First off, Jesus the amount of jpeg in that image. Second off, I'm half Mexican does that give me any sort of credibility haha? Well I have grown up around probably more blacks and latinos than whites, but I don't think that matters for my answer. I'm just going to give my personal opinion. No "being quiet" will never be the answer. Racism in this country is more than a minority of people that are just ill minded. Racism in this country is systematic. The only way for racism to be "solved" (quotations because of course racism as a whole will never fade away) is for the system that we live in to adapt. The only people capable of doing this is the government itself. And so far the government has done a pretty bad job to respond to the systematic racism they're responsible for. If there's one thing all civil rights leaders realized, is that you have to get the government to make a change. Some even saw that since the government wouldn't create change, they should make their own government, thus resulting in the Black Panthers movement. Now to the question of what to do on the part of black americans. Being quiet will not get the government to pass laws in your favor. It never has, never will. I'm not calling for riots, because I don't that ever leads to anything good. I'm just saying that the whole "blowing incidents out of proportion" that people accuse the black community of, is exactly what they should be doing. Make sure they're protesting and make sure the media is filming it. Make congressmen scared for their positions if they don't bring change. This is just my opinion, and look forward to peoples opinions that disagree!
Agreed that racism is systemic, but I'm going to have to disagree with the quoted part. The state is absolutely not the only body capable of solving racism. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that the current state edifice absolutely cannot solve racism. That is a problem which must be solved by us, by society, by The People. The way I see it, when I see Jim Crow drug laws, racist policing, and discriminatory policies across the spectrum of public life, what I see is a state which stands in the way of a solution. Which upholds racism. I don't see a way to "solve racism" (or any other comparably deep social ill) without replacing the state.The only way for racism to be "solved" (quotations because of course racism as a whole will never fade away) is for the system that we live in to adapt. The only people capable of doing this is the government itself.
Could you talk about what you'd have the government do to solve the issue of racism? Did you have certain laws in mind that you'd like to be passed? I personally think the issue is well beyond what the government can do but I'd love to hear your ideas.The only people capable of doing this is the government itself.
Ok there's a lot of things that need to be done, but I'll give what I think are the four most important. 1) End the war on drugs 2) Invest money into the ghettos (housing, schooling, welfare programs, etc.) 3) Solve the black unemployment problem
The war on drugs is an obvious one. It's motive is an entirely racist one. 60% of american prison population is black, and the war on drugs is one of the main reasons. If you haven't heard of it, you should look up the book The New Jim Crow. 1/3 of black males will be in prison cell at some point in their life. You cannot vote in prison, and in many states you cannot vote if you've ever been convicted of a felony even after release. For the issue of the ghettos, since they were entirely the creation of the government, here's a good read/listen on it, it should also be its responsibility to fix the ghettos. I could make a whole post on how we should be doing this, but you get the general idea. Put more money into inner city schools, not less, etc. Lastly there is a huge unemployment crisis in the ghettos. This is where me being a bit more of authoritarian socialist plays in. I believe in the private sector isn't giving these people jobs, it should be the role of the public sector to step in and provide jobs for these people. That's just an overview of some of the things I believe the government needs to do in order to handle racism in America.
We've invested almost 15 trillion dollars into the "ghettos", and they are worse off today than when they began in 1965. That is not the answer; that is treating a symptom. Like many government programs, well-intentioned as they may be, they usually deny the root cause and treat symptoms. Then, the “government agencies” begat programs to treat the symptoms of the symptoms. The "investments" need to be redesigned to stop encouraging the breakup of the family unit. Statistics from all sides of the political spectrum bear this out. The black unemployment issue needs a lot of work, and policies that encourage investment and business growth (to supply jobs) need to be established. As we have seen, to the current "socialist" administration's embarrasement, the "shovel ready jobs" never were and were a bunch of lying political hyperbole". We also need a welfare system that encourages education, in the scholastic sense, and the expansion of skilled trades development (there is an extreme dearth of these in our country). The details of this one are for another discussion.