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Suggestion for Boisefan. Spend six months in CA. Ride with the San Bernardino or Los Angeles Police Departments on an observer program. Join a couple of church groups that help inner city programs or a secular charity group that does the same. Live in the community and actually get hands on in the that community. After six months if you are still alive, come back to this forum and espouse the same views.
Suggestion for Boisefan. Spend six months in CA. Ride with the San Bernardino or Los Angeles Police Departments on an observer program. Join a couple of church groups that help inner city programs or a secular charity group that does the same. Live in the community and actually get hands on in the that community. After six months if you are still alive, come back to this forum and espouse the same views.
Lol, you act as if I've never been out of the state or that I have no experience in the world. Ironic - this type of talking down is a typical complaint Idahoans have with Californians moving into Idaho. Chalk yet another one up. Thanks for educating this backcountry bumpkin.
Hey, I admit I haven't walked in your shoes. And I wasn't discounting your opinion or experiences. What I felt was disingenuous was a few of the statements:
-the idea that you won't get shot at in Northern Idaho any more or less than you would in most other places in the US;
-the strange links between the themes being discussed in this thread (Aryan Nations, white homogeneous culture in NID, racial diversity in other places and getting shot at);
-the idea that there are but TWO active white supremacists left in NID (laughable);
-the mockery of the idea of the white supremacist history in the area.
Again, I'm not discounting your experiences. Although I suggest you reread Sage and Sandpointian's comments. They're just a bit more developed, and just a bit more nuanced.
You act like SB is the occupied territories. And as a police officer I'm certain you've seen things that 99% of us haven't seen. If you're moving to Idaho for peace and quiet, more power to ya. If you're moving to NID to get away from certain things and people, etc., then yeah, I have a problem with it and will continue to do so.
Lol, you act as if I've never been out of the state or that I have no experience in the world. Ironic - this type of talking down is a typical complaint Idahoans have with Californians moving into Idaho. Chalk yet another one up. Thanks for educating this backcountry bumpkin.
Hey, I admit I haven't walked in your shoes. And I wasn't discounting your opinion or experiences. What I felt was disingenuous was a few of the statements:
-the idea that you won't get shot at in Northern Idaho any more or less than you would in most other places in the US;
-the strange links between the themes being discussed in this thread (Aryan Nations, white homogeneous culture in NID, racial diversity in other places and getting shot at);
-the idea that there are but TWO active white supremacists left in NID (laughable);
-the mockery of the idea of the white supremacist history in the area.
Again, I'm not discounting your experiences. Although I suggest you reread Sage and Sandpointian's comments. They're just a bit more developed, and just a bit more nuanced.
You act like SB is the occupied territories. And as a police officer I'm certain you've seen things that 99% of us haven't seen. If you're moving to Idaho for peace and quiet, more power to ya. If you're moving to NID to get away from certain things and people, etc., then yeah, I have a problem with it and will continue to do so.
You obviously have never been to LA or San Bern. if you think its even odds as far as likelyhood of being shot at compared to ANYWHERE in Idaho..
1. You didn't read what I said. (I said NID is no different than MOST places in the US in the chances that you'd get shot at or not. Obviously I'm not talking about certain areas in major metropolitan areas, or other statistical anomalies where incidents of gun violence per capita is surprisingly high. My point was that NID is perhaps no different than Anywhere, North Dakota, or Somewhere, Oklahoma, or Whereever, Kansas). Reread what I said; the words are specific.
2. Drop the condescension. I've been to the Los Angeles area plenty of times. I have family and friends in Redlands, Banning, Long Beach, Hollywood off Laurel Canyon Blvd, Burbank, Garden Grove, Koreatown, and Temple City. I've been throughout a good portion of Los Angeles in my years. Admittedly I don't spend time in the middle of the worst areas, nor am I privy to the type of stuff a police officer would be, but at the same time I'm not blind nor naive.
I have read the thread. Ther was no condescension meant on my part. Most of my friends in Southern CA were Hispanic, and I do have a number of black friends in the Law Enforcement Community.
To me this means nothing as I judge people by their values not who they are. I am a firm believer that folks who say they are shaped by their environment use that as a crutch. If that were the case than I should be a member of the KKK. Instead I taught Hate Crime courses and have had more diversity training than you would believe.
What wears on most people from different cultures is each one trying to force their culture down the others throat. My friends did not wave Mexican Flags and continually gripe about America. My friends did not wear African Dashiki and talk about how suppressed they were.
My friends were patriotic and believed in American Values. Some were liberal some conservative, but all were of one mindset. Respect other people and they will respect you.
You're certainly entitled to your opinion. And yes, you have visited the LA metro area, so you have some brief anecdotal glimpses of the scene but this is far from giving you any depth of experience. Really what you get is the tourist snapshot view.
I think that in issues like racial tension in mixed-race metro areas, you either HAVE the background and perspective or you DO NOT HAVE IT and you're speculating at best. In that case (like expressing your views on how several of us may be shaped by racial tension in SoCal) I need you to have the intellectual honesty to admit that you have no real basis for your opinions, but you wish to offer speculation based on your world view. This is vastly different from talking about it as if you are "in the know".
I am going to speculate here. I think that either you have lived with racial tension and it has shaped your sociological world view and/or changed you in some way, or you have no viable basis for judging how others are shaped by it. You can speculate based on what we know about acceptable human behavior and the limitations of lawful behavior as a society, but you are not qualified to draw any conclusions and share them expecting people to give your conclusions any reasonable weight from a sociological standpoint.
I liken this to how friends of ours start thinking they understand child rearing because they're an aunt or uncle. Close...but no cigar. So in an discussion of the issue, their opinions tend to come across as a bit elitist as somehow if everyone just truly understood their views on child rearing, we'd all be better parents.
To be clear...San Bernardino is a freakin war zone. Looks like Compton. And the police are darn near an occupation force for all intent and purposes in that social setting. Community based policing has failed. Crime is through the roof. Black-on-brown racial hatred is at an all time high, and it's permeated down to the high school and middle school levels.
Either you've lived here long enough to have this be part of your life, or you haven't. And nobody is blaming anyone for not having lived in the thick of it. But what I find to be the largest roadblock to mutually constructive discourse is when someone who has no depth of understanding of an issue starts taking the moral/intellectual high ground which, coupled with $3, barely buys you a cup of java...
This gives me pause to reflect more on my own views expressed in other threads, where I realize that I myself should endeavor to be more clear when I'm merely speculating with limited depth of understanding versus having more personal knowledge and experience of the subject matter being discussed. So I hope you do understand that I'm also willing (as I wield my sword) that I'm willing to swing it at myself as well...
I have read the thread. Ther was no condescension meant on my part. Most of my friends in Southern CA were Hispanic, and I do have a number of black friends in the Law Enforcement Community.
To me this means nothing as I judge people by their values not who they are. I am a firm believer that folks who say they are shaped by their environment use that as a crutch. If that were the case than I should be a member of the KKK. Instead I taught Hate Crime courses and have had more diversity training than you would believe.
What wears on most people from different cultures is each one trying to force their culture down the others throat. My friends did not wave Mexican Flags and continually gripe about America. My friends did not wear African Dashiki and talk about how suppressed they were.
My friends were patriotic and believed in American Values. Some were liberal some conservative, but all were of one mindset. Respect other people and they will respect you.
Fair enough.
I do disagree very strongly with this comment: "I am a firm believer that folks who say they are shaped by their environment use that as a crutch." Most of the academic and scientific literature suggest otherwise - that environment indeed plays as large a role, and perhaps the largest role, in the development of an individual. While I agree that some probably do use it as a crutch, the idea that environment is ineffectual or not influential is nonsensical.
Ironically (again), Sage talked about one of the draws to NID was that "rather we enjoy living in a place where there are large influences (and thus festivals and other events) of Germans, Swedes, Scottish/Irish, etc." In doing so he concedes that there are a plurality of cultures and values in America to which people identify which aren't distinctly American (some scholars even go as far as to argue there is no unique American identity because America is so ubiquitous and because of the large influence of other places on America).
So again, I am troubled by your isolation of Mexican Flags or African Dashikis as if they were anathema to America. Like Sage's Scottish or Swedish festivals, they are not. In fact, they are just as American as freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, and the right to go hunting, fishing, or shoot your gun at a target.
You're certainly entitled to your opinion. And yes, you have visited the LA metro area, so you have some brief anecdotal glimpses of the scene but this is far from giving you any depth of experience. Really what you get is the tourist snapshot view.
I think that in issues like racial tension in mixed-race metro areas, you either HAVE the background and perspective or you DO NOT HAVE IT and you're speculating at best. In that case (like expressing your views on how several of us may be shaped by racial tension in SoCal) I need you to have the intellectual honesty to admit that you have no real basis for your opinions, but you wish to offer speculation based on your world view. This is vastly different from talking about it as if you are "in the know".
I am going to speculate here. I think that either you have lived with racial tension and it has shaped your sociological world view and/or changed you in some way, or you have no viable basis for judging how others are shaped by it. You can speculate based on what we know about acceptable human behavior and the limitations of lawful behavior as a society, but you are not qualified to draw any conclusions and share them expecting people to give your conclusions any reasonable weight from a sociological standpoint.
I liken this to how friends of ours start thinking they understand child rearing because they're an aunt or uncle. Close...but no cigar. So in an discussion of the issue, their opinions tend to come across as a bit elitist as somehow if everyone just truly understood their views on child rearing, we'd all be better parents.
To be clear...San Bernardino is a freakin war zone. Looks like Compton. And the police are darn near an occupation force for all intent and purposes in that social setting. Community based policing has failed. Crime is through the roof. Black-on-brown racial hatred is at an all time high, and it's permeated down to the high school and middle school levels.
Either you've lived here long enough to have this be part of your life, or you haven't. And nobody is blaming anyone for not having lived in the thick of it. But what I find to be the largest roadblock to mutually constructive discourse is when someone who has no depth of understanding of an issue starts taking the moral/intellectual high ground which, coupled with $3, barely buys you a cup of java...
This gives me pause to reflect more on my own views expressed in other threads, where I realize that I myself should endeavor to be more clear when I'm merely speculating with limited depth of understanding versus having more personal knowledge and experience of the subject matter being discussed. So I hope you do understand that I'm also willing (as I wield my sword) that I'm willing to swing it at myself as well...
Sage, the mentality you speak of is "textbook model" thinking. Regardless of subject matter, textbook model present highly stylized, simplistic and abstract models to make certain basic points. The problem then arises in trying to apply any such models to the real world in which the basis of those models is nonexistent. In policy discussions this happens time and time again with those with only superficial backgrounds on the realities at hand.
And this is a point for both sides of the political aisle. Example #1) A view from the left and the topic of economic justice. The naive would think that the only difference between the rich and poor is wealth. No even close. The are numerous studies out there showing how sewage, toxins-emitting plants, drinking water quality, telecommunications, medical care, policy transparency, traffic lights, etc. are just atrocious in the poorest sections of cities but world-class in our best areas. Yet they are part of the same city "infrastructure," no? The naive would think that services are the same across the board. Not even close.
Example #2) The topic of institutional quality in our financial markets. On paper, the credit and economic crisis we are facing is actually easy to solve. However, in the real world, there are vested interests getting wealthier by the day while millions of Americans were forced out of work. Why? There are deep "agency" and political economy problems from the request of credit (by joe resident or SME) all the way through how credit is packaged, regulated, diced, sold and traded in international markets.
Look at Goldman Sachs. their alumni are dot SEC, Fed and most of all the Treasury (Paulson & Geithner among them). Goldman has made a fortune the past quarter (over $3 billion in profits) while their competitors have gone bust. Trust me, not by their skill, but by having inside guys tight with the policy shifts underway.
Regulators did nothing despite $200K salaries and gold-clad pensions. If the SEC, et al is going to drop the ball or worse skew things in favor of those who navigate K St. politics with more candy to distribute, then why bother with having an SEC!
Credit agencies, despite being private entities, were nowhere to be found providing us with Arthur Anderson Redux. Credit ratings were lowered after the crisis had already rotted the system from the inside out. They chose chummy relations rather than cold hard analysis. We are now paying the price.
These realities come as a shock to the naive who things that we have the "rule of law," as if this means a lack of immorality.
The real world is messy. Those in the local trenches have the opportunity to compile an information set that one cannot possibly see from the outside. We ignore the real world at our peril.
You're certainly entitled to your opinion. And yes, you have visited the LA metro area, so you have some brief anecdotal glimpses of the scene but this is far from giving you any depth of experience. Really what you get is the tourist snapshot view.
Well, part of my experience does include anecdotal commentary from friends and family that do live there. Some concur, some do not. Most of them don't let it bother them (they're still living in LA), so in that sense, they live the snapshot view.
Which was sort of my point. As police officers yeah, you're privileged to see the very worst of society. And it's probably that bad everywhere, to varying degrees. And, of course, those that have to live in ground zero of places like SB, Richmond, Detroit, New Orleans, etc., have a much different take than the majority of residents that are lucky and privileged enough to pretend that element isn't there.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sage of Sagle
I think that in issues like racial tension in mixed-race metro areas, you either HAVE the background and perspective or you DO NOT HAVE IT and you're speculating at best. In that case (like expressing your views on how several of us may be shaped by racial tension in SoCal) I need you to have the intellectual honesty to admit that you have no real basis for your opinions, but you wish to offer speculation based on your world view. This is vastly different from talking about it as if you are "in the know".
Surely you're not limiting knowledge to these two options? Is it outside the realm of possibility that one's views can be shaped not only be personal experiences (which are themselves colored by a number of environmental factors), but also by friends, family, literature, scholarship, testimony, etc.
I've fully admitted here that I do not have the first hand experience a police officer does, but at the same time I'm not going so far as to say I have no real basis for my opinions, as I've spent 15+ years of my life training in racial and cultural scholarship. Couple that with credible testimony and my own experiences, and I think have at least some basis for my opinions.
Point being, while first hand experience is an important element of knowledge, it is certainly not the only element nor even the most important.
In other words, I think you're way off the mark with this rather simplistic reduction. I do agree that as a police officer you have a distinct and more intimate experience in this regard, and that experience more legitimate than my own, but it's certainly not the only experience one can have, nor is it a more "real" experience.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sage of Sagle
I am going to speculate here. I think that either you have lived with racial tension and it has shaped your sociological world view and/or changed you in some way, or you have no viable basis for judging how others are shaped by it. You can speculate based on what we know about acceptable human behavior and the limitations of lawful behavior as a society, but you are not qualified to draw any conclusions and share them expecting people to give your conclusions any reasonable weight from a sociological standpoint.
I am certainly qualified to offer my thoughts on what I see to be inconsistencies or troubling remarks, and I have unique experience with racial tension, though it's nowhere near what most experience. My academic training, a large portion of my career devoted to issues regarding the minority experience, and family members that have personally suffered prejudice, yeah, do, qualify me to draw conclusions, from legal and sociological standpoints, as well as personal, emotional, philosophical, and intellectual.
However, I do thank you for your special blessing in this regard.
I'm fully aware this is largely an issue of differing experiences and differing values. However, I make it a point to critically engage situations, and to be able to assess, analyze, and interpret people's ideas, thoughts, comments, actions, and behavior. You don't have to agree - but such is the value of conversation, no?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sage of Sagle
To be clear...San Bernardino is a freakin war zone. Looks like Compton. And the police are darn near an occupation force for all intent and purposes in that social setting. Community based policing has failed. Crime is through the roof. Black-on-brown racial hatred is at an all time high, and it's permeated down to the high school and middle school levels.
Fair enough. There are worse places, there are better places.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sage of Sagle
Either you've lived here long enough to have this be part of your life, or you haven't. And nobody is blaming anyone for not having lived in the thick of it. But what I find to be the largest roadblock to mutually constructive discourse is when someone who has no depth of understanding of an issue starts taking the moral/intellectual high ground which, coupled with $3, barely buys you a cup of java...
This gives me pause to reflect more on my own views expressed in other threads, where I realize that I myself should endeavor to be more clear when I'm merely speculating with limited depth of understanding versus having more personal knowledge and experience of the subject matter being discussed. So I hope you do understand that I'm also willing (as I wield my sword) that I'm willing to swing it at myself as well...
I agree, though I take umbrage at the implication that a) I have no depth of understanding in this issue, and b) that there supposedly isn't value in an academic/intellectual perspective. I have never understood that perspective.
Interestingly enough, your last paragraph does apply to the topic at hand: a handful of white police officers and native Idahoans offering perspectives on an element that they cannot, simply by virtue of the color of their skin, be intimately familiar with.
The very atmosphere that is regarded as safe, innocuous, and inviting to many of us may seem menacing, threatening, and very much unsafe to others that are unique attune to elements that slip right under our noses. This is the sort of disingenuousness I'm criticizing.
I'll admit I can never know the experiences of a police officer in San Bern as soon as you admit that you can never know the experiences of being nonwhite in America, but especially in Northern Idaho. And surely you'll admit that your perspectives (and my own) will be VASTLY different than that of someone who isn't white.
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