Discussion for article #230811
Good articIe, I admit, sadly, to being one of the progressives that is shocked this is happening and the blatant racism being exhibited by defenders of the police actions. Maybe it has been willful ignorance but it really can no longer be ignored, I hope a tipping point has been reached.
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Sadly Liberal/Progressive people have hidden their heads in the sand unless theyâve been confronted in their own experiences by the brutality of the police. We cannot allow this kind of systemic and institutional brutality to continue unabated. America must face its demons and the demon of racism and the institutionalized nature of this racism has to be changed and we must all confront our part in these racist policies.
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âProgressivesâ havenât hidden their heads in the sand. Rather, so-called Progressives are largely just white middle class liberals playing with Marxist terms here and there. And as such, unless some movement pops up that captures their attention for a moment, they are just like any other white liberal. That is, there isnât and hasnât been anything historically progressive about the best of them for a good 100 years, since both Progressives and ârevolutionaryâ socialists jumped ship and openly supported their own imperialist governments in WWI. Since then, whatâs called progressives have just been anti-communist liberals, trying to argue that one can use the capitalist state to fundamentally reform society, while actively working to head off anything more radical.
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âSadly Liberal/Progressive people have hidden their heads in the sand unless theyâve been confronted in their own experiences by the brutality of the police.â
I disagree with that - if youâve been hiding your head in the sand regarding police brutality, especially towards African-American men, or regarding the entire range of social- and economic-justice issues, you really shouldnât be calling yourself a progressive.
Notably, this article doesnât offer a single call to action, not a single solution. And I donât really have any myself. Iâm not in a position to put my life on hold, close up shop and join the protests in Ferguson, or NYC, or anywhere else. So what course of action open to me have I been hiding from? Signing some online petition?
Almost every person in this country is struggling just to maintain what they have. According to UC Davis researcher Gregory Clark, upward mobility in the U.S. is no greater than upward mobility in medieval England. Medieval England. And those economic issues donât take in to consideration the other issues progressives presumably concern themselves with, such as global warming, mass extinction, etc. Itâs overwhelming, and I will openly admit to feeling a sense of futility. And that futility, and resignation, is compounded by facts such as 60% of the eligible voters in Ferguson couldnât be bothered to vote in 2014. Again, just what is it I should be doing, especially when so many of the people so directly involved donât seem to care.
The author also seems to suggest that social justice is somehow a closed system, where there is only so much justice to go around, and that white progressives seem to fear that increased social justice for African Americans bears some sort of cost for progressive whites. It doesnât.
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Sadly most white people have hidden their heads in the sand - not just progressives. This is not a black issue - this is a HUMANE issue and we all need to show our outrage as do prominent leaders. White people need to speak out and speak loud.
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Exactly - talk is cheap. When are we (the white community) going to stand up and be counted. It is past due
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But what does that mean Chammy - stand up and be counted? Short of putting my life on hold and joining the protests in NYC or Ferguson, what is it whites - or any other American - should be doing? Writing our congress men and women?
I think part of âthe problemâ is that these are not issues easily addressed with âtop-downâ solutions (short of the Justice department getting involved in individual issues such as the Brown and Garner cases). And I suppose thereâs national legislation tying police actions to the violation of civil rights that could be enacted or strengthened. But these are largely local issues. How do you legislate against a police department from hiring a Timothy Loehmann?
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It is tough to have this conversation with my Liberal White friends and Iâve struggled for years to understand exactly why. This article is illuminating.
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You remind me, in a sense, of Boots Riley singing âWe got the guillotineâ, all the while operating within the system youâre ostensibly in the process of overthrowing.
Let us all know when you actually decide to use your guillotine.
During the 60s when MLK was marching and sitting in protest for civil rights and voting rights, white people with consciences got involved. They were active in trying to help bring about change. The March on Washington brought hundreds of thousands of people white and black to show solidarity and civil rights and voting rights got passed. I hear what yourâs saying, but sitting back and expressing outrage is not enough.
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Perfect. Leave us progressives out of this all of a sudden conscience stricken âIâm really a progressiveâ when it fact itâs nothing more than DLC Democratic hand wringing. Warren, Merkley, Franken and others are putting together what theyâre calling the Hell No Coalition in response to Obamaâs nomination of another low life banker pimp Antonio Weiss for Treasury Secây. Thatâs what progressives do. Go after Obama when itâs justified. Care to join?
I know I know ⌠.
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I think we still do Chammy, those of us who grew up in the sixties that is. I see some, but not enough, interest in social justice from young people these days. We settled in the suburbs where our children grew up isolated and protected from the realities of living in the inner city. My grandchildren are so far removed from the inner city experience that theyâre unable to relate to what is going down in places like Ferguson, Detroit and Staten Island.
My wife and I challenged our children to volunteer, give back to the community and be sensitive to and engage with those less fortunate. I donât think it took. What I see now are far too many young people who cannot be bothered by the misfortunes of others as long as their own needs are met.
I agree with 1972gd that itâs going to take a bottom up approach for any sustainable change to take place. How to create said approach and help it get traction and momentum is beyond me.
I thought the Occupy movement might provide the genesis for change but it dissipated and quickly faded.
I really really hate saying this but I think this country is pretty much fucked for the foreseeable future.
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Really? This American progressive thinks youâre full of it.
âwhite progressives, too, are prone to overlooking the ways that American racism is comprehensive and systemic.â
Really?! I donât know a progressive worthy of the name who doesnât grok this basic fact about America, and to throw that insult at âprogressivesâ as a class is just ignorant.
âTo admit that the problem of police violence is deeply embedded in who we are as a nation is to face the possibility that earlier progress was vastly insufficient in solving the problem.â
Here again, you must have no actual contact with people who call themselves progressive. Itâs an insulting and self-defeating assertion.
âAfrican-Americans certainly have reason to doubt that white Americans are ready to embark on meaningful reforms.â
So do most white progressives that Iâve ever met. What planet do you live on? Where are these clueless progressives? The progressives I know fully understand the AA reality and how it does not seem to be getting better.
ââŚperhaps their radical leftist critics have been correct all alongâperhaps real justice requires overhauling the whole American system.â
I would say that overhaul is self evidently necessary, and I say that not as a radical leftist but as one of those terrible heartless white progressives. Iâll continue to advocate for it not because I care about the author or his dismissive views of me but because thatâs the society that I want to live in.
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The author can speak for himself. I predicted all throughout 2007 that we would see white conservatives flipping the fuck out and a massive societal ejaculation of frothy latent racism in response to Obama getting elected (in contrast to the naive meatheads who believed he could usher in a new age of racial harmony), and equal rights/treatment issues have always been somewhat of a passion for me. Maybe that makes me an exception to some unwritten rule about progressives that Iâve never known existed, but I take some umbrage with the over-generalized premise of the article.
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The Rodney King case received a lot of news coverage.
I donât know by what measure it didnât receive much âattention from white conservatives or progressives.â
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Conor, you seem to specialize in straw-man arguments: any progressive I know has been aware that our justice system is a racist institution from way back at the beginning, and continues to be so. What this progressive is upset about is not that Iâve just found this out, but rather that itâs been underlined again for what feels like the millionth time.
Iâm sorry that this episode has been such a shock to your system.
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And, of course, the Rodney King beating was caught on tape.
Maybe the issue isnât white progressives - Iâm still not sure what it is I should have been doing all these years since the King beating - maybe itâs that the only time the media pays attention is when they have video.
One idea Iâve heard mentioned often is to ASK the black community what you can do to be an ally. And then LISTEN to what theyâre asking you to do.
It might be something as simple as you standing up to another white person and pointing out racism. Or correcting misinformation. Donât automatically assume that all allyship means is to pick up a sign and go participate in a Die-In somewhere. ASK THEM.
One of the biggest problems we have as white people is weâre sitting around and NOT asking the people who will tell us what we can do to help if we truly want to help. Have you done that? Ask a black person what you can do as a white person to be an ally in this situation. And then what they ask you to do, do it. All definitions of being an ally can, and will, be different. But if you actually take the time and effort to ask what you can do to help, you may find out.
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Exactly. I find that far too many white progressives donât get involved in issues unless it somehow effects their lives, and will often hijack issues to make it about an issue that could personally effect them. For instance, when the Ferguson protests began some white progressives were chomping at the bit to make it about over-militarized police. That was so asinine! Yes, over-militarized police IS a problem, but itâs not even anywhere close to THE problem. Itâs not why people in Ferguson or anywhere else were protesting. If every one of those cops policing the protests was dressed in standard police uniforms and no riot or military gear the protesters wouldâve been out there all the same and they wouldâve been just as mad. But some white progressives had to make it about an issue with which they could more easily identify.
The problem is that we need for progressives of all stripes to get just as mad about the systemic racism in this country as they are about income inequality or climate change or marriage equality. I think one thing that has turned off minorities in this country from the progressive movement, the reason weâre far less likely to take up the causes of progressives is because many of us donât feel that many white progressives give a shit about our issues. Thatâs precisely why so few minority women identified with the feminist movement. It seemed to be about advancing white women and white womenâs problems while conveniently ignoring issues that were particularly important to women of color.
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