you can't be sure of any situation, something could change and then you won't know (part five)

(Continued from part four.)

And this is the very last part of this very long discussion.

[10:54 PM] Iron: Often any action and any inaction will all harm someone. And then you've got the debate over what harm counts are more or less harmful, the whole train thing, etc etc. It's not simple even with that answer.
[10:54 PM] Iron: I've always found this story to be an interesting one on the subject
(also available in PDF format: https://learning.hccs.edu/faculty/selena.anderson/engl2307/readings/a-good-man-is-hard-to-find-by-flannery-oconnor/view )

I'm...not entirely sure what the point of that story is, entirely. Other than being objectionable.

[10:56 PM] Fermium: Having read articles and other viewpoints, I find that some - if not a good portion - of the 'outrage' and 'offense' are justified and valid. I can disagree with their actions, I could disagree with their conclusions, but I at least understand them.
[10:57 PM] Fermium: These aren't people 'looking to be outraged'. They are people who are outraged because of the broader and larger context it is set in, and the fears and worries they hold.
[10:58 PM] Fermium: We forget how recent lynching was a thing. We forget that many people still alive were born when Black people weren't allowed to drink at the same water fountain as Whites.
[11:00 PM] Fermium: General we, not we as in us here.
[11:00 PM] Emilly Orr: The law against lynching, formally making it a hate crime, was passed in 2018, wasn't it? If not, then it was passed in January of THIS year.
[11:00 PM] Emilly Orr: Took us how many hundreds of years to actually declare lynching a bad thing?
[11:01 PM] Iron: *An illegal thing.
[11:02 PM] Iron: Since we're talking about good and bad anyway, might as well discuss how I don't think legality or illegality defines something as good or bad. :p
[11:02 PM] Iron: It's more of a... guideline.
[11:02 PM] Iron sails off in his pirate ship.
[11:03 PM] Emilly Orr: Laws are always guidelines. But in general, they're guidelines we agree to, in order to function as a society.
[11:03 PM] Iron: Yeah.
[11:10 PM] Emilly Orr: And those laws can change. Our Constitution has changed. Canada's laws have changed. Nothing is set in stone and fixed until the end of time.
[11:40 PM] Fermium: Freudian Slip anyone?

Wau, no kidding. The "abolition of civil rights". Sure, it could be one of our president's typical misstatements, or it could his end goal all along. Who's to know for sure?

[11:42 PM] Platinum: slip?
[11:42 PM] Platinum: I think he meant it.

I do too.

[11:43 PM] Arsenic: It's things like this that makes me pretty sure that, if he colluded with Russia, he himself was only barely involved and it was handled 99% by his various GOP handlers. The man can't even give a speech right, off a teleprompter, what makes anyone think that he could keep high treason a secret?br /> [11:44 PM] Arsenic: And it's not even a Dubya kinda thing, this guy is just a stumbling incompetent and even his own party periodically tears into him.
[11:45 PM] Fermium: I'm not convinced he has kept it a secret.br /> [11:45 PM] Fermium: I think it's less 'Keeping Treason secret' to him and more 'Just business, not illegal'

Thus endeth the discussion. Did we resolve anything? Not really. We all agree there is systemic racism in the US, and other countries. We have no idea how to foundationally address it, and we all know our current administration won't do one single thing to work towards healing the rifts of racism, because most of them are hard-core racists themselves.

It does make me think if the same is true in other countries where whites are the minority, but...the biggest example I can think of is South Africa, and there, the minority white population, largely from Dutch roots, enforced apartheid from the late 1940s to the mid to late 1990s, and in fact, the aftershocks of apartheid continue to be felt throughout the continent today.

I refuse to believe that the problem is inherently in how white people are wired, because white people that are not raised by racist parents, to be racist parents and adults, do not, in general, have these deep-seated issues of fear and anger. I know it's largely cultural, that most of us either exhibit or experience casual racism, depending on the color of our skin, and that is definitely a bad thing, bad for us as individuals, and bad for society as a whole. But the deep internal fear that spawns white nationalist groups has to be taught, by parents who were also taught. It is not part of our bone and blood, because children will play with anyone, children have no rules until adults impose them.

And maybe that's the answer. Maybe, if we ever arrive at a rationalist society, where licenses for parenting have to be granted, and parents-to-be have to pass a parenting class to prove they know how to parent...just as we require driving classes for driving licenses, ...maybe then that can be part of the curriculum as taught: how dangerous, how damaging, and how ultimately fruitless racism is.

Until then, these incidents will keep happening.