Black lives matter: heroes, victims, and answer to the BLM

Aimiel

Well-known member
Down through history the enemy has always tried to magnify any and every difference through hatred. This has created problems between dear friends, rifts in families, neighborhood scuffles, bar fights, riots, civil wars and world wars. Today is no different, except for the fact that evil men and seducers will wax worse and worse.
 

Town Heretic

Out of Order
Hall of Fame
With revisionist history, I'm ever skeptical of any one part.
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.

It seems to me we had a Wild West, then just a West
Hollywood sold a romantic lie to most Americans. It was entertaining. Then historians came along to spoil the fun, over time.

While I might want to apologize to somebody, it really wasn't you or me or the guy next door. What will indeed help, is help and help with mind changes. I believe the gospel has been and will continue to be the most powerful world-changer.
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.

Again, it was in the face of the inappropriate backlash, not the movement, that caused the 'all lives' reaction.
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.

Was the rest of the nation unaware of policemen killed? Evergreen violently ousting white students and professors? If so, your friend may have had a more poignant observation.
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.


I don't see it as accurate to what I've seen regarding the movement. It was started in angst and continued in violence.
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?

Again, 'all' lives was an appropriate response to what we were seeing. "Blue Lives Matter" was in direct response to that violence. Not the idea that blacks matter.
Sorry Lon, but that doesn't fly and the most obvious rejection of it is the absence of the use prior to BLM, supra.


In this Country? :idunno: We've seen it during the world cup between nations.
Happens more than you appear to realize. Google "rioting and looting in the wake of U.S. sporting events."


One guy was accidentally killed during the Superbowl aftermath in Philadelphia. It 'seems' your friend unintentionally waves away the repercussion of Blue Lives lost mattering, or white lives battered mattering, in and among the movement. His quote seems at best ignorant, at worst unresponsive, uncaring.
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.

On the quote that wasn't exactly a quote. I appreciate you finding the thing that sponsored that impression. I'm not sure how it connects to your use with the more direct language. To be black is to be a target for many. It isn't a role or consequence that is chosen by anyone. It's a cradle to grave reality that puts you in more direct and indirect jeopardy and disadvantage than to be a voluntary servant of the people, admirable as that is more often than not.

I don't want to be shot for holding a TV remote, but I don't want any cops killed for making that horrendous mistake.
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.

I don't think by virtue of choice, a police life is worth any less for having done so.
And I wouldn't advance that point, supra.

If I could change my skin color, I'd not say 'my choice' was the reason for any violence against me, but rather a misplaced prejudice having very little to do with my choice.
But everything to do with what you actually can't change, your color.

Likewise, no policeman/woman desires to be shot.
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.

There has to be something more said, in response, than just "that's what they chose."
To be sure, supra.

We don't honor all soldiers on memorial days. Just the ones who served with dignity and honor.
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.

Like the prayer meeting? Is there one specific that comes to mind?
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.

It's found in the response to noting it and who the largely hostile and negative response came from.
 

ok doser

lifeguard at the cement pond
It is part of it mattering what blacks go through.

From what i've read, what American ghetto thugs "go through" is very different from what other blacks go through - somali immigrants, for example, or nigerian immigrants, or black Indians from the southern parts of india (who are blacker than the brown folk we call "black". I suspect there may be other factors at play, factors that call attention to the ghetto thugs, justifiably warranted attention from authorities.


In the case of the central park five, all of them had criminal records
 
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ok doser

lifeguard at the cement pond
When They See Us – Netflix's gut-wrenching tale of the Central Park Five

Ava DuVernay pulls no punches in this urgent, astonishing retelling of an assault case that opened a window on injustice in America


the only problem is that it's a lie:



but it's a lie that leftists like you want to be true, so you accept it as true
 

Lon

Well-known member
Happens more than you appear to realize. Google "rioting and looting in the wake of U.S. sporting events."
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.






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.


Sorry Lon, but that doesn't fly and the most obvious rejection of it is the absence of the use prior to BLM, supra.


On the quote that wasn't exactly a quote. I appreciate you finding the thing that sponsored that impression. I'm not sure how it connects to your use with the more direct language. To be black is to be a target for many. It isn't a role or consequence that is chosen by anyone. It's a cradle to grave reality that puts you in more direct and indirect jeopardy and disadvantage than to be a voluntary servant of the people, admirable as that is more often than not.




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.


It's found in the response to noting it and who the largely hostile and negative response came from.
1) Black lives matter
2) Black Lives Matter cannot be defended when associated directly with lost lives. It is a two-wrongs-don't-make-a-right proposition for me. While I appreciate politics and court cases, such are peaceable means rather than violent means.

How we address the overbalanced crime rates among the populace is important, but we can never excuse a behavior simply because one race is more prone to those actions.

I must continue to hold us all, regardless of color, to the right standard which means, necessarily, to be color-blind, all lives must matter. Society will continue on a pendulum swing, but I yet believe over-reaction causes worst rifts and strengthens preconceptions rather than makes them go away. Wars cause rifts for several generations and cannot be healed but for the passing of those generations involved.
 

The Barbarian

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Banned
But it's a choice to put it on, assuming the risk, understanding it's an inherently dangerous job. Being a minority shouldn't be any of those things, inherently.

:cheers:

It shouldn't be, but it is. A guy who lives up the street (used to be a co-worker) recently showed me something that happened in his hometown. A guy in a bar (happened to be white) went berserk and injured some people. A uniformed security guard (happened to be black) disarmed him and took him down. Police had been called. The first police officer into the bar (happened to be white) sized up the situation and shot the security officer dead.

That's how it works, way too often. From the OP:

For years now the #blacklivesmatter organization has trotted out "#heroes" and "#victims"as examples of #police #brutality against black people. But is their narrative #trustworthy and #true? Are the circumstances surrounding these individuals evidence to make them into heroes or just plain thugs?

In this case, the man was a hero. But a to a police officer, the uniform he was wearing was less significant than his color in deciding that he was a thug.
 

ok doser

lifeguard at the cement pond
A guy in a bar (happened to be white) went berserk and injured some people.

Nothing I can find indicates that the original shooter was white. Shaky video of the shooting of the bar patrons shows a black perp.

The first police officer into the bar (happened to be white) sized up the situation and shot the security officer dead.

were the lights on in the bar?


eta: ok, apparently this happened outside the bar, around 4 am, November 11, 2018. What was the lighting like?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Jemel_Roberson




... the uniform he (the security guard) was wearing ...

pics?

eta: police report denies clothing identifying the guard as security

autopsy reports don't say

eta:
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



additionally, video of the aftermath shows another security guard wearing a vest, calling attention to his vest, but no insignia, no lettering, nothing visible identifying it as security

so we have a cop responding to an active shooter call
we have a couple of black guys on the ground, outside in the dark
the one on top has a gun and no "uniform"
ordered several times to drop the gun, he fails to comply

and barbie thinks the cop should have let them both go because they're both black?

or perhaps he should have radio'd back to base for them to send a black cop to shoot the perp?
 
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The Barbarian

BANNED
Banned
(Barbarian looks it up)

In the early hours of November 11, 2018, 26-year-old Jemel Roberson was working security at a bar in the Chicago suburbs when a shooting broke out.

Shortly after Roberson subdued the suspect at gunpoint, police arrived — and fatally shot the black, armed security guard as he pinned the suspect to the ground.

Now, nearly three months after Roberson’s death, a series of videos released this week by the Cook County Sheriff’s Office show the chaotic scene that unfolded as bystanders reacted to Roberson’s shooting.

The videos were recorded by police body cameras and bystanders’ cellphones. In one, a security guard who worked with Roberson tells police that Ian Covey, the white officer who opened fire, did so despite being told that Roberson was security. Other witnesses can be heard crying and yelling in the background.

“Your man shot my man. The police shot security. That’s what happened,” the other security guard says. Later, he continues, saying: “Do you not see us with vests on, bruh? Why would I have a vest on, bruh? This s**t ain’t for fun.”

The videos do not include footage of Roberson actually being shot by police, however, or the moments that preceded it.

Roberson’s death has drawn national attention, with critics arguing that the police were too quick to fire. The police department initially argued that Roberson ignored “verbal commands” before the shooting, but later released a second statement claiming that the shooting was a case of “friendly fire,” and that Roberson’s death was a tragic accident...


O.K. so the police story changed over time. And it went from "He should have obeyed" to "Oops."

...
Roberson “had somebody on the ground with his knee in back, with his gun in his back, like, ‘Don’t move,’” witness Adam Harris told the local news outlet WGN last year.

When officers from the Robbins and Midlothian police departments arrived, one officer, now identified as Covey, opened fire, killing Roberson. According to witness statements given to local outlets, Covey fired even as witnesses told him to stop. “Everybody was screaming out, ‘Security!’ He was a security guard,” Harris said.

...
The agency added that Roberson was not wearing anything that identified him as a security guard. Gregory Kulis, a lawyer representing Roberson’s mother in the civil rights lawsuit filed after the shooting, said that Roberson had a hat with the words “SECURITY” on it. The videos released this week show that other witnesses on the scene continued to tell officers that Roberson was a security guard in the moments after the shooting, but these accounts were not included in the first news releases from the department.

Four other people, including a man believed to be the suspect behind the bar shooting, were injured in the incident. The suspect’s name has not been released publicly and no charges have been filed over either shooting.

After previously identifying Roberson as an “armed subject” in reports, Midlothian Police Chief Daniel Delaney issued a November statement calling Roberson “a brave man who was doing his best to end an active shooter situation.”

...
Witness statements provided to media have suggested that the officer involved in the shooting did not react to cries that Roberson was a security guard. But the statement from the state police argued that the responding officer had no way to know Roberson was security and that he only fired after Roberson did not respond to commands.
...

(other than the hat that said "security" and the security vest)

...
Dorian Myrickes, a colleague of Roberson’s and one of the people injured in the initial gunfight, told the Associated Press last year that he did not hear the police officer issue any commands.

https://www.vox.com/identities/2018...rson-police-shooting-illinois-ian-covey-video

Can't confirm that the real criminal was white, though. This kind of thing happens way too often.
 

Town Heretic

Out of Order
Hall of Fame
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.
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.

1) Black lives matter
2) Black Lives Matter cannot be defended when associated directly with lost lives. It is a two-wrongs-don't-make-a-right proposition for me. While I appreciate politics and court cases, such are peaceable means rather than violent means.
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.

How we address the overbalanced crime rates among the populace is important, but we can never excuse a behavior simply because one race is more prone to those actions.
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.

It's not race, but marginalization, subjugation, disenfranchisement, denial of right, dehumanization, and more over generations, again. A good bit of that still being in play, one way or another.

I must continue to hold us all, regardless of color, to the right standard which means, necessarily, to be color-blind, all lives must matter.
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.

Society will continue on a pendulum swing, but I yet believe over-reaction causes worst rifts and strengthens preconceptions rather than makes them go away. Wars cause rifts for several generations and cannot be healed but for the passing of those generations involved.
Time hasn't done enough. We should.
 
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Lon

Well-known member
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.
Had you seen the list of demands (now defunct)?
In response:

A prudent policy initiative is unlikely to take root in the shadow of Black Lives Matter’s surging indignation. (Note how many times Jones and Clinton fret over how everyone in the conversation is “feeling”.) Blunt force trauma can be an effective tool for stopping a zombie, but if you’re attempting open heart surgery, a meat mallet isn’t what you need. - Rachel Lu, The Federalist
*(whole article articulates well the need for this discussion)

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.
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.

Morgan Freeman has said some things that resound true for me regarding the matter of us all 'just being Americans with American problems."

You need to consider what you wrote. Races aren't predisposed to violence.
Read the article above. By color? No. By socialization? Yes, definitely and much from within. We can't take all blame.
Some? I think as a civic duty and Christian duty, yes, but love is the motivator. We simply must love better. It cannot be forced (again, a main point of that article).


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.
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.

Some things are a matter of perspective. There are prominent black billionaires. The ceiling may be hard to reach, but I'm not even a millionaire. I was raised in the projects (not like Brooklyn, but dirt poor none-the-less). I am out of them now. People don't need to feel sorry for me but lending a hand or a word of encouragement didn't hurt. I suffered some of the lower class injustice, so know of which you speak, but it didn't seem to have a lot to do with color. I remember vividly eating stale cheerios with water and patching jeans with felt cloth. We were dirt poor. There is a mindset that we cannot get out of it, but education, even if off these days, is an equalizer and eye-opener. When it comes to black lives mattering, I'm never going to be the guy to take that away with anything said. Rather, the movement and I think this has to always be understood, was/is one of demonstrating and I've never seen demonstrations of angst as any help to any people doing the demonstrating. Look at the list of demands again, for instance.

It's not race, but marginalization, subjugation, disenfranchisement, denial of right, dehumanization, and more over generations, again. A good bit of that still being in play, one way or another.
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.

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.
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.


Time hasn't done enough. We should.
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.
 

Town Heretic

Out of Order
Hall of Fame
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).

Now why would they pick this guy to lend an impression? Why not someone leading a large section of people under the banner, from LA, or New York, or Chicago, or basically anywhere you have a much greater chance of finding diverse leadership and a much larger sampling? Because you go where you need to go to get the sound bite you want to get. And when you go and get it you want to be sure you look right after a seminal event guaranteed to bring out an emotionally charged response.

That's how you do your best to kill a thing, to paint it as something irrational, odious, and laughable. Find someone who'll make middle America lean in and say, "You know, these people (racists flying under a conservative flag and using words like "tradition" as deodorant) have a point. I mean, just look at the language. They (because the "they" is part of what's being attempted by it) can't even get their grammar right." (see the large choice for unnumbered 7 of 10).

It's a time honored tradition among racists, and those who for one reason or another offer aid and comfort to them.


*(whole article articulates well the need for this discussion)
In the same way an article by some Tea Party member from Jackson, Mississippi on a bad day would be indicative of conservatism.


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.

Morgan Freeman has said some things that resound true for me regarding the matter of us all 'just being Americans with American problems."
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.

So I noted your mistaken use of race as predisposition, "You need to consider what you wrote. Races aren't predisposed to violence."

Read the article above.
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.

By color? No. By socialization? Yes, definitely and much from within. We can't take all blame.
"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.

Some? I think as a civic duty and Christian duty, yes, but love is the motivator. We simply must love better. It cannot be forced (again, a main point of that article).
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.

As the poet said, "We are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike." Or as the friend I republished told me, he went off to war with many of the less admirable traits and foundational understandings found in the authors of that article, and came home a brother in arms and respecter of men he'd held in a general disdain from distance.

What 'worked' for whites, works for all colors.
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.

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.
You'd expect the stuff that falls off a great table to be better than the crumbs under a poor one.

Some things are a matter of perspective.
Race inequity is driven by it, counts on it.

There are prominent black billionaires.
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.

The ceiling may be hard to reach, but I'm not even a millionaire. I was raised in the projects (not like Brooklyn, but dirt poor none-the-less). I am out of them now.
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.

People don't need to feel sorry for me but lending a hand or a word of encouragement didn't hurt. I suffered some of the lower class injustice, so know of which you speak, but it didn't seem to have a lot to do with color.
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.

I remember vividly eating stale cheerios with water and patching jeans with felt cloth. We were dirt poor.
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.

There is a mindset that we cannot get out of it, but education, even if off these days, is an equalizer and eye-opener. When it comes to black lives mattering, I'm never going to be the guy to take that away with anything said. Rather, the movement and I think this has to always be understood, was/is one of demonstrating and I've never seen demonstrations of angst as any help to any people doing the demonstrating. Look at the list of demands again, for instance.
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.

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.
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.

An education is better than giving them our houses.
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.

They have access to that education.
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.

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.
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.

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.
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.

As I said above, I don't think you realize where I come from.
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 isn't as bad a picture as you are painting. We have successful business people of all races in this city I live in.
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.

Hence a difference certainly. I'm not sure if we haven't done enough.
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.

Nothing in skin color will make you inherently inferior to the next guy. But perception can put you at the back of the line. No tan will make you better, except as a model who needs to advertise sunscreen. But the perception of color and what it means can, has, and for the foreseeable future will likely continue to impact your options, how others see you, how eager they are to rent to you, to pick you up in their cab, to hire you for more than menial labor, and to expect competence from you, let alone greatness.

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."
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.

Is that how far you personally want to go to accomodate?
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.
 

Lon

Well-known member
It is going to take a bit to unpack this. I do think you have unusual empathy (perhaps overt?) having dealt with this subject in court. My brother, a fireman, similarly sees his world one way. His police fiance' similarly. I'd suggest a bit myopic for all three of you. You certainly can slam that, but I think your reaction to the article is over-reaction.

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).
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.

Now why would they pick this guy to lend an impression? Why not someone leading a large section of people under the banner, from LA, or New York, or Chicago, or basically anywhere you have a much greater chance of finding diverse leadership and a much larger sampling? Because you go where you need to go to get the sound bite you want to get. And when you go and get it you want to be sure you look right after a seminal event guaranteed to bring out an emotionally charged response.
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.

That's how you do your best to kill a thing, to paint it as something irrational, odious, and laughable. Find someone who'll make middle America lean in and say, "You know, these people (racists flying under a conservative flag and using words like "tradition" as deodorant) have a point. I mean, just look at the language. They (because the "they" is part of what's being attempted by it) can't even get their grammar right." (see the large choice for unnumbered 7 of 10).
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.
It's a time honored tradition among racists, and those who for one reason or another offer aid and comfort to them.
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.


In the same way an article by some Tea Party member from Jackson, Mississippi on a bad day would be indicative of conservatism.
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.



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.
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.


So I noted your mistaken use of race as predisposition, "You need to consider what you wrote. Races aren't predisposed to violence."
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.


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.
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" 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.
"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.'

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.
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.

As the poet said, "We are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike." Or as the friend I republished told me, he went off to war with many of the less admirable traits and foundational understandings found in the authors of that article, and came home a brother in arms and respecter of men he'd held in a general disdain from distance.

That's different. It is the spending of time together that makes lives 'matter.' A movement must/necessarily cause 'us' (or whoever) to value those lives. When was the last time you were punched? Did you want to 'care' for the guy at the time?
It needs to happen, but again, the article is about the violence of BLM, not at all against the idea that they matter. It is a real miracle and show of imago deo that we turn the other cheek. I think you were a bit harsh with the young girl who wrote the article.


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.
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?

If this kind of thing doesn't happen in your neck of the woods, you've got my full attention.

You'd expect the stuff that falls off a great table to be better than the crumbs under a poor one.
Again, my attention for sure. The landlord is richer than I am.


Race inequity is driven by it, counts on it.

It really has to be different on your end. A few doors down is a basketball player. His house is a bit nicer, his cars nicer than mine. Two doors down is a man with a nice wife, a neat dog, two kids, and fairly nice cars, all about the same as mine if not a little better. They play with the other kids next door to them.


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.
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 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.
I've seen this too.


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.
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.


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.
Agreed. I have seen this too, but yet again, a difference between the plight and the retribution movement.

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.
The movement isn't/wasn't like Martin Luther King's, by comparison. Its angst caused harm.


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.
As I said, it seems quite different here in the North West. In the projects are blacks and whites (and hispanics, etc.).
Disproportionate? Not really. The area is called Hilltop in Tacoma and it has, as the population would dictate, whites as well as blacks. The real help there, was Habitat for Humanity and other organizations helping all who wanted a home, to get one.

It may be, again, that we just live in very different places. I'd simply say, "it looks like it is working here."


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.
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 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.
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.


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.
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.

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, 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?

Nothing in skin color will make you inherently inferior to the next guy. But perception can put you at the back of the line. No tan will make you better, except as a model who needs to advertise sunscreen. But the perception of color and what it means can, has, and for the foreseeable future will likely continue to impact your options, how others see you, how eager they are to rent to you, to pick you up in their cab, to hire you for more than menial labor, and to expect competence from you, let alone greatness.
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.


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.
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.


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.
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.
 

Town Heretic

Out of Order
Hall of Fame
It is going to take a bit to unpack this. I do think you have unusual empathy (perhaps overt?) having dealt with this subject in court. My brother, a fireman, similarly sees his world one way. His police fiance' similarly. I'd suggest a bit myopic for all three of you. You certainly can slam that, but I think your reaction to the article is over-reaction.
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.

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.
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.

Media may or may not be a better indicator, but as I said, FB and Twitter can't really make it up.
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.

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.
I'm fine with emotion, so long as reason rules it. Most things worth fighting for are things we care deeply about.

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.
No should be followed by a rebuttal on the actual point though, Lon. Here it is again:

I wrote, "That's how you do your best to kill a thing, to paint it as something irrational, odious, and laughable."

Explain how that isn't true. The rest is just illustration:

"Find someone who'll make middle America lean in and say, "You know, these people (racists flying under a conservative flag and using words like "tradition" as deodorant) have a point. I mean, just look at the language. They (because the "they" is part of what's being attempted by it) can't even get their grammar right." (see the large choice for unnumbered 7 of 10).


It's a time honored tradition among racists, and those who for one reason or another offer aid and comfort to them."

That's absolutely true. I didn't say Freeman was trying to downplay. He's one perspective, and a perspective with a good bit of insulation for a very long time. He's a lot of things I don't agree with, but that's fine. You can find conservatives who supported gay rights too. And liberals who oppose abortion. There are all sorts of opinions out there,

I disagree. It was talking simply about the difference between 'blunt' and precision. It 'seems' you are on board the demonstrations/protests idea.

Few things are more American or as effective at prompting the sort of conversation that leads to action and change.

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.
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 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.
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.

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.
I think we're trained to expect and to look for things. It's like some of the language I've noted here.

It is just as racial for you to say so 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.

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'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.


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.
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.

"We" the police. "We" whites. "We" privileged. There were demands.
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.

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.'
You'll have to quote me doing that, Lon. Where was it?

I noted the efficacy of movements to undo injustice.
ONLY by fear of reprisal.
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.

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.
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.

That's different. It is the spending of time together that makes lives 'matter.' A movement must/necessarily cause 'us' (or whoever) to value those lives. When was the last time you were punched? Did you want to 'care' for the guy at the time?
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.

It needs to happen, but again, the article is about the violence of BLM, not at all against the idea that they matter. It is a real miracle and show of imago deo that we turn the other cheek. I think you were a bit harsh with the young girl who wrote the article.
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.

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?
It depends. What's the point of noting him?

It really has to be different on your end. A few doors down is a basketball player. His house is a bit nicer, his cars nicer than mine. Two doors down is a man with a nice wife, a neat dog, two kids, and fairly nice cars, all about the same as mine if not a little better. They play with the other kids next door to them.
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.

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'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).

Nope. I was denied access to a church in Texas 'because' I was white.
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."

And no, he wasn't reared in the South.

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.
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.

The movement isn't/wasn't like Martin Luther King's, by comparison. Its angst caused harm.
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.

As I said, it seems quite different here in the North West. In the projects are blacks and whites (and hispanics, etc.).
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.

30 years ago? In 1990? We just have had nothing like that here.
Sorry, 40ish.

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
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.

We just really don't see these kinds of things here up North.
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.

Again, how far? My relatives likely were not here during the Civil War.
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.

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?
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.

As I said, I'm listening on this note. It does indeed seem that it is not better where you live.
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.

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.
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.

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.
You've really got to get your head out of this north/south nonsense. It's just not where that's at.
 

Lon

Well-known member
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.
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.

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.
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 depends. What's the point of noting him?
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 doesn't. Maybe your perception filter isn't taking in the larger sweep of things or maybe you just chose an exceptional neighborhood.
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.


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).
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:


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."

No, no I didn't equate. I was careful not to equate. It did, however show a difference between your black experiences and mine. Do either of them make a lot of difference? Only insomuch as we've tried to do the right things. You basically 'white'washed my experiences with them and apart. I do believe, rather, that my experiences give me insight that you don't have coming from privilege vs with them often.


You mean when a few black people asked you. They weren't elected to represent anyone.
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.

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.
Really? You remember televisions going missing during the MLK movement? :think: I realize, certainly with your Malcom X event, you are an activist. That's great and awesome, but it isn't quite the same as living next door or having for your best friend.


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.
I think it is, at least it seems so. I talked about my neighborhood and then the hilltop neighborhood. For the most part, we want anybody 'buying' and fewer 'renting.' It doesn't matter the color (and I think there is some 'renter' prejudice on my/our part). I couldn't be happier with those who own homes in our community.


Sorry, 40ish.
In Alabama, 1981, right? Horrible.

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.
It becomes difficult when a whole subculture is involved in crime because it then becomes a matter of criminal activity unfortunately blended with racism complications. It'd be uncomfortable, by example, being born too close to Italian crime, as well.

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.
Even in Africa. I'd not even say here in Washington State are we colorblind. As I said, many Southern criminals in our state penal system are of color but do believe there are significant differences as well. I wouldn't have heard 'it is much better here' repeatedly/unsolicited, if they didn't think so. I simply don't ask "Is racial tension better here?" It is told to me by simply being nice: "That's kind of you. People like you are good people. It's better here than where I grew up." All I did was told this guy where to buy deck screws for a very good price.


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 ties in with the language of the movement for you and I to give up our houses. "I wasn't even here!"
If all we are talking about is that police act as if black lives matter, I'm on page. If however, you hear someone complaining, or read an article in the Federalist, try to realize they aren't talking about that. They are talking about giving up their homes. They are talking about the store owners who have lost television sets because "Black Lives Matter" or who have been asked to leave college campus because "Black Lives are the ones that matter" (not theirs that day).

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.
Continuing with the theme, try to remember that this was one of the 'demands' not just from a guy in Louisville. It was on the news. If half of what you read on Twitter or FB is false, you still have to deal with proving it when it is given repeatedly on the national stations.

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.
Try here and read the quotes.
 

Town Heretic

Out of Order
Hall of Fame
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.
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.

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 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 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.
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.

Here's a link to major BLM chapters in the U.S. that might be helpful in understanding where so many of the members are found. LINK You will doubtless be a bit surprised.

The news stations didn't help.
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.

Here's a link to a racial map of the U.S. You'll notice how much of it is relatively empty of anything like a substantive population of black people. True for your state, outside of the Seattle area. It's much easier to believe anything you like about a place that isn't addressing the task of relation in a serious sense. Skin in the game matters. Here's the map LINK.

When you consider the map it's remarkable that nearly all of the racist incidents you'd expect to find aren't in the South. But where you find those concentrations, you find the difference between the idea and how the rubber actually meets the road. White America struggles wherever it meets substantial minority populations. It does that more often in the South for one obvious reason: population.


my experiences give me insight that you don't have coming from privilege vs with them often.
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).

You remember televisions going missing during the MLK movement?
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.

:think: I realize, certainly with your Malcom X event, you are an activist. That's great and awesome, but it isn't quite the same as living next door or having for your best friend.
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 think it is, at least it seems so. I talked about my neighborhood and then the hilltop neighborhood. For the most part, we want anybody 'buying' and fewer 'renting.' It doesn't matter the color (and I think there is some 'renter' prejudice on my/our part). I couldn't be happier with those who own homes in our community.
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.

In Alabama, 1981, right? Horrible.
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.

Even in Africa. I'd not even say here in Washington State are we colorblind. '
Let me help you with that.

On Dec. 9, 2018, nine men were charged in Lynwood, Washington for attacking a black DJ because of their racist beliefs. One was from Pittsburgh, two were from Oregon, two from Washington state. They were associated with Hammerskin Nation. That group is neo-Nazi and noted for hosting an annual celebration in your state called Martyrs Day, which memorializes the dead racist Robert J. Mathews.

Here's a link to an article from Seattle Magazine entitled, "A Reflection on Racism in Seattle." From that article:

"Eric Davis, who is on the sociology faculty at Bellevue College, talked about how he’d lived in many U.S. cities and found that it was almost refreshing to live in Georgia in comparison to Seattle, because many whites were so openly racist that at least you knew where people stood. In Seattle, the racism is subtler, or as Ming Francis put it, “more passive-aggressive.'"

Or this from an article in Patch, citing data from the ADL:

"SEATTLE, WA - Most cities around Puget Sound - and many more across the state - saw some type of racist extremist incident between 2017 and 2018, according to a new report from the Anti-Defamation League. There were 86 incidents across those two years, and just two groups carried out 41 of the 48 incidents in 2018 alone. 2018 was a banner year for the spread of propaganda like racist, anti-Semitic, and Islamophobic fliers, stickers, banners and posters, according to the ADL. White supremacy incidents increased 182 percent in 2018 compared to the year before, the report said."

I don't think that reflects the rule anywhere, but I do think it reflects that geography is no real bar to human nature or the originator of it.


I simply don't ask "Is racial tension better here?" It is told to me by simply being nice: "That's kind of you. People like you are good people. It's better here than where I grew up." All I did was told this guy where to buy deck screws for a very good price.
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.

It ties in with the language of the movement for you and I to give up our houses. "I wasn't even here!"
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.

This from the BLM main site on what they're after. I removed a few repetitious bits relating to sexuality that are really covered by the 6th tenet:

Spoiler
We acknowledge, respect, and celebrate differences and commonalities.
Spoiler

We work vigorously for freedom and justice for Black people and, by extension, all people.
We intentionally build and nurture a beloved community that is bonded together through a beautiful struggle that is restorative, not depleting.
We are unapologetically Black in our positioning. In affirming that Black Lives Matter, we need not qualify our position. To love and desire freedom and justice for ourselves is a prerequisite for wanting the same for others.
We see ourselves as part of the global Black family, and we are aware of the different ways we are impacted or privileged as Black people who exist in different parts of the world.
We are guided by the fact that all Black lives matter, regardless of actual or perceived sexual identity, gender identity, gender expression, economic status, ability, disability, religious beliefs or disbeliefs, immigration status, or location.
We build a space that affirms Black women and is free from sexism, misogyny, and environments in which men are centered.
We practice empathy. We engage comrades with the intent to learn about and connect with their contexts.
We make our spaces family-friendly and enable parents to fully participate with their children. We dismantle the patriarchal practice that requires mothers to work “double shifts” so that they can mother in private even as they participate in public justice work.
We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and “villages” that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable.
We cultivate an intergenerational and communal network free from ageism. We believe that all people, regardless of age, show up with the capacity to lead and learn.
We embody and practice justice, liberation, and peace in our engagements with one another.


If all we are talking about is that police act as if black lives matter, I'm on page.
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.

If however, you hear someone complaining, or read an article in the Federalist, try to realize they aren't talking about that. They are talking about giving up their homes. They are talking about the store owners who have lost television sets because "Black Lives Matter" or who have been asked to leave college campus because "Black Lives are the ones that matter" (not theirs that day).
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.

Continuing with the theme, try to remember that this was one of the 'demands' not just from a guy in Louisville. It was on the news.
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.

Try here and read the quotes.
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?
 

Lon

Well-known member
Sorry, been working and am exhausted. This is a bit hard to read and well below standard :( In humility, I left it and am going to hit the hay. -Lon
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.
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.


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.

Here's a link to major BLM chapters in the U.S. that might be helpful in understanding where so many of the members are found. LINK You will doubtless be a bit surprised.
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.


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.
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.

Here's a link to a racial map of the U.S. You'll notice how much of it is relatively empty of anything like a substantive population of black people. True for your state, outside of the Seattle area. It's much easier to believe anything you like about a place that isn't addressing the task of relation in a serious sense. Skin in the game matters. Here's the map LINK.
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.

When you consider the map it's remarkable that nearly all of the racist incidents you'd expect to find aren't in the South. But where you find those concentrations, you find the difference between the idea and how the rubber actually meets the road. White America struggles wherever it meets substantial minority populations. It does that more often in the South for one obvious reason: population.
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).



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 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.
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.


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.

On Dec. 9, 2018, nine men were charged in Lynwood, Washington for attacking a black DJ because of their racist beliefs. One was from Pittsburgh, two were from Oregon, two from Washington state. They were associated with Hammerskin Nation. That group is neo-Nazi and noted for hosting an annual celebration in your state called Martyrs Day, which memorializes the dead racist Robert J. Mathews.
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.

Here's a link to an article from Seattle Magazine entitled, "A Reflection on Racism in Seattle." From that article:

"Eric Davis, who is on the sociology faculty at Bellevue College, talked about how he’d lived in many U.S. cities and found that it was almost refreshing to live in Georgia in comparison to Seattle, because many whites were so openly racist that at least you knew where people stood. In Seattle, the racism is subtler, or as Ming Francis put it, “more passive-aggressive.'"
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.

This is closer to what I believe our NW problem (from your link):
The status quo is among the most progressive and liberal of any city in America, and yet it’s still a struggle to get people here to understand the lived experience of people of color.” That’s tough to face, let alone rectify.
Or this from an article in Patch, citing data from the ADL:

"SEATTLE, WA - Most cities around Puget Sound - and many more across the state - saw some type of racist extremist incident between 2017 and 2018, according to a new report from the Anti-Defamation League. There were 86 incidents across those two years, and just two groups carried out 41 of the 48 incidents in 2018 alone. 2018 was a banner year for the spread of propaganda like racist, anti-Semitic, and Islamophobic fliers, stickers, banners and posters, according to the ADL. White supremacy incidents increased 182 percent in 2018 compared to the year before, the report said."

I don't think that reflects the rule anywhere, but I do think it reflects that geography is no real bar to human nature or the originator of it.
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.



The status quo is among the most progressive and liberal of any city in America, and yet it’s still a struggle to get people here to understand the lived experience of people of color.” That’s tough to face, let alone rectify.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. [/QUOTE] I lived in Detroit for awhile. I can't speak to all places. I do think we are doing better, despite what a few of these articles say. I also believe it very important to listen to those 30 voices who have said they have not experienced racism here. Why? They aren't saying racism doesn't exist everywhere, shoot I've met a few blacks who hate whites, here. In this state. A few disgruntled are not a good reflection of the whole. I genuinely believe we are different because I've been told, unsolicited many times, that we are.


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.

This from the BLM main site on what they're after. I removed a few repetitious bits relating to sexuality that are really covered by the 6th tenet:

Spoiler
We acknowledge, respect, and celebrate differences and commonalities.
Spoiler

We work vigorously for freedom and justice for Black people and, by extension, all people.
We intentionally build and nurture a beloved community that is bonded together through a beautiful struggle that is restorative, not depleting.
We are unapologetically Black in our positioning. In affirming that Black Lives Matter, we need not qualify our position. To love and desire freedom and justice for ourselves is a prerequisite for wanting the same for others.
We see ourselves as part of the global Black family, and we are aware of the different ways we are impacted or privileged as Black people who exist in different parts of the world.
We are guided by the fact that all Black lives matter, regardless of actual or perceived sexual identity, gender identity, gender expression, economic status, ability, disability, religious beliefs or disbeliefs, immigration status, or location.
We build a space that affirms Black women and is free from sexism, misogyny, and environments in which men are centered.
We practice empathy. We engage comrades with the intent to learn about and connect with their contexts.
We make our spaces family-friendly and enable parents to fully participate with their children. We dismantle the patriarchal practice that requires mothers to work “double shifts” so that they can mother in private even as they participate in public justice work.
We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and “villages” that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable.
We cultivate an intergenerational and communal network free from ageism. We believe that all people, regardless of age, show up with the capacity to lead and learn.
We embody and practice justice, liberation, and peace in our engagements with one another.



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.
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.

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?
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."
 

ok doser

lifeguard at the cement pond
It is part of it mattering what blacks go through.


meanwhile, the elephant in the room:

UShomicideraterace.png
 
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Town Heretic

Out of Order
Hall of Fame
We saw the rioting. We saw the televisions being carried home.
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?

I have to ask: "What bias?" Am I to believe my own eyes or not? Why is your version 'the only version?'
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.

We had angry black kids who in WA who ousted their white classmates and teachers.
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.

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
When they do that you should publish it. Doesn't match what I found without any particular difficulty and linked to.

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.
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.

Did you read the comments from those minorities from Washington? A VERY few say there is racism here.
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.

Again, we do have imports. It is not really part of the population here.
Two of the nine were from Washington. And that commemoration is in Washington too.

Do we have neo-Nazi's? Yes. Many? No.
In order, I know. How many?

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.
I think they illustrate the point that Washington has more going on than coffee shops and racial harmony.

He found Georgia's straight up prejudice 'refreshing????'
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.

Anything in light of American terrorism is a different animal.
American terrorism?

We are also talking about a much larger concern in our population, that of diverse skin color.
Why is that a concern?

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.
Sure. Any other history of racial problems with Asians? Because that's a slightly wider net.

I lived in Detroit for awhile.
What part, when and for how long? More, what did you glean from the experience?

I can't speak to all places. I do think we are doing better, despite what a few of these articles say. I also believe it very important to listen to those 30 voices who have said they have not experienced racism here.
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.

Why? They aren't saying racism doesn't exist everywhere, shoot I've met a few blacks who hate whites, here.
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.

In this state. A few disgruntled are not a good reflection of the whole. I genuinely believe we are different because I've been told, unsolicited many times, that we are.
That explains why you place value in random claims, but it's not actually reason to believe it.

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.
Of course it was, for the reasons offered.

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).
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.

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.
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.


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."
How much do you need?
 

Lon

Well-known member
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).

1) Yes, most of us see the problem of inequality.
2) We've no idea how to 'fix' it, or if it all can be fixed. In Seattle/Tacoma, I think we do well YET racism hasn't or cannot be totally eradicated, just an attempt (that seems to be working) to do so in our pockets of community.
3) "All Lives" is a response, not the black lives mattering but to the repercussions of lost lives and harsh interactions with 'whites.' If as the marine suggests, it minimizes the BLM, only insomuch as it truly equalizes us all. You are for pendulum swings, I'm for calming down equalization. You'd argue that equalization needs to move a few notches. It will always be the case and I nor you can stop what is universal.

We can do better in our communities and we can definitely do better in our churches. For 4 years, I attended a church in Portland called Newsong. It was half-white, half black and we truly enjoyed one another's company. The Pastor, a large black man, never let any of us out the door without a huge hug and I felt loved there. Anecdotal? Of course. I'm trying to get you to grasp what it looks like when I believe we are actually succeeding and doing it right. Maybe it isn't time for a glass half full. I recognize this too, but it has got to start somewhere.
 
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