White Lives Matter

[edy420]

Racist statement?

[TheVat]

Black lives matter is a phrase which is understood to mean "black lives also matter, and to the same degree as other human lives. "

The OP phrase would not have this connotation, since the massive dominance of European society, and colonialism, meant several centuries in which it was violently asserted that white lives not only mattered, but were of greater value. And still, in many places, there are considerable advantages and privileges that go with being white. So the statement might be more described as having a false equivalence, since there is no crying need to assert that white lives matter. Indeed, my nation is founded on a deeply ingrained belief that white lives matter MORE, and we still reap the dismal harvest of that sort of thinking.

So the statement, if it is taken to be some sort of slogan, seems more absurd and unnecessary than racist. And, to be sure, if there is some place where whites are a mistreated minority, then it would acquire more meaning and value as a slogan. To put it another way, when discrimination and mistreatment fall upon any group of human beings, then asserting that ______ Lives Matter is essentially to remind that human lives have value and that this group must be recognized as fellow humans.

[edy420]

Black lives matter is a phrase which is understood to mean "black lives also matter, and to the same degree as other human lives. "

What evidence is there to suggest that this is not already true? Black lives are equal to others, they 'also' matter.

The OP phrase would not have this connotation, since the massive dominance of European society, and colonialism, meant several centuries in which it was violently asserted that white lives not only mattered, but were of greater value.

At what point, are we able to move forward? If slavery and racism were still widely practiced, then I can see why a slogan like BLM would hold some value. But we have progressed decades going on centuries beyond the elimination of systemic racism. How many more centuries until a term like BLM is equal to saying WLM, ie meaningless to say. Can we ever move forward in terms of racial equality.

I guess the real question is, what does racial equality look like, considering that today, all races have equal opportunity.

[BadgerJelly]

edy -

I guess the real question is, what does racial equality look like, considering that today, all races have equal opportunity.

This is only partially true. You’re from New Zealand right? In other countries racial relations are much worse and others they are better. The history of the US in this regard warrants analysis before the same phrases are applied to other countries.

What evidence is there to suggest that this is not already true? Black lives are equal to others, they 'also' matter.

I think the phrasing is unfortunate, but it appears to have been effective in moving the discussion into the limelight more.

There is enough to suggest that the disparity between communities has left some groups of people more disadvantaged than others. In the US the legal system is pretty horrific from what I’ve learnt - even compared to other poor systems in other countries.

I believe the country will split before it gets to the root of its problems. You never know though, a simple shift here or there may turn things around for the better.

[TheVat]

I am reminded, for some reason, of that famous headline in The Onion, America's foremost humor magazine:

Racism Over, White People Declare

[Serpent]

Nobody is this clueless by accident.

[edy420]

Here in NZ, we were never slaves of the "white man". However, Maori did enslave each other. During the British colonization, we fought for the right to eat our enemy and continue enslaving each other. But instead, we won the right to equality.

For some reason, Maori communities are much poorer than white. We are also convicted more, commit more violent crimes, and feel oppressed. We get more Government funding than white people, and school programs focus on us more. The parallels in racist oppression between NZ and America are uncanny. But evidence for racial oppression is severely lacking in NZ. Racism is not a common denominator, when noting racial success/oppression.

Perhaps a case could be made that the British had a head start when establishing the economy and being educated. At least in NZ, when the British was well established, Maori were still very tribal. NZ was building court houses, schools and economies, when Maori were still cooking in the dirt, and talking in their native language. It took generations to overcome our differences and amalgamate our cultures. Its been a few generations, but we are still at a disadvantage.

Imagine joining a game of monopoly, half way through. You will never catch up, and it has nothing to do with the colour of the player.

The point I put forward, is that even when there was no oppression, people will still play victims of racism(like NZ). When analyzing the apparent oppression economically and judicially, its easy to point at the first difference we see. The colour of skin. But the fundamental truths are overlooked.

America obviously has had racist oppression in the past. Those day are gone, and people of colour have equal opportunity. Similarly, being born black, means you start at a disadvantage, but not because of your skin colour.

Racism Over, White People Declare

When I look at the BLM protesters, it seems like its the white people who declare racism exists.

Don Lemon asked Morgan Freeman if race plays a part in wealth distribution, he replied..
"Today? No...[race] Its kind of like religion to me... and if you talk about it, it exists"

Lil Wayne says his crowd is proof that racism doesnt exist. Denzel Washington says don't blame the system for black incarceration, it starts at home. Theres a long list of wealthy black people who declare "racism over".

While I can agree that minority communities are economically at a disadvantage, the evidence to suggest its due to racism is lacking.

BadgerJelly,

I believe the country will split before it gets to the root of its problems. You never know though, a simple shift here or there may turn things around for the better.

I think, capitalism plays a large part in the oppression of players who started late in this life game of monopoly. But give it a few more generations, and the player base will even out. If we want to maintain capitalism, then we are in a good place right now, minus the mythological god racism. It all depends on societies goals. So then,

What is the goal, if not equality? A black King/dictator? Black Supremecy? A tax for being white? More socialism? All races mix?

[Faradave]

There are plenty of poor white folk in the USA who are anything but oppressed. They may be victims of something but certainly not of systemic racism. In USA we are free. Free to drop out of school, free to smoke free to drink, free in many states to use marijuana, free to be lazy, free to be whatever gender we want (so why not what ever race we want?) and of course we're free to be victims.

But I can't think of anyplace where a victim who wants to has a better chance to turn things around.

[doogles]

Just judging from the way he speaks, I assume that Edy is Maori.

I believe that he is close to the mark in his assessment that the problem is not one of 'blackness' at all, but one of some associated factor. We have some outspoken people of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent here in Australia, who condemn their own kind for constantly acting the role of being 'victims' in life after 10 or so generations of white settlement.

The Department of Criminology in Australia has kept data on ALL deaths in custody since 1991, and overall, they do not support the notion of bias against blacks. This Wikipedia research (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aborigina ... d%20police).) states that "Overall, the rate of Indigenous deaths in custody has reduced since 1991, as of June 2020 lower than the rate of death of non-Indigenous people, which the AIC attributes to improved care by police and corrective services. However the rate of imprisonment of Indigenous people has climbed steeply ... "

Don't get me wrong, recent videos of the police handling of some arrests in the USA certainly raise questions about the way some policeman behave, and this also applies to the reckless shooting of Justine Damond, a white female Australian/American citizen in the USA in 2017.

The big social problem to my mind is the high rate of lawlessness within some groups and therefore the high rate of incarcerations. Australia has conducted a number of inquiries into this problem and has so far failed to come up with answers.

This is why I like Edy's post. To my mind he is 'on the money' and asking the right questions about the issue. I believe he is close to the mark when he cleverly uses the Monopoly Game analogy. I throw the following notion into the ring as food for thought in understanding the problem better. It does not solve the problem in its own right, but it could be a starting point for some thinking.

I have a photograph of myself and my teenage acquaintances in 1946 at the end of this post. Our ages ranged from 14 to 17. We were a rag-tag, make-shift football team that never won a game, but that didn't worry us; we were playing in an under 17 competition. There were no families of aboriginal descent in our area, but this photograph depicts the main source of petty criminals of my era. All of us in the photograph were the children of working class, lower socio-economic people who rented, rather than owned, the houses they lived in and which all contained the bare essentails of furniture. Nobody owned a car or possessed assets of any value. We had absolutely no parental supervision. And very few had any sense of property or assets.

From the age of 12 or 13, my mates used to have huge bunches of large keys that they'd test out on the padlocks of any stores or warehouses in our area and help themselves to whatever goods they desired. We all ran wild at night. The majority of my mates were on probation for petty crimes. There were few cars in those days, otherwise they would have been the ones 'joyriding' in and wrecking other people's property. At least two of the boys in the photograph finished up doing 3 years for armed robbery and one was eventually declared an 'habitual criminal' under Victorian law.

Gaol was not considered a shame of any kind; on the contrary, I can remember my mother pointing to a local bloke with admiration one time stating that he had 'done time' (in gaol). It was worn as a badge of honour, as was anybody in our area who had successfully perpetuated a crime and got away with it. The local 'citizens' had a dislike of the police and the government and resented authority of any kind. It became generational.

We had a gaol called Pentridge in Melbourne. They had a small farm at the rear with a variety of animals, and worked by the prisoners. Being a government institution, the Department of Agriculture supplied veterinary services to any of the animals if they had problems. When I joined the Department as a new veterinary graduate in 1954, I scored that job. It was strange to be driving through the exercise yard only to recognise and be recognised by several of the young blokes I grew up with.

The adults in my area worked mainly as labour during that era, doing 44-hour weeks (8 hr Monday to Friday and 4 hr Saturday mornings) for subsistence wages that paid rent, food and clothes. None earned enough to accumulate property or and assets of any kind. And this is where I see the attitude of lower socio-economic status as being that of someone joining in a game of monopoly that's well under way. They have no hope of becoming the 'haves' in life.

Few of my mates respected property of any kind and did not hesitate to steal, vandalise or destroy other people's possessions.

The notion of pride of possession, as it exists in most people, did not exist in them. I believe this is the basis of vandalism. Vandals do not have any sense of value of ownership in those things they destroy.

It possibly explains non-social behaviour to some extent, but it doesn't embrace the extent of homicide of blacks by other blacks, or the extent of domestic violence amongst indigenous Australians.

As I said, it's just a thought to throw around.

[TheVat]

This offers some research results that address what the situation is in the USA. Having spent part of my life living in a city known for systemic racism, and seeing it up close, I find social science research helpful as it shows some more objective metrics for understanding the experience. This article addresses just hiring, and not other areas of differential treatment (like the criminal justice system, demeanor of retail workers, etc.)

https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/9/1 ... acism-jobs

For those living in Australia or New Zealand, it is helpful to learn about the USA's unique history, going from the slavery era, through Jim Crow era, segregation, differential sentencing for black defendants, and so on, before weighing in on the topic. This can rescue intelligent discussion from the depredations of right-wing talking points.

Practices in hiring and "redlining" blacks (keeping them out of middle class neighborhoods) do reveal that "equal opportunity" has not been for everyone and that the playing field is far from level.

[TheVat]

Addendum: I realized the term "redlining" may need further definition for some readers, as it's more than just rental steering and mortgage denials.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining

[doogles]

My personal intent is always to be constructive and to attempt to understand ALL things that come to my attention in life, in ways that make sense to me. I'm still learning new things every day, and therefore I still like to analyse issues in order to understand them better. For example, edy's monopoly-handicap analogy made a lot of sense to me as an explanation for the behaviour and attitudes of the people I grew up with. I appreciated his constructive contribution.

The culture of the group I was reared with, was one of never ever being a part of the 'haves' in life, and this means of course that in a culture of democratic capitalism, we were something resembling 'victims' of our time. None of this of course would have been rationalised by any of us because extremely few of our kind ever act outside of anything but our 'feelings'.

Another thought I've had is that racism, maybe in parallel with non-social behaviour, may have something to do with one of the primitive drives possessed by all animals. I'm talking about pecking orders. We humans possibly manifest pecking orders at every level of our lives more than any other species on the planet. I wrote a short dissertation on this decades ago and will provide it on request. No bully is ever aware that he/she is a bully in my opinion. Top dogs just feel good until they are seriously challenged. It's in our blood. Is it possible that movements like 'White Supremacy' gets support because they give some weaker people a chance to be better than something else in any area of human endeavour -- racism, sexism, poverty, intellect, connections (name-dropping), extent of philosophical knowledge, or whatever?

I'll just present one experimental example of artificial prejudice -- An American schoolteacher named Jane Elliott demonstrated how easy it is to establish relative dominance and submission of not only children, but of adults, over others on the basis of such an arbitrary characteristic as the colour of one’s eyes. In an initial experiment, she divided a class of all white students into two groups depending on their eye colour - light colours such as blue or green, and dark coloured. She broadly classified them as blue or brown. On the first day, she proclaimed that the ones with blue eyes had superior intelligence and that brown eyes equated with inferiority. She reported that the ‘superior’ students quickly began to dominate the brown-eyed ones, the latter exhibited self-loathing and fear. When she reversed the roles the next day, the behavioural attitudes of the respective groups also became reversed. Later in 1996, she produced a videotape called Blue-eyed in which she demonstrated this same experiment with mixed age adults. Even though it was only role-playing, those deemed to be inferior, really felt inferior. Some adults in the so-called inferior group were reduced to tears after only hours of torment because of a morbid feeling of inferiority. As Jane Elliott pointed out, eye colour was a characteristic over which they had no control, because they were born with it. You can read more about that here -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Elliott.

All of the above suggests to me a possibility that if any group acts as victims of a culture, then they will be regarded and treated as such by the majority of our kind. It's human nature.

I found TheVat's reference to https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/9/1 ... acism-jobs quite interesting. It leaves no doubt that there is a bias against blacks as far as employment opportunities are concerned. I found myself wanting to know more about all of those studies, for example, whether the jobs in question were for public service, front-of-shop retail, back room labour, IT, or receptionist. It would be enlightening to know whether the rejections were spread across the board or whether they applied to work that involved interaction with customers. Is there any way of accessing the original review data?

The above explains racism to me to a large extent, and the reasons for non-social behaviour (and therefore high rates of incarcerations).

Maybe the innate pursuit of dominance in the pecking order also explains why so many blacks commit homicide against other blacks or why there is so much domestic violence among Australian aborigines. A question that remains to be answered is why the rates are so high in these two groups respectively.

[doogles]

The reactions to Jane Elliott's experiments are also documented in the above Wikipedia research. They indicate clearly that emotion-based racism was prevalent in 1968. Here's one excerpt -- "The compositions that the children wrote about the experience were printed in the Riceville Recorder on page 4 on April 18, 1968, under the headline "How Discrimination Feels", and the story was picked up by the Associated Press.[6] Because of the Associated Press article, Elliott was invited to appear on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. After she spoke about her exercise in a short interview segment, the audience reaction was instant as hundreds of calls came into the show's telephone switchboard, much of it negative.[6] An often-quoted letter stated, "How dare you try this cruel experiment out on white children? Black children grow up accustomed to such behavior, but white children, there's no way they could possibly understand it. It's cruel to white children and will cause them great psychological damage."[6]

The publicity that Elliott was getting did not make her popular in Riceville. When she walked into the teachers' lounge the day after her Tonight Show appearance, several other teachers walked out. When she went downtown to do errands, she heard whispers. When her oldest daughter went to the girls' bathroom in junior high, she came out of a stall to see a hateful message scrawled in red lipstick for her on the mirror.[6]"

[edy420]

I watched a couple of her experiments. Its mind blowing stuff. Adults crying within 5 minutes of interaction, all because they have blue eyes.

She says she got the idea from Hitler. Her demeanor is very Nazi like too.

The publicity that Elliott was getting did not make her popular in Riceville. When she walked into the teachers' lounge the day after her Tonight Show appearance, several other teachers walked out. When she went downtown to do errands, she heard whispers. When her oldest daughter went to the girls' bathroom in junior high, she came out of a stall to see a hateful message scrawled in red lipstick for her on the mirror.[6]"

Thats good to know. The general public is disgusted by publicly racist attempts. And will put a stop to it.

I found TheVat's reference to https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/9/1 ... acism-jobs quite interesting. It leaves no doubt that there is a bias against blacks as far as employment opportunities are concerned. I found myself wanting to know more about all of those studies,

I wonder if it has anything to do with ability, or at least, the perception of ability. For example, anyone can be employed in the NBA. They don't "choose" blacks, or purposefully omit whites(just guessing), however when the facts are taken into account objectively, it certainly does appear that the NBA is racist.

In NZ, most dairy shop owners as well as most dentists are Indians. Most stand alone takeaway food shops are Chinese. Most Lawyers and judges are white... not 100% sure why, but I wouldnt think it has to do with a degenerate racial selection process.

It would be interesting to find out for what reasons the industries in Vats link, chose or avoid a particular race. And how various the selection is, within certain industries. And what evidence is there to suggest its due specifically to racism, and not just cultural preference.

[Serpent]

To recap: Nobody can possibly be this clueless without the will to be so.

[TheVat]

To test bias, the researchers analyzed experiments that used résumé and in-person audits. In résumé audits, researchers send out fake applications with equivalent qualifications and different ethnically identifiable names. For in-person audits, researchers recruit people of different races to apply for jobs and measure bias based on which applicants get callbacks.

Even controlling for factors like geography, gender, education levels, and unemployment rates where the experiments took place, the researchers still found that progress in fighting hiring bias has been stalled since 1989 for African-Americans. For Latinos, the news does not get much better. The researchers found a “possible decline in discrimination” for Latinos but also noted that the trend is not statistically conclusive.

Names have long been known to be the difference in whether or not you will get a response in your career. Gatekeepers can make decisions on whether you merit networking advice based on the name you put down in an email. One study found that professors were more likely to answer unsolicited requests for advice from fictional “Brad Andersons” than any other race.

How you sound like can also be a deciding factor. Linguistics professor John Baugh got people with different ethnic dialects to answer a job advertisement in English, and found that those who “sounded white” were most likely to be told the job was still available.

https://www.theladders.com/career-advic ... since-1989

[TheVat]

https://cos.gatech.edu/facultyres/Diver ... aJamal.pdf

https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017 ... 1706255114

(more links on this area of social science research)

[charon]

Well, I've got blue eyes and it's a good job Ms. Elliott didn't end up in the canal.

[charon]

PS. The girlfriend's got green eyes. I wonder what would have happened there? :-)

[charon]

I went on a government-run course once. It was basic stuff about job interviews and all that. The woman running it divided us up into pairs to do role-play, which was fine.

Then she suggested we did some strange things. I can't remember what they were now exactly, I wish the hell I could. But I realised that she was using us as guinea-pigs to experiment with some psycho-analytical ideas she had. Like I say, I wish to god I could remember exactly what they were but I can't, maybe I've blanked it.

Anyhow, after a day or three everyone was feeling very awkward and uncomfortable. I'd guessed what she was doing so one day, maybe the 4th or 5th, I vanished. Didn't go back in.

That evening I got a knock on my door. There she was. She'd come round to my personal address! So I got her in and told her exactly why I wasn't at her course any more.

She admitted it eventually. I told her that if she continued playing games with us, using us for her own ends, I'd report it and let her take the consequences.

I never went back and she can't have said anything because no one bothered me. I don't know what happened to her or the course or the other people, I don't remember seeing them again.

[charon]

As for 'White Lives Matter' - ALL lives matter, which includes nature.

End of discussion as far as I'm concerned although there are exceptions in certain circumstances.

[Serpent]

heaven forefend a blue-eyed person should be subjected to 5 minutes of discomfort!!

[doogles]

https://cos.gatech.edu/facultyres/Diversity_Studies/Bertrand_LakishaJamal.pdf

https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017 ... 1706255114

(more links on this area of social science research)

Thank you for those links TheVat. It looks as if 'occupation' was one of the variables examined in the second link and there was no statistical difference in the results.

It seems safe to say that there is a bias against the employment of blacks, and maybe latinos in the areas under study.

As I've said often, my aim is to understand this prejudice.

This prejudice in employment is a different subject by the way from whether there is a bias in the percentage of black and white deaths in custody. Certainly our Australian Department of Criminology figures do not support the claims made by the BLM group here.

In the case of the non-social behaviour of my peers as I was growing up, I'm happy enough to accept that the underlying cause is that they had no sense of property ownership, and as edy suggested, they had no hope of becoming the 'haves' in life because of a late start in the life game of monopoly.

edy has also asked the question in his last post "And what evidence is there to suggest it's due specifically to racism, and not just cultural preference?"

Once again, I think he is on the money. I see the prejudice as not being the colour of the skin so much as it is the culture of non-social behaviour that has developed among those with black skin. The rates of homicide and incarcerations are much higher among our indigenous Australians than among the general population (See https://www.aic.gov.au/publications/rip/rip37).

Because of this high association between black skin and non-social behaviour, employers take a higher risk of employing a potentially problematical person, if they employ an indigenous Australian for example. I think the same applies to black Americans.

Of course, the next question is what makes them so non-social. Does a feeling of being a 'have not' become entrenched culturally and generationally? I can see where it could lead to excessive gambling in the pursuit of more money. Gambling was the main cultural pastime in my area. Locals would bet on anything hoping to make quick money. We had at least three illegal SP (Starting Price) bookmakers within a couple of hundred yards of our house and taking bets on gallopers in the day and harness horses at night. Like most others, I used to make small wagers on all of the races. Some became hopelessly addicted. Two-up (an illegal game played by tossing two pennies up in the air and betting on the proportion of heads to tails) was played up back lanes on Sunday mornings when there was no horse racing. Our street was only 20 feet wide from front fence to front fence. I'm reminded of one Sunday morning when I was startled by a strange noise about 50 metres up the street. Apparently there was a police raid on one of those back lane two-up schools. There were about 20 men of all shapes and ages stampeding down the street and frantically scaling house fences on the way. It looked quite comical because most of them appeared to be out of shape and struggling with their sudden need for serious athleticism.

This site lists many references to high rates of gambling among 'have nots' -- https://www.google.com.au/search?ei=NWB ... CA0&uact=5.
This site lists many references to high rates of alcohol consumption among 'have nots' -- https://www.google.com.au/search?ei=oW1 ... CA0&uact=5. This site lists the same for domestic violence -- https://www.google.com.au/search?ei=dm5 ... CA0&uact=5 .

(I notice that the full web addresses did not copy over into the Preview, but you can bring them up in Google Scholar using the key words GAMBLING AND LOWER SOCIO-ECONOMIC STATUS. Repeat of course for DRUNKENNESS and DOMESTIC VIOLENCE.)

Being a generational 'have not' probably fosters gambling, drunkenness and domestic violence.

How do we break the cycle?

Our Government tries. In an ongoing effort to help indigenous Australians to get a 'leg up' our Australian Government has allocated $AUD18 billion this year to 750,000 indigenous Australians (equal to $24,000 per head) for EXTRA health care and employment opportunities. On paper, indigenous Australians seem to have many privileges over and above other Australians, but the problems remain. One can only hope that most of the money doesn't get absorbed by Public Service administration costs.

[Serpent]

What is the precise relationship of "racism" to "cultural preference"? Could that relationship be traced also for sexism, nationalism, religious intolerance and caste distinction?
Of what does a culture consist, if you leave out its systemic "ism"s?

[TheVat]

The meaning of racism is when a cultural assumption is attached to a visual marker. It rests on assumptions that someone with dark skin is therefore a member of a specific culture. In the US, for example, the dominant European culture made the assumption that the culture of African-descended people inclined towards laziness and a propensity for theft. So, it didn't matter what values your parents gave you, or how hard you worked, or how honestly you lived. If you happened to emerge from a womb with dark skin, you were destined to be prejudged by prospective employers, cops, and ladies clutching their purses. Racism can be defined as what robs the individual human of the right to be judged on their own merits. Since that right was seen as fundamental in the US, racism created an enormous national cognitive dissonance.

In the US, blacks were not so much "prone to unsocial behavior" as the legal system was prone to define anything blacks did as illegal. In the South, this could include loitering, jaywalking, smoking reefer, speaking to a white woman, shouting, etc. This redefinition, combined with the differential enforcement of petty offenses, especially among youth, led to a sort of false narrative of blacks as being more "criminal" by nature. And then, as white teenagers get a warning or a wrist slap, and black teens go to jail, the black kids start to lose respect for the law which is so unevenly enforced. Thus the legal system creates, in a sort of self-fulfillment, that which it had already assumed based on white cultural assumptions.

[charon]

Thus the legal system creates, in a sort of self-fulfillment, that which it had already assumed based on white cultural assumptions.

That's right, the self-fulfilling prophesy.

[Serpent]

The same thing happens in every other area of social interaction.
It was convenient for European imperialists to foster the fiction that Africans, Asians and native Americans were inherently less developed, less intelligent and less disciplined than Europeans.
Therefore, there is no point in trying to educate them; they're only suited to manual work, under strict supervision by whites.
But, in order to maintain this fiction at close quarters where less financially invested white people could not but be confronted by daily evidence to the contrary, it became necessary to make laws against educating the cheap labour supply. When some of "them" proved undeniably clever in spite of this, it became necessary to sequester them in the less desirable, underserviced, unprotected neighbourhoods --
where the white community could clearly see how inferior they were: No law degrees, no brick houses, no linen suits. "See? We were right all along!"
...except, of course, if they managed to thrive against the odds, or their previously marginal land suddenly became desirable for the development high-rises or casinos...
and then those neighbourhoods would have to be more vigorously policed.... or bulldozed, or burned ...
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a32719786/george-floyd-protests-riots-black-comminity-destruction-history/
"See? They're destructive."

[SciameriKen]

Imagine joining a game of monopoly, half way through. You will never catch up, and it has nothing to do with the colour of the player.

But it would be a few more rules than that -- lets just add on if you are the dog whenever you mortgage a property you pay 8% instead of 4% - when you pass go you only collect 150 instead of 200 - and you go to jail anytime you have 2 doubles in a row instead of three.

[doogles]

Serpent, thank you for that link to the destruction of black Americans' property over the years -- https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a ... n-history/. I never realised it had ever reached such a stage of wanton desructiveness. I was disturbed by that link.

Of course I would be interested in whether there were any serious inquiries following those events and whether any punitive actions were taken.

In a later post you asked "What is the precise relationship of "racism" to "cultural preference"? Could that relationship be traced also for sexism, nationalism, religious intolerance and caste distinction?"

Have you had any thoughts relating to the role of our hard wired-pecking order drives, and our innate desires to be superior in matters of race, sex, nationalism, religious preference, and not only caste distinction, but at every level of our home and workplace existence? I include group, as well as individual, perspectives as they apply to political and sporting club affiliations.

I believe it to be the basic cause of the ever-present schoolyard bullying at child level. And because it is an innate drive, I believe that we will never prevent it at school age level and that the best we can ever do is to control it.

[Serpent]

Have you had any thoughts relating to the role

Yes, quite a few. Done some disorganized, informal reading, as well.

of our hard wired-pecking order drives,

I'm suspicious of the phrase 'hard-wired' in the first place: it carries a connotation of automata - creatures with no choice and no responsibility. My experience of human beings doesn't match that picture.
That pecking-order idea is also a big assumption about "our" drives, given the variety of social arrangements in "our" evolutionary history. While we do observe hierarchies in many other intelligent species, they certainly do not all fit the same model. The model itself comes from the observation of domestic fowl - and i have to wonder how closely that society approximates the natural order. I'm not aware of any animal societies that routinely discriminate against a group for irrational reasons.
Closer to home, the variety of arrangements in the certified human communities about which we have reliable information, suggests that stratification is not an inescapable necessity of human groups.

and our innate desires to be superior in matters of race, sex, nationalism, religious preference, and not only caste distinction, but at every level of our home and workplace existence?

None of those desires logically follows the word "innate". For every example of competition, there is at least one example of collaboration and co-operation. *
Nor are all of those social structures evolutionary developments. Where are nationalism and religion in ape culture? Race, too, is a recent human invention. Other social species are organized in kinship groups, yes, and they do clash with other groups over territory, watering holes or food supply - but they don't much care what the other group looks like.
People don't either - until their authority figures teach them to. Little children can't care less what a potential playmate looks like: they'll toddle up to a strange child, dog or armadillo with the same open curiosity. Something innate ought to manifest without an adult having to yank them away, screaming, "Don't touch that!!! Dirty, dirty!!!"

I include group, as well as individual, perspectives as they apply to political and sporting club affiliations.

Except that prejudice doesn't work at all the same way in individuals, sporting clubs and political parties.

I believe it to be the basic cause of the ever-present schoolyard bullying at child level.

If that were so, you'd expect it to be uniformly distributed in all societies. And yet that is not what we find.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(20)30020-1/fulltext
In fact, I submit that bullying in school, as also in politics and workplaces, is a byproduct of societal norms and expectations.

And because it is an innate drive,

It's not. In functional societies, the relative abilities and leadership potential of members is determined through childhood competition, but requires no humiliating or victimization of one's cohort.
(Well, think about it! You're a primitive tribesman, the best hunter in your clan. You regularly lead expeditions of the same group of men. Do you really want three guys at your back who have hated, feared and resented you for most of their lives?)
No, this is behaviour caused by dysfunctional organization and skewed values in badly corrupted societies.
The behaviours appear to be universal because were drawing all our contemporary examples from societies in terminal decline.

* mental image archives. Think of the happiest groups of people you have ever seen. Set aside one-offs like a wedding party or graduation: pick out the scenes where people are living their mundane lives.
What are happy people actually doing? In my experience they are almost invariably immersed in some challenging task: restoring an antique motorcycle, baking cherry pies, setting up a campsite, planting a flower garden, decorating a Christmas tree, building a Mars rover or a cathedral. There is nothing as emotionally fulfilling for a human being as sharing meaningful work with a team in which he or she is an appreciated contributing member.
Civilized societies harness, cripple and pervert that innate drive for the service of its elite.