The class-race connection StreetlightX highlights has the interesting implication that a lot of structural racism can be fixed without explicitly addressing race at all. If you help all poor people equally regardless of race, you disproportionately help black people automatically because the poor are disproportionately black. — Pfhorrest
I am convinced that segregation is as dead as a doornail in its legal sense, and the only thing uncertain about it now is how costly some of the segregationists who still linger around will make the funeral. And so there has been progress. But we must not allow this progress to cause us to engage in a superficial, dangerous optimism.
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It is now a struggle for genuine equality on all levels, and this will be a much more difficult struggle. You see, the gains in the first period, or the first era of struggle, were obtained from the power structure at bargain rates; it didn’t cost the nation anything to integrate lunch counters. It didn’t cost the nation anything to integrate hotels and motels. It didn’t cost the nation a penny to guarantee the right to vote. Now we are in a period where it will cost the nation billions of dollars to get rid of poverty, to get rid of slums, to make quality integrated education a reality. This is where we are now. Now we’re going to lose some friends in this period. The allies who were with us in Selma will not all stay with us during this period. We’ve got to understand what is happening. Now they often call this the white backlash … It’s just a new name for an old phenomenon. The fact is that there has never been any single, solid, determined commitment on the part of the vast majority of white Americans to genuine equality for Negroes. There has always been ambivalence … In 1863 the Negro was granted freedom from physical slavery through the Emancipation Proclamation. But he was not given land to make that freedom meaningful. At the same time, our government was giving away millions of acres of land in the Midwest and the West, which meant that the nation was willing to undergird its white peasants from Europe with an economic floor, while refusing to do it for its black peasants from Africa who were held in slavery two hundred and forty four years. And this is why Frederick Douglass would say that emancipation for the Negro was freedom to hunger, freedom to the winds and rains of heaven, freedom without roofs to cover their heads.
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The second evil that I want to deal with is the evil of poverty. Like a monstrous octopus it spreads its nagging prehensile tentacles into cities and hamlets and villages all over our nation. Some forty million of our brothers and sisters are poverty stricken, unable to gain the basic necessities of life. And so often we allow them to become invisible because our society’s so affluent that we don’t see the poor. Some of them are Mexican Americans. Some of them are Indians. Some are Puerto Ricans. Some are Appalachian whites. The vast majority are Negroes in proportion to their size in the population … Now there is nothing new about poverty. It’s been with us for years and centuries. What is new at this point though, is that we now have the resources, we now have the skills, we now have the techniques to get rid of poverty. And the question is whether our nation has the will …
Now I want to deal with the third evil that constitutes the dilemma of our nation and the world. And that is the evil of war. Somehow these three evils are tied together. The triple evils of racism, economic exploitation, and militarism. The great problem and the great challenge facing mankind today is to get rid of war … We have left ourselves as a nation morally and politically isolated in the world. We have greatly strengthened the forces of reaction in America, and excited violence and hatred among our own people. We have diverted attention from civil rights. During a period of war, when a nation becomes obsessed with the guns of war, social programs inevitably suffer. People become insensitive to pain and agony in their own midst … — Martin Luther King, speech May 10, 1967
For what it's worth, consider this 'genealogy' of America's Oligarchic White Supremacy problem:The past is never dead. It's not even past. — William Faulkner
:point: "Class" & "Race"In this country American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate. — Toni Morrison
I think it’s possible that the police force is not racist but that there are cops who dislike their job and the people they deal with until they reach the point where they have a hatred towards these people. It’s possible the job has damaged these people. Somewhere along the line they must have exposed what was happening but nothing was done about it. — Brett
Those cops don’t have any others skills so they’re not likely to resign and look for another job, policing is the only thing they know. — Brett
It seems to me there have been many examples of cops crossing the divide in a positive way. Obviously bad cops are more newsworthy and get more coverage. But what I’ve seen over the last week or so makes wonder about the idea that the cops are “racist”. — Brett
Is there racism in the U.S., yes, but is there "systematic racism," absolutely not. — Sam26
Please delete my account. — Sam26
Great quote. I often point out in race-and-poverty-related discussions that point about addressing poverty regardless of race being sufficient to counteract the racism left after explicit legally enshrined racism is eliminated, and often people attack that idea as itself racist faux race-blindness. — Pfhorrest
It’s heartening to see that MLK himself had things very much along those lines to say too. — Pfhorrest
If you think police brutality is something for black people only... — EpicTyrant
The night a NYC grand jury failed to indict any of the 6 police officers who, in broad daylight with witnesses present and video recorded, summarily executed Eric Garner, I tried to think through (some reasonable) National Reforms to US Policing, and then wrote the following on another forum:(IV) PRISON-INDUSTRIAL POLICE State (Nixon's "War on Drugs" to Clinton-Biden "Crime Bill") 1971-NOW
The answer to what is to be done?, in broad strokes (devilish details notwithstanding), is to completely dismantle (IV) ... — 180 Proof
Perhaps that's what all human relationships boil down to: Would you save my life? or would you take it? — Toni Morrison
A. IN ORDER TO MINIMIZE POLICE-VS-COMMUNITY OPPOSITION - As a condition for (essential services) federal funds, each state legistlature is required to establish statutory (phased-in) residency requirements (MINIMUM 5 YEARS) for all Municiple & County civil servants including, and especially, Police and Prosecutors so that they are required to live in the communities (i.e. neighborhoods, towns, cities & counties) in which they have sworn "to serve and protect"; the 5 YEAR MINIMUM is intended to prevent former police officers FIRED FOR A CRIMINAL COMPLAINT to be rehired soon thereafter by any other Police Department; — 180 Proof
I think there is an interesting discussion to be had on what social functions the current police fulfills, what functions it should fulfill, and which ones should be transferred to other kinds of institutions.
I don't know enough about American beat cops, in my experience with the police, they're mostly on beat so they can respond to calls from the area quickly. Not sure what else their job is besides "making people feel safe", which obviously doesn't apply to many black communities in the US. — Echarmion
And I guess you are going to say much the same thing now. — ernestm
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