(06-07-2020, 04:01 PM)Sammy Wrote:

(06-07-2020, 02:42 PM)americus 2.0 Wrote: I can honestly say I have heard nothing in the years between Kaep kneeling and George Floyds murder that was positive toward change or a national conversation that didn't include opinions. Opinions do nothing if not backed up by action.  

Granted, I live in small town North Carolina, I do not live or die by the news, and I am not the targeted demographic for any foundations his protesting inspired, so I wouldn't know anything other than what the clickbait headlines (of stories I didn't read because sensationalism is not the way to get my attention) were proclaiming when it was still hot in the news cycle. 

What makes anything Kaep tried to achieve different than what Floyd's death did achieve is everyone is listening now in ways they haven't before. I know I am. It's one thing to be a person not many of us can relate to, in this case an athlete who gets paid a butt ton of money to play a game and even more in product endorsements, protest in a way that made no sense to a majority of the country without context. It's quite another to watch a man die who was relatable because he was a regular person like the rest of us. And he didn't just die. He suffered and no one did a damn thing. I guarantee you Colin Kaepernick has never suffered as George Floyd did. 

People of all walks of life were horrified by what we saw. Not just the black community, not just the minority communities, not just the poor(er) communities, but from ALL communities. The emotional response has been completely different than in times past when a black man was killed by a cop. Kaep had nothing to do with it. In fact, he probably wasn't even a thought in people's minds until the media brought him up. He's not as crucial to this horrific story as people like to think.

If I weren't already E-Married to Bchbunnie4 (I love that girl) I would "kneel", and propose. I probably suck at being able to articulate the way you just did. White does not equal racist. I wish we (white people) were given more credit, but chances are we will be vilified because of our skin color. As long as one white person is racist, we all will be racist. Horrible for all skin tones ... How do we convince each other we aren't an enemy?

 


I don't try to convince anyone, I just listen. We won't learn anything from each other if we don't listen to what each other is saying. I believe for myself the fact that I don't see color when I see people is why I've heard and seen all kinds of things but I've never really listened. It's hard to understand a thing that is completely foreign to us. Unless we want to learn it's going to stay foreign. Most of us prefer to stay in our lane and not rock the boat because we've got enough on our plates. 

And that's the problem. The boat needs to be rocked. 

At the very basic level it's like this: White folks don't understand the issues of the black community because we don't experience them. Black folks don't seem to understand why we don't understand. If I'm wrong someone can correct me. It is a lot deeper than that but you have to start somewhere. The point is to start. Everything else will fall into place if BOTH sides can come to the table and listen and learn.

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