Wow. Just wow.
I sense the analogy of an arsonist fireman is apropos here, but I’ll be the first to be moot, since i can’t help being so dumb and white.
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Black people were dragged from their homes in Africa and brought to America where they were abused socially, emotionally, physically and economically for hundreds of years while living with their abusers. Then, without any therapy and little to no financial support, they were given their freedom on paper and told to go make a life for themselves and their children. As they were attempting to do so, laws were put in place to keep them down in all aspects of life or to and prevent them from succeeding and from being treated with dignity and equality. An attempt was made on paper with the passing of civil rights laws less than 80 years for them to be treated as human beings. However, this has by no means resulted in the change of attitudes of millions if not most, of the oppressors and their children.
Someone on this forum have the audacity to make this comment “It seems that blacks should be the ones who believe other black lives matter too. There are bigger issues to deal with. fatherless homes abortion, education. You can’t blame all the issues facing the black community on pigmentation.” I wonder if this person had daugthers who were repeatedly raped and provided little or no therapy and support were told to go and make the best of life for themselves, would conclude that your daughters’ promiscuity, lack of ability to form permanent relationships, anger, and other behaviors associated with rape victims had nothing to do with their history.
As a person not born in this country, my impression of the ongoing comments about race on this forum has led me to conclude that too many, if not most, non black Americans are
-ignorant or in denial of the history of blacks
- lack sensitivity to the pain of the black community;
- are more concerned about semantics than the pain of black people,
- want to tell blacks, the victims, how to feel about the pain that has been inflicted on them for hundreds of years;
- are more concerned about the few who are violent protesters than the thousands who are protesting peacefully (as if the violence by few should be reason to ignore the cry and pain of an entire community and ignoring the fact that in most movements for positive changes there have always been counter movements to discredit the ones for positive changes, eg the Protestant Reformation);
- offer condemnation as opposed to compassion; and
- ignoring what Jesus did and would’ve done for people who were marginalized and oppressed (While on earth He offered hope not condemnation).
After reading the article by Ms Ray, I was expecting most of the responses to reflect empathy, sensitivity, sympathy, hopefulness for change, and understanding. Unfortunately, this was not the case. If we can’t get people on a forum who profess to be followers of Christ to show that they care about the pain of the oppressed then what expectation should I have of non Christians?
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Oh Beverly-
this very statement disregards the historical fact that racism sprang from black on black tribalism, and bruhs sold bruhs into servitude-and not until the world solidified its fight against the older (1500’s) Barbary coast history (the white slaves here are never mentioned, nor the later Irish, and other nationalites)
It is unfortunate that the black on black crime of original African slavery and the black on white slavery is always dismissed-despite it was flourishing long before the Mayflower was a twinkle in Captain Jones eye.
Rewriting history assures we will repeat it.
The mobius strip of discrimination goes back to the chief and original sin-
Adam the Greater blaming Eve the lesser-and Godhimself, for making an inferior being like HER. Women are STILL, unfortunately, enslaved on any number of levels, worldwide.
White on black discrimination is the new kid on the block.
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Please help me understand that you are NOT saying, that because evil has always existed, exists now, we can’t do anything about it, therefore we should quit whining about it.
Thats what it sounds like to my simple mind.
I think prejudice and racism (whatever color you choose) exists because fear of the “other” exists.
Maybe the first thing we ALL should do is get on our knees and ask Jesus, “Lord, is it I”?
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Not at all. But to repeat what has been done before “to do something about it”
starts with blame assignation on the chosen “other” we’re actually completely failing to do something about it.
It is waht it is-it’s here, question remains what are we doing in our own sphere, in our daily grind, to change it.
Identity politics was spawned in the garden, in the shadow of the apple tree-
and ever since man has been
husband against wife
brother against brother
native against stranger
owner vs vagrant
arab vs jew
color vs color
etc ad nauseum
when in fact even “race” is a construct.
We are one race, with One Father.
However, like orphans, we are merely fighting to be at the seat closest to daddy, and using tactics that begin with attacking our fellow kin, err, orphans
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Wow. Just wow.
As @bvj_01’s eloquent post suggests, @Timo, you should not have stopped reading at the word mute.
The last part of my post says, “You also need to become more sophisticated on racial matters.” It never fails that what you, particularly, write often becomes the very example of that to which I, now we, vehemently object.
Since you are still trying the hoary trick of being an apologist for the transatlantic slave trade—by saying that, on the African continent, conquered peoples were sold to Europeans by their captors—I’d challenge you to find just one ship, stuffed to the gills with captive Fon, that was piloted and docked by a Beninese sailor, under their flag, in the so-called New World; you know: the people you dismissively and racistly demean as “bruhs.”
Here’s a hint: You cannot.
This should tell you something about the nature of the European slave trade that is significant, but that may have whizzed past you: The awesome infrastructural machine that 15th and 16th century white people created, in order to dehumanize Africans, was a wholly different apparatus from the cultural practices of native, warring groups.
The white slave machine was, to use a biological term, a kleptoparasite, like cuckoo bees are, or the great skua is. To quote Wikipedia:
Kleptoparasitism [a] (etymologically, parasitism by theft) is a form of feeding in which one animal takes prey or other food that was caught, collected, or otherwise prepared by another animal, including stored food.
So, while you may think you have sagely captured Beverly Joseph’s first sentence and refuted it, with your patronizing, “Oh, Beverly…”
… the Yoruba did not do anything she describes.
The White Supremacists did.
HA
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Ditto!!! It is obvious that there are still too many people insensitive to very sensitive issues. Let alone those who keep throwing gasoline in the fire.
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One race, with One father.
If you are against me, you are against Him.
If you are against me based on skin color,
you are against yourself.
How was that, “love your brother as yourself?”
So that then I know you love Me?
Naw, we’ve all failed-
but claiming someone else failed worse than you didn’t work for Adam, either.
Carry on. Hate on a color that makes green, makes me red.
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This is the link to the article and within the article there is a link to the cdc raw data and tables…if you have the stomach for 75 pages of data tables lol
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Thank you, appreciated.
I learned a long time ago from a very wise man to step aside
if someone too vehemently projects his strain against me personally.
And to read between the lines.
Please don’t fall over when I do.
I’ll leave your “WE” comment alone.
Had a professor once who would ask
“are speaking for the mouse in your pocket?”
Never forgot that.
Be well, Harry-I appreciate you -
–perhaps more than you dare acknowledge.
Beverly, women have been oppressed for thousands of years-in an ongoing manner on virtually every level. Oppression on something as superficial as pigment, as compared, to say, gender, is, well, how can I say this without being oppressive, pales in comparison.
I think you may misunderstand some of us who push back at the present codependent societal headrush to -what, some undefined, nebulous retribution/reparation/ even vengeance?
Accepting-and making excuses for misbehavior in the “protests” (even blaming the paler society of being the reason for black on black crime, fatherlessness, crime, etc etc) is the cloy icing.
It’s enough to make an empath clam up
Was that wise man talking about others doing that…over something that you’d written?
If he was as wise as you suggest, I doubt it.
???
Of course, you will.
Did your professor have friends, or colleagues?
I would never speak about your thoughts.
HA
Rrrrrrrrrrriiiiight.
I was more moved when Queen said it:
Also: Humans are not a “race.” We are a species. There are no “races of birds,” or “bird race,” for example.
In Exodus 14, the Israelites, led by Moses, are camping at Pi Hahiroth, opposite Baal Zephon, when, suddenly, they look behind them and see the armies of Egypt in hot pursuit.
Ramses, who’d let them go, had changed his mind, and was coming back to claim his property.
The Jews are terrified, and begin to complain to Moses. So, in verses 13-14, Moses gets up and makes a speech:
Moses answered the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.”
Good words. So, how does the Lord respond?
He says, “Why are you crying out to me?”
It’s a unique, and powerful, critique. In other words, at the moment Moses should be acting, he’s speechifying.
Or as Syndrome, from 2004’s The Incredibles would put it, “monologuing.” 
Said another way, there are definitively times to pray, and there are definitively times to act.
White people love to call on God after they’ve grotesquely cornered themselves, or otherwise said or done something massively transgressive. Hence the frequent thought experiment: “Could God forgive Hitler?”
Now, the caveat is that, in the Bible, God invites us to do this, over and over. However, he does this so that we may remove our sin before Him, not to delete the transgressional debt between us and others.
You may be sinless before God, but still have to return what you’ve stolen, four-fold.
Your wack poetry, @Timo, does not eliminate the need for a sensible grappling with the sin of racism, or the owed debt for it. You’ve performed neither, here.
Mentioning God’s name, like Moses, at convenient moments, doesn’t cut it, either.
God himself says, in Isaiah 1:12-15:
When you come to appear before me,
who has asked this of you,
this trampling of my courts?
Stop bringing meaningless offerings!
Your incense is detestable to me.
New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations—
I cannot bear your worthless assemblies.
Your New Moon feasts and your appointed festivals
I hate with all my being.
They have become a burden to me;
I am weary of bearing them.
When you spread out your hands in prayer,
I hide my eyes from you;
even when you offer many prayers,
I am not listening.
Your hands are full of blood!
Then, in verse 17, He issues this quadratic command:
Seek justice.
Defend the oppressed.
Take up the cause of the fatherless.
Plead the case of the widow.
God doesn’t mock the 72% of Black babies without fathers, that @Yoyito brought up. He commands that we take up their cause.
Aside from Christ’s separation of the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25, there may be no more direct edict affirming that Black lives matter.
HA
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@elmer_cupino
Elmer,
I believe that those of us who dedicated our lives to help people manage their mental, emotional, and behavioral issues have an approach that is basically neutral regarding to culture, color of skin, religious beliefs, gender, etc.
Do you think that God, because He is perfect, actually has a perfectly neutral attitude/approach to this issue, that he deals with individuals without even considering those differences that imperfect humans keep holding on to?
WDYT?
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If you believe that a statement as “all lives matter” is dismissive, would you say that it is a false statement or a true statement?
Is the blm statement true or false?
If they are both true, how does one dismiss the other? If one dismisses the other then one could say that it is more true than the other and the weaker statement loses its desired value and outcome. When the statement addresses the value of certain humans but not all humans one could deduce that it favors said group over another. This is what leads to tribalism, favoritism of individuals and ethnic groups. This one reason many humans left homeland countries, so they had freedom and eventually the U.S. Constitution was developed.
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Thank you for sharing such a brilliantly balanced comment.
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Thank you. Appreciated.
Yes, we had this conversation here a while ago about almost all changes in US society are labeled Marxist. It seems to be a special US mentality.
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Thanks Kate, no worries on your concern about offending me. I’m not easily offended and I don’t take anyone expressing their Honest opinions as an attack and I’m sure you’re more that smart enough to express yourself. Part of the issues were facing come from not having the openness to say what we believe without being labeled as racist etc.
Not sure if I mentioned but I’m not white I’m Hispanic, family came here from Central America with literally nothing and my 5 brothers and sisters have made great lives for ourselves here. The key to this imho was 2 main factors, family and faith. Our parents never told us “this country is racist” “the system won’t let you succeed” “the deck is stacked against you” “beware the police they’re trying to kill us”. Thru poverty, an “unfair educational system” , gangs in our neighborhood etc we all made it thru. College educated, married, home owners, teachers nurses, An accountant. I see the opportunity minorities like us have in this country and maybe that’s why I believe that it’s in our power to be much mire than we are. And that includes African Americans. But if all they hear is how the “system” is not letting them succeed, they will not succeed as a whole.
I know this is a long post but if you’ve read this far, thank you 
I’ll try and wrap up. You said Me stating that 72% out of wedlock births is a blaming the victim. That implies they are victims…and that is ,for me, the main issue that I have with blm and many other racial change groups, they convince black people that they are victims in every area of their life. I’m not ignorant to the history of African American thru slavery, Jim Crow, etc. but fundamentally why are you where you are right now? You’re response will determine where you go. If we answer “because the system is racist” I don’t believe they’ll/we’ll succeed. I’ve researched this for a while and the out of wedlock birth rate for blacks in the US in the 60’s was near 25%. Would we say things were better for them before the civil right acts 1964? Another thing about me, I work for the welfare department, the fact that the government will give you money to raise your kids sounds like it’s helping, but actually enables irresponsible fathers. I don’t believe the rate is 72% because of the “system”. The Bible principle of the family as the core unit for a successful life is essential.
Lastly…I promise… the difficulty with the things you list is that they really are almost impossible to implement with actual policies/laws. And that’s where I also differ with blm. Name me a law that will make society more just and I will support that. But what law is going to stop a security guard from eyeing a minority? The system isn’t perfect, I want all people to feel like they matter. But I believe blm wants to make black people feel like white people dont care about them feel they don’t matter so they will gain their support and then gain the power they want. We hear every single incident of a police shooting a unarmed black man…not ever do we hear of when they shoot an unarmed white man, even though it happened to twice as many shots as blacks last year. This makes black people “feel” like they don’t matter because it’s all they see…if they saw positive stories of black pope le succeeding would they think this country was different? I believe so. Thanks if you made it this fay!
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That is a very good post. Thank you.
It sounds like you’re saying determination is what made you successful. That is good.
How can we help others with determination?
Where does that come from? Can it be transferred from one to another?
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