Systemic racism in the USA: Are whites "guiltier" if they had slavery in their past?

BNR32FAN · Monday at 8:45 AM

RDKirk said:
No, many modern people are tainted by a continuous train of racially based economic effects plus racially bigoted customs, practices, and attitudes.

None of us Boomers, in particular, are free of the taint because segregation totally permeated society in our childhoods--it's baked into our bones. It's something we have to fight at various levels like a dry alcoholic.

Yeah I dunno that was before my time sir. I never experienced segregation in my lifetime and most people who have are long retired and aren’t really in control of anything anymore. They’re literally a dying breed and have very little if any influence on what takes place today.

RDKirk · Monday at 8:57 AM

BNR32FAN said:
Yeah I dunno that was before my time sir. I never experienced segregation in my lifetime and most people who have are long retired and aren’t really in control of anything anymore. They’re literally a dying breed and have very little if any influence on what takes place today.

LOL, if Boomers have little influence on what takes place today, why do later generations blame us for everything that takes place today?

Hentenza · Monday at 9:15 AM

RDKirk said:
No, many modern people are tainted by a continuous train of racially based economic effects plus racially bigoted customs, practices, and attitudes.

None of us Boomers, in particular, are free of the taint because segregation totally permeated society in our childhoods--it's baked into our bones. It's something we have to fight at various levels like a dry alcoholic.

I’m a boomer and I don’t live in the past. There are subsets of people of every race that don’t like the other. I’ve met black people that simple don’t like white people while I have also met white people that simple don’t like black people. Folks blame the whites more than the blacks but I think this is just a factor of population. Roughly 60% of the US population is white while 20% are Hispanic and 13% are black. The majority will have a louder voice than the minority. It’s just the way it is. The moniker “white privilege” lives in the minds of a subset of progressive liberals.

I’m Hispanic but I’ve never let this fact get in the way of my advancement. I’ve never let the thought of the abuses perpetrated by the US in Latin America through out the years influence the way I act or pursue my life. The beauty of the US economic system is that all that want to advance can advance but those that live their lives in the past with a chip on their shoulder will just complain. Secondly, as a historian I don’t morally judge the past using today’s morals. Slavery was legal then and also driven by the very Africans that complain today. None of the black people living today were slaves. We need to learn from history, not cover it up, so that we don’t commit again what we believe are errors of the past today. History happened already and can’t be changed just learned from.

BNR32FAN · Monday at 9:23 AM

Hentenza said:
I’m a boomer and I don’t live in the past. There are subsets of people of every race that don’t like the other. I’ve met black people that simple don’t like white people while I have also met white people that simple don’t like black people. Folks blame the whites more than the blacks but I think this is just a factor of population. Roughly 60% of the US population is white while 20% are Hispanic and 13% are black. The majority will have a louder voice than the minority. It’s just the way it is. The moniker “white privilege” lives in the minds of a subset of progressive liberals.

I’m Hispanic but I’ve never let this fact get in the way of my advancement. I’ve never let the thought of the abuses perpetrated by the US in Latin America through out the years influence the way I act or pursue my life. The beauty of the US economic system is that all that want to advance can advance but those that live their lives in the past with a chip on their shoulder will just complain. Secondly, as a historian I don’t morally judge the past using today’s morals. Slavery was legal then and also driven by the very Africans that complain today. None of the black people living today were slaves. We need to learn from history, not cover it up, so that we don’t commit again what we believe are errors of the past today. History happened already and can’t be changed just learned from.

Yeah my grandfather was a terrible racist, but my father wasn’t and he didn’t raise me to be that way either. People are diverse, we don’t all think the same but one thing I will say is that I know a lot of people, probably in the thousands, and I can probably count on one hand how many of them are racists.

BNR32FAN · Monday at 9:24 AM

RDKirk said:
LOL, if Boomers have little influence on what takes place today, why do later generations blame us for everything that takes place today?

I dunno, you’d have to ask those people who are blaming them.

Hentenza · Monday at 9:35 AM

BNR32FAN said:
Yeah my grandfather was a terrible racist, but my father wasn’t and he didn’t raise me to be that way either. People are diverse, we don’t all think the same but one thing I will say is that I know a lot of people, probably in the thousands, and I can probably count on one hand how many of them are racists.

Same here. I’ve met many people throughout my life and most don’t hold racist views. I live in Texas and my wife is from Louisiana. Some of her older side of the family were David Duke followers back in the day but from my wife’s generation forward they abhor racism. I remember dealing with it when I married my wife 41 years ago. In fact my father in law left his family home to go to college as soon as he could because of his parent’s racist views (his own story).

RDKirk · Monday at 11:22 AM

BNR32FAN said:
I dunno, you’d have to ask those people who are blaming them.

Well, I'm going to admit that Boomers do still have a significant effect today.

You know, don't you, that 40% of Boomers haven't even reached full Social Security age yet. They're still in the workforce.

Sixty percent of the Senate and 40% of the House are Boomers or older.

Those people are still affecting society with whatever prejudices they've dragged from childhood, and not always consciously.

And that's pretending they infected none of their children with their prejudices.

BNR32FAN · Monday at 11:30 AM

Hentenza said:
Same here. I’ve met many people throughout my life and most don’t hold racist views. I live in Texas and my wife is from Louisiana. Some of her older side of the family were David Duke followers back in the day but from my wife’s generation forward they abhor racism. I remember dealing with it when I married my wife 41 years ago. In fact my father in law left his family home to go to college as soon as he could because of his parent’s racist views (his own story).

Yeah I’ve lived in Texas my entire life and that’s where the majority of the people I know live and I'm proud to say that I don’t know very many people who are racist. They’re actually extremely rare.

Larniavc · Monday at 11:31 AM

I don’t think white people are more guilty of racism; we are by orders of magnitude better at it.

After all a murderer is morally reprehensible. But a rubbish murderer is way better than an efficient one.

White folks are so much more efficient at racism.

RDKirk · Monday at 11:33 AM

Hentenza said:
Same here. I’ve met many people throughout my life and most don’t hold racist views. I live in Texas and my wife is from Louisiana. Some of her older side of the family were David Duke followers back in the day but from my wife’s generation forward they abhor racism. I remember dealing with it when I married my wife 41 years ago. In fact my father in law left his family home to go to college as soon as he could because of his parent’s racist views (his own story).

"Don't hold racist views" can be a misnomer. It can be surprising how "racist views" affect us subconsciously.

A few years ago, when my wife and I first moved to the Dallas area, we were driving through various areas of the city sight-seeing. At that time, we were driving through a posh area that was clearly old money. We saw a young black man in running attire jogging on the sidewalk. Without really thinking about it, I muttered, "Hmm." So, did my wife.

We had a conversation about the fact that both of us noticed the young black man jogging in an old money area of Dallas. In most other areas, we would never have noticed his presence, but in this area he "stood out" to us and caught our notice--because he wasn't "supposed" to be there. We realized that was an old Boomer sentiment, when as black people we were carefully taught that there were areas of cities we weren't supposed to be, and this area fit our unconscious memories as an area we were not supposed to be. Work in, drive though, but not live in. And fifty years of integration had not fully erased what had been inculcated into us as children. Not that we objected to the young man--our attitude toward him was "Represent!"

An interesting thing about the South, too, is that bigotry is subtly different in various ways. For instance, a southern white can be a bigot against black people in general, but still be very congenial to a particular black person. "Yeah, Bill over there, Bill's a good one."

I think with a lot of my elderly white Texas acquaintances that I know are MAGA, I'm just a "good one" because I know the environment they were raised in.

BNR32FAN · Monday at 12:02 PM

RDKirk said:
Well, I'm going to admit that Boomers do still have a significant effect today.

You know, don't you, that 40% of Boomers haven't even reached full Social Security age yet. They're still in the workforce.

Sixty percent of the Senate and 40% of the House are Boomers or older.

Those people are still affecting society with whatever prejudices they've dragged from childhood, and not always consciously.

And that's pretending they infected none of their children with their prejudices.

The boomer generation is from 1946-1964 so you have an 18 year span and you only have to be 66 to get social security so that’s people born in 1960 and earlier which covers 14 of those 18 year span for boomers. So 40% doesn’t sound very accurate, just going by the year span 4 years is 22% of 18 years that means 78% of boomers are eligible for social security and the youngest a boomer can be is 62 years old. But I get what you’re saying there’s still a significant number of boomers still working. So yeah I might’ve been a bit hasty in my statement. My main point is that I just don’t see racism as being very common anymore. I dunno maybe I just don’t associate with those types of crowds.

RDKirk · Monday at 12:11 PM

BNR32FAN said:
The boomer generation is from 1946-1964 so you have an 18 year span and you only have to be 66 to get social security so that’s people born in 1960 and earlier which covers 14 of those 18 year span for boomers. So 40% doesn’t sound very accurate, just going by the year span 4 years is 22% of 18 years that means 78% of boomers are eligible for social security and the youngest a boomer can be is 62 years old.

You didn't read what I said carefully: 40% of Boomers haven't even reached full Social Security age yet. "Eligible" does not mean "retired." "Collecting" doesn't even mean retired...my wife is collecting full Social Security and plans to continue working full time for another couple of years.

BNR32FAN said:
But I get what you’re saying there’s still a significant number of boomers still working. So yeah I might’ve been a bit hasty in my statement. My main point is that I just don’t see racism as being very common anymore. I dunno maybe I just don’t associate with those types of crowds.

Your viewpoint is different from mine because you aren't looking close enough and can't even read the air. Just because a person isn't actually mouthing racism doesn't mean their attitudes and choices don't have racist influence.

Bradskii · Monday at 12:30 PM

BNR32FAN said:
I disagree because people are diverse and the vast majority of people in America today think slavery and racism are detestable. And just for the record I’m white and have lived in Texas my whole life, over 50 years. So no, most people today aren’t “tainted” by events that took place long before any of us were born.

If you are 50 now then you grew up in a time when racism was acceptable to a lot of people. Unfortunately, that would include me, because it was the norm. It was socially acceptable in a large proportion of society. It was certainly like that in the UK. And it took a very long time to change.

Hentenza · Monday at 12:52 PM

RDKirk said:
"Don't hold racist views" can be a misnomer. It can be surprising how "racist views" affect us subconsciously.

Yes. Is called subconscious bias and it affects everyone regardless of race or color.

RDKirk said:
A few years ago, when my wife and I first moved to the Dallas area, we were driving through various areas of the city sight-seeing. At that time, we were driving through a posh area that was clearly old money. We saw a young black man in running attire jogging on the sidewalk. Without really thinking about it, I muttered, "Hmm." So, did my wife.

We had a conversation about the fact that both of us noticed the young black man jogging in an old money area of Dallas. In most other areas, we would never have noticed his presence, but in this area he "stood out" to us and caught our notice--because he wasn't "supposed" to be there. We realized that was an old Boomer sentiment, when as black people we were carefully taught that there were areas of cities we weren't supposed to be, and this area fit our unconscious memories as an area we were not supposed to be. Work in, drive though, but not live in. And fifty years of integration had not fully erased what had been inculcated into us as children. Not that we objected to the young man--our attitude toward him was "Represent!"

An interesting thing about the South, too, is that bigotry is subtly different in various ways. For instance, a southern white can be a bigot against black people in general, but still be very congenial to a particular black person. "Yeah, Bill over there, Bill's a good one."

I think with a lot of my elderly white Texas acquaintances that I know are MAGA, I'm just a "good one" because I know the environment they were raised in.

I can see that example as we have thought the same but that does not make one a racist. The media also has a lot of responsibility for this since shows like the now removed “live PD”, “Cops”, and other cop shows depict blacks committing crimes more so than whites or even Latinos. However, there is factual proof as blacks are over represented in crime statistics, 69% white versus 26% blacks.

timothyu · Monday at 1:11 PM

RDKirk said:
Then they kind of forgot to free Africans and Native Americans who converted to Christianity.

Was the object to make people free or just another form of government to control them?

RDKirk · Monday at 1:14 PM

Hentenza said:
Yes. Is called subconscious bias and it affects everyone regardless of race or color.

I can see that example as we have thought the same but that does not make one a racist. The media also has a lot of responsibility for this since shows like the now removed “live PD”, “Cops”, and other cop shows depict blacks committing crimes more so than whites or even Latinos. However, there is factual proof as blacks are over represented in crime statistics, 69% white versus 26% blacks.

I didn't say anything about crime rates.

However, if a man is only looking at the other person's skin color and not seeing the host of other factors he'd used to evaluate the parson--dress, demeanor, age, et cetera--then he's a racist.

RDKirk · Monday at 1:16 PM

timothyu said:
Was the object to make people free or just another form of government to control them?

I don't understand your question.

What happened from the 1500s was a gradual movement from "pagan" equals "enslavable" to "African" equals "enslavable."

Hentenza · Monday at 1:19 PM

RDKirk said:
I didn't say anything about crime rates.

However, if a man is only looking at the other person's skin color and not seeing the host of other factors he'd used to evaluate the parson--dress, demeanor, age, et cetera--then he's a racist.

No argument here. I don’t think most people are racist though including us boomers.

BTW- I only quoted the crime statistics simply because they drive perception in people’s minds.

timothyu · Monday at 1:20 PM

Larniavc said:
White folks are so much more efficient at racism.

Is that because they also were more efficient at building civilizations that all wanted to come to and the builders found it hard to share on an equal basis??

timothyu · Monday at 1:21 PM

RDKirk said:
I don't understand your question.

Institutional Christianity has always been about control

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Systemic racism in the USA: Are whites "guiltier" if they had slavery in their past?

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