They’re doing a great job of removing young men already…

“Fought by losers (and no one I know) in countries that deserve it.”

~ Trump probably, but with worse structure.

This is what congress people are for.

The graduate is an adult.

I’d wager my savings that most of those are second and third jobs, because it’s become impossible to live with just one in the United States of America.

I’ve wondered this as well - and wondered if Biden ever really grokked what’s happening. Hopefully others do and they follow through once they win (if they do).

I’m ready for progressive Roosevelt-types and I’m voting as hard as I can to get them. I’ll take Teddy, I’ll take FDR, I’ll take Eleanor.

I just want someone scrappy enough to succeed on our behalf.

I’m speaking to the text’s message of a dichotomy. The image is context but it is not the entirely of the message.

The chicken were chicken?

That can track.

Then I think we’re fairly aligned and I respect your honesty.

No dispute on whether I’ll be ferreting out biases for the rest of my life. I just consider it mental hygiene.

That’s not my point. I am saying to a large degree science has shown that implicit bias is real. That unconscious biases show up among all groups, especially if given the right priming.

And based on that, we all have times it shows up. Whether we know it or not. Whether we like it or not.

This is not to drain the conversation of its relevance. It only enhances the urgency and importance of the conversations.

But I’m not into this either/or because this is a gradient. Or if it’s either/or then it’s 99+% of the population failing the test. If that’s the line, there’s an honesty to it.

And implicit bias, at its core, is based on belief. Even if transitory.

I specifically said some people deserve shame. It’s a lot of words and, tbf, if you didn’t read them all (not an aspersion), I really wouldn’t blame you (promise).

Shame is useful as a way to divide a group. Sometimes that’s justified. That doesn’t mean that it’s always done prudently.

Not arguing against it. Arguing against its ubiquity.

Overall, I’d prefer reasoned argument to innoculate against bad ideas but I dunno that’s always viable.

I’m not directly addressing the image. I’m addressing the text.

The text says there are two choices and only one is possible for any individual as their legacy of thought.

The picture is a defining moment in time. It catalyzed change. The legacy of thought that was passed to me was mixed…

That said, can you help me understand how the text message embedded helps move the racial conversation forward? Or how its message is at least not harmful to engaging those who need help to see the flaws in their racial mindset?

Because once I’ve demonized people, I don’t communicate with them as well. I think that’s fairly typical, really.

Right now the post just looks like an empty virtue signal that helps people feel righteous while also erecting bigger walls.

Either/Or thinking on race only gets so far. If a person thinks all acts can be objectively judged as racist, not racist, or not racially relevant… Then they’d be wrong.

Because it’s not just white folk that are complicated. It’s everyone. And there are differences of opinion (and history) within communities.

Some acts are overt. Some are obvious to the trained observer. And some… Will be met with varying reactions.

Whether an act has racial implications at all, will also be in dispute.

Believing in equality isn’t the same as acting on it. Belief isn’t the metric. Behavior is.

My parents believed and taught equality. They “just” thought the races should be separate. That that was a racist attitude was lost on them until it was forced.

I’ve had blind spots. I’ll find more. We all have them.

Listening, reading, searching our attitudes… Questioning why we did things how we did… This is how we keep momentum.

White certanties of virtue isn’t the progress people think it is.

Pointing out the fallacy in a post that weaponizes shaming is not shaming. I have not shamed.

If you feel ashamed by my words, then my point is poorly made or this is another attempt to bring things away from understanding and dialogue and back to how to resume righteous feeling.

We need effective persuasion. We need facts. We need discourse to change things.

Saying 60ish years ago a person was on a side and ergo absolutely made only one line of thought their legacy is a false dichotomy. I was taught equality until, as an adult, my parents didn’t like interracial dating.

I used their holy book, reason, love. Not shame. Shame galvanizes and rarely leads its target to engage in open dialogue needed to move things.

Some people deserve shame. But we, the left, are galvanizing wide swatches of the population against the very points we say we want to engage and spread. That means conversations we need to have, like CRB are getting rejected without even being heard in any meaningful way.

Weaponized shame on a mass scale says more about feels than it does about maturity and getting our stated goals.

And I suspect well over half the people driving these galvanizing mechanics are not the people CRB would most benefit. If you’re a literal white crusader hell bent on dividing the world into the worthy and the enemy, I gotta wonder why.

I want a world where the realities of the past are discussed frankly. I want it decades or centuries ago. If I can’t have that, I want it now.

How are we to have the conversation when our “enemies” galvanize enough to throw out the modest things that at least allowed toe holds? Does shame build dialogue?

What is the goal of the original post really?

Where were my parents in that picture? Silent. Absent. But not approving of the bullies. Not all the way aware of the shadows of their thoughts, but definitely sympathetic to those being bullied.

Otherwise, let’s divide the world into the blameless and allies. I’m 50, I’m not blameless. But I’ve been an ally. I read, I engage, I vote my awareness of history and obvious enduring issues.

But I’m not blameless. Even the me that dated interracial, and married interracial had learning to do. Still do. Being righteous makes my own education less likely. How can I learn when I’m certain of my righteousness? I’m a fucking middle aged white dude. What do I know about living a black life? Even as a parent of biracial children I cannot attest to living a black life.

I have no holy hill to stand upon. I have no conviction so superior I can feel justified in placing my feels in they way of progress. And feeling righteous will only get in the way of hearing the voices of the actually oppressed.

I think that’s happened enough. Virtue signaling whit folk (like me?) need to book up, read, educated ourselves beyond the facts. And we need to realize as we rightly become angered by history that that history still isn’t about us - or if it is, it’s more about other populations. And we need to leave enough space and humility for those to be heard.

And to learn how to be effective allies.

I’m not arguing against urgency. I’m questioning the efficacy of lumping people into a vast bucket scorned sinners. OP wasn’t attempting to save or redeem those who were wrong.

It sought righteous feeling as an endpoint.

And fuck that noise. I want a more righteous reality. That’s my goal. And I’d like it with urgency. And I don’t care if I have to be humble and teachable along the way. Hell, that even sounds like a good idea.

There are ways to have the conversations I’m sure you want. But a Pic that says a person much choose ONE and does so with the kind of conviction I usually see from a virtuous white person… I’m not sure that’s how we do it.

Ya follow?

Race is nuanced. Why a variety of people in the black commimunity are uncomfortable with interracial dating… That’s also nuanced. It’s best not handled as a strict either/or because shit’s complicated.

And history matters. And the white disrespect of blacks throughout history may only run to the present in a new form. White folk aren’t the story. The impact of white folk in history… That is.

How we make inroads, that’s a conversation worth having too.

Can you tell me how Ops post helps?

These purity tests and shaming celebrations aren’t helpful.

They were never helpful when they were done to minorities. Effective for a time? Yes. But it galvanized.

I don’t need a galvanized enemy. I don’t need one that believes nothing will ever be good enough because a past sin means forever being a sinner.

We need discourse, persuasion and actual rhetoric.

I’m not saying bad is good. I’m saying effective isn’t the same as feeling righteous.

My parents aren’t who they were. But these tactics aren’t what changed them.

These tactics look like theyre far more about the feels than they are about changing things. And, no, I’m not defending gradualism. And my parents learned. But shame was never what did it.

I was encouraged to read biographies of important black figures in US history. About Abraham Lincoln. Various different things that very naturally led me to see blacks as peers.

Then i dated a black woman. Same person who was happy and strongly encouraged the books had strong negative reaction to dating.

Which is the parent. The post says to pick **one. **

It is not a nuanced or adult take on people. It is a reactionary purity test of an adolescent mind (regardless of OP’s age).

The same parent was both. OP does not allow that. But my mom was not purely one. Years of encouragement of specific reading wasn’t an accident.

Dichotomies. Brightnlines of either or… Are very often false choices that deceive the credulous or unskeptical.

Is outside lava? Or is opening an exterior door not an option?

False dichotomy is false. People are complicated.

If your moral certitude is so easily triggered that this purity test gets a “hell yeah.” Then can you please pause to reflect?

My parents were on both sides of this. I am a very long distance from where they were. They taught me one thing, thought another.

Which does that make them?

deleted by creator

Or flags. Especially with blue lines.