Excellent Wayne. The whole bootstraps myth is such a tired tired trope. As you so articulately point out, ignoring racism and also the severe burdens imposed by disparity in economic opportunity and extreme poverty. Like you say, such comments are incredibly ignorant. They fail to understand the massive massive differences, in opportunity, and the incredible physical, psychological burdens of poverty and racism. “Why don’t they just move? “is representative of the pinnacle of misunderstanding these burdens and difficulties. Adding racism on top of it all is crushing. Often times, I feel that this is willful ignorance, a willingness to ignore the realities of history and current existence in order to absolve those in power and of means of guilt and responsibility in contributing to solutions. Comprehensively understanding the motivations behind the racist part of it all I have a difficult time wrapping my head around. I assume some of it in many cases is still the tendrils of power and dominance filtering down from the reprehensible past of slavery. Economic benefits of oppression and the lack of will out of selfishness to work and spend what it takes to solve societal problems. It’s easier to “other” those that are disadvantaged or poor, then to truly recognize and deeply understand their difficulties and work for change. This ugly vein of thinking and acting is unfortunately accelerating in our society in so many ways during this era. It truly makes me think of society, turning back in ways of acting during eras when extremes of action which are thought to be reprehensible currently become accepted by society again. It is a very troubling time. Truly we can be better than this.
Thanks for the civil conversation Gary. I don't know what to add. I don't understand racism. I never pretend that I do. My mantra is that understanding race in America is more difficult then diffusing a live nuclear weapon without a users manual. The one thing I understand is that it's harmful to every American, even those that benefit from it. Mostly that's what I try to convey. I wish I had answers.
When I used to ranger for the National Park Service, I learned pretty quickly that I was not very successful in getting folks to treat the resource with gentle respect. But I also learned that their peers, however, could. People can be influenced by their peers, but not so much some authoritarian stranger. So that's what this project is about. Trying to inform people so that they can inform their less amenable peers.
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Excellent Wayne. The whole bootstraps myth is such a tired tired trope. As you so articulately point out, ignoring racism and also the severe burdens imposed by disparity in economic opportunity and extreme poverty. Like you say, such comments are incredibly ignorant. They fail to understand the massive massive differences, in opportunity, and the incredible physical, psychological burdens of poverty and racism. “Why don’t they just move? “is representative of the pinnacle of misunderstanding these burdens and difficulties. Adding racism on top of it all is crushing. Often times, I feel that this is willful ignorance, a willingness to ignore the realities of history and current existence in order to absolve those in power and of means of guilt and responsibility in contributing to solutions. Comprehensively understanding the motivations behind the racist part of it all I have a difficult time wrapping my head around. I assume some of it in many cases is still the tendrils of power and dominance filtering down from the reprehensible past of slavery. Economic benefits of oppression and the lack of will out of selfishness to work and spend what it takes to solve societal problems. It’s easier to “other” those that are disadvantaged or poor, then to truly recognize and deeply understand their difficulties and work for change. This ugly vein of thinking and acting is unfortunately accelerating in our society in so many ways during this era. It truly makes me think of society, turning back in ways of acting during eras when extremes of action which are thought to be reprehensible currently become accepted by society again. It is a very troubling time. Truly we can be better than this.
Thanks for the civil conversation Gary. I don't know what to add. I don't understand racism. I never pretend that I do. My mantra is that understanding race in America is more difficult then diffusing a live nuclear weapon without a users manual. The one thing I understand is that it's harmful to every American, even those that benefit from it. Mostly that's what I try to convey. I wish I had answers.
When I used to ranger for the National Park Service, I learned pretty quickly that I was not very successful in getting folks to treat the resource with gentle respect. But I also learned that their peers, however, could. People can be influenced by their peers, but not so much some authoritarian stranger. So that's what this project is about. Trying to inform people so that they can inform their less amenable peers.
Thanks for the conversation.