Good question.
I think we have to be fair and balanced in our perspectives. I think this thread is a good means of getting to that. It's easy to demonize. It's easy to prosecute someone for past wrong doing. And there's no excusing slavery. And there's no excusing the systematic oppression that continued thereafter. There's no excusing the racism that still exists and we must remember that these things have changed forms, not gone away entirely.
Human beings are not good or evil. They're both. Different people are more inclined to do good in their society while others are more inclined to do evil in their society. This is true of every race because the idea of race is a fabricated concept of a person and persons who were more inclined to do evil. The idea of east vs west, north vs south, east side versus west side, all of it... is from a mentality of negative vibration. How much do we, should we, traffic in these same ideas? Of course we use them, because we have to, to make a point. Those who do not know the past are, of course, doomed to repeat it and remix it like an R Kelly song.
And you NEED people to 'ring the alarm'. You do. You need people to use their voice to oppose the pain that they specifically feel in society like nerve endings in the nervous system that are closer to the source of injury. I know a lot of people, for example... do not realize the effect of saying "all lives matter", for example. When there is part of the body that is in pain, nerve endings from that part respond. It doesn't mean that no other part of the body is also hurting. It doesn't mean that only that part... "matters".
But when this message is used, it is used to negate the effect of that message of local pain. It is used to "dull" it. When you have pain from one part of your body you can dull it to some extent by causing pain elsewhere. Saying all lives matter was like saying "your specific pain doesn't matter because we all have different kinds of pain". And yet, no one ever said they shouldn't speak up for their specific pain. But they don't because relatively speaking... they tend to have it better than everyone else.
So its not that whites don't get shot by cops, just not in the same relative numbers taking into account the difference in population which is what makes it a bigger issue than simply "people" getting shot by cops. It means there is a racial element that we need to address. If there is no racial element and "all lives" are being treated the same then that means the police don't have to react to the issue of race at all. Even if they did shoot less "people" in general, there would still be more black people getting shot if you don't address the racial component.
This is just an example.
Ilhan Omar is a good example. She would say that the US is better than where she came from. However, let's maintain perspective. Why is it better? It's better, not just because we have democracy... because its true, imagine if we had slavery under a king Donald Trump. This dude already thinks Article 2 allows him to do whatever he wants. Imagine if this dude was an actual king. Scary. So the fact that we live in a society that can hear and react to these pains does in fact make a difference. It made a difference in the Civil Rights movement. But guess what? You still have to keep fighting against the system because the system naturally attracts corruption. It is a system with checks and balances that has to be checked and balanced by the people. It's a full-time job.
So yes, I can sit here and come up with good things to say about Western powers. We can talk about inventions, health care, education, etc. but these are also the sources of both good and evil because, as I said before, we are a mixture of both. The same technology that connects us like never before is also divisive on a level we've never seen before. And also, you have to consider consequences of direct vs indirect actions.
America has done so much harm on the world stage that it owes a great debt; a debt it can only repay because it is now the product of former slaves, former Mexicans, and others who were pushed off or stolen from their land. We're not simply complaining about the system. We're part of making it better; even when it seems like we're just complaining. Because you need to FEEL it. And that pain needs to travel from the source all the way to the brain (which is why a brainless president is a dangerous president).
Another problem is arrogance. Westerners start thinking in terms of whose superior. Certain things are more advantageous while others are disadvantageous. Yes, child workers in China are bad but what about all the American companies so happy and willing to underpay them so that western shoppers can happily buy those products and feel good about saving money?
The west could stop this simply by saying we will take our business elsewhere if you do not improve conditions. Period. And then you have plenty of Americans who want all these companies to pull out of China and build all these factories for American workers. Then what will happen to all those Chinese workers, so desperate to feed their families that they would accept such low wages? What will they replace all those jobs with? And do these American workers care?
We're all affecting each other by our decisions; our choices. We cannot make choices that clearly advantage us and then say "I do declare, aren't we better than those unfortunate people over there?" No, not when they're misfortune is due to our greed. We could agree to a system in which every employee earns a fair profit from each item sold. Instead, we'll buys shoes they make for $150+ when it only costs a fraction of that to make and ship so that a few people can make a whole lot of profits. This is like saying whose better between the mouse, the cat, and the dog. You might rather be the dog because your chances of survival are better. Unless you slip up and bite a human and then your chances of survival are worse. Checks and balances. Remember that.
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