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Of course. Your only experience with reality is the reality your experienced. Your bias is based upon your experience as a poor person and you project that the reasons you were poor for that period is the same reason that other people are poor. Again, all we know is what we see and experience. However, you cannot superimpose your experience and tell any other group of people that what was true for you is also true for the reasons of their poverty. You have NEVER been black! You do not have a clue what life is like in America as a black person. You can try this "us too" BS all you want. WHITES DO NOT KNOW WHAT LIFE IS LIKE BEING BLACK or more specifically, AFrican AMerican. You think its just about being poor.....but the psychology of black people living in a world dominated by white imagery of beauty, a white Jesus and all things good defined as "white" and being taught the history of white civilization and its greatness while not being taught anything about the greatness of African people (in fact we are told there was not greatness about Africa and that it was a primitive land of savages and we should feel fortunate to have been enslaved and taken away from the misery of Africa). You all have no clue what being black is like under white supremacy.
So how long have you been a white person living as a white American that you can tell me what my white experience is to be?
You are judging me on my perceived skin color and making assumptions on what my experience could only be. My experience growing up was different than yours and different than what you perceived my experience to be. I am trying to expand your mind to look at things OTHER than skin color as a cause of poverty or discrimination. You might find we are more alike than different.
Since you mention Jesus, the picture of Jesus on my wall growing up was an olive skinned, dark-haired gent that looked nothing like me. I also had a black Santa ornament on my tree and the three wise men were historically correct in my manager scene (not white Northern European.) My religious and holy icons were a plethora of colors and nationalities. I know you will take this as more racial #metoo'ism but maybe you should consider that not all white people have the same experience, there might actually be divisions with in the "white race", and the world isn't as black-and-white as you perceive. (FYI: I hate the idea of racial division based upon skin color or facial features. We are all of the human race.)
People with ingrained beliefs are not looking to seek knowledge. To believe something is a euphemism for not knowing something. Religion is an example. People believe in their religion. They don't KNOW that their beliefs are true. The deeper your belief the more intransigent one becomes to SEEKING KNOWLEDGE that may threaten those beliefs. Thus, a person who deeply believes something will have a natural aversion and resistance conflicting information and knowledge. They don't want to hear it.
Most of us have our beliefs about things. This means that most of us are no longer seeking knowledge on the phenomenon that we have already formed beliefs. It does not matter the information, data, statistics someone provides. If a person feels that such information or links will threaten their beliefs foundation, they will simply ignore it. Once you have beliefs, you stop seeking expansion of knowledge on the subject.
In light of that, the question is what is our beliefs when it comes to race? Is the quest for knowledge to explain the large socioeconomic gaps that exist between whites and blacks divisive and to who? Don't people want to see these gaps eradicated? My beliefs are clear. I do not believe that blacks are innately inferior in such a way that we lag socioeconomically due to a Darwinian theory of survival going to the fittest or in other words, that black people are less fit innately to keep pace with other races. That is my belief and bias.
I conflict with peoples whose beliefs are counter to mine on this subject. Hence, the people who always try to dismiss things others have done to blacks or the difference in the black experience relative to others, seem to be people who have counter beliefs to my own about the innate equality of black people. If every time I or someone else argues outside forces and influence and you seek to discredit that and leave only the internal aspect, you are essentially pointing that your beliefs are that there is something internally dysfunctional about black people that manifest outwardly in things like violence, out of wedlock births, laziness, poor choice making, etc.
When people BELIEVE that blacks are inferior, as a collective people, such believers can rationalize that acts are not influenced by race, despite a good number of people having racial prejudice thinking. Yes, people might be racist......but that is really not the root of black peoples problems. In other words, those who see blacks as inferior can admit to their being racism, but they refuse to link it to the black condition which they BELIEVE is rooted in the inferior nature of black people.
What a bunch of "1984" double speak!! What I get out of that whole thing is you believe the Negroid race is inferior to ours? "Black Condition", that's a new on me. Sounds like a sickness. Sicknesses sometimes have cures. What would be your cure?
So how long have you been a white person living as a white American that you can tell me what my white experience is to be?
You are judging me on my perceived skin color and making assumptions on what my experience could only be. My experience growing up was different than yours and different than what you perceived my experience to be. I am trying to expand your mind to look at things OTHER than skin color as a cause of poverty or discrimination. You might find we are more alike than different.
Since you mention Jesus, the picture of Jesus on my wall growing up was an olive skinned, dark-haired gent that looked nothing like me. I also had a black Santa ornament on my tree and the three wise men were historically correct in my manager scene (not white Northern European.) My religious and holy icons were a plethora of colors and nationalities. I know you will take this as more racial #metoo'ism but maybe you should consider that not all white people have the same experience, there might actually be divisions with in the "white race", and the world isn't as black-and-white as you perceive. (FYI: I hate the idea of racial division based upon skin color or facial features. We are all of the human race.)
The reason I kept mentioning the subconscious is due to the fact that its impossible for skin color to exist and a person who is not blind or color blind to make associations based upon skin color. You are designed to survive as a prime directive and your brain processes all sensory input and is not engaged in any nonsense. The subconscious is not racist, sexist, religious, homophobic, etc. It just takes in all information and patterns and stores it for your survival and use it to figure out the world you are in.
Somewhere in your mind, if you watch sports, is an association with blacks as good basketball players. How did that association get there? It got there from watching professional and college sports, if you did. When you look at the world today you there is much disproportional-ity in regards to race. Blacks are disproportionately this, whites are disproportionately this, Asians are disproportionately this. If it can be observed in the daily life, and things are observed whether you are conscious of it or not, then it is stored in your subconscious. Now, consciously a person might feel its wrong to think and associate a behavior or something with color, but our mind does it instinctively, if it can be observed.
You cannot expand my mind by offering information that my mind already has. You think I don't know that there are other reasons for being poor that have nothing to do with race? I guess it logically follows then that you will next offer me the information that many whites are poor. I mean, if I actually believed that the only reason that black people are poor is due to race, then I would have to also believe that no whites must be poor because they are not black and victims of racism. Right? I mean I can't believe black poverty is due ONLY to racism and not believe that blacks are the only race that has poor people. So no, you are not expanding my mind and understanding. You are being absurd actually.
When I talk about race and poverty I am explaining the causes of the GAPS between the black rate and white rates. I am not saying that all black poverty is the consequence of racism, but that the gaps between the black and white rates are likely due to the history of racism Get it strait. Its also my belief that whites could not have gone through what blacks have gone through, in degree and kind, as collectives, and not be in the same socioeconomic condition today. If any group went through in time and space what blacks have gone through......they would be in the situation we are in. Its that simple. Thus, even though you may have gone through something personally worse than some black person, overall I know whites have not gone through what blacks go through because if you had you would be in the situation we are in, unless you feel whites can go through what blacks go through and somehow come out better despite having the same experience. You would have to think that whites are innately superior to conclude that. Do you? Maybe you do subconsciously which is why you keep attacking my position which is predicated upon the belief that blacks are innately as capable as you and would not perform inferior to you unless being acted on by an outside influence. Whites keep telling me that blacks received no counter force that whites have not received. Keep in mind that what you are not noting or bringing up is that whites are performing much better than blacks socioeconomically. SO let me put it all together. Whites, as a collective, are doing much better than blacks, as a collective, despite blacks not going through anything that whites have not also gone through. How does that work? What mechanism or trait allows you to have our same experiences, yet overcome the inertia and resistance enough to move so much ahead of us?
If someone threatened to kill someone you cared for dearly, but you had one way out by picking a basketball team that could beat the team of the killer (I know its an absurd hypothetical). There were only 10 people around to choose from, 5 black guys and 5 Asian guys and you could not substitute. They were all of equal height and look equally athletic or not. I person raised in America who liked watching professional and college sports would pick a team where the majority of the players are black. They may pick all the black guys for the team. At that point the person is not going to be concerned with consciously not trying to appear to be not racist and the social fallout from seeming racist. When it comes to survival they are going to let the subconscious rule and the subconscious has stored an association with blacks and basketball/athleticism if they have observed professional and collegiate sports.
Lastly, I don't view observations as racism. White people who talk about blacks having higher rates of crime or lower test scores or something else are not necessarily racist in my opinion. A police officer fearing or profiling blacks more is not necessarily racist, if the date is true. Racism is in the explanation, not the observation. When you seek to explain why blacks have higher crime, lower test scores or whatever, that is where its revealed that a person is a racist.
Last edited by Indentured Servant; 10-23-2018 at 02:40 PM..
Jewish people did not go through what black people did in time and space. Jewish people, unlike African Americans, are not living in the lands of their oppression. Jewish is not a race, but a religious identity and one cannot tell a persons religion unless they outwardly choose dress in such a way to identify oneself as a follower. This means you can slip in and out of being identified as such, which makes it harder to oppress people that you cannot identify with certainty. However, people who were less than 1/8 black could often pass as "white" and of course once they were able to pass as white there life became much more fruitful than those blacks who were clearly black. Furthermore, Jewish people were coming out of their Holocaust during a period of great economic expansion after WWII. Racism in America gradually reduced after laws passed in the 1960's. In other words, when real opportunity began to wane in America and we become more of a debt driven economy, simultaneously racism was reducing. In other words, blacks are trying to climb up the mountain of recovery during a mudslide. If laws and attitudes changed before Americas economic zenith and before the inundation of drugs and guns into this country, blacks would be much closer to equality. Blacks are trying to pull themselves up during a period where America is economically and morally sinking.
Jewish people did not go through what black people did in time and space. Jewish people, unlike African Americans, are not living in the lands of their oppression. Jewish is not a race, but a religious identity and one cannot tell a persons religion unless they outwardly choose dress in such a way to identify oneself as a follower. This means you can slip in and out of being identified as such, which makes it harder to oppress people that you cannot identify with certainty. However, people who were less than 1/8 black could often pass as "white" and of course once they were able to pass as white there life became much more fruitful than those blacks who were clearly black. Furthermore, Jewish people were coming out of their Holocaust during a period of great economic expansion after WWII. Racism in America gradually reduced after laws passed in the 1960's. In other words, when real opportunity began to wane in America and we become more of a debt driven economy, simultaneously racism was reducing. In other words, blacks are trying to climb up the mountain of recovery during a mudslide. If laws and attitudes changed before Americas economic zenith and before the inundation of drugs and guns into this country, blacks would be much closer to equality. Blacks are trying to pull themselves up during a period where America is economically and morally sinking.
This shows you failed to read the history (including the history of antisemitism in the US) and fail to understand that being Jewish is more than just being religious. The Holocaust was much more about blood than religion.
This shows you failed to read the history (including the history of antisemitism in the US) and fail to understand that being Jewish is more than just being religious. The Holocaust was much more about blood than religion.
It happened the moment before I posted it. I was reading the forum and a co-worker was walking around talking with people and when he came to me......"Staying out of trouble" is what he said.
Look. NOBODY, including me, knows the motive for why its said. The best we have is our BELIEFS, because we cannot for certainty KNOW what anyone else is thinking, especially since none of you even know the people and have never met the people. All you are doing is PROJECTING what your experiences and motives have been in using the phrase. That is not PROOF of anything. That is just you telling me WHY YOU USE THE PHRASE and why the people you know used the phrase. Again, that is not proof its why the people, who you have never met, use the phrase. There is no proof my way and there is no proof your way, because none of us are mind readers. I am just saying that its annoying to me, based upon my life experiences.
It is a greeting on par with hello. You're reading waaaaaay too much into a person's intention. I would use the words, you staying out of trouble whether you were a black man, white 85 year old woman, 6 year old indian non-gender binding man/woman, 13 year old asian tranvestite, or 35 year old hispanic woman.
Some other greetings I use you may find offensive:
Hey Ya'll
Hey Sugar
Hey Hun
Bless Your Heart
Whazzup Yo
You Stayin Out of Trouble
Yo
Hello
Howdy Ya'll
etc
etc
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