Supreme Court Nomimation Hearings

[RiverDog]

What do you mean racism? This word gets tossed around a lot. It does not mean what you think it means. Racism has a very specific meaning that gets used far too often.

In the application I was using it, what I meant by racism is an employer using a person's race as one of the determining factors in the interviewing, hiring, or promotion of a candidate or employee. But call it by whatever term you like, ie discrimination, biased, or whatever.

You can ensure adequate representation within government without racism. When you appoint someone of a particular skin color or ethnic background to ensure adequate representation, it is not racist. Racism implies you think someone is inherently superior because of their race. That is not what is occurring when the government is taking measures to ensure adequate representation.

Then fine. Use whatever term you find appropriate to characterize the process I described above. Let's not get hung up on semantics.

It is documented fact that America was a very racist nation with whites taught they are superior to every other minority group. This affected the ability of minority groups in America to obtain jobs, build wealth, enter the education system, and nearly every aspect of American life for hundreds of years. It also created a de facto system that caused whites to hold all the economic and political power for years. It was only by policies that directly required representation in the government and the economy that caused this to change.

If the power based that allowed white racism and specifically white male racism to flourish without some good people who were also white males to realize this was occurring and take steps to dismantle it including programs like affirmative action, then this nation would still be in a very dark place.

And it is not racism at all the measures these folks took to make that change happen. It was a necessary countermeasure to the existing racism that was causing power to be concentrated within a single group of people aka white males. This is all documented fact and not disputable.

Now in the modern day the question becomes have we sufficiently torn down this system that existed where we no longer need these measures? Given I'm certain that you are not a racist Riverdog, I think you fall into this category of thinking. And that I somewhat agree with. There has to be a point where we take of the guard rails that we built to dismantle racism and let the nation move forward without the level of social engineering that was required to dismantle the racist hierarchy that was originally built.

I personally don't know if we reached this level yet. I'm pretty sure we will reach it. Things are way better than your and my parents generation. But not sure we're there yet. That is why I'm fine that Brown obtained the position because her becoming a Supreme Court Justice takes us one step closer to when we can remove the measures taken to counter the original problems in our nation.

We'll get there. Not likely in your lifetime, but at some future point. We're moving in the right direction. I'm ok with you and mykc arguing the counterpoint because I think it is all of our hopes that we reach the point where race doesn't matter and isn't necessary policy point for either party as adequate representation occurs naturally.

I agree in part with what you're saying. Sometimes people have to be force fed medicine if we want them to be cured. But as I asked I-5, how do you define a person's race? Is Patrick Mahomes black or white? Back in the 60's when they created Affirmative Action, there weren't very many mixed marriages so it was pretty easy to tell. But not anymore. There were 4 blacks in my HS graduating class of 1973, and all 4 married white spouses and had bi-racial children. My brother married an Ethiopian, so his two boys are both bi-racial. The same is true of Asians and Hispanics. Native American tribes have had to go all the way down to 1/8 NA blood to define who qualifies to be a member of their tribe. That means that 1 out of 8 of your great, great grandparents, born as long as 150 years ago that you almost certainly never knew, was a Native American. Are we going to do that with African Americans? Can't you see how nonsensical dividing people by their race is?

The other problem is that you are not eliminating race based discrimination, you're displacing it. I truly believe that one of the reasons why Donald Trump resonates with so many older white men is because, rightly or wrongly, they see themselves as having been discriminated against at various points in their lives in favor of a minority or female. We all know that "Make America Great Again" is code for "Make America White Again." Whether you think that sentiment is right or wrong, we have to admit that it exists and needs to be dealt with if we ever want to get over this ugly divide that has split the nation. Eliminating that type of favoritism might be a very small step in healing those scars. Biden's declaration that he was going to appoint a black female to SCOTUS dredges up memories of their own perceptions of having been discriminated against.

And by the way, I do appreciate your assessment of me not being a racist. There's no way I could have enjoyed my life like I am, working with and associating with the people that I have, if I were a racist.

[Aseahawkfan]

I agree in part with what you're saying. Sometimes people have to be force fed medicine if we want them to be cured. But as I asked I-5, how do you define a person's race? Is Patrick Mahomes black or white? Back in the 60's when they created Affirmative Action, there weren't very many mixed marriages so it was pretty easy to tell. But not anymore. There were 4 blacks in my HS graduating class of 1973, and all 4 married white spouses and had bi-racial children. My brother married an Ethiopian, so his two boys are both bi-racial. The same is true of Asians and Hispanics. Native American tribes have had to go all the way down to 1/8 NA blood to define who qualifies to be a member of their tribe. That means that 1 out of 8 of your great, great grandparents, born as long as 150 years ago that you almost certainly never knew, was a Native American. Are we going to do that with African Americans? Can't you see how nonsensical dividing people by their race is?

The other problem is that you are not eliminating race based discrimination, you're displacing it. I truly believe that one of the reasons why Donald Trump resonates with so many older white men is because, rightly or wrongly, they see themselves as having been discriminated against at various points in their lives in favor of a minority or female. We all know that "Make America Great Again" is code for "Make America White Again." Whether you think that sentiment is right or wrong, we have to admit that it exists and needs to be dealt with if we ever want to get over this ugly divide that has split the nation. Eliminating that type of favoritism might be a very small step in healing those scars. Biden's declaration that he was going to appoint a black female to SCOTUS dredges up memories of their own perceptions of having been discriminated against.

And by the way, I do appreciate your assessment of me not being a racist. There's no way I could have enjoyed my life like I am, working with and associating with the people that I have, if I were a racist.

I'll tell you my personal philosophy on it as a person of so called "mixed" race given my mother is designated Latin or Mexican and my father designated white.

Once I was old enough to understand this idea of "race", I rejected it. It seemed like a great big lie to me. I felt no different from my father or mother or cousins or uncles or aunts. I saw no difference between my mother's side of the family and my father's other than maybe some food and my mother's side spoke Spanish. They were all blue collar folks. My mother's side was in a financially better position than my father's even though according to some folks that shouldn't have happened. But it did. My brown-skinned American grandfather was Mexican ancestry had worked and managed his life in a way that put him in a better financial position than my American grandfather of English-French-German ancestry. Both fought World War 2. My mother's father in the Asian-Pacific theater and my father's father in Europe.

I never received any racial teaching from either side of my family. Neither was radical one way or the other. They had no problems with my father and mother marrying. They were both blue collar people who knew you had to work hard and work a lot to live. I never had any radical stupid racist crap to deal with until I started going to school and interacting outside the home.

Even though I acknowledge the idea of race as I don't have much of a choice as most Americans are taught to consider themselves some race, I don't personally participate. I don't believe in race as it is outlined in America. I don't view people according to their so called "race." Race to me is a stupid concept that carries no weight. Race is not a place where you're from with a culture. It's some arbitrary idea of human identity created by colonial leadership a long time ago so these colonial leaders could use the European diaspora who they labeled as white as a tool of war and oppression against anyone that stood in their way in other lands with people who looked differently from themselves.

Sad truth is these same European leaders used different human categories like peasant and nobleman, Anglo-Saxon and Islander, Catholic and Protestant whenever they needed to drum up fear against a particular group and use one group of humans as a weapon against the other. There are always ways to divide humanity, spin their fear up, and send them at each other thinking they have something to fear or protect when they are often just helping powerful and wealthy people hang on to their power and wealth while they work as the soldiers and oppressors for powerful, evil people.

So to be frank, I don't participate in this trash. I don't put my race down. I don't categorize myself or people. I have never sought programs for aid due to my race or put it down on an application. If you hire me, you hire me because I'm qualified and you believe I will do a good job. When I deal with people, they are always people first to me. I never spend much time judging someone on useless criteria like race.

I merely understand what they are trying to do with the Brown nomination because I have known more than a few vile racists in America. I hate those people. I mean real racists, not people who use some off color language or question affirmative action policies or just feel like you that they would like race to not be a factor. But people who truly think white people are some kind of master race who invented everything and don't care one bit that history shows otherwise. And amusingly enough I've also met some black supremacists who have developed a black supremacy philosophy with them as the original people including things like being the original Jews and having their legacy and identity taken from them. I just consider them all bunch of loons that I don't want much to do with. Trying to be the original people or special people or what not is just a bunch of rubbish in my opinion. Individuals advanced us in the world and I've not seen a single group of humans that didn't produce more than a few extraordinary individuals.

Suffice it to say on a personal level. I think much like you and have no time for race and don't think it should be a criteria. But I'm also a student of history and know it has been a factor and a very evil factor in this nation for a long time and dismantling racist philosophies has not been easy. So I just roll with it. Seeing Obama become president and now Brown on the Supreme Court is just more confirmation we're heading in the right direction and I'm happy to see it.

I feel as more of the past generation dies off that was indoctrinated into the racist system of lies that formed the foundation of the racist hierarchy, the more we will reach the dream of not only Martin Luther King Jr., but also this nation. I believe this nation's conscience was born in the Declaration of Independence. The fact that document was written by a man raised in a society that believed in slavery, colonialism, and a class-based society is one of those human miracles that occurs every once in a while that advances human thinking. I think too many people overlook this fact when they judge America as the American Constitution was an agent of change in a very dark time in human history. It set humanity on a different path that led to a better world even as it was born in a very dark world. That is why I never judge The Founders of this nation by modern morality. Thomas Jefferson at the very least was a man who may have lived steeped in the darkness of his time, but he laid a foundation for all in this nation to escape that which was he was born into and by doing so inspired a world to try to live up to that conscience he instilled in America. We've been trying to live up to that document for 200 plus years.

My feeling is we will get there. But there is still work to do.

On a side note, white men feeling discriminated against and Donald Trump and Fox News playing on that fear is just BS fear. It doesn't have any standing in reality. World is still run by a vast majority of white men in powerful positions. White men still control the vast majority of wealth. They see someone else getting a break after decades of white men getting constant breaks by virtue of racism and suddenly they're the victim? Just pure HS. I know very few of them will admit it. They were encouraged and allowed to mistreat people by virtue of race and gender for years, now they see a few people prominently displayed getting breaks and suddenly they're the victim? That is what you call a sense of entitlement that I hear these same old men complaining about with millennials and such. I look at them and think society would never had to have resorted to these measures if your ancestors would have been as fair from the start as you claim you want to be now.

White males did this to themselves. They have only their own ancestors to blame for creating the racist paradigm society has been trying to dismantle to start with. So any decent man of European descent just needs to suck it up, let society get balanced, and then we can get rid of these measures and then we can all compete on a level playing field. Just like these complaining white men want or so they claim.

And that's another reason I'm done with race personally. White men are complaining they're discriminated against? That's just laughable. I laugh when my conservative buddies tell me that crap.

My grandfather on my mother's side getting called spic, wetback, having ice cubes put in his oatmeal at a restaurant that don't serve his kind. That's racism and discrimination. What white men are dealing with now is a mild reckoning due to the decisions of their ancestors. It won't hurt to experience the change and they'll come out of it just fine.

[RiverDog]

Suffice it to say on a personal level. I think much like you and have no time for race and don't think it should be a criteria. But I'm also a student of history and know it has been a factor and a very evil factor in this nation for a long time and dismantling racist philosophies has not been easy. So I just roll with it. Seeing Obama become president and now Brown on the Supreme Court is just more confirmation we're heading in the right direction and I'm happy to see it.

Interesting personal story about your upbringing. Thanks for sharing it.

The problem with the Brown nomination isn't the nomination itself. It's that Biden declared 18 months before he made his selection that he was eliminating 95%+ of the qualified candidates based on their race and sex. I don't mind him using race/sex as part of a selection criteria as I understand the psychological effect of the nomination, but he's using it as a political selling point for his own personal advantage. I would have preferred he not said anything prior to the nomination, select Brown then tell us that part of the reason why he chose her was due to her race/sex, that the combination of that and her legal resume allowed her to rise to the top. At least it would have appeared more organic and the message wouldn't have been nearly as bad, that the best candidate surfaced after a very thorough search.

On a side note, white men feeling discriminated against and Donald Trump and Fox News playing on that fear is just BS fear. It doesn't have any standing in reality. World is still run by a vast majority of white men in powerful positions. White men still control the vast majority of wealth. They see someone else getting a break after decades of white men getting constant breaks by virtue of racism and suddenly they're the victim? Just pure HS. I know very few of them will admit it. They were encouraged and allowed to mistreat people by virtue of race and gender for years, now they see a few people prominently displayed getting breaks and suddenly they're the victim? That is what you call a sense of entitlement that I hear these same old men complaining about with millennials and such. I look at them and think society would never had to have resorted to these measures if your ancestors would have been as fair from the start as you claim you want to be now.

White males did this to themselves. They have only their own ancestors to blame for creating the racist paradigm society has been trying to dismantle to start with. So any decent man of European descent just needs to suck it up, let society get balanced, and then we can get rid of these measures and then we can all compete on a level playing field. Just like these complaining white men want or so they claim.

I agree, but it's an issue with them and we have to recognize the problem. We can't just tell them F-you, you're the problem, not the system. That's essentially the same message we were sending to minorities prior to the civil rights movement. All it's going to do is enable Trump or a Trump clone that will prey on those folks' insecurities like he did in 2016 and ascend to the presidency. So if you're good with another Trump clone being POTUS, then go ahead and keep giving old white males the middle finger like Hillary did ("a basket of deplorables"). All you're doing with that attitude is driving white males to the voting booth.

[Aseahawkfan]

I agree, but it's an issue with them and we have to recognize the problem. We can't just tell them F-you, you're the problem, not the system. That's essentially the same message we were sending to minorities prior to the civil rights movement. All it's going to do is enable Trump or a Trump clone that will prey on those folks' insecurities like he did in 2016 and ascend to the presidency. So if you're good with another Trump clone being POTUS, then go ahead and keep giving old white males the middle finger like Hillary did ("a basket of deplorables"). All you're doing with that attitude is driving white males to the voting booth.

I'm of the mind that the only thing changing this is the past generation dying off. As a human, we obviously hate death. As a person who enjoys logic, I can see why whatever made us or by means of survival death exists. Death is the world's way of hitting the delete key on a lot of bad that can't be changed any other way.

I feel like once a future generation is born where they don't have their grandparents telling them tales how their grandpa or grandmother was mistreated because of race, that's when we'll hopefully be able to take the guard rails off and let everyone compete.

You grew up around the same time I did. There was a real push in the 80s and around that time period to get everyone thinking of everyone else as equals and to create a more inclusive world. Most of us 80s kids were bought in as it's no fun having people tell who you can or cannot hang out with or date. So we were good with walking the world hanging out with whoever we felt like or liked.

Now my dad wasn't raised in that generation. I listen to some of these younger folks talking like nothing's changed and I think they're full of crap. My dad wasn't even allowed to associate outside of his race. Schools were segregated when he was growing up. Everyone was taught to keep with their own. Even as a kid he never much understood it, but he did it because the leadership around him created the environment that way. I'm sure you're dad and mom dealt with the same thing when it was all institutionalized.

One of the weirdest things I've seen with racism (and I'm sure you've seen this too) is someone can be raised to believe in the racist philosophy, yet be a great friend to you if you're the right race. I've met a few old white men that were raised to believe in the race paradigm of the past, but when you got to know them they were great guys. Would help you out if you needed it. Share their food with you. Great to get along with. But they were just raised to think people should stay with their own kind and that white people were the kings of the world because that was the common cultural teaching of the time.

A lot of these folks screaming racism never want to discuss that for there to exist a race paradigm like we had, you had to violently enforce it on the oppressor's side too. You had to start when kids were young teaching them that garbage. Once their taught a certain way, it's real hard to get it out of their heads. Which is why I figure once that last generation indoctrinated into that trash dies off, we'll see a lot different world going forward. Same as no one believes in kings and queens and noble classes any more. People forget that was hardcoded into a lot of world societies at one point and now almost one believes in that trash. So anyone tells you racism will always be around, you ask them how many people believe in the idea of noble classes any longer? It will be like that with race one day. Some historical belief system people read about in history books.

[RiverDog]

Now my dad wasn't raised in that generation. I listen to some of these younger folks talking like nothing's changed and I think they're full of crap. My dad wasn't even allowed to associate outside of his race. Schools were segregated when he was growing up. Everyone was taught to keep with their own. Even as a kid he never much understood it, but he did it because the leadership around him created the environment that way. I'm sure you're dad and mom dealt with the same thing when it was all institutionalized.

One of the weirdest things I've seen with racism (and I'm sure you've seen this too) is someone can be raised to believe in the racist philosophy, yet be a great friend to you if you're the right race. I've met a few old white men that were raised to believe in the race paradigm of the past, but when you got to know them they were great guys. Would help you out if you needed it. Share their food with you. Great to get along with. But they were just raised to think people should stay with their own kind and that white people were the kings of the world because that was the common cultural teaching of the time.

My dad was born in 1925 in Walla Walla, which at the time had very few minorities. He didn't leave town until he was drafted into a segregated armed forces in 1943. When he was discharged, he returned to Walla Walla, attended Whitman College for a year, then went to work at a cannery. Bottom line is that he never associated with blacks or other minorities, and like all other white males of his era, was conditioned to have some very prejudiced points of view towards blacks and other minorities.

I grew up in the same town, born in 1954. I had a few more minority friends than my dad had growing up, but it was still 95%+ white, and we lived in an all white neighborhood, the grade school and jr. high was almost all white. One of the big differences in my environment vs. my dad's was television. By the time I was old enough to be aware of what was going on, when I was 10-12 years old, I started becoming exposed to the civil rights movement, heard Dr. King speak through TV, saw police turning on peaceful protesters, and so on. I had more inputs into my environment than he did to his.

But not unlike George Wallace, my dad changed. He was coaching a Pony League baseball team in the late 60's and had a black kid on his team. I remember him coming home and saying that he was the nicest, most respectful, and coachable kid that he had ever had. Later, when I got into high school, I had several black and Hispanic friends that I would bring over to the house that he genuinely liked. I ended up marrying a Hispanic girl (that I later divorced) and my brother married an Ethiopian gal, both of whom dad really liked. He had done an almost complete 360 turnaround.

I guess what I'm getting at is that it isn't just about the previous generation of racists dying off. People like my dad were not rock solid core racists, they were racists due to the environment they grew up in. They had a good nature to their soul that allowed them to reassess what they had been taught growing up once they were able to make their own observations. Likewise, there are an awful lot young racists, ie Proud Boys, Patriot Prayer, et al., that don't have the excuse of living in a segregated society that my father had, and those types are still going to be a problem even after older generations die off.

[Aseahawkfan]

My dad was born in 1925 in Walla Walla, which at the time had very few minorities. He didn't leave town until he was drafted into a segregated armed forces in 1943. When he was discharged, he returned to Walla Walla, attended Whitman College for a year, then went to work at a cannery. Bottom line is that he never associated with blacks or other minorities, and like all other white males of his era, was conditioned to have some very prejudiced points of view towards blacks and other minorities.

I grew up in the same town, born in 1954. I had a few more minority friends than my dad had growing up, but it was still 95%+ white, and we lived in an all white neighborhood, the grade school and jr. high was almost all white. One of the big differences in my environment vs. my dad's was television. By the time I was old enough to be aware of what was going on, when I was 10-12 years old, I started becoming exposed to the civil rights movement, heard Dr. King speak through TV, saw police turning on peaceful protesters, and so on. I had more inputs into my environment than he did to his.

But not unlike George Wallace, my dad changed. He was coaching a Pony League baseball team in the late 60's and had a black kid on his team. I remember him coming home and saying that he was the nicest, most respectful, and coachable kid that he had ever had. Later, when I got into high school, I had several black and Hispanic friends that I would bring over to the house that he genuinely liked. I ended up marrying a Hispanic girl (that I later divorced) and my brother married an Ethiopian gal, both of whom dad really liked. He had done an almost complete 360 turnaround.

I guess what I'm getting at is that it isn't just about the previous generation of racists dying off. People like my dad were not rock solid core racists, they were racists due to the environment they grew up in. They had a good nature to their soul that allowed them to reassess what they had been taught growing up once they were able to make their own observations. Likewise, there are an awful lot young racists, ie Proud Boys, Patriot Prayer, et al., that don't have the excuse of living in a segregated society that my father had, and those types are still going to be a problem even after older generations die off.

Exposure and communication is important to change as well.

I don't think those types will be much of a problem as they become fewer and fewer and more and more ostracized with each passing generation. The younger generation is very tired of those types of people. I see more and more people of different types hanging out together and working together than at any point in my life.

The past generation raised in that trash have quite a few who have gotten with the times as the saying goes, but it's nowhere near as many as the younger generation who don't get taught that stuff much at all. Their exposure and communication is wide and varied as well. Very different from past generations.

Death is a big eraser and change agent people don't like to talk about. But a past generation dying off leads to a lot of social change if the programming is in place for it to occur. It is inevitable and a natural advancement for humans. Just like the generation born today and in the coming years will be the most tech savvy in history. Computers and the digital world will be as natural to them as playing outside was to us.

[RiverDog]

Exposure and communication is important to change as well.

I don't think those types will be much of a problem as they become fewer and fewer and more and more ostracized with each passing generation. The younger generation is very tired of those types of people. I see more and more people of different types hanging out together and working together than at any point in my life.

The past generation raised in that trash have quite a few who have gotten with the times as the saying goes, but it's nowhere near as many as the younger generation who don't get taught that stuff much at all. Their exposure and communication is wide and varied as well. Very different from past generations.

Death is a big eraser and change agent people don't like to talk about. But a past generation dying off leads to a lot of social change if the programming is in place for it to occur. It is inevitable and a natural advancement for humans. Just like the generation born today and in the coming years will be the most tech savvy in history. Computers and the digital world will be as natural to them as playing outside was to us.

I, too, see a lot of people hanging out with mixed races and cultures than in previous times. But the country is big tent, and there's plenty of room for white supremacy groups.

I haven't seen any numbers or surveys, but it seems to me that white supremist group membership is on the rise, or at least, not in as much of a decline as you're suggesting. I thought that they had finally stamped out the KKK back in the 80's when they started going after them on civil rights lawsuits and seizing the personal assets of its members and that by now, those types of hate groups would have been virtually eliminated by now. What's changed in this century is social media, which allows them to communicate and form groups with those people that have similar tendencies. I don't see that problem being solved for quite some time.

Donald Trump's rise has given credence to these groups. It doesn't take a cryptologist to figure out that "Make America Great Again" is code for "Make America White Again". Plus the Democrats and liberals have played into their hands with their weak, nearly nonexistent response to the BLM riots, giving them a legitimate rallying cry and handed them a powerful recruiting tool.

As much as I'd like to believe you that racism will simply die away, I don't think it is as generational as you are suggesting. Until they do something about social media, it's going to be around for several more decades.