Every terrorist and dictator is someone’s hero. I met an old lady once who loved Hitler. She was a refugee fleeing the soviets, and Nazi Germany had order, food, all the things she didn’t. She saw him as a savior to her, and wasn’t concerned about “those other things they say about him” because it didn’t effect her, to her he was the figure head of a major positive change for her personally. Ernesto freed many people, empowered and inspired. He was also a terrorist, a sadist, a brutal, bigoted, masoginistic hypocrite who was known for summary execution, cruelty, torture, lies and propaganda. He was handsome and came off as suave, anti “system” and has shock value. When I see his face being used like a logo like this, the small comforts I take are that at least the commercialization and dilution of his “revolution” is a greater insult to his legacy than I could ever make- and that at least a few assholes have started marking themselves so I know who to avoid.
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deleted
· 6 years ago
Che isnt exactly wrong.
Look up videos about black people happy to get welfare checks. It's certainly eye opening how these people are willing to be modern slaves in every sense of the word just because they get a little money.
I hate the fact that this is true, but African Americans really need to change our attitudes towards life if we want to move forward as a people. There are too many problems for me to list here, but I think one of them is the obsession with frivolties. Look at the most popular black people these days. Covered in gold, fake teeth, tons of "bitches", drugs everywhere, and a body inked more than George R.R.'s entire bibliographic history. The most vice ridden men of our age, and they continue to praise God.
You’re looking at ‘street thugs’, hon. People who are born in the streets and raised by them. Trust me when I say white people are like that too. Asians, to add to that. Generally- any Americans that live of the streets.
I hate when people use stereotypes to define a whole race. Fuck that. Everybody is different. Every family is not the same. Even if a lot of black people are like that, so what? That says nothing about black people as a whole. That says a lot about the individual. A person is not defined by their race.
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deleted
· 6 years ago
Even if black people aren't defined by their race, America seems to perpetuate the idea of street thugs being mostly black because a lot of black people are disadvantaged and poor and are more likely to turn to the streets.
That's why I said the most popular black people, not the best role models for black people. Again, take a look at them and at least be aware of who they are and what they do. Their music doesnt influence the audience, it's what the person does with their life.
Am I saying that all black people are terrible? Not by a long shot. I'm saying that racist stereotypes always have a bit of truth and if we are going to stop said racism, we need to change what black people come up in the minds of the common American.
I’m not going to get in to all the ways such notions as a “race” being indicative of a persons fundamental mindset have been debunked. I will say this- ever hear of “trailer trash?” If you talk to many from mainland China (a region where a small sliver of the population are not ethnically Chinese), they’ll say the same things about certain citizens. Some countries say it about refugees, including Eastern Europeans. The point is wether you believe the science is irrelevant. The casual observer can see that almost any country has these kinds of views, often independent of any difference in “race” and simply relying on social class, values, or even place of birth. To ascribe such traits to be exclusive to one race, when so much evidence exists that it is a fundamentally human trait not independent to any one group- is to show ignorance of humanity in general. Some people are these things, others are called them so we can self justify, but no one race has a monopoly on these stereotypes.
Moreover, no matter how many "presentable" black people we put out into the world, even when there are no "thugs" left in the world, you cannot change the racist's point of view. They are not racist because they have a valid reason, but because they have an unreasonable bias against that race, and only use bad stereotypes to enforce and rationalize this bias. The KKK did not discriminate between the poor and wealthy blacks when they lynched them and went unpunished for it. Jim Crow did not discriminate between the productive and nonproductive members of society. It does not matter who you are as a black person to a racist, because they already don't see you as a person.
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deleted
· 6 years ago
Gelu, I'm not responding to racists. Racists don't change, and I'm aware of that. I'm responding to racist thoughts. More people are prone to these ideas, whether they are racist or not. I simply want to lower the chance of more people thinking that African Americans are thugs or that they'll always steal your shit or that they're ready to fight.
It is a logical fallacy to say that to change the perception of black people in America, that black people must change the way they act so that America thinks of them differently. The “truth” in stereotypes for black people largely originate from racism. Not actual behavior, but propoganda about behavior. The reality of the circumstances of many black Americans stems from how America treated blacks because of how blacks were treated. Excluding blacks from equal education, cultural participation and integration through segregation, based on assumptions made from prejudice. It’s circular. The idea of black inferiority in intelligence and character, ideas of uncleanliness or lack of civilization- those predated the presence of blacks in America and is a big part of the justifications for putting blacks in chains as “less than men.” So no- sorry. Blacks didn’t have a chance to commit crimes in America before being locked in chains,
200+ years later America can’t lock blacks in chains and retro actively go back and say “see? We were right all along, just needed to give them a chance to prove it!” If you spend centuries telling someone they are unwelcome and inferior, treating them as criminals and denying them the rights and prosperity of those around them, you create the stereotype. So I’m fact, it is quite the opposite. If America wants to stop having the “negative stereotypical black persons” you describe- then America needs to stop treating black people like criminals and start undoing 200+ years of exclusion and alienation.
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deleted
· 6 years ago
I never said I treated black people like criminals(If I did, I'd have major cognitive dissonance). I'm just saying that the stereotype that 1. 13% of the population commits over half the crime(which means that every black person has comitted a crime, which is a lie), and 2. That black people are all criminals are untrue, and needs to be dispelled. Black people aren't exactly saints in this aspect, though. To this day, many able bodied black people still use welfare checks and cease to change their situation. Though white people, through both paper and gun, has denied the black man the needs to prosper many years before, in this day and age, now black people have the chance to succeed, but then look to the wrong men for inspiration.
I wasn’t saying that you treated anyone like anything. I’m saying that the logic is flawed- the idea that it is up to black people to change the way that people perceive them, when nothing they did formed those perceptions to begin. The perceptions you speak of go back to before there were black people in America, they go back to before most had actually met a black person, before black people had the freedom to do most anything they could be accused of. The prejudice existed BEFORE any of that. From that prejudice came the stereotypes and misconceptions, and from those came more prejudice. This app starts within the mind of the racist, not from external factors. Racism is universal, that proves it isn’t important who or why someone hates another, but that those looking to hate will find a person and produce the justification from within.
Why is it that no matter what group is hating what group, in any country or place- why are the justifications always the same? It doesn’t seem a coincidence that whenever and wherever one group hates another they use the same words and reasons? “They are criminals, they have no manners, they are loud, smelly, violent, savage, ignorant, less human, etc”? It’s simply because the reason to hate doesn’t need any basis in fact, just enough to allow the person to have someone else to pile their baggage on, to feel better than, to take from without guilt. Take almost any racist joke, change the race and the joke still works. It’s common to hear the same joke told many times with little twists about different races- because it’s generic rhetoric, not some scientific analysis of numbers and patterns. It’s shit you can apply to any group of humans, so long as you want to.
And now people argue that the slate has been equalized. They say that 200 years of a country and its government actively trying to incite blacks to crimes against other blacks, self destructive behavior, isolation, subjugation and lack of opportunity- that after 200 years of that, iwith a limp handshake, a diversity pamphlet, and a few grants and laws it should all have turned around in a few decades? That now the ledger is balanced- America is fair and equal. That the rioters and protestors are misguided soles clinging to the “distant past” that 2/3rds of the country was alive to have been a part of? That the fact black Americans aren’t all on the Forbes top list after a whopping 20 years since racism caused LA to burn, that they must be too lazy or inept or complacent to “live like that” or else the entirety of black America wouldn’t be experiencing struggle?
Surely all these people across America who have spoken out, joined protests and riots, created charities and lobbies- surely all the people with individual stories of discrimination and struggle must be making it up, or simply have their own issues of identity sensitivity they are projecting on others then no? Some sort of mass hysteria that only effects those of a darker skin tone? I think not. I think that it is not on every single black American to act as an ambassador and “prove” that the prejudices that whites have held against them since before they even touched American soil are false. I think that whites have the freedom to be jobless, to be criminals, to do or act as they like without being labeled as disgraceful to their race- without being chided for verifying the prejudice of others. When a black man leaves a single mother he is a statistic and a stereotype. He is hurting all his race. When a white man does the same he is a deadbeat dad, no one lectures on how his behavior
Reflects upon white men everywhere. When a white man quits school to become a lead indie rock guitarist he is an artist, maybe a fool. When a black man quits school to pursue a rap career he is a jobless thug. These are the conceptions of which you speak, and we see that on equal circumstances they are not applied equally. Elvis and the Beatles were considered an assault on traditional values. They did drugs, had guns- Elvis was a tragic good ol boy for riding around in a Cadillac with a pistol and narcotics. Pick a rapper for doing the same and they aren’t just called a thug, a negative example of a race, but are also called criminals and enemies to American life itself. Odd that in a conservative period of American history, a white man could get away with doing much the same, and be an icon to this day no? So we can see it’s abour more than peoples behavior but about the thoughts of those applying the labels and who they WANT to be a hero or a criminal.
Any way you slice it- there is a clear pattern of racism made evident by the simple fact that it is suggested that all black people in America be responsible for the image of their race. No one asks that white people act as ambassadors of race- whites are asked to represent institutions, ideas, countries or their governments as far as within America. That right there shows you that even in these enlightened times of opportunity that you speak of, A very large part of America considers blacks to be outsiders, not a part of the whole that is “America” but as their own group which must represent itself and carry a burden not asked of those considered “American.” No. It’s not the responsibility of black America to shape the perceptions of others. It is up to all Americans to make sure that our fellow Americans are being treated with the same freedom as us, that they are able to live their lives as they wish, without being held as a case study on “all of them” by just going to the store.
It is a problem older than any living person, with a cause older than recorded history. No American alive may have directly created that history that has brought us here, but every American has benefited or been held back by the legacy. White Americans cannot create a problem and then simply say it is up to blacks to fix it if they don’t want to deal with, just to prove they are worthy of being treated as humans the same as any other. It goes against the entire foundation of American justice to put the burden of proof on black Americans that they are not somehow fit to antiquated stereotypes created by white Americans. So no. I reject the argument. I reject the proposition. We must hold those who hate and those who are ignorant accountable for their own ignorance, no one else should have to carry the burden of their need to grow. We all carry the burden of both teaching those people, and for making up for the mistakes of the past that form the foundations of our lives though.
deleted
· 6 years ago
Okay, even if I wanted to reply to this fully, you just wrote about three essays worth of comments.
I read it all, but honestly I'll back down on this thread.
Just because someone has horrible views on one subject doesn't mean they should never be listened to. I'm not sure if this man just agrees with some of his other views or not, but the concept is still valid.
Look up videos about black people happy to get welfare checks. It's certainly eye opening how these people are willing to be modern slaves in every sense of the word just because they get a little money.
I hate the fact that this is true, but African Americans really need to change our attitudes towards life if we want to move forward as a people. There are too many problems for me to list here, but I think one of them is the obsession with frivolties. Look at the most popular black people these days. Covered in gold, fake teeth, tons of "bitches", drugs everywhere, and a body inked more than George R.R.'s entire bibliographic history. The most vice ridden men of our age, and they continue to praise God.
I hate when people use stereotypes to define a whole race. Fuck that. Everybody is different. Every family is not the same. Even if a lot of black people are like that, so what? That says nothing about black people as a whole. That says a lot about the individual. A person is not defined by their race.
That's why I said the most popular black people, not the best role models for black people. Again, take a look at them and at least be aware of who they are and what they do. Their music doesnt influence the audience, it's what the person does with their life.
Am I saying that all black people are terrible? Not by a long shot. I'm saying that racist stereotypes always have a bit of truth and if we are going to stop said racism, we need to change what black people come up in the minds of the common American.
I read it all, but honestly I'll back down on this thread.