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Thank you for a very insightful and thought provoking post. This is exactly what I am looking for and it's what I think a lot of white people need to know. At the moment we may have that rare golden opportunity to make positive and long lasting changes but we need to know how to go about it.
I pretty much agree that Confederate statues and flags need to go. Living in the northeast, I haven't seen Confederate statues so that's something alien to me, making me a little slow in understanding where they are located and how noticeable they are. As for the flags, I've seen one or two and sometimes a bumper sticker on a truck--they are obnoxious to me but I used to think they just meant that the person was proud to have come from the South. Now I'm finally starting to realize that they mean more than I thought.
I grew up in Philadelphia but lived for several years across from DC in Alexandria VA where a Confederate statue took a prominent space until literally a week or so ago as well as Dallas, TX where there was at least one statue in a state where they are common. Growing up with the Dukes of Hazzard, I never thought much of the flag until I visited a rest stop store in the days when Malcolm X movie promo hats were popular. I recall the store selling a T-shirt that read "You wear your 'X', I'll wear mine" with a picture of a Confederate flag below it. That made things pretty clear to me.
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I do not think this statue toppling should be taken so far as to tear down statues of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson though. If people do things like that, there will be a backlash and the situation gets worse instead of better.
I actually don't think prominent people such as those should have their statues removed. However, I do believe we need to retroactively educate the public about their pasts involving slavery - including notations placed appropriately near the statues themselves - so that the complicated legacies are fully known.
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To address the work of President Obama as a community organizer, yes, it was an outstanding achievement to graduate from Harvard Law School. Same applies to his wife, Michelle, of course. What was also significant to me when I read Michelle's book, "Becoming" were her descriptions of what he did as a community organizer. People tend to ridicule or minimize it, but he got in there with the people of the community and worked to make things better, got them involved in making things better. As one of them, he showed them the way. That's what I think might be key.
I suppose my instinct is to consider referring to Obama's time in community organizing to be reductionist. I recall in 2008 when then-candidate Giuliani referred to Obama's experience in that field in an effort to minimize his achievements. That may not be what *you* meant but that's what it reminded me of. As a refresher for all, here's a summary of Obama's experience as a civil rights attorney including at a firm where he once worked under a supervisor named Michelle Robinson.
I do realize that, as you say, President Obama walked a tightrope so as not to look as though he was on the side of black people and against white people. I think he did a great job and one reason was his easy going personality--a personality that left Michelle totally baffled, as she explains in her book. He didn't seem to become angry and didn't resort to temper tantrums or retaliatory tactics when things got rough. He rose above it and remained calm and unruffled. His manner was the opposite of the divisive leader we have now who creates hatred and chaos. He was more like royalty. Decent, well mannered, and knew how to use his intelligence and knowledge to provide admirable leadership.
Indeed, "No Drama Obama" may have inherently kept his cool, to his wife's occasional dismay. (I do have to pick up that book sometime) However, he was also surely cognizant that as the first Black President, he did not have the luxury of being angry in public. I'm sure most Presidents are more terse and aggressive behind closed doors. The only time he could really unburden his frustrations was through the humorous filter of the White House Correspondents' Dinner. Unfortunately, we are all now living the consequences of someone who couldn't take a joke.
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The reason I keep coming back to early intervention (social workers, community organizers, other services) comes from my experience as a teacher in the public schools. It was all too predictable: the kids (black or white) from the poor, uneducated, and/or dysfunctional families barely stood a chance while the kids who came from "good" families learned and did well. We used to say they learned in spite of us! In other words, it starts in the home and even the neighborhood, but especially in the home. That home situation will often go back in time for generations, of course, although with slavery it's much more than just a handful of generations and the things that must have happened are unspeakable and almost unimaginable.
I don't necessarily know enough about the generational poor White communities to comment. However, from an urban perspective, the current condition of poor Black communities is largely the result of White- then general middle-class flight, suburban tax incentives that moved jobs out of the cities, then automation and outsourcing of jobs. All of that leaves less funding for schools and other infrastructure as well as a dearth of employment opportunities. Even in rural areas in the South where Blacks may make up a significant part of the population, long-term intentional disinvestment in Black communities - compared to stable if not mildly prosperous adjacent White communities - make it challenging to become upwardly mobile. Now, do people like your former co-worker make avoidable mistakes? Sure. But many more are simply looking at limited options. What poor White households might have in common with their Black counterparts is that increasing income inequality is limiting their prospects as well. However, a former "regional" political strategy has officially gone national and is promoted by the person purportedly in charge of uniting the country.
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Some, maybe even people like me, barely know where to start. As a woman, I know only too well about the old boys' networks because we were up against that too. They stick together, help each other, and exclude everyone else. Probably we need some guidance as to what we can do because so far what we've done hasn't even come close to being enough. I don't think a white person looting and knocking down statues is right; the racists will simply say they did it because of black people. We need a totally different approach. If reparations in forms other than just handing out money would help matters, then that's another part of the puzzle.
I'm not quite sure how this is my "inherited responsibility" though, to be honest, but it's food for thought and I will work on it.
The old (straight cis White) boy network definitely can create various ceilings that those who don't identify can find i difficult to break through.
You're probably familiar with an MLK quote that says: "A riot is the language of the unheard." Rev. Dr. King obviously didn't endorse riots - and he likely would have shaken his head at the reaction to his murder - but he understood that after years, decades and centuries of ignoring the cries for help in ending the micro- and fatal macro-aggressions of racism could and would result in a violent backlash. Then again, this country was born out of a riot now ironically called a Tea Party.
Along with inherited white privilege of being given the benefit of the doubt compared to someone non-white, there is also the inherited white burden of having to make up for a dozen generations of avoiding coming to terms with racism (let alone other forms of bigotry). It may seem overwhelming to approach on an individual level but just as other marginalized communities manage to make their way, including the aforementioned 40% of middle-to-upper-income Black households, so can White people research and connect with others to learn how to rid this country of its racist legacy.
The first step is to deal with reality. That racism, sexism, etc are real and they exist. Stop pretending that saying "I was raised to treat everyone the same" is enough and then perpetuating racism or sexism.
About those confederate monuments. You would think they were put up right after the Civil War, right? You would be wrong. Here's a video that show the true timeline of when the monuments went up and why.
The first step is to deal with reality. That racism, sexism, etc are real and they exist. Stop pretending that saying "I was raised to treat everyone the same" is enough and then perpetuating racism or sexism.
About those confederate monuments. You would think they were put up right after the Civil War, right? You would be wrong. Here's a video that show the true timeline of when the monuments went up and why.
Once again extremely vague. Racism is real, but it's so much less prevalent than it's made out to be. Being raised to treat everyone the same is a contradiction to perpetuating racism or sexism. You either were or you weren't.
Not too many people across the nation care about confederate monuments, it's mostly a Southern thing. Take them all down for all I care. What I do care about, though, is George Washington. I care about Thomas Jefferson, I care about Christopher Columbus and Theodore Roosevelt. One by one they are being desecrated and it's damn shameful. The self-righteous mob has absolutely no appreciation of what the founders gave to us so that we can prosper like no other country in human history
In the past couple of weeks we've seen the actions of certain elements within our society to essentially erase all remnants of western civilization from the US. Destroying the statues and legacies of Confederate heroes was not enough. Now it's Columbus, Washington, Jefferson, etc. or anyone else who ever held a slave or uttered a single negative word about non-white people. As a white American, I'm proud of our history overall, our numerous achievements, and the great men who established this country.
For the "people of color" and their allies who disagree and view this country as a bastion of racism, oppression, inequality, etc. I would suggest that they create their own nation free of white people. A nation of colored judges, legislators, law enforcement officers, etc. A nation where white people are absent or totally powerless. What's the objection?
There is simply no way to reconcile the differences between us. It's time to separate.
It amuses me when people talk about separating by race or skin color. How exactly does anyone propose to do that when we are so mixed now, and especially in the large cities of almost every state?
It would make more sense to have a large North Central section of what is now called red or flyover states where most conservatives live, and leave the blue states to the liberals. Although that would be difficult and maybe impossible to do, and I am not sure if that would even be a good thing or a bad thing, I cannot deny that the U.S. is either becoming (or at least it seems to be becoming) more divided every day.
I don't see a lot of mixing in the cities I go to. Boston looks pretty white until you go a mile south to Roxbury. Downtown Hartford is white, but go a mile north. Albany NY is white in the west but not when you go to the east in areas like Arbor Hill. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbor_...bany,_New_York
This thread was left open so as to afford our forum members the opportunity to respond to the OP's assertions. The clarity and factual information presented by many here in accordance with the forum-specific rules of Great Debates has been commendable, despite the volatile nature of some of the wording in the original post.
It appears that this thread has now run its course, and will be closed.
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