> Do you think this is respectful: "You're making a lot of (intentional or not) dogwhistles"? Absolutely! I'd certainly want to know if there were connotations

> Do you think this is respectful: "You're making a lot of (intentional or not) dogwhistles"? Absolutely! I'd certainly want to know if there were connotations to my words that could offend people or cause them to misconstrue my words. > But also because you deserve to hear the truth. I also want to make want to make something very clear before continuing: I have done nothing but correct you so far. There is no truth you have revealed to me. You have opinions that are based in misinformation, and I'm doing my best to correctly inform you. This is not a comment on you personally. We all are misinformed about things. But this isn't and hasn't been a debate. It's been me giving you information you didn't have before. I haven't been exposed to anything I haven't heard before. I'm spending my time trying to educate you and others, because I think that's a worthwhile thing to do. > Does this mean that more whites probably get away with smoking pot? Probably. But then they commit far less crimes anyway. No, that's the point I've made 3x now: the rates of marijuana use are basically the same (technically they're slightly higher) among white Americans. In other words, white people are committing, per capita, more drug crime, but being arrested 3x less per capita. That isn't the same standard. And keep in mind here I'm only focusing on the crime of drug use. Nothing else. You keep mentioning murder and violent crime, but there is no reason that someone else choosing to murder people should affect how likely or not I am to be prosecuted for smoking weed. > Because they're not saying that "the cards are stacked against us". Yes they are. Saying that laws are enforced unequally is saying the cards are stacked against them. > Just a high enough standard to don't do drugs, don't do crime, and don't murder people, and instead be productive members of society. But again, this isn't the standard you're holding white members of society to. So you're holding black members of society to a higher standard. > I'm merely asking them to follow the law But you're not asking white members of society to follow the law. They can break the same laws you want black people to follow without facing consequences. > I'm holding them to the same standard as everyone else. Anything else would indeed be racism. Or wait, are you suggesting that blacks should be held to a lower standard than the rest of the communy then? No, I'm suggesting that they should be held to the same standard. You can claim that you just want everyone to follow the law, but the reality is that the laws are enforced unevenly. Again, for crimes that we know white and black people commit at the same rate, black people are arrested 3x more often. You are asking black people to commit 3x less crime to be treated equally under the laws. That is a far higher standard for one race than another. Let me perhaps explain this one more way. Let's compare exactly two people. One black, one white. If we hold them to the same standard, we would expect that if they committed the same number of criminal acts over their lifetime they would be arrested the same number of times. Anything else is a different standard. They are currently held to a different, higher standard. This should change. > I'm holding them to the same standard as everyone else. Anything else would indeed be racism. Or wait, are you suggesting that blacks should be held to a lower standard than the rest of the communy then? They are. Organizations are more than capable of doing multiple things. But it's worth mentioning that many people have learned a ton about US history in the past month or so due to these actions. US history is whitewashed (both literally and figuratively) when taught in most schools. Even the idea that the civil war was fought over slavery is not always taught to some kids. Similarly, the US forms a sort of cult of personality around various historical figures: the founding fathers, Lincoln, etc. These people did good things for the nation, yes, but weren't without fault. Washington for example owned hundreds of slaves, and even abused legal loopholes in laws he helped pass to maintain ownership of his slaves[0]. When we ignore the flaws and negative aspects of our history, and the normalization of oppression that is laced into the history of the US, it's much easier to pretend that things were, and are, better than reality. It's still possible to admire people's good acts in context, in museums for example. But cults of personality and cults of nationalism don't help anyone. And tearing them down helped encourage me and may others to learn some more history. [0]: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/16/opinion/george-washington-slave-catcher.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/16/opinion/george-washington...