• Benkei
    7.1k
    :yawn:

    Here we go again. Another Western European crying about how things are in America, when the country they live in is less diverse and has more whites in positions of privilege percentage-wise than the country they are whining about. What are you doing to fight white privilege in your own country, Benkei? — idiot

    Personal attack and a leading question. Where I live, what's happening here and what I do about it, are totally irrelevant to my post.

    How is All Lives Matter an opposing view to BLM? It includes the idea that black lives matter, not opposing it, but doesn't make a distinction about race or skin color, like racists do. — idiot

    Misrepresentation of my post. You'll notice the quotation marks and me reporting on the news? Yes? Not my words or my interpretation. As usual you're incapable of reading because an idiot like you let's his reading comprehension be influenced by his apparent dislike of me.

    Funny how BLM got all bent out of shape when others asserted that All Lives Matter, but when Asian Lives Matter and Jewish Lives Matter started, no one said a word. So it turns out that not only black lives matter, but others do as well. Leaving out certain people because of the color of their skin, as if their lives don't matter, is racist, period. It's the very idea that BLM is supposedly fighting against. It's fighting racism with racism. — idiot

    Irrelevant to my post.

    So that post demonstrates as usual, that you're an idiot, who continually assumes meaning and tries to poison the well by suggesting where I live and what I do have any bearing on the veracity of my comments or claims.

    So yeah, nothing hilarious here but an unfortunate idiot who doesn't realise he's an idiot.
  • Benkei
    7.1k
    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2021/jun/25/derek-chauvin-sentencing-biden-harris-trump-us-politics-live

    22.5 years. Will it be a turning point in the USA? No more Rodney Kings and Breonna Taylor? Or when they happen that they won't get away with it?
  • Kenosha Kid
    3.2k
    Why, Benkei, are you so emotionally invested in diversity in America when your own country lacks the diversity that exists in America?Harry Hindu

    America certainly does have a significant black population. It should be proud of-- woah, nearly got me!

    22.5 years. Will it be a turning point in the USA? No more Rodney Kings and Breonna Taylor? Or when they happen that they won't get away with it?Benkei

    Just been watching this on the news. You can get carried away when you see one guy happen to not perform a miscarriage of justice on a particular day. I don't think it's likely that somewhere like Texas will suddenly have a change of heart, or even agree that there hasn't been a miscarriage of justice.
  • creativesoul
    11.4k
    Not only does it(systemic racism) exist, but there are many who are currently attempting to stop the public from learning about how it does by virtue of making a concerted effort to discredit one of the means/methods of that teaching(in law schools)... aka Critical Race Theory. The amount of sheer disinformation and misinformation about what it is and where it's taught that is being spoken in conservative media is astounding.

    The problem is that the impotence of current conservatism is becoming more and more apparant in the marketplace of political ideas. The American public quite simply does not agree with it and who it ultimately benefits. So, the current effort of conservative media is to manufacture falsehoods about CRT for the expressed purpose of making it unacceptable to Americans. The dishonesty of course is that the means for making it uncceptable is to mislead Americans about it.
  • Outlander
    1.8k
    Yes but only in the US. Anyone who thinks otherwise is dangerously mentally ill and needs to be forcefully incarcerated or institutionalized against their will. Banned from posting about it at least.
  • Streetlight
    9.1k
    Nothing has changed in the US, except perhaps for the worse.

    ca8jxdry0ze6gzav.jpg

    The US is simply a decaying state. As its social conditions further deteriorate, the only actionable moves available to it will be to further increase police and containment powers to nip at symptoms while the core rots. Chauvin is simply an exercise in the spectacle of performance politics, nothing more - even if he deserves every last minute in the misery of the gulag system that they will keep him in.
  • 180 Proof
    14k
    Chauvin is simply an exercise in the spectacle of performance politics, nothing more - even if he deserves every last minute in the misery of the gulag system that they will keep him in.StreetlightX
    :100:

    Chauvin's just a minor race warrior who will die sooner rather than later in one of "lily white" Minnesota's state prisons he'd helped disproportionately populate with persons of color.
  • Wheatley
    2.3k
    My two cents: The ACLU are the one's who adress systemic racism. I suggest you affiliate with ACLU if you truly care about racism. otherwise, youre just complaining.
  • Cheshire
    1k
    Reporting from Southeastern United States: Yes, clearly. Black people couldn't even eat lunch at the same place without a constitutional amendment. They turned that spot in my city into a civil rights museum. The complaints are due to the fear that civil rights will organize and reinvigorate an under served group of people.
  • Benkei
    7.1k
    So Biden suggests the extra money is to make community policing possible and does think police should reform. Some things he mentioned was having health care workers to be first responders together with police. They could go hand in hand with an increase... I take it you don't trust it will happen. I'm... skeptical too but one can hope, I guess.
  • ssu
    7.9k
    Sometimes I don't understand Americans.

    Here is Glenn Loury, a black economics professor, talking to Charles Murray, a white nationalist according to the Southern Povetry Law Center. I would urge people to spare some time to listen to this exchange of thoughts (1h 10 min), if you have the time.



    Perhaps it's my Finnish genetic stupidity or integral ignorance (as I'm an European, hence totally incapable of understanding the US), but Murray doesn't sound as a white nationalist. Not at all to my knowledge. I do know what white supremacists sound like (at least in Finland), and Murray doesn't sound like them. In fact what Murray is worried about among the right isn't the classic "white nationalists", the neo-nazis, but the whites that will have had enough with the current politically correct discourse. I fear this too. If you say over and over to people that they are fucking racists, some will then say "Ok, then I'm a fucking racists, so fuck you". Will that really help? Or is that the objective? What I fear is that the US is heading for a clash it cannot solve.

    I don't see the way how Americans would "get over this"or "come together". Nobody is interested in building a consensus. Nobody, I mean nobody is emphasizing that all Americans are citizens of one nation. That unfortunately is how it seems. That's the really sad part here.

    Because there are enough firearms to turn everything into a huge tragedy.
  • Streetlight
    9.1k
    If you say over and over to people that they are fucking racists, some will then say "Ok, then I'm a fucking racists, so fuck you". Will that really help?ssu

    Well yes because now you know who are racists. Also if being called a racist epiphanies you in to accepting the label, then you are a shit person at every point. But good to see you are concerned for them.
  • 180 Proof
    14k
    Sometimes I don't understand Americans.ssu
    I've attempted to explain us to ourselves and the world with a few repostings on thread including my previous post.

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/504611

    I'll watch the video you link another time but Charles Murray is a well-known white supremacist who was a tenured sociology(?) professor at Harvard in the mid-90s when his (IIRC thoroughly trashed by the likes of Steven Jay Gould & Noam Chomsky et al) pseudoscientific The Bell Curve had appeared. "The debate" was intellectually settled twenty-odd years ago but, as my post (linked above) points out, the 'supremacist struggle' in America is centuries old and is accelerating. Ivory Tower racists like Murray always come off as urbane, sophisticated and even charming, bearing little-to-no resemblance to the usual mouth-breathing, rank-and-file, race-baiting haters who pump-up cable ratings and sell newspapers.
  • Saphsin
    383
    Murray is being peddled around by Sam Harris in recent years, this is a pretty good debunking of that nonsense.

    https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/3/27/15695060/sam-harris-charles-murray-race-iq-forbidden-knowledge-podcast-bell-curve

    The only thing I'd add is that Klein should be even harder on the Flynn point. If black IQs (along with white) have continued to rise since the 1970s, it's impossible for Murray's argument that you've squeezed out all the environmental factors to be true.
  • dimosthenis9
    837
    Racism exists in every human. It's in his nature cause of Ego. The thing is how everyone deals with it on his own. I m tired of hear blaming on the bad, evil dragon called the "System"! As if it is like a machine controlling everyone. Who the fuck makes that system at the end?! Who are the manufacturers? And creators of it? Aren't people? Who preserve it by their daily actions?? It's just how people choose to live their lives. Though I find it very interesting topic I disagree at the base it is. System is just an excuse for people to get rid of their own personal responsibility. To create the best form of themselves. And a very very convenient one.
  • ssu
    7.9k
    I'll watch the video you link another time but Charles Murray is a well-known white supremacist180 Proof
    You will?

    Yet I'd disagree. I think that racists will just abuse the findings of Murray, which is quite obvious: they will pick what they want to hear. Yet if all Americans would be of the same "race" with the same skin color, there still would be those (what you now call racists) who then only would be looking down own the poor, the so-called trash (which actually they are calling the poor whites) and would similarly separate the people into different categories: themselves in a higher category than others. And if some Murray-like academic would dare to say that poor people engage in violent crime far more than the wealthy, the outrage would be the same. How dare this person give ammo to those racists! Yet the obvious thing is that with the poorer segments of any society there is more violent crime among them than the more prosperous people. What is wrong is to judge all poor people. In my view facts don't give any proof to the racist: people should be treated as individuals and I'm against judging people as part of a larger group.

    Well yes because now you know who are racists. Also if being called a racist epiphanies you in to accepting the label, then you are a shit person at every point. But good to see you are concerned for them.StreetlightX
    And if you don't judge people as individuals but members of their race who then bare a collective responsibility, aren't you the racist here? A shit person at every point?
  • Streetlight
    9.1k
    And if you don't judge people as individuals but members of their race who then bare a collective responsibility, aren't you the racist here? A shit person at every point?ssu

    Would love to know what went through your head when you imagined that this is in any way a response to what I said.
  • ssu
    7.9k
    Love to know?

    I doubt it.

    If racism was defined to be that all Australians are racists (because let's just look at the obvious history of Australia), then wouldn't you be a racist? Likely you (and me) wouldn't agree with the definition racism.
  • Streetlight
    9.1k
    Australia is certainly one of the most racist places on Earth, and my ability to live here is enabled and fostered by that racism, sure. Am I a racist? I like to think not, but I definitely benefit from Australia's instituional racism, as do the majority of people who live here. Which speaks to the point - that widespread, systemic racism can very easily exist without the express help of avowed racists. It would still be better if Australia were rid of it though. But of course, anyone who recognizes this and then simply claims the mantle of racist ought to be treated like the piece of shit they are, rather than sympathised with, as you are wont to do.
  • ssu
    7.9k
    Well, I don't think you are a racist and in my view that you perhaps benefit from the existing social structure doesn't make you a racist either. And just how much you benefit is more interesting question here, which is the real issue to be made more aware here I guess.

    But of course, anyone who recognizes this and then simply claims the mantle of racist ought to be treated like the piece of shit they are, rather than sympathised with, as you are wont to do.StreetlightX
    Hopefully I understood you correct. Yet the argument was "all Australians are racists". The issue to be recognized would be if you are an Australian or not. Or to make it more clear, let's make it that "all white Australians are racists". Now if you fit into that category (being a white Australian), then would your benefiting of the current system make you a racist?

    I don't think so.

    I would still start with the classic definition that a racist is:

    "a person who is prejudiced against or antagonistic towards people on the basis of their membership of a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized."

    You getting a job interview easier than someone else doesn't in my view make you "prejudiced or antagonistic" toward racial minorities. It really is about your own thinking and own decisions that make you a racist or not. When you decide which people to pick to the job interview is the moment, when you participate in a job interview isn't.

    widespread, systemic racism can very easily exist without the express help of avowed racists.StreetlightX
    Then how to engage those others that aren't avowed racists is the question. Because calling them racists will make them think that they are called to be the "avowed racists", which they are not.
  • Streetlight
    9.1k
    I'm not fond of wantonly calling people racists either, especially on the basis of shitty identity politics, but your carrying the flag for people who, having been called racist, simply grasp the nettle, is utterly stupid.
  • Count Timothy von Icarus
    1.9k


    That's one way to spin it...

    That's a program for community outreach policing, C3, etc. Exactly what advocates have asked for.

    And given both the:

    A. Demonstrable low quality of many forces and;
    B. Surging murder rates in urban areas and sustained high murder rates in the US generally,

    I'd say it might be a wise investment. Several US cities have homicide rates higher than the Latin American states we have refugees fleeing from, it's not like crime doesn't need funding.

    I don't think I'd blame it on a "rotting core." Was the US rotting in the 1960s when crime began to rise? Seems to me it was at its apogee then. The Baby Boomers had arguably the best period of widespread economic growth and social stability of any people in the history of the species, and crime boomed. Did the US radically get its act together in the 2000s? Crime plunged from the early 90s on, to its second lowest point in US history, yet income inequality was surging then too, and the foundations of Trumpism were being laid.
  • 180 Proof
    14k
    :brow:
    People of color in the United States can't breathe and they grow-up suffering PTSD from American Apartheid aka systemic white terrorism.180 Proof
    https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/01/us/american-psychological-association-apologizes-racism/index.html
  • Artemis
    1.9k
    Ivory Tower racists like Murray always come off as urbane, sophisticated and even charming, bearing little-to-no resemblance to the usual mouth-breathing, rank-and-file, race-baiting haters who pump-up cable ratings and sell newspapers.180 Proof

    Just read some excerpts of his ideas about low- versus high-IQ women having children ... and I don't think anyone in their right mind reads that and thinks it's urbane, sophisticated, or charming. It's just vile.
  • James Riley
    2.9k
    Many understand the power of compounding interest on the way up. What they conveniently ignore is the power of compounding disadvantage on the way down. This ignorance is systemic and convenient. It takes more than leveling the playing field; you have to clear the score board back to zero.

    251793689_1263608064144231_1706158269256906948_n.jpg?_nc_cat=108&ccb=1-5&_nc_sid=8bfeb9&_nc_ohc=j0yFSOHXNN0AX9Vz7-B&tn=qcdbT0UmLTAbXCgR&_nc_ht=scontent-dfw5-2.xx&oh=7bfb8665b67dc9e783d0b94d5bea0ca1&oe=61866726
  • Varde
    326
    You'll be surprised about systemic bullying.existing almost everywhere. Kindness is rare. I am bullied systemically on this very site, which I gathered from threads I make being deleted whilst much lower quality topics are posted by other members without deletion.

    It leaves me with two answers. 1. I'm being bullied. 2. More is expected from me personally.

    Does systemic racism exist in the US? Yes, probably, however, systemic bullying seems to be the norm. If examples being set are this, you can't really complain.
  • Manuel
    3.9k
    Systematic racism exists everywhere. There's even racism here (Dominican Republic) by brown people towards more darkly toned brown people. Not to mention the hate Hatians get - it's a complex history, but very ugly.

    The point is to undergo a continuos transformation in which we shed our biases and prejudices. There's plenty of things to do in regard to improving race relations, same with women's rights.

    The issue is how to address them. Some tactics employed by university students, while well intentioned, backfire, like having, I don't know, 30 or 50 pronouns or whatever. Most people don't care about that to that extent at all.

    If we still have serious problems addressing literally half the world's population still, we will have issues to deal with regarding race.
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