Xizen47 wrote: ↑Wed Sep 23, 2020 9:02 am
mockbee wrote: ↑Tue Sep 22, 2020 5:58 am
The protesters running through our neighborhoods, calling everyone racists and hypocrites are right, in many senses.
I completely disagree with this. Please explain how "everyone is racist"?
This is where the far left loses me and most of America. This Robin DeAngelo, Ibram X. Kendi pushed narrative that "if you're white, you're racist" is a huge step backwards regarding race relations in America today.
Well, this could lead down many specious and/or misguided tangents, so I'll/let's just try to narrow down what I'm actually insinuating.
First of all, I'll just make as clear statements as I can about where I stand:
1. What those white protesters are doing, marching down residential streets calling people out at their homes is disgusting and abhorrent. There is no room for their righteousness in a nation that prides liberty above fascism.
2. There are truly racist/bigoted people in this country (and in every country, all over the world) who are despicable and politically dangerous, meaning their primary objective in voting and socialization is to discriminate between races, genders etc. They should be publically denounced when their voices are elevated and their true intentions are displayed. I would put the figure between 10-15% of the population (of all political stripes, both sides for sure) who would actually be guilty of displaying such consequential qualities. I don't have research to back that up, just based on my general experience in life. I don't count what people are thinking. Nobody knows what people are actually thinking.
3. Black/Brown etc. people can be racist, meaning displaying preferential/discriminatory treatment because of one's race. Minorities are far and away the greater victims of consequential racism in our society. There is no question about that. I know there is academic debate about what qualifies as racism/racist and I am not addressing that, I'm not an academic.
4. Calling all/most all Trump voters racist is specious. Meaning they are racist because they vote for a plausibly racist man is not right. That invalidates a host of other reasons why they may vote for him. And to say those reasons, economic/security/religious/whatever are not valid isn't in the vein of democracy. Surely you could say the same about all Biden voters. Biden is FAR from being a saint in racial equality matters. But this reasoning is not why I claim we are all racist in some respect.
Now getting to your actual question. First of all, you bring up Kendi and DiAngelo. I have not read their work, but I am aware of it and have heard them speak. I respect their opinions, but also find some of it patently racist, if we are using the simple definition of the term. Is it consequentially racist? I dont know. Maybe, if it just splinters people and it's primary objective is a self loathing society, as what we seem to have achieved here in Portland. It's too soon to tell.
Here is a passage that addresses her work that I agree with.
As such, a major bugbear for DiAngelo is the white American, often of modest education, who makes statements like I don’t see color or asks questions like How dare you call me “racist”?
Her assumption that all people have a racist bias is reasonable—science has demonstrated it. The problem is what DiAngelo thinks must follow as the result of it.
DiAngelo has spent a very long time conducting diversity seminars in which whites, exposed to her catechism, regularly tell her—many while crying, yelling, or storming toward the exit—that she’s insulting them and being reductionist. Yet none of this seems to have led her to look inward. Rather, she sees herself as the bearer of an exalted wisdom that these objectors fail to perceive, blinded by their inner racism. DiAngelo is less a coach than a proselytizer.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... ty/614146/
Portland is a good example. We hate ourselves here. We are very very guilty and we don't know what to do about it. I don't hate myself, but I find that I have to often pretend to in order to fit in, get jobs, etc. I think, if we are really not racist and never were personally racist, we wouldn't feel guilty. That is not the case. And I am not excluding myself from the muck of holding biases, just as I am accusing everyone else of. Just I am not going to feel bad about it, and I am going to do my personal best to mitigate those biases. This is the intrinsic racism I am refering to, that is in all of us. Certainly, we are not all hateful, but we do all have racial biases, some more than others depending on our environment and upbringing.
Now, you might go, well I don't live in Portland, and things are fine here, or really improving, so what does that prove? Well, that's wishful thinking I would say. I would say you have blinders on if you think things are mostly fine where you are at and you hold no racial biases. We are all still the benefactors of racial stratification. That part is important. Benefiting from systemic racism (redlining/gentrification/school funding/etc) and not caring to do anything about it i'd say is a form of racism. I think the guilty and non-guilty alike, are in the same boat, just some are more consciously aware then others. Not saying the guilty are the aware ones, a lot of them are total idiots, just like many of the aloof ones....
Categorizing people on the basis of race is inherently racist. Again, is it consequential? Yes...and no. I think we do need a form of affirmative action and that has racial bias with certain consequences, both for the discriminated against, who do not get certain positions even though they are likely qualified, and for the benefactors who do get positions, who are also likely qualified, but are of the right race. I have spoken to Black individuals who would write their SAT scores on papers and exams in the 90s at their Ivy schools because they did not want to be perceived as having had preferential treatment. They had good backstory reasons for doing so. That's all okay in mind, all this racial examination and trying our best to figure it out. But to act like certain large swaths of individuals are immune to this possibly being consequential racism (not the blatant racism), all races included, is specious, in my mind. It would be of benefit to personally acknowledge our intrinsic (scientifically proven) racial biases in moving forward. Should it be mandated that we all go through trainings to accomplish this or be yelled at from the street by righteous dimwits? No.
Well I could go on, and I am not saying that I am right. That's just where I stand at the moment. We are all racist in some respect, thats all I'm saying, some far more consequentially than others....