Racism and Riots - Fr. Josiah Trenham

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His book recommendations - David Brion Smith's Inhuman BondageI and Bernard Lewis' Race and Slaveryin the Middle East - are good. However, he starts going off the rails around 21 minutes in when he starts ranting about "trained Marxists" - see here from a Catholic philosopher: TRAINED MARXISTS?
It's not off the rails when BLM leadership says they're trained Marxists.
 
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Justin-H.S.

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It's not off the rails when BLM leadership says they're trained Marxists.

Her link is a posting on Medium of one who identifies as a "Catholic Philosopher" and running on the hamster wheel of Marxist apologia for the quote by the lesbian BLM founders claiming to be "trained Marxists."
 
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Xenophon

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Rocha has a mandatum from his diocese.

That means very little considering that the RCC is a schismatic and heretical body, which is why we aren't in communion with them - and even moreso because the RCC, in most dioceses this side of the water is just about willing to give mandatums to anyone and anything within a certain margin of mainstream.
 
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rakovsky

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Fr Josiah is a sharp cookie that actual people promoting racism and fascism in the name of fighting them must hate.
I don't hate Fr. Josiah, and meanwhile, the part in bold does not realistically make sense. If you are promoting racial equality and respect for all races while opposing theories of racial inferiority and opposing what you see as racial discrimination and inequality, you are generally not going to be promoting racism.

So for instance, black Americans were to a major extent forcibly brought to the country to work as slaves, and despite the abolition of slavery, the companies who profited from their labor have not compensated them nor has society brought them out of that state. Attempts aimed at bringing them out of that state are not "racist".

Example:
Tribe A conquers Tribe B and enslaves them. Later, Tribe A frees them. 200 years later, the descendants of Tribe B still make up the impoverished end of their combined nation, C. If 200 years after abolition, Nation C sees that there is a big problem of Tribe B still living in poverty, attempts to help them are not racist or aimed at hurting one tribe or group, but rather at helping the tribes and society as a whole.
 
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I don't hate Fr. Josiah, and meanwhile, the part in bold does not realistically make sense. If you are promoting racial equality and respect for all races while opposing theories of racial inferiority and opposing what you see as racial discrimination and inequality, you are generally not going to be promoting racism.

So for instance, black Americans were to a major extent forcibly brought to the country to work as slaves, and despite the abolition of slavery, the companies who profited from their labor have not compensated them nor has society brought them out of that state. Attempts aimed at bringing them out of that state are not "racist".

Example:
Tribe A conquers Tribe B and enslaves them. Later, Tribe A frees them. 200 years later, the descendants of Tribe B still make up the impoverished end of their combined nation, C. If 200 years after abolition, Nation C sees that there is a big problem of Tribe B still living in poverty, attempts to help them are not racist or aimed at hurting one tribe or group, but rather at helping the tribes and society as a whole.

Would you contend that the majority of black Americans have always been impoverished since the abolition of slavery?
 
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Xenophon

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This does not realistically make sense. If you are promoting racial equality and respect for all races while opposing theories of racial inferiority and opposing what you see as racial discrimination and inequality, you are generally not going to be promoting racism.

So for instance, black Americans were to a major extent forcibly brought to the country to work as slaves, and despite the abolition of slavery, the companies who profited from their labor has not compensated them nor has society brought them out of that state. Attempts aimed at bringing them out of that state are not "racist".

Example:
Tribe A conquers Tribe B and enslaves them. Later, Tribe A frees them. 200 years later, the descendants of Tribe B still make up the impoverished end of their combined nation, C. If 200 years after abolition, Nation C sees that there is a big problem of Tribe B still living in poverty, attempts to help them is not racist or aimed at hurting one tribe or group, but rather at helping the tribes and society as a whole.

My county created an entirely new county by giving them half of the land (with resources and infrastructure, it's not like they got tossed into the wilderness) to be their own the very moment it became legal to free slaves in Virginia (in which the county freed all the slaves) - and that occurred prior the Civil War. Is that not compensation?

And yeah, it's not racist to try to help them. However, by the same token, it is racist to continue policies that break up their nuclear families and destroy their businesses, as well as flooding their communities with drugs to fund the CIA - which occurred in some areas more than others. And let's not forget to mention that toxic cultural media was pushed on them too by certain actors.

So, whatever is meant by compensation must be reasonably described. There must be a reasonably well defined limited to the compensation.

Further, the idea of reparations precludes the existence of Nation C, if reparations are what is required then it affirms the idea there is no Nation C, but only Nation A and Nation B that came from the two tribes - it denies the idea that there is one nation or one people. If this is actually the case, then they should be given their own nation and state which would involve the voluntary migration of peoples (like what was done with the creation of Israel.) I don't consider that to be a good idea - that's just what the reality of the situation would be.
 
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Tribe A conquers Tribe B and enslaves them. Later, Tribe A frees them. 200 years later, the descendants of Tribe B still make up the impoverished end of their combined nation, C. If 200 years after abolition, Nation C sees that there is a big problem of Tribe B still living in poverty, attempts to help them are not racist or aimed at hurting one tribe or group, but rather at helping the tribes and society as a whole.

We're not supposed to be living in a tribal society in the first place in modern America. I don't want to 'speak' out of turn, but I took a major point of the good father's talk to be that there was a feeling of getting away from such tribalism until the recent re-racialization of the entire society by those claiming to fight racism (e.g., when he talks about growing up in California in the 1960s with friends of many different backgrounds), who are thereby making it much worse. It is in that sense that they are advocating a kind of 'racism' -- not because they ostensibly seek to highlight injustices done to people.

This is to be contrasted by the life in Christ, which transcends all such things not because it magically makes everyone the same (a person is still of whatever background they are), but because our higher calling is to be truly united in Christ, Who is the Lord of everyone.

But I may have misunderstood Fr. Josiah on the finer points of his talk.
 
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I don't hate Fr. Josiah, and meanwhile, the part in bold does not realistically make sense. If you are promoting racial equality and respect for all races while opposing theories of racial inferiority and opposing what you see as racial discrimination and inequality, you are generally not going to be promoting racism.

So for instance, black Americans were to a major extent forcibly brought to the country to work as slaves, and despite the abolition of slavery, the companies who profited from their labor have not compensated them nor has society brought them out of that state. Attempts aimed at bringing them out of that state are not "racist".

Example:
Tribe A conquers Tribe B and enslaves them. Later, Tribe A frees them. 200 years later, the descendants of Tribe B still make up the impoverished end of their combined nation, C. If 200 years after abolition, Nation C sees that there is a big problem of Tribe B still living in poverty, attempts to help them are not racist or aimed at hurting one tribe or group, but rather at helping the tribes and society as a whole.
Hi there!
I do agree that a person who wishes to stop racism by trying to give blacks or other minorities what they perceive as help does not intend to promote racism. What I am saying is that they can nevertheless inadvertently promote it expressly by doing so. How is that, you ask? It’s fairly straightforward, and on two fronts.
The first front is the principle that “there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch”. All good in life that is truly appreciated and deserved is that which is earned. I can give things to my kids, I can pay for school or college, but as long as they are not doing for themselves, it won’t matter a hill of beans. A person who has learned gratitude through the hard knocks of life will appreciate things; a person who has been given them will not. This is actually a deadly danger of welfare - it can be a temporary good for the first kind of person who is grateful, but has the pride and dignity to desperately desire to get off it, or it can be a permanent drug to the person who does not have that, and sees only something to which he or she is entitled. Oh, and yes, I HAVE been on welfare, so no, I am not talking about things I know nothing about. But it applies to more than welfare, of course; it applies to all things given as a form of help or assistance. And there is the dark side of that assistance that it does not confer that sense of pride in a thing earned (I do not mean spiritual pride that lifts oneself above others, but of the kind of satisfaction in the fruits of one’s labor); for those who sense that lack, it can rankle, and oddly enough, produce resentment towards those who earned it “fair and square”. Help of any sort is only beneficial to the recipient if the person receiving it has the right attitude towards it, just as forgiveness only helps the recipient if he realizes that he truly is in need of forgiveness.
The second front is that the others who you think don’t need help will a) respect their fellow who received special help less, knowing that the aid was a thing given and not earned, and b) resent any and all suggestions that he personally or as part of a collective is to blame for the condition that produced need in the first place, in this case, slavery centuries ago, particularly as he had nothing to with what long-dead ancestors did (and in that great complex web, some of those ancestors actually fought slavery, rather than conduct it). The approach chosen by people today throws MLK’s approach under the bus and is undoing all the good he achieved. King rightly understood that the goal was to eliminate all focus on the color of one’s skin (see his “I Have a Dream” speech); the would-be do-gooders of today speak of “white privilege”, “white guilt”, and other terms guaranteed to cause resentment among whites who believe, as I do, that we are NOT responsible for the sins of our ancestors in general, just as we have not done the great deeds of heroism and goodness of our ancestors and have not earned the praise that giants like Washington and Lincoln have. The effect of all such talk is guaranteed to perpetuate resentment among people who rightly consider themselves not at fault for the situations of others in the world that they themselves did not cause. Thus, they promote racial distrust and resentment in the name of fighting it.
And there is one more thing - the fallacial idea that we can achieve historical justice, the presumption that takes the right idea of justice - punishing actually guilty people and restoration for those who actually suffered the evil, and extending it to hubris - the idea that we can reach back across space and time and somehow undo evils of long ago by taking things from descendants of people we THINK were guilty and giving them to people we THINK deserve it. It is hubris - the idea that we can do what God alone can do - rightly untangle all of the webs of space and time and correctly see how to restore anything to anyone, if and when there is ever anything to be specifically restored, to achieve justice for people dead for centuries.
Martin Luther King had the right idea and approach: to call for acceptance and equal treatment rather than “help” NOW, and NOT to try to blame or punish all whites for evils committed by SOME of the ancestors of SOME of them. The modern “social justice warrior” has lost his wisdom.
 
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You substituted an MLK for a GKC!!

Hi there!
I do agree that a person who wishes to stop racism by trying to give blacks or other minorities what they perceive as help does not intend to promote racism. What I am saying is that they can nevertheless inadvertently promote it expressly by doing so. How is that, you ask? It’s fairly straightforward, and on two fronts.
The first front is the principle that “there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch”. All good in life that is truly appreciated and deserved is that which is earned. I can give things to my kids, I can pay for school or college, but as long as they are not doing for themselves, it won’t matter a hill of beans. A person who has learned gratitude through the hard knocks of life will appreciate things; a person who has been given them will not. This is actually a deadly danger of welfare - it can be a temporary good for the first kind of person who is grateful, but has the pride and dignity to desperately desire to get off it, or it can be a permanent drug to the person who does not have that, and sees only something to which he or she is entitled. Oh, and yes, I HAVE been on welfare, so no, I am not talking about things I know nothing about. But it applies to more than welfare, of course; it applies to all things given as a form of help or assistance. And there is the dark side of that assistance that it does not confer that sense of pride in a thing earned (I do not mean spiritual pride that lifts oneself above others, but of the kind of satisfaction in the fruits of one’s labor); for those who sense that lack, it can rankle, and oddly enough, produce resentment towards those who earned it “fair and square”. Help of any sort is only beneficial to the recipient if the person receiving it has the right attitude towards it, just as forgiveness only helps the recipient if he realizes that he truly is in need of forgiveness.
The second front is that the others who you think don’t need help will a) respect their fellow who received special help less, knowing that the aid was a thing given and not earned, and b) resent any and all suggestions that he personally or as part of a collective is to blame for the condition that produced need in the first place, in this case, slavery centuries ago, particularly as he had nothing to with what long-dead ancestors did (and in that great complex web, some of those ancestors actually fought slavery, rather than conduct it). The approach chosen by people today throws MLK’s approach under the bus and is undoing all the good he achieved. King rightly understood that the goal was to eliminate all focus on the color of one’s skin (see his “I Have a Dream” speech); the would-be do-gooders of today speak of “white privilege”, “white guilt”, and other terms guaranteed to cause resentment among whites who believe, as I do, that we are NOT responsible for the sins of our ancestors in general, just as we have not done the great deeds of heroism and goodness of our ancestors and have not earned the praise that giants like Washington and Lincoln have. The effect of all such talk is guaranteed to perpetuate resentment among people who rightly consider themselves not at fault for the situations of others in the world that they themselves did not cause. Thus, they promote racial distrust and resentment in the name of fighting it.
And there is one more thing - the fallacial idea that we can achieve historical justice, the presumption that takes the right idea of justice - punishing actually guilty people and restoration for those who actually suffered the evil, and extending it to hubris - the idea that we can reach back across space and time and somehow undo evils of long ago by taking things from descendants of people we THINK were guilty and giving them to people we THINK deserve it. It is hubris - the idea that we can do what God alone can do - rightly untangle all of the webs of space and time and correctly see how to restore anything to anyone, if and when there is ever anything to be specifically restored, to achieve justice for people dead for centuries.
Martin Luther King had the right idea and approach: to call for acceptance and equal treatment rather than “help” NOW, and NOT to try to blame or punish all whites for evils committed by SOME of the ancestors of SOME of them. The modern “social justice warrior” has lost his wisdom.
 
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