(02-10-2022, 12:41 AM)JasonBlack Wrote: Ending racism is a wonderful idea. Unfortunately, when it comes to this, and many other hotly debated topics, people are more like to speak in terms of intended results than either
1) defining a clearer, more measurable goal
2) recommending specific strategies and actions to meet that goal
for example, some ideas to throw out there might be
1) The simplest thing you can do it...encourage normal ass white people and normal ass black people to have conversations and realize how much they have in common. Most people don't care about abstract, ideological constructs as much as experiences with flesh and blood people that let them know "hey! You aren't so bad. maybe it was wrong of me to distrust you on account of something so trivial".
2) Take a look at black people who were able to rise up and successfully break the cycle of poor treatment, and reverse engineer some of the strategies that worked for them which you could help other rising black talent implement. One easy example: black entrepreneurs are disproportionately more likely to life higher standards of living than their parents and provide well for their children, so you could help establish a seed fund and free financial educational materials to facilitate greater black independence, individual autonomy and community respect.
3) If you see someone who hates black people....actually debate them with statistics about how genetically similar we are (ex: analysis of mitochondrial DNA all dating back to Africa fairly recently), how black people and white people have similar IQs given similar upbringings (the average IQ of a black child adopted by middle class white parents is 106, implying they aren't inherently stupider than white people) or examples of how black people contributed to the music, clothing, culture, etc that they enjoy. Just brow beating them with rhetoric isn't going to help.
4) Recognize that racism usually exists for or because of nefarious purposes -- such as preventing workplace solidarity or social reforms that might improve the lot of all people, or facilitating wars. That racism can be completely unfounded, as is so with modern antisemitism (Nazi-style antisemitism is racist above all else), makes it no less deadly.
On your points:
1)Denounce racism when you encounter it. One can be subtle, and much racism is subtle. It's the subtler, more polite bigotry that is easiest and safest to confront. You can express disgust at the vilest expressions of racism... you can say that that's how things started in Germany when one sees extremist racism (which includes antisemitism),
I have encountered antisemitism because I fit several Jewish stereotypes... no, I do not have a particularly large nose. One is to call to a Jew-haters' attention that Christian morality is really Jewish morality, and that Jews denounce their rogues to gentiles as a warning.
Know that 'race' has little scientific support. Plenty of people are ambiguous based on appearance. The one-drop rule remains the legal standard, but enough people have passed. How black must one be to be obviously black?
2) We have one recent, glaring example of an excellent President whom nobody will ever consider "white". It is obvious that Barack Obama did nothing that indicates inadequacy in his political role. Forget race and he falls in line among above-average Presidents. If you can vote for a white person with his virtues, then you are voting for someone who will solve far more problems than he creates.
Give credit to black people who do succeed for education, skill development, enterprise, and character. Race has nothing to do with that. Trump claimed that he did more in four years for black people than in the four years of any other prior President (which is itself specious because he established no policies promoting such) but forgets to tell us that black people did much of that themselves, like commuting from black communities with few jobs to white communities where jobs go begging). One day in Greater Detroit I thought I could beat traffic by following the reverse-flow of the early-morning commute, but I found that the outflow from the city was just as large. Assuming that blacks have no particular proclivity to work the graveyard shift I could draw one conclusion. Most of my 'fellow travelers' were black, as I could tell.
3)One little stat: black children of African-American GI's and white German mothers out of wedlock are indistinguishable in IQ from white Germans. Maybe this reflects the German education which is no lark but is the only reliable entry to the Good Life in Germany.
And, yes, many people who consider themselves white 'have a little black in them'. I do genealogy as a hobby, and I have found some persons whose family tree gets very secret very fast. I have yet to take one of those genetic tests. I may have some myths bashed.
Another fact: the black bourgeoisie does well, and if I had to choose between being part of it or being brought up in some of the most disadvantaged areas of America that are predominately white (Appalachia and the Ozarks), then white privilege just isn't worth it. White privilege is real, but it is not as good as being free of drugs or alcoholism.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.