ALL Black Lives Matter

In addition to HJs points, the remnants Slavery just 150 years ago and of the overt legalized racism from just 60 years ago still has a profound negative impact on black mental health in the form of generational trauma.
There was a famous elementary school study done in the 70s I think where a teacher gave preferential treatment to students based on eye color. The students who were discriminated against immediately performed worse and had a deflated and defeated self worth “I feel like I’m worthless so why try” is what one said (along those lines). This mentality gets passed down inadvertently through generations.
Here’s another tangible example going back to slavery. If a white man complimented a slave child, the parent would say how lazy and stupid their child actually was to dissuade the possible selling of the child to someone else. If a slave child made a mistake, the parent would offer to beat the child really badly to prevent the slave owner from doing worse. These parenting “skills” have persisted in the deep subconscious of many black parents even today. I’m not saying all black parents abuse their kids, btw. Just that some have healed more than others from generational trauma. “Until you transform your trauma (through therapy, etc) you will continue to transmit it.”

I’m not an expert in African American sociology, so these are just a few examples I’ve studied. There are many more though.

 

Here’s at least one I know that’s directly systemic. In the education system, black children on average receive harsher punishments for identical infractions vs white children.

 

You ARE claiming that a bigger portion of the blame should go to the minority of “evil black people”. If I’m misrepresenting what you’re saying, do a better job at representing yourself to avoid that ambiguity. By dismissing me for using a graph, I guess you’re not denying my interpretation.

But ok cool, that’s fine. I thought it was an easier way to represent how your views are coming across, visually rather then words. Took less then two minutes to make the pie chart. It’s not meant to be taken literally or be some legit statistical breakdown. You are echoing some of John’s points who claimed that the BLM movement was ignoring what he thought was 99% of the problem, so I thought I was being even more fair.

Didn’t think there was anything disrespectful about that. But hey, if you’re offended then maybe I should reflect and listen

Take care. I guess from both our perspective’s, not much of value has been lost. I’m guessing blocking me might still allow you to see any of my comments that get quoted, so I’ll try to take greater effort in staying away from the forum altogether until basketball is back.

 

I see exactly what you mean. In my example the systemic discrimination of the education system’s discipline policies are not intentional. I think it’s mostly about implicit bias of school staff. White Travis flips over his desk and exclaims “F**^ this class!” resulting in a 2 day suspension. A month later, in a different class, black La’Shawn does the exact same thing, yet gets a 3 day suspension because the teacher felt more threatened. So, while the unfair treatment wasn’t intentionally racist, there was implicit bias.

Now we have to ask whether or not the source of implicit bias was from an intentional system. It could be that the school staff who gave the 3 day suspension grew up in a dangerous black area with crime, shaping his implicit bias. Or/and the media may have played an intentional part too. Blacks are disproportionately depicted as violent, stupid, or criminals in movies, tv, and the news. Remember during hurricane katrina a news headline showed black “looters” and white “foragers for supplies” In the same cropped image. Why does the media want to intentionally portray blacks negatively? Fear and diviseness is profitable. If we’re really honest we all have implicit biases. I hope this comes out right, lol. If I needed a lifesaving brain operation and I had the choice between two equally qualified doctors, Steven Chang or Marquiss Jackson, I’m going with the Asian dude. I mean, dr Jackson probably has dreds and gold chains. Now use that same logic for bank loans, hiring, etc.

There are other systems that have been intentionally racist. The war on drugs was an attack on the black community. There are secret tapes of politicians admitting as much. Remember “super predators”? Prisons are a for profit business. I’m sure there are other intentional systems that I can’t think of right now. I’m just spewing off the cuff. But even if the intentionally oppressive systems are fading away, their residual effects last and alter generations. Even if we had a magic wand and made intentional system racism disappear today, blacks would still suffer from the effects of systemic racism for a long time.

I guess the point is that systemic racism doesn’t have to be intentional to be real in its affects. We can still call it systemic, intentional or not.

 

Totally got you.
I think there are four things we're talking about:
1. Past intentional systemic racist oppression
2. Current intentional systemic racist oppression
3. Unintentionally racist and oppressive systems due to mostly implicit bias
4. Residual affects of slavery and past intentionally oppressive systems.

What is the ratio of distribution? We'll ask HJ to make a pie chart on that one

 

I think you guys are spot on in breaking it into those 4 points. What the ratio is? Beats me, y'all cheeky MF's

My inclination is that most of today's racial problems are a combination of unintentionally racist systems/implicit bias and residual affects from previously oppressive systems that have since been reformed. And that does complicate the matter of identifying the problems/potential solutions.

Also, acknowledging that I don't know the actual experience of being a black American in 2020, I would tend to agree that we seem to be in a much better place racially then we have been in the past. Still not in a good place, at all. But better then 10, 20, 30, etc years ago. It's hard to get on board with "racism being at an all time high" (as Stephen Jackson claimed this week, ironically as he supported anti-semitic views). More visible in the social media age, more vocal with the racist dog-whistles coming from 45, sure. But that increased visibility into racism also increases empathy from others for ongoing racial issues. But overall my stance is that better then the past still isn't anywhere near good enough.

Time, you touched on something I've been thinking about with your "problem solver" comment. I didn't want to use this example because it simplifies things and puts things into weird connotations, but the current situation and discourse reminds me of the trope of the emotional wife and the problem-solving husband. Wife comes home from a bad day at work and vents to her husband. Husband responds "well why didn't you do X,Y, and Z? Next time that'll prevent the problem". Maybe X,Y, and Z are valid problem-solving steps. Maybe not. But that's not what wife wanted to hear in this moment. She wanted empathy. So now husband's sleeping on the couch.

I think that's where we're at right now with the BLM movement. The reason why some of the opposing views get met with backlash is because while your intent might be problem solving, the messaging with these opposing views often come across as unempathetic. To the point where it comes across less like you're trying to solve a problem, and moreso that you're trying to win a political argument and deny the existence or extent of the problem.

And the reason I don't like this example very much is because as men, we probably read that and think "well if the emotional wife just listened to the problem-solving husband, everything would be okay" . So to be clear, no I'm not saying your proposed problems/resolutions are correct but need to be more empathetic. We're still not entirely on the same page with the proposed problems/resolutions either.

 

This is a complex issue with no easy solution. I think in any scenario where the pendulum of "fairness" or "what is right" has swung so completely far in one direction, it must eventually swing back in the opposite direction.

I don't know how America makes up for past wrongs, but I hope they create policies that don't further erode basic principles for future success. Sometimes our country's generosity is misplaced in ways that are not productive. A company I work with just had a technician quit because he saw how much money his wife was getting to stay home during a pandemic. He traded long term job security for short term gain - surmising he could basically get himself a nice little paid vacation and deal with getting a job once things were over. This does him no good in the long run, and such policies don't exist in other countries.

When the US finally figures out how to make this right, I hope it's not in the misguided form of handouts that will have no lasting effect. Money is good and necessary, but it doesn't instill on a person what it takes to make the money, to be successful, to have good work ethic, to have good work habits, etc.


THere are many things the US has done to undermine the family unit in black families in the US. The damage has been done for generations. Serious question: How do you fix it? I literally have no idea, but I'm glad folks are fed up and want to do something about it. But to the OP, valid points are made on the message but Punk did a great job clarifying this isn't about crime but equal and fair treatment, equal and fair opportunity, and the sickening systemic racism that has existed in our country for so many generations.

I hope that when the dust settles that we don't come up with policies that make the problem worse.

 

Great discussion. I think the Black Lives Matter group should change their name to promote what they actually fight for: police brutality. It’ll save supporters of the movement from getting upset at the other phrases and it’ll keep black people from rightfully criticizing them for leaving out black people.

 

Maybe I was typing with Mike Tyson's voice in my head:
"Rathism till exiths"

 

Which is totally racist! Or discriminatory.



which is what made it so funny.

 

Yup, sorry wasn’t trying to say anything about your own role as a problem solver in this issue. Your use of the term just reminded me of an analogy I’ve had in the back of my mind.

Yeah, this is a good point. When the Floyd story first broke out and we saw cops continue to demonstrate brutality during peaceful protests when they knew the eyes of the world would be on them, yeah in this moment the key takeaway for me was purely that policing needs reform. I personally didn’t see the racial component at the forefront.

And not to spread misinformation because I’m not sure how accurate this is, but I had heard rumors that Chauvin and Floyd may have known each other, so this specific case may have been more personal then racial. Even if that didn’t turn out to be true, my gut feeling was that Chauvin was more trying to flex his power because he’s an egotistical meathead too dumb to realize the extent of the physical harm he was inflicting, not necessarily trying to kill Floyd because he was black. Although, there was probably some implicit bias there where he felt he could get away with it because Floyd was black.

So I was already on board just to protest against police brutality and have generally felt that they have too large and too militarized of a presence in many places. But then it kind of morphed into BLM so to me it was like “all right, I can already get behind the core drive of anti-racism, if both these movements intertwine and can push reform forward in various aspects, I’m on board”

Anyways, good talks but I’m sincerely going to try to stay away from here for a while. Even if it’s mostly civil here, I’ve just generally been spending too much time discussing or following along current social/political issues online. It’s good to be aware, but it’s become a waste of time and emotional energy. There is just SO much noise right now. For my mental health I think I need to unplug for a bit.

 

If anyone is a nerd and is interested in the developmental psychology/neurobiology of our subconscious perceptions of others (implicit bias), this is a great and easy to understand video. You could get away with just the first 10 minutes. Its not about racism or police violence at all, but the concepts are easily extrapolated. The 7ish minute mark was mindblowing to me. If you have an internal catalog of "people are good" you'll tend to see good in people and act in a way to subconsciously elicit good from them. And of course the opposite is true.Children riased with violent and scary parents tend to incorrectly see anger from others who arent necessarily angry, and they also act scary and violent themselves to elicit eventual anger and violence from otherwise safe people. It becomes a self fullfilling prophecy.

 

it's why women find me so attractive tbh

 

Very interesting Punk. Thanks.

From your user name are you all about the red squares? Was that too personal a question? Apologies if so .... coming from big green humper world view.