Time to END racism

[David Horn]

(07-05-2020, 10:39 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: ... For most of human existence, violence and treating the other poorly were survival traits.  Doing horrible things well increased the chance of passing on one’s gene pool.  If your culture was not good at making war, at securing a territory and resources, one lost out to another culture that was better at these things.  At the same time, helping one’s own tribe cooperate, grow and love was also a survival trait.  Thus, Man in a contradictory beast, quite able to love and hate, and not yet able to outgrow the hate.

What to do about it?  Once in a life time one is apt to live through a crisis heart.  It is a chance to get rid of a few more cultural traits left from the bad old days intent to harm the other guy, to keep him other rather than one of us.

This is one of those times.

The real issue is staying power.  As you noted, and I agree, we're wired to favor our own.  That will not go away unless there is no reason for favoritism.  Can we get there?  If so, how? 

I don't see attacking racism head-on as a viable approach, because that implies that Group X needs to do something for Group Y, and Group X will sacrifice in the process.  Since there is no apparent countervailing benefit to Group X, Group X will resist, at least in part.  Allow to stew for 10-20 years, and we're right back where we started -- or worse.

So the first step, or a parallel one at least, requires reducing the need for conflict. That's a much bigger task.  Flattening the wealth curve through non-racial means is a good thing, but may not be adequate.  On the other hand, what do we have to lose?  Any gain is better than nothing.  Any ideas anyone?

[Eric the Green]

(07-06-2020, 11:06 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(07-05-2020, 10:39 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: ... For most of human existence, violence and treating the other poorly were survival traits.  Doing horrible things well increased the chance of passing on one’s gene pool.  If your culture was not good at making war, at securing a territory and resources, one lost out to another culture that was better at these things.  At the same time, helping one’s own tribe cooperate, grow and love was also a survival trait.  Thus, Man in a contradictory beast, quite able to love and hate, and not yet able to outgrow the hate.

What to do about it?  Once in a life time one is apt to live through a crisis heart.  It is a chance to get rid of a few more cultural traits left from the bad old days intent to harm the other guy, to keep him other rather than one of us.

This is one of those times.

The real issue is staying power.  As you noted, and I agree, we're wired to favor our own.  That will not go away unless there is no reason for favoritism.  Can we get there?  If so, how? 

I don't see attacking racism head-on as a viable approach, because that implies that Group X needs to do something for Group Y, and Group X will sacrifice in the process.  Since there is no apparent countervailing benefit to Group X, Group X will resist, at least in part.  Allow to stew for 10-20 years, and we're right back where we started -- or worse.

So the first step, or a parallel one at least, requires reducing the need for conflict. That's a much bigger task.  Flattening the wealth curve through non-racial means is a good thing, but may not be adequate.  On the other hand, what do we have to lose?  Any gain is better than nothing.  Any ideas anyone?

What we have going on right now is something similar to the early to mid 1960s, say circa 1962-1966, when the prevailing persuasion from the media and authorities is that racism is wrong and that we're all in this life together. How long that prevailing rhetoric remains dominant in the next few years is hard to tell, since people like Trump can arouse opposite sentiments and make some headway, especially if some real changes begin to be made that make the white people uncomfortable (such as higher taxes, which in reality we really need given the stimulus/recovery spending going on and debt piling up). I expect the counter-trump trend could have some sway over the next few months. But the newly-dominant anti-racist tone and mood could largely prevail during the 2020s, especially if a powerful right-wing countervailing racist/semi-racist/closet racist/gun totin' militant rebellion arises and has to be suppressed by a dominant left-wing state mid-decade. 

That could put racism almost out of business for another decade, and more pressures will be applied in the 2T once it starts circa 2046. Along with this will be the long term trend toward globalization and race-mixing, which cannot be stopped. Counter to this trend is the ancient tendency to fear and mistreat other people and other groups, which will keep racism going at some level for perhaps centuries more, and periodic treatments and changes will be needed to keep the new ways flowing forth. And we humans keep finding new ways to fight with each other, even after racism is no longer one of them.

[Eric the Green]

(07-06-2020, 01:11 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(07-05-2020, 12:33 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: It made me think once that we could create any kind of utopia we want, if we just believe it's possible. Woodstock proved it.

It is one thing to create a spirit, another to make it sustainable.  One of the next rock concerts after Woodstock hired the Hells Angels as security, and for some reason the movement of Woodstock, as wonderful as it was, died.  The Summer of Love was also the Summer of Charles Manson.

Alas, utopias have to exist in the real world, and the real world has this way of infringing.

Died, perhaps, as a dominant trend, but even so rainbow gatherings and grateful dead concerts and other music festivals continued the same spirit for a couple of decades afterward. It seemed all but dead later after Mr. Garcia died, but then the rave scene exploded and we had a second summer of love a few years later! So, the spirit lies in waiting to appear again, anytime    Utopia? Maybe not. But the legacy continues..... reverberates.... http://generational-theory.com/forum/thr...l#pid50881

The word "utopia" means no place. It doesn't really exist, except in that wonderous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. But, imagination creates some reality!

[David Horn]

(07-06-2020, 12:00 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(07-06-2020, 11:06 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(07-05-2020, 10:39 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: ... For most of human existence, violence and treating the other poorly were survival traits.  Doing horrible things well increased the chance of passing on one’s gene pool.  If your culture was not good at making war, at securing a territory and resources, one lost out to another culture that was better at these things.  At the same time, helping one’s own tribe cooperate, grow and love was also a survival trait.  Thus, Man in a contradictory beast, quite able to love and hate, and not yet able to outgrow the hate.

What to do about it?  Once in a life time one is apt to live through a crisis heart.  It is a chance to get rid of a few more cultural traits left from the bad old days intent to harm the other guy, to keep him other rather than one of us.

This is one of those times.

The real issue is staying power.  As you noted, and I agree, we're wired to favor our own.  That will not go away unless there is no reason for favoritism.  Can we get there?  If so, how? 

I don't see attacking racism head-on as a viable approach, because that implies that Group X needs to do something for Group Y, and Group X will sacrifice in the process.  Since there is no apparent countervailing benefit to Group X, Group X will resist, at least in part.  Allow to stew for 10-20 years, and we're right back where we started -- or worse.

So the first step, or a parallel one at least, requires reducing the need for conflict. That's a much bigger task.  Flattening the wealth curve through non-racial means is a good thing, but may not be adequate.  On the other hand, what do we have to lose?  Any gain is better than nothing.  Any ideas anyone?

What we have going on right now is something similar to the early to mid 1960s, say circa 1962-1966, when the prevailing persuasion from the media and authorities is that racism is wrong and that we're all in this life together. How long that prevailing rhetoric remains dominant in the next few years is hard to tell, since people like Trump can arouse opposite sentiments and make some headway, especially if some real changes begin to be made that make the white people uncomfortable (such as higher taxes, which in reality we really need given the stimulus/recovery spending going on and debt piling up). I expect the counter-trump trend could have some sway over the next few months. But the newly-dominant anti-racist tone and mood could largely prevail during the 2020s, especially if a powerful right-wing countervailing racist/semi-racist/closet racist/gun totin' militant rebellion arises and has to be suppressed by a dominant left-wing state mid-decade. 

That could put racism almost out of business for another decade, and more pressures will be applied in the 2T once it starts circa 2046. Along with this will be the long term trend toward globalization and race-mixing, which cannot be stopped. Counter to this trend is the ancient tendency to fear and mistreat other people and other groups, which will keep racism going at some level for perhaps centuries more, and periodic treatments and changes will be needed to keep the new ways flowing forth. And we humans keep finding new ways to fight with each other, even after racism is no longer one of them.

We need an Everyone Wins strategy, which is hard to conjure.  Anand Giridharadas covers some of this in his writings. I saw him interviewed today on MSNBC, and he noted that this time is unique in having so many existential crises staring at us at once. He believes that this may be one of the few times in history that there is no place to hide, and real change may happen because nothing else will work. Let's hope he's right.

[Eric the Green]

An unbiased and concise documentary about Woodstock





What does Woodstock mean 5 decades later?

[TnT]

I've been re-reading my W.E.B. Dubois copy of "Black Reconstruction in America - 1860-1880." What a stupendous work!!

What jumps out at me, especially upon reading the first three chapters, I. The Black Worker, II. The White Worker, and III. The Planter, is the tragedy of the missed opportunity! If only. If only, the emancipated slaves and their white-worker counterparts could have seen what they had in common! They were both viewed as inferior cogs in the machine. The white workers had been duped to think that their lot in life was somehow superior and desirable just because they had someone to look down on.

Imagine what could have come out of a labor movement that combined the shared concerns of the emancipated slaves and the white grunts who, incidentally, did most of the dying for "The Cause."

Now, after these 155 years, we see the results of the hand-me-down society of the South being lived out among the white descendants as well as the continued legacy of slavery, Jim Crow and endemic racism. A couple years ago, my sister and I spent a few days in West Virginia. What a shithole. And, it's virtually 100% white. If a pure white society was the active variable in developing civilization, WV should be a paradise.

What a missed opportunity. Can one even imagine a labor movement composed of all the emancipated slaves, PLUS all the "white trash" underclass? Wow.

[Tim Randal Walker]

My prediction-we will see a little tweaking around the edges, as with strict rules of engagement for police. The basic reality will revert to a brittle truce between the races. And perhaps renewed white flight from the cities.

[Eric the Green]

(07-09-2020, 07:47 PM)Tim Randal Walker Wrote: My prediction-we will see a little tweaking around the edges, as with strict rules of engagement for police.  The basic reality will revert to a brittle truce between the races.  And perhaps renewed white flight from the cities.

OK, we'll see. But again I remind you, the cities are gentrifying, so I don't understand your basis for your prediction of white flight. Why do you predict that?

[Eric the Green]

(07-09-2020, 02:15 PM)TnT Wrote: I've been re-reading my W.E.B. Dubois copy of "Black Reconstruction in America - 1860-1880."  What a stupendous work!!

What jumps out at me, especially upon reading the first three chapters, I. The Black Worker, II. The White Worker, and III. The Planter, is the tragedy of the missed opportunity!  If only.  If only, the emancipated slaves and their white-worker counterparts could have seen what they had in common!  They were both viewed as inferior cogs in the machine.  The white workers had been duped to think that their lot in life was somehow superior and desirable just because they had someone to look down on.

Imagine what could have come out of a labor movement that combined the shared concerns of the emancipated slaves and the white  grunts who, incidentally, did most of the dying for "The Cause."

Now, after these 155 years, we see the results of the hand-me-down society of the South being lived out among the white descendants as well as the continued legacy of slavery, Jim Crow and endemic racism.  A couple years ago, my sister and I spent a few days in West Virginia.  What a shithole.  And, it's virtually 100% white.  If a pure white society was the active variable in developing civilization, WV should be a paradise.

What a missed opportunity.  Can one even imagine a labor movement composed of all the emancipated slaves, PLUS all the "white trash" underclass?  Wow.

It was not to be, because the labor movement was the second revolution, and black liberation is part of the third. Each liberation in turn, that's the destiny. The latter is still unfinished, and the second needs a rehab.

http://philosopherswheel.com/thethreerevolutions.html

[Tim Randal Walker]

Heightened racial tensions.

[pbrower2a]

Isn't it obvious? Racism exists largely to divide the working classes, to create innocent and vulnerable scapegoats for the perverse and incompetent conduct of elites. Donald Trump is so obvious that Americans are catching on as never before.

[Eric the Green]

(07-10-2020, 01:18 AM)Tim Randal Walker Wrote: Heightened racial tensions.

Really? white flight due to that?

The riots were mostly outside agitators coming in for a few days.

The protesters were both black and white.

The fight is between blacks and the police. So, the police are going to flee?

Those who are angry at the protesters and rioters and who cheer at Trump rallies have flown from the cities long ago. Trumpists are from the sticks now. 

The cities are mostly blue, the country is mostly red. No more flight needed.

[David Horn]

(07-10-2020, 11:35 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Isn't it obvious? Racism exists largely to divide the working classes, to create innocent and vulnerable scapegoats for the perverse and incompetent conduct of elites. Donald Trump is so obvious that Americans are catching on as never before.

Just because it's obvious doesn't make it any less powerful.  The revanchists always knew that playing to fear works.  Breaking that paradigm will not be easy.  It would be nice to have this be the crisis that gets the job done.  So far, it's dicey.

[TnT]

The "Right" carefully dissects the "protester violence" out as a phenomenon in a glass bubble and holds it up as THE PROBLEM. If this position is taken in a loud enough voice, it allows them to ignore four hundred years of complex history.

[pbrower2a]

(07-11-2020, 06:57 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(07-10-2020, 11:35 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Isn't it obvious? Racism exists largely to divide the working classes, to create innocent and vulnerable scapegoats for the perverse and incompetent conduct of elites. Donald Trump is so obvious that Americans are catching on as never before.

Just because it's obvious doesn't make it any less powerful.  The revanchists always knew that playing to fear works.  Breaking that paradigm will not be easy.  It would be nice to have this be the crisis that gets the job done.  So far, it's dicey.

Civil courage is essential to a civil society. If people see something hideously wrong they should report it and -- if government seems slow or irresponsible in response -- protest it. They should refuse to participate in evil and resist it when they see it. 

So suppose some right-wing populist slimeball takes over and starts a campaign to separate a religious minority from economic participation, use of public services, participation in the economic process, and media access. Suppose that that slimeball encourages and excuses assaults on a model minority that suddenly becomes the scapegoat for all moral, technical, and economic failure. People are prohibited from having relationships, marital or sexual, with members of that group. If people in that group of pariahs of the Great and Infallible Leader aren't so obvious then some symbol identifies them as objects of abuse and hatred. 

Know well that every dictatorship exploits fear of dangerous, secretive conspiracies to destroy everything with which the majority identifies, and that at the worst such dictatorships demand that people abandon whatever sensory evidence, logical reasoning, economic reality, and moral judgment gets in the way. At the worst a tyrant tells people to disbelieve 'atrocity propaganda'. 

What must we do? We must resist. We must be aware of the reality that the government and its journalistic flunkies shield us from -- so check foreign news sources. We must give refuge to people who feel the brunt of political persecution. We must refuse to participate in hateful  rallies and official boycotts of businesses. We must ridicule hate speech. We must eschew discriminatory and abusive behavior. By the time that people are walled off in sealed ghettos where they are helpless against an all-powerful State it is too late.   

The people most vulnerable to a right-wing authoritarian slimeball leader are the model minorities. What Hitler said of the Jews, some American slimeball could say of Chinese-Americans. What? What is so horrible about Chinese-Americans? What was so bad about German Jews? Their successes were successes that German gentiles could accept collectively and with pride. 

When things go bad, people look for easy solutions. Steal property that you did  nothing to create and make inordinately valuable and take jobs for which you are woefully unqualified. I have my own solution: quit looking for easy money from high-yield, quick-buck investments that have proved themselves bubbles. Start a small business or expect to do honest-to-God hard labor in big projects that create a better world. If you are an ill-educated person with no obvious skills, then expect little in life. Nobody can give you anything just for the asking without having taken it himself or without expectation that you will do something in return, like creating more wealth on behalf of that benefactor.

[User3451]

(07-10-2020, 08:40 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(07-10-2020, 01:18 AM)Tim Randal Walker Wrote: Heightened racial tensions.

Really? white flight due to that?

The riots were mostly outside agitators coming in for a few days.

The protesters were both black and white.

The fight is between blacks and the police. So, the police are going to flee?

Those who are angry at the protesters and rioters and who cheer at Trump rallies have flown from the cities long ago. Trumpists are from the sticks now. 

The cities are mostly blue, the country is mostly red. No more flight needed.

That's actually untrue as there is flight right now, especially in the Northeast. And there will be a lot more. 

Rich liberals with the means are heading for the burbs. 

Violent crime has increased at levels unseen since the mid 90s. 

These folks will say the right things but they are also the gatekeepers to capital and material change. 

They'd be happy to diversify the boardroom as long as they stay rich and others stay poor

[Tim Randal Walker]

I have based my comments on the past. But new developments may alter things a bit-we may soon see a multi-racial flight from the cities. Or perhaps a better description, a flight of law-abiding people.

"Defunding" of the Seattle police department may be more drastic than one might assume. Mayor Jenny Durkan has called for a 5% cut in funding, but it looks like the Seattle city council will vote for a 50% cut.

That means that half of the police force would be laid off.

There was looting/vandalism when the cops were distracted by the protests. Think of that property crime, and crime in general, becoming stuck at a high level. That would have the effect of killing many small, local businesses, and tending to kill the local economy. And in general push out law-abiding people, of whatever skin color or ethnic back ground.

[Eric the Green]

(07-11-2020, 11:57 AM)User3451 Wrote:

(07-10-2020, 08:40 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(07-10-2020, 01:18 AM)Tim Randal Walker Wrote: Heightened racial tensions.

Really? white flight due to that?

The riots were mostly outside agitators coming in for a few days.

The protesters were both black and white.

The fight is between blacks and the police. So, the police are going to flee?

Those who are angry at the protesters and rioters and who cheer at Trump rallies have flown from the cities long ago. Trumpists are from the sticks now. 

The cities are mostly blue, the country is mostly red. No more flight needed.

That's actually untrue as there is flight right now, especially in the Northeast. And there will be a lot more. 

Rich liberals with the means are heading for the burbs. 

Violent crime has increased at levels unseen since the mid 90s. 

These folks will say the right things but they are also the gatekeepers to capital and material change. 

They'd be happy to diversify the boardroom as long as they stay rich and others stay poor

Flight right now? That's awfully quick to determine a trend of white people moving out.

The people in the boardroom might move out, but they were probably conservatives anyway. That's a small number. Probably most of them never gentrified and stayed in some gated exurban community in scenic locations.

I don't know if we can say that the rise in crime last week is a trend.

[Eric the Green]

(07-11-2020, 08:25 PM)Tim Randal Walker Wrote: I have based my comments on the past.  But new developments may alter things a bit-we may soon see a multi-racial flight from the cities.  Or perhaps a better description, a flight of law-abiding people.

"Defunding" of the Seattle police department may be more drastic than one might assume.  Mayor Jenny Durkan has called for a 5% cut in funding, but it looks like the Seattle city council will vote for a 50% cut.  

That means that half of the police force would be laid off.

There was looting/vandalism when the cops were distracted by the protests.  Think of that property crime, and crime in general, becoming stuck at a high level.  That would have the effect of killing many small, local businesses, and tending to kill the local economy.  And in general push out law-abiding people, of whatever skin color or ethnic back ground.

People don't get this. Transferring funding to social and mental health workers and investments in the community will just transfer jobs to people qualified to do them, instead of the Reaganomics era approach of handing everything over to the police to do and defunding these other means of bringing more peace to poor and ethnic communities.

The point is, the looting and vandalism never got stuck at a high level. It lasted a few days, and then it was only protesters.

Even if law-abiding people move out, there will still be plenty of law-abiding people left, as most people are law-abiding.

Personally, I know we need a lot of police in some areas, and a lower crime rate, if a city is to be viable. I hope cutbacks are not made where police are truly needed. Most cities are viable these days, and richer and white and younger people have been moving in, although some cities still are not. But having police take care of all the problems, often by brutal and unfair means, does nothing to stop crime; it increases it. Funding needs to be restored to city services which has been cut back because of the prevalent conservative Reagan philosophy that extols self-reliance and says that government is the problem. And police need to be from the community, and not trained just to be killers but to be law-abiding themselves.

Maybe the threat of greater defunding will cause the police to straighten up and accept reform. Maybe it will encourage criminals. It depends on how all this is handled.

[Tim Randal Walker]

Something I've been wondering about... Do black people tend to view the police department as a sort of Gestapo?