It is easy to be dismissive. You never have anything worthwhile to add. It is always smarmy one liners or cute little memes. Fact is you don’t know enough about the issues to articulate a relevant response.
No, it's not. This shit is still happening today. Our "history" is not the reason law enforcement police Black people differently than white people today. Our "history" isn't the reason Black people are less likely to get interviewed for jobs, get paid less when they're hired, and are less likely to get promoted. Our "history" isn't why judges sentence Black people more punitively or why prosecutors are less lenient towards them. You dismissively talk of the "CRTists," but it's a real shame you have zero interest in learning anything about critical race theory. Because it actually does a phenomenal job of explaining how "colorblind" laws are enforced in racially discriminatory ways. You talk of solutions without meaningfully seeking to understand the problem. Yes, this country is still riddled with systemic racism, no matter how you try to vilify those of us who recognize that evidence-backed reality. I don't much care whether you feel guilty or not. I care whether you are willing to consider the evidence, evaluate the problem, and work towards a solution. You want to make systemic racism about individual racism, and that never leads to anywhere productive, nor does it meaningfully reckon with the issue. As for Obama, that's a copout. Hell, of the people who voted, 55% of white people voted against him in 2008 and 59% voted against him in 2012. So when you say "this country" elected Obama, that isn't the truth. Part of this country elected Obama, and it wasn't the majority of white people or even the majority of white voters.
Any statistics I’ve ever seen regarding police show a higher incidence of enforcement encounters are due to higher incidence of participation in criminal activity. Having worked in corporate America for decades I don’t recall seeing workplace hiring racism. Fact is you just didn’t see many blacks period. One theory is it is racism. A more likely theory is there just aren’t many available for such positions, and the ones available are in high demand. The issues are far more complicated than “racism”. Calling racism as the primary problem is just intellectually lazy. FWIW I did work in a couple of S FL organizations that hired Jamaican blacks who excelled and progressed up the highest levels of management. As to whites voting for Obama, I am going to guess he got as many or more white votes than Hillary did.
Way to perfectly illustrate his point. Now respond to me with some not-so-clever meme and we are done here. Rinse & repeat.
That’s was painful. The Trump team in there was classic. “Guns don’t kill people” “Chicago” “I’m white so I must be racist” “Jesse Smollett” “I’m a Trump guy”
So, aren't you doing that thing you said where you consume your preferred media and form a version of reality out of that?
I think one of the primary problems in this country is that fairly obvious social and economic problems stare us in the face, and a lot of people want to explain that away as too simple, but always as either things you cant do anything about anyways, or that in fact it is the burden of the victims of those problems to solve, not the burden of society. This is aided and abetted by a political system that operates and functions under the same logic by design.
I don't have to take a class on CRT to realize that this is not a racist country any more than any other country on this planet. We all tend to view the world through our own lens, and I am as guilty as anyone for doing that, but from where I sit, I see black people, and other minorities, holding jobs as engineers, doctors, lawyers, politicians, business owners, etc, etc. If the "system" is racist, NONE of that would be the case. Is there room for improvement? Absolutely. Does the system need to be shredded and rebuilt? No. This constant argument of racism is old and tired.
There were black engineers, doctors, lawyers, business owners and politicians when there was Jim Crow in place
Thanks for proving my point. And look how far we have come since then. And we will continue to advance.
I get what you're saying to an extent. But Americans often feel and express pride for achievements and successes that are long gone (or even fairly recent) which they personally had zero part in. For example, they may boast about the successes of "Western values" or inventions...or beam with pride about their ancestor or even a living family member who fought in a war. Isn't it also understandable that Americans would feel disappointment/shame/regret for our country and our ancestors when it comes to bad things? I think many Americans want to feel a sense of connection to the collective positive while distancing themselves individually when it comes to the negative. I'm sure that's human nature to a degree but I think progress involves us being honest and introspective about this sort of stuff. Growing up when and where I did, at least, even the most heinous parts of our racial and ethnic history were often downplayed or even lied about. I'm sure some were consciously racist. On the other end of the spectrum were probably those who simply felt embarrassment or discomfort about facing the truth.
Was the point that your personal measurement for racism vs no racism was bunk and lacked substance? Because I definitely proved that.
This is really well put. I know I hear some pretty nasty accounts of things my parents grew up around in a North Florida small town. Nonetheless I think present day things have to be constructive and action oriented. Trying to guilt one class of people because of what one class of ancestors did to the other class of ancestors probably isn’t going to do much to solve the problem and may make it worse.
Naw. Lboy took a shot at me for some reason and I gave it right back. You’re welcome to mind ya biz though.
Ultimately, progress is a myth, it is a story we tell ourselves that shapes our identity as a nation. And if many people reject that story as blatantly false, think its made-up or sugar coating the state of things, its not all that useful of a myth, as it will not be very persuasive or binding. There are plenty of things that could be done to make that myth more inclusive or broadly believable, but that would require a rejection of existing myth. There's a reason this argument tends to center around texts and media, to some extent they do shape those myths.
