I don't like to start the post this way, but I am forced to. "I am a human being (male) of colour". For people who don't believe me, I am not white. Now, lets move to the crux. I want to rant and have a civilized discussion with people on Blind regarding this current situation. First, the Black Lives Matter movement. Yes, black lives matter. It is a common sense. Every human irrespective of race, creed or color matters. The fact that we have to say certain lives matter because of incidents is sad. I am more concerned about the BLM movement. To BLM activists, what are you trying to say? If you have to make BLM statement , it is automatically inferred that majority of people don't think that black lives matter. It also infers that they consider black lives to be inferior. So, you are assuming that the majority of people are racist. It is no way different to the "deplorables" statement by Hillary or 47% of people need handouts statement by Mitt Romney. You are basically contradicting your own argument that one should not have implicit bias. I don't think majority of people are racist. And by racist I mean, racist in action. I don't think the majority of people are racist to a certain race. BLM was well intentioned but that's it. Once you have this movement, you have lots of people clinging to cottails fulfulling their own agenda while introducing their own variants. For example, Uber has said they will support black owned restaurants with no delivery fee. It is an incredibly stupid move and smacks of virtue signaling. It is just a move to make sure Uber's image is better and move the conversation from huge layoffs. How do decide whether a restaurant is black owned? If there are multiple co-owners with many races, will it qualify? Or the owner listed in the Uber platform has to be black? So anyone can then put placeholder(black person's name) as an owner and get this benefit? What happens when a white owner has 50 employees and all are black? Will it qualify? What happens if the black owner has no black employees? What are you trying to achieve apart from free PR? I don't want handouts. George Floyd was murdered. No one argues with it. It doesn't matter whether he was a criminal or he was committing a crime at that point. No human deserves it. But, we have made judgements that this crime by the cop was racially motivated. I see it as police brutality. And I see police brutality as a crime, as a menace which has to be eliminated. I sympathize with the peaceful protests which are happening. I believe peaceful protesting is a right and it is a good way to highlight issues. What I don't agree with is rioters who are using these protests to loot and damage property. When we express support for peaceful protests, it is also our duty to condemn rioting and any measures done to eliminate rioting should be wholeheartedly supported. I don't agree with Chris Cuomo saying protests don't have to be peaceful. You are giving support to rioters. Don't come back to me saying that Trump said this or he said that. You should be better if the other guy doesn't make sense or is wrong. So many businesses are suffering losses which also include black-owned businesses. When people were protesting earlier against gun laws passed about one month ago, everyone was concerned about Covid-19 infections spreading. Where is the concern now? I support all peaceful protests, even during Covid-19. You have the right. You don't have the right to ruin innocent peoples' lives and livelihoods. I also get angry with the "Defund Police" movement. Seriously! Police is the only thing which is keeping you safe from criminals. You make gun ownership harder, you don't have police. How would you defend yourself? Through magic?? Police departments are always underfunded with the amount of policing required and the risks they take. How would you defend your neighbourhoods, once the police leaves when it is removed or patrols reduced due to budget cuts? Criminals will have a field day. I support reform within the police department. Example banning chokeholds. I dont support police defunding. I also find it very ironic that this movement started in a city which has had almost one party rule for generations, has not made changed things for good and is now pushing for a narrative. I am also irritated when people who claim to espouse liberal values silence you instantly or get your posts/comments flagged when they encounter opposing views. I think human beings are capable of civilized discourse. I have encountered racism. My parents taught me to work hard and achieve good things is life through my hardwork and efforts, not handouts or favours from anyone. Racism is not just white on black. There are many instances of racism, which do not include white people being racist on black people. Does racism exist? Yes. Are all white people racist? No. If you don't support BLM, are you racist? No. Does systemic racism exist? I don't think so. Not in the recent decades. People are racist. If the system was racist, things would have been a hell lot different. Come out of your bubble and actually see countries where laws exist solely against a certain group of people. I am a man of colour. But even white is a colour. I don't want my worth to be decided by the colour of my skin. I don't want my career growth to be decided by the colour of my skin. I want to be judged on my actions, my performance on the job. I hope we can have civilized debates and come up with working solutions, not virtue signaling. I don't want special treatment. By giving me special treatment, you are considering me below you. I want to be considered equal. I want to be treated as one of you. And i dont want handouts or favours or promotions or gifts or anything because of my colour. I just want you to look beyond my colour and give solutions. Solutions which will help people and not specifically any race. #black #blm #virtue-signaling #racism #white #politics #uspolitics
Paragraphs matter.
Thank you for the paragraphs.
Is there cliffs notes for this post?
👏 👏 well said, OP 👏 👏
Well said.
BLM - Bacon Lettuce Mayonnaise
OP, I read about a third, so I apologize in advance if I am mischaracterizing and am open to being pointed to the relevant parts of your post. But my initial take is that you are conflating racism and bigotry. For example: Minneapolis blm protesters demanded the city stop armed patrols of cops. No influential parts of BLM are demanding “white people” not to be in the streets. So this movement is directed at systems that generate racist results. Where regular non-black people come into it is that white people disproportionately support policies that are harmful to black and Latinos but also all working class people to varying degrees. This does not mean people are consciously bigots... there has been 40 years of propaganda by the media and both political parties to convince middle class white people that “superpredator” black kids will kill them in their sleep or Mexicans will migrate and rape them. But NOW IS THE OPPORTUNITY for people to shake off that propaganda and try to re-examine our society and political policies. But if white people continue to rely on gaslighting and victim-blaming to excuse police violence, if people continue to think they can use police to remove poor or black people because of music being played too loud or whatever... then you are basically telling people “yes I am fine with racial injustice and will use it to my advantage.” You are basically filling the gas tank for an eventual anti-white nationalism. And that would be a logical conclusion from seeing videos of white people threatening cops on black people for doing nothing wrong.
Oh god don’t get me started on those who need to pump the bass in their car at a stoplight. I don’t think I’d have any sympathy if rubber bullets were used on those perps.
that’s sarcasm, right?
We have a serious problem with poverty in this country. We have a serious lack of social service infrastructure in this country. We’ve had too much Republican trickle down economics and austerity and budget cutting. They’ve gutted the country and it’s time we democrats take it back and make this the country we know it can be. We are the richest country in the world and we have actual ghettos that people live in! That’s crazy! How can parents raise a family in such places? Poverty leads to crime.
the white liberals don't care bro. they know best. im a "oppressed minority" and grew up in the ghetto, i offer my experiences all the time, it's just earmuffs and they repeat the same thing. they actually think they know better lmao b/c of what their 300k salary grievnace studies professor told them and their black friend from the subarbs lmao.
what actions do them not caring make them take?
the same dumbass talking points just aren't true, plans and policies based off a profoundly idealized view of how they think the ghetto actually is that type of thing. For example I've explained time and time again it's not money in the schools: It's not funding the money don't mean shit. I grew up in the hood and the by far biggest thing is people don't know what the fuck to do b/c everyone is unsuccessful, no one went to college and the counselors don't know shit. The internet has helped bridge in the information gap but what needs to happen is every grade literally from kindergarten, college shit needs to be gone over what college is, the SAT, majors, what college admissions is, scholarships, professions that majors can provides paths towards. They need to do this weekly in increasing complexity as the kids get older. I didn't know what the SAT was until 11th grade. This is not uncommon at all in these type of areas. Second, rules need to be enforced. 5-10% of crazy and or disruptive kids make it impossible to learn and/or dangerous. You can't save everyone and need to ship these motherfuckers out, but the bleeding hearts won't do it. 90s they did but the kids were a lot tougher so couldn't get rid of all of em, kids soft now but now they won't suspend/expel b/c its racist or something so you have same problem. These 2 things are the biggest issues imo, different teachers, new textbooks, ipads that shit doesn't matter, it's these 2 things. Also ime drugs are horrible for these communities. I'm not saying ban them, but certain things are pushed heavily by the media/celebrities and certain things are pushed heavily against. If they would push heavily against drug use and stigmatize it I think it would be good to rather than venerating it like it is right now. Also very interesting blind has just banned the word: re1ar1ed. Is this the beginning of a free speech crackdown here on blind?
Well said.
This is the longest post I have seen on blind.