The problem of White Supremacy - Spinoff from Buffalo Shooting thread (2 Viewers)

[Big_L]

I think the first step is America has to admit this is a problem and has treated people of color as inferiors since it's inception. You know, kind of like AA where the patients introduce themselves.

Also, white people have to step up and say that this is a problem. Doing nothing only helps the racists and bigots.

 

[guidomerkinsrules]

Scattered thoughts

1. Wypipo need to be shown that race is not a zero sum game

2. It needs to be shown (again and again) that racism is a net drain on society- society (infrastructure, education, culture, et al) will gain tremendously if racism can be significantly dealt with

3. Media literacy- distrust completely those who tell you to hate other people- sure that’s a platitude but the work comes in discovering all the nuanced ways hate is taught/spread

4 (hardest one yet) defang parents - they get zero say so on actual curriculum (they can be part of panels who can offer suggestions as long as those panels are broad and diverse)

5. Jim Crow needs to be centralized into all US History lessons (completely swap ‘slavery’ lessons with ‘Jim crow’ lessons) no one can pretend to know US history if they don’t know Jim Crow history (consult with Germany about how they instituted holocaust studies in their schools)

 

[Goatman Saint]

I'd be totally down with a on every corner. Would never go hungry.

I'm gonna run for president and that will be the only thing on my platform.

And you’d have one person solidly in your corner

 

[DaveXA]

I think the first step is America has to admit this is a problem and has treated people of color as inferiors since it's inception. You know, kind of like AA where the patients introduce themselves.

Also, white people have to step up and say that this is a problem. Doing nothing only helps the racists and bigots.

Yes, and it can't just be a handful of white people. It's going to take a majority of white people stepping up. But part of it goes back to that point 1. We'd essentially need to re-educate ourselves and let go of old ideas and assumptions about racism. It's not enough for us to think racism is bad. We have to fight against racist, bigoted behavior. Fighting implies getting a little dirty and even a little bloody. We can't sit on the sidelines as a group of people.

 

[Big_L]

Yes, and it can't just be a handful of white people. It's going to take a majority of white people stepping up. But part of it goes back to that point 1. We'd essentially need to re-educate ourselves and essentially let go of old ideas and assumptions about racism. It's not enough for us to think racism is bad. We have to fight against racist, bigoted behavior. Fighting implies getting a little dirty and even a little bloody. We can't sit on the sidelines as a group of people.

Just guessing race here on this board, I'd say it's majority white. Going by memory alone, I feel most posters here are pretty fair minded. I mean, I'm hoping this is a microcosm of the general US public. So, I don't think re-education is particularly necessary, just stand up and say this isn't right for crying out loud.

 

[DaveXA]

Scattered thoughts

1. Wypipo need to be shown that race is not a zero sum game

Nuance! Yeah, that's something we're not always very good at.

2. It needs to be shown (again and again) that racism is a net drain on society- society (infrastructure, education, culture, et al) will gain tremendously if racism can be significantly dealt with

Agree 100%.

3. Media literacy- distrust completely those who tell you to hate other people- sure that’s a platitude but the work comes in discovering all the nuanced ways hate is taught/spread

Agreed. I think younger people have healthy skepticism, but some are still drawn in. I think this traces back to UTJ's point that often it's poor white people who resent being told that they're privileged. It leads to a bitter, disillusioned view of society, and leads to being easily drawn in by the 4chan and like-minded media. I'm not sure how to deal with that other than trying to reach these kids while in school, so the media literacy makes sense, but the resentment needs to be addressed as well so that they won't be as vulnerable a target when they get out of school. Parental guidance can be impactful on this point, imo.

4 (hardest one yet) defang parents - they get zero say so on actual curriculum (they can be part of panels who can offer suggestions as long as those panels are broad and diverse)

I suppose you can do that. But I think ultimately you need parental buy in. Parents want to feel invested in their kids' futures, so they want to feel like they have skin in the game. Educators need to find a way to meet that felt need, while at the same time, stand firm on school boards making decisions on curriculum. Ultimately, if parents feel that strongly about it, they can home school their kids.

5. Jim Crow needs to be centralized into all US History lessons (completely swap ‘slavery’ lessons with ‘Jim crow’ lessons) no one can pretend to know US history if they don’t know Jim Crow history (consult with Germany about how they instituted holocaust studies in their schools)

Agreed. I don't know how much is enough though. My kids learned a good bit about the Jim Crow era in their history classes, but they spent like a week or 2 on it. I can't recall learning about Jim Crow when I was in school tho.

 

[guidomerkinsrules]

Just guessing race here on this board, I'd say it's majority white. Going by memory alone, I feel most posters here are pretty fair minded. I mean, I'm hoping this is a microcosm of the general US public. So, I don't think re-education is particularly necessary, just stand up and say this isn't right for crying out loud.

I would suggest that this board (the EE specifically) might be a microcosm of sone of the whiter (but purplish) cities in the country- maybe like Nashville or Charlotte or Indianapolis

 

[DaveXA]

I would suggest that this board (the EE specifically) might be a microcosm of sone of the whiter (but purplish) cities in the country- maybe like Nashville or Charlotte or Indianapolis

I can see that.

 

[CapitalCitySaint]

And I guess part of it is they're afraid they'll be treated the way they treated others for...centuries. Well, when you treat others like sheet...what do you expect?

That was sort of the point of my second sarcastic comment.

They are afraid that karma is gonna spin the block.

 

[saintmdterps]

During the 2016 presidential campaign, one of the candidates mocked a disabled reporter, insulted and gold-star family, made abhorrent statements about women, and then went on to get elected. Once in office he encouraged white nationalism by calling people waving a swastika "nice people. It went downhill from there. He told Nazis, white supremacists, and misogynistic xenophobes that they didn't need to feel bad about themselves, that they had a voice. In short, he gave a voice to those who many of us thought should remain under a rock/

This man was not a cause, he's a symptom. White supremacy and white privilege are woven into the fabric of the USA. To begin removing this stain Schools need to teach a history that includes Juneteenth, the Jim Crow south, the true history of the Reconstruction which includes the slaughter of innocent blacks in New Orleans and other southern cities. Just as Germans tour the death camps, US students should tour a replica of slave ships to fully get the squalid conditions in which other human beings were forced to live. Students can also tour the slave holding pens which still exist in Savannah, Charleston (IIRC) and other cities. Then we can go into eugenics, The Tuskegee studies, and the testing of gas on black infantrymen in WWI.

Turning fire hoses and police on blacks in Alabama who sought only to exercise their right to vote is current events and not ancient history. The newsreels aren't fake news, they're real and a part of life for blacks in the US. Teach the deaths/assassinations of Emmett Till, Medger Evers, George Lee and Lamar Smith.

The US must be dragged kicking and screaming from its white privilege. As others have said, speak up when you see it, don't let them think you agree with them by being silent. I was told a racist joke some years ago and said to the teller of the joke I was bothered by the fact that he believed I might even find that joke funny, then looked at him until he turned and walked away.

 

[ChrisinNOLA]

If you have never seen this Oprah episode it is a must watch from start to end. Do not skip any parts watch this from the very start to very end. Yes it is the Jane Elliott episode.

 

[BlackandGoldXLIV]

"What's the deal with white supremacy?"

 

[Madmarsha]

I’m still mad at the 2016 election. We were promised a taco truck on every corner of Clinton won. Seriously mad at this. It would make my life so much happier. Fresh street tacos not 50 feet away. And some people thought this wasn’t a good idea

You ain't kidding. I had me some street tacos at Tacos n Beer tonight for Taco Tuesday and I realized something .... I don't eat enough brisket street tacos with cilantro and lime.

 

[EGLSShin]

Society is not ready to have a conversation about critical design flaws that are ever so present that are woven into the destruction that falls under the darker side of human nature. Such conversations, if we're going to have an honest discussion devoid of agenda's and focus strictly on the human being as such is going to be a very uncomfortable conversation where certain realities are going to inevitably rear its ugly head about how destructive we are as a species.

So while mainstream society reiterates old boring and tired talking points looking for the big bad boogieman that is neatly packaged with whatever preferred narrative that helps them sleep at night, people who know the truth of this reality understands that this is a problem that is unfixable and will forever be bogged down in the politics surrounding the access of mass killing potential of certain weapons.

As for the racial aspect of this particular incident, I.E blatant hateful ideology that leads one to racist thoughts to the point where someone blamed the ills of society on two groups of people, blacks and jews, the only question I have is, can you remove extreme biases from human beings? I say its impossible and is never going to happen. Racism is an extreme bias against a group of people on the basis of race, biases exist in every day society from minor, choosing where to eat for the day, vs
extreme I.E, hating someone based on religion, sexual orientation, gender and race, etc.

We've decided as a society to attempt to educate, showing why these behaviors are unacceptable and have tried to mitigate these extreme biases by creating social consequences of having such thoughts. If someone hates another group of people based on any of the criteria that makes up another human being, aka, certain characteristics, we shame the heck out of them, cancel them, fire them, run them out on a rail, so to speak. However, does that really fix the problem? All that really has accomplished is making what was once very public become very private, the hatred of said people just festers outside of the view of the public eye. Despite all the attempts to educate and mitigate, it still rears its ugly face, time and time again because in reality, you cannot legislate human bias from the human being, no matter how minor or extreme it is, in this case we're only talking about extreme biases against groups of people on the basis of said criteria.

Hypothetically speaking, lets say, tomorrow, 4chan is banned from the internet and the reasoning is that its a hub for hate, it is stated that these imageboards are too dangerous for people to access them because of(insert your reasoning here) there would be multiple new sources to replace them in literal hours of their banning, only this time it would be more underground and out of the public eye. You didn't change anything, you effectively made things much worse, what was once public now becomes the underbelly and nothing changes in the end.

The attempt of exterminating entire groups of people is nothing new, its been a feature of human beings since the dawn of man. I bet if we had better historians, we would find such extreme biases similar to racism playing out in the days of cavemen where certain cavemen either hated the way other cavemen looked or hated whatever early rituals they adopted and killed them based on that.

While I think we can do better to mitigate access to mass kill weapons to mentally deranged people and doing a better job of watching people who exhibit the stereotypical warning signs that these mass shooters all seem to share, we will never eradicate extreme biases from human beings. While some people think this is a bug in the human condition, I say its a feature that has existed since the dawn of man.

No matter how much you educate and attempt to mitigate, you're always gonna have those who fall through the cracks and carry out these terrorist attacks.

 

[Super44]

Unfortunately, hate and racism will always exist in this country and around the world. It is simply a part of human existence. Aside from racism, there is sexism, ageism, you name it, ism’s. Let’s not forget handicap-ism.

All said, it boils down to. How do we prevent the mental hate, from becoming/evolving/transitioning into a physical assault? That will always be the biggest challenge, IMO. People will always have hate and bias. We need to do better at keeping that in check, but it is getting worse as people that are weak and who feel more socially isolated will act out in a physical way.