(06-06-2020, 08:26 PM)jj82284 Wrote:

Quote:A post I made on facebook today

Good evening family and friends.  I hope all is well.  Like all of you, I have been bombarded over the last 10 days with a myriad of notifications and posts about race, police brutality, protests, rioting etc.  Normally I don’t post on this medium, but I have seen too many people I care about being mislead by false ideology to remain silent. 
Everyone has a right to their own opinion.  I am not arrogant enough to think that everyone will come to the same conclusions I have, but at the same time I refuse to see people I care about take up positions I think are wrongheaded or even dangerous because no one had the temerity to make a counter argument. 
With all the things going around at current, it would be too long to address every issue in one post.  To that end, I am going to try and tackle one topic or line of thought at a time in a series of posts over the next few weeks. 
 
The first idea I want to touch on is the defacto rationalization for the level of violence and unrest that has accompanied the current demonstrations.  You may have heard someone say “MLK demonstrated peacefully, you didn’t listen.  We kneeled and you didn’t listen, what do you expect.” 
 
First let me say this: the concept of limited government and individual rights mandates that in a civil society, we cannot violate the rights of innocent people just based on our perceived grievance.  To do so is not seeking justice, that is just imposing our own form of tyranny.  
 
Second, this line of thought betrays the true legacy of MLK.  MLK was one of the most charismatic, eloquent, and inspirational thought leaders of our time.  He had a clear message, a demonstrable grievance, and a set of solutions that made room for every man woman and child under the promise of our country’s founding, not the rejection there of.   He faced indiscriminate violence, he faced abuse from the state, and he faced a level of tangible racial discrimination that no one in my generation will ever truly understand.  Most importantly, he won.  Although his life was tragically snuffed out far before his time, We passed the Civil rights act, we passed the Voting rights act, we passed the Community reinvestment act in 1975 to reform banking and address redlining.  We declared a War on poverty and have invested trillions upon trillions of dollars redistributing wealth to people on the lower end of the income distribution.  Moreover, in the wake of his example black men and women have ascended to seats of power both in the corporate world, and the halls of government across America.  So much so that Black America essentially owns the largest political party in the country.  That party controls almost all major urban areas in the country.  As such, it should be no surprise to anyone that the rate of black shootings by police officers in those cities has decreased by 75% since his passing, while the rate for white Americans has flatlined.  So much so that every credible study demonstrates that a white officer is now less likely to pull the trigger with a black subject than an officer of color in the same situation.
 
Third, I fundamentally reject the Idea that America is a racist country, founded on racist principles, or that in any way it was designed to proliferate racial division.  I fundamentally accept the declaration of independence and the promise that it makes to every man woman and child of every race color or creed.  As such I rejected Collin Kaepernick’s protest and the narrative that he wanted to advance about the country at large.  Through the miracle of federalism, just because one person, group, or region disagrees with an idea or political movement that does not mean that other parts of the country will not adopt them.  Also, in a free market society individuals and corporations can promote, support or fund causes independent of a broad consensus.  Even though his protest was not widely embraced the NFL subsequently enacted programs to reach out to and support the black community.  Collin Himself became a very well-paid spokesman for one of the most influential corporations in the world.   On his word alone, they shut down an entire line of products because he didn’t like the imagery of the Betsy Ross Flag.  In addition, the most conservative administration in the last 40 years passed criminal justice reform through the first step act.  Seven Thousand Plus prisoners were released through the program.  Places like New York, California, and others adopted the bail reform laws suggested by the player coalition headed by Anquan Boldin.  During the Covid 19 outbreak, liberal governors released another 67 thousand prisoners were released from state prison.  In Minneapolis, where George Floyd was killed, The liberal city council just appointed a reform police Chief that is a person of color and they elected Keith Ellison, a black man, as State Attorney General. 
 
So in conclusion, using aggression against innocent people is evil PERIOD.  Nothing gives you the right to take away the rights of another individual based on your feeling of grievance.  Martin Luther King’s stand was one of the most thoughtful and inspirational in history.  He did affect lasting change in this country and established a tangible, measurable, and meaningful bend in the way that black Americans are represented in places of authority and treated by said authority.  Collin Kaepernick’s protests were not universally accepted, but in a free society you don’t need everyone to agree with you to have your policies manifest themselves through charity or in local/state governments.  A lot of the programs that Kaepernick advocated have been adopted in jurisdictions across the country and we should be mature enough as a society to look at the results soberly and judiciously to adjudicate their results. 

1) I agree that there's no justification for stealing stuff or for vandalism, but there's also no justification to even suggest that a few violent writers negate the first amendment rights of the many peaceful protesters. I hope they catch all the rioters, they should definitely try to.  But our right to peacefully protest is fundamental. A group of people cannot lose that right just because one of them broke some windows.

2) I agree that a lot of progress has been made, and I think killer Mike explained this point more eloquently than either of us. Unfortunately the progress has been uneven, and we have a national media that will highlight what's going on in one of our more troubled areas, and make people in areas that are better off feel under threat. My sincere opinion is that places like Atlanta, DC, Jacksonville and Orlando have made more progress in racial equality and harmony than places like Chicago, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Cleveland, etc. The northern whites have a self-conception that racism is only a southern thing. As a child I was taught a lot about Montgomery bus boycotts and Birmingham jails but nothing about all the action MLK saw in Chicago.

3) America absolutely was founded as a racist place. The Declaration of Independence was an empty promise towards racial minorities. It wasn't until the passage of the 14th amendment in 1868 that the federal government made a commitment to promote and enforce racial equality. But this too became an empty promise in most states until about 1954. Now as it stands today, our constitution and our US code are very anti-racist. But society is obviously more than what you read in law books, and all of the previous codified racism is still affecting our social interactions and our economy. Some people say that we put too much emphasis on slavery conditions that ended over 150 years ago. I tend to agree actually. To the extent that black people are disadvantaged today, most of it is explained by segregated schools and federal mortgage redlining, not by slavery. Most white people in this country are either descended from people who came after 1865, or, if before 1865, they arrived in a northern state. And most of those who came after 1865 came with just a suitcase and hardly any money. Many were only a little better off than a slave who just got his freedom. And yes they are vastly ahead now. Let no one say this was due to ingenuity. These white people were rarely victimized by race riots. They were much more likely to get fair treatment from businessmen. They were much more likely to be included in social groups where business deals can get hashed out. And this was true in all 50 states.

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