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

[RDKirk]

That is how a photographer's mind works. Drawn, not to idiosyncrasies but to form

I am a photographer, and I agree.

 

[timothyu]

I am a photographer, and I agree.

Have you reached the point where taking note of everything and everyone becomes an addiction?

 

[RDKirk]

Have you reached the point where taking note of everything and everyone becomes an addiction?

That was a function for me when I was military intel as well. But I've learned how to turn that off and on as necessary.

 

[timothyu]

But I've learned how to turn that off and on as necessary.

Waking up is no longer a gateway to hard core observation

 

[Daniel Marsh]

Ezekiel 18:20

Easy-to-Read Version

​

20 The one who sins is the one who will be put to death. A son will not be punished for his father’s sins, and a father will not be punished for his son’s sins. A good man’s goodness belongs to him alone, and a bad man’s evil belongs to him alone.

 

[Daniel Marsh]

Ezekiel 18:20

Easy-to-Read Version

​

20 The one who sins is the one who will be put to death. A son will not be punished for his father’s sins, and a father will not be punished for his son’s sins. A good man’s goodness belongs to him alone, and a bad man’s evil belongs to him alone.

 

[Stephen3141]

Your question is curious.

How would you handle an equivalent situation.
One spouse comes from a family filled with fornication and adultery.
The other spouse comes from a christian family with little fornication or adultery.
How would you assign "guilt" to the 2 spouses?

I think that you need to define what you mean by "systemic" and "guilt",
much more precisely.

 

[ImaginaryFiction]

My husband and I are both white. He and his family are currently, and generally, less religious and more progressive than mine, but his (historically) is MUCH more Southern and slave-owning than mine. In fact, all his family has Southern and slave-owning past, whereas mine doesn't on either paternal or maternal side.

My dad's family are all WASPs and Irish/Scottish from the upper northeast (Massachusetts, Vermont, etc.) who never held or owned slaves. My mom's are all Germans/Norwegians/Hutterites from the upper midwest (Minnesota, South Dakota, etc.) who came to the US in the 1800s and also never had slaves.

In recent years, I've noticed a change from individualistic and historical focus of racism, toward more 'systemic' focus. The idea is, it doesn't really matter that my husband's family was historically slave-owning, whereas mine were in regions where slavery never occurred. The focus now is, both nonetheless benefited from 'white privilege,' so it doesn't matter if one's white families had slaves or not. What matters now is, if they are allies, or at least voting Democrat in greater numbers. In that case, my husband's family is generally more progressive now, even if they have purely Southern and slave-owning roots.

Do you agree with that perspective: is it better to have a family that "currently" is overall more progressive and voting Democrat, even if that family is purely slave-owning and Southern in its past, than it is to come from a family with no slavery, even if that family is currently slightly more third-party or Republican in its voting?

Well for one, everyone has been a slave to someone else at some point. This notion slavery only involves white people in America is ridiculous.

In Barbary the blacks owned more white slaves than America ever owned of black slaves

BBC - History - British History in depth: British Slaves on the Barbary Coast

Their untold story, by Professor Rees Davies

www.bbc.co.uk

What about native Americans that owned slaves?

How Native American Slaveholders Complicate the Trail of Tears Narrative

The new exhibition 'Americans' at the National Museum of the American Indian prompts a deeper dive for historic truths

www.smithsonianmag.com

We all know Jews were slaves.

What about the blacks in America that enslaved blacks?

Blacks Owning Blacks: The Story of William Ellison – Cathedral of Liberty

William Ellison Jr. (c. April 1790 – December 5, 1861), born April Ellison, was a U.S. cotton gin maker and blacksmith in South Carolina, and former African-American slave who achieved considerable success as a slaveowner before the American Civil War.

cthl.org

And of course who sold black slaves? Other blacks that enslaved their own people to sell.

But at the end of the day it doesn't matter to you or me, we didn't own any slaves. Why should we be held accountable for something that happened a 100 years before we were born?

Let's say I found out I had an ancestor that was a Nazi child murder and rapist, killed animals and raped women. Ok, that has nothing to do with who I am as a person now. I don't do those things, I pay my taxes, work hard, love my wife and try to be a decent person.

So no one alive today in America has ever been a slave, and no one alive today has ever owned a slave.

 

[RDKirk]

Well for one, everyone has been a slave to someone else at some point. This notion slavery only involves white people in America is ridiculous.

In Barbary the blacks owned more white slaves than America ever owned of black slaves

BBC - History - British History in depth: British Slaves on the Barbary Coast

Their untold story, by Professor Rees Davies

www.bbc.co.uk

What about native Americans that owned slaves?

How Native American Slaveholders Complicate the Trail of Tears Narrative

The new exhibition 'Americans' at the National Museum of the American Indian prompts a deeper dive for historic truths

www.smithsonianmag.com

We all know Jews were slaves.

What about the blacks in America that enslaved blacks?

Blacks Owning Blacks: The Story of William Ellison – Cathedral of Liberty

William Ellison Jr. (c. April 1790 – December 5, 1861), born April Ellison, was a U.S. cotton gin maker and blacksmith in South Carolina, and former African-American slave who achieved considerable success as a slaveowner before the American Civil War.

cthl.org

And of course who sold black slaves? Other blacks that enslaved their own people to sell.

But at the end of the day it doesn't matter to you or me, we didn't own any slaves. Why should we be held accountable for something that happened a 100 years before we were born?

Let's say I found out I had an ancestor that was a Nazi child murder and rapist, killed animals and raped women. Ok, that has nothing to do with who I am as a person now. I don't do those things, I pay my taxes, work hard, love my wife and try to be a decent person.

So no one alive today in America has ever been a slave, and no one alive today has ever owned a slave.

At the end of the day, none of what you said actually matters in this particular situation. Those are just self-satisfying talking points circulating among conservatives.

The institution of slavery in America does have continuing negative effect to this day on black people in America that slavery nowhere else had or has. The laws and policies of the Jim Crow era had the intentional purpose of continuing those negative effects right into the 1960s, right to the living memory of the Boomer Generation...which is certainly still here. It's the continuing effect that matters.

The critical point, though, is that there is nothing more now the government can do to remedy those effects...the remedy is a process internal to the black community, internal to each black person. That's why when a white woman asked Malcolm X what she could do to help, Malcolm X replied, "Nothing." He preached consistently to black people that although slavery and Jim Crow had left us with a dysfunctional culture, it was up to us to correct that dysfunction.

I don't know, though, how black people as a whole can get there through identity and victim politics. That is a specific and identifiable salient of the Critical Theory politics that is insinuated itself pretty thoroughly into liberal American society since the 60s.

 

[timothyu]

I assume it would be difficult if colour remained an issue instead of seeing each other simply as humans. Besides, will our 'souls' be coloured? However, just asking.. without assimilation as just human beings, can a black culture find a home in a nation built upon a white foundation any more than it could find one if it returned to the soil of its roots which would be the right colour but the wrong culture. Did the white foundation find a home in the native american foundation? Have the blacks? How would that be any different than people from other nations coming here and instead of adapting to the white foundation, they keep the politics of their homelands. Babel proved a point. The Kingdom won't be segregated by colourful identity so why here?

 

[rjs330]

A nation divided cannot stand.Noe I know that so many of our leftist friends desire that. And I honestly believe many of them have good intentions. They are really trying to get those they feel are oppressed to be elevated to positions of non-oppression as they see it. And their sense of justice is such that rhe elevation must come at expense of those they see as the oppressor. If you are a member of the oppressor class as they see it, toughluck to you. It doesn't matter who you are or what you've done you must be oppressed in order to raise the real oppressed class.
That's how we see women oppressed by the left in order to elevate the more oppressed transgender community.

They see no other way to help those they see as oppressed. Others must suffer and they see that as fair. The oppressed cannot and must not be criticized for anything because they are oppressed. Nothing they do or say is thier responsibility. It's everyone elses fault for the actions of the oppressed. They cannot be held to account because they would not act that way if it were not for the oppression they face.
So in thier eyed America must be divided into the oppressed and oppressor order to aid the oppressed. While thier motivation to help is good their methodology which is based on a belief system is deeply flawed and cause serious division and they never address the under lying issues of rhe "oppressed" that they may be causing themselves.

 

[Bradskii]

How would that be any different than people from other nations coming here and instead of adapting to the white foundation, they keep the politics of their homelands. Babel proved a point. The Kingdom won't be segregated by colourful identity so why here?

(checks to see where Tim lives).

I guess for the same reason you don't live an Inuit lifestyle.

 

[FireDragon76]

Acknowledging systemic racism isn't about assigning personal guilt. It's really about recognizing that racism is a societal problem that needs to be addressed in a systematic fashion.

 

[timothyu]

It's really about recognizing that racism is a societal problem that needs to be addressed in a systematic fashion.

Kinda like between the jocks and the chess club in high school?

 

[RDKirk]

Acknowledging systemic racism isn't about assigning personal guilt. It's really about recognizing that racism is a societal problem that needs to be addressed in a systematic fashion.

What does that mean in terms of actions?

Let's take it out of the nature of race.

Let's say we determine that conventionally lovely people are favored in society to the detriment of ugly people. How do we address the problem of individuals favoring beautiful people in social transactions?

 

[durangodawood]

What does that mean in terms of actions?

Let's take it out of the nature of race.

Let's say we determine that conventionally lovely people are favored in society to the detriment of ugly people. How do we address the problem of individuals favoring beautiful people in social transactions?

Society generally has a lot less at stake with beauty favoritism. It may be terribly unjust for the individuals who get the short end of that one. But the problem doesnt aggregate into enduring classes the way race does. Theres no homely people side of town where people go when theyre hounded out of the pretty side. I dont think there's ever been genocides against the class of ugly people.

 

[RDKirk]

Society generally has a lot less at stake with beauty favoritism. It may be terribly unjust for the individuals who get the short end of that one. But the problem doesnt aggregate into enduring classes the way race does. Theres no homely people side of town where people go when theyre hounded out of the pretty side. I dont think there's ever been genocides against the class of ugly people.

No, that's not an answer to the question, because not every black person these days is "aggregated into an enduring class." Just as in one family, one child might be pretty and one child might be ugly, we have black families in which one child is successful and one child is a failure.

I know a young woman who was born to a single mother living on welfare in the southside of Chicago. One day when this young woman was eight years old, her mother took her to a shopping mall in a wealthier area to look for a job. Her mother just sat her down in the mall and told her not to budge while her mother was filling out job applications in various stores.

But being eight years old, she did wander about the mall. She said that she was amazed to see people clearly dressed and acting and living the way she saw on television. Her eight-year-old self had presumed "Full House" was just as much a fantasy as Star Trek. She said she made up in her mind that day that she would one day live like those people in the mall.

Her determination paid off. She discovered she was a whizz at math. She majored in computer science, and I met her down her in Dallas working in my area before I retired. So...was she "aggregated into an enduring class?"

I'm not saying that racism does not exist, however when I compare today to what I saw in the late 50s and early 60s, when a black skin was usually a hard stop to a person's progress regardless of that person's character and abilities, "white privilege" today has been reduced to the level of "pretty privilege" or "Ivy League privilege."

 

[durangodawood]

No, that's not an answer to the question, because not every black person these days is "aggregated into an enduring class." Just as in one family, one child might be pretty and one child might be ugly, we have black families in which one child is successful and one child is a failure.

I know a young woman who was born to a single mother living on welfare in the southside of Chicago. One day when this young woman was eight years old, her mother took her to a shopping mall in a wealthier area to look for a job. Her mother just sat her down in the mall and told her not to budge while her mother was filling out job applications in various stores.

But being eight years old, she did wander about the mall. She said that she was amazed to see people clearly dressed and acting and living the way she saw on television. Her eight-year-old self had presumed "Full House" was just as much a fantasy as Star Trek. She said she made up in her mind that day that she would one day live like those people in the mall.

Her determination paid off. She discovered she was a whizz at math. She majored in computer science, and I met her down her in Dallas working in my area before I retired. So...was she "aggregated into an enduring class?"

I'm not saying that racism does not exist, however when I compare today to what I saw in the late 50s and early 60s, when a black skin was usually a hard stop to a person's progress regardless of that person's character and abilities, "white privilege" today has been reduced to the level of "pretty privilege" or "Ivy League privilege."

I'm not talking about any single particular persons own life outcomes. To people who are inclined toward racism, she is part of the class "black people". Her kids will be too.

But the bigger point is that just by being black in America, your economic situation, life expectancy, odd of being incarcerated - all are quite significantly worse on average than if you were, say, white. I think the statistics are meaningful enough to suggest that there is a significant "class" here, which endures generationally, with present day issues - whether they accrue from current or historical mistreatment, or both.

Can we say the same for unattractive people? Youd have quite a case to make. Just offhand, imagine a yearbook of corporate CEOs. Highly successful and regarded. Not so hot looking on average - a few media savvy young techies notwithstanding..

 

[rjs330]

Acknowledging systemic racism isn't about assigning personal guilt. It's really about recognizing that racism is a societal problem that needs to be addressed in a systematic fashion.

And how do you do that exactly?

 

[rjs330]

think the statistics are meaningful enough to suggest that there is a significant "class" here, which endures generationally, with present day issues - whether they accrue from current or historical mistreatment, or both.

The issue is who takes responsibility for that and what can they do about it? Is it a shared responsibility or one sided? And what exactly do we say must be done in order to change things?

I think that's the crux of the issue. Let's just agree that whites are all to blame for the past experiences of the blacks. And do to that past guilt blacks have a more difficult time than whites.

The actual legal barriers have totally been removed. Yet blacks still struggle more. So who should take responsibility for that and what should they do about it?

So far what I read is a lot of complaining about the issues and no one has offered a solution for anyone.