RiverDog wrote:I honestly want to be understanding of the grievances raised by the BLM movement. I have been brought to the realization that there is a genuine problem that has never been fully addressed. But it has to be a two way discussion. That's why I was so intense in my discussion with my friend I-5 (and I'm not using the term "friend" sarcastically, he is a friend) regarding his "overthrow" comment. We need to accept the fact that we're always going to have a sizable police force, that we will never be able to self regulate.
I'm always against racism. But racism can manifest in different ways. There's the obvious, crude racism you often see televised or exhibited by the ignorant and violent. There's the white collar, middle or upper class racism which is more quiet, nuanced, and hard to spot that can cause headaches. There is the ingrained racism in professions like the police where long work in a profession dealing with the worst people causes them to start to see people in certain troubling communities like a high crime ghetto community in a negative way regardless of where they come from. And there is liberal progressive racism where you pretend you care but really you exploit some group you look down upon in a piteous way as forever a victimized minority or subclass that will forever need your pity and protection to rise up to accomplish anything. You get to attack others by developing clever sounding terms like "white privilege" and "systemic racism" to bludgeon anyone who disagrees with your view regardless of their background.
Being from a minority background and having a grandfather and family that was part of a minority group, I was taught to vehemently reject that last type of racism as well as the others. My side of the family that were Americans of Mexican ancestry prided themselves on taking care of themselves and building their lives absent government help. They did not want "white" people looking at them like some liability they had to spend extra attention taking care of or pitying. People that pity you or encourage you to think of yourself as always a victim of something like "white privilege" or "systemic racism" are just as racist as the other subtle forms of racism, but they don't get they're being racist because their guilt and liberal indoctrination doesn't doesn't allow them to say to themselves, "Am I treating this person as equal if I am viewing them as a constant victim? Am I treating them as equal, if I am holding them to a lower standard of behavior than I do say white or Asian people? Am I treating them as equal, if I am constantly looking at them as some poor, disenfranchised minority incapable of rising up by their own power because the system is so mean to them?" The answer to those questions is no, you do not look at me as equal. I refuse to accept the pity of others based on racial or ethnic background.
The reality no one much talks about is you don't need much money to build a good life and the vast majority of people including white people in America will treat you with respect and as an equal if you carry yourself in a way that encourages it. I'm glad my Mexican side of the family taught me by example that I was not limited based on ethnicity or anything of that kind. My grandfather never taught his kids to believe they were limited. Never taught them to hate another person based on race. Never taught his kids to look at themselves as somehow less of a person based on income or ethnicity. Whenever I hear these liberal folks talking about being trapped or can't stand up to "systemic racism", I think of my dark-skinned, Mexican grandfather who grew up in Colorado and Texas during The Great Depression, was so poor his family couldn't take care of him so he had to leave home to survive and pick up coal to sell that dropped off the train, and joined the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) with a whole bunch of white, black, and other people to survive during that time, then joined the military, then spent years mining and as a mechanic to carve out a middle class life for him and his family. He did so without buying into to all this liberal garbage you hear today. The thing that makes it hit home even harder is when I compare his life to the life of my white-skinned European ancestry grandfather who did nearly exactly the same thing as a dairy farmer milking cows six and seven days a week for 10 plus hours a day after fighting in WW2 as well and growing up in a small town in Texas.
When you have these two examples set for you, liberalism seems morally bankrupt, racist, and just straight up false. They seem to be looking to turn minorities into a permanent underclass casting votes for the Democrats and liberals with promises of improvement that won't come because the very ways which people like my Mexican ancestry grandfather used to improve his life and the life of his children require hard work, intelligent money management, learning, self-respect, and accountability. Too many humans of any race don't want to encourage or accept the reality of the work it takes to build a quality life and find it much easier to cast blame and cry for the government to fix their lives rather than take responsibility for fixing their own life. I am glad I wasn't raised by the type of people that teach that philosophy of victim hood. I tend not to associate with anyone that would dream of treating me as a victim. I would never raise my children that way regardless of their ethnicity. You want to build a better life then do the things that lead to a better life. They do not change for a person based on their race or ethnicity. And being white will not protect you from having a terrible life if you make bad decisions.