Originally posted by carpedm9587
View Post
For the record, I have no problem with people celebrating some aspect of their heritage. Our world is a blend of cultures, each with its own unique flavor, and worth celebrating and exploring. When that concept is extended to race, things get dicey. If race had never been an issue in human civilization, then it would be no different than ethnic celebrations.
But race IS different because of the history. So now if we have "black pride month" the inevitable question arises: why can't we have "white pride month?" Well, there is very little history of blacks oppressing whites, and a LOT of history of whites oppressing blacks.
And there are still wide gaps between people by race. So emphasizing race is a problem.
It's why it's called "Black Lives Matter," and not "All Lives Matter."
Imagine a school where most people have brown hair , and for years and years, a significant part of the brown-haired kids have been bullying the blond-haired kids. The brown-haired kids that are not bullying are also not rising up and saying much about it, except a few here and there. And almost all of the brown-haired kids are benefiting from the bullying. They get the best seats in the dining hall, the playground equipment at recess, etc. After years of bullying, the blond-haired kids begin a "Blond-haired people matter." Then the brown-haired kids say, "hey - it's not just you that matters - we matter too!" It's absolutely true that all kids matter. But the goal is to focus on a systemic injustice and say, "this bullying has to stop."
That is what is going on today.
That is what is going on today.
That is how it is being felt and experienced on the black side of the line. But the white side of the line, especially the right, continually denies that systemic racism continues to exist in this country. I am the father of two black children. I can assure you it exists. Throughout the years of my boy's school experience, it was a continual struggle to sort out when the action was truly, intentionally racist, and when it was just kids picking on differences (like curly hair or the last zit). But it has been the adults that have been the biggest challenge.
And this is the knee-jerk response I hear so often from the right. "Yeah - sounds bad, probably wasn't." I dug into this, so I invite you to do the same. It went as far as it did because it was a simple legislation to identify which types of ID could be used for voter registration. How could THAT be bad? The fact that the IDs used by minorities had been explicitly targeted came out as part of the legal process challenging the law.
The Democrats I talk to are for getting proper IDs in people's hands BEFORE the VoterID laws are changed, so no one is blocked from access to the voting booth.
But every ID requires money, and the poor often can't pay that tab, which would require a program to make ID's universally available and affordable. But that smacks of a hand-out, so...round and round we go.
And all of this is happening without any significant evidence that voter fraud is a problem that needs to be solved. The incidences of voter fraud are so small they are at percentage levels below bank fraud or healthcare fraud.
And the right continually paints the left with "identity politics" and denials of racism existing because it plays well to theirs.
On this we couldn't agree more. I despise affirmative action. You cannot solve a racism problem with racist solutions. All it does is perpetuate the problem. Although I lean left socially, I am pretty far to the right on this issue, and I am a solid target of abuse from my left-leaning friends when the topic comes up. My wife's uncle bought the boys a subscription to "Black Enterprise" magazine. I would not allow it into the house. When I asked why, I asked my wife if she would be comfortable if the title of the magazine was "White Enterprise." I understand the history - and the desire of an oppressed race to reverse oppression and its effects. You do not achieve that by promoting a different kind of racism.
Originally posted by OBP
You want the left to decry a group that stopped functioning 36 years ago (BPP)? This is the first I hear of La Raza and it has so many possible applications I have no idea what you're referring to.
I'm rather surprised you've never heard of La Raza. Here is a derivation of the term:
"The concept of La Raza can be traced to the ideas and writings of Jose Vasconcelos, the Mexican theorist who developed the theory of la raza cosmica (the cosmic or super race) at least partially as a minority reaction to the Nordic notions of racial superiority. Vasconelos developed a systematic theory which argued that climatic and geographic conditions and mixture of Spanish and Indian races created a superior race. The concept of La Raza connotes that the mestizo [of mixed race, usually the child of a person of Spanish descent and an American Indian] is a distinct race and not Caucasian, as is technically the case."
Comment