Active Topics | Member List | Search | Help | Register | Login
The John Byrne Forum
Byrne Robotics > The John Byrne Forum << Prev Page of 28
Topic: George Floyd Post ReplyPost New Topic
Author
Message
Charles Valderrama
Byrne Robotics Member
Avatar

Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 4716
Posted: 29 April 2021 at 12:07pm | IP Logged | 1 post reply

Big Surprise: In the Republican rebuttal to Biden’s first address to a joint session of Congress, Sen.Tim Scott, the only Black Republican in the upper chamber, drew on his own personal experiences with discrimination... but also emphasized that “America is not a racist country."

He’s free to feel however he wants to feel, but I would say the consensus among most Black Americans is that we live in a racist country.

-C!
Back to Top profile | search | www
 
Joe Zhang
Byrne Robotics Member
Avatar

Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 12857
Posted: 29 April 2021 at 7:24pm | IP Logged | 2 post reply

He's saying that though he may have encountered racism personally, that does not mean the entire country is racist i.e. "systemically racist". 

Back to Top profile | search e-mail
 
Tim O Neill
Byrne Robotics Security


Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 10918
Posted: 25 May 2021 at 2:44pm | IP Logged | 3 post reply



...



Back to Top profile | search
 
Conrad Teves
Byrne Robotics Member
Avatar

Joined: 28 January 2014
Location: United States
Posts: 2160
Posted: 25 May 2021 at 3:39pm | IP Logged | 4 post reply

There seems to be a consistent misunderstanding (largely on the Right) that racism=race hatred/bigotry.  They can go together, but are separate phenomena.  Just like it's possible to love women and hold sexist beliefs or just even unconsciously perpetuate them.
Back to Top profile | search | www e-mail
 
Joe Zhang
Byrne Robotics Member
Avatar

Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 12857
Posted: 25 May 2021 at 5:36pm | IP Logged | 5 post reply

Well then that's just the old Christian missionary trick of showing up in a foreign culture and letting everyone know they are sinful just because they don't conform to his new religion. The Woke want every White person to believe they have sinned and must repent, even if they have not knowingly wronged a minority member. 

I've been given a whole bunch of sh*t for being a Chinese man. And I was quite an angry young person because of it. But in retrospect, that sh*t is comparable with the indignities that many White guys go through. I was just an average guy going through average problems.  It was bad, I survived, and America is still the least racist society in the world. 


Edited by Joe Zhang on 25 May 2021 at 5:44pm
Back to Top profile | search e-mail
 
Conrad Teves
Byrne Robotics Member
Avatar

Joined: 28 January 2014
Location: United States
Posts: 2160
Posted: 25 May 2021 at 7:57pm | IP Logged | 6 post reply

Joe >>America is still the least racist society in the world.<<

Even if this were literally true, it wouldn't mean there wasn't systemic racism plaguing the country.  Without bothering to regale you with anecdotes, it is much more revealing to just look at the disparities. In a properly egalitarian society, every ethnic group should (even with an uneven start) be eventually evenly diffused among every level of social and economic strata, but they are not. Many decades of this should tell you something is holding those structures in place, holding them hard.  

Also, your comparison of "woke" with Christian missionaries is all kinds of wrong.  It's not a question of repenting, it's a question of changing behaviors that you would think were bad if they were done to you.
Back to Top profile | search | www e-mail
 
Scott Wagahoff
Byrne Robotics Member
Avatar

Joined: 10 October 2019
Location: United States
Posts: 147
Posted: 26 May 2021 at 5:56am | IP Logged | 7 post reply

I will say that for me becoming "woke" (a term I am getting very, very, very tired of) simply means now understanding that what I have experienced in my life (and only mine) is the result of being a middle class white man. I haven't had everything handed to me but I feel I have been given an upper hand in life because of my race & sex. I don't feel I have "sinned & must repent", but I have learned to not judge people at such extreme face value and take into account how much society & government have contributed to the massive inequality in the nation. I just never spent much time paying much attention to life outside my bubble and I no longer feel I can afford to do that.
Back to Top profile | search
 
Tim O Neill
Byrne Robotics Security


Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 10918
Posted: 26 May 2021 at 3:58pm | IP Logged | 8 post reply


I was glad to see Biden and Harris welcome George Floyd's family to the White
House yesterday to mark one year since the murder. In the grand scheme of
things, it's just a gesture - but a powerful one considering the lunacy of the
previous administration.

Darnella Frazier made rare public comments about her experience witnessing
and recording the murder and its aftermath:

Washinton Post: "Teen speaks out a year after filming George
Floyd’s death, saying her video ‘put his murderer away’"


Back to Top profile | search
 
John Wickett
Byrne Robotics Member
Avatar

Joined: 12 July 2016
Location: United States
Posts: 795
Posted: 27 May 2021 at 11:17am | IP Logged | 9 post reply

"In a properly egalitarian society, every ethnic group should (even with an uneven start) be eventually evenly diffused among every level of social and economic strata"

I think you are 100% correct about this, but I don't agree that the lack of even diffusion today is conclusive proof that we remain a systemically racist society; at least not to the extent that some would portray.

When you consider how drastically uneven the start was, and the fact that we are barely more than 150 years removed from slavery (not to mention Jim Crow, forced segregation, and all of the other barriers that had to be removed over a period of several decades after slaves were emancipated) I think it is unrealistic to think that blacks would have caught up to whites with respect to the income gap, property ownership, etc., by now even under ideal circumstances.  Its going  take more time to overcome our history.

Having said that, I'm not suggesting we should just wait for progress to occur on its own.  Action must be taken to move things forward.  

So rather than look at a snapshot of how evenly diffused minorities are among all levels of society, as an indicator of how racist we are, I think it is more useful to compare current levels of diffusion to historic levels from a variety of points in time, and use it as a measurement of how well we are progressing towards equality.  

With regard to that, I think two things are clear:  We've made incredible progress since 1865, and progress during the second half of the 20th century, and first couple decades of the 21st century has been too slow in many ways.

As far as the pace of recent progress is concerned, I believe that can be partly attributed to vestiges of systemic racism that remain, and partly attributed to ineffective government policies that addressed symptoms of the problem, rather than attacking the root causes.  

A very recent example is the Defund the Police movement.  Several cities have reduced the size of police departments in order to reduce the number of harmful interactions between police officers and members of minority groups.  Now we're seeing crime waves in these cities, but nothing has changed with regard to racial equality, because defunding the police doesn't address the reasons why racial minorities are disproportionately poor, or commit a disproportionately high number of the crimes that bring them into contact with police.  

Policies like this miss the mark.  And if that is where our focus is when it comes to promoting racial equality, then we are missing out on opportunities to implement other policies that might be more impactful.

Back to Top profile | search
 
Rebecca Jansen
Byrne Robotics Member
Avatar

Joined: 12 February 2018
Location: Canada
Posts: 4410
Posted: 27 May 2021 at 11:43am | IP Logged | 10 post reply

150+ years of lynchings past emancipation of slaves, including what amount to police lynchings up to the present day, and not a problem? Not for some.

Racism includes criminal gangs targeting and preying on minority kids and adult, families, and if you have police forces seen as outside their communities and a danger themselves... throw in ridiculously lax gun regulation and loopholes and stir.

"We die driving our cars. We die playing outside. We die babysitting. We die eating ice cream. We die sleeping in our own beds. We die and die and die at the hands of the police who are sworn to serve and protect us."

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/03/americ a-black-deaths-racism

"Black men were nearly 14 times more likely to die in a firearm homicide than white men"

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2021/02/23/young- black-men-teens-made-up-more-than-third-2019-gun-homicides/4 559929001/

Edited by Rebecca Jansen on 27 May 2021 at 11:55am
Back to Top profile | search | www
 

If you wish to post a reply to this topic you must first login
If you are not already registered you must first register

<< Prev Page of 28
  Post ReplyPost New Topic
Printable version Printable version

Forum Jump
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot create polls in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum

 Active Topics | Member List | Search | Help | Register | Login