Prosaically, the chances of being in a position of economic, social and political opportunity depend heavily on whether one is white or not.

We're talking about the US, I take it? In other countries I take it we could talk about black or Asian privilege? Did you know that Asians actually have higher median household incomes than whites in the "white supremacist" United States?

We're talking about the US, I take it? — BitconnectCarlos

Whole world mate.

Whole world mate.

Sure, if we took the entire world in aggregate I would rather be white but if we were to confine our discussion to a given community or country you'd often choose not to be white in our pre-birth scenario.

Sure, if we took the entire world in aggregate I would rather be white — BitconnectCarlos

:eyes:

Let me clarify, sure, if I was told "hey, you're about to be born somewhere in the world, would you rather be white?" I'd say yes. If I was told "hey, you're about to be born into such-and-such a country or community, would you rather be white?" My answer could very well be "no." Sometimes strongly no.

Sure, if we took the entire world in aggregate I would rather be white — BitconnectCarlos

Three things that means;
(1) You acknowledge the reality of global systemic racism.
(2) You know that it's almost always white supremacist in nature,
(3) You are aware that it's a social-political-economic matter, and the proximate cause of it isn't anything in "our nature".

Looks to me like you have no substantive disagreements with what I wrote.

:mask: Excuse tf outta me, but ...

Some think they have the luxury - das herrenvolk privilege - to forget their crimes and/or those committed in their name. Well, history teaches that 'karma' is a MF :point:

https://youtu.be/VIGqdOJ2cuc

re: institutional racial violence


Btw, "What happened to the Black angels ...?" :halo:

https://youtu.be/7eXdt1eGgCA

re: symbolic racial violence

Just like Hitler hated lots of people! Equal opportunity murder! Nothing to do with Jews! — StreetlightX

I appreciate you're trying to make the point that police brutality is sufficiently enough about race that it's appropriate to say black lives matter without identifying other groups who might also be affected, but the analogy to Nazi Germany hardly applies. The oppression faced by blacks, even characterized at its must hyperbolic, is dramatically less than the systematic gassing of Jews. When you compare today to Nazi Germany, you don't maximize the sympathy for blacks, but you minimize the concern for Jews. I say this not to chastise, but just to point out where other sensitivities lie, considering the ultimate goal is greater empathy for all.

White men get lynched by state apparatuses on a regular basis as well. Cops must hate white people. — BitconnectCarlos

'Acceptable' collateral damage - besides, only a mere fraction of total police lynchings :wink: - for the paramilitarized Operation Niggerization of the proletariat, precariate, undocumented and other others.

The creation of historical record is full of white supremacy. Professionalised epistemic injustice.

ll other conquerers like Hitler--Alexander the Great, Caesar, Khan, etc--- had their empires dissolve between warring generals almost instantly upon their deaths, after which, things usually returned to much as they would have been anyway. — ernestm

Well, not Caesar. While after his death effective power was held by the second triumvirate, followed by the contest between Antony and Octavian, Caesar's adopted son, soon to be Augustus, once that was resolved Augustus established the Principate and Rome's empire was expanded. The Principate lasted (if you include the Eastern Empire) about 1500 years. The names Caesar and Augustus came to be titles which, in the case of "Caesar" was held even into the 20th century.

Not Hitler, either, of course. No warring generals succeeded him. I don't know much about the Khans, but only in the case of Alexander was an empire divided by his generals.

The biggest problem facing the African American community is not the police. Not by a long shot. A single man is murdered in Minnesota and this barely makes headlines. https://www.foxnews.com/us/chicago-saw-its-deadliest-day-in-60-years-with-18-murders-in-24-hours-report

The protesters are arguing about how to rearrange the chairs on the Titanic.

"Does systemic racism exist in the US?" I'm not sure how many kinds of racism there are, but does racism exist in the US? Is the Pope Catholic?

Of course racism exists in the US, and lots elsewhere. In affirming that, though, I would like to take most individuals off the hook. Most people are not individually responsible for the various 'isms' they display -- racism, classism, bodyism, ageism, ableism, sexism, etcism. The 'isms' in our baggage were/are constructed over time and place, solidified, and widely distributed. We take on the 'isms' through our participation in the culture. We take on many positive and negative values, some serving us well, some not.

Individuals are back on the hook when they practice 'isms' against others, are conscious of doing so, and continue doing so. (Example: being aware of how much they dislike fat people as a category and the refusal to consider a fat woman or fat man for a job they are qualified to perform.) The book WHITE TRASH The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America by Nancy Isenberg traces the disgust the ruling classes in England felt for the poor and menials, and how they installed their values in the colonies, and continued on into the present.

Racism in America has a history too -- well enough known, I think; we don't have to rehearse it here.

Officer Chauvin's hard core race hatred isn't unique. I don't know how many people in Minneapolis share it: 1%? 5%? 10%? Ballpark guess: Probably somewhere in-between 5% to 10%. There are about 250,000 white people in Minneapolis (63% of the population); 12,000 to 25,000 citizens sharing officer Chauvin's view are a lot, even if 225,000 don't.

I have no idea how many people dismiss out of hand people who are obese, disabled, poor, sexist, old, and so on. It's probably a large number, sweeping every prejudice up together.

You meet my expectations fdrake, when it comes to eloquently and soundly articulating the facts about the problems, you do so excellently. I agree with Echarmion though, your insistence on provocative terms comes across as belligerence and considering the political state of the left, it's even easier to write you off that way. That being said, I think writing you off that way is correct, it's just that you make it easier.

I don't think you've hyperbolised the problems, truly, that's pretty much how it is. I won't echo what we've both already written about. The thread is "does systemic racism exist in the US" and that's been answered.

However, I hope you are able to separate interpretation from fact, maybe even that you can see interpretation as having important implications. That we can strive to be pragmatic in our approach. Race is superficial, the causation behind our problems shouldn't be charactered by the pettiness of our nature. Race is responsible for nothing, it is nothing, that's the truth beyond our pettiness. How can it be any other way?

Things are the way they are because of human nature, the nature of power, economics, technology and so on. I know you can articulate the problems using these terms, you've shown it. Yet you insist on using the petty language made important by the stupidity you should abhor. Which of the real problems can be resolved by any solution orientated around race and sex? What are the benefits of the perpetuation of the focus and how do they compare to the potential for harm?

It is all true, white men hurting coloured people, rich men hurting poor people, people hurting people. So I say people are hurting people, because I believe the focus on race and sex is harmful and unpragmatic, I think it leads us towards further tribalism. It's not a practical solution, it's angry hate, passion towards injustice should be tunnelled towards only pragmatic problem-solving.

So your terminology and insistence on emphasising racial and gender differences shouldn't be found guilty of being factually incorrect. It should be found guilty of fanning the flames of hate, spreading the very poison that you're embittered about. Impractical at best but more likely harmful and politically unsound. I think you're smart enough to know that, people will show resistance to help based on the reason.

The number of black on black murders should be a stumbling block to the anti-police demonstrators, but it doesn't seem to be. In 2018 about 2600 black people killed by other black people. White people killed about 3300 other whites, but they make up a much larger share o the population 72% vs. 13%. In 2018 the total of persons shot by police was less than 1000. "Sadly, the trend of fatal police shootings in the United States seems to only be increasing, with a total 429 civilians having been shot, 88 of whom were Black, as of June 4, 2020."

The amount of distress caused by a drive-by shooting is probably not significantly less than a police killing. Of course, your run-of-the-mill drive-by-shooter isn't representing civil society. There's a difference there, but when you're dead you're dead regardless of who brought about your death.



https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2018/crime-in-the-u.s.-2018/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-6.xls

Meanwhile... From 7 p.m. Friday, May 29, through 11 p.m. Sunday, May 31, 25 people were killed in the city, with another 85 wounded by gunfire, according to data maintained by the Chicago Sun-Times.

The oppression faced by blacks, even characterized at its must hyperbolic, is dramatically less than the systematic gassing of Jews. — Hanover

Sure, but that's not the salient point of comparison that I'm trying to bring out. What I do think is exactly the same is this clearly absurd idea of trying to 'smooth over' the distinctions and claim that 'bringing race into it' is a distraction or, as with the post a couple above this one, 'fanning the flames of hate'. The holocaust was not just 'people hurting people', and it would be absurd to suggest it was - or that it was only that. So too the systemic injustices visited upon the black community. The scale, intent, and rate of violence is immaterial to that.

As far as I'm concerned, resistance to understanding things in terms of race comes out of nothing but a deep anxiety over it. Black people - and basically anyone who is not white - always get pinned down to their race: being black means you are a 'black writer', a 'black lawyer', a 'black actor' or whathaveyou. Being white just means you're a writer, lawyer, or actor. The resistance to race is nothing but the terrifying idea that one might have to be a 'white writer', etc etc. It's self-anxiety reflected outwards. "Pragmatisim" means: I don't want to have to deal with race - only they need to.

There has been some discussion here about the 'uncomfortableness' of using terms like white supremacy. Gosh I hope it makes people uncomfortable. I hope it makes people squirm. Because that's what minorities have to deal with every bloody day.

Part of the problem is that the police are only one, but maybe the most visible, of the problems many (not all) black people have to deal with: substandard housing, high unemployment rates, lower wages, less educational attainment, poor health, etc. A police action can be captured on camera and it is shocking; ratty housing, unemployment, low wages, poorer educational performance, worse health outcomes, etc, just don't yield high impact video.

Whether they deserve it or not, police become the cause celebre, and bear the weight of all injustices.

I agree, and I've made similar points many times. Nonetheless, while the momentum is here, I say use it - I haven't seen so much interesting and fruitful discussion about the role of police (in general)... maybe ever. If they have to bear the weight of all injustices so be it. All the better even, until actual change happens.

If they have to bear the weight of all injustices so be it. All the better even, until actual change happens. — StreetlightX

The 0.01% they protect and serve should bear it instead

In due time.

When? How? If COVID-19 hasn't done it then we need to somehow...

Black people - and basically anyone who is not white - always get pinned down to their race: being black means you are a 'black writer', a 'black lawyer', a 'black actor' or whathaveyou. — StreetlightX

That’s completely untrue. Publishers, writers, artists and curators use those terms to help promote their work. Women writers are promoted as addressing womens’ issues, or black issues, or transgender issues, or issues of race. It’s the left who play with issues of identity. In fact conservatives, the right if you like, very rarely play that game.

This is a fairytale that conservatives like to tell themselves. Right wing media couldn't be more on the nose with their derangement over questions of identity if they tried.

The Minneapolis City Council claims it has a veto-proof majority to pursue a plan to dismantle the MPD over time (not in one fell swoop). We will see what happens over time. My guess is that the process will stretch over 2 or 3 city council terms, during which the council may change significantly, as might the mayor,

The MPD, like other PDs, has friends and they are themselves a capable political operation. Dismantling or pruning the police is by no means a done deal--even a started and then stalled out deal.

Some programatic changes a city council can and should be instituted right away.

Social workers and mental health intervenors should attend to most domestic disputes -- along with a police officer (in support, not in charge). Restorative justice programs should be established in neighborhoods where there are numerous misdemeanor property crimes (shoplifting, petty theft, etc.). Homelessness must be addressed with Housing First, then social services. Drug/alcohol addiction needs to be addressed with treatment, not jail time.

There are plenty of activities which the police can and should attend to: speeding, running red lights, murders, robbery, fighting, and so forth.

As far as I'm concerned, resistance to understanding things in terms of race comes out of nothing but a deep anxiety over it. Black people - and basically anyone who is not white - always get pinned down to their race: being black means you are a 'black writer', a 'black lawyer', a 'black actor' or whathaveyou. Being white just means you're a writer, lawyer, or actor. The resistance to race is nothing but the terrifying idea that one might have to be a 'white writer', etc etc. It's self-anxiety reflected outwards. "Pragmatisim" means: I don't want to have to deal with race - only they need to. — StreetlightX

For some that is clearly the case, I won't deny that... but for some (and I would count myself in that categorie lol) it's not so much that we have anxiety over race or that we want deny moral responsibility, but more that we think that race is not the most important aspect of the problem. And more importantly that we think that dealing with it as purely a race issue won't really solve it long-term. The way people perceive the problem will have its consequence for the measures that will be proposed ultimately. And like I said in the other thread, I think poverty is the real problem here. In the end those lone-sharks, slumlords, etc... that are the agents of systemic racism care about money, and they will make decision based on criteria that they think are an indication for that, like race. No amount of measures that deal strictly with race will change that it seems to me... and so the whole movement risks ending in something that only superficially deals with the problem, cosmetics.

There's only so much political capital and momentum to change things, and if that is spend on race-issues and identity-politics... chances are that poverty or more fundamentally the whole skewed capitalist system will not be dealt with. Another related point that I want to make is that I think time is running out. In marxist analysis, workers have the potential for political power because they have economic leverage... that is about to change rather fast as AI and automation become more mature. If it's hard to change the system with economic leverage, it's probably not getting any easier without it... and so from that perspective this seems like a bit of a wasted opportunity.

:up:

More than that, though: the "resistance to race", as Street puts it, even if it's a luxury, is no less progressive for that. One can hardly advocate for a world in which a black writer is a "writer" and not a "black writer" by self-identifying as a "white writer"--and feeling faux-guilty about it. I think the focus on whiteness here is entirely regressive.

. And more importantly that we think that dealing with it as purely a race issue won't really solve it long-term. — ChatteringMonkey

No one is arguing - or at least I'm not arguing - that these issues are 'purely' race issues. If anything my line of argument has been the exact opposite: that race issues cannot be understood without implicating them into economic, social, and historical ones. But this recognition must be a two-way street. To understand racial issues as, say, economic, is equally to understand economic issues as irreducibly racial. You can’t have one without the other. As I said to someone else here - maybe you already - economics and race are not in competition with one another. They must be thought through together, and each can only ever be conceived more poorly without the other.

@Brett got confused earlier when I said that something can be specifically racial without only being about race. Another way to put this is that not even racial issues are themselves purely racial. “Race”, isolated from its social links, is purely imaginary (how could it not be? Race is a circumstance). But again, this means that the social is directly racially implicated. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t say that race issues are ultimately economic issues, while aiming to minimise any discussion of race in economics. If anything, the exact opposite holds.

No one is arguing - or at least I'm not arguing - that these issues are 'purely' race issues. If anything my line of argument has been the exact opposite: that race issues cannot be understood without implicating them into economic, social, and historical ones. But this recognition must be a two-way street. To understand racial issues as, say, economic, is equally to understand economic issues as irreducibly racial. You can’t have one without the other. As I said to someone else here - maybe you already - economics and race are not in competition with one another. They must be thought through together, and each can only ever be conceived more poorly without the other.

@“Brett” got confused earlier when I said that something can be specifically racial without only being about race. Another way to put this is that not even racial issues are themselves purely racial. “Race”, isolated from its social links, is purely imaginary. But again, this means that the social is directly racially implicated. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t say that race issues are ultimately economic issues, while aiming to minimise any discussion of race in economics. If anything, the exact opposite holds. — StreetlightX

Yes I know you get it, more than most here probably, and that you are not arguing that point... but what form political action will take, will likely not be decided by your or my understanding of the problem, but by how it is perceived in the public. And the way it has played out so far, it seems to be predominately about race, which I don't disagree is a part of it, but it does risk missing the other aspect, especially in the measures that will be taken ultimately.

So I guess my point is more about strategy of political action than the 'truth' of the matter, which feels kinda dirty saying aloud, but still worth saying I think.... maybe not so much on a philosophy forum :-).

And the way it has played out so far, it seems to be predominately about race, which I don't disagree is a part of it, but it does risk missing the other aspect, especially in the measures that will be taken ultimately. — ChatteringMonkey

But then the point would be to encourage a more expansive and robust notion of race than to rail against its very mention. Now's the time to do it, if any.

And the way it has played out so far, it seems to be predominately about race, which I don't disagree is a part of it, but it does risk missing the other aspect, especially in the measures that will be taken ultimately.
— ChatteringMonkey

But then the point would be to encourage a more expansive and robust notion of race than to rail against its very mention. Now's the time to do it, if any. — StreetlightX

Yes, maybe that is a valuable endeavor in itself... but don't you think the nuance will be lost on most, short attentions spans and all that? Or is that to cynical?