RE: Prisons Are Plantations & Police Departments Are Runaway Slave Patrols
As a white person who is fully aware that there are over 2 million slaves in America today, I have to say I find your racist remarks very offensive.
I am not in disagreement that marijuana laws were originally a deliberate means of racial segregation and intent to disenfranchise blacks, nor that laws against heroin and crack were also.
I find it ludicrous that you claim 'white people' don't know that prisons are slavery.
There is a racial divide when it comes to policing - and crime. That doesn't make white people ignorant of it.
"The average white person is completely ignorant of the history of slavery and institutional racism in America—racism perpetuated by policing and for-profit prisons—and so cannot even begin to comprehend Black Lives Matter’s push for abolition of policing. Nor can white people, from their position of ignorance, comprehend the prison abolitionist movement. Black people know that prisons are plantations where slaves are forced to work and that police are runaway slave patrols, whereas white people think that all cops are Andy Griffith and that prisons only contain violent criminals."
I submit that it is YOU that are displaying ignorance with this statement.
I reckon you oughta rephrase that part of your post.
I'm not easily offended, but that's possibly the most blatantly racist thing I've ever read, and it's just plain false.
You are a better writer, and better informed than that.
As a white person, when I look at the other white people around me, knowing that 90% of the people in my area voted Trump—and when I talk to them—I cannot help but reach the conclusion that I asserted above. It is not racism, but a fact, that most white people in America are ignorant when it comes to history and to racial justice issues. When I talk to the average white person, who is pro-cop, pro-prisons, and anti-BLM, I find that they don't have a bit of sympathy with Black Lives Matter, anti-police sentiment, or prison abolitionist ideas. It's not that they have an intellectual disagreement with ideas of social justice, but rather that they cannot even comprehend where black people and social justice advocates are coming from. They don't have the slightest idea what the other side believes or why they believe it. They don't know the history of policing, the history of convict leasing, racist history of the war on drugs, etc. They are, as I said, ignorant of these issues. The alternative to them being ignorant is that they are all wretchedly immoral people who know the facts but cling to bigotry anyways. As someone who originally came from an Austro-libertarian leaning conservative position, and dabbled in circles that eventually morphed into the Alt-Right, I know I speak for myself when I say that my lack of support for racial justice issues was largely due to ignorance rather than mal-intent. The fact is that racial justice issues are not talked about in schools, probably not 1 in 100 white people in America have heard of convict leasing, and most probably don't know that racism is why pot is illegal, and white people generally do not attempt to educate themselves on such matters, because it really doesn't affect them so they don't care about it. And I recognize that you, as an individual white person, may not fall into the group I described, but that doesn't make my assessment wrong: I did not say all white people, I said the average white person, which I think is fairly accurate.
While you did once say 'the average white...', you subsequently said 'white people', which is all of them.
My point is that it isn't 'white' people that are ignorant, but people. How informed are you regarding slavery in Asia? The selling of white captives by Cossacks to the Ottoman Empire? Each culture has it's own memes which are perpetuated outside the indoctrination imposed by official schooling, and no culture has any basis to claim some overarching possession of truth.
It is your use of race itself that invalidates your thesis in this post. While your own journey of discovery of facts outside your cultural milieu and official indoctrination has alerted you to the shortcomings of your people's culture, is leaves you blind to the equivalent shortcomings of all cultures.
Ignorance is not racially dependent, and characterizing a particular race as particularly ignorant is nothing more than racism.
Edit: given that despite the racial disparity of imprisonment most prisoners in America are actually white, and that for the last 5 decades prison populations have exploded, I reckon more than 1% of white Americans have actually experienced slavery and your contention that fewer than that are even aware of it is utterly insuperable.
It's nothing more than racist propaganda.
"you subsequently said 'white people', which is all of them."
No, because that's not the way people use language. If I say that humans see in color, I'm not meaning to imply that there are no blind or colorblind people, only that humans generally see in color.
When I single out white people, as the group that is ignorant in this regard, I do so because it is white people who are generally working in opposition to racial justice issues. They are the ones that need to be educated about it. Black people are far more likely to be aware of these matters because these are things that are talked about in black communities, by black activists.
"It is your use of race itself that invalidates your thesis"
I disagree. If I had left out race, it would have invalidated my thesis. You can't talk about the problem of white supremacy without talking about whiteness.
"Ignorance is not racially dependent, and characterizing a particular race as particularly ignorant is nothing more than racism."
That's not what I said. You are mis-reading what I said. I did not say that white people are more ignorant than other races in abstracto. Ignorance means "not knowing." I said, regarding a very particular set of issues, that white people are generally ignorant. I did not imply that they are more ignorant than other people, but merely that their opposition to Black Lives Matter and racial justice movements is based in said ignorance, and implied that white people need to be educated on those issues. For me to say this is not in any way racist. If I make the assertion that the indigenous people of Peru are generally ignorant of particle physics, that isn't racist. That's no more racist than saying that lung cancer is more common among white people than among blacks.
"more than 1% of white Americans have actually experienced slavery and your contention that fewer than that are even aware of it is utterly insuperable."
Again, I was only talking about the average white person, who has not been to prison, and who thinks that only "bad people" get sent to prison. My assertion still stands, even if 40% of the white population is totally "woke". The average white person doesn't know the history of for-profit prisons leasing out convicts as a way to re-enslave black people, nor that many Southern police departments started as runaway slave patrols.
This isn't "racist propaganda." This is anti-racist propaganda.
This sort of reaction is kind of the problem. A lot of white people are so sensitive about the issue that you can't really talk about racism without offending them, which is why BLM, kneeling football players, and everything else is vilified. You can't state an opinion about these issues because it might offend white people. You can't peacefully protest because it might offend white people. In fact, the only thing you can do is elect a racist President because that's the only thing that doesn't offend white people...because actual racism doesn't usually offend most white people, whereas speaking out against racism does offend them and makes you "racist" in their estimation.
I'm sorry if what I have said offends you, but that's my opinion. Perhaps we can agree to disagree, but I really don't think that I'm wrong.
No. You can't single out one race as racist. You single out white people as racist.
I am not a racist. I have been targeted by racists, for example during the LA riots, I was driving near my home when a mob shouting slurs like 'Kill Whitey' threatened to run amok.
I find your remarks facile, vapid, and racist.
If you dared to talk about another race in that way, twitter, facebook, and google would all censor you.
Enjoy your echo chamber.