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While I agree that victimhood is an issue, I disagree that the democrats alone are perpetuating victimhood, or for that matter than all discrimination is gone,

by Aloha 11y ago

While I agree that victimhood is an issue, I disagree that the democrats alone are perpetuating victimhood, or for that matter than all discrimination is gone, and people are not honestly victims either. I'm going to use you as an example - you sir, are exceptional, you're a unicorn among men, you're aware of your limitations, of your status in the world you lived in, and yet moved beyond it, and went for the brass ring. Most people even with simply exceptional parents (skin color doesn't matter), can't do this - never mind the cultural bonds (dare I say submissiveness) that descends from over a century of slavery. Don't fall into the fallacy of assuming what you can do, anyone can do, not everyone has the chops for it, but you know, a significant minority of any community can, and they can lead the others theoretically to the promised land.

omegaworks 11y ago
>never mind the cultural bonds (dare I say submissiveness) that descends from over a century of slavery. You (and the parent) completely discount the structural deficiencies present in our society to this day. In the 50s and 60s with soldiers moving into the middle class on GI bill funding, banks systematically denied access to home loans to blacks looking to move in to suburban neighborhoods, literally trapping people in certain sections of the city. These were enormous infrastructural investments on the part of governments. Suburbs wouldn't exist without fast highway and expressway access to the urban core. Black neighborhoods were literally bifurcated to make way for these huge infrastructure projects. These broken and divided neighborhoods were left to rot. Nobody invests in a place politicians put first on the chopping block. We built these ghettos. This blight of a suburbia built on exclusion will continue to burden America for generations to come. We as a society continue to divest from education and funnel billions of dollars towards war and incarceration. With mandatory minimum sentencing and zero-tolerance punishments for minor drug possession we house 22 percent of the world's prison population; we have more of our citizens locked up then any other country on Earth. 1 in 3 black men are behind bars. This is a societal failure, and framing it as "failure of individual responsibility" is one of the most malicious distortions of reality one can muster.
- Aloha 11y ago
  No disagreement from me in any part - I don't disagree with you about institutionalized racism, not at all, but I also believe that accepting the role of the victim (until very recently) was (largely) the status quo (the acceptance of the status quo is the cultural bods I spoke of). The African American community only in the last 5 years has stood up and said simply "this state of affairs is neither fair nor right, and must change". I also agree with Mandatory minimums are a pox on our civil society as are things like offender registries and a the lack of real representation for the accused - our justice system is based around the idea of free and fair trials, and the punishment discharging the debt to society.
  - omegaworks 11y ago
    >only in the last 5 years has stood up and said simply "this state of affairs is neither fair nor right, and must change". I'm not sure what you're trying to stay here. The Civil Rights movement grew out of the 60s.
    - Aloha 11y ago
      I don't consider the historical civil rights movement and the black lives matter movement to be deeply linked, they had different goals, and different means of accomplishing those goals
- innocentoldguy 11y ago
  I agree that there is a societal aspect of it, but individual responsibility is the one thing each and every one of us has ultimate control over. You can whine about century-old affronts and complain about societal deficiencies for centuries to come, but the one thing that each of us can change today is our own personal behaviors. It isn't a malicious distortion. It is an alterable reality. Why not control what you can control first before you try to tame the impossible?
innocentoldguy 11y ago
Thank you for your reply, Aloha. Just to clarify, I didn't say the Democrat party was the only one perpetuating the notion of victimhood. Other organizations do as well, but the Democrat party are the biggest, in my opinion. Here's why I feel that way: The Democrats like to hoist around this big banner of Civil Rights and claim that it was them who brought equality to America in 1964, but this is a lie. The Democrats set civil rights back by almost 100 years. During the Reconstruction era, it was Republicans (Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner, in particular) who steamrolled Democrat president Andrew Johnson and got huge civil rights bills and the 14th Amendment passed over Johnson's veto. These Republicans granted the freedmen citizenship and the right to vote, much to the chagrin of the Democratic party. They also outlawed segregation, made it illegal to deny public services and amenities to the freedmen, and attempted to pay restitution to the freedmen in the form of 40 acres of land and enough money to build a house. The Democrats blocked that from happening though. Basically, the freed slaves were given every civil right that black people enjoy today back in the 1800s, but when the Republicans lost power in Congress, the Democrats took it all away. Some like to distance themselves from this history and claim that during the early 20th Century that the Democrats and Republicans switched roles, but this is also an attempt to rewrite the facts. In truth, Lyndon B. Johnson, a Democrat, did sign the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but the Democrats didn't want it, and it was only because of the Republicans in Congress that the act passed and became law. Ever since then, especially right before an election, you'll notice that it is the Democrats who race-bait and try to get everyone all stirred up again. It is Democrats who preach the false narrative that Republicans hate black people. In other words, they are using, as they always have, racial prejudices, or at least the illusion of such, to get votes. I was born in the 1960s, and I've seen a lot of Democrat candidates promise the moon to black voters, but I've never really seen them deliver. The state of equality between blacks and whites has largely gone unchanged. In my opinion, The Democrat party uses and abuses black people to get power. Please don't misunderstand. I know that Republicans have screwed things up too, and I know that there are segments of the nation where racial prejudices are still thriving. I'm simply giving my reasoning for calling out the Democrat party in my original post. If you'd like to discuss that further, or point out where I'm wrong, I'd be happy to have that discussion. The entire purpose of my original post was to open up a dialogue and offer some things to think about.

by Aloha 11y ago

omegaworks 11y ago

>never mind the cultural bonds (dare I say submissiveness) that descends from over a century of slavery. You (and the parent) completely discount the structural deficiencies present in our society to this day. In the 50s and 60s with soldiers moving into the middle class on GI bill funding, banks systematically denied access to home loans to blacks looking to move in to suburban neighborhoods, literally trapping people in certain sections of the city. These were enormous infrastructural investments on the part of governments. Suburbs wouldn't exist without fast highway and expressway access to the urban core. Black neighborhoods were literally bifurcated to make way for these huge infrastructure projects. These broken and divided neighborhoods were left to rot. Nobody invests in a place politicians put first on the chopping block. We built these ghettos. This blight of a suburbia built on exclusion will continue to burden America for generations to come. We as a society continue to divest from education and funnel billions of dollars towards war and incarceration. With mandatory minimum sentencing and zero-tolerance punishments for minor drug possession we house 22 percent of the world's prison population; we have more of our citizens locked up then any other country on Earth. 1 in 3 black men are behind bars. This is a societal failure, and framing it as "failure of individual responsibility" is one of the most malicious distortions of reality one can muster.

Aloha 11y ago
No disagreement from me in any part - I don't disagree with you about institutionalized racism, not at all, but I also believe that accepting the role of the victim (until very recently) was (largely) the status quo (the acceptance of the status quo is the cultural bods I spoke of). The African American community only in the last 5 years has stood up and said simply "this state of affairs is neither fair nor right, and must change". I also agree with Mandatory minimums are a pox on our civil society as are things like offender registries and a the lack of real representation for the accused - our justice system is based around the idea of free and fair trials, and the punishment discharging the debt to society.
- omegaworks 11y ago
  >only in the last 5 years has stood up and said simply "this state of affairs is neither fair nor right, and must change". I'm not sure what you're trying to stay here. The Civil Rights movement grew out of the 60s.
  - Aloha 11y ago
    I don't consider the historical civil rights movement and the black lives matter movement to be deeply linked, they had different goals, and different means of accomplishing those goals
innocentoldguy 11y ago
I agree that there is a societal aspect of it, but individual responsibility is the one thing each and every one of us has ultimate control over. You can whine about century-old affronts and complain about societal deficiencies for centuries to come, but the one thing that each of us can change today is our own personal behaviors. It isn't a malicious distortion. It is an alterable reality. Why not control what you can control first before you try to tame the impossible?

innocentoldguy 11y ago

Thank you for your reply, Aloha. Just to clarify, I didn't say the Democrat party was the only one perpetuating the notion of victimhood. Other organizations do as well, but the Democrat party are the biggest, in my opinion. Here's why I feel that way: The Democrats like to hoist around this big banner of Civil Rights and claim that it was them who brought equality to America in 1964, but this is a lie. The Democrats set civil rights back by almost 100 years. During the Reconstruction era, it was Republicans (Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner, in particular) who steamrolled Democrat president Andrew Johnson and got huge civil rights bills and the 14th Amendment passed over Johnson's veto. These Republicans granted the freedmen citizenship and the right to vote, much to the chagrin of the Democratic party. They also outlawed segregation, made it illegal to deny public services and amenities to the freedmen, and attempted to pay restitution to the freedmen in the form of 40 acres of land and enough money to build a house. The Democrats blocked that from happening though. Basically, the freed slaves were given every civil right that black people enjoy today back in the 1800s, but when the Republicans lost power in Congress, the Democrats took it all away. Some like to distance themselves from this history and claim that during the early 20th Century that the Democrats and Republicans switched roles, but this is also an attempt to rewrite the facts. In truth, Lyndon B. Johnson, a Democrat, did sign the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but the Democrats didn't want it, and it was only because of the Republicans in Congress that the act passed and became law. Ever since then, especially right before an election, you'll notice that it is the Democrats who race-bait and try to get everyone all stirred up again. It is Democrats who preach the false narrative that Republicans hate black people. In other words, they are using, as they always have, racial prejudices, or at least the illusion of such, to get votes. I was born in the 1960s, and I've seen a lot of Democrat candidates promise the moon to black voters, but I've never really seen them deliver. The state of equality between blacks and whites has largely gone unchanged. In my opinion, The Democrat party uses and abuses black people to get power. Please don't misunderstand. I know that Republicans have screwed things up too, and I know that there are segments of the nation where racial prejudices are still thriving. I'm simply giving my reasoning for calling out the Democrat party in my original post. If you'd like to discuss that further, or point out where I'm wrong, I'd be happy to have that discussion. The entire purpose of my original post was to open up a dialogue and offer some things to think about.