Jump to content

Our Commitment To The Black Lives Matter Movement


Recommended Posts

1 minute ago, JimF-LowBari said:

I googled and see your point.... at this point in my life I’m happy to discuss my POV in a calm way and hopefully get people to take a deeper look at their own options and/or feelings. Have seen a totally anti-gay person learn that “they” did not turn her brother gay. So there is hope...

It takes understanding on both sides.  Avoiding assumptions and generalizations, not ascribing motivations, withholding judgements, avoiding over-simplifications and broad-brushes.   Treating people as individuals rather than stereotypes.  Unlike running around shouting platitudes and attacking everyone who fails to check the box we think they should, it takes humility, compassion, and work.  

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, skevinp said:

It takes understanding on both sides.  Avoiding assumptions and generalizations, not ascribing motivations, withholding judgements, avoiding over-simplifications and broad-brushes.   Treating people as individuals rather than stereotypes.  Unlike running around shouting platitudes and attacking everyone who fails to check the box we think they should, it takes humility, compassion, and work.  

If you see any of the bad you mentioned in my posts let me know where. I worked with a segregationalist and actually listened to some of his guff. More out of curiosity than anything else but we did have some talks. By the time I transferred I felt more sorry for him than anything else as found out how bad his upbringing was. As it turned out he passed from Alzheimer’s at 61 and appears some of his anger was from early onset

Edited by JimF-LowBari
Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, N.E. Brigand said:

To get back to the original topic: I applaud the Scouts and other corps for publicly commiting to striving further for equality, but I am but I a mindful of criticism that suggests that most of what people are doing is just window dressing for the real problem, or as one columnist wrote:

"We have very strong evidence that racism has been a major factor in shaping our stingy welfare state, our weak labor unions, and our hyper-local education and land use institutions, and what we’re getting is corporate sensitivity seminars and Juneteenth as a white collar day off."

He offers these studies as examples of how racism underlies many of our systmes:

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/7/25/20703660/school-segregation-district-borders-map-data

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2019/10/08/restrictive-zoning-is-impeding-dcs-goal-to-build-more-housing/

The writer then makes it personal by pointing to his own family history:

"There’s been a surge of interest in information about the postwar structure of racialized wealth building in the midcentury United States, but I think a lot of people aren’t really understanding:

Back in the 1940s and 1950s, my grandfathers (one Jewish, one Cuban) faced a lot of racism in the sense of interpersonal hostility from bigoted people. Much worse stuff than anyone would say today. But legally speaking they were both white. And that mattered!

As white people, they benefitted in a formal, programmatic sense from the postwar welfare state. People could call them names or slurs or make them feel unwelcome or whatever else they wanted. Nobody could take away their GI benefits or subsidized mortgages. They were white!

With the arm of the state on their side in concrete, material ways they — like millions of other Jewish or Catholic families — were able to raise their living standards and shove their way into the American mainstream despite lots of people being [expletives] to them.

That was the privilege they enjoyed as white people, not immunity from [expletives] but legal entitlement to specific kinds of benefits. Benefits that others were excluded from. And that’s what people need today — tangible things they’ve been denied."

- - - - - - - - - -

And to make it personal for myself, in this case regarding the idea that "hyper-local education" is an example of racism: I lived in Cleveland and attended Cleveland's public schools until the spring of 1980, when my mother moved us to a suburb. Why did we move? Because a judge had ruled, quite correctly, that the Cleveland school system was segregated on the basis of race, and that the schools in the predominantly black neighborhoods weren't delivering as good an education as the schools in the predominantly white neighborhoods. His remedy was to require busing: students would be bused to schools outside their neighborhoods so that racial mix in each school would appoximate that of the city as a whole.

But what was the actual result of his ruling? White flight: people moved to the suburbs. And apparently the judge didn't have the authority to require busing between school districts, or for some reason he didn't want to impose on the suburbs. But Cleveland schools, already struggling, plummeted in quality as the families who could afford to move out did so.

My mother said that we moved because she didn't want us to spend an hour or more each day on a bus, or to have to travel far from where we lived. (As a first grader, just six years old, I would walk the ten minutes each way to and from school, by myself. Imagine letting kids do that today! And crime was far worse in the 1970s and 1980s than it is now.) I'm not saying that my mother's motives were racist. I am saying that regardless of her reasons, she was contributing to the problem by moving us away. She was encouraging systemic racism to continue.

- - - - - - - - - -

Edit: let me add to this point: "regardless of her reasons, she was contributing to the problem".

In the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion training seminars we've been taking where I work, it's been noted several times that people are very defensive about their actions being described as racist, in ways that they never would be in other situations.

If you're driving and you accidentally hit a pedestrian, you'd never say things like, "I'm not biased against pedestrians! Some of my best friends are pedestrians. I'm married to a pedestrian!" And while it's good to feel remorse for striking a pedestrian with a car, it's also not the most important issue. What matters are that the injured person get medical attention and be compensated for damages.

I think many of us would agree with your contention that, regardless of her reasons, your mother contributed something to the problem.  😂 

  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I had thought that in the past 20 years DCI had done a pretty good job providing a safe space for minority marchers. I know that they have made many LGBT people welcome in corps and has been a safe space for that community. I can only gauge outreach to the black community by looking at the # of African Americans marching and it seems to have dropped slightly the last few years based on a casual glance. I had thought DCI made a positive impact in the community. I now realize that DCI has wronged marchers of different backgrounds and that most corps felt that they needed to apalogize I am not sure what they apolagized for but if they had to do that they must have done something wrong. I know that they have police at most events which may be traumatiic to some members and unsettle them, yet the police are present at most events. They force the members to go to Atlanta every year which was a big center of commerce for the confederacy and that must bring painful memories to marchers who have to realize that the people on the statues that torture them once lived in that city.   I had planned on giving more to DCI this year and next and had planned on volunteering. However since they work with the police who traumatize so many young people I will have to find some other place to help out.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, Continental said:

I've eaten at Chick fil a once - in Atlanta at the Hartsfield-Jackson airport.

I know it's airport food but I was hungry.  A got one of their "biscuits" as part of my order and it tasted like wet drywall.    

Wondering how you know what wet drywall tastes like.     🤔   

  • Haha 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, totaleefree said:

I had thought that in the past 20 years DCI had done a pretty good job providing a safe space for minority marchers. I know that they have made many LGBT people welcome in corps and has been a safe space for that community. I can only gauge outreach to the black community by looking at the # of African Americans marching and it seems to have dropped slightly the last few years based on a casual glance. I had thought DCI made a positive impact in the community. I now realize that DCI has wronged marchers of different backgrounds and that most corps felt that they needed to apalogize I am not sure what they apolagized for but if they had to do that they must have done something wrong. I know that they have police at most events which may be traumatiic to some members and unsettle them, yet the police are present at most events. They force the members to go to Atlanta every year which was a big center of commerce for the confederacy and that must bring painful memories to marchers who have to realize that the people on the statues that torture them once lived in that city.   I had planned on giving more to DCI this year and next and had planned on volunteering. However since they work with the police who traumatize so many young people I will have to find some other place to help out.

So when I said my curiosity about boycotting behaviors might be relevant to the drum corps activity, I was not aware how quickly that would prove out.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, cixelsyd said:

So when I said my curiosity about boycotting behaviors might be relevant to the drum corps activity, I was not aware how quickly that would prove out.

So much to say about the poster you responded to.  

Yet one single post has you thinking "how quickly that would prove out."

Edited by Continental
  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

43 minutes ago, Continental said:

So much to say about the poster you responded to.  

Yet one single post has you thinking "how quickly that would prove out."

So much to say about the poster I responded to.

Yet you only replied to my post.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 hours ago, N.E. Brigand said:

(And of course, lots of problems have indeed been fixed by government action, which is often taken because of public outcry.)

For instance, in 1964, the federal government passed the Civil Rights Act, which outlawed discrimination in a wide variety of circumstances. Lots of problems were solved. No more "whites only" services, for example.

But here's a funny twist: one segregationist congressman tried to block the bill's passage by inserting language into Title VII, the section that makes it illegal to discriminate in the workplace. As originally drafted, the bill banned employers from discriminating on the basis of race, religion, or national origin. The congressman asked that "sex" be included as one of the categories that employers couldn't use to discriminate. He requested that change as a poison pill, because the people who wanted to end racial discrimination at the workplace were not unified on ending sexual discrimination in the workplace. But in the end, the language stayed and the bill passed.

And 56 years later, the inclusion of that word made possible today's 6-3 decision at the Supreme Court, forbidding companies to discriminate against employees who are gay or transgender.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...