Yes, but we are not living under those laws and in those decades. We are living in the present, a very different time and place with a very different culture. Those laws were there, and there are racists now. But to use them as a club to beat any white person is not logical.
Take Arkdrey for example. He experienced Soviet oppression, yet is part of “global white supremacy”.
Such broad brush thinking just does not work.
I am enjoying the book, and will comment later.
Thanks, @ajshep. The best to you, in kind.
Also, thanks for your clarifications. I’ll add one more.
You said:
I’m confident, at this point, that you are correct, regarding what your responses would probably contribute.
But I’m going to stress the following, because it’s actually something untrue that you keep saying:
I have never accused you of racism. I’ve never accused any white person of racism. I know I’ve never done this, because doing so doesn’t conform to the way I talk about race; an approach that @Arkdrey referred to as “verbal chess.”
(You called his metaphor “actually quite good…very clever.” Of course, @Arkdrey’s error is imagining that I am doing some such thing rather “than having an honest discussion,” as if speaking purposefully, and engaging in a deferential conversation, were mutually exclusive.)
What I did accuse you of was being “a tad obsessed” with Black crime.
I said:
What’s odd about your charge is I am probably the only the person on Spectrum who has repeatedly said that Black people should not call white people racists. I don’t even think that there are white people here who urge this.
If there’s anything that you should take away from our infrequent exchanges, Allen, it’s that I’m at least “decent” at stating exactly what I mean to say; “I didn’t stutter,” as my people often quip.
This means that if I thought you were a racist, I would simply say, “Allen Shepherd, you are a racist.” That I have not said this should tell you that, to some degree, I think that the matter is undecided.
HA
Here is what you said:
Do you really need to state “Allen is a racist” to mean it?
You have already said that I am obsessed with black crime. If I admit it, I am, and if I deny it I still am. Called a “Catch 22”. So that is why I did not decide to post. But you persist. Well, guess I just can’t help myself.
I would say that you don’t get to dictate what I find funny. That’s not how humor generally works.
It is responsive, since I was responding to a statement in which you formulated a false dilemma for @ajshep to pick from.
Are you sure those are the only possible options?
I sympathize with whatever circumstances drove you to develop the worldview that you have, but I think it’s very limiting and divisive.
Harpa, you actually add no new choices…
You just reminded me of a scene from a Russian classic written by Bulgakov. If you spent any time in Soviet Union system you would understand why this is hilarious.
If you are indifferent to Russian classics, then I’d recommend the following links below:
Thanks, @ajshep.
You said:
In response:
I really need to state “Allen is a racist” for your charge—that I’ve accused you of racism—to be credible.
You said:
In response:
A tad, it seems.
Like I said, I can’t currently qualify or quantify this; doing so would take more work than I can presently give. However, it’s an impression.
Now: I could definitely be wrong about this, much as I could definitely be wrong about anything I’ve posted, here, on Spectrum, including my name.
But, again, it’s currently my impression, based on my sense of what you’ve said in your writing, over time.
You said:
In response:
You’re saying that if you deny you’re a tad obsessed with Black crime, you still are?
I don’t see how the paradox, that you’re implying, works. Please explain that.
You said:
In response:
The race system persists. If that’s the topic in the forum, or even if it isn’t, you might say “the material writes itself.”
HA
All I can say, Arkdrey, is that the Heart of a Dog is a pretty obscure reference, and the irony beyond me. I’m sort of glad the thread ends in an hour…
Also, @ajshep:
Typically, in these racism debates, I ignore other exchanges between those writing, just to keep my own comments and statements clear and linear.
But this was your response to @Carmen Lau; a thoughtful and intuitive thinker and writer, and it just jumped out at me.
Carmen said:
What Carmen is saying are, in the simplest terms, is that, “in America,” white people and non-white people do not share a history of being treated justly.
Now, not only does she state this, but she immediately follows up her statement with supportive, current examples:
This seems like a simple, even uncontroversial statement. There are, possibly, hectares of studies that would support her conclusions.
However, when you respond, you do not quote her contemporary examples.
You cite her original statement, about history. Then you say this:
This statement suggests that you are a skilled writer, but that, again, when it comes to race, you either a) simply don’t know what you’re talking about, or, b) that you hide the truth by selectively telling it.
I’m going to fall on b). “You have something to hide” was my earlier charge. I said it because I could not see another possible vector. (I’ve asked @Arkdrey if he saw one. His response was to ask me if I saw one. I’ve re-asked him, below. Let’s see with what he comes up.)
However, in this case, I say it because the very statement that would befoul your response to Carmen is right there, next, in her text: She literally states facts—racial stress, police brutality, vigilante justice—that would falsify your statement that “we are not living under those laws and in those decades. We are living in the present, a very different time and place with a very different culture.”
You didn’t repeat Carmen’s falsifying text, and you didn’t respond to it. Instead, you left it out, and made a nonsensical statement about a present that supposedly exists…and that was somehow shaped into our current world, despite its miscreant past.
“We are not living under those laws and in those decades. We are living in the present, a very different time and place with a very different culture.”
I’d like you tell us all how this was done, by whom, and when.
Then, you said this:
In other words, according to you, these two sets cannot overlap:
SET 1: People who experience Soviet oppression
SET 2: People who practice racism.
Last July, as part of a larger, multi-week series of exchanges in this forum, I sent Arkdrey a 6,000-word response on this very point. I’m linking it here, just for the record.
But as my reply to you, I’m just going to ask you to kindly state your assumptions, as to why visualizing the intersection of those two sets, above, represents, as you declare, “broad brush thinking.”
HA
Thanks, @Arkdrey.
You said:
In response:
And I would say, “Ironically, that is what the man, rocking quietly in the corner of a sanitarium hallway, could also say, and that’s not how humor works, either.”
You said:
In response:
Your reply is not responsive, because:
a) As I said, you haven’t even buoyed your original contention: “You understand that it’s not a fact based argument, right?”
b) The question you’ve just posed was, in our last episode, the very request that I put to you: “If you are saying that there is a 3rd option, please state it.”
This isn’t tennis, where you just swat the issue back to me. I’m actually asking you to voice your assumptions.
You said:
In response:
I’m going to repeat what I’ve started calling The Maximum Maxim: As long as racism is dominant, any charge made against victims of racism—non-white people—always suits racism better.
So, you may think my “worldview” is “very limiting and divisive.”
But, when it comes to being very limiting and divisive, my “worldview” is not even in the running, compared to global system of White Supremacy.
HA
Harry,
Just a word of caution…
This “globalization” sounds very extreme to me. Yes, white supremacy is alive and well - which is a disgrace! - but it is also imperative to keep in mind that not all whites are white supremacists or racists. It’s also wise to remember that racism is a social disease that is contracted by some people of any color, not all people of one certain color. To “globalize” racism around white people only would be a travesti to observable facts. It’s racism that needs to be eliminated, not the white people…
option 3 - You are looking at this issue through the narrow lens of your own generalizations.
How about that one?
In any aspect of that “system” you tend to ignore the context of representational majority as it relates to the developed word that it represents. Most of these people are not there because their grandfathers owned slaves and exploited black labor. They are there because they grew up in circumstances they wanted to change, and they are better at organizing people than an average bloke. So, most of their wealth and influence is in the organizational skills… the same as the wealth and influence of the Adventist church structure, since people merely join together to produce.
They have nothing apart from their organization. Elon Musk actually made a point about it as he sold most of his stuff, and he rents an apartment now. His wealth is in the organization. And if you think he will intentionally keep black engineers from working at Tesla because he’s black… you need more thinking to do. This isn’t 1950s. Racism actually hurts the bottom line if racists ignore competent people, and hire incompetent just to support their views.
Your assumptions simply don’t work in context of reality. The only way these work if in fact you are refer to the poor population that does need help, but you would be shifting categories to a dimension that would be apples and oranges. You can’t compare educated white people to uneducated black people. It’s absurd comparison. We can certainly discuss why they are uneducated, but that’s not a problem bound to race.
Likewise, when you focus on White Supremacy, you are unintentionally make “white people” to be the measure of all things. 
Your view seems to be… since I don’t have something, and then other people do… then it’s injustice. But no one prohibits you in this day and age to get out and learn, or work and accumulate. That’s the only way to resolve these difference. Become entrepreneur, like many of people are. Hire minorities. Empower people.
No, you won’t be Jeff Bezos… but, guess what… neither will I, and neither will be the rest of the white population, many of which have substantially different worldview and aspirations. So, let’s not consolidate “whiteness” under those who tend to rise to the top due to circumstances that are not available to all, and most of the people wouln’t want.
Pointing finger at a person like Jeff Bezos and screaming “White Supremacy”… is incredibly ignorant.
Thanks, @GeorgeTichy.
You said:
In response:
I appreciate the counsel.
However, as this forum will close in about 20 minutes, here’s what I’ll say:
I think I would agree with your impetus, because I agree that “It’s racism that needs to be eliminated, not the white people.”
However, I don’t agree that racism “is contracted by some people of any color,” because I believe that racism is white supremacy, and that this is its only functional form.
HA
Thanks, @Arkdrey:
You said:
In response:
“That one” is vague, and would need more definition for me to qualify it.
IOW, you’d have to detail “the narrow lens of [my] own generalizations,” then show how those details apply in this instance.
One of my generalizations could be, for example, that, “It’s always a good time for ice cream!” Of what are you speaking?
You said:
In response:
I addressed this already, last summer, during our exchange, when I spoke about how Western wealth is based on slavery—slavery being a topic I felt I had to address because you kept bringing it up.
It’s almost as though you’re saying, “If I run a criminal cartel, but I send my children to Harvard, when they inherit my fortune, you can’t put a lien on their estates.” Poppycock.
You said:
In response:
This is simplistic. If you want my view, quote me. Summarization typically doesn’t work when one uses language as specifically as I do.
You said:
In response:
Then don’t do it.
HA
I don’t. That’s what you end up inadvertently doing, because you are certainly not pointing to the lower-class people living in trailer parks of West Virginia, or the lower-class population of Ukraine which would switch with you right this moment and assume your skin color, history of oppression and all.
And that ironically reveals your true colors, and I’m not talking about the color of your skin.
I am sorry Harry, but that definition of “racism” is narrow, biased, and directed against only one race, It sounds like a racist statement in itself. Are you saying that racism is “a white thing,” that a black person - or any color for the matter - cannot be a racist?
Racism does not have a “color.” It is a malaise that anyone can contract, or be brainwashed into it. Trying to make it a “one color fits all”… would be a very racist attempt in itself!
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