(06-04-2020, 04:07 PM)JagJohn Wrote:

(06-04-2020, 02:16 PM)Last42min Wrote: What are you talking about? Try to open up your mind for a second and just imagine: If Drew Brees kneeled for the anthem to protest police brutality. If he advocated for a socialist change in search of racial justice, do you think Fox News would support him because he's white? Conversely, do you think if Kaepernick (excluding his history) would be well received if he went on ESPN and said people need to stop kneeling and support the flag? You think Fox News wouldn't air that? Use your brain, dude. Everything is not racism. This is classic team politics. The fact that you even think you were making an unassailable point ought to be a strong indicator that you have been conditioned to think about these ideals in a black and white fashion, no pun intended.

Here's the thing I don't understand about your blindness to racism...

You are a white man living in Florida, right? Please correct me if I'm wrong.

My whole life I've had family in Jax, and I've spent a lot of time there. My uncle's family are from Georgia, and I've spent a lot of time there. I lived in South Carolina for 2 years. Throughout that time I met many white people who were explicitly racist... Not in terms of "I don't like Colin Kaepernick"... In terms of using the n-word freely and openly stating that black people are lesser than white people. Some of these people were rednecks, some of them were in positions of great authority, some were members of my own family. This makes two things clear as day to me:

1) racism is clearly very real.

2) some people in my family suck.

My question to you is, have you really never been around explicitly racist people? Or, if you have, is that irrelevant to you?

And, of course, those people who are explicitly racist are just the tip of the iceberg. The vast majority of people keep that [BLEEP] hidden. There are undoubtedly people who have posted in this part of the message board who say that [BLEEP] behind closed doors, and if you believe there aren't then you are even more willfully ignorant than I assumed.

Let me put this out there as a precursor to this discussion: I don't agree with the activist definition of racism. I am using the term as it is defined, which is when one group thinks it is superior to the other. 

I have been around explicitly racist people. I lived on a farm for a year in Doe Run, GA. They used the N word all the time. I learned every racist joke I know while living there. They were also raising Japanese kids. They were good dudes that had an extreme and learned prejudice towards blacks. None of the kids carried that bias. We just kind of assumed our parents grew up at a different time and didn't know any better (my dad was significantly less racist, but still had tendencies toward it). 

In contrast, I went to an all black school. I was one of 100 white dudes, and the only one on the basketball team. Literally nobody on my team knew my name. They just called me cracker. I'm not exaggerating. I was cool with most of them, but that didn't stop me from being beat up, bullied, and having my stuff blatantly stolen because I was white. This isn't speculation. I had a dude steal my knee brace and show up wearing it the next day. I confronted him about it. One of the dudes pulled me aside and told me to just suck it up. I wouldn't get any support because I was white. I had to get jumped into a "gang" just to keep from getting beat up. Those guys were a bit cooler to me and folks stopped messing with me after that, but it was still a terrible place to be. 

Both groups were racist. Considering the environment I was living at the time, I could have easily allowed the opinions of the white racists to affect my opinion of the blacks at that school. I got lucky, for whatever reason, because I chose to apply my grievances a different way. Knowing the one set of racists were good people with bad learned behaviors helped me cope with the other group. 

There are misguided people in the world. You're not going to solve the problem overnight. You won't find me EVER saying there aren't racists. I just happen to think explicit racism is rare. However, I think everyone has ingroup and outgroup biases. I don't believe they will go away without shared experiences and values. 

To share a different example, I eventually ended up at another school that was very integrated. I spent most of my time with the black guys because I was a baller. I was one of the few white guys that was allowed to use the N word (which is not something I would do anymore). I became really good friends with a lot of them. My roommate and best friend in college was black. They day we met, I scuffed my new shoes on the curb and I got annoyed and bent over to clean them off. He says, "you grew up around black folks, didn't you." Our shared experiences helped us connect. There were even times he helped me understand areas I harbored my own biases towards blacks. This went both ways. 

We are still friends. He lives in Chicago now, but we talk on occasion. We spent 3 hours on the phone the other day talking about race (pre-Floyd). We waded into some deep waters and I started to get worried I might say the wrong thing. Sometimes it can be hard for me to convey an idea I have never shared aloud. Considering the delicate subject, I didn't want to say something I couldn't take back. He could tell I was struggling and said, "There's nothing you could say that would end our friendship. I know who you are, and it's ok to have this conversation." That's powerful. We can not have those discussions in our society if we aren't willing to have a discussion, be vulnerable, and share experiences. That can't happen when the focus is on identity and not the individual.

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