African American
Related: About this forumhere is an interesting article
by a very astute black man on why he thinks racism in america has lasted so long and destroyed so many lives, POC and white alike
https://www.theroot.com/white-people-are-cowards-1826958780
Kind of Blue
(8,709 posts)So well-written. What breaks my heart is the thought of "Rep. Maxine Waters defiance makes her look like a crazy woman in a tinfoil hat..." That says it all as far as the cowardice of the majority.
Thank you.
heaven05
(18,124 posts)the truth cannot be denied....
Kind of Blue
(8,709 posts)and Harriot expresses the undeniable exquisitely
geardaddy
(25,372 posts)I'm white and I needed that kick in the ass to get more vocal.
heaven05
(18,124 posts)Last edited Fri Jun 22, 2018, 01:38 PM - Edit history (2)
let the forces of hate in this country realize we are stronger than they with many more in number and that all this division based on race, sex, gender CANNOT STAND. Social media. People like Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O'Donnell et al. showing strong emotion against this madness of trump and sessions, truth that hurts and angers. Let Maxine Waters, Elijah Cummings, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, all now serving and past strong voices against the likes of trump, sessions and the white supremacists/KKK members now in key positions of government. PLEASE continue pricking at heir hateful souls. We out here just have to continue to show our displeasure. That intern that shouted "fuck you" to trump the other day, a hero in my book. Kneeling must continue with much more white participation. All games, all venues. Force them to look at themselves and their hate. Let them boo and drink it in like fine wine, I do. It pisses them off and we will just have to settle the question as to who are #wethepeople. I don't know if it's hashtagged yet, if not hopefully we can appropriate it. The Civil War has gone on too long. We must end it.
No flag flying for flag day, 4th of July, for me in this neighbourhood, by me. It will make a statement. Just for Veterans Remembrance and Service Holidays only. We must fight every inch the racists try to move to enslave us all with their hate.
A lot of us black, white and other need a kick to get really angry and start raising the objection(s) to the injustice and inequality in this country. They have, as I glean from Mr. Harriots article, stood for too long as an american way of life and violent death based on skin colour or class.
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laserhaas
(7,805 posts)As was the gal on the bike that fingered the Brigade.
(Sometimes I wonder if she knew who it was)
laserhaas
(7,805 posts)The title should be "Many (or most) White People are Cowards"
We have always lived in a mob mentality world; but that doesn't grant license for all inclusive blames.
I don't call every. African American a look when brothers & sister's are out there bragging they love Trump.
Nor do I think those that do are Jim Crowe. They simply have given into mob mentality.
Most give into fear when facing mobs.
It's those who welcome mob rule, whether just or unjust, that are the greatest threat.
IMO a good place to start would be a BLM registry that would welcome me as an equal. Instead, my efforts to join BLM rallies and such are met with disdain.
The title of the story has the same mindset of mob mentality that I endure when I try to show there are Caucasians who care. The mob acts as if it is better served to accuse me of being racist, when I've been anything bit, all my life - instead of seeking to cure racism by embracing me as an equal.
Again, I agree with most of the article; but that title is self defeating; because it speaks to the mob.
And mob mentality is the problem.
Kind of Blue
(8,709 posts)From the article...
And maybe I should go back and add the word some before every mention of white people in this article because Id bet every penny I have that at least one white person with good intentions is reading this while murmuring, "Not all white people ..." Which is exactly my point.
Some is not enough.
Some white people will speak out sometimes, just like some fish can fly and some bears can ride bicycles. But if a biologist were lecturing on the mobility of aquatic animals or grizzlies, it would be idiotic to interrupt with the rare cases of flying fish or bears that ride Huffys.
I wish that more white people could join groups such as Healing from Whiteness and White Awake because it might be easier for you to put aside all the emotional hurt to listen and learn from other whites. Jeez, I wish awoke white people on this board could start such a forum because, quite frankly, your beef is like a ton of others who've come here to lecture. It's boring, exhausting to explain, and I feel like calling the White Nonsense Roundup crew. https://whitenonsenseroundup.com/how-it-works/
Here are other links that might be helpful
http://healingfromwhiteness.blogspot.com/2017/06/blaming-and-lumping-white-men-together.html
https://whiteawake.org/2018/01/19/greg-snyder-profile-piece/?mc_cid=fae9a8cbdb&mc_eid=9095b31310
laserhaas
(7,805 posts)The title is "White people are Cowards"
As in inference "all"
You have to go be snide, and bold your comments, being a crude and rude; as if the title is totally correct and my remarks are totally wrong.
That type of Bullshit is part of the problem.
Sort of like the recent Denzel movie Roman J. Israel. Denzel asked the brothers to let the sisters sit down.
And the mob went at him.
You babbling B.S. that myself, needs to join a "white" group, as if I'm part of the problem is the mob mentality, "ass'u'me" haughtier that does little to cajole others to ant fold.
Being a bigot is not only a white v. the world thingy.
As you clearly demonstrate, with your babbling B.S. and suggestions, work needs to be done, to resolve the racial divide.
My point remains, the title doesn't help.
Your points make it worse!
Kind of Blue
(8,709 posts)provided what I think are really good sources for you to gain better understanding. That's your business if you think I'm or all of it is babbling bullshit. You've stated your argument that I think is nonsense but I won't assist you any further in detracting from the article's core and overall message, especially since you're having a hard time with the title itself.
laserhaas
(7,805 posts)I'm an activist who enjoys this group.
Honey or vinegar
Kind of Blue
(8,709 posts)If that's what you're looking for to stay in this fight against brutality, murder and inequality, then you might as well take your ball and go home. So prove Harriot right, won't you please, because some of us don't have much time for distractions such as your speech policing and interruption of an article that strikes at the heart of the matter. Now we talk about you and your feelings of marginalization by the black people with whom you ally. But did you read BLM's statement and Beliefs before trying to insert yourself? Do you realize they offer other ways that you can be helpful? Did you read the statement of purpose for This Group that's not about you?
I appreciate your alignment with our cause and that you enjoy this group. But I find your comments are from the sick power base of which you are a part of and, for me, it is emotionally violent. And I will definitely add a little vinegar with suggestions to help you make your stand one way or another to either play hard though you get no honey or go home because of some vinegar. Because I toke umbrage at you, an ally, who has his/her own facts and claims that as a Caucasian you're not allowed to speak but yet clearly has, though another white ally poster was thankful for the same article. As a black woman, That's the ally I'd align with because he/she has gone well past the stage of bargaining to control how we speak in our own literature on a black site, into acceptance of what reality for us is and, by extension, humanity as a whole.
If you had read, your words, the so-called bullshit links, written by white brethren who I believe is an ally, you'd at least begin to understand the distrust you've garnered from me and understand what I think is your misplaced resentment of the attention-seeking title - got your attention and thank you, Harriot. But no, you're looking for honey from all of us - Not today and not from all of us.
So in a nutshell, I think that taking your activism to a higher level to stop unconsciously afflicting the afflicted in seeking comfort with your awesome tone policing advice would be a welcome relief to so many of us who have had basta with your feelings as we try to remain free from harm. Yeah, believe it, that is indeed more vinegar.
laserhaas
(7,805 posts)Though you keep pushing to make it sound that way.
Kind of Blue
(8,709 posts)listening and reading some more - particularly keeping the group's statement of purpose in mind and, for Goddess sake, stop with the fussy baby umbrages and grow a pair. As women, we've had to. Our kids have to as soon as they can understand. And I believe just by what you've said about your activism, you can, too.
Have a good night.
heaven05
(18,124 posts)Last edited Fri Jun 22, 2018, 01:15 PM - Edit history (1)
Let's begin with your feeling some measure of offence and/or outrage at the title of the article referenced by me in this OP.
The truth(s) Brother Harriot documents are not lies, built upon virulent deceitfulness and vague promises to and about all white people as is the reality of every POC in Amerika who manages to survive the death throes of a white racist ideology, white supremacist creed born in a less observed period/era of the existence of this country. Some people live the 'American dream'. No doubt, yet they have ALWAYS been a very minuscule portion of the whole. Their influence on our lives and personal destinies though is complete, regardless of skin color and disproportionate to their number.
The truth(s) of this 'democratic' society are at times most unpalatable and the racial hate designed for complete white race steerage of human destiny on this planet has shown itself totally incapable as the steward of earth resources and complete humanity, in Amerika particularly. Such as has always been, in Amerika when matters of race and worth are being hotly debated as now, as always. The real promises the Amerikan dream given but always meant falsely to POC, AA generally.
The promises of equality and justice being meted out non-arbitrarily in our so-called democracy always total a lie for POC, AA predominantly. And don't get me as anti-american. Nothing about this article is wrong. Neither its title or content. Your reference to BLM is wrong and/or bigoted in the inference of purpose and membership.
BLM tries to bring attention to murders/executions of unarmed AA men, women and CHILDREN and POC in general. Let's be clear on one of your justifications for your taking offence at a very precise and true nature of the title of Mr. Harriot's treatise on majority white race cowardice in wanting to end racial preference. That cowardice comes in the form of white apathy, not fear of the mob, intended or not, in wanting true all-inclusive democratic rule. President Obama notwithstanding. He now feels he arrived too early. I disagree, his beautiful family has caused a white backlash that is truly enlightening in its revelation of the swampy, smelly underbelly of racist white Amerika.
AA statements on white power abuse of minorities are being proven correct more and more every day by the new-age Nazis in power in Amerika now. With many sad examples being a more and more everyday occurrence. All executed and murdered human beings by authorities of 'the state', whether locally or nationally, are for the most part being so executed while unarmed and innocent of being any threat except the colour of one's skin. Jim Crow NEVER DIED. That old codger is what 150 years or so old?
As far as your inference to AA trump suppoters, they are nothing mor than prime examples of intra-war differences of opinion and dominance that has been a curse of human beings of the intra-race bigotry and cultural prejudices that has led to slaughter and misery in every intra-race war since our inception on this planet. It's true. Whether they having been tribal or they now being the threat of nuclear extinction wars. Poison fouling, irreparably in a lot of cases, this planet Earth, right? Experts? FUBAR? And since our inception as life on this planet that poisoning has been sped up in the last 2-300 years by predatory and greed driven capitalism. Profit driven, blind to pain and misery, total lack of concern for environmental quality of life for us inhabiants #wethepeople. This truth is inescapable. Intra-race bigotry wars, you allusions are correct.
Article title maybe should have been, 'a great majority of white people afraid of losing their racially granted privilege and entitlement in ameriKKKa are cowards'? Nah, too long. And to be clear on your right to call AA people disgusted with white mob mentality, a mob! While continuing a mob mentality themselves against AA with apathy and unconcern. Like being in the 'old south' and driving by a bunch of rotting "strange fruit' with a laugh, grim determination or not a single thought at all, right?
TO THE Hague with them all!!!. Nuremberg would make a statement. The member of the NPA aka GOP opened this can of putrid hate worms
As a way of background on my cred's in knowing of intra-race bigotry as shown by AA's choosing to be fooled by the racial superiority creed of some whites in this country and thusly ending up in trump's constituency base. I am the progeny of a German woman and an AA, stationed post-WW2, in Germany and have faced much racism and bigotry all my life. The bigotry was usually of the kind that was survivable. The racism kind, but by the grace of the gods and goddesses, they go I as a Trayvon Martin-Sandra Bland et al.
He(my father) being an officer in the occupation forces of the many countries who fought Hitler and his NAZISM. Including British, American and Russian armies and zones of total military occupation, ever heard of 'the Berlin Airlift'? Well, it's gone from that to now Putin, who seems to have been of an immense help to our current head of a political Party who is potus. Whose election is under investigation because of gross irregularities and rumours of outside help from that very same Russian.. as an aside of a general widespread observation acknowledged as true by millions.
White racism is self-defeating, not reactions to it. And you are right, mob rule/mentality is the problem, now.
laserhaas
(7,805 posts)that I've been beat up, ostracized by family, jailed and hospitalized as a result of my going against the mob (bullying) mentality.
When I went back to NYC, to find my dad, at 17, it was because my mom married a racist; and I wanted to kill him.
That was in the 70s, during desegregation; and I chose to go to a NYC school (Julia Richmond) where I was the only white, instead of Stuyvesant or St John's Prep.
Currently, I help victims of all kinds, after learning the judicial systems are crooked.
The article's content was Spot On; but the title is wrong.
Yes, white people owe all other races an apology. If you have ever read my comments, heretofore, you will see that I've often stated that I'm ashamed of the Caucasian race.
Be that as it may, there's such a thing as hate controlling the narrative.
BLM and such needs not cultivate me - I'm already here.
We need strategies about the we. Unity of we. The equality of we.
It serves no good purpose to open up by pitting U.S. against each other.
Should never be about you v. me.
It should be about cultivating to the we.
That title doesn't cultivate, it slams.
Honey or vinegar....
heaven05
(18,124 posts)get rid of apathy, intended or not, we have unity of purpose. Defeat the NPA aka GOP.
laserhaas
(7,805 posts)Bigotry, War, tyranny, cronyism & corruption must go the way of the dinosaurs.
laserhaas
(7,805 posts)I'm trying to find what you edited.
Was it typos? Or something significant?
heaven05
(18,124 posts)and grammatical errors. I have always tried to check those.