Truth and Reconciliation in America

originally posted by: ketsuko
Yeah, well, we're all more than cognizant of it. It's all they ever teach about American history anymore.

I think covering all apsects of American history, good, bad, indifferent, is critical. It wasn't all unicorn farts and puppies, some of it was like a hard night drinking with DB.

But if you were to ask me my personal opinion I think we have contribted far more psotive than negative.

originally posted by: Bluntone22
That's asking a lot considering people can't agree on current events

You need more liberal indoctrinating.

a reply to: zosimov

No.

It wouldn't. The government is us or at least, it's supposed to be.

The only way these issues can ever be fixed is for people to put it in the past. People have to realize that these things mainly happened to people who are long dead and they were done by people who are long dead. We have to stop saying, "Gosh, my life now sucks because someone two generations back on my family tree was terribly mistreated and it was unjust."

If we all look, I'm sure we can find examples of that on our family trees, and how many of us use that as an excuse for why our lives today and now are bad? Most of us don't because we look at our lives and understand that if they suck, it's because we screwed them up.

a reply to: Bluntone22

I trusted us with the task!

a reply to: ketsuko

Well let me answer why in some places blacks are more likely to go to prison.

In LA, though blacks and other people of color commit more crimes because they are the ones that make up the majority of the lower class. Meanwhile, the upper class are mostly comprised of white people with a few minorities.

Blame it on previous racist policies (part of the reason why the ghettoes were created was because before the civil rights movements minorities are forced to stay in certain areas while denied access to good jobs), the war on drugs and the rise of neoliberalism.

Part of the reason why the LA riots happened was because many factories went overseas causing the many blacks to go jobless and turn to life of crime.

This is one of the main reasons why they hate men like Henry Kissinger and other Globalists.

originally posted by: zosimov
a reply to: ketsuko

Well having the government officially taking responsibility for genocide would relieve the rest of us, the innocent ones, of that general oppressive guilt we are supposed to feel.

You have oppressive guilt for things you didn't do?

For Christ's sake get over the guilt thing man/woman! If you didn't do it, why should you feel guilt over it? This is what I meant in my 1st post in this thread about our college system. Utter brainwashing........

a reply to: starwarsisreal

Most of that is because whites moved and are still moving.

Perhaps blacks should study the Great Migration. Do they even teach that anymore? They left the South and moved North if huge numbers to leave sharecropping and Jim Crow behind. It's sort of what the lower and middle class whites are doing in Cali today.

But maybe blacks should understand that they aren't the only ones screwed by the jobs leaving. There are plenty of whites who got dropped by it too. It's an economics thing, not a race one.

a reply to: seeker1963

I do NOT have any guilt! I love my country and am proud of everything I mentioned in the OP.

I mentioned it in the OP and will say it again, I don't feel bad or want to blame anyone outside of THE PERPS.

I think diffusing the guilt is one of the worst things to do.

But the very idea that we both know what "guilt" specifically "white guilt" I am talking about shows we have taken the wrong approach.

This is one reason I think the perp (the govt) should admit to the wrongdoing, officially.

We don't see Germans trying to deny their genocide and I don't think we should either. It's about time for the govt to take responsibility.

a reply to: zosimov

What will it take to rectify the wrongs done?

Therein lies the true crux of the problem, there's not one thing that can be done to rectify the problems. Once you go off into that you need to start asking the "victims", Blacks, Native Americans, etc. and you get rather muddled answers. Saw a clip yesterday of the great hero of the Black community, MLK, where in he was proposing a guarenteed income to the poorest to help them out of poverty.

Then a few months ago I read, (Salon I think) an article wherein the author proposed, among other things, that white people should be required to "will" their property (real estate) to Black people to effectuate a transfer of real property wealth to Black people to serve as reparations for slavery, et al.

But here's the truth of it and it was told by a Black politician on a news panel during an interview, he was asked if he thought reparations was a good thing and he said.........(paraphrasing), "You go down that road, you give them an inch, and they'll take the whole enchilada........there will never be enough!"

There can never be any reconciliation; this country was damned from inception by slavery, and manifest destiny. And now you have the movement built around Institutionalized Racism, which from what I've read, would mean that reconciliation could only be had by tearing down every and all of the US Institutional foundation and starting all over again.

That won't happen until the entire thing falls apart...........and it is in the process of doing just that!

a reply to: zosimov

The fact that this is widely taught in all the schools, government run schools, seems to me to be highly suggestive of an admission.

If the government were keen to cover it up, it wouldn't be part of the curriculum.

originally posted by: TonyS
a reply to: zosimov

What will it take to rectify the wrongs done?

Therein lies the true crux of the problem, there's not one thing that can be done to rectify the problems. Once you go off into that you need to start asking the "victims", Blacks, Native Americans, etc. and you get rather muddled answers. Saw a clip yesterday of the great hero of the Black community, MLK, where in he was proposing a guarenteed income to the poorest to help them out of poverty.

Then a few months ago I read, (Salon I think) an article wherein the author proposed, among other things, that white people should be required to "will" their property (real estate) to Black people to effectuate a transfer of real property wealth to Black people to serve as reparations for slavery, et al.

But here's the truth of it and it was told by a Black politician on a news panel during an interview, he was asked if he thought reparations was a good thing and he said.........(paraphrasing), "You go down that road, you give them an inch, and they'll take the whole enchilada........there will never be enough!"

There can never be any reconciliation; this country was damned from inception by slavery, and manifest destiny. And now you have the movement built around Institutionalized Racism, which from what I've read, would mean that reconciliation could only be had by tearing down every and all of the US Institutional foundation and starting all over again.

That won't happen until the entire thing falls apart...........and it is in the process of doing just that!

I just think there is so much insight in this response (NOT that there isn't in others' responses as well).

I am hoping that some real, proactive work might save us. I really have hope that we will be able to avoid South Africa's (for example) fate if we start now!

a reply to: TonyS

Yes and no.

There are plenty of places built the same way with the same kinds of issues in their past. We are being divided by people intent to tear us down by making people believe they are owed. Study Chinese history if you don't think so ... or maybe Japan.

We have too many people intent on enriching themselves by telling people who are down and out that they are there because of what happened in the past, not because they didn't go to school, not because they never learned the most basic job skills, not because they never had a stable family, etc.

a reply to: zosimov


WTF is "White guilt"? Trust me I know what it means because I have seen enough of these college educated zombies promote it!

I am only guilty of wrongs in my life I have committed against other human beings. If you or anyone else is trying to tell me to feel guilty for being born white? You are racist or totally indoctrinated.

I was born in the 60s and joined the military right out of high school. I was passed over for promotions several times because I was white. Then when I got out of the military I took several civil service tests for jobs and once again, was passed over because I was WHITE!

Why should I feel guilty for being white????

a reply to: seeker1963

I hope you know that I am in utter agreement with you.

ETA: I made a point in my OP to mention "whites" who themselves fled extreme oppression/genocide as part of the lovely variegation that makes US!

a reply to: ketsuko

I don't believe that anybody is owed anything. I think one big mistake I made was to mention possible land reparation in the OP. I mentioned this because I was thinking about this tiny (impoverished, as are most tiny Arctic towns) Inuit town in Alaska- Beaver- which has built on every square foot and can't expand at all due to government owning (and NOT using) the land all around it. Now a sinkhole threatens their water supply. There are ongoing injustices that can be stopped now, if only we acknowledge them.

a reply to: ketsuko

The problem is many people of color don't want to move to other places like the Mid West and the South because they see them as land filled with KKK and other white supremacists.

Also they have a strong distrust toward conservative whites.

I had an anti TPTB leftist professor warning me that as an Asian, the only safe conservative states for me are Utah and other Western States and that I should avoid the Mid West and the South.

DP

BTW, Thank you to EVERY person for joining the conversation.

I think this is one of those tough but really important conversations to have, and trying to understand all perspectives is crucial!

a reply to: ketsuko

We are being divided by people intent to tear us down by making people believe they are owed

I get that, but that phenomenon is just part of a much bigger issue that runs far deeper than you might realize. Example: I have a friendly neighbor who's retired Navy; he's 100% Lipan Apache. Most times he's just o.k., but after a few beers down at the lake, all he talks about is how the white man robbed the natives of their land. I could go on with more anecdotal stories, but yea........the "grievances" held by the Native Americans and the Hispanics against the whites runs wide, it runs deep and it never ceases.

And when something is that entrenched, there's never going to be any reconciliation. In truth, if you think about it, they don't even want reconciliation...........they want PAY BACK!

Want to know what that looks like? Take a look at SA!

a reply to: zosimov

Well that's asinine government, but it's hardly racial.

Look at California. Thanks to environmental restrictions, you can't build anything there, so even modest houses like what I live in here can go upward of $1mill in prime areas there. You have what would usually be called middle class families living hours away from work in smaller towns and spending an extra half work day just driving because it's the only way they can raise a family in Cali.

But that kind of pinch hits everyone, not just minorities. It's not a racial thing despite everyone's desire to put it solely in that box. I guarantee you that if you look enough, you'll find ways those same rules inconvenience people of all colors up there too.