Featured Will America Survive?

Nope. Wrong again. As I've said plenty of times, if I want to say it, people will read it on the page. I don't have any problem at all saying that there are racially prejudiced individuals on BB. Racism is a very specific action. Might some on here demonstrate racist tendencies? YEP.

Nope yet again. It's not a lack of empathy. It's straight wickedness and a lack of humility that has hardened hearts to the point folks can't even acknowledge what white people did to Native Americans, Blacks, and a whole lot of others in the history of this country.

You can reject it all you want to. It's not gonna change the fact that , just as you did, and just as a whole lot of folks on here have done, you can't admit that as a white person, you have benefited from this country's history of slavery. And you almost immediately go to "I didn't own any slaves".

What about you who are mixed race? We're talking about the fact that white people have benefited from slavery. Do you look Black? White? More one than the other? What do the cops say when they pull you over?

Ask the police.

What authority are you talking about?

 

Zaac, I had a large part that I "snipped" because I don't think it would matter to you, and wouldn't serve any purpose other than to make you think we are all in denial.

Let me give you a bit of history from MY day in hope that you will glean a bit of understanding of a different perspective. I am not asking you to accept, but to merely comprehend.

Rosa Parks was the second person to refuse to give up the seat. The first was a girl named Claudette Colvin. However, the community couldn't use her for the test case before the court because of her attitude and push back. The community had to wait on Rosa Parks. The court case was successful because the focus wasn't on attitude, or push back, but upon the injustice. What a victory. One of many that MY generation endorsed and brought change.

But, what has been the response from all the release from Jim Crow laws and other oppression? Rudeness, anarchy, violence, suspicion, ... Not just from Blacks, but all races.

Zaac, I take a bit of offense at your posts on this thread, certainly.

But I need you to remember that for many folks in MY generation, it seems that for all the work we did to get this nation turned toward equality and respect for one another, all that was given back has been hatred and violence, even friendships are "don't get too close, some others may think I am too white." Many of us initially excused that response considering that it was because it would take a while for the pendulum of injustice to stop swinging. We figured that economically, socially, morally, and for the betterment of all Americans would have that "great society" (as LBJ labeled it), and we could display this nation as "a shining light set upon a hill" (Reagan) example to the world. It is sad, and totally folly what the results have been.

My generation endorsed quotas to compensate for the past. We endorsed busing so children would grow up respecting each other. We endorsed business changing hiring practices to give minorities the edge, and provide advancement opportunities above all others. We endorsed changes in law that would allow unrestricted access to not just voting, but to strike down all the Jim Crow type laws. MY generation did all that. What has been the result after 50 years? Is the social fabric of the all the Americas (both north, south and central) any better? What of that international example - is it shining? Not really.

For example:
The state that had the most Jim Crow laws in the early 60's was California. So what is the change of just that state? What is the current attitude of the communities in L.A or San Fransisco? Are they peaceful, and well mannered, each neighbor helping the other for the betterment of all?

You want to blame white, but the blame lays at the door of all.

My generation tried, and, to me, there is little to show for the lives and efforts given.

Folks still blame all those whity's. It is their honky fault that "we" are so oppressed and don't have advantages.

I will be very plain spoken using "you" as manner to include anyone who isn't white:

You don't know disadvantage. You look back at old news videos and bubble over with hate thinking it was done to you. You haven't lived disadvantage, for you can walk into any store, sit at any counter, get served, and enjoy the same food as those around you. You never experienced true disadvantage, for you can use the restroom that everyone else does, go to the school of your choice and be given the same supplies, you can walk the streets at night and are not barred from owning property in any neighborhood.

You never struggled like MY generation did against institutional and cultural injustice. If you had, then you would be able to understand the journey, and not see the injustice, but catch that vision of the opportunity and the struggle for success that is there for all. Sure, one may experience set backs, but no journey to true success is one of ease.

You would also understand and teach others that Malcom X types are not hero's, but thugs that appealed to the KKK for support to that the nation be divided into two so Blacks could have their own country. The same attitude that some Hispanics, Arabs, and others have in this day.

Racist isn't just white, it is every culture, and color of skin has little to do with success or failure.

 

Yep. It's sure wickedness that the Comanches don't "acknowledge' what they did to white captives-- raping and mutilating them, and some they tied naked to 4 stakes for the hands and feet, over a large ant bed in the desert, then finally cut their eyelids off... no choice but to let the sun blind them as they were eaten by thousand of tiny critters. Or the Apaches-- they treated captives the same, and some they 'executed' by their favorite method... tying them head downward over a fire. And then in the Miami riots in the 90's-- that family from New York, on vacation, knowing nothing of the back teen who was killed by a hispanic cop who said he pointed a gun when told to stop playing Pacman.. they took a wrong turn and found themselves in the middle of the burning and destruction, and the thugs dragged them out of their car and then took the car and ran them over with it.

There's a lot of ACKNOWLEDGMENT that needs to be done. How much of it is yours, tw?

 

I might sound stupid here, but what Nation is not in any Biblical reference ? If you are talking about America they exist for some 250 years so i do not see how could they be mentioned anywhere as a Nation. maybe i did not understand well, if i didn't, i am very sorry.
Another thing is US citizens are just mix of several nations. We all know history, so you cannot really say they are a nation in general terms. A bunch of unwanted people from England were sent to the continent to claim it, obviously. So they start ruining it, killing the indigenous people and settling like any other normal British fellow would do. Half of European countries have sent people there. And then slaves from Africa made it even a bigger mix. I went to far with this so i would like to understand the things you wanted to explain with your post. I believe they shouldn't survive because they are destroying the planet as we know it.

 

Wow! What a skewed and evil post. Americans should not survive because we are destroying the planet? Further you do not know American history at all. Not sure where a young fella like yourself gets that kind of garbage but you need to get it somewhere reliable.

 

agedman, I am well aware of Rosa Parks and Claudette Covin. There has been no release from Jim Crow laws and other oppression. It just took another form that folks can legally get away with. That's why we now have the majority legally racially profiling and creating a prison industrial complex that starts with labeling black youth in school and disciplining them much more harshly than their white counterparts. When you set up a system that polices black men differently and ends up removing hundreds of thousands of them from homes, and then label the kids as problem kids and troublemakers much more often than their counterparts, is there any question why there are discipline issues?

Lee Atwater spelled it out several decades ago. When you continue to treat folks like dogs, then don't be surprised when they start to bite. There was no release except on paper. Meanwhile the powers that be have successfully re-enslaved black men while keeping Blacks economically disadvantaged.

This shouldn't be news. Again Atwater spelled out the strategy years ago.

And no one discounts what your generation did. But your generation needs to stop acting as though you FIXED the problem and it was suddenly no more. You got folks to recognize that there was a problem. That recognition has since eroded as the average white person believes that there aren't any skin color inequalities no matter how many studies are completed. You can't even get the average white person to acknowledge that they have significantly benefited from slavery and being white in a white dominant society.

And here again is something a lot of non-people of color seem to have a difficult time comprehending. I'm not sure if it's because a lot of folks don't have any REAL friends of color or spend any time in those communities. but I forget who made the comment and it was spot on. It said something like "You can't economically, socially and physically enslave and mistreat, malign, marginalize and undervalue folks for 400 years and then think you're going to undo all the inequities in 50 years".

It's not happening. In fact, the economic gap has gotten larger. But again, the average white person doesn't think they have been given any advantages or received any benefits from the 400 year head start. It's ridiculously arrogant and has nothing to do with whether or not you personally owned slaves.

I didn't blame anyone for anything. I stated as I have before: White people today have benefited from the effects of nearly 400 years of slavery and Jim Crow in this country. It's a fact. White people don't have to THINK they had any benefit from it, but they did.

 

Again, I say thank you to your generation and what you did move forward. But moving forward doesn't mean the issues were resolved and they certainly were not. So don't act like folks who are seeing the same type of atrocities today that their relatives saw in the 50s, 60s and 70s( but which have been legalized because , i.e., the cops don't have to participate in hanging someone from a tree or dragging them behind a truck, but can now choke them to death or shoot them 16 times, or shoot them in the back, etc, and there not be any due process, let alone justice because they are attached at the hip to judges and prosecutors) have any reason to be sitting back and lauding your efforts when they are experiencing the very same things from your generation and in a much more sophisticated manner. Again, just listen to what Lee Atwater said.

Oh there's plenty of blame to go on the folks in the communities. But hear me when I tell you, the majority of people of color are taught in school by white people. Those white teachers, in many instances, have no idea what those kids are experiencing. Yet they get to discipline them and nationwide, you see a suspension and expulsion rate of students of color that is three times that of their white counterparts. You see a rate of these students placed in "special education" classes that far exceeds their white counterparts. They en mass, end up with their educational and social development stifled while their access to higher education opportunities, quickly fall to the wayside.

Label a kid as special and you'll get low teacher expectation and a much lower instruction that overall disadvantages these kids of color economically for a lifetime. Why? Because when these kids get placed in special education classes or get labeled as troublemakers, it follows them and often times leads to dropouts, arrests, lower employment opportunities and other economic opportunities.

Couple that with the racial profiling, and the fact that the majority holds the keys to nearly every opportunity in this country, and you get a group of people who are oppressed and not treated like their counterparts. You get a group of people who have an unemployment rate that has CONSISTENTLY hovered at more than twice the unemployment rate of their white counterparts.


Oh yeah, there's a lot of blame to go around. But again, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that after a 400 year headstart, there are gonna be some disparities. But it does take someone sticking his head in the ground, after what you say your generation did, to think that, with every measure of well-being showing the gap widening instead of decreasing between whites and their people- of -color counterparts, that there isn't something severely wrong. And that the folks being murdered by taxpayer manned police forces ( and who have an average median household wealth of about $7100 in comparison to a median household wealth of about $111,000 for their white counterparts) and who are constantly being told that white folks today haven't benefited from nearly 400 years of slavery and Jim Crow, have every reason to be rude and angry at the folks in charge of everything who continue to think that everything is just fine and there isn't a racism and racial prejudice problem in this country.

In the words of my granddaddy: Pure bovine skeptology. Too many from your generation think that because you fought for certain things in your generation and got some legislation changed, that Jim Crow is gone. As I've said plenty of times before and Lee Atwater, again, plainly laid out, Jim Crow's better dressed cousin, James Crow, Esq., got himself a law degree and a position in the state and national legislatures.

Again, no one is taking anything away from your generation. But for all you got changed( and I'm using "you" to include you and other white people of your generation), you don't walk into a store and people treat you as though you've stolen something. You can wear whatever you want and walk down the street and not have to worry about folks shooting you because of what you're wearing and they think you "looked" suspicious. You can get pulled over by a police officer and not think this may be the end of your life. You can send your kids out without telling them this is how you act if a police officer pulls you over. You can expect your kids to graduate from high school and college and get a decent job whereby they buy a house and accumulate wealth. You can expect to not see in the news week after week, day after day another you unarmed and murdered by police officers.

So don't think that because your generation FIXED some stuff, that a whole new set of more sophisticated disadvantages didn't pop up. It's the new institutionalized disadvantages EXERCISED by you that makes racial prejudice into racism.

I call this too much living in the past and discounting the disadvantages of today because they don't look like what you "FIXED" yesterday.

And you would also do well to teach others that the Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'reilly Fox News types aren't docile commentators, but as dangerous as the KKK in creating a divide in the nation.

Has nothing to do with what I quoted about Whites benefiting from slavery.

 

As for folks like HAMel, as a follower of Jesus Christ, I don't give a flying flip for whom you and those in your community have no use. Your attitude and those in your community who share the attitude continues to be one of Biblical hate.

Racially prejudiced and racist white folks are too busy disavowing any blame and finding candidates who represent their TRUE VALUES, while looking nothing like Christ, in exchange for their votes. THAT is what's really sad because it continues to be a testimony that you and folks in your community like you continue to hold this unBiblical view of having no use for folks who don't share your political views. So attempt to rebuild your Roman Empire through politics. It too will bow at the feet of Jesus.

 

A big hearty AMEN!!!

I believe God blessed this nation so that she could afford to send missionaries around the globe and share the Gospel. But when it gets to the point where even God's people grow cold and show more concern and love for their stuff that they want to keep or pass down to their kids and grandkids, and their politics that allows them to keep more of their stuff or pass down to their kids and grandkids, then I EARNESTLY pray that God removes us from the picture and destroys this wicked country and what its wealth has come to represent so that we are no longer a stumbling block to those He intends to save.

It's nothing but out of control wickedness that will not repent because it's only concern is self.

 

Zaac, at times you sound fairly rational and talk common sense, but most of the time you are answering questions that have never been asked, and begin your hate filled rant from that point; usually about some past discrimination of blacks

You have this fixation with the past and seem to think that if you chastise Christians and blanketing all "old white men who are wicked" for not believing your version of "TRUTH", then somehow that will change the past.

Zaac, the past is just that---PAST!!! Nothing you do or say will alter that fact. GET OVER IT!

You say that you appreciate what "whites" have done to eliminate all the past discrimination, and in the same breath complain that "whites" have not done enough!? Schools were desegregated, IIRC, in 1954, some 60+ years ago. (How much time is necessary ??) Some blacks took advantage of that and became quite successful, but today those same blacks are "UNCLE TOMs" and, in the words of a black call in on a talk show, a few years back, these types aren't "BLACK ENOUGH"! What more, specifically, do you think "whites" need to do to satisfy YOUR perception of fairness/equality??

You know, if you have a shower that isn't working, you call a plumber for repairs. Once he repairs the shower, it's up to YOU to utilize that shower. He is not going to come back every time you want to shower and turn it on for you. The individual ABSOLUTELY NEEDS to assume some level of personal responsibility for his actions. (Yeah, I know; that R word is an anathema to liberals.Rolleyes)

IOW, once the opportunity is available for blacks to play on a level plane, it's up to each individual
black to take advantage of that opportunity. The past is no longer relevant - SNIP

I am still praying for the demons you have to be crushed, and hope you can/will let the past be the
past while trying to improve the future.

 

you don't have a clue.

Good. Hopefully I want have to hear from you again when I respond to your threads.

 

You and yours sound pretty hateful because yall think if anybody mentions slavery and what white people did , it's because they hate white people. Sounds rather childish.

And some of yall have an aversion to the past. The past gives wonderful testimony of the very same things that some of ya are doing today. You sound like you just might be a little upset that yall's behavior isn't original.

Nope. As long as one group is benefiting from the past and everyone else is continuing to suffer, then I'll continue to address the wickedness.

,

NO, I did not.

You're confused.

Like I said, White America got nearly 400 years of slavery and Jim Crow and you're whining because you think 60 years have undone that while the same mindset that enslaved and instituted Jim Crow is still at work. Pure foolishness. But that's par for the course from you.

Pipes got a whole lot of holes in it. The pipe was also diverted.

SNIP

You can save your prayers for me. I don't need anyone mired in the devil's wickedness praying for me.

 

Zaac sez: "You can save your prayers for me. I don't need anyone mired in the devil's wickedness praying for me."

Thanks for your judgment re: my faith!!

I can tell that you are a true channel of the Holy Spirit!!!

(It's obvious that you have issues far worse than I thought , so, I am still going to be praying for you whether you "NEED" it or not, so just get over it! )

 

I'll gladly rightly judge the wickedness you display. I haven't asked you about your faith.

I can tell based upon things you've said before that I wouldn't trust ANYTHING you say.

And shall the Holy Spirit bring you to repentance for your own wickedness first.