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Explain BLM to me

NeverTrump

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I am not one to jump aboard the latest political craze and I have never really been a political activist. I am just interested in politics and the elections. However, Black Lives Matter keeps on popping up in the news and I really don't understand the concept or what they are trying to accomplish.

As a white suburban kid who grew up in a predominately upper middle class white/asian neighborhood. I would like to believe I was never subjected to racism or looked at differently. Certainly I've been told that because of where I am from and the color of my skin, I cannot possibly have experienced racism. But this is not true!!!! I have had a tough time growing up because I was in and out of hospitals for most of my early life due to being born with a Cleft Palate and other complications from that. Thankfully everything is working A-OK now but my voice is still a little messed up from the experience. I would also say that if you knew me well enough you could see that my face is a little different looking than other people, but it's not really noticeable.

I am comfortable saying this and am well aware of this I do not live in denial about how I was born. While my job in the working as an IT technician for a non-profit in the poorer areas of Newark NJ have brought me in closer to the black community. I still don't understand what the Black Lives Matter Movement is all about. I myself have not had much help in the way of healing physically, mentally, and emotionally due to my birth effects. I was the first person in my family to graduate college and I am one of the only people in my friends group that actually has a stable job in the field I want to work in. So despite all my limitations, I think I am a pretty successful person.

My conservative white friends tell me that BLM is a cop hating group created out of the lies that came out of the black community during the Trayvon Martin case (and I was in school in that area while that took place so I know the lies well). My Black friends tell me that BLM is a social movement meant to raise awareness and bring communities together in order to deal with racism and police brutality...

Yet after the Dallas cops got murdered in the streets due to a sick man associated with BLM, who wanted to hurt white people and kill white cops... It leaves me with questions regarding this group.

Are you telling me that after all I've accomplished and all I've been through, I can't understand racism?? Really? Why is being black in America in 2016 worse than what I've gone through after 18 surgeries and having to grow up faster and stronger than most of my friends?

I've been told that Black Lives Matter is NOT racist even though there is Black specifically listed in the title of the group's name and that the group predominately favors black people. So why is that not racist? There is a thread currently on this forum that says All Lives Matter is a racist statement. What???!!!! This makes no sense to me.

By chanting Black Lives Matter over and over again at trials and at protests how does that include everyone?? How does that overcome racism? Do these people think the majority of white people think that Black Lives DON'T Matter???

I've heard this group advocate for safe places to talk about racism, before. Safe places from what? From white people? That's what I feel, if I am mistaken by this please lay out to me what a safe place is. Could I join this safe place even though I am a middle class white person? or is it only safe for black people? How is that inclusion?

What policies specifically does BLM advocate for? All I hear is stop police brutality, but if you look at the big picture, 90% of cops are great people! What should the cops be doing differently? I think this is an extreme biased opinion for this group to have because most cops who get in trouble in this type of situation are found innocent after the fact by a jury of their peers who have an unbias opinion on the matter! So why does that keep happening? Do you really think the court system is that corrupt for cops to always be found innocent? And if you are really pissed off at the cops in this manner why are you always saying cops are good people and we are not a cop hating group?

SO as with most political groups. I find it to be a bit hypocritical and unsure of what they actually want to accomplish. I've visited their website before and from the looks of it they just want to have a conversation about racism, but we have been having conversations about racism for fifty years!!! Yet these people still act like its the 1800s and that slavery is still mainstream...

So I am lost here, please someone explain this better to me.
 
It's not racist because of our country's history on the topic of race.

Look at it with a neutral mindset - not just focusing on the situations that have occurred in the last few years:

Minorities of all types in this country have been held down / restrained / confined / restricted by the majority. The majority is white.

Being a majority, the white populous (some, not all), have tended to look down on the minority in different ways in the past. It's a way of remaining the majority - and in a country where majority rules, maintaining your status as majority is a coveted spot. (human psychology and sociology - it's found in other countries where other races are dominant majorities as well.) Using their greater numbers and thus superior decision making efforts, the majority group (of any race) tends to adopt the same attitudes toward the minority group (of any race).

This dominant-majority mentality forces minorities to bind together and find positives and strengths in their minority-status (whether they're a minority because they're poor, black, asian, jewish doesn't matter. Any time you have a majority VS minority society, you have this dynamic in the society).

So in this more modern era where this type of majority-dominant behavior is seen as a negative (a significant change, mentality wise), then we have to reach a majority-tolerance place in society where this natural impetus to remain a majority is not the governing default. (it's a work in progress).

To avoid repeating and implementing similar efforts that were waged in the past, whites in our modern era have to be careful and considerate, noting that our race was used as a way to subvert and overpower others. It was used a weapon, in a way. A way to control. Controlling others is a negative.

Minorities don't have to be as concerned because they were suppressed in our society. Their race (etc) was used against them, and thus it's a way for them to find strength and unity and overcome the oppressor. Unity and strength is a positive.

However confusing it might be to the individual members of the majority who don't look down on minorities (because we're in a modern era where being black doesn't elicit racial tensions for many white people - etc) . . . it doesn't mean all members of society are on the same page.

If it doesn't apply to you - then it doesn't apply to you. It certainly doesn't apply to me. But, that is the core element at play, here, and has been found in societies throughout history. We're actually turning a new cultural leaf . . . it's just slow going as changing centuries worth of social values is hard work.
 
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you are mixing apples and oranges.

The nature of conservatives is to demonize blacks, you will see it in responses to your question. Look at the BLM site to see what they believe. understand there will be bad actors in the BLM movement just like any group will have. Just a moment...

when people point out those bad actors or rogues they are being dishonest.
 
have you noticed on tv white people sometime more than blacks at the blm marches...black lives matter means for law enforcement to treat black people the same as white people at police encounters with the same respect for life. period!!! now I must say some of the kids/teenagers and young adults in blm are not very well educated in the way they talk ..which happens to get all the attention in the media,,, so the way you talk is how much respect you will get with people that don't know you personally..and since they are showing the less educated blm protestors on tv they will not get the respect they need and it will mess up the core message They don't have the class Martin Luther King had in communication...
 
you are mixing apples and oranges.

The nature of conservatives is to demonize blacks, you will see it in responses to your question. Look at the BLM site to see what they believe. understand there will be bad actors in the BLM movement just like any group will have. Just a moment...

when people point out those bad actors or rogues they are being dishonest.

About as dishonest your post right here?
 
It's not racist because of our country's history on the topic of race.

Look at it with a neutral mindset - not just focusing on the situations that have occurred in the last few years:

Minorities of all types in this country have been held down / restrained / confined / restricted by the majority. The majority is white.

Being a majority, the white populous (some, not all), have tended to look down on the minority in different ways in the past. It's a way of remaining the majority - and in a country where majority rules, maintaining your status as majority is a coveted spot. (human psychology and sociology - it's found in other countries where other races are dominant majorities as well.) Using their greater numbers and thus superior decision making efforts, the majority group (of any race) tends to adopt the same attitudes toward the minority group (of any race).

This dominant-majority mentality forces minorities to bind together and find positives and strengths in their minority-status (whether they're a minority because they're poor, black, asian, jewish doesn't matter. Any time you have a majority VS minority society, you have this dynamic in the society).

So in this more modern era where this type of majority-dominant behavior is seen as a negative (a significant change, mentality wise), then we have to reach a majority-tolerance place in society where this natural impetus to remain a majority is not the governing default. (it's a work in progress).

To avoid repeating and implementing similar efforts that were waged in the past, whites in our modern era have to be careful and considerate, noting that our race was used as a way to subvert and overpower others. It was used a weapon, in a way. A way to control. Controlling others is a negative.

Minorities don't have to be as concerned because they were suppressed in our society. Their race (etc) was used against them, and thus it's a way for them to find strength and unity and overcome the oppressor. Unity and strength is a positive.

However confusing it might be to the individual members of the majority who don't look down on minorities (because we're in a modern era where being black doesn't elicit racial tensions for many white people - etc) . . . it doesn't mean all members of society are on the same page.

If it doesn't apply to you - then it doesn't apply to you. It certainly doesn't apply to me. But, that is the core element at play, here, and has been found in societies throughout history. We're actually turning a new cultural leaf . . . it's just slow going as changing centuries worth of social values is hard work.

that's nicely written and lays it out well
 
have you noticed on tv white people sometime more than blacks at the blm marches...black lives matter means for law enforcement to treat black people the same as white people at police encounters with the same respect for life. period!!! now I must say some of the kids/teenagers and young adults in blm are not very well educated in the way they talk ..which happens to get all the attention in the media,,, so the way you talk is how much respect you will get with people that don't know you personally..and since they are showing the less educated blm protestors on tv they will not get the respect they need and it will mess up the core message They don't have the class Martin Luther King had in communication...

Years ago in my anthropology class we were going through a unit on dialect and accents. We watched a video on 'dialect coaches' for people who were born in the south and had heavy southern accents. In the rest of the US, this might be seen as a negative trait - Southerners and Southerner-ism have a reputation for being stupid. It doesn't carry people far when they've become lawyers or doctors and then relocated (etc).

A black girl in the class explained that their upbringing, language wise, has given them speech patterns and a vocabulary that doesn't reflect their intelligence, but merely their upbringing. Since all people are influenced, language wise, by the people who raise them, whites and all others can be just as influenced if they were raised by people who had such dialect and language patterns. And she, like business-southerners who relocate for businesses purposes, are told "You have to fix the way you talk or they'll think you're dumb."

People who have English as a 2nd language face the same thing.

Plainly put: how you speak does not reflect your mental capacity. It only impacts first impressions.
 
So I am lost here, please someone explain this better to me.

As I've pointed out to the other conservatives here (way too many times) already, I was raised in the very deepest of the Deep South as a racist in a racist family. Thing is, we really didn't think we were racist. We were good people. If we saw blacks in real problems, we'd help them, and we always shared the extra food from our garden with them. But once they were out of earshot, out would come all the old racist jokes and assumptions and allegations...and we never realized how this affected our attitudes and our actions and our voting habits. It took a career in the Navy to force me to unlearn the racism I'd been taught...but as a result, I know racism when I see it, when I hear it. I lived that life for too long not to know it when it's there.

So how does this apply to your question? I'll get to that in a moment. When I see time and time again the race-baiting, the all too-obvious use of racist dog-whistles by Republican politicians who STILL get elected time and time and time again, I know the racism's still there (and do you really need me to provide a list of such race-baiting and dog-whistles?). They think that because the dog-whistles and race-baiting aren't out-and-out declarations of white supremacy, then they must not be doing anything wrong. But they don't seem to realize that what they are doing IS racist, and that everyone on every side knows it. It's very much like the old Bart Simpson routine - "I didn't do it, nobody saw me do it, you can't prove anything!" when everyone knows that yeah, he's guilty as sin.

So what do the blacks see? They see all the race-baiting, the dog-whistles for what it is...and because of this, they just know that half the country hates them because they are black. And so every time they interact with a white person, they have to ask themselves if this is one of the racist whites. How could they not do so, after all the racism they see from the Right?

And they also know that it's only in the past fifteen years or so, since the advent of cell phones with cameras, that they've been able to prove what they've been saying all along, that yeah, there ARE racist cops, and cops who are out of control. With the advent of DNA testing, they've been able to show that many innocent blacks were sent to jail - and even to death row (read up on "The Innocence Project" sometime). It's been as if the whole law enforcement and justice system was rigged against them...and there's a great deal of statistics to back up that perception.

It doesn't help that the law enforcement community - like the military - tends to lean to the conservative side...and the way things are now, how could they not associate "conservative" with "Republican", with the race-baiting and racist dog-whistles they see from GOP candidates? Given all those factors, can you really blame them for not trusting cops?

Look, you and I both know that the overwhelming majority of cops are good people who put their lives on the line for all of us...but look again at what I wrote in the first paragraph above - in my experience, most racists are like my family: good people who honestly don't recognize their own racism for what it is, much less how it affects their actions...and this applies to many cops as well. But minorities do see it. They do see how it affects the actions of the cops. That is what has led to BLM...and when seeing things from their side, who, really, can blame them?
 
you are mixing apples and oranges.

The nature of conservatives is to demonize blacks, you will see it in responses to your question. Look at the BLM site to see what they believe. understand there will be bad actors in the BLM movement just like any group will have. Just a moment...

when people point out those bad actors or rogues they are being dishonest.

What a load of mularky.
 
I am not one to jump aboard the latest political craze and I have never really been a political activist. I am just interested in politics and the elections. However, Black Lives Matter keeps on popping up in the news and I really don't understand the concept or what they are trying to accomplish.

As a white suburban kid who grew up in a predominately upper middle class white/asian neighborhood. I would like to believe I was never subjected to racism or looked at differently. Certainly I've been told that because of where I am from and the color of my skin, I cannot possibly have experienced racism. But this is not true!!!! I have had a tough time growing up because I was in and out of hospitals for most of my early life due to being born with a Cleft Palate and other complications from that. Thankfully everything is working A-OK now but my voice is still a little messed up from the experience. I would also say that if you knew me well enough you could see that my face is a little different looking than other people, but it's not really noticeable.

I am comfortable saying this and am well aware of this I do not live in denial about how I was born. While my job in the working as an IT technician for a non-profit in the poorer areas of Newark NJ have brought me in closer to the black community. I still don't understand what the Black Lives Matter Movement is all about. I myself have not had much help in the way of healing physically, mentally, and emotionally due to my birth effects. I was the first person in my family to graduate college and I am one of the only people in my friends group that actually has a stable job in the field I want to work in. So despite all my limitations, I think I am a pretty successful person.

My conservative white friends tell me that BLM is a cop hating group created out of the lies that came out of the black community during the Trayvon Martin case (and I was in school in that area while that took place so I know the lies well). My Black friends tell me that BLM is a social movement meant to raise awareness and bring communities together in order to deal with racism and police brutality...

Yet after the Dallas cops got murdered in the streets due to a sick man associated with BLM, who wanted to hurt white people and kill white cops... It leaves me with questions regarding this group.

Are you telling me that after all I've accomplished and all I've been through, I can't understand racism?? Really? Why is being black in America in 2016 worse than what I've gone through after 18 surgeries and having to grow up faster and stronger than most of my friends?

I've been told that Black Lives Matter is NOT racist even though there is Black specifically listed in the title of the group's name and that the group predominately favors black people. So why is that not racist? There is a thread currently on this forum that says All Lives Matter is a racist statement. What???!!!! This makes no sense to me.

By chanting Black Lives Matter over and over again at trials and at protests how does that include everyone?? How does that overcome racism? Do these people think the majority of white people think that Black Lives DON'T Matter???

I've heard this group advocate for safe places to talk about racism, before. Safe places from what? From white people? That's what I feel, if I am mistaken by this please lay out to me what a safe place is. Could I join this safe place even though I am a middle class white person? or is it only safe for black people? How is that inclusion?

What policies specifically does BLM advocate for? All I hear is stop police brutality, but if you look at the big picture, 90% of cops are great people! What should the cops be doing differently? I think this is an extreme biased opinion for this group to have because most cops who get in trouble in this type of situation are found innocent after the fact by a jury of their peers who have an unbias opinion on the matter! So why does that keep happening? Do you really think the court system is that corrupt for cops to always be found innocent? And if you are really pissed off at the cops in this manner why are you always saying cops are good people and we are not a cop hating group?

SO as with most political groups. I find it to be a bit hypocritical and unsure of what they actually want to accomplish. I've visited their website before and from the looks of it they just want to have a conversation about racism, but we have been having conversations about racism for fifty years!!! Yet these people still act like its the 1800s and that slavery is still mainstream...

So I am lost here, please someone explain this better to me.

It seems the police have been killing an inordinate number of African-Americans for generations, and people are finally pissed-off enough to start organizing against the slaughter.
 
That is what has led to BLM...and when seeing things from their side, who, really, can blame them?

Yes. I understand what has led to BLM. That was not my question. My question more relates to what BLM plans to do about and why their group tends to be vague on specifics. You can list all the facts and statistics you want, but I bet you the majority of the people in that movement would either just repeat them without looking it up and they wouldn't have heard about it before. The movement tends to not be based on facts, but as you suggested the perception of ever on-going racism that blacks tend to feel. In another twenty years most of these bone-headed Republicans in my party will be dead or unable to spout their racists rants from the podium. Unfortunately we now have Donald Trump as the poor leader of our party, and from his election inside my party it does seem to point to about 35% of our party as being racist, but that's not to say that it is all the white man's fault right???

I mean, growing up the majority of my friends were Asians and we treated them pretty bad as well in the beginning especially on the railroads. Yet there are no Asian Lives Matter group, even though statistics say they are pretty bad drivers... They were basically slaves and the same status as the Blacks. I think there are members of the black community that does the same thing Racist Republicans do and they need to stop this unhealthy obsession with their victim-hood and they should stop acting like it's the 1800s in the American West.

I think there is some truth to the notion that there are members of the Democrat Party and racist black leaders who want to remain separate from everybody else. This is just as much a problem as is the problem in the Republican Party but possibly less so. Yet their members are more vocal about wanting this while Republicans are more subtle about hinting about how racist they may or may not be... I see two different problems here not just one!
 
Unfortunately we now have Donald Trump as the poor leader of our party, and from his election inside my party it does seem to point to about 35% of our party as being racist, but that's not to say that it is all the white man's fault right???

First, I should point out that I strongly feel that the worst racists in any particular nation are from the dominant socioeconomic demographic of that nation. In China, the worst racists are the Han Chinese. In Saudi Arabia, it's the Sunni Arabs. In America - since whites (like you and me) are the dominant socioeconomic group - whites are the worst racists. The dominant socioeconomic group will do what it will to maintain its supremacy - this isn't a 'white' thing, but a human thing. It's not this or that particular race - it's whoever's socioeconomically in a particular nation.

That doesn't make it right, of course. The perception that everyone is and should be treated equally regardless of race is a rather new thing in the grand sweep of human history.

But if we narrow our focus to just America, then the strictures of the above observation would require that it really is pretty much all our fault, from the centuries of slavery to several generations of Jim Crow to what we see today - the poverty, lack of education, and the cultural resentment which are all the lasting effects of slavery and Jim Crow. Some try to say, "The Civil Rights struggle ended with the passage of the Civil Rights Act over fifty years ago - get over it!" But societies built on centuries of prejudice don't change in a mere fifty years - it takes much, much longer. When it comes to society turning against racism and against homophobia, our society has (in the grand sweep of history) changed at relatively breakneck speed. Most of us don't realize that, but it's true - I believe the instances where society has changed as greatly and as quickly as America's has when it comes to racism and homophobia are very, very rare indeed.

But we've got a long way to go, and we need to stop holding on to the fantasy that after centuries of outrageous injustice, we could "flip the switch" and walk hand-in-hand up to the shining multicultural city on a hill after only a mere half century or so.

All this is not to say that there is no blame to be laid on the black community - I think we've all seen those who play their victimhood to the fullest extent. But this would be a minority - and psychologically speaking, the ones who play up their victimhood may simply be comprised of a certain small percentage of the black community which (if it belonged to any other race) might try to find an excuse for playing up its victimhood anyway. For instance, look at the Bundys - and those who supported them - who most certainly tried to play the victim card against the federal government. The excuse might be different - race, politics, ethnicity, whatever - but the psychological drivers are the same nonetheless.

I'll close with a story about one black woman we knew for a lot of years, a nurse who worked with our medically-fragile children. She did tend to play the victim card, but she didn't take it too far and we didn't let it affect the working relationship. Come to find out, when she was a little girl (back in 1964), she was approached by Mormon missionaries. She asked them, "In your church, do black people go to heaven, too?" If you'll think about it, that's a question that a little girl in her situation might well ask. She said that they replied, "Yes, but blacks go to dog-and-cat heaven."

Think about how that one encounter informed - HAD to inform - her entire life, her every encounter not just with Mormons, but with whites as a whole. And this was just one chance encounter - not a series or a pattern, but just one encounter. That's all it took to set her on an entire life's journey of victimhood...and so it informed the way she raised her children as well. And for the life of me, I can't consider her sense of victimhood as completely her fault - we whites did it to her. YES, she needs to get over it, but it would be flatly wrong of us not to acknowledge the racial malice of our fellow whites that so changed her entire life.
 
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First, I should point out that I strongly feel that the worst racists in any particular nation are from the dominant socioeconomic demographic of that nation. In China, the worst racists are the Han Chinese. In Saudi Arabia, it's the Sunni Arabs. In America - since whites (like you and me) are the dominant socioeconomic group - whites are the worst racists. The dominant socioeconomic group will do what it will to maintain its supremacy - this isn't a 'white' thing, but a human thing. It's not this or that particular race - it's whoever's socioeconomically in a particular nation.

That doesn't make it right, of course. The perception that everyone is and should be treated equally regardless of race is a rather new thing in the grand sweep of human history.

But if we narrow our focus to just America, then the strictures of the above observation would require that it really is pretty much all our fault, from the centuries of slavery to several generations of Jim Crow to what we see today - the poverty, lack of education, and the cultural resentment which are all the lasting effects of slavery and Jim Crow. Some try to say, "The Civil Rights struggle ended with the passage of the Civil Rights Act over fifty years ago - get over it!" But societies built on centuries of prejudice don't change in a mere fifty years - it takes much, much longer. When it comes to society turning against racism and against homophobia, our society has (in the grand sweep of history) changed at relatively breakneck speed. Most of us don't realize that, but it's true - I believe the instances where society has changed as greatly and as quickly as America's has when it comes to racism and homophobia are very, very rare indeed.

But we've got a long way to go, and we need to stop holding on to the fantasy that after centuries of outrageous injustice, we could "flip the switch" and walk hand-in-hand up to the shining multicultural city on a hill after only a mere half century or so.

All this is not to say that there is no blame to be laid on the black community - I think we've all seen those who play their victimhood to the fullest extent. But this would be a minority - and psychologically speaking, the ones who play up their victimhood may simply be comprised of a certain small percentage of the black community which (if it belonged to any other race) might try to find an excuse for playing up its victimhood anyway. For instance, look at the Bundys - and those who supported them - who most certainly tried to play the victim card against the federal government. The excuse might be different - race, politics, ethnicity, whatever - but the psychological drivers are the same nonetheless.

I'll close with a story about one black woman we knew for a lot of years, a nurse who worked with our medically-fragile children. She did tend to play the victim card, but she didn't take it too far and we didn't let it affect the working relationship. Come to find out, when she was a little girl (back in 1964), she was approached by Mormon missionaries. She asked them, "In your church, do black people go to heaven, too?" If you'll think about it, that's a question that a little girl in her situation might well ask. She said that they replied, "Yes, but blacks go to dog-and-cat heaven."

Think about how that one encounter informed - HAD to inform - her entire life, her every encounter not just with Mormons, but with whites as a whole. And this was just one chance encounter - not a series or a pattern, but just one encounter. That's all it took to set her on an entire life's journey of victimhood...and so it informed the way she raised her children as well. And for the life of me, I can't consider her sense of victimhood as completely her fault - we whites did it to her. YES, she needs to get over it, but it would be flatly wrong of us not to acknowledge the racial malice of our fellow whites that so changed her entire life.

Oh FFS, are you going to try and pedal that "worst racist" BS in this thread too? :roll:
 
Oh FFS, are you going to try and pedal that "worst racist" BS in this thread too? :roll:

What I referred to, guy, is something that happens in EVERY nation, not just ours. Whichever demographic is the most powerful socioeconomic group, that group will commit the worst racism. That's a HUMAN thing, a psychological factor on a macro scale, not just a 'white' thing.

Or, to put it too simply, the most powerful group in a country will normally do what it must to retain its grip on power...whether that group is a race, a religion, or an ethnicity.

Is that really so hard for you to grasp?
 
It seems the police have been killing an inordinate number of African-Americans for generations, and people are finally pissed-off enough to start organizing against the slaughter.

:roll:
 
Basically, BLM advocates the radical idea that when a cop shoots a young black man that it actually must be justified and not just assumed that he was a "thug" who got what was coming to him.

BLM is the radical idea that young black men should not have to fear police men more than the gangs that live in their neighborhood.

BLM is the radical idea that shooting young black men isn't like bugs getting squished on a wind shield.
 
1.When it comes to society turning against racism and against homophobia, our society has (in the grand sweep of history) changed at relatively breakneck speed. Most of us don't realize that, but it's true - I believe the instances where society has changed as greatly and as quickly as America's has when it comes to racism and homophobia are very, very rare indeed.

2. I'll close with a story about one black woman we knew for a lot of years, a nurse who worked with our medically-fragile children. She did tend to play the victim card, but she didn't take it too far and we didn't let it affect the working relationship. Come to find out, when she was a little girl (back in 1964), she was approached by Mormon missionaries. She asked them, "In your church, do black people go to heaven, too?" If you'll think about it, that's a question that a little girl in her situation might well ask. She said that they replied, "Yes, but blacks go to dog-and-cat heaven."

Think about how that one encounter informed - HAD to inform - her entire life, her every encounter not just with Mormons, but with whites as a whole. And this was just one chance encounter - not a series or a pattern, but just one encounter. That's all it took to set her on an entire life's journey of victimhood...and so it informed the way she raised her children as well. And for the life of me, I can't consider her sense of victimhood as completely her fault - we whites did it to her. YES, she needs to get over it, but it would be flatly wrong of us not to acknowledge the racial malice of our fellow whites that so changed her entire life.

First off Glen, I would like to thank you for this well-written post. I thought a lot about this before I decided to respond and I want to touch upon some of what you wrote here.

1. While you might be right about this and The Grand Trump Experiment may be the last outright racist gathering of white people in history. I think that common misconception about policy and race is a bit too broad and part of a self-righteous blame game that frankly makes no sense to me. The way I see it is that after the various civil rights policies that got passed in this country (ironically spearheaded by White Republicans) this country has done NOTHING but HELP minorities. Yes, a bit more could be done, but why aren't they CELEBRATING instead of causing mayhem in the streets, self-righteous vigilante sniper assassins, and an entire generation of people who think they are victims? It's part of the reason why people feel we have an immigration problem. I believe that certain loose immigration policies are in effect the cause of this racial tension that we see in America. Generally the people who set up this country (yes partially the white people) would like immigrants et al to follow the rules already set in place. I know a lot of spanish people from all different south american countries and they love this country! Minorities are still the ones who believe in the American Dream and I find that refreshing and really hopeful for the future of this country. While most of my white friends are sick of the government in this country (it's either too big or too small and way too corrupt) in their view they are doing TOO MUCH to appease the minorities. Now could there be some racial tendencies in that perspective, perhaps deep down, but I just don't see it. So to say that all white people are racists deep down is a bit hard to grasp.

2. Though I try to sympathize with her, I just wouldn't be bothered by that, and wouldn't join their religion, and would say good riddance. To me it DOES fall in the same category as me as when I was a nerdy goofy looking kid asking the jocks if I can sit with them. I know I am told I shouldn't feel this way and that it isn't the same, but I tend to look at these things in a much bigger picture. I've suffered 18 surgeries myself. I've had to grow up fast and had to learn how to deal with physical pain and image issues in some cases much more than those useful idiots who feel history owes them something because of how their ancestors were treated and never once did I feel that the system owes me anything. I just don't have that attitude in my life and I tend to let things go really easily. My philosophy in life is that one door closes and another one opens. Not rip the door off it's hinges and start all over. Little did I know that in just a few short years nerd culture would be considered "cool," and that the nerds would essentially inherit all the top spots in Forbes Magazine of the Richest People on the planet! Thus, we come back to the ever changing face of America. It's clear to me, as it should be clear to minorities that in forty years or so they WILL be the majorities!!! That is pretty staggering and fast as you said.
 
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