KCPT "Ruckus": White People, Solving KC Problems

White.



Every last one.

Lily white you might say.

Again.

Some more.

Link:

Open thread for night owls: White supremacy is much more than a product of hate groups

Must-see movie coming soon

Can hardly wait.

Important article so few will read, let alone understaand

I ran across this article at Alternet just this morning:

White America Is Oblivious to the Truth About Black Poverty

It outlines a lot of what I've thought and believed and heck, even seen, for some time. That is, most white people don't understand even what black people have been through in this country, let alone the intransigent, deeply inset racism that not only shaped this country but that still exists today. Another way to put it: most of us don't understand we don't understand and further, much worse, we don't understand how mistaken we are, let alone how still very racist and destructive we are and so, our country is and how that keeps blacks down and from rising up financially, socially and economically.

Some of the best, most important parts of the article:

Conservatives and liberals alike prefer to focus on perceived deficits in black and brown people than on structural racism and the concepts of white supremacy that undergird it as the principal reasons for disparate conditions and outcomes for many blacks and Hispanics. White privilege means not having to think about the many ways the lives of those who are classified as white are enhanced and protected by the subjugation and exclusion of racial minorities. White privilege provides white ethnics escape from the stigma of poverty. As historian Nell Irvin Painter aptly distinguishes, “Not all black people are poor, but among the people in America defined by race, black people tend to be the poorest.”

Similarly, the link between poverty and criminality is dubious at best. The vast majority of poor people do not engage in criminal activity despite our tendency to label more and more things crimes. Lack of opportunity breeds disillusionment, which leads to disorder, a conclusion reached more than four decades ago by the  Kerner Commission charged with investigating the causes of urban rebellions in the summer of 1967:

Although Negro men worked as hard as the immigrants, they were unable to support their families. The entrepreneurial opportunities had vanished. As a result of slavery and long periods of unemployment, the Negro family structure had become matriarchal; the males played a secondary and marginal family role—one which offered little compensation for their hard and unrewarding labor. Above all, segregation denied Negroes access to good jobs and the opportunity to leave the ghetto. For them, the future seemed to lead only to a dead end.

 Today, whites tend to exaggerate how well and quickly they escaped from poverty. The fact is that immigrants who came from rural backgrounds, as many Negroes do, are only now, after three generations, finally beginning to move into the middle class.

By contrast, Negroes began concentrating in the city less than two generations ago, and under much less favorable conditions. Although some Negroes have escaped poverty, few have been able to escape the urban ghetto. Pervasive unemployment and underemployment are the most persistent and serious grievances in minority areas. They are inextricably linked to the problem of civil disorder.

What white Americans have never fully understood but what the Negro can never forget—is that white society is deeply implicated in the ghetto. White institutions created it, white institutions maintain it, and white society condones it.

What Chait’s liberal analysis of American racism fails to acknowledge is racism was created to achieve an economic purpose. Anglo-Americans didn’t start out as racists, they became racists in order to justify their chosen economic system, which relied on the exploitation of enslaved black labor. The principal motive for racism was and still is, profit.

One of the many things that infuriates black people, at least it does me, is the obliviousness of white Americans to the ways they project onto black people the pathological and violent behavior they have engaged in and seem to have collectively whitewashed from their memories. In the almost 400 years that African people have been in this country we’ve been subjected to continuous murder, rape, brutality, dehumanization and mob terror at the hands of whites (lynching ended a century ago only to be replaced by extra-judicial police killings) and yet the contemporary narrative is that whites are justified in their fear of blacks, especially black men. Seriously? Modern policing is based on this premise—one that whites rarely question and have trouble understanding as a source of black rage.

White privilege permits people to ignore the reflection of their own pathologies in others.

_________________________________

As I said, great, even important article.

Too bad few will read it.

And even less understand or accept it. And try to do anything about it.

Here's where the welfare money goes

Click on picture for better viewing:

Mitt Romney, Candidate for President of Caucasiastan

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

No surprise. Jon Stewart hits it out of the ballpark yet again.

Mitt Romney's vision of America---a very white one

Just as The Daily Kos points out today, Mitt Romney's vision for America is, as we suspected, a very white one, as shown by his latest video from and for his campaign:
One thing seems clear, Mitt Romney, if elected president (God forbid) would keep the White House white.

Very white, if we are to believe his own media.

It's no coincidence--no coincidence at all--that it's very like John McCain's 2000 run, too.

Link: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/05/30/1095905/-Mitt-Romney-s-better-America-sure-is-white-isn-t-it-

Quote of the day

"There is no polite way to explain what has happened. There is no polite way to explain the reflexive defensive rationalizations by the right-wing media and their right-wing fans. This was a racist killing with a racist cover-up and the right wing's reaction has been virulently and viciously racist. To understand the depth of the right wing's racist depravity, all it takes is to consider the very different reaction to this horror had the races of the victim and his killer been reversed. Welcome to post-racial America." --Lawrence Lewis for The Daily Kos; Link: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/04/01/1078914/-If-Trayvon-Martin-had-been-white-and-George-Zimmerman-were-black?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dailykos%2Findex+%28Daily+Kos%29

The New York Times addresses the "Young, Black Male in America"

The Times has a series of 9 articles, by different citizens of the community, addressing different, relevant issues affecting young black males in America. Here's just one quote, from Neill Franklin, Executive Director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition and former narcotics cop and commander of training during his 34-year career with the Maryland State Police and the Baltimore Police Department: "Our prohibition policies, and the 'us vs. the man' mentality they have caused in our communities, have badly damaged how young black men are perceived -- and not just by white people. As an African-American narcotics cop in Baltimore, even I fell victim to fear and apprehension when I encountered a group of black teenagers on the street. Making drugs like marijuana illegal has made them incredibly lucrative, and it's not hard to see why many teenagers choose to enlist in the dope game and play for the chance at moving up the chain and raking in tax-free money rather than donning a McDonald's uniform." It's an excellent series and seems very applicable all across America, let along to the Kansas City area. Link to original articles: http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/03/12/young-black-and-male-in-america/?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120313

An open letter to the citizens of the World (guest post)

We stand at a unique time in our history, the rise of the internet and computer technology have contributed to an unparallelled rate of prosperity for the First World. We have created for ourselves and empire unlike any other, a global network of constant trade and communication, a new age of technological advancement. We have come a long way from our humble roots in the Industrial Revolution and the days of Manifest Destiny. We are now pioneers on new digital frontiers expanding our domain from the quantum world to the far reaches of space. 

And yet, the empire faces a crisis, a global recession, growing poverty, rampant violence, corruption in politics, and threats to personal freedom. As it was before in other times of crisis, the old stories have begun to repeat themselves. The half truths, this time repeated nightly on cable news and echoed through a series of tubes onto the internet: the empire is strong, change is unwise, business as usual is the answer. In times of uncertainty there are those who seek to add to the confusion, to prey on our insecurities and fears. Those who would seek to keep us divided for their own gain. The pervasive strategy takes many very convincing forms: Liberals and Conservatives, Christians and Muslims, Black and White, Saved and Sinner. 

But something unexpected is happening. We have begun telling each other our own stories. Sharing our lives, our hopes, our dreams, our demons. Every second, day in day out, into all hours of the night the gritty details of life on this earth are streaming around the world. As we see the lives of others played out in our living rooms we are beginning to understand the consequences of our actions and the error of the old ways. We are questioning the old assumptions that we are made to consume not to create, that the world was made for our taking, that wars are inevitable, that poverty is unavoidable. As we learn more about our global community a fundamental truth has been rediscovered: We are not so different as we may seem. Every human has strengths, weaknesses, and deep emotions. We crave love, love laughter, fear being alone and dream for a better life. 

You must create a better life.

You cannot sit on the couch playing video games waiting for a revolution. You are the revolution. Every time you decide not to exercise your rights, every time you refuse to hear another view point, every time you ignore the world around you, every time you spend a dollar at a business that doesn't pay a fair wage you are contributing to the oppression of the human body and the repression of the human mind. You have a choice, a choice to take the easy path, the familiar path, to walk willingly into your own submission. Or a choice get up, to go outside and talk to your neighbor, to come together in new forums to create lasting, meaningful change for the human race. 

This is our challenge: 

A peaceful revolution, a revolution of ideas, a revolution of creation. The twenty-first century enlightenment. A global movement to create a new age of tolerance and understanding, empathy and respect. An age of unfettered technological development. An age of sharing ideas and cooperation. An age of artistic and personal expression. We can choose to use new technology for radical positive change or let it be used against us. We can choose to keep the internet free, keep channels of communication open and dig new tunnels into those places where information is still guarded. Or we can let it all close in around us. As we move in to new digital worlds, we must acknowledge the need for honest information and free expression. We must fight to keep the internet open as a marketplace of ideas where all are seated as equals. We must defend our freedoms from those who would seek to control us. We must fight for those who do not yet have a voice. Keep telling your story. All must be heard.

-V


(From Facebook, truth be told)

Good morning

 
                               Have a great day, y'all.

Quote of the day--on the "haves" and "have nots"

One percent of the nation owns a third of the wealth.  The rest of the wealth is distributed in such a way as to turn those in the 99 percent against one another;  small property owners against the propertyless, black against white, native-born against foreign-born, intellectuals and professionals against the uneducated and unskilled.  These groups have resented one another and warred against one another with such vehemence and violence as to obscure their common position as sharers of leftovers in a very wealthy country.  --Howard Zinn, "A People's History of the United States

Links:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_People's_History_of_the_United_States;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Zinn