Beth Macbain

I'm sitting in on another Zoom meeting with coworkers talking about race... we're SELFing. Someone shared this link to some Implicit Association tests. No one needs to share their results, but it's something to think about. Project Implicit

Going to post this here, and try to woo @JanuarySwan over to this thread instead of the other one, since our conversations are more about understanding systemic racism, and being able to see it around us. This is a little long, but it has some very good information in it about how the Black, Hispanic, and Native American communities get absolutely screwed by the criminal justice system in the US from the street, to the courts, to the jails and prisons, and what happens post-release. Report to the United Nations on Racial Disparities in the U.S. Criminal Justice System

This might help. These are prison demographics. Black people are 13% of the US population, but are 40% of incarcerated adults. White people are 64% of the US population, but only 39% of prison population. Are there more black criminals than white criminals... or are black people arrested, prosecuted, and imprisoned at a much higher rate than white people? 2010. Inmates in adult facilities, by race and ethnicity. Jails, and state and federal prisons.[71] Race, ethnicity % of US population % of U.S. incarcerated population National incarceration rate (per 100,000 of all ages) White (non-Hispanic) 64 39 450 per 100,000 Hispanic 16 19 831 per 100,000 Black 13 40 2,306 per 100,000

First off, I really want to say thank you to you for being willing to look deeper at the world around you and learn from it! I’m going to ask you to go a little deeper still to look at how black Americans are not equally represented, or even equitably represented, while white Americans are able to look around and see things as being peachy-keen. Ive tried to avoid saying white privilege because it irks certain people so badly, but the items on this list (and watch the short video) shows the difference very clearly for a black American vs. a white American. Example of White Privilege

I just posted this in that other thread, but I think it fits even better here. Structural Racism Timeline

Ask any of those people if they get treated differently every single day in one form or another due to the color of their skin and I bet they say yes. Systemic racism goes far deeper than I think you’re thinking. Take a look around this timeline... I’ve only clicked a couple of the links so far, but it gives good modern examples. Structural Racism Timeline

Another reason to have these conversations. This man is an elected official. How in every single hell did this sequence of words fall out of his mouth? Never mind that he thinks it’s true, and in his head he thinks the word “colored” when thinking of black people, he is so completely lacking in awareness that he couldn’t stop his own damn mouth from saying this into a microphone for the whole world to hear. He’s on the health and HUMAN SERVICES committee. This👏🏼is👏🏼not👏🏼okay. White America has a race problem. It’s not even just that the people we're talking about are racist, it’s the refusal to listen and learn. This man has made it all the way to adulthood without realizing, or caring, that “colored” is a pejorative, out-dated racist word, AND believing black people have worse hygiene than white people. No, the conversations aren’t easy. No one wants to admit they have racial biases, or to have them pointed out to them, but it simply has to be done because things like this are happening in 2020.

I'm quoting Kali's original post here because it needs to be seen again. If you don't believe racial inequality exists, and are unwilling to opening your mind to even the slightest possibility that it exists, that's your prerogative. There are several other threads for you to share your opinions. I think Kali wanted a thread for those of us who do believe it exists, or are at least open to the possibility, to be able to talk about it. That got shut down in the first couple of posts. Hate me if you want, IDGAF, but Kali is one of the kindest people here and didn't deserve what she got. Please take your disbelief to one of the other threads and knock yourselves out with it. Thank you.

And where one of the worst race riots in the US happened.

I finally had to do it... use the block. I couldn't take it anymore. If I believed in lunatic conspiracy theories I'd think Qanan planted an operative in here to speak jibberish until we all ran away screaming. I tried... lord, I tried... I just simply cannot. I'd rather have a fork jabbed in my eye than read another word of that balderdash.

Then how come the fine people of California aren’t out harvesting the crops? California CNA Renewals And I can find nothing about a Democratic plan to import Mexicans for votes. Not a single article. As a matter of fact, Obama, Democrat, deported 3 million immigrants. If there were any truth to your local urban legend, and everyone was talking about it, someone would have investigated and it’d be on FOX news 24/7. As a matter of fact, most of the stories I can find are about Democrats LOSING the Hispanic vote. Can you give me a more concrete source than “it’s talked about frequently”?

I’m super glad this exists. I’ve watched it about 20 times tonight. I’m also thankful for the person who sent it to me knowing I very badly needed to see some good in the world. ❤️

I find it helps if you picture Emily Litella.

Well I’m from Kentucky and he’s ours, and we say he’s the absolute antithesis of a modern day Republican. Pretty sure that’s carved on a plaque on a statue somewhere, and if it’s not I’ll add it to one. We are THICC with statues of Abe.

And not for nothing, but the Republican Party of Abe Lincoln is today’s Democratic Party. No way in hell could Lincoln be considered a republican today.

I work with quite a few immigrants that have health care. A lot of them are CNAs. Blaming your sister’s issues on Mexicans is ludicrous especially considering it costs nothing to renew a CNA license in California. Don’t forget, I lived in LA. The jobs that many immigrants work are jobs that even the poorest white person thinks is beneath them. They work their asses off, and they deserve far more than they receive in about a billion ways. If all the Mexicans in CA packed up and left, CA would be screwed. The state would shut down. California would cease to exist in any recognizable form. The state would lose billions in tax revenue because the fact is that most illegal immigrants pay taxes. Need proof? Read this. Whats really ironic here is that the immigrants you’re complaining about are the ones paying the taxes that pay for your sister’s public benefits that she collects because she doesn’t have health insurance because she let her CNA license lapse for some reason other than the cost, since there isn’t one. Your sister is living on the state’s dime courtesy of the taxes paid by the immigrants you despise. So to answer your question about dems addressing immigrants with healthcare while some Americans go without, it’s because they work for the benefits they receive.

I have enough. If another human being needs some of what I have REGARDLESS OF WHERE THEY WERE BORN, I want to help them. I don’t give a single crap about some arbitrary border or hateful nationalism. People are people. This planet has enough resources to take care of all the people. A line on a map shouldn’t be a qualifier as to whether another human being gets food and clean water. It never fails to disgust me how humans can be so inhumane, and proud of it.

I am so god damn sick white Europeans from tiny little countries with their own racial inequities trying to tell us how we’re so screwed up (WE KNOW) when they can’t even fix their own messes that I’m becoming prejudiced against white Europeans from tiny little countries with their own racial inequities who can’t even fix their own messes.

All this says is that you do not understand the reality of living in the US. The American people have NOT used that excuse. A large group of idiots have used that excuse while another large group of perfectly sane people have pointed out their idiocy. There are 66.6 million people in the UK. There are 328.2 million in the US. Have you been here before? Can you comprehend the size of this country? The thousands of miles that separate states? There are a lot of us, and we have a lot of different ideas and opinions. Coming to a consensus on anything isn't possible. The American people you speak of are not me, nor are they anyone I know.

Thanks for the link! I just donated! It's not much, but I'm sure I'll be on their list now, and they'll ask again, and I'll give again!

You are vastly underestimating the power of contacting your representatives. They need your vote. One letter from one constituent? Yeah, you'll get a form letter in return. If the representative's office is flooded with letters and messages (CALL them!) it's amazing how quickly they can make things happen in order to pander for your vote. This is how legislation gets passed. I'm not just pulling this out my butt. I work in the social service system. When there is certain legislation we want to see passed, we mobilize. Letters, emails, phone calls... thousands upon thousands. They won't be ignored. We are their employers. We hire them for their jobs, and we fire them as well. It's about the power of numbers. The people have got to let their representatives know what is expected of them. Thinking that your voice doesn't matter is how these people that don't represent our values get the power they do not deserve.

How many people stop and read the plaques on the statues in question? Hell, the one just removed here in Louisville was in the middle of an automobile roundabout. To say that these statues are teaching anyone about history is pretty asinine. Stop any random person walking by one at any given time and ask them if they know who the statue represents, and why it's there, and few would be able to answer. Crying "won't someone please think about the statues?" is insane. History can, and is, learned in all sorts of different ways. Statues really aren't one of those ways. The people represented by these statues aren't only racists - they're traitors. They created an army to go battle their own country so they could own black human beings. There is no one who lives in the United States that isn't aware of the Civil War, and if by some strange chance that there are people who don't know about it, they aren't going to learn about it from a statue. JFC. On a different subject, I'm listening to the House Hearings on Police Brutality right now. I'm also working and reading the forums, so I'm not listening too closely, but I did perk up when one of the congressmen talked about the qualified immunity for police officers, and how we needed to get rid of it - and a person there representing the police unions made what I would consider a threat to the Congress of the United States of America - he asked them to consider that if qualified immunity were eliminated, there would be no police officers. If that is enough to make a cop walk off the job, then that person shouldn't be a cop. I really think that the key to reform is by taking away the power the unions hold.

I was going to tackle your post point by point until I got to that line. He wasn't perfect, had committed some crimes, and also did his time. If you believe that makes a person bad, then there is no conversation to be had here. Black male drug addict = Bad; White female cheating on partner = Good. We clearly have different definitions of good and bad.

I know some people don’t like links to Twitter, but this is an epic three part thread giving concrete examples of why the police need to be defunded. (Parts 1 and 2 part linked to in the thread)

I’m sorry, but what?! Slicing a little snip off the LAPD budget is absolutely nothing even remotely similar to disbanding the LAPD. The budget cut isn’t a done deal, either. The police union in LA is fighting it tooth and nail. Also Los Angeles county has something like 40 different independent police departments. The LAPD isn’t even the largest one - the LA County Sheriff’s Department is. About 11:20 to see the beating from the female officer’s body cam.