When, Oh When, Will You White People Put an End to This Shit?!
One can readily imagine what the police and prosecutorial reaction would be if two black men were caught on camera shooting and killing an innocent, unarmed white man….
One can easily imagine what the posture would be if this video hadn’t been shot and published:
Can you say ‘probable cause’?
“I have said in countless posts, in as many ways as I could muster, that the job of achieving a just society in this country, falls on the shoulders of the white people who made it unjust in the first place…
White people can be led away from racism and bigotry, but not by black or brown people.
In my view, only other white people can lead the way for the majority of the white population in this country…
This most certainly will not happen by dint of the validity and veracity of the persuasiveness of arguments for social justice or moral imperative.
There are some White folks who can, and should, make the case that white folks will more readily accept and digest because the argument is coming from one of them…
I am convinced that white people can be led away from racism and bigotry only by other white people who are able to convince the recalcitrant white folks that it is in their best interests to abandon their racism and bigotry.
I believe that only then will white people put an end to their fear of black reprisals for centuries of slavery, segregation, and second class citizenship,
I believe that, only then will white people put an end to their fear of the idea that ‘all men are created equal’.
I believe that, only then will white people come to accept and live by the ‘self-evident truth’ that we’re all in this together…..
I also believe that it is not likely to happen now….”
“If social justice is to be achieved it will be because white people make the case to reluctant and recalcitrant white folks that a just society and more perfect union isn’t about bestowing the benefits of freedom on black and brown people at the expense of white people, it’s about “liberty and justice for all”.”
(Quoted text is excerpted from a previous post and my comment on that post…)
06/09/2020 @ 8:45 am
Every morning I get an email briefing from the New York Times. This morning’s briefing (Tuesday, June 9) included the following paragraph:
A shift: A majority of Americans (57 percent) now believe the police are more likely to use excessive force against African-Americans. In 2014, the share was only 33 percent. “In my 35 years of polling, I’ve never seen opinion shift this fast or deeply,” Frank Luntz, a Republican pollster, said.
It’s a question you’ve asked many times. For a lot of White Americans, the answer is apparently:
Now
I don’t know what the consequences will be, and we probably shouldn’t raise our expectations too high, but we haven’t seen this before. As I’ve said, this looks in speed a lot like the Confederate Flag thing where suddenly retail wouldn’t touch them and Statehouses got rid of them. This, of course, is way bigger, but there are definite similarities. Like the reaction of major corporations. I’ve gotten emails from the heads of Target and, more recently, Petsmart, about how they’re shifting resources to deal with this. We’re in uncharted territory here.
06/09/2020 @ 10:51 am
We all remember the reaction to BLM four years ago. It was swift and seemed to come from all directions. Now, we’re all wondering why there is no similar response this time. I don’t know if this applies at all, but I wonder if there is a Russian troll farm angle in all of this. More specifically, we know there was troll involvement in the reaction previously. Could we be seeing the lack of troll involvement in this event?