Originally published at: https://integrallife.com/power-privilege-and-fragility-leveling-up-our-conversations-about-race-and-racism/
Diane and Corey are joined by guests Greg Thomas and Mark Palmer in this groundbreaking discussion about racism, anti-racism, and racial integration, highlighting a number of critical views that have been largely missing from the larger conversation that’s been taking place culturally in recent weeks, months, and years.
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Once again, we would love to know what you think of this discussion! Let us know if you have any comments, questions or feedback.
Loved it and learned a lot. Since language is so important I suggest avoiding “feels like” then it means “I think”, or “its my opinion’. At a time when being embodied and empathic is important, I believe that when we avoid privileging our thoughts with “feels like” and remind our selves that we use real feeling language it brings the speaker and the listener to the 'felt experience” and purpose of those feelings in our bodies.
My notes on the comments that struck me the most thus far:
“I don’t just say ‘white supremacy’ because I don’t believe white folks are supreme”—Greg
Greg noted that Ibram Kendi is a lot more nuanced and sophisticated than a lot of people who use his work.
Diane’s take on what White Fragility does well and poorly. For the latter, folks are experiencing emotional flooding rather than fragility and therefore need somatic support rather than scolding.
Corey’s personal story about how he related to his family’s views
Mark’s caution against using terms like “white fragility” and “white privilege” because it marginalizes folks’ experiences of suffering, coupled with Greg’s comment about assigning attributes to someone based upon a group they are nominally part of.
There is a difference between language that is useful in doing our own personal work (for those of us Orange and beyond) and language that is helpful in public conversations. Corey: “It’s rude to do shadow work on other people”
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The Root Problem is Government Corruption,( like Qualified Immunity, the Drug War, ) not Racism.
Justice is for Just Us in Government, skin color is a red herring thrown to the masses by those in Power.
The Biggest Contribution to Poverty is the Direct Taxation of Income of ALL races, not racism.
The Government Power to Tax Income Directly is a Modern Form of Legal Slavery that began in 1913 with the passing of the 16th amendment and yet not one comment about this encroachment by the Government in this discussion.
Racism is the Belief that ones race is superior to others.
If Government were a race, it would be the MOST racist.
If Having Wealth were a race it would be easy to see this racism that is so illusive in white culture when one looks closely.
Is there “Systemic/Institutionalized Individual Racism” in our Police Force?
MSU Psychology professor Joe Cesario has found that “the race of the officer doesn’t matter when it comes to predicting whether black or white citizens are shot.” and that “contrary to activist claims and media reports, there is no widespread racial bias in police shootings.”
The study was cited in a June 3 Wall Street Journal op-ed called “The Myth of Systemic Police Racism”, so The Marxist controlled MSU Graduate Employees Union slammed Harvard P. Hsu for bringing attention to the research, charging that it does “not align with public statements issued by MSU.”
Lets talk about the more influential Bias in context of our Institutions and Government.
Diane ignores the Real Privilege found in Government through Supreme Court Upheld Qualified Immunity for Police, Prosecutors, Government Agencies like the CIA, FBI, IRS, DEA, FDA Etc and, Politicians.
You also ignore the Rich Black People, Like Rich White People have the purchasing power to hire Lawyers that keep them out of Prison.
There are many Poor Whites who are sitting in Jail along with Poor Brown people.
Those Poor White People are ignored in this conversation completely.
You ignore the reason so many poor people are in Prison, which is due to the Drug War, and instead throw out a Red Herring, Systemic Racism, resulting in Confusion and Straw Persons.
Diane and her husband benefit from this Privileged Corrupt System in Government so why would she tell us about the real Privilege found in Government? Her own bias has put blinders on her Perception.
You speak of Equality with out ever defining what needs to be Equal?
My skills at playing jazz are far less than Gregg’s so I am not equal at all to Gregg in this manner.
Should Gregg’s superior Jazz skills be taken from him to create “equality” for me?
Equality of Rights should be the focus rather than color, race, genitals, proclivities, purchasing power.
Focusing on Rights would shift the Attention of the Majority onto the Real Problem, Government Privilege.
What are Rights?
Rights are what EVERYONE HAS.
Qualified Immunity for Government destroys Equal Rights.
We have a Systemic Problem in Government Privilege that is being occulted with Systemic Racism.
We all have a Right To Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happy. Those are rights. The Government should Preserve these rights rather than give themselves Special Privileges like Qualified Immunity.
Qualified Immunity destroys equality.
EVERYONE has a right and responsibility to take care of their Self (Interest). I do not have a right to force you through government to take care of my self interest. Yet, Social Justice Warriors set out to do just that.
I lawfully take care of my self Interest by Doing ALL that I agree To DO
I do NOT have a Right to Encroach on Others and their Property and if someone encroaches on me or my property, I have a RIGHT to seek Remedy through Courts.
Systemic Racism is a Marxist nonsensical mental masturbation distraction for the Masses as the real Privilege found in Government is occulted and expanded for the Coveting Marxist.
Do Any White Folks believe they are Supreme? I am sure there must be some, however I know not one. In all my life I have never met one. Thank you Greg, White Supremacy is NON EXISTENT and a Wedge of Division used by the Marxist Faction in Government.
Let us imagine an old white woman who believes she is Superior to her Old Black Neighbor? She sits in her rocking chair “believing” she is Superior?
Now let us Imagine some Young White Punk, who believes he is Superior to some Young Black Punk and he goes out and beats up the black guy.
Which one engaged in Wrong Behavior?
We ALL have a Right to Believe in what ever we want to. Racism is a belief.
We do NOT have a right to Encroach on others and their property in pursuit of our beliefs.
So what about the Social Justice Warrior today? Are they wrong for encroaching on others in violence because they have money or a certain skin color?
Of course.
Collective Shame??? Ridiculous.
Diane, how about you put aside your Government Privilege and listen to black people who say that White People are not the problem in their community. Fatherless Families and Black On Black Crime is a huge problem and is not being discussed.
Why are there no fathers in Black Families? How did this happen? Crickets here.
White Fragility is an induced state engaged by Marxist to create Self Hating Whites.
White people are not the only people uncomfortable with Perspectives that are not their own.
Yes Corey, you are like Most White People today have been induced into Self Hate but you fail to identify where it comes from.
Self Hating White People are taught this by The Marxist in our Teaching Institutions, Government Institutions and Media. Thank you for admitting this.
The Leaders of BLM have stated they are Marxist and Marxist MUST destroy the Family to succeed.
BLM itself is populated with a Majority of Self Hating Whites hiding behind Black Lives. They are literally the worst kind of Black Face. Black Lives Matter when Democrats need their votes.
The Pandemic is another Marxist Manipulation to Destroy the West and Inject their Belief System on the world.
Racial and Economic Justice is just Code for Marxism. The Goals are the Same, make everyone Equal in Poverty through Taxation and Welfare and Give Control of Production to Government through Regulation.
Marxism FAILS time and time again as History PROVES.
We are living in their latest push for Control of the Government Power, which is the Legal Right To Initiate Violent Force and Engage in Coercion.
The Middle Class of ALL colors is being destroyed by those in Government through Regulation and Taxation.
If Purchasing Power (Wealth)were a Color, the racism would be easy to identify.
UBI Boobi is destructive to society. Look at what it has done to the Black Community. It has destroyed the family structure taking the father out of the picture through welfare.
UBI BOOBI puts Government in control of the UBI’s life, it is not an investment, it is a control method and would only help those in Government and their donor class which does not comprise of all wealthy people and corporations.
Diane FAILS again and shows her Marxist roots by Condemning Capitalism.
Capitalist Countries are the MOST Environmentally Cleanest and Conscious.
The Poorest most Polluted Countries are Marxist.
We are literally in a Battle of Beliefs.
Will Freedom ( Capitalism ) or Slavery ( Marxism ) win?
Give Power Back to Local Communities, the Internet gives any one access to People with the Necessary know how to handle water sanitation etc.
Yeah Corey, again, you slam Dunk it with your identifying Qualified Immunity and war on drugs, but you are too focused on race. Poor whites are just as negatively affected by the drug war as poor blacks.
Was Qualified Immunity dismantled for Prosecuting Attorney’s? Politicians? Government Agents? Or Just local police?
Qualified Immunity is more than just Police.
The Democrats of the 60’s destroyed civil rights, not the Majority of Whites. Most White Republicans objected.
Let us not forget, KKK was a Democrat Militia and there were 1,500 white republicans who were lynched along with the 3,500 black republicans. Also note that there were no Democratic Blacks that were lynched.
Corey, you so caught up in Identity Politics, it is BLINDING. You label everyone and everything while decrying labeling color and labeling it racist.
The Weakness of American Culture is that it is Blind to Marxism.
Diane really loves Government.
What is Government?
The Legal Right To Initiate Violent Force and Engage In Coercion.
This type of Power Corrupts Absolutely.
This means, no matter how well intentioned, your Career Politician will always be corrupted by this power.
You also completely dismiss the Natural Law to be Responsible For Your Self Interest.
Self Interest and the Legal Right To Initiate Violent Force and Engage In Coercion is a recipe for DISASTER that we are living in today.
Actions are Violence not Speech. This is a huge error in thinking folks.
It is kind of ironic that a socialist is ok not having a lot in a capitalist country where the poorest is richer than some of the richest in a socialist country.
You all fail to understand Trump, focusing on the man rather than the movement that got him there.
Do you think that if Hitler were killed as a child, that the Not See movement would have never arisen?
You do not see because of your Marxist Bias, airy fairy beliefs.
Racism is a belief too.
Real Faith is Careful Listening.
You can talk about Racism and this quadrant and that quadrant all day long. Until you Properly Identify the problem, Government Corruption, you will fail to bring about any real change that benefits the very colorful Majority.
Radical Moderate. I LOVE that. You make so much sense Greg. Keep up the Great Work. Everything in Reality is made up of Polarity, which is really just a Force Vector of Motion in a direction. The funny thing is the Movement is in one direction, our perception makes us think there is more than one direction.
Diane, you have a well paying Job in the Corrupt Judicial System because of the Drug War, your Bias is Blinding.
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Bob and Anne,
Thank you sooooooo much, my God. I thought I was the only one seeing this.
I had to question my own sanity. The most “Woke and educated” people are missing the most important and crucial realities in the culture wars going on today. And their only solution is for whites to acknowledge their racial bias and quit oppressing everyone around them.
I would love to talk with you folks.
Regards,
Clay
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Well thanks for the feedback, but I have to say, this did not strike me as a wholly integral response. It felt needlessly aggressive, dismissive, and accusatory. I didn’t see any of the signatures of genuine integral engagement — no questions, no curiosity, no effort to enfold your view with others. Your paragraphs seem full of unipolar slogans that seem to be coming more from an anti-green, anti-left, and/or anti-state allergy. It seemed to come down to “your view isn’t my view, which means you are wrong.” Not a great way to have a conversation.
If you’d like to have an actual exchange in good faith, we can do that. We can go through each of your points one by one, and I am guessing we would probably find many areas of agreement. Because that is always where I like to start — with an agreement. But your comment did not seem to be an invitation to engage, but rather an opportunity to signal your own virtues. Otherwise you wouldn’t feel the need to lace your comments with personal insults, and would instead try asking clarifying questions in order to deepen the conversation and create more shared reality. It’s not too late for that, but this wasn’t a very good step forward.
In terms of your accusation that I am just so BLINDED by identity politics, I’d ask you to show me your evidence. I am deeply critical of identity politics, and have recorded dozens of hours with Ken and others criticizing id pol. But that doesn’t mean I can’t also acknowledge that, by it’s very nature, identity is political.
What I rail against is the idea that somehow the Boomers got all those problems with racism fully sorted out, and we should be happy with today’s state of affairs. When reality reminds us that yes, the Supreme Court only recently ruled that gay people cannot he fired for being gay. Yes, black people were being convicted and incarcerated at far higher rates than whites for similar offenses. That yes, crack cocaine, which often plagued black communities more than white, was punished far more severely than powder, which is more commonly associated with whites. That yes, crack in black communities was treated as a criminal/moral issue, while heroin and opiates in white communities is treated as a medical issue. That yes, the majority of people who were on death row but later exonerated happen to be black.
To pretend that these things are not problems, to pretend that bias is not still alive and well in many of our social institutions, just seems like putting your head in the sand. As I said in the talk, not all inequitable outcomes are due to bias. But bias always leads to inequitable outcomes.
Politics are always personal, which is why identity is inherently political. And, identity politics are almost always bullshit. Both can be true, and both usually are.
Your definition of “government” also seems somewhat narrow and reactionary, and I am not sure how much room for discussion that leaves us. Government is simply self-organization on a social scale, and the very best ones are intended to promote the public welfare and improve quality of life. You mention that Marxism has never worked, but neither has the sort of stateless libertarianism you seem to be advocating for. It’s almost like any governing or regulatory system that pushes any of these polarities too far is doomed to fail. Which is why the most successful economies, with the highest quality of life associated with them, are typically mixed economies.
You say “You all fail to understand Trump, focusing on the man rather than the movement that got him there.”
100% incorrect. I detest MAGA culture, but I am not ignoring the conditions that allowed it to emerge. I also detest most of WOKE culture, but I am also not ignoring the conditions that allowed IT to emerge, as you seem to be. So I would probably hold a mirror up to you statement, and ask you if you’ve actually thought that one all the way through.
MAGA and WOKE are two sides of an unhealthy and unintegrated polarity. We can attend to the deep features that are driving those groups, while also dismissing the surface structures associated with those groups.
So here’s my overall philosophy: I don’t think it’s wise to engage with people or ideas by starting with “you are completely wrong”. I think it’s much more skillful to actually come in good faith, to bring some epistemic humility and a healthy dose of curiosity, and to first try to work toward some sort of agreement. Some solid ground upon which both parties can stand and actually engage each other.
Which is why I try to meet these sorts of concepts, and really do the work to figure out what might be true, what might be partial, and what babies we might be able to rescue from the bathwater.
And when it comes to issues like “privilege” or “fragility” or things like that, there is a LOT of bathwater. But that doesn’t mean there’s not also an occasional baby to save. And I think I was very careful with my words while talking about these issues, doing my best to accurately locate them within the self-system and placing guardrails around them so they aren’t misused as they so commonly are.
For example, some thoughts about “white guilt”:
“White guilt" is just the flip side of “black resentment”, both of which are the result of the generational traumas that came from slavery and Jim Crow but have not been properly addressed at all during the neoliberal age. That’s how I see it anyway. It’s something to be taken seriously, I think, but carefully – and not to be written off if we want to actually begin healing these wounds. LL injuries require LL healing modalities, and recognizing that both guilt and resentment are natural reactions to trauma is a really good first step in that direction.
As far as I know, I don’t have any obviously oppressive ancestors in my lineage. However, I also understand that having so much insight into our own lineage is a fairly recent phenomenon. Additionally, I think that having a rational capacity to examine our own family history and heritage, and separate that from our ethnic heritage, is itself a developmental “privilege” that can only be acquired at a minimally orange altitude.
But I also think that there is a basic “ethnicity” layer of our identity stack that comes online before we have this rational capacity, and that layer is largely informed by and inherited from our surrounding culture, often in unconscious ways — especially for whites, since “white culture” is taken for granted as a cultural default, and because this aspect of our subjective identity is rarely made into an object for us by other people.
I’m going to repeat that, because it’s important, and it’s why so many people seem to miss the point — white people tend not to have this aspect of our identity made into an object for us by others. Don’t you think this factor — people repeatedly making an object out of your subject for you — would leave a mark upon our emerging identities, one way or the other?
So I think there is an aspect of “whiteness”, “blackness”, etc. that activates within our identity stack well before our ability to rationally self-reflect comes online, and this ethnic identity is largely shaped by whatever collective we happen to find ourselves in.
And this might be a somewhat easier conversation for you and I, since we have a bit more wood behind our arrows, as well as the relatively guilt-free heritage that we both seem to enjoy (though for me, one side of my family were contemporaneously racist, just not necessarily historically racist 
) Many other whites, however, do have a family lineage that ties them directly to the eras of slavery/Jim Crow.
And while of course they themselves are not responsible for the actions of their ancestors, I also think that if you know that your own grandfather was a Nazi in 1942, some degree of family shame/guilt/embarrassment is probably going to naturally arise (there is a reason so many German families changed their names after WWII.) Especially if that Nazi grandpa left you an inheritance that makes your life that much more comfortable.
“White guilt” is that same natural response writ large, I think. It’s okay to be ashamed of your racist grandpa, even if you know that you yourself are not a Nazi.
And even if your or my own family history has an unblemished record, I think there is probably an active but largely unconscious layer of our own identities that remain totally undifferentiated from the specifics of our actual family karmas. It’s the part of me that would probably self-identify more as a “white American” more than as a “Dutch-American”. My sense is that most of this guilt/resentment lives within that particular strata, which is why we can have such a hard time locating or dispelling it when we are bringing more rational discernment to our own family history.
And here is my final and possibly most important point. Whenever we are talking about “collective” anything, I think we are actually talking about multiple concentric circles of “we”. So there is an aspect of my collective “we” that only extends to my family history. Within that circle, no, “we” did not enslave black people. But there are other circles of “we” that I belong to, that aren’t quite so cut-and-dry.
Is there a circle of my “we” that includes “all white people”? Probably, yes. And if I am standing in THAT circle, then I cannot say the same. Because this particular “we” DID oppress blacks, and both you and I are probably still members of that circle, even if we are simultaneously members of smaller/narrower/deeper circles that we attend to more regularly (family circles, generational circles, developmental circles, etc.)
Which means that if we are standing in one circle, we can feel no guilt, but if we step into another the guilt can be crushing.
Which is why the LL is so insanely difficult to work with. It’s slippery, and everyone enacts it in a subtly different way. And when the people in that LL are all convinced that their own views, political or otherwise, are substantially more important than they actually are, then we are left only with discord and more suffering.
I’d like to think we can do better than this.
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@BobandAnne There is so much here that is problematic with your post that I could chime in on if I had the time. The issue, though, is that I don’t think you’re open to actually having a discussion and considering that your point of view may be more incorrect than what the IL folks provided in their webcast. This is an assumption I’m making based on the way you are writing: aggressively, grammatically incorrect (your use of caps is problematic), and showing no desire to learn about the thoughts and beliefs of those around you.
If there is anything that I feel is an absolutely requirement to play in this forum, it’s an openness to internalize someone else’s perspective. What if Corey is, in fact, more correct than you are in your assertions? Have you taken the time to do the self work to think about, “What if what I’m saying is wrong?” You seem to want us to listen to you without writing in a way that shows you are also willing to listen to us (ie, it’s dialogue that is emphasized on this forum rather than monologues). Corey stated pretty clearly that he’s willing to be in dialogue with you despite your aggressiveness and seeming desire to only convey your points without acknowledging that others have points that may be more valid than your own. Do you think that, as a species, humanity will survive if we’re unable to be open to the different points of views we all have? If so, why might you feel that you are unwilling to play your part?
There’s a lot of conspiracy theorizing going on here, too. That’s sad because we can’t help you with that; only you can. Once someone goes down that rabbit-hole, psychologically speaking, all bets are off based on current psychological research. What I would offer for you to consider is this: how do you determine these things to be true? What makes them feel authoritative to you? Does holding these beliefs help you to feel better? Do they make you feel worse? Do they help you to form lasting, healthy relationships with people? Or do they lead you to increased isolation from the rest of the world, in favor of the group that affirms your beliefs? Can you find the courage to step outside of your cognitive comfort zone to truly consider beliefs that are not your own?
I’ll close by offering for you to consider taking some time to get to your own root cause for these beliefs you list… and then think about whether or not there is more good in you exploring what you value rather than what you believe in or don’t believe in. Because that’s where I think we all will find common ground. As it stands, the way you are approaching this forum–from your aggressiveness to your quality of writing to your desire for us to simply agree with you sans real dialogue–is not doing you any favors, my friend.
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I would second pretty much everything Corey and Russ have said and add a few comments.
Guilt or shame, if not “neurotically-driven” (see Wilber in “The Religion of Tomorrow,” page 707) are signs of a “functioning conscience.” To be clear, Wilber was speaking of this in a different context, but the basic idea of non-neurotic or healthy guilt or shame deriving from one’s conscience is the same, So an alternative term for “white guilt,” for those who find the term too problematic, might be “white conscience.” By either name, as Mike said in the podcast, it can be a positive force.
As far as identity politics go, it’s not just racial or gender groups practicing it. Nationalism itself is a form of identity politics, in my opinion, and some people point out that class-based politics are themselves identity politics. So, without a saving grace of some kind, identity politics may be here to stay for a while, taking on newer forms, encompassing more and more people.
But I did love the “Buggy Ride,” thank you Greg. I focused on the bass and noticed the bottom (sole) of my left foot palpably vibrating with energy. Only the left foot, not the right. “The soul of the left is vibrating with life force,” I titled the experience. I really like these musical-somatic exercises, think I would tune in to these episodes of IJW just for that. 
Although there was much to admire and appreciate in this last episode, even if it seemed at times with the conversation around white fragility that what is considered ‘therapeutic’ by the psychologically-minded for individuals, was bumping up against what is considered ‘therapeutic’ by the sociologically-minded (i.e. DiAngelo) for particular groups. I thought Corey’s personal explorations around white fragility/guilt was most in the vein of what DiAngelo is trying to encourage. In most of the critiques I’ve read or listened to on her book, the “sense-makers” tend to address only the negatives, or shadow, with little attention to the “light” or what is worthy in the work. Too bad, and makes no sense to me.
Thanks to all of you at IJW for taking on these heated topics on which practically everyone considers themselves an expert. Forgive us our arrogance, and may the winds be cool at your backs!
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Thanks for your engagement Cory. I honor you.
Your statement that my feedback was not wholly integral shows just how much you are caught up in the Identity of Integral.
We do not agree so we will not start off in agreement. It is your belief that we must start in agreement.
I am not my beliefs. I am not my identity. I am not my agreements. I am not my disagreements.
I am Responsible to take good care of my self (Interest), to do all that I agree to do and to not encroach on Others or their Property.
Can we begin by agreeing to this?
Yes, I am a very aggressive gerl when it comes to the Sacredness of Speech. I thoroughly enjoy communion, sharing my thoughts, Ideas, and Concepts. It is fun. I like fun. I am very good at it too. Although I do not enjoy echo chambers and find them very dangerous.
I honor all Communion (Speech), and especially Communion (Speech) that I disagree with. I would never silence those with whom I disagree. EVER and I would never label the speech I disagree with as hateful and try to silence it.
All speech should be allowed, even hate speech. Speech is not Actions. I am not talking about the harm caused by panicking someone by yelling fire in a theator.
Yes, I dismiss the argument that we as a Culture are Racist and this is Systemic.
It is Completely False.
It is a Marxist Plank to systemically change our Culture in a direction towards Increased Slavery to the State.
Yes, there are people that are racist.
I have met some very racist brown people so white people do not have a monopoly on racism.
I personally have never met a racist white person, probably because they would be terrified of being corrected, ostracized and shamed for their stupid belief.
Racism is a belief just like Religion and Government.
I am not my beliefs. I know this is true because my beliefs have changed in Time.
You wrote
“I didn’t see any of the signatures of genuine integral engagement — no questions, no curiosity, no effort to enfold your view with others.
Then you contradict this statement by saying”
“We can go through each of your points one by one, and I am guessing we would probably find many areas of agreement.”
Please define for me Integral Engagement, and how that is different than the engagement we are engaged in? What is LL?
I have gone through my comments and I found these questions which display “curiosity” am I mistaken?
Perhaps it is that you do not like or approve of my questions and therefore are not curious about them and dismiss them aggressively?
Here are some of the Curious Questions I asked most you ignored focusing on doubling down on your Belief about Systemic Racism and White Privilege and White Guilt.
Is there “Systemic/Institutionalized Individual Racism” in our Police Force?
why would she [Diane] tell us about the real Privilege found in Government?
what needs to be Equal?
Should Gregg’s superior Jazz skills be taken from him to create “equality” for me?
In regard to this question, I have another question for you and your guests. What is the differences between skills that produce music and skills that produce Purchasing Power? Is there a real difference?
What are Rights?
Do Any White Folks believe they are Supreme? And let me further ask, Do you know any WF that believe they are Supreme and do they engage in encroachment on those they deem less than or their Property?
In regards to my Racist old woman and Punk, I asked Which one engaged in Wrong Behavior?
So what about the Social Justice Warrior today? Are they wrong for encroaching on others in violence because they have money or a certain skin color?
Collective Shame??? Ridiculous.
Why are there no fathers in Black Families? How did this happen? Crickets here.
Will Freedom ( Capitalism ) or Slavery ( Marxism ) win?
Was Qualified Immunity dismantled for Prosecuting Attorney’s? Politicians? Government Agents? Or Just local police?
What is Government? Perhaps I should ask, What does Government Engage to acquire Compliance?
Do you think that if Hitler were killed as a child, that the Not See movement would have never arisen?
Could you provide Evidence of which statements are Slogans?
Labeling a comment as “slogans” is a fallacious argument, Incomplete Comparison and Strawman
When I decided to learn about Logical Fallacies, I was completely SHOCKED to find how much of my communication engaged Logical Fallacies, and still is. It is a constant and conscious effort to avoid them.
I was also shocked to find Media, Institutions and Government constantly engage in Logical Fallacies.
This is one of my favorite lists with definitions https://www.scribd.com/doc/55849450/Logical-Fallacies-Intellectual-Self-Defense
I am anti Green New Marxist Deal. I am anti Corrupt State. I am Anti-Marxist anything. I am Anti-Corruption anything.
I am not against Clean Air, Clean Water, helping the poor and downtrodden I am not against education, health care or welfare. I am against the Government borrowing money to do these things and then taxing my Income, my Production, My Property, to pay for their borrowed money. The Federal Government Prints Money. They could print 6% above GDP to pay for all of the welfare, schools, sanitation stations and welfare they wanted to.
The Free Market West has the cleanest air and water, helps generously the poorest and downtrodden. Free Market Principles have taken the greatest number of people of all colors out of poverty.
Free Market Principles have fed the most people.
Free Market Principles have healed the most people.
Free Market Principles Have Increased the Purchasing Power of the Most Colorful People who are Privileged to Live in Free Markert Societies.
I am against Treating All Rich People like they are evil and deserving of having all their property taken from them because they have more than someone else.
Marxism is based on the Principle of Coveting.
Free Markets are based on the Principle of Lawful Self Interest through Contracts and Courts.
It is an error in Thinking to demonize the rich. If being rich were a skin color, you would be guilty of the worst kind of Racism. Shame on You. LOL.
I am not my feelings of Shame.
I am against, Left and Right Marxist Government Corruption.
The Right is also filled with Marxist Believing Corrupt Career Politicians and Career Bureaucrats, the left does not have a monopoly on this error in thinking.
Cory, how Do Those in Government Become Corrupted???
You desire to have the Powers of Government handed over to people who think like you.
So How do those in Government become Corrupted?
and
What can we do to Reduce Corruption?
It is not getting rid of the state/government, I can assure you of that.
I do not want the Government Powers to be handed over to me or people who think like me.
I do not believe we need a group of People with rights that no one else has. This guarantees inequality will prevail.
I define Government as the Legal Right To Initiate Violent Force and the Legal Right To Engage In Coercion.
Do I have a right to Initiate Violent Force?
Do I have a right to engage in Coercion?
Does anyone but Government?
If Government has a Right no one else has, that is Inequality.
The Government is the biggest perpetuator if Inequality and you and your friends want to take over Government Rights to create equality.
Good luck with that.
How does “Government” a collective of Individuals either as Politicians or as Bureaucrats, how do they make everyone do what they write as laws if everyone does not agree?
Violent Force and Coercion a right no one else has except for Government.
If your foundation is based on inequality, do you think you will achieve equality?
Certainly, the case is true for Soviet Union under Lenin and Stalin. Germany under Hitler. Cambodia under Pol Pot, China under Moa, numerous South American Countries. Their foundations crumbled underneath them and many people of many colors suffered terribly.
Marxist Government has killed so many 100’s of millions of people who disagreed with them.
When you put words in quotation, it leads the reader to believe that you are directly quoting. You said
“It seemed to come down to “your view isn’t my view, which means you are wrong.” Not a great way to have a conversation.”
I never said that you are wrong.
I do completely disagree with your premise on Racism.
Is this an echo chamber?
I conclude that if you want to bring about lasting change that results in increased freedom then you will forever FAIL if you do not Properly Identify the Problem.
I point out that you do not Properly Identifying the Real Problem and focus on a problem that is insignificant in relation to the Real Problem.
Label those of a Generation as Boomers, Millennials, Gen X Gen Z is labeling Identify Politics. It is normal to group things in an easy to identify lablel.
Those people in the 1960’s failed to create more freedom for everyone because they did not Properly Identify the Problem, which was a Corrupt Government.
Let us not forget that the Democrats created and faught to create and keep Jim Crow Laws and the Left is engaged in Segregation Today against white people. They allowed the KKK Militia to intimidate and kill their Political Opponents just as BLM and Antifa of Today.
The Problem in the 1960; s was the Legal Right to Initiate Violent Force and Engage in Coercion by Career Politicians and Bureaucrats, just as it is today.
Freedom is a virtue I spoke of. Non-Violence, honesty, non-encroachment. Yes, I spoke of these virtues. They are relevant to the conversation.
Definition of virtue
1a: conformity to a standard of right : MORALITY
b: a particular moral excellence
2: a beneficial quality or power of a thing
3: manly strength or courage : VALOR
4: a commendable quality or trait : MERIT
5: a capacity to act : POTENCY
6: chastity especially in a woman
virtue signaling
noun Sometimes Disparaging.
the sharing of one’s point of view on a social or political issue, often on social media, in order to garner praise or acknowledgment of one’s righteousness from others who share that point of view, or to passively rebuke those who do not:
Definition of signal (ing)
1: SIGN, INDICATION
2a: an act, event, or watchword that has been agreed on as the occasion of concerted action
b: something that incites to action
3: something (such as a sound, gesture, or object) that conveys notice or warning
4a: an object used to transmit or convey information beyond the range of human voice
b: the sound or image conveyed in telegraphy, telephony, radio, radar, or television
c: a detectable physical quantity or impulse (such as a voltage, current, or magnetic field strength) by which messages or information can be transmitted
Definition of insult
(Entry 1 of 2)
: to treat with insolence, indignity, or contempt : AFFRONTalso : to affect offensively or damagingly
I am not responsible for your feelings or beliefs.
If I insulted you, please quote me so that I may identify the error in my speech and correct it.
You Said I did not ask curious questions, of which I have shown that I asked many, perhaps they are not the questions you would ask, but they are genuine questions many of which you did not answer, rather, you have chosen to be offended and make your feelings “insulted”
Are you responsible for how I feel?
You said,
“try asking clarifying questions in order to deepen the conversation and create more shared reality. It’s not too late for that, but this wasn’t a very good step forward.”
We share this reality, regardless of agreement or feeling good. By putting forth my comments I have engaged in speech with you and your fellows.
It is your opinion that my comments were not very good.
Opinions do not make reality and are just that. Your statement is a funny kind of Manipulation.
To navigate through reality, I manipulate many things. I manipulate energy to cook my food. I manipulate my keyboard to form words to convey ideas and concepts. I manipulate my muscles to move through space and time. I manipulate gifts that please another I feel good. Sometimes I error in my manipulations.
To err is human and that is how I learn.
I am not my identity.
Referring to Boomers is an example of Identity Politics.
Boomers were not the only generation present during the 1960’s. Many people were present of many identities and generations and as a collective accomplished many good things at that time.
It became socially unacceptable to engage in Racist beliefs. This was HUGE and accomplished more than any law passed by the Government.
I never said I was happy with todays state of affairs. We have a Problem. A really big and Bad problem in Government, not racism.
The Supreme Court Ruled that Slavery was legal in the past. They were wrong.
The Judicial System has become thoroughly corrupted with Executive and Legislative Appointments for Life and only favor Government over the People. We must abolish this and replace it with the Scottish model where Judges are voted on by Lawyers and have Term Limits. This would reduce Judicial Corruption that favors Government.
I believe that a business can hire and fire anyone they want for any reason they want, it is a contract, and the contract is all I care about. If a business discriminates against anyone group, they will lose market share and they will fail.
The Problem with Corporations is when they use their vast purchasing power (wealth) to purchase Legal Monopolies and other Government Laws and Favors through campaign donations (bribe) to Corrupt Career Politicians who make the laws supposedly for the Majority, but, like everyone, Politicians act out of Self Interest.
The Government passes laws that benefit them. This is Inequality.
Qualified Immunity is Inequality.
The Greatest Contributor to Inequality is Government.
What is a right?
A Right is what Everyone Has.
Clinton smuggled a whole lot of cocaine into Arkansas, that was sold to minority groups, tax free and Prohibition Inflated Prices.
I know lots of whites that consumed crack and the rich ones purchased lawyers to keep their interest out of jail and the poor ones sat in prison with their poor brown victimless consumers because of Laws passed by Career Politicians and Bureaucrats in Government a favor to drug companies, police unions, guard unions, prison unions alcohol companies, drug testing companies, diversion companies all invested in by Career Politicians who act out of their own self interest.
There are factions in the Government besides Clinton that profited off those drug deals and there are plenty of other examples.
I have not investigated the races of death row. I am certain that there will be far more whites than blacks just because there are more whites than blacks in the US.
Last year, there were 40 unarmed people killed by police, 10 were black, 20 were white and 10 were another color.
I will investigate death row races. If you have references that look at total populations and not just exonerated, I would be interested in the data.
I am not pretending that there are not biased people or people that believe they are superior to others not of their clan. This is a normal human behavior. People believe in all kinds of things.
Belief is not the problem.
Initiating Violent Force and Engaging In Coercion is a very serious problem and it lies squarely in Government.
Currently, if someone initiates Violent Force, encroaches, or uses coercion in a racist way, the victim can take them to court to seek remedy.
Those that do not get prosecuted are those in Government, Qualified Immunity. A right given to Government but not Us of the multi colored Majority/Masses/Unwashed in their eyes.
Lets talk about Privilige and where it really is. Government.
I am not putting my head in the sand. Everyone has Bias. You have Bias. I have Bias. We all have Bias.
Bias is not the problem.
Initiating Violent Force and Engaging In Coercion in the name of ones bias IS the problem.
ALL Inequitable outcomes are due to Inequality of Rights.
Rights are what everyone has.
When the Government gives itself Rights that No Other Group Can Have, THIS CREATES INEQUALITY.
Corporations, the Rich, Purchase Government Rights and privileges.
This Creates Inequality.
Not all corporations engage in this behavior. Not all rich engage in this behavior.
Why are Officers of the Police who kill people who have no weapon allowed to stay on the Police Force? Do you know?
It is Unions that give Police Force Much of their Policies and are responsible for this policy.
Unions are The Biggest Donors of Career Politicians. Career Politicians set Police Force Policy.
Unions will only give campaign money (bribes) to Career Politicians who favor their Policies.
This is Corruption.
Unions usually only support Democrats and most unions are Marxist.
The Root Word of Politics is Polit, it means Citizen.
Definition of citizen
1: an inhabitant of a city or townespecially : one entitled to the rights and privileges of a freeman
2a: a member of a state
b: a native or naturalized person who owes allegiance to a government and is entitled to protection from it
How interesting, we are talking about Rights of a Freeman with in a city or State.
How very interesting.
Sounds like we should all be talking about Politics.
How is that Politics is banned from the dinner table when it affects everyone everywhere?
Yes, Politics is very personal. So is Identity.
I am not my politics. I am not my identity. These are Beliefs and we all have beliefs. Some are true and real, and some are false and illusion.
Having a belief is not the problem.
Initiating Violent Force and Engaging In Coercion in promoting ones beliefs is a problem.
Giving a Legal Right to Initiate Violent Force and Engage In Coercion to one group of individuals is what Creates Inequality.
Integral Life is a social self-organized collective also.
Does Integral Life have the Legal Right to Initiate Violent Force or Engage In Coercion to get people to do what you advocate?
I define Government by how it gets individuals to do what it advocates.
Looking at the root word of Government we have Gubern which is to steer/guide/control and Ment which is Mind.
How does the Government Steer/guide/control our minds?
They could convince, show by example, teach, but rather, they pass laws backed up by the Threat of Violent Force. A Threat is Coercion.
I assure you that I have studied Government for over 17 years, and it is not narrow nor reactionary. It comes from direct experience and deep study of Law.
Here is another Logical Fallacy, you said,
“You mention that Marxism has never worked, but neither has the sort of stateless libertarianism you seem to be advocating for.”
First of all, I never advocated for a stateless libertarianism (again, identity politics, you love these labels)
I want a lawful state that protects rights and does not promote inequality or initiate violence or engage in coercion.
I want a government that protects contracts and has lawful Courts for Remedy in a Breah of Contract. A return of Tort Law.
I want a government that prosecutes crimes that have victims. I want a Government that does not prosecute victimless crimes which are not crimes.
I want a government that does not have qualified immunity for any reason.
I do not believe in Government.
I believe in Discovering Truth and Following Natural Law.
I believe that I am responsible to take care of myself (interest) by doing all that I agree to do (contract Law) and By not Encroaching On others nor their Property (criminal Law) and if someone breaches a contract or encroaches on me or my property, I want a lawful court that protects individual rights to seek remedy.
When a Government and its court system Protects Individual Rights over Group Rights, they can protect the Majority of the Colorful Masses.
Yes. I have yet to read about or see a successful Marxist Government because the Marxist always seem to ignore human nature, that is the invisible hand of the Economy, Self Interest.
They believe they can create Equality by Giving the Right To control the money, and production to Government, Tax the rich and give it to the poor, creating equality of purchasing power through impoverishing everyone.
They believe the Mantel of Government does gets rid of the individuals Self Interest.
By Giving Rights to Government no others have, this creates the nightmares of history.
Marxist are clueless about how the Economy really works and how humans really work. They believe that they can use the Legal Right To Violent Force and Coercion to force everyone to be equal and it NEVER Works.
Why???
Because of Self Interest.
Again, “MAGA culture” is Identity Politics. I am certain the Majority of People who voted for Trump detest Maga culture as much as you do. It is Propaganda.
Most people lied in the Polls because they did not want to be harassed. I know many Trump Voters that are Democrat blacks and Mexicans that to this day will say they hate the guy and did not vote for him.
People of the Multicolored Majority Voted for Trump because they are SICK and TIRED of Corrupt Career Politicians who ONLY look out for their self-interest.
Trump is a Businessman not a career politician. So, he will vote in favor of his self-interest, which is Business, and this benefits ALL business which employ the most people of the Masses.
He lowered taxes, he got rid of business crushing regulations. He accomplished Prison Reform and that is going to get him the black vote you watch and see.
People will always vote out of their own self-interest.
The Conditions that created Trump is those that hate him, the Corrupt Career Politicians and Corrupt Career Government Bureaucracy. You seem to completely dismiss this or are ignorant of this. To be ignorant of something is fine.
I am not my Knowledge. I am not my ignorance.
I love mirrors.
I am a mirror for you to gaze deeply into.
I am another you. Inlakesh.
Polarity is a force vector, a motion in a direction. All directions lead to the same place, integration.
LOL. Oh, my Corey, you make me laugh. You said.
So, here’s my overall philosophy: I don’t think it’s wise to engage with people or ideas by starting with “you are completely wrong”.
Please show me in my communication where I said “you are completely wrong”
Some people have more skill than others. Skill is always unequal. Not everyone has the same skills. Therefore Skills should not be included in the Definition of what are Rights and has no place in the conversation about equality.
I will do all that I agree to do, and I will not Encroach on you or your property. This we can agree to. Yes? Yes!
Truth is that which is.
Truth is Objective and not based on Perceptions It is Immutable. It can be discovered. It is that which has occurred in the past and is occurring right now.
Natural is inherent having a basis in Nature and not made or caused by man.
Law is an existing condition which is binding and immutable, it cannot be changed or added to. Mark Paseo of What on Earth Is Happening. I do not agree with a lot of what Mark teaches and find him abrasive and abusive, but this is Pure Truth and Golden.
The challenge for me, and all humans is to align our perceptions with Truth and to understand and follow Natural Law.
White Guilt and Black Resentment are Induced states of Believing by those in Government. This induction begins in Preschool and goes on into College and higher education. This induction is also engaged in by Media of all sorts.
No one today that is Rioting has ever lived under slavery as we see in History nor have they lived under Jim Crow laws that have been abolished.
Those who lived through this have probably died and those living would probably think you were crazy to suggest we were living under those conditions today. That is unless they are a Marxist and then there is an agenda to the “trauma”.
You suffer terribly from this error in thinking about White Guilt.
I hope one day you will recognize it for what it is. Government Propaganda to control your mind.
Family History? Are you kidding me? I am a typical American family. My Great Grandma was full blooded black foot Indian. My other Great Grandma was Italian. I have another great grandma that was Danish, and another that was English and another that was French and another that was Swedish. One sister married a black man and another one married a Mexican man. Most Black Americans have TONS of white in them so are they suffering from white guilt and black resentment.
Good Lord. Are you serious?
Having a relative that believes they are superior to black people and having relatives that commit acts of violence against black people are two completely different things.
It is not wrong to believe stupid things.
People do believe stupid things.
The Belief in Government is one of them, and Government is far more deadly to people than any one stupid believing individual.
It is wrong to Initiate Violent Force and Engage In Coercion and we have given this as a right to government.
Now that is INSANE. That Perpetuates Inequality. It codifies Inequality and legalizes Inequality.
Family history is filled with people who have done great things and terrible things. I am not my history and I am not responsible for the good or the bad done by my family in the past.
I am only responsible for what I do.
Are you saying that because some white people did bad things to some other people in the past that we do not have a right to Identity? Culture? Ethnicity?
I am not my identity, nor my society nor my culture. I am not my skin color. I am not an object, but I do have many objects that are my property. My money, production, income is my property. My body is my property.
I am not my property.
I am not what other people say, think or believe about me.
There is nothing wrong with having an Identity, or a culture, or a society. There is nothing wrong with having a heritage.
What is wrong is Initiating Violent Force and Engaging in Coercion in the name of these things.
You should do more research on who were slave owners. Far less people owned slaves than you believe. Remember, most people were subsistence living and could not afford slaves let alone maintain them. Slaves were expensive and expensive to feed and take care of. Only the Uber Rich owned slaves.
When you say that Many other whites do have slavery lineage you are in error. A small minority of people owned slaves for slaves were very expensive.
Jim Crow were laws passed in the 20th century by Democrats which is NOT most Whites and the Republicans opposed Jim Crow Laws and they also are not most whites. Most whites do not even vote like most blacks and it was Career Politicians in Government that passed Jim Crow Laws.
Just to be clear, I do not identify with either Democrats or Republicans. Both sides are corrupted with Career Politicians and both sides hand out Government Favors to the Highest Bidder and pass laws out of their own self-interest.
Shaming an individual works far more effectively to create a change in error thinking than passing any number of laws that Initiate Violence and Engage Coercion. However, I must point out that shaming is a coercion.
I think education and Free Markets would go even further.
Of course, if you have a relative that was a Nazi, out of self-interest you probably would not disclose such information and would denounce the Not Sees.
It is always so easy to see the German Not See behavior, but it is so hard so see it when you Do Not See.
You Do Not See reality as it is, you see it as you want it to be because of your induced white male guilt and self-hate.
Sorry Corey, I completely disagree with you.
I am not my Families success or Failures.
I have no guilt because someone in my family did something wrong to another person in the past.
I recognize that it is wrong to encroach, initiate violence and engage in coercion it is wrong to steal and lie it is wrong to murder and I would not engage in those behaviors out of my own self-interest for those behaviors come with immutable consequences regardless of ones belief.
Belief is Irrelevant.
Looking at history, each new present seems to be improved over the past but there is always some new error to identify and correct.
Instead of being so obsessed with the past and linking to that as an Identity of White Guilt or Black Resentment, better to identify how slavery is being in engage in today.
The 16th amendment is a legal form of Slavery.
Let’s talk about that for that affects all colors and classes of people.
You want to do something about Inequality. Start with the Government.
This is way too much for me to possibly respond to, so I will just say that I hope we can find more shared reality together as we go, and agree to disagree when we can’t. I personally think it’s a bit naive to assume that racism has completely evaporated from the American LL.
Sure. It seems to me that Integral Engagement requires good faith, curiosity, openness, and restraint when it comes to personal insults, character judgments, and ad hominem arguments. People can have different views without being “blind”, “failures”, or brainwashed. No one’s views are 100% accurate, as all of us are creating our own Rorschachian narratives based on the partial and fragmented data we have access too, as filtered through our own kosmic address. And we’ve somehow been convinced that our views are far more important and complete than they are.
So I deliberately try to create the most comprehensive possible view for myself, one that fully acknowledges and integrates both sides of a given polarity whenever I find one, while also weighing individual expressions of that polarity in terms of how significant and/or fundamental the expression is (what altitude it is coming from, and whether it is adequate enough to handle a given level of complexity.) And I try to confront as many of my own shadows as I possibly can, so I know that my view isn’t being occluded by some allergy (anti-left, anti-right, ant-green, anti-amber, anti-state, etc.) I try to approach all arguments in good faith, and even if I cannot agree about the surface features I try to find the deep features where maybe we can create a bit more shared reality.
So, when black people collectively get together to tell the rest of us “we are suffering, please help”, everything inside me tells me that saying “no you aren’t, get over it” is NOT a very integral response. The prescriptions coming from the left may sometimes be bad, but that doesn’t mean the problem isn’t real.
“Should Gregg’s superior Jazz skills be taken from him to create “equality” for me?”
This is a total straw man, sorry to say. No one is saying anything like that. As far as I can tell, you are making the opposite error as the left — they say “there is no such thing as growth hierarchies, they are all dominator hierarchies.” You are saying “there is no such thing as dominator hierarchies, they are all growth hierarchies.” Guess what, you’re both half-right!
Just like when Ken says “the people who think systemic racism has been eliminated, and the people who think it is everywhere, are both right!” Because Ken knows that the issues of racism, sexism, xenophobia, etc. are still alive and well in this country, but the battlefield has moved from the LR to the LL.
So no one here is arguing what you think we are arguing for. There is a big difference between “equalizing Greg’s jazz talents” and, say, black women dying in childbirth 3x more frequently than white women. One is the result of growth hierarchy, and the other is a genuine victim of dominator hierarchies. Unless you saying that black women are just naturally better at dying?
@corey-devos, with the greatest respect and appreciation for the community guidelines, I think that what I am going to say now can be construed as being kind to a fellow community member. I find the content incongruity, tone and style of @BobandAnne’s posts very disturbing from a mental health perspective, and I would like to suggest a psychology/psychiatry consultation. This type of response is beyond the parameters of “normal”.
Couldn’t be bothered to read all of this. IMHO this community is great for sparking ideas and being referred to good places to find out more. That’s enough for me.
Then I read this: “But reality is a Rorschach test: what you see reveals more about you than it does about reality “ Steven Pinker
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@corey-devos Hi
I never intimated nor assumed that racism was “completely evaporated.” Where did you get that idea from?
Racism is a “belief” that one’s race is superior to others.
For the Record. Bias (Belief) will Never end. There will always be bias. Bias comes in many colors and no race has a monopoly on bias.
What is LL? What is American LL?
It is naïve to assume that we should begin a conversation in agreement. This is not how a debate begins.
Integral Engagement sounds like regular Debate Rules. The Agreement rule of yours sounds like an echo chamber.
We all have “blind” spots. We all have “failures”. We are all brainwashed by Government Indoctrination and Mass Media.
The challenge is to identify the error in thinking and correct it.
You are “convinced that [y]our views [on racism] are far more important and complete than they are.”
Let’s say I overeat unhealthy foods, I smoke cigarettes. I am obese and have heart disease. What is the cause of my Suffering?
Are you the cause of my suffering?
Is your skin color the cause of my suffering?
Black People have not collectively come together to tell us they are suffering! If you are genuinely interested in listening to some black voices on the real problem in the Black Community, this is a great video on the subject, it is 18 minutes long and only has Black Voices speaking on the subject of Black Lives https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2REo8adgmA
BLM is populated by rich, spoiled, Marxist Indoctrinated white kids wearing black face in their leadership roles.
BLM is not a black voice. It is a Marxist Voice.
Greggs Jazz skills in the context of equality is not a straw man argument. It is a very good analogy in the discussion of Equality.
What is LR and LL?
In 2018, there were 17.4 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births in the United States a total of 658 deaths https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/maternal-mortality/MMR-2018-State-Data-508.pdf
Maternal deaths are defined as the death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days of being pregnant, from any cause related to or aggravated by the pregnancy or the management of the pregnancy.
The statistics do not support the presumption that black pregnant women are dying due to racism. If that were true than Hispanic and Oriental deaths would also be very high, and they are not.
While the death rates for black women were at 37.1 deaths per 100,000 live births, maternal death rate among women 40 and older (which is mostly white mothers) was 81.9 deaths per 100,000 live births, almost eight times the number for women under 25 which are mostly black.
The CDC admits that there are errors in their Maternal statistics.
Heart disease and stroke caused more than 1 in 3 pregnancy-related deaths according to the CDC. Other leading causes of maternal death included infections and hemorrhage, which is severe bleeding.
Dr. Elliott Main, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Stanford University School of Medicine and medical director of the California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative said, “Maternal deaths are a hard group to study because they are rare, roughly 1 to 2 per every 10,000 births,”
Darrell Huff wrote a great book, How To Lie With Statistics, which runs the gamut of every popularly used type of statistic, probes such things as the sample study, the tabulation method, the interview technique, or the way the results are derived from the figures, and points up the countless number of dodges which are used to fool rather than to inform.
Looking at these statistics, Older Pregnant women are far “better at dying,” as you said, then black pregnant women.
We All Die.
Your analogy does nothing to address equality nor do you even attempt to define it.
My jazz abilities are not equal to Greggs and you want to use the Government Monopoly on Violent Force and Coercion to pass laws to enforce equality and I would like to know what that looks like.
What are Rights?
What is Equality?
@Juanita, “the wicked have no quarrel with the Devil!”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_abuse_of_psychiatry
@russ.legear Time is my real money. I “spend” it with what I “pay” attention to. I am not my beliefs.
No, it’s a terrible analogy. You are comparing a growth hierarchy (natural talents) with dominator hierarchies. Apples to oranges. We want to include the growth hierarchies, and negate the dominator hierarchies.
Right, you are bearing my point. Women 40 and over have UR physiological factors that make childbirth more risky. But otherwise healthy black women do not have any distinct UR qualities that would make them more prone to dying in childbirth. So the only possible reason is that they are being treated differently by the health care system. I wonder why that could be?
Yes, because of emergent age-related UR factors. Have you tried comparing white women over the age of 40 with black women over the age of 40? You need to make apple-apple comparisons, or else you are indeed Lying with Statistics.
I am looking at the CDC statistics to get further details on Pregnancy and deaths. If you have any that support your Thesis, I would like to have them if you are willing to share them.
I have found that Statistics are very hard to get out of the Government in my research on Deaths and Covid.
If what you say is true, black women are dying in pregnancy because of racism, then there would be far more deaths than the 200+ we are discussing. It is a real stretch and mostly based on opinion and bias.
As I said, the CDC itself says that their pregnancy deaths are inaccurate and riddles with errors.
According to recent Centers for Disease Control (CDC) statistics, while African-Americans constitute 32.2 percent of Georgia’s population, 62.4 percent of abortions in Georgia are performed on African-American women. By contrast, whites constitute 60.8 percent of the Georgia population, but only 24.7 percent of abortions were performed on white women. Even pro-abortion groups like the Guttmacher Institute admit that “black women are more than 5 times as likely as white women to have an abortion.”
As the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) documented in its Abortion Surveillance report for 2015 – released on Nov. 23, 2018 – there were 124,893 white abortions and 121,829 black abortions that year, a difference of 3,064 babies killed. (See Table 12
In addition, the abortion ratio, or the number of abortions per 1,000 live births within a given racial or ethnic group, was much higher among black women (390) than white women (111)
It would seem that Abortion kills far more babies than Pregnancy Deaths.
You still have not answered any of my questions. Will you ever? You are identified with White Racism.
Good Luck with that.
@BobandAnne Your response didn’t really answer the questions I asked, and honestly doesn’t make much sense. So, I’ll simplify: do you want to have an actual conversation with us, or do you want to continue to post talking points? Corey seems to be going above and beyond to engage despite you continuing to be aggressive and to illustrate a level of closed-mindedness and conspiracy theorizing that doesn’t really fly in this community.
There are also a lot of categorical statements you are making that cannot be true simply using logic (for example, “We are all indoctrinated by the Government…” – who is “We,” and where is your proof that literally everyone falls into this category? Which government? Who in that government is doing the indoctrinating–are they ALL in on this, or is it specific people? What about those who are infants and can’t be indoctrinated because their minds haven’t yet developed? What about those who live in isolation from society and thus can’t be indoctrinated by that society? What about those who emigrate from one society to another and bring a different set of values with them? You’re really missing those nuances here). I would offer for you to study logic and debate, because even if you truly believe these things, and even if they were true on a larger level than your own personal beliefs, the way you’re presenting them is not very effective or logically congruent.
I’ll repeat that you’re not going to get much real engagement here if you are only interested in being right and posting talking points. So, knowing this, I have to ask my follow up question: why continue engaging in behavior that we have already told you won’t achieve your goal? I know I don’t want to talk to someone who demonstrates that they aren’t willing to listen to what I have to say and to take time to internalize my thoughts and ideas.
By the way: “I am not my beliefs” is, in fact, a belief. Especially if you offer it as a mantra, which suggests that you have internalized it in the very way beliefs tend to be formed. Not to dive into my ego here since I hate titles, but I have a Master’s in Consciousness Studies and I’m more than happy to talk about what consciousness is and is not and how that relates to our beliefs, both from a philosophical and a neuroscience point of view. This is why I asked you what you value, not what your beliefs are, which you are tossing around pretty freely here… almost as though they are your identity.
TL;DR - I say this with love and no judgement, but I think you have some growing up to do. You are right that we need to take responsibility for our lives, yet I am not seeing you take responsibility for how you are showing up here and trying to engage differently, and that calls into question your level of sincerity in offering that statement (it feels kind of like, “Do as I say, not as I do”). That’s growing up you can do in this very community, but you have to show a willingness and openness for that to happen, which I’m not really seeing. Nobody can grow if they’re trapped in their own beliefs, and that’s where you seem to be today based on your responses.
PS: To say that black people haven’t come together to speak in one voice about their suffering is pure insanity. Black people have been trying to get white people to wake up to the ways systemic racism affects them pretty much since slavery. Black Lives Matters exists as that single voice today telling people that systemic racism is, in fact, a real thing, and aims to educate those who would bury their heads in the sand about how and where it shows up. That you’re missing this point shows that you don’t really seem to understand Integral ideas around healthy hierarchy and monads, and how they form wholes that act independently of their parts (I even have fostered some past discussions about this in previous posts in this community, which I recommend you check out if you’re open).
And to say that BLM is privileged white kids in blackface is, in fact, the most racist thing I’ve read today, and here’s why: you’re effectively negating the agency of the black community that is working through BLM to raise awareness of these issues. You’re saying that they don’t have a voice, and that it’s really these white kids in blackface who are responsible, which by effect diminishes their voice and seeks to draw power away from the movement and what it’s trying to say. I’m sorry, but that’s pretty racist. From someone who lives in Chicago and has seen the actual, real black communities that hold rallies for Black Lives Matter over the past couple months, you are so off base here that my level of “I can’t even” is, well, pretty darn high. Why don’t you go ask an actual black person if BLM is real or if it’s rich white kids in black face and report back to us their reaction?
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@[russ.legear Salutations. I honor you. Thank you for your engagement in Free Speech, since you desire a response, I will address your first and then your second comment.
Are you or were you ever a teacher? How do you acquire Income today?
You say my problem is that I am not open to having a discussion and yet here we are having a discussion.
You say my Problem is that I do not consider my Point of View (a Perception, an Opinion, a Belief) is incorrect. What Belief is incorrect? What Point of View is incorrect?
You say you assume this because of the “way I am writing” and you label it aggressive and grammatically incorrect. This is a logical fallacy and does not address What I Said.
You accuse me of having no desire to learn about the thoughts and beliefs of yours.
I can only point out that by listening to the video and reading your comments and addressing them shows a desire to learn about your thoughts and beliefs.
Are saying that dissenting beliefs are not allowed here and that you only want an echo chamber?
I am not my beliefs so why would I want to internalize someone else’s “perspectives” (beliefs)?
I am interested in Truth.
Are you?
It seems that you are more interested in reading comments that affirm your own belief and aggressively attack someone who believes differently.
An Echo Chamber is deadly.
I do not care if you listen to me or read my comments. I have no desire to control you or your beliefs.
You asked…
Do you think that, as a species, humanity will survive if we’re unable to be open to the different points of views we all have? If so, why might you feel that you are unwilling to play your part?
Humanity is a collective made up of Individuals who all have different points of views. Are we all playing parts? What are we playing? What is my part? What is your Part?
There is a cycle to all life, even humanity.
There is a cycle to an individual. I am born. I grow up. I die.
The challenge is not being open to others point of view, which is a perception of Truth, and may be incorrect. I am a critical thinker and ask questions and pursue their answers doggedly.
The Challenge IS aligning one’s Perceptions with Truth. I am very willing to do this.
I am responsible to take care of My Self (Interest) by Doing ALL that I agree to do and By Not Encroaching On Others Nor Their Property.
You accuse me of conspiracy theorizing. What in my content is a Consipiracy Theory?
conspiracy
1: the act of conspiring togetherThey were accused of conspiracy to commit murder
2a: an agreement among conspirators uncovered a conspiracy against the government
b: a group of conspiratorsa conspiracy made up of disgruntled aristocrats
heory
1: a plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomenathe wave theory of light
2a: a belief, policy, or procedure proposed or followed as the basis of actionher method is based on the theory that all children want to learn
b: an ideal or hypothetical set of facts, principles, or circumstances —often used in the phrase in theoryin theory, we have always advocated freedom for all
3a: a hypothesis assumed for the sake of argument or investigation
b: an unproved assumption : CONJECTURE
c: a body of theorems presenting a concise systematic view of a subjecttheory of equations
4: the general or abstract principles of a body of fact, a science, or an artmusic theory
5: abstract thought : SPECULATION
6: the analysis of a set of facts in their relation to one another
Truth is Observable and Verifiable.
Do you deny that there is Government Corruption?
Do you Deny that there are Career Politicians and Bureaucrats with rights no one else has?
Do you Deny that there is a Marxist Revolution happening right now in the West?
I do not defer to Authority. I defer to Truth as my only Authority.
I am not my feelings and so feelings are irrelevant in my discovering truth.
Often, when I discover truth, I feel terrible, for often I discover that I believed something that was not true.
It is a good thing I discovered the Truth, I am not my feelings.
Truth Discovery Rarely Makes me feel good at the beginning.
It was not a good feeling to discover that those in Government are Corrupted and Contribute to Inequality and Poverty for at one time in my life I believed that Rich White People did this because of my Undoctrinaire Schooling and Media/Entertainment.
This makes me feel very sad.
It is a good thing I am not my feelings.
I am not sure what “beliefs” have to do with building lasting healthy relationships with people. Do you only have relationships with people who think and believe like you?
I have very good lasting relationships with people who do not believe as I do.
I have been married to my husband for 17 years with maybe another 40 years to go.
Isolation is a terrible thing, and those in Government have been isolating people in a very aggressive way since March and it is resulting in Mentally Disturbed Behavior in People, suicide, poverty, homelessness, joblessness, hunger.
You said, can you find the courage to step outside of your cognitive comfort zone to truly consider beliefs that are not your own? Me, Absolutely.
Did you read my content at all? I constantly repeat that I am not my beliefs.
My conclusion, after listening to the blog, is that there is not a Systemic Racism Problem, but rather a Systemic Corruption in Government and this comes from personal experience and a very deep study of the subjects.
I value Truth. I value Wisdom and pursue them doggedly.
I do not desire you to agree with me. I am discussing a subject in depth with you.
It is you who desire me to agree with you. An echo chamber is what you seem to desire most emphatically. Echo Chambers are very very Dangerous.
I am not my beliefs so that makes it easy for me to get rid of them when I find they are not in alignment with truth.
In your second response, you asked
do you want to have an actual conversation with us, or do you want to continue to post talking points? You then say I am closed-minded and conspiracy theorizing.
We are having a discussion so there are going to be talking points, it seems that you do not want to talk about those points, Government Corruption, Government Inequality, Government Aggression, Government Violence, Government Theft, Government Coercion.
What am I being closed minded about? That there is Systemic Racism? I agree that there is racism, a belief that one’s race is superior to another’s, I disagree that White People Collectively are engaged in racism. You believe something that is not true. I have yet to find a single white person if they believe their race is superior. I ask everyone.
What am I conspiracy theorizing?
Saying it is so does not make it so. Show me the evidence of the error in my thinking, I will correct it.
You then asked me
“We are all indoctrinated by the Government…” – who is “We,” and where is your proof that literally everyone falls into this category. We of the Majority. Everyone who believes in Government Falls into this category and not everyone falls into this category, I certainly do not and so I do not include myself in everyone obviously. Everyone is the Majority.
A study of history shows that Often, the Majority is wrong, and it is they that move things.
“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one.”
Charles MacKay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds
Which government? All governments.
Who in that government is doing the indoctrinating–are they ALL in on this, or is it specific people? Out of their own self-interest, whether they are aware of it or not, Everyone in Government and their mouth pieces in Media are indoctrinating.
Again, I will point to the root words of Government which I shared in previous comments. What other evidence do you need?
What about those who are infants and can’t be indoctrinated because their minds haven’t yet developed? Really? Are you Serious? If you are, well then, Infants are learning how to think. They do not have a process of thinking yet.
Today, our schools do not teach a method of how to think, they are taught What To Think, tested and graded.
In my experience, “A” Students work for “C” students and “B” students work for government.
To be an A student you need to memorize what the correct answer will be with no understanding of it.
“C” students are the dreamers like Albert Einstein, whose elementary school teachers thought that he was a foolish dreamer, and one teacher had even asked him to drop out of his class. “C” students put up with the teachers but reject indoctrination retaining their own objectivity, which teachers reject.
What about those who emigrate from one society to another and bring a different set of values with them? I would ask you, why are immigrants fleeing their society?
Why would they go to one Place over another? Are they not seeking something better? Would immigrants flee to where they are not welcomed?
Governments are not responsible for Society, people are, including immigrants.
Do you believe it is right for the government to take the property of those who have more than others and redistribute it?
This is Marxism, it is based on Coveting which is an evil error in thinking. A Belief that is wrong and VERY destructive.
You say I am not going to get much real engagement here, however; I am getting lots of engagement. I seem to have touched something with in you or else you would just ignore me and not engage me.
You ask me “why continue engaging in behavior that we have already told you won’t achieve your goal?”
What behavior? Sharing my concepts and ideas? What do you think is my goal?
I can assure you that I am only having a discussion to understand those around me in this Integral Collective.
I really like Ken, his idea’s his concepts.
I am not so sure about his acolytes who seem to only desire an echo chamber to their ideas and concepts and harbor dangerous Marxist beliefs.
It may be that as you say, “I am not my beliefs is a belief,” however it is also True!
My belief, I am not my beliefs, is in alignment with Truth.
I know that I am not my beliefs because my beliefs have changed over time and therefore, I cannot be my beliefs.
I am not my Consciousness either.
What is Consciousness?
: the state of being characterized by sensation, emotion, volition, and thought : MIND
I am not any of these things. I am certainly not my sensations, nor am I emotions, nor volition. I am also not my thoughts.
Consciousness is ignorant of Ontological Self because Consciousness is an artifice.
It is an AI system if you will.
Ego perhaps is a more familiar term?
Ego is defined as the one of the three divisions of the psyche in psychoanalytic theory that serves as the organized conscious mediator between the person and reality especially by functioning both in the perception of and adaptation to reality.
I am not my ego.
Did you watch the video of Black Voices speaking https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2REo8adgmA ? If you had, you would see that Black People are not speaking as one voice through BLM and that there are many black people saying that White Racism is not a Systemic problem in their community.
Do those Black Voices not Count? Or is it that they believe something that you do not believe and so you dismiss their voice as you want to do to me?
What about the nearly 200,000 black unborn voices that are aborted each year? Do they count? My research shows that Planned Parenthood is very racist, built on a foundation of Racist Eugenics.
I have been to BLM meetings, and it is a Marxist organization as stated by its leaders and I saw mostly Self-Hating White Spoiled Children hiding behind Black Face to engage in Initiating Violence and Coercion, and the Corrupt Government Supports this which does not surprise me at all since they have the Legal Right To Initiate Violent Force and Engage in Coercion.
Saying I am Racist does not make me Racist.
I do not believe that my race is superior to other races.
If Government were a skin color, the Government would be the Most Racist.
I have no desire to disabuse you of your beliefs, that is strictly in the realm of your control.
I cannot control you, what you believe or do.
I can only control myself and what I do in response and I can assure you that I would never tell you what to think, believe or do and I would never expect the government to coerce you through the threat of initiating violence against you.
I am responsible to take care of myself interest by doing all that I agree to do and by not encroaching on others.
This is True.
In response to the conversation:
Working on the lower left quadrant presents tremendous challenges, since although there is some overlap, the collective is radically fragmented at this stage, maybe more so than in 1960. Meaning, we had a more coherent set of values prior to, say, 1963. Shared values, shared social norms, shared history, are not there currently in the Post-Modern ethos, and each identity politic group has its own ongoing narrative that it is rather defensively promoting.
The foregrounding of race and gender as key components of one’s “cosmic address”
is a terribly reductive, and impoverished point of departure for self definition. It might be better to articulate more tangible factors from one’s upbringing like mother’s personality, father’s personality, a sibling in your family, a cat in the household, friends with children across the street, direct access to nature, books in the house.
To start off using gender or race as your defining characteristic is almost on the level of putting an Oakland Raiders or Pittsburgh Steelers decal on the back of your car window.
To discuss “white privilege” or “white fragility” is ludicrously reductive, like being white was merely a characterless cipher inserted into some social equation; a very instrumentalist view of social relations. The word “white” is a blank category, that evokes the notion of a de-natured, processed ingredient, and doesn’t do justice at all to the variations in individual or ethnic background, and cultures. For example, I could say I’m descended from Latinized Balkan and Trans-Alpine cultures. Of course, no one would understand what I mean, but it might compel someone to look deeper, and try to integrate a more nuanced understanding of identity, something probably needed at this time.
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