DescentBB

An apt picture of the insanity or dishonesty at work, I think.

Will Robinson wrote:The way it works:
If you are a conservative, and you talk about people, you are a racist. Unless there is no way anyone could apply what you said negatively to black people. And even in that case you are still a racist if a liberal says so.

I'm a total conservative. I am 100% behind lean, efficient government and as few rules as possible. But I also realize strong* government programs really help society at large. I get mad when teachers and police get cut, but advanced missile systems don't. We certainly have enough missiles to bomb the world many times over. We don't have enough teachers and police to make everyone at home safe and educated. If that makes me a liberal I guess I'll have to wear the label no matter how stupidly it got stuck on me.

White people are still immensely privileged in the US even with all the laws and racial accommodations. Some might say blacks need to take personal responsibility for their situation. I see it as my responsibility to help everyone reach true equality, every step of the way, and I'll keep giving up my privileges until we make it so.


*strong as in "run effectively as possible." It is amazingly difficult to maintain a machine that has literally millions of moving parts, such as our government. It's natural state is disrepair and we need to work at it constantly. It's all we have! This is also one of the reasons I advocate for as much transparency as possible. Gotta see the bugs before you can fix them. Imagine you wrote a program that always crashed because of a bad API but you were never allowed to see that part of the code.

vision wrote:...

White people are still immensely privileged in the US even with all the laws and racial accommodations.

I think it is wrong to say we are immensely privileged because the word is usually used to point out someone who has an elite status.
White people are everything, from the worst to the best, the richet and poorest etc. Just like every other race in America is. That 'privileged' narrative is a tool of the people who are greatly empowered by racial divide.

The disparity you are focusing on isn't because whites are all better off.
It is that whites are able to access and draw from a broader and deeper network of support and confidence. The history of upward potential has been there for whites since the pilgrims landed. Blacks are drawing from a smaller base that only recently got out from under oppression.

To make things equal means, on an individual level no one can exploit another, the individual rights must be the same.
The government, working as an steward of society at large, can extend favors, assistance, etc to bring black people opportunity, grants for business ventures, education, welfare, etc because it helps us all to have a healthier more prosperous citizenry. Not because it picks bad guys and good guys. If government picks sides it is tyrannical.

I've never suggested we shouldnt be doing things to help spur equality where we can but so much of the 'civil rights' movement has become a retribution and revenge movement and that is flat out wrong. It is also very counter productive to easing racial tension AND counter productive to lifting up the confidence level of black people. It stifles opportunity by keeping us polarized.

There are too many people seeking and preaching perpetual vengeance for crimes against their ancestors. To many kneejerk liberals that either buy into it or go along with it for political purpose.
Vengeance is not a civil right and it isn't ever going to bring equality. It will burn that bridge before it is even crossed.

vision wrote:I see it as my responsibility to help everyone reach true equality, every step of the way, and I'll keep giving up my privileges until we make it so.

So what does giving up your privileges look like? What privileges do you have, as a Caucasian? Which privileges do you give up, and to whom do you give them?

Spidey wrote:

tunnelcat wrote:Zimmerman has already decided Martin is a bad, black teenager, who may have a weapon and who's up to no good.

Oh, but you said Zimmerman only confronted Martin because he knew he had the advantage.

Thanks a lot for making the point, that slick was unable to understand…give me your E-Mail, and I’ll zip over your payment via PayPal.

And there you go using those known facts to create a story that doesn’t exist….

When Zimmerman said “ And he’s a black male” he was simply clearing up the information that he gave previously…that was “ I ‘think’ he’s black”…because he now has a better look.

Let me ask you this. If Martin had been white, wearing the same hoody by the way, do you think Zimmerman would have had the same prejudicial gut reaction that Martin was a burglar sulking around up to no good? I'm willing to bet not. Click here. And the fact Zimmerman felt superior while carrying his gun directly resulted in a confrontation in which someone died for no good reason.

Will Robinson wrote:You are bordering on sick TC.
You have some key stuff very, very, wrong there. You are repeating stuff that was proven to be untrue and not just that last coon reference either.
I am having a hard time believing you don't really know that but if you truly don't know it by now, with all the data and evidence out there, it can only be due to your own willful ignorance.

I'm done discussing this with you for those reasons. Nothing good can come from engaging you as far as I can see. Have a good life, you are sometimes a funny and witty person, may you find yourself in a good place always.

I'm done with you too. The very fact you can't even see something from another person's perspective shows me that you're close minded. You just can't bring yourself to see things from Martin's point of view, and you can't seem to bring yourself to see that perhaps Zimmerman reacted in a racist manner and instigated the whole confrontation, for whatever reason he had. Putting yourself in another person's shoes is the one human trait necessary that allows people to have respect for others. Enough said.

How the hell can you feel “superior” by having a weapon…if you believe the other guy might also have a weapon?

Really…I’m confused.

And I have never made any claims that Zimmerman wasn’t racist, in fact I believe they were ‘both’ a good bit racist.

Perhaps so, I can't disagree on the inherent racism of both parties. Racism breeds fear. But Zimmerman knew he was armed, while Martin made the fatal mistake of not knowing that the other guy was armed. Martin might not have been so brave and attacked if Zimmerman had identified himself as an armed guard in the first place. No one in their right mind brings fists into a gunfight.

tunnelcat wrote:Perhaps so, I can't disagree on the inherent racism of both parties. Racism breeds fear. But Zimmerman knew he was armed, while Martin made the fatal mistake of not knowing that the other guy was armed. Martin might not have been so brave and attacked if Zimmerman had identified himself as an armed guard in the first place. No one in their right mind brings fists into a gunfight.

If anyone ever doubts me when I talk about liberal knee-jerk reaction to bend over backwards to excuse anti-social behavior this is your test example right here!

Who's antisocial behavior? Zimmerman's or Martin's? Zimmerman was observing someone he thought was a potential burglar. Martin was minding his own business walking home. Somewhere things went horribly wrong because of miscommunication and misunderstanding. Both people are not faultless here either. Martin reacted violently to someone following him who he thought was a threat and Zimmerman didn't identify himself as security to Martin while following him. But the one who was armed could have diffused the whole situation before it reached violence. You either can't, or won't, look at Martin's perspective or position in the whole affair. Not everything is black and white, no pun intended.

Who ever said Martin wasn't up to something? Where does this assumption come from?

Sergeant Thorne wrote:Who ever said Martin wasn't up to something? Where does this assumption come from?

we are all presumed innocent, that is how America works. Plus, how many folks holding candy and iced tea while walking in the rain do you find to be 'up to something'?
Either you are grasping at straws, Thorne, or worse, really failing to understand the principles upon your whole country's justice system works.

Zimmerman wasn't Presumed Innocent by the media or political hacks now was he?

Heretic wrote:Zimmerman wasn't Presumed Innocent by the media or political hacks now was he?

Or by several members of this forum. Even after he was found not guilty they insist otherwise.

tunnelcat wrote:Who's antisocial behavior? ....

The anti social behavior is the physical assault.
The bending over backwards is your 'demand' that Zimmerman announce that he is armed. He would be breaking the law if he did so. He would also, no doubt, be vilified by the likes of you for using a gun to intimidate a poor kid holding candy while black.

More bending over backwards is your assertion that Martins mistake was "not knowing the other guy was armed" before he 'brought his fists to the gunfight'.
You swept right past the moment when the law was broken, that attack you say he wouldn't have launched if he knew Zimmerman was armed! What about NOT ATTACKING HIM AT ALL?!?
There is no evidence to suggest Martin was afraid for his life. He had 4 minutes to wait in the shadows with nothing between him and his fathers girlfriends house except poor judgement.

I HAVE looked at this from Martins point of view, it looks like he really blew it. He most likely had a moment when he could choose to tell the creepy assed Cracka that he belonged there. He could have even told him to stop being so creepy and called him a racist muthahumper too. Or he could have chose to keep walking home and tell his story to his Father while creepy Cracka stayed out in the rain talking on the phone.
But it seems he made a really bad choice instead.
Maybe all the weight of living in the white mans world was too much for him, it's not like he could ever be privileged enough to grow up and be President or something like the Cracka could. It's no wonder he was so ready to go off the rails!
Oops, I guess they don't use that on the black kids anymore. I need to check with Rev. Al, I'm sure they have replaced that talking point with a new one.

Sergeant Thorne wrote:

vision wrote:I see it as my responsibility to help everyone reach true equality, every step of the way, and I'll keep giving up my privileges until we make it so.

So what does giving up your privileges look like? What privileges do you have, as a Caucasian? Which privileges do you give up, and to whom do you give them?

These are great questions. Obviously in a legal sense we are all equal, but not in a social sense. My parental figures were average white people who grew up in a pre-civil rights world. Both my grandparents were racist. And even though my family life was poor, I was still way better off than any black kid. Fast forward to today and look at a black man my age. He most likely grew up in a world where his grandparents had to struggle desperately against racism. A world where his parents got more opportunities than their parents, but everything was far from rosy. And while this hypothetical black man my age might be doing very well for himself, he had a rougher time getting there and certainly many other blacks in my age group had a worse time. But enough of the anecdote.

What privilege do I have as a Caucasian? The privilege of having a head start and better life tools than blacks my age. I'm also privileged in the sense I don't have to work at keeping these things. I don't have to convince younger white folks that "it will get better, just keep working hard." In fact, I have the privilege to not to a damn thing to improve my social status and social acceptance. I'm white! But can I give this up? In a sense, yes.

I can give up time and money. I can protest when the government wants to reduce the number of schools and teachers in poor black neighborhoods. I can volunteer my time and skills to help improve bad areas of town where resources are lacking. I can donate to charities that support poor minority children. In short, I can give up my privilege not to care, my privilege to sit on my ass and do nothing and give someone else a break by making their life a little easier -- to make them feel privileged for a change.

vision wrote:...

What privilege do I have as a Caucasian? The privilege of having a head start and better life tools than blacks my age. I'm also privileged in the sense I don't have to work at keeping these things. I don't have to convince younger white folks that "it will get better, just keep working hard." In fact, I have the privilege to not to a damn thing to improve my social status and social acceptance. I'm white! But can I give this up? In a sense, yes.

I can give up time and money. I can protest when the government wants to reduce the number of schools and teachers in poor black neighborhoods. I can volunteer my time and skills to help improve bad areas of town where resources are lacking. I can donate to charities that support poor minority children. In short, I can give up my privilege not to care, my privilege to sit on my ass and do nothing and give someone else a break by making their life a little easier -- to make them feel privileged for a change.

That makes perfect sense to me with the exception I take to the way you apply the word privilege. You haven't been given an exclusive access to those advantages. You merely wake up each day and pursue happiness/life as it is supposed to be for people living where equality is mandated to be the norm.
This is an important distinction in how we interact with those who were oppressed and now find themselves waking up with all the same freedoms to pursue happiness but not the same peer group support system that we have developed over 200 years.

All the things you do to help are done out of a sense of balancing the scales as quickly as is reasonably possible. If you are 'the norm' and want to bring those less fortunate up to par you have to act from a belief that the norm is not criminal.
If you tell people who are less fortunate than you that you have stolen their piece of happiness they will have contempt for you and your perspective. Even if you are handing them some of what 'you stole' back to them. And you play right into the hands of the agitators who are claiming to be the only ones with the power to make you give up the proper amount of happiness to the disadvantaged.

If you don't make that distinction then all of us who already give time and money and go out of their way to lend a hand in big and little ways are labeled as thieves and racists simply because we wake up everyday to live the norm and are despised no matter how much we contribute to making the balance come sooner.

It may seem like an insignificant distinction but to disregard it is to lend credence to the narrative that blacks are being held back because whites won't share. It gives validation to excuses they make for failures that everyone experiences in their pursuit of happiness from time to time. It compounds the very burden you are trying to help them out from under!

If my daughter applies for a job and is rejected she isn't going to think her race had anything to do with it. Actually it could happen but the odds are slim and there is no generational handing down of the belief that other races will be out to stop her at every turn.
Hopelessness leads to all sorts of dysfunction and the race baiting agitators hand out the perception of hopelessness by way of their rhetoric because it is the hopelessness that makes them appear as saviors instead of the pimps that they are.

When Jesse Jackson threatened to boycott Coca Cola because he claimed they were not hiring enough blacks to upper level positions the company paid him a big donation to his cause. In return he went away and said nothing, caused no change in the company, did nothing other than cash his check. He stirs up resentment, he serves up hopelessness to his people and then takes the cash and leaves the alleged offense to continue.
Net result: Jackson richer; blacks still disadvantaged. How does he get the power to be pimp? We give it to him by letting dispicable people like him define how the scale should be balanced.

On April 4, 1968 when Dr King was standing on the balcony in front of his room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis,Tennessee Jesse Jackson was there and the dumbass redneck who fired the deadly shot missed the true enemy and killed a great man. Of course he wouldn't agree because he was a rabid dog.
However, for all of us who have lived to see the results and know the difference between Dr King and Jesse Jackson, it is obvious just how much damage that bullet did well beyond the horrible murder of a human being. It helped create a cancer in the courageous movement Dr. King built.
Jackson could have at least been useful to the real cause as a martyr of sorts or a shield. Instead we now have hell to pay and Dr. Kings dream is turning into a nightmare.