Today in Solidarity (12/29/14): I was out in LA today when we got word about the autopsy results for Ezell Ford. They gunned that man down execution-style. Folks are angry, but staying peaceful, though you can feel the tension in the air. Pray for Ezellâs family and all those putting their lives on the line in the name of justice tonight. #staywoke #farfromover
I read somewhere, someone had this theory that the reason shootings are mainly committed by white males is because when women or poc feel alienated, depressed, etc, we are trained to keep it to ourselves, whereas white men are raised with a sense of entitlement that allows them to make their own problems everyoneâs problem.
I wonder if it is true for shooting or for road rage or both or neither.
âPeople are just people.â Â âI donât see color.â Â âWeâre all just human.â Â âCharacter, not color, is what counts with me.â
Response:
âColorblindnessâ negates the cultural values, norms, expectations and life experiences of people of color. Even if an individual white person can ignore a personâs skin color, society does not.
Claiming to be âcolorblindâ can also be a defense when someone is afraid to discuss racism, especially if the assumption is that all conversation about race or color is racist.  Color consciousness does not equal racism.
2) Reverse Racism
What they say:
âBlacks cry âracismâ for everything, even though they are more or just as racist as white people.â
Response:
Letâs first define racism with this formula: Racism = racial prejudice + systemic institutional power.
To say people of color can be racist, denies the power imbalance inherent in racism. Although some Black people dislike whites and act on that prejudice to insult or hurt them, thatâs not the same as systematically oppressing them and negatively affecting every aspect of their lives.
People of color, as a social group, do not possess the societal, institutional power to oppress white people as a group. An individual Black person who is abusing a white person, while clearly wrong, is acting out a personal racial prejudice, not racism.
3) Itâs Not Race
What they say:
âItâs not race, itâs economics.â  âClassism is the new racism.â
Response:
âBeing Black and middle class is fundamentally different to being white and middle class.â This is what  Dr. Nicola Rollock, a researcher at The Institute of Education at the University at Birmingham in the U.K., said after researching the issue.
For the report, âThe Educational Strategies of the Black Middle Classes,â Rollock and her team looked at African-Caribbean families in particular, and confirmed that there is a Black âmiddle classâ  who work very hard to do the best for their children. But researchers also discovered that social status and relative wealth do not protect Black people from racism.
Racism is a reality in the lives of  Black middle-class families and it extends to the upper class too, as Oprah Winfrey would agree based on her widely reported racial-profiling incident at a Zurich boutique last year.
4) Blame the Victim
What they say:
âBlacks are not willing to work hard.â  âBlacks feel entitled and want everything handed to them.â  âBlacks hold themselves back, not racism.â  âWe have advertised everywhere, there just arenât any qualified Blacks for this job.â
Response:
When blame-the-victim tactics are used, it provides an escape from discussing the real problem: racism. Therefore, the agents of racism, white people and their institutions, can avoid acknowledging a system of oppression exists.
As long as the focus remains on Black folks, white people can minimize or dismiss our experiences and never have to deal with their responsibility or collusion in racism and white privilege.
5)Â Deny, Deny, Deny
What they say:
âBlacks are unfairly favored, whites are not.â
Response:
This form of denial is based on the false notion that the playing field is now level. When some white folks are expected to suddenly share their privilege, access and advantage, they often perceive it as discrimination. White peopleâs attacks on programs like affirmative action and Black History Month are usually rooted in this false perception.
6) Pull Yourself Up by Your Bootstraps
What they say:
âAmerica is the land of opportunity, built by rugged individuals, where anyone with grit can succeed if they just pull up hard enough on their bootstraps. So Blacks need to pull themselves up from the bottom like everyone else.â
Response:
U.S. social propaganda has convinced many people that an individualâs hard work is the main determinant of success in the country. This ideology totally denies the impact of either oppression or privilege on any personâs chance for success, and pretends that every individual, regardless of color, gender, disability, etc., Â has the same access to the rights, benefits and responsibilities of society.
It also implies that Blacks have only their individual character flaws or cultural inadequacies to blame, and not racism.
7) Racism Is Over
What they say:
âBlacks live in the past. We dealt with racism in the 1960s with all the marches, sit-ins and speeches by Martin Luther King Jr. Â Laws have been changed. Segregation and lynching have ended. We have some details to work out, but real racism is pretty much a thing of the past. They need to get over it and move on.â
Response:
The absence of legalized, enforced segregation does not mean the end of racism. This denial of contemporary racism, based on an inaccurate assessment of both history and current society, romanticizes the past and diminishes todayâs reality.
If there is no race problem, there would be no school-to-prison pipeline in Mississippi that leads to the arrest and sentencing of Black students for infractions as insignificant as wearing the wrong color socks.
New York Cityâs Stop and Frisk policy that led to 400,000 police encounters with innocent Black and Latino New Yorkers, would not have happened.
If there is no race problem, Â why is a Black person 3.73 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than a white person, even though Blacks and whites use marijuana at similar rates?
Men get raped and molested,â should be a whole sentence. If you have to tack on the word âtoo,â then youâre using the experience of male victims to silence females instead of giving them their own space.
Yeah and maybe we should give cold medicine to both sick and healthy people because itâs just not fair to those that donât have a cold. Why should only sick people get treated? Maybe I want to be treated too even though I donât have a cold!
Cop shootings by race/per million: 1.47 white people vs 31.17 black people. And people really want to believe that the outrage is simply over one murdered black teenager.
stop saying ânot ALL of us white people are racistâÂ
say it with me
all white people benefit from institutionalized racism.
 all white people benefit from institutionalized racism.Â
while you yourself may not be racist (but I doubt that if you defend white ppl) you benefit from a system that lets white people walk free for killing a black person for just about any reason
gummygunk
jacobvanloon
dededos
tangentwithtanner
yousharknotpass
pixelskylines
snowghoul
titsay
