TL;DR: White people and power structures have done and still do terrible shit to people/bodies identifying/ascribed as being Black. Moreover, White people hold power, resources and privileges, while most Black people/bodies generally don't thanks to active/passive/structural racism and systemic disadvantage. Therefore, what specific suggestions do you have in terms of rectifying these injustices or simply making things better and more equal?
As a White European I am really interested in what people, especially the affected ones, have to say regarding this question. I am going to try to be as brief as possible, but I think there are some incredibly convincing arguments and lived experiences that should make it evident why White people, i.e. the ones in power and in benefit of the past and current societal structures, should try as much as possible to rectify past and current injustices. Since White Europeans and North Americans have a long list of atrocities against other nations and peoples and covering all of them would be too broad and watered-down, I want to focus the discussion on specifically African-Americans or people who either identify or being ascribed as being Black in US.
In case someone reading this thread is not aware of how Black people in Western societies/the US have been historically and still to this day discriminated, oppressed, and marginalized, heres a list of what White people are guilty of and ways in which Black people are victimized and oppressed through individual/systemic/structural racism:
Personally, I dont think the wounds inflicted in the past, present, and future will ever be fully healed or mended, nor do I want/expect the oppressed party to ever forgive the oppressors, but at the very least I think oppressors and beneficiaries are morally responsible for rectifying racially motivated individual and systematic atrocities committed. For example, besides being responsible for the continuous unequal treatment of Black people in the US, historic and contemporary state of affairs show that White people have historically profited from the colonization, abduction, and slavery of Black people. I.e. people today are well off thanks the exploitation of resources, labor, and people, while still today perpetuating various degrees of active and passive racism as individuals, as a society, and throughout the structures and media. Moreover, White people still hold the majority of social power compared to other people, so they enjoy the privilege of being White when it comes to education, police, employment, housings, media, income, beauty ideals, etc.
Here are some general (idealistic?) suggestions that I can think of or that Ive come across, but I have no idea on what it would require to make things better so think of them as conversation motivators:
As a White European I am really interested in what people, especially the affected ones, have to say regarding this question. I am going to try to be as brief as possible, but I think there are some incredibly convincing arguments and lived experiences that should make it evident why White people, i.e. the ones in power and in benefit of the past and current societal structures, should try as much as possible to rectify past and current injustices. Since White Europeans and North Americans have a long list of atrocities against other nations and peoples and covering all of them would be too broad and watered-down, I want to focus the discussion on specifically African-Americans or people who either identify or being ascribed as being Black in US.
In case someone reading this thread is not aware of how Black people in Western societies/the US have been historically and still to this day discriminated, oppressed, and marginalized, heres a list of what White people are guilty of and ways in which Black people are victimized and oppressed through individual/systemic/structural racism:
- Colonization of Africa/Abducting Africans/"Maafa" (Black Holocaust): Should be self-evident, as it resulted in a complete fracture of friends, families, communities, cultures and societies with future descendants obviously severely affected by it.
- Slavery in North America: Also self-evident. Tons of people not only losing their freedom and integrity, but also their lives and kickstarting the caste-like racism still prevalent in the US.
- Segregation/Jim Crow: Should also be self-evident as to why this is simply morally reprehensible.
- Police profiling: We see how just being Black automatically invites police frisks/stops/violence/ due to racist prejudices and profiling. Besides being stopped just for being Black, people are also subjected to racist behavior by the police, resulting in actual death with no repercussions for the police in question. "According to the Human Rights Watch, people of color are no more likely to use or sell illegal drugs than whites, but they have higher rate of arrests. African Americans comprise 14 percent of regular drug users but are 37 percent of those arrested for drug offenses. From 1980 to 2007 about one in three of the 25.4 million adults arrested for drugs was African American."
- Judicial system: "The U.S. Sentencing Commission stated that in the federal system black offenders receive sentences that are 10 percent longer than white offenders for the same crimes. The Sentencing Project reports that African Americans are 21 percent more likely to receive mandatory-minimum sentences than white defendants and are 20 percent more like to be sentenced to prison." http://www.americanprogress.org/iss...or-and-criminal-justice-in-the-united-states/
- Imprisonment: "Approximately 12%-13% of the American population is African-American, but they make up 40% of the almost 2.1 million male inmates in jail or prison. 1 in every 15 African American men and 1 in every 36 Hispanic men are incarcerated in comparison to 1 in every 106 white men. One in three black men can expect to go to prison in their lifetime."
- Voting: "An estimated 5.3 million Americans are denied the right to vote based on a past felony conviction. Felony disenfranchisement is exaggerated by racial disparities in the criminal-justice system, ultimately denying 13 percent of African American men the right to vote. Felony-disenfranchisement policies have led to 11 states denying the right to vote to more than 10 percent of their African American population."
- Housing policies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_discrimination_in_the_United_States_housing_market and http://www.theatlantic.com/business...ng-policy-that-made-your-neighborhood/371439/
- Media representation: This study recently released shows minorities claimed only 10.5 percent of the lead roles in the 172 films examined for 2011. Because minorities collectively accounted for 36.3 percent of the U.S. population in 2010, they were underrepresented by a factor of more than 3 to 1 among lead roles in the films examined. . This matters because of Historically, there has been a dearth of gender, racial, and ethnic diversity in film and television both in front of and behind the camera. This reality has meant limited access to employment for women and minorities and to a truncating of the domain of media images available for circulation in contemporary society. As discussed above, media images contribute greatly to how we think about ourselves in relation to others. When marginalized groups in society are absent from the storie s a nation tells about itself, or when media images are rooted primarily in stereotype, inequality is normalized and is more likely to be reinforced over time through our prejudices and practices. http://www.bunchecenter.ucla.edu/wp...2/2014-Hollywood-Diversity-Report-2-12-14.pdf
- News coverage: Sports and crime were by far the most common topic areas to include African American males. On local television, in which the sample included sports segments, more than four out of 10 stories (43 percent) that prominently featured African American men were sports-focused and another 30 percent were about crime. No other subject was higher than 4 percent. In newspapers, where the sample did not include the sports section, 43 percent of stories with an African American presence were crime related. After race and gender at 16 percent and government at 11 percent, no other topic in print was higher than 7 percent (education and lifestyle both) http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/sites/default/files/portrayal-and-perception-20111101.pdf
- White Beauty ideals: "Black women are particularly vulnerable to the effects of European standards of beauty, because these standards emphasize skin colors and hair types that exclude many black women, especially those of darker skin. A review of the research indicates that European standards of beauty can have damaging effects on the life trajectories of black women, especially those with dark skin, primarily in the form of internalized self-hatred. Suggestions are made for social work practitioners to address the effects of these internalized European beauty standards among black women through programming and clinical practice."
- Education: researchers found that a student in a school in the highest-poverty quartile is almost three times as likely to be taught by a teacher rated ineffective as a student in a school in the lowest-poverty quartile. And similarly, students in schools with a high concentration of minorities are more than twice as likely to have an ineffective teacher than students in schools with a low minority enrollment. Regardless of how it is measured, teacher quality is not distributed equitably across schools and districts. Poor students and students of color are less likely to get well-qualified or high-value teachers than students from higher-income families or students who are white, says the report. http://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/TeacherDistributionBrief1.pdf
- Cultural appropriation and commercialization of African-American culture: Blues, Jazz, Hiphop, ghetto lifestyles, swag, twerking, etc.
Personally, I dont think the wounds inflicted in the past, present, and future will ever be fully healed or mended, nor do I want/expect the oppressed party to ever forgive the oppressors, but at the very least I think oppressors and beneficiaries are morally responsible for rectifying racially motivated individual and systematic atrocities committed. For example, besides being responsible for the continuous unequal treatment of Black people in the US, historic and contemporary state of affairs show that White people have historically profited from the colonization, abduction, and slavery of Black people. I.e. people today are well off thanks the exploitation of resources, labor, and people, while still today perpetuating various degrees of active and passive racism as individuals, as a society, and throughout the structures and media. Moreover, White people still hold the majority of social power compared to other people, so they enjoy the privilege of being White when it comes to education, police, employment, housings, media, income, beauty ideals, etc.
Here are some general (idealistic?) suggestions that I can think of or that Ive come across, but I have no idea on what it would require to make things better so think of them as conversation motivators:
- Reparations: Monetary, resources, education, etc. Raising the social mobility across poor and Black communities by raising the level of education, social care, healthcare, employment, etc. through an infusion of money from the government.
- Affirmative Action specifically targeting Black people. Getting a job isn't entirely about merits, but what body you are identified as. I think privileged White people should move to the side and let Black bodies in.
- Higher taxes of rich and wealthy people, most notably White ones. Provide this taxed money to education, health, security, etc. in Black communities.
- Media emphasis on African-American culture and values.
- Incentives for media diversity and news reporting
- Watch dogs of the people in power
- Education & awareness for White people to learn about racism, privilege, and the tools on how to deal with passive, institutional and systemic racism.
- A complete reform or overhaul of the police, courts, and prisons.
- Public apology and confirmation and reparations of past atrocities by the nations involved in the slave trade.
- Secession or self-rule by African-Americans à la Native Americans? Probably a far-fetched suggestion, but if people desired such a solution, hopefully Black people would receive better and more resource-rich land along with the required funds to "get the ball rolling".
- Africans enslaved other Africans! - African history wasn't well-documented until Europeans arrived. Moreover, if armed and hostile Europeans arrived and demanded local societies for slaves, what do you think they would do? Finally, slaves in the African societies in question were treated with more integrity and individuality than as subhuman as in Europe and the US.
- Obama is President, Racism is over!- Just because a person of color is voted into office doesn't detract from the large
- All the slavery shit happened centuries ago and no longer affects our present societal standings. - This argument completely denies historic causality and how people are affected by the wealth and freedom of opportunities (or lack thereof) of their ancestors and environment. European nations benefited from slavery and White North Americans did as well, which in turn made them more powerful in maintaining and withholding power and resources for future development of cultures and societies.
- White guilt/savior complex! - This is irrelevant to the matter at hand, which is the moral obligation to ensure the basic well-being of others and rectifying past and current atrocities. People are still suffering because of past and contemporary actions and structures.
