The Problem with Black Lives Matter

"I can sit here and tell you that I have experienced Racism. Being in an International High school and it's natural segregation of the students races. Being looked at like I was an alien for daring to even attempt to sit at There table (ended up sitting alone after that)"

@Trisskar

I feel for you. I can empathize with how you may have felt. I went to a school that was segregated, not by mandate, but by choice. It is the same choice that exists in prison populations. Prisoners divide by race. But what you may not understand is that it is a defensive mechanism in response to "how things are" (the environment).

While I'm sorry that it happened, black people did not create that environment. We had to adapt to it which means grouping together which means trying to carve out a "space" that we can call ours because everything else is "theirs". You may not have had a single negative thought towards them and because of that experience... maybe you did. But this is why we need to have these conversations. I can't promise everything will make sense to you or that the other side's reactions are "right". What I am saying is that black people WILL, for better or worse, react to their environment and everything that is done to them. Because it is human nature and we are... human.

I feel sorry for your daughter. I took my kids swimming to a YMCA in a mostly white part of town and a kid said, in front of his father, that white people were better. His father said nothing. So, even though I can teach my son one thing about race... his experience is teaching him something else. He goes to school about two blocks from that YMCA. Even if my son tries to escape racism by staying away from white people or, if he's able to tell the difference, racists... the racists know that's their school and my son is a *n-word* in THEIR school. Racism works when your side has the power. When it's your school, your police force, your government, your company, your office, etc. It's not simply an attitude. It is the power to mistreat someone because of their race. And it is because of that racism that makes people defensive... makes us seek our own... gives us a common culture you don't understand and may not fit into... and makes us choose isolation even when you want to sit with us.

I'm sorry you were treated in anyway you did not deserve. But I ask you to understand the environment that created and fostered that treatment. You can sit at my table anytime.

Senan wrote: but white people have had the voice and the authority to both prevent discrimination against themselves and promote it against others.

And yet I was completely powerless against the treatment I received or the treatment my daughters received. There was no authority given or used. No method of righting that wrong. I was a white female attempting to sit at a different race's table despite the schools full and complete efforts to encourage student communion.

And yes. White's have held high positions here in America. I could debate with you as to why that is....But ill not bother My point is. Those higher powers has nothing to do with my experience and the experience of many common children no matter the race. If you are the odd sheep you will be treated as such. Period.

It absolutely should be our goal. It is called empathy. By trying to identify with and understand the experiences of others, we learn to show compassion. Even if we can't directly experience what others do, we should do our best to try. If you ignore or marginalize the experiences of others, you are saying that only your experience is important. This selfishness how discrimination starts in the first place.

Empathy is not the same as forcing one to experience the pain of another. Empathy is the ability to relate to emotion it causes and coming to an equal understanding. I can empathize with being mistreated, even if that mistreatment isn't the same it is still harmful.

I feel for you. I can empathize with how you may have felt.

While I appreciate your words. And please don't take the following response as Aught, thats not my intention!! I am trying to provide a point and not sure I will do it right I suck at words sometimes.

But.... I am not looking for or wanting that from you I have read your own examples and experiences and i know you have just as many stories to tell. My experience to me is all apart of my own life lessons, and I embrace them gladly. I have learned from them. I have grown strong from them. And they have shaped me into the person I am today. That's nothing to feel sympathetic towards. I am proud of my scars and greatful for the lessons.

While I'm sorry that it happened, black people did not create that environment. We had to adapt to it which means grouping together which means trying to carve out a "space"

.....Yea...Im not going to touch this one Im sorry, but what I have to say might come off as harsh.

I am reminded of one of our bon fire nights....a big congregation of friends and there friends. People drinking, grilling, shooting off fire works and all around having a great time......And then there was the Bitch Circle. A small group of females who all had nothing positive to bring to the party so they stood around in a circle smoking, glaring and hissing about all the negative things while shuffling away when the wrong person got too close.

Moral of the story: Being a Bitch dosn't make your actions right or justifiable.

I'm sorry you were treated in anyway you did not deserve.

No one deserves it. But it happens. What matters is how we choose to learn from it Even so. Thank you for your words

But I ask you to understand the environment that created and fostered that treatment.

I understand it....just probubly not in the same way you do

You can sit at my table anytime.

As are you My chapter loves meeting new people and new Jedi!

Trisskar wrote:

Senan wrote: but white people have had the voice and the authority to both prevent discrimination against themselves and promote it against others.

And yet I was completely powerless against the treatment I received or the treatment my daughters received. There was no authority given or used. No method of righting that wrong. I was a white female attempting to sit at a different race's table despite the schools full and complete efforts to encourage student communion.

And yes. White's have held high positions here in America. I could debate with you as to why that is....But ill not bother My point is. Those higher powers has nothing to do with my experience and the experience of many common children no matter the race. If you are the odd sheep you will be treated as such. Period.

Your assessment of the way you were treated is fair enough, but you are equating the cause of your mistreatment to the cause of mistreatment of blacks in America. They are not the same. Black individuals mistreating you or your daughter is not the same as law enforcement habitually misusing their authority to harass and kill black people. As horrible as their treatment of you was, it wasn't institutional racism based on their power over you. It is a reaction to the institutional racism they have to experience every day. The higher power did have something to do with the way you were treated. The white power structure has made black people feel that no white people can be trusted.

Trisskar wrote:

Senan wrote: It absolutely should be our goal. It is called empathy. By trying to identify with and understand the experiences of others, we learn to show compassion. Even if we can't directly experience what others do, we should do our best to try. If you ignore or marginalize the experiences of others, you are saying that only your experience is important. This selfishness how discrimination starts in the first place.

Empathy is not the same as forcing one to experience the pain of another. Empathy is the ability to relate to emotion it causes and coming to an equal understanding. I can empathize with being mistreated, even if that mistreatment isn't the same it is still harmful.

Empathy, by its very definition, cannot be forced. We cannot make someone share the feelings of someone else. It has to be practiced willingly. It is also not about actually experiencing the feelings of another, but to understand and share similar feelings that we have had ourselves. We also have to recognize when we have no experience of our own that would allow us to truly empathize with someone. I can empathize really well with anyone who has lost a grandparent. I know how that feels. I can't empathize very well with someone who has had a gun pulled on them by a cop. I can only imagine what it would be like, but that doesn't mean I truly empathize.

And empathy is not enough if it does not result in compassion. I can empathize with you over being mistreated by black people, but if I show no compassion toward you about how that mistreatment made you feel, then my empathy is wasted. People in power, of any race, religion, or politics, have a bad habit of feigning empathy for those they subjugate while showing no compassion for the actual plight of those people. As a straight white man, I can empathize with minority communities all day, but if I'm going to deny the underlying causes of discrimination or always place blame elsewhere, then empathizing with them means nothing.

BLM is an expression of the shared empathy among black people who have experienced many of the same things. They have organized under a banner because they have recognized common trends among their experiences that do not apply to other races. As a member of the "other", I can't pretend to be a part of BLM. What I can do is listen to them and see if I recognize the trends they do. Currently, it seems there is a trend of negative encounters between the black community and law enforcement. As the white guy, it is my turn to do what I can to address this issue from all sides and work with people to fix it. When the NRA completely ignores the shooting of a responsible and legal gun owner because he is black, it does the opposite.

This video from Trevor Noah on The Daily Show is the best summary I have seen so far: http://www.cc.com/video-clips/y4vxwt/the-daily-show-with-trevor-noah-the-truth-about-the-philando-castile-verdict

Thanks all for the discussion so far. Reading it from the UK the thread gives some insight into the racial tensions that seem to be growing again in the US (maybe they never went away).

Its difficult to understand what is going on over there, because the situation seems quite different here. We don't seem to have the same level of group identity here as you do in the US, and to the extent that we do, group identity is more split along religious and socio-economic lines, rather than racial groups.

Discrimination on the basis of skin colour seems to me to be as crazy as discrimination based on hair colour (being ginger - I know how crazy that is). I guess that makes me 'colour blind': the colour of someone's skin has absolutely no influence over what I think of them as a human being. My colour blindness is probably going to offend some people - and for that I apologise. It will also probably lead me to ask some ill-conceived and naive questions.

Can someone who understands the situation better than me, explain why Stacey Dash and Morgan Freeman are wrong when they suggest the following:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10VPXk2ApWY

Is this ex-marine wrong?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kT2e8RIcXNM

Is Clarence Mason Weaver wrong too? Does the BLM movement reinforce the concept of white superiority?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMzpcTbJF-4

I'm not advocating anybody here but in order to achieve equity of opportunity (equity of outcome is impossible outside of a complete totalitarianism - which can never be achieved in real life) surely we need to be breaking down racial barriers - not strengthening the lines of division?

When it comes to the Police there are more than enough needless, tragic deaths to say that there is a big problem which has a toxic racist element. That must be addressed. But we can't tarnish all cops and all people with the racist tag - that will not provide solutions. What is also certain is that we can't fight racism with more racism - that is just crazy.

You can't just get rid of racism by not talking about it. There are hundreds of places in the American South where racism is never talked about, and it still thrives.

Further, there's a difference between racism and institutionalized racism. The latter has massive power structures and momentum thrown behind it, and it's very difficult to consider it on the same level as individual racism.

The distinction you make here, Steamboat, is at the crux of the matter to me. While individual racism can result in vile acts and attitudes, it is the institutional racism that is truly dangerous because many participating in it don't even realize how they are contributing to the problem.

Trevor Noah made a profound and disturbing point earlier this week on the Daily Show that really stuck with me. He pointed out that even cops who aren't racist are trained to see certain people as a threat. They approach the situation expecting a confrontation and they are starting from a place of fear. Philando Castile and his girlfriend were both cooperating with the police officer, even stating that he had a legal firearm in the car. Both adults in the car were polite and respectful. Neither had a criminal record and they were pulled over for a broken taillight. For some reason, (I would say it is his training and acquired racial bias) the officer still perceived him as a threat and began shooting when Castile reached for his wallet to take out his ID. Were it me in that situation, I don't believe the officer would even have his gun drawn.

Whether the officer or Castile did something wrong will always be up for debate and a jury had to make a very tough decision, but what Trevor Noah points out is that the whole situation started because despite the perfectly reasonable and polite behavior displayed by Castile, the officer still saw him as a threat. Considering the evidence, Trevor Noah concludes that the only reason the officer perceived Castile as a threat was because he was black. There was no other reason to fear this man.

I don't believe the officer set out to kill a black man that day, and I don't believe he considers himself racist. You can tell by his immediate panic and emotion after the shooting that he was frightened and not acting rationally. Instead, I think the institution of law enforcement is training officers to be suspicious of certain people based on skin color and this has officers on edge all of the time. To be fair, there are people of all color who will shoot at police, so it is already a difficult job to begin with. The institutional racism present in the training just exacerbates the problem. Likewise, the citizens interacting with the police know this institutional racism exists, and so they are nervous and suspicious also. It creates an atmosphere of high tension where things can go wrong very quickly.

What is most disturbing is that a jury of Castile's peers also demonstrated this institutional bias ingrained in all of us. The verdict essentially justifies the fear of black people for no other reason than that they are black. It is one thing to say the police are institutionally racist, but when a jury demonstrates the same bias, the real depth of the problem emerges.