Monuments to Traitors and Racists

You see a fair amount of people complaining about tearing down monuments is somehow erasing history.  A monument honors the person it depicts.  History is what happened.

 

The issue is when a monument actually honors someone who committed treason or enslaved people or deliberately infected native Americans with deadly diseases.  If the monument portrays them as heroes is that history or a historical lie?

 

They do offend some people and they should not be on public space. 

 

They represent traitors and oppressors who may have also had some good qualities.

 

After all, Mussolini  got the trains to run on time.

Melting Pot!

I was raised at a time it was popular to talk about America as a melting pot.  We took in people from everywhere and turned them into Americans.  It was good for them and it made us great.

 

The idea and the dream was that no matter where you came form or what problems you may have had, in America you had the chance to succeed restricted only by your abilities.

 

We believed it but it wasn't completely true.

 

It certainly worked better if you were from a Western European country.  If you were from Asia or Africa or to some extent even Eastern Europe, it was much harder.

 

Today we have a President who has rejected the very concept of the Melting Pot America and wants to make us great again.  Since the thing that made us greatest was the blending of talents and abilities from everywhere a policy of exclusion is hardly going to make us "great again".

 

Some remember the past through the rose colored glasses of nostalgia and a lot of it was great, but what wasn't was the way we treated certain people because of their skin color, religion, gender preference, or politics.  Its time to stir up the melting pot some more and create the America of the future where we can really achieve greatness using the talents of all our people, not just some.

 

 

 

 

Race?

When the protests started they were accompanied by a wave of looting and rioting which provided the naysayers ammunition.  They equated the peaceful protestors with essentially out of control animals who didn't have adequate human qualities to actually protest.  They were wrong as we have seen peaceful protests continue after the first wave of violence subsided.

Who was actually creating the mayhem is a bit unclear, possible a criminal element, maybe outside agitators trying to discredit the protests or even possibly some protestors who went off the rails.  Still while increased police activity certainly helped it was largely via self policing that the protests have proceeded in a peaceful manner.

Of course the perception of many white people underscores a basic problem in our society.  The idea that people of a different color are somehow different.  That they don't share the fundamental qualities that make us human.

It is this perception that feeds racism.  Unfortunately history shows us how easy it is to dehumanize others who are somehow different than us.  The Jews in Europe were treated as subhuman for much of history.  We tend to think of the Nazis as unique in their beliefs, but not so much.  The idea that the Aryan race was superior was not a one time thing.  

It helps to maintain control when you create a enemy who is both evil and inferior.  It makes it easier to oppress and/or kill them.  After all they don't have the same feelings you have. Their lives are not as important.

It is so pervasive that many don't even realize they feel this way.  However if you ever ask or think, what do they want, you have isolated "them".  Once you recognize that they are the same as you, you already know what they want.

Black Lives Matter

No one is saying black lives matter and others don't.  They are saying black lives matter as much as everyone else.

The history of this country clearly demonstrates that this hasn't been true.  It's time that every person regardless of race, sex, religion or any other difference gets treated with respect.

We live in a country where many minorities live in areas that have high levels of drug use and crime.  This isn't by choice, it was either the best they could afford or we steered them there.

The children are sent to sub par schools and we see generation after generation faced with poor prospects, ongoing racism and the prospect of being shot down for next to nothing by police who at times act like an occupying force.

What is actually remarkable is how many of them hold down jobs, support their families and strive to find the American dream.  Some have succeeded against the odds.  Others lured by money or acceptance find their way into gangs and drug use.

Its not that different than it was in the early part of this century when we saw the rise of various ethnic gangs like the mafia.  

Violence is bad and that includes violence against any citizen.  Some have given police too much latitude is treating innocent black men badly.  

Black lives matter.  The fact that it needs to be said is the sad part.

Responsibility

I read a lot of "exposes" talking about inequality and how this group or some other group has failed to be diverse enough.  Accepting the conclusion the question has to be who is at fault?

Take the Democratic candidates running for office.  It looks like with the exception of Andrew Yang the field is not going to be very diverse.  It clearly isn't going to be reflective of the Democratic party so who is at fault.  Well the public is.  The rules for participation were pretty clear and even fair, up to a point, but the candidates who will be on the stage met the levels for donations and polling.

Well we donate and respond to polls so the people up their were selected by us.  Maybe the rules were biased, maybe not, or maybe we are simply unhappy with the result, or at least the media is.  Still while clearly the results aren't very diverse, maybe we want it that way.

Similarly I see various organizations attacked for not being diverse enough.  Now when you have a single person doing the selecting its clear who's responsible.  Still even then it becomes an issue of qualified candidates.

In other organizations it becomes a matter of individual choice.  With the latest round of firings and hires and fires I see that the NFL is not diverse enough when it comes to head coaches.  Since each team makes their own selection one would realize the team owners are responsible, but not really as a group.  Were the head coaches hired the best possible?  Probably not but you would have to examine the details of each selection.  All you can really do is provide the opportunity to compete.  Would I like to see a more diverse group?  I would be fine with that, but I also realize each team is trying to win, not solve some social issue.

Yes, embedded racism is most likely the reason for a lack of diversity in these positions, but you can't eliminate racism at the top without addressing it at the bottom.  Too many minorities start off with a disadvantage in income and education to compete.  We really need to solve those causes.

Racist or White Nationalist, Does it Matter?

First it should be noted that while not very common in this country, Racists can come in all skin tones.

So clearly if you are not white but still a racist, you are not going to be a white nationalist.

However another distinction arises from other factors.

White Nationalists may simply believe that their country should remain "pure"

Similar to the separate but equal doctrine, they may not feel that other races are inferior (they probably do but don't have to) only that they should go "home".

Either way you express your intolerance and bigotry, but in slightly different ways.

So what one is our President?  Probably both, although he doesn't realize he's a racist.

He has a long family history of racism, although he probably thinks the people he excluded from his apartment complexes were simply poor or dirty.

Some of them might have been, but when you can decide that by simply looking at the color of their skin, you are in fact...a racist.

Send Her Back? Send Him Home!

One of the things that people who gather in large group like to do is chant.

Not being a psychologist, I can't explain why, but its fairly easy to get a large group of people to join in a chant.

This has been a staple at Trump's rallies with "Lock her Up" being the popular chant of last year.

While of course there was no real chance of that happening, the chant was popular being rhythmic and it at lest had some relevance in terms of the accusations related to the e-mail server.

We now see that chant replaced by an un-American and racist chant of send her back.  The fact that the chant is directed at an American citizen who happens to have come here as a child and at American Women who were born here is despicable.

All Americans have the right to criticize the Government and speak their minds, its part of free speech and freedom of assembly.  To incite a mob to demand citizens be sent away is just wrong.

The pretense of being non-racist is gone and we now have a clear picture of the underlying evil of the man.

I think we should adopt the more appropriate chant of Send Him Home.  It is just better in every way.

Electoral Racism

The ex Republican governor of Maine just praised the electoral college for keeping white people in power.  This is of course a common republican position, but seldom discussed publicly.

This idea that there is something inherently better about white people is the essence of racism, and it is very common among Republicans and some Democrats.

The reason for the electoral college was rooted in a number of things, one of which was that very purpose.  However, there is also the promise to lower population states that they will have some voice in how things are decided.

However, that is encapsulated in the way we elect the Senate where each state gets equal representation.  Should this concept also apply to the way we elect the President?

Democracy promises that each person has an equal vote.  The electoral college gives people in lower population states more of an impact than those in higher population state.  That is why in the last election the popular vote winner ended up losing.

However, the situation is unlikely to change since the States that benefit would have to agree to the change.

Many of the checks and balances in our system is designed to protect the rights of certain minorities.  Interesting that now they are protecting the rights of the majority.

Blackface and ?

There's been a recent rash of instances where certain white politicians in Virginia have admitted to using black face in the past.

One of them also had a picture which may or may not have been him in his yearbook with a person in black face and a person in a Ku Klux Klan outfit in it.  There was no caption.

These incidents happened quite a few years ago and are considered racist, apparently.

The two admitted two incidents were performances, where they portrayed a black artist in some amateur type performance or at a costume party.

First, I have never, as far as I remember, ever put on black face, but I know that in at least one elementary school play many years ago we had a performance where some of us portrayed Native Americans and some of us portrayed Cowboys and make up was used.  Think we acted out a fake encounter while doing some very bad singing and dancing and mostly we were embarrassed.  However, it never had anything to do with racism, whatever our opinions were in those days about Native Americans were pretty much based on movies and TV in the Bronx.

I have seen movies where minstrel shows were portrayed and the cast were in black face and of course in the Jazz Singer we see a pretty famous performance involving black face.  Accepting that racism was pretty widespread in those years, it never seemed to me that these portrayals had anything to do with it, or in fact anything to do with actual black people.

So what I'm trying to figure out is why portraying a black artist in a private event is in fact racist.

Both portrayals were probably at best terrible but the intent wasn't to degrade the people portrayed, they were actually emulating them.

If a drag queen dresses up as Cher, is that some sort of anti-female act, or is it just entertainment?

I'm not advocating the use of black face but after all it is just make up and the message conveyed wearing it would be the more important thing.

It is certainly getting a lot of time on various news channels but it just seems like something done by young stupid (being young and stupid is redundant) people who don't seem to have had any bad intent.

Is it worth all this angst?

MLK Day

This is Martin Luther King day the best remembered leader of the civil rights movement.

That movement was effective in that it would be hard to find any areas in the country today where civil rights vary based on the color of your skin, at least officially.

There are still places where certain people are not welcome, it just isn't codified.

What hasn't happened is an elimination of racism in this country.

I do believe that it has improved and I think many of our younger people are growing up in a better environment.

Still you see incidents that are discouraging and make you wonder if we are ever going to really become a single country.

It seems like we have taken a step or two backward as we see a major political party embrace positions that at the very least encourage the worst instincts of some of our citizens.

We have free speech in this country and this allows bigots and racists to spout their hate publicly.

Its not just the color of your skin or even you religion anymore, we see the net spread wider and wider.

We now have started to hate people who simply disagree about what's best for the country.

Not sure how this gets turned around, Maybe a leader can unite us.  I thought the last president spread a good message but it fell on a lot of deaf ears.

We can only hope.

The best way to celebrate today would be to think about equality for all.

Its worth a shot.

Race and Sterotypes

How many Americans are racists?  I was reading a story about something on the view when one of the panelists asked the other if she thought 42% of Americans were racists.  The other responded that she didn't know.

That number might be too low.

I don't mean burning cross racism, just racism absorbed growing up in this country.

In fact the worst form might be the one embedded in many liberals who think they know what minorities need.

You see a lot of comments on social media that reveal a level of racism where the commenter's might not even be aware of how racist they are.

When I see people complain about how a neighborhood has gone downhill and isn't safe anymore, I have to wonder if it is simply because the people there are now different?

It is possible that it is related to issues such as crime or poorly maintained buildings, but much of that is related to racism.

Partially because of lower economic opportunities you see a correlation between the ethnic composition of an area and crime rates.

People are people and everyone shares basic human instincts.

Many of us feel like some people are different.  If you talk about any group of people as them you might have that issue.

Once you think of people as belonging to a different group you have to assume certain attributes to that group.  Group stereotypes are always bad even if they sound OK.  One group excels at math, enough is good with money another has better athletic skills.

Individuals have skills and attributes, not groups.  Stereotypes get reinforced when someone in that group exhibits the expected characteristic.  We ignore the ones that don't fit.

Each person is unique and should be evaluated as such.

Except of course the rich.  As F. Scott pointed out, they are different than you and I.

Hint of Racism?

When you see the candidates put up by the administration and sometimes confirmed by the Senate, you have to wonder does anyone actually look into these guys?

Forget about their political beliefs but when candidate after candidate has questionable issues in their background that indicate they may have been engaged in a racist activity or maybe sexual abuse, why not find someone without those issues?

It seems like they just don't care or at least the administration doesn't.

The explanation is that the qualities they look for are more about loyalty than character and qualifications.

If you have been a loyal member of the party or loyal to the dontard, a nomination is your reward.

Now patronage of this sort has always been a part of politics, although over the years attempts have been made to reduce it.  The success of those attempts are obviously limited.

Prior administrations generally tried to present candidates who could survive a background investigation into their character, at least a legitimate one.

That is part of the problem as the explosion of cable news and Internet sources have led to many bogus conspiracy and character accusations.

If you entertain the idea that some prominent democrats ran a sex ring our of a pizzeria in Washington D.C. (they didn't), these accusations seem tame.

It is hard to determine what is valid vs what isn't with all the bogus stuff being tossed about.

There is plenty of fake news, its just not published by the reputable news agencies.

CNN or the New York Times may have an editorial opinion but what they broadcast or publish is consistent with journalistic standards.  The same can't be said for many others who express unfounded opinions which have no foundation.

Unfortunately, this is often mistaken for actual news when it isn't.

It creates a kind of smoke screen for the actual issues.

White Angst

We just had another example of terrorist activity by a majority race male who believes that somehow he is oppressed.

Of course the suspect needs to be interrogated and maybe he has some other motivations, but there is a problem in this country with privileged people thinking they are not privileged enough.

In every population group there are winners and losers and not everyone has equal opportunity.

Clearly wealthy children have the best access to schools and opportunities.

After that despite a persistent belief, white children have less obstacles than non-white children.

However, having that opportunity doesn't change the fact that some or many of them will not do well.

In their case it is generally a matter of ability and effort, not discrimination, although they use reverse discrimination as an excuse to explain their failures.

Of course every situation has some variation and to some extent some may have actually lost out on an opportunity because of affirmative action and they don't care that the majority of people like them are generally favored.

Chipping away are "white privilege" means some will get disadvantaged.

However, they simply need to work a little harder or go to school a bit longer, not join a terrorist group and make bombs.

Work smarter and harder and overcome any obstacles, its what we have asked of minorities for many years and you have a lot less to overcome.

American Values

We are seeing an erosion of civil liberties for people in this country because of their country of origin or because of their race.

This isn't accidental, it is an attempt to deny them an equal say about our countries policies and elected officials.

One of the methods widely used is to manipulate voting districts to minimize the impact of voters you don't like.  If you simply put them into a single district, you can reduce their representation greatly despite the fact that they comprise a higher percentage of the population.

To do this based on race has been illegal for some time, so they tried to justify it based on party affiliation, which effectively was the same thing in practice and the courts struck it down.

One person one vote, its not a complex concept but it becomes meaningless if you make the vote count less.

We actually see this on the national level as well because of the electoral college and the equal number of senators per state.  If you live in one of our mountain states in the West your vote counts a lot more than if you live in a major metropolitan area.

Geography doesn't have political opinions.

We also see a crackdown on Americans of Mexican descent who are in many cases being asked to provide excessive proof of who they are.

People born along the border are being accused of having false birth certificates, without much proof and being denied passports and re-entry into the country.

These are people who were born here, educated here, served in the armed forces, worked here and now many years later have their credential being challenged.

Even if, at the time of their birth, a midwife changed the location on the birth certificate, after all these years they are as American as anyone.

Its part of a crackdown on people of Mexican descent orchestrated by politicians who want to suppress their votes.

They are being accused of a crime on speculation and being asked to prove their innocence as opposed to the Government having to prove their guilt.

That's not the America I grew up in.

Keep the Ghettos?

During the last administration a fair housing rule was put into place requiring cities to build subsidized housing in new areas.

In other words, if you had in fact created a Ghetto you were supposed to build in other area to better integrate communities.

This was opposed naturally enough by those communities who argued, among other things, that it would hurt property values to have low income housing built in their middle income neighborhoods.

Admittedly it is a tough question and you have to decide what is the public interest?

Building more and more housing in neighborhoods that are generally poor continues a cycle of bad schools, drugs, gangs, crime and public assistance.

Building in better neighborhoods has historically had varying degrees of success.  Long term though public housing has not generally been a great success in improving quality of life.

One of the reasons for that is where it is successful in helping a family improve their income level, they move out, either because they can afford to or because they are no longer eligible.

So the long term residents become those who have the worst problems with a significant turnover.

Now to the extent people did improve their situation and move on, it is a success, having provided a family with a somewhat secure environment they could afford.

The impact on the neighbor hood is however almost always a negative one.

So objection to such housing isn't simply a racist one, although there is always some of that, it is recognition that such housing tends to deteriorate over time.

It is a legitimately difficult situation and maybe something else is needed.

Rolling back the rule may actually allow more housing to be built since many projects ran into significant opposition.  Maybe.

Close One

The special election in Ohio is still too close to call officially, although it appears the Republican is likely to prevail, although not certain.

That was what everyone expected at the start but they didn't originally think it would even be close, but it ended in almost a dead heat.

Its even possible that the rally by the dontard got a few thousand extra votes which would be the margin of victory if it holds.

No matter, they get to do it again in November, along with all the other congressional races.

You can't really say what is going to happen until it actually happens, 2016 showed us that, but all the signs so far point to a Democratic resurgence.

There is almost always a gain in the midterm after a Presidential election by the losing party, the question is how much.  It looks like it might be very big indeed.

Considering the damage done by the dontard's policies to equality and decency, it is important that the message needs to be clear, Americans are not going into a shell and reversing the progress in human rights we have made in this country.

We recognize the right of everyone to enjoy the fundamental rights this country was founded on.

We need to reject the hate.

Sunday Thoughts

Last night the dontard displayed his racist tendencies again in an attack on Maxine Waters.  He can certainly disagree with her, but his comments had clear racist overtones, catering to his basest instincts and is base.

He keeps taking credit for the economy which has simply continued the Obama trends although with higher deficits and developing headwinds.  He lives in a fantasy world of new steel mills and coal mines.

He is now in a feud with his major donor base who oppose his tariffs.  His base is mostly so called republicans, but its a party that is very different nowadays, defined by anti abortion, pro gun, anti immigrant, anti government and minority suppression.  His support among that group is not going to waver.

The good news is that most Americans do not share those views.  The bad news is that many progressive people don't feel like their vote means anything.

A lot of people in this country are clearly disillusioned with politics as usual.  The political establishments are controlled by the old politicians although we are seeing some changes happening.  We need a clear progressive agenda and strong progressive candidates who will fight for things like universal heath care, secure pensions, income equality, equal opportunity and equal education.

People who have been successful are entitled to enjoy the good things in life, but everyone is entitled to have equal access to health, education and equality.

They need to be strongly in support of a clean environment and less pollution of all types, with efforts to reduce and reverse environmental damage.

We have shown we can do this as many of our waterways and the air we breathe have improved greatly since the clean air and water act.

Progress to a future where we have a sustainable society where people can achieve based on hard work and merit and our neediest are not ignored is the goal.

Its simple enough, treat everyone equally.

Underlying Racism

There is a quotation from and F Scott Fitzgerald story that effectively says the very rich are different than you and me.

Its not just because they have more money either, its more about an expectation of entitlement.

Its not just the rich though.

I you grew up in a rural farm community you develop a certain view of life while those growing up on the streets of a big city develop an entirely different one.

One is not better than the other and there are clearly others, such as growing up black or ethnic where those outside that group will never really understand certain aspects of their worldview.

Much of who we are is dictated by our early upbringing and while clearly later in life we can add conflicting layers,the early foundation is always there.

There is significant overlap, especially since the advent of TV and now the Internet, which can greatly influence early development, but fundamentally we are who we were then.

This is one of the reasons nostalgia is so prevalent, it reminds us of those, generally care free times, when our needs were taken care of and every day was its own learning adventure.

However it also creates certain biases and beliefs that are hard to dispel.

Which brings me to the situation with Roseanne.

She started out her career portraying who she was, which was pretty much the persona on her TV show with some minor differences.

She resonated with a great number of people who struggle to get by but do their best to survive and raise their family.  One characteristic though is a certain disdain for suits and the college educated.

More so when those people are minorities.

So in a moment of total honesty, possibly induced by Ambien, she sent out a terribly racist and indefensible tweet about a women who as far as I can tell had no real interaction with her.

The public comment unfortunately reflect more private views than we might like to admit.

Racist and Dotard = Racetard?

We now have a number of republican representatives who are denying that Trump use the "shithole" country comment.

Trump also denies it and it is possibly from what I am reading that what he actually said was "shithouse" in reference to Haiti and some African countries.

I guess they can claim they aren't lying because of that technicality, but the issue here is the same issue we had when other vulgarities were uttered by the dotard, do these people have any principles?

People like the dotard are enabled by people who sacrifice principle for political power.  It of course is a slippery slope, because once you start down, its hard to recover.

While I believe his economic policies are short sighted and dangerous in the long run, the real issue with the dotard is his regressive social views.

He is clearly one of the most racist people despite his statements to the contrary.  He supports measures that would suppress the black vote in many states and would really prefer reversing demographic trends and whiten up the country with the white immigrants.

Unfortunately for him, the countries he would want to have immigration from, no longer generate the type of emigration they once did and are themselves places people emigrate to.

With or without immigration the country is changing as minority birth rates exceed white birth rates.

America is becoming greater as we slowly accept diversity in race, religion and sexual preference allowing everyone the pursuit of happiness.

It an inalienable right after all.

Respect

In all honesty I had no idea who Harvey Weinstein was before the sex abuse scandal got so much play.  Of course because he was a movie producer in that self absorbed industry the media acts like his conduct exposes something new.

His behavior isn't new but it might have involved famous people.  That doesn't make it more important than the same or worse behavior that goes on almost everywhere.

This is a culture that in some ways encourages the objectification of women while at the same time demanding that such objectification should have no consequences.

Most men have heard other men talking about women as objects and I suppose women may also objectify hunks every now and then.

No one should ever abuse or harass another human being whether sexually or otherwise.

It happens al the time and we see it on many levels.

Bullying is a form of harassment that starts pretty early.

Racism is still way too prevalent in this society.

Sexual harassment is just another form and so is the fact that millions of women are payed less for equal work.

The answer of course is simply respect.  R E S P E C T!

Each person is entitled to it and should be treated with it.

It seem like it would solve a lot of problems and isn't all that hard to do.

We should try it.