ClydeStyle

Tag: discrimination

  • Attacks on freedom for all people sour July 4th celebrations

    America has made great strides in its  history in an attempt to live up to its constitution. No one can argue that things are better than they were 100 years ago.

    But did this change come from a new revelation that the only God who created the universe made all men equal and that the past treatment of minorities was sinful and would greatly hinder eternal life in heaven? Nope. It doesn’t seem like God has ever stopped the sinful flesh at anything it decides to do.

    So then, white people were free from immediate eternal punishment and could still rob, cheat, and steal from minorities. They could still allow racist systems that would impede the process of minorities moving forward, and they could continue to allow police and other forces to discriminate and incarcerate minorities without real due process.

    And they have.

    What has been a constant with white people is that when you lay their actions before (a tactic mastered by the civil rights movement), then it would guilt enough of them to do the right thing.

    The problem with this is that they do the right thing for the wrong reason. And that leads to resentment.

    Then comes Donald Trump. In his first term in office, he attempted to resend as much civil and human rights as whites would allow. Now, of course, you’re thinking white people wouldn’t allow America to go backward, would it?

    There are too many non-racist folks in Congress to let that happen, right? Well, I looked up exactly how many things he did to destroy civil and human rights, and I wanted to list them all here. I didn’t because there were too many. On average, it looked like at least 70 things each year he was in office.

    I couldn’t believe it myself because you would think that if the democrats knew this, they would have run on a platform that shared it with the rest of us. Could it be that they were resentful, too?

    This link will take you to the list of things he tried https://civilrights.org/trump-rollbacks/

    All of them didn’t succeed, but with this gigantic list, you can really tell that the powers that be are not for minorities. He is already on pace to surpass this list in his second term.

    And now, with Independence Day fast approaching, who really wants to celebrate it?

  • Columbus Day should be put out of its misery

    We welcome October with a plea to the government to put an end to the big lie surrounding Columbus Day. Everyone already knows how far the truth was stretched to cover up the evil that this day represents.

    Even if some turn a blind eye to the offense of this federal holiday, others have already begun to replace the celebratory part of the holiday with something called Native American Day or Indigenous Peoples’ Day.

    Originally, Columbus was credited as the discoverer of America despite the fact that millions of people were already here. Columbus made four expeditions to the Caribbean and South America enslaving and decimating populations paving the way for European colonization.

    The White House made a proclamation last year to the holiday, and sadly, it gave the true history of the holiday. In speaking about Italian-Americans, it says, “Things have not always been easy; prejudice and violence often stalled the promise of equal opportunity.  In fact, Columbus Day was created by President Harrison in 1892 in response to the anti-Italian motivated lynching of 11 Italian Americans in New Orleans in 1891.  During World War II, Italian Americans were even targeted as enemy aliens.  But the hard work, dedication to community, and leadership of Italian Americans in every industry make our country stronger, more prosperous, and more vibrant.  The Italian American community is also a cornerstone of our Nation’s close and enduring relationship with Italy — a vital NATO Ally and European Union partner.”

    Now, I agree with these sentiments regarding Italians, and there are other cultures that contribute to many positive things in America. However, I can make a powerful argument that African-American contributions far exceed the others, and despite having Republicans and Democrats make promises of change, Black people have continued to struggle.

    Columbus Day is a slap in the face. It needs to be a part of some museum where we put our troubled past away forever. I love the idea of celebrating the originals. And paying homage to the true innovative beings that dared to follow scientific theories to get to the New World.

    It is as if you can’t believe anything that was told to us in “American history.” With so many lies, it makes you wonder what else they are hiding.

  • We have problems we don’t want to be fixed

    Last month Tyre Nichols was funeralized in the usual fashion of a victim of police violence. Al Sharpton did the Eulogy. Various dignitaries spoke out against police violence including Vice President Kamala Harris. We always talk a good game when these things happen but history has shown that when a problem can easily be fixed and we don’t take the steps to correct the problem, then the truth is we don’t want to fix the problem.

    America rules the world in violence and in creating weapons for violence. One of the many lessons we should have learned from our civil war is that we were not mature enough and do not value life enough to use weapons. We should have learned that our nation is not stable and we will always turn these weapons against ourselves.

    When the drugs that our government poured into urban areas back in the 80s got out of hand (which was the plan), we created the war on drugs and we put many Black and Brown men in prison. Even though cocaine was heavily used in the suburbs by whites, they could possess 280 grams of cocaine and a Black person could have the same amount of crack cocaine (or any drug), and the person of color would automatically get 10 years in prison even if that was their first offense. The reason? Mandatory minimums. This is a rule by Congress to stop the trafficking of certain drugs in urban areas and a judge had no choice but to enforce the mandatory minimum.

    With guns and policing this principle of mandatory minimums would deter crimes if they are enforced. What if you were a gun owner and your son took one of your guns and shot up his school? If the gun owner would suffer a mandatory minimum of 10 years, I would bet his son would never get near his guns. Or what if the seller of the gun was held accountable? There would be no shortcuts in background checks then.

    What if police officers got mandatory minimums for lying on their reports? Ten years for falsified documents, 3 years for not turning on your body camera, and 5 years for witnessing any wrongdoing by an officer and not reporting it or intervening to stop it. Shooting an unarmed suspect when you should have used any number of non-lethal options like pepper spray, tasers, and nightsticks should be a mandatory 20 years. There would instantly be a great decrease in police shootings and school shootings if this plan was implemented.

    Of course, the best plan would be to get rid of handguns and automatic weapons for good. The police would not need to carry them and they could adopt the same plan Japan has. In 1989 they had their last mass shooting by banning weapons for civilians. Their police force carries no weapons but they all have been trained in martial arts. When will our government feel that we are too civilized for weapons?

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  • History and truth need validation

    We live in a time that has the phrase “fake news” circulating through our language. Most of our country looks back at history and tries to cover up the wrong doing because of guilt. In fact, the further back we go the worst it gets. Our country is very divided which was the intent of some. We actually have people who are hoping for another civil war. Because of all these things and more, our history needs to be fact checked and validated.

    The greatest reason for this is so that we don’t repeat the mistakes. It’s always difficult to hold someone accountable in their ignorance. And it’s even more tedious to suffer someone through their wrongdoing. It really becomes taxing on everybody because our ignorance and forgetfulness tends to effect us in great numbers.

    Recently, the Queen of England died. She was on the throne for 70 years and whether she was a figure head or not, that monarch has a ton of innocent blood on it’s hands. Colonization of countries was their specialty and to reign over a place that terrorized countries for a living is not fashionable at all. Their entanglement in South Africa, Jamaica, Barbados and other places was absolutely horrible. But I guess if you live long enough people forget. She lost family members recently because they could no longer endure the racism. But I digress.

    America has a reputation for building weapons on mass destruction, incarcerating it’s citizens and racism. The Bill of Rights and freedoms we have on paper are great until they aren’t. Sure there are worse places you could live but measuring and comparing us based on our resources and what’s actually possible for us to do, we are definitely found lacking.

    This is a perfect place to live if you are wealthy — but that’s only one percent. For the rest of the 99 percent we have varying degrees of contentment and down right bankrupt individuals who are barely keeping their head above water. We have been repeating our past and finding better ways to be convert in our repeats. Our problems are systemic and design to maintain the status quo.

    As a country, we need to figure out exactly what we are trying to do and be honest about it. If we really have a plan to continue to disenfranchise citizens then say that. But based on resources, our country could be a place where everyone thrives.

    We need the correct history so that we can be more tolerant of each other. There are way too many injustices to name here but if we really wanted to correct the problems we have to start with admitting the wrong.

    We need a history check and an honest conversation about what type of country we really want to be.

  • Racism – is it really all just in our heads?

    Clyde is traveling in Nashville this week and asked me to “fill in” for him with a post about an article I ran across on MSNBC about children with a rare genetic disorder that causes them to ignore race and skin color. Learn more about what this unusual condition is teaching us about the origins of racism and gender stereotypes.

    Ann M. Richardson

    I read an article today about children born with a rare genetic disorder known as Williams syndrome that causes them to have a complete lack of social anxiety.

    An interesting by-product of this defect is that the children have no racial biases, according to a researcher from the University of Heidelberg in Germany.

    Normally, children show clear preferences for their own ethnic group by the age of three, or sooner, according to other research. In fact, children without the defect consistently associate positive traits (friendliness, kindness, etc.) to people that are the same race as themselves.

    When asked a negative question, “Which is the naughty boy?” children without Williams syndrome indicate that the naughty boy is the one from the “other” race.

    Williams syndrome is caused by the absence of a gene that affects the brain and other organs. People with this syndrome are “hypersocial,” meaning that they don’t experience the anxiety, nervousness, and self-consciousness that plague the rest of us – especially adolescents.

    Sounds like it would be great if we all had Williams syndrome, doesn’t it?

    Can you imagine what it would be like to live in a world where no one hated anyone just because of the color of their skin or their ethnic background? And no one got the jitters when they had to speak in front of a group of people?

    Sounds like utopia to me.

    But Williams syndrome does have some drawbacks.

    Kids with Williams syndrome (WS) will put themselves at risk to help someone else while giving no thought for their own safety. Despite considerable empathy for others, the disorder leaves them unable to process and assess what scientists call “social danger signals.”

    Or what I call a lack of plain old “street smarts.” The kind of wariness that tells you when to walk away (or even run) from a fight – or when “something just doesn’t feel right.”

    Not surprisingly, this lack of street smarts puts WS kids at greater risk for rape and physical assault.

    So is racism really “all in our heads?” Or is it all biological? And if it is biological, can we do anything about it?

    According to researcher Andreas Meyer-Lindenburg, WS kids may be missing critical genes, but:

    “We are not saying that this is all biologically-based and you can’t do anything about it [racial bias]. Just because there is a genetic way to knock the system out, does not mean the system itself is 100 percent genetic,” he said.

    The study shows that racism requires social fear. “If social fear was culturally reduced, racial stereotypes could also be reduced,” Meyer-Lindenberg said.

    Another interesting thing learned from this study: although children with Williams may lack street smarts, they do hold gender stereotypes just as strongly as normal children.

    Meyer-Lindenberg says that we now know that “gender and race are processed by different brain mechanisms,” Meyer-Lindenberg said. Other researchers have learned that in the brains of people with WS, the amygdala — where our emotions reside — fails to respond to social threats. While the amygdala is normal, it is misdirected by the pre-frontal cortex — the CEO of the brain — to block all social anxiety.

    Scientists theorize that this interaction in the brain affects racism, but it does not seem to play a role in the formation of gender stereotypes.

    Meyer-Lindenberg and his colleagues at the University of Heidelberg are using brain imaging to get a clearer picture of how racism and sexism are differentiated in the brain.

    The German study was published in the journal Current Biology.

    Click here to read the complete article I read on MSNBC.

    Clyde will return this Sunday – in the meantime, share your comments with me about this article.

    Let me know what you think:

    • Is racism due to nature or nurture? Do we learn it or is it biological?
    • If it is biological, can we do anything about it?
    • And what are the implications of this research? Will we soon have a”pill” available that eliminates racism?