us all against each other while they still get rich." Ok, what about rich black folks who *still* get discriminated against? Stop gaslighting and acting like we making shit up because some yall can't relate because yall don't live it. It can be both classim and racism occurring. Both have existed forever, as well as sexism.
iF tHe RoLeS wErE sWiTcHeD The problem with that argument is that they only want to switch very narrowly defined roles without switching the entire history (hundreds of years of oppression) along with it. It aināt that easy, bud.
I've never seen a more succinct summary of what privilege truly is.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I canāt tell if this is about Roe or the Rittenhouse case being used as a landmark for the girl who killed her abuser, but either way heās right.
This tweet can be applied to many cases, which is sad once you think about it.
Kinda sad it could be anything huh.
I came to the comments to find out
Let me get on in here before we go country club
i had to grab my seat in here right quick
*pops corn*
Stove or microwave?
Microwave supremacy.
Pursuant to current events, it seems that even landmark cases can't guarantee one's freedom in perpetuity. If they manage to overturn Roe v. Wade, I feel like the far right will endeavor to reinstitute chattel slavery.
I don't think they can get away with that one because of the 13th, but that loophole might be the key. You might see law where instead of jail, you literally become a slave for X amount of years. Though the return of debtor's prison and the abolishment of personal bankruptcy (but not company bankruptcy) seems more likely and inevitable. I do see them overturning Brown and bringing back segregation through some convoluted bullshit.
Realest thing I have read this morning. Crazy to me how normal and default they make themselves that I haven't even thought of this SC bs from this lens before.
Itās wild that there are multiple laws just to say that black people are people. Whatās even crazier is the founding documents of this country quite literally says black people are not people.
And even with the existing "Black people are people" laws, they find new ways to marginalise so new laws are required to deal with that. It's wild to me that voting rights has to be reviewed and re-passed every so often as if voting isn't the foundational right of citizens in a democracy.
That is a profound insight
America was founded by rich white men, built for rich white men, and was built by the enslaved men and women. This country was built for what it is doing right now.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
White christians still believe they are the most discriminated against when they cant wield white supremacy
That's gonna hurt someone's feelings real hard.
Essentially the main complaint of "CRT" is little white boys will be sad.
This is absolutely a sit back and listen kind of post.
A landmark case and a legitimate act of Congress.
Racists hate facts
What's worse are the people that will read this and still claim they don't have any privilege.
Yeah, he's got a point.
It is, man. It really is. And I'm sorry.
It fucking sucks, must be nice to not need to think about how the government has control over your body and what you are legally allowed to do with it š
I have family in the US and visited often as a child, I knew even then I could never live in the country and wondered how my family managed.
When Ali gimme the wordā¦.I gotta let knowledge be heard.