I'm so sad after this conversation I had with an older black relative.

[Shell_Seas]

He said to me that none of this stuff was going to change, no matter how much they protest. And that when all of this is over, it's going to be back to business as usual. He's 50 and we live in Texas.

I showed him that viral video of police brutality from Baytown, TX, which cops kneed a guy sitting on the ground in the face, not fighting, not resisting. He told me, "Of course, this is happening in every single small town in Texas, it always has been. These shit-kickers in rural Texas are not going to change."

I definitely believe things are going to change and we are at a catalyst right now, but he doesn't agree.

This is what this world is now, where older generations have accepted this as a norm and can't see how things could be different. It makes me want to fight harder for change.

In LA and MN they are talking about defunding police and refunneling money to education and healthcare. I've been listening to their ideas and some of them are really good, but in Texas.... besides voting blue and attending protests, I'm not sure what else I can do.

[Archetypist]

1. Not just oder generations

The fact that black parents STILL have to have 'the talk' with their kids (and it is not something that I think is even questioned) about interacting with police says it all.

[Squinch]

2. The protests by themselves will not change anything.

If the protests encourage an enormous GOTV effort, not only will things change but we will NEVER lose.

We can talk about defunding police all we want. We can't do it until we have taken over the institutions that actually apportion the money.

Right now we have the ability to do that. But your relative is right. The protests are not the mechanism that makes the change. The protests might help with the effort, but they don't actually write the budget.

[Blue_true]

21. I agree. Voting is what brings about change.

I know that many here on DU get jacked up about street protests, it is just that I have never seen them bring about lasting change.

[Squinch]

44. I agree, but I do think there is something different about this one. There is a lot

less of the knee-jerk negative reaction to the looting and agitators. I think many more people are willing to see that they have nothing to do with the real issue that is being raised.

And the demographics of the population have changed. In the past minorities were in the minority. That isn't the case any more.

But if this does get people out to vote, this thing will be unstoppable. I hope that is what happens.

[Blue_true]

47. I have noticed something about the current protests that I have

not seen to the same extent before. I too hope that it leads to a determined realization that voting matters.

[5X]

3. 400 years of history say different. n/t

[PTWB]

4. When was the last meaningful progress toward civil and equal rights for persons of color?

[StarfishSaver]

5. Progress takes place step by step, not in huge strides. Often it's not noticeable until we look back

at it.

There is no question that we've made great progress in the last 70 years and we are better off than we were decades ago. There's also no question that we're in a period of retrenchment, where we're making that two steps back after making three steps forward. It's frustrating and discouraging because we feel that backward movement means we're losing all the progress we've made. But we're not.

Progress is a pendulum, not a straight continuum. We must keep our eyes on the prize.

[Shell_Seas]

6. It felt like we took a lot of steps back when Trump got elected.

But this step by step process is too slow, if police officers are still killing unarmed black men.

[StarfishSaver]

8. Yes, we did take a lot of steps back

And now we need to focus on taking some steps forward.

Progress is ALWAYS step by step. Even the civil rights movement - which some people mistakenly believe was a revolution that began with the Montgomery Bus Boycott or the March on Washington - was a carefully planned out incremental effort that began decades ago and made progress in bits and pieces, not all at one time. And every time they made progress, there was a huge backlash by whites that pushed them back a few steps. But they kept moving forward.

As Barack Obama said a few years ago:

If you had to choose one moment in history in which you could be born, and you didn’t know ahead of time who you were going to be -- what nationality, what gender, what race, whether you’d be rich or poor, gay or straight, what faith you'd be born into -- you wouldn’t choose 100 years ago. You wouldn’t choose the fifties, or the sixties, or the seventies. You’d choose right now. If you had to choose a time to be, in the words of Lorraine Hansberry, “young, gifted, and black” in America, you would choose right now. (Applause.)

I tell you all this because it's important to note progress. Because to deny how far we’ve come would do a disservice to the cause of justice, to the legions of foot soldiers; to not only the incredibly accomplished individuals who have already been mentioned, but your mothers and your dads, and grandparents and great grandparents, who marched and toiled and suffered and overcame to make this day possible. I tell you this not to lull you into complacency, but to spur you into action.

[Shell_Seas]

9. God, I miss Obama so much.

[LiberalFighter]

41. It does require major steps this time. No small steps.

Which is why I believe it needs to happen at a national level that forces cities and states to comply. National standards set that prohibit certain activities, makes it easier to fire or charge officers in violation, require certification of all police officers, and federal funding only available to leo departments in compliance. The last part should be a big impact.

[PTWB]

11. That's crap. Anyone who accepts a timetable for equality and civil rights is no ally of mine.

None of this three steps forward, two steps back bullshit. It is no surprise that folks are ready to burn the whole system to the ground.


Here is one of my all-time favorite quotes:

First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season."

- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

[StarfishSaver]

12. No, it is not crap

The quote you cite from Dr. King in no way contradicts my point. Working toward change step by step with a clear goal in mind is NOT the same as waiting "for a more convenient season."

I believe that some people confuse immediate action with immediate results. Dr. King was advocating for immediate action, telling people that the direct action protests could not wait for a more convenient time. But he did NOT expect or demand that that the change the direct action sought would occur immediately because he knew that was not possible.

If you understand the history of the movement and study the strategies and tactics, you would know that I speak the truth. Dr. King was a vigorous, fearless advocate, but he also was very pragmatic and worked toward incremental change. What he was arguing against in the Letter from a Birmingham Jail was the claim that pushing for change in that moment and with those tactics was premature and counterproductive. But he never argued that change must come instantly. The kind of progress Dr. King sought took time and thought and planning and prodding. He and other leaders of the movement were master strategists and knew that the permanent change they were seeking wouldn't happen overnight but needed to done carefully and sustainably.


Study the strategies, tactics and outcomes of the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the various civil rights acts and the long road to Brown v. Board of Education, among other civil rights victories. Read about Thurgood Marshall and Charles Hamilton Houston and the development and success of Houstonian Jurisprudence and you will better understand what I'm saying.

For example, the Montgomery Bus Boycott was and is considered one of the great successes of the civil rights era. But it took more than a year to achieve success. And do you know what that success was? Most people don't.

[PTWB]

13. That doesn't mesh with what I've seen.

Just look at all the threads and posts here, one of the strongest Democratic presences on the Internet, that just a week ago were dismissing protesters as rioters, looters and vandals.

We have countless members here who said nearly exactly what Dr. King warned us about!

“I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"

White moderates ARE the problem.

We seriously and legitimately had people on this very forum, less than a week ago, who regularly expressed their shock and dismay about property being damaged when we have folks fighting for their lives.

[EffieBlack]

14. Starfish is correct

I urge you to study the history, not just rely on the nostalgic revisionist versions of that period.

[PTWB]

16. I'm well aware of the history.

What worked then is not what will work now, for obvious reasons. Times have changed and our methods need to change. More direct and more forceful action will be required.

[EffieBlack]

17. You don't seem to be well aware of it.

You are conflating the inputs with the outcomes. No one is saying that direct and forceful action isn’t warranted immediately. But it is foolish to expect immediate RESULTS. The change comes in small pieces, not all at once. That’s why it’s important to keep fighting and not to give up, even when we backslide, because we are making progress.

[PTWB]

18. No, I am not.

I am specifically referring to the “inputs.”

You claim that: “ No one is saying that direct and forceful action isn’t warranted immediately. ”


Did you just miss the last week on DU with hundreds of threads and posts specifically condemning the property damage sustained during the protests?


Those methods are incredibly forceful and direct but we have a forum full of people who condemn those methods because they’re uncomfortable with them.

I certainly do not expect immediate results. Do you acknowledge the actions of the last week were forceful and direct? And do you acknowledge we had a hell of a lot of white moderates who were uncomfortable with those actions on this very forum?

[EffieBlack]

19. Believing that immediate action is warranted and disagreeing about what form that action should take

are two different things. And that is nothing new. It was a consistent struggle and tension during the civil rights movement, as well. Dr. King was seen by many black activists as too slow, too pragmatic, too willing to accept incremental change. So, it’s interesting to see you using him to argue that change must occur immediately.

[PTWB]

22. No one is arguing change must (or even can) occur immediately.

The argument is that white moderates, uncomfortable with the level of direct action chosen by protesters, are once again trying to hamstring the movement.

The outrage over property damage was incredible to see.

[StarfishSaver]

27. That's EXACTLY what you were arguing!

Anyone who accepts a timetable for equality and civil rights is no ally of mine.

None of this three steps forward, two steps back bullshit.

I'm glad to see you walked that back.

[PTWB]

30. I'm not sure if you're deliberately missing the point or what, but that isn't at all my argument.

And I certainly am not walking back that statement. Anyone who accepts a timetable for equality and civil rights is no ally of mine. Do you honestly find it acceptable to put a timetable on equality??

Change is not immediate because it must be taken by force of action, which is inherently a process. The timetable for peaceful protest to illicit real change is unacceptable. It is why people are sick of it and are burning shit to the ground. They want to speed up that timetable. ANY timetable is unacceptable, but a faster timetable is better than a slower timetable.

Are you honestly content to coddle the feelings of white moderates upset that their local target was burned to the ground? We sure wouldn't want to offend someone who is mildly inconvenienced in their bi-weekly trip to the grocery store. The amount of action that occurred last week was good but not nearly enough. And yet, again, you refuse to acknowledge that this very forum was full of people crying that it was too much that property damage wasn't acceptable and that the only means of protest they will accept are peaceful protests.

[StarfishSaver]

31. I quoted you verbatim

Now you're just talking in circles. Maybe someone else will engage with you on this. I'm not in the mood to dance today.

[PTWB]

32. You quoted me and then spun it into something I did not say.

You ignored every point because you know your position is either incorrect or immoral.

DO YOU ACCEPT A TIMETABLE ON EQUALITY AND CIVIL RIGHTS?

Yes or no?

[Blue_true]

38. "White moderates" have a place at the table during the collective

discussion of what we must become as a nation. The fact is progress always involves viewpoint tension and people having to buy-in on something that they are not comfortable with.

I am not a "White moderate", but I am very uncomfortable with the concept that we somehow make people become better by burning down their assets. As a businessperson who has seen both failure and success, I know how tenuous operating a business can be, so I am cold to the idea that wiping people out is progress or even has any societal good at all associated with it.

[PTWB]

42. I just can't ever prioritize property over the lives of unarmed black men.

If burning down one business meant we’d save the life of one unarmed, innocent black man, would you be okay with that?

What about a dozen businesses? Or a hundred?

[Blue_true]

45. Who prioritized property over the lives of innocent Blacks.

Burning down a business can lead to resentment. Going to city council meetings and voicing demands, organizing people to vote is what delivers the change that you are incorrectly claiming burning property delivers. What we need to do is get city councils and mayors in office that don't tolerate police chiefs that allow their officers to run roughshod over Black people, buring down property won't accomplish that, in fact all that does is give people that push a strident racial message more influence over people that may have been coming around to the concept that eliminating racial injustice and it's outcomes leads to a better world for everyone.

[PTWB]

49. I strongly disagree.

A week of rioting has done more to focus a magnifying glass upon ongoing racial inequality and murder than would have been accomplished in a decade of easy-to-ignore local politics and asking nicely for police reform at city council meetings.

On what planet do you live that you think voting is going to lead to anything more than additional voter suppression? Or asking nicely at city council meetings will lead to anything more than lip service?

If rioting is what it takes to speed up the timetable for achieving equality and civil rights, then is it any surprise that is what has happened? It is the evolution of protest.

Boycotting busses and having sit-ins at white only restaurants were powerful tools at the time. Rioting seems to be the powerful tool of OUR time.

Sure, you can dismiss it as creating “resentment” but you know what creates real resentment? Being murdered by the state for being black.

[Blue_true]

53. Organizing and voting is not asking "nicely".

You keep throwing out straw men to buttress the argument you seem to be making that burning and looting solves systemic problems. Yes, republicans will attemp voter suppression to retain power, but those efforts can and have been overcome. Republicans in Virginia used voter suppression for years, same in North Carolina and my state of Florida - you know what? They are losing their grip on control (in some cases like Florida, slowly, but it is happening). What we need to do is when they move us from voting roles, we re-register. When they put few voting machines in majority Black polling places, we use early voting.

What you seem to be implying is that over-coming systemic racism and republican tactics is hard- so we need to do stuff, that in this world, will only succeed in getting us a criminal record and rights taken away is somehow going to allow us to make things better. Your argument leads to nothing but dead ends, IMO.

[PTWB]

54. I have no problem with attacking the system from both ends

Get out there and vote! Become politically active, encourage change and progress on the local level. Organize, support black businesses, and grow influence in any and every way shape or form.

But don’t dismiss the other side of that coin as ineffective just because you can’t stomach the methods. I think it would be quite effective in speeding up the entire process if cities burn every time a murder like George Floyd’s happens. It keeps the pressure on.

Corporate and white America will learn that they need to get involved if they don’t want to see these types of consequences on the evening news.

[Blue_true]

36. I don't think that destroying the only places that provide

services in one's community is "forceful and direct". What such action does is give a White executive who never wanted to invest in Black communities cover to hide his or her harsh racist feelings.

Progress is working with the businesses that operate in Black communities to insure that they are providing fair services and providing jobs for members of the community. Progress is not made by leaving the property of people who saw enough positives to want to put a business in a Black community a smoldering mess, if you have bought into that mindset, then you are wrong.

[PTWB]

37. I disagree.

The world has changed since the 50s and 60s. Politics and political power has changed. The effective methods required to influence and shape that political power have changed.

It is possible that peacefully protesting and enabling black businesses may result in a gradual increase in equality and civil rights over the next decades and centuries, but who thinks such a timetable is acceptable? Certainly not me.

It is easy for white moderates to ignore a peaceful march down the street once or twice a year. It is a lot harder to ignore a million people in hundreds of cities burning shit down and demanding change NOW!

Corporations have power. Rioting causes economic pressure. Corporations use their power to demand change so that they can continue making money. It is a simple and effective tool and one we are going to see used more and more.

Martin Luther King, Jr., said in 1967, “A riot is the language of the unheard.” He elaborated, “And so in a real sense our nation’s summers of riots are caused by our nation’s winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again. Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention.”

[Blue_true]

43. I can't disagree with you more.

Successful Blacks like Jay-Z HAVE set up venture capital to fund Black entrepreneurs, there are forward thinking Whites also involved in those efforts.

I am not a Black person that feel that I need validation from Whites, even as, because of my field, the vast majority of people that I work with are not like me racially. For me, the issue distills down to how to best make lasting progress, I don't see destroying people's property as being a constructive element in such a strategy. What I have found is working with Whites that wanted to work with me has allowed me to meet my own goals, I have learned to ignore anything else because it hasn't been able to stop me, set me back, yes, but never has it stopped me from moving ahead.

[Blue_true]

29. Hi Effie. Haven't seen you around much.

I too believe that Starfish is laying out the true history of the struggles of African Americans in America, the path has been difficult and there has always been setbacks, but we are better off today than we were 70, or even 30 years ago.

As a child growing up, the sight of a Black US Postal letter deliverer was exciting, simply because that job was far better than jobs that Black adults of that period had access to. I was just talking to one of my brothers just two days ago about all the good jobs that have come into this region, jobs that are open to all races and which pays well. My parents were laborers who toiled for minimum wages, if they got that, their children and grandchildren are professional people with a lot of successful business owners in that mix. We have a ways to go, but we have come a long way, to deny the progress is wrongheaded in my view and is likely to give those that want to prevent future progress a toehold with which to cause divisions among the different racial and ethnic groups in this country.

[EffieBlack]

33. Hi

My tolerance level is at low-tide

[Blue_true]

39. Hang in there, you seem to know the path forward.

Are you planning to get involved with organizing for the Biden campaign? I believe that having voices like yours in it is important.

[Efilroft Sul]

15. +1000

[Shell_Seas]

25. You have to remember ... I saw a poll on DU a while back about everone's age

There are more older people here than younger. I think what you are specifically talking about is possibly a generational divide.

[Blue_true]

26. Excellent analysis. nt

[Blue_true]

24. It is constantly happening.

We have prominent and successful Black people today. It is still hard for Blacks to get business financing, but if an idea is a sure deal, the money floods in.

I don't want to sound like a happy talker, because we still have the scourge of systemic racism to deal with, the issue of what is in people's hearts, stuff that can evade laws. But to make a blanket statement that we have not made progress and aren't making progress is just flat wrong. I think the last couple of days are informative, a Black man (President Obama) stepped forward to deliver a calming message and tens of millions of Americans of all races listened to and heeded that message - you may not see a powerful symbol in that, but I certainly do.

[uponit7771]

7. We have to see policy changes first, not just mood changes

[Shell_Seas]

10. How can that happen in a state like Texas?

[Blue_true]

20. Every society needs a police force.

The problem here and other places in the world is that police are allowed to overstep their role in society. Here in America, police officers are allowed to be racist and when not racist, stalk Americans that they have a personal beef with. The issue boils down to setting standards and adhering to those standards, people that can't adhere to standards should have their badge permanently taken away.

One element that society must drive home to police officers is that even a person that has done a crime has rights and those rights can NEVER be violated if an officer plans to keep his or her job.

I don't believe that the solution is to defund police, I believe that would lead to the type of societal chaos that we don't need. What we can do is eliminate the militarization of police forces, except for high quality vests to protect them, do they need to be dressed head to toe in tactical gear when facing law abiding protesters? We should put emphasis on identifying police candidates that have tendencies toward violently resolving situations that don't call for violence, we are doing a really poor job in that area now. Police training must be evaluated thoroughly and unnecessarily violent techniques removed from that training and cadets being made aware that any future use of those techniques will cost them their jobs and could land them in jail.

Police officers should be paid properly and get all the reasonable protective equipment needed to do their jobs. They should also be made to understand that every citizen that they encounter is a customer of theirs, even the ones that have done a crime, and that their role is to thoroughly investigate the situations that they encounter daily and even-handedly deliver justice.

[SoonerPride]

23. The only way it would change is if we outlawed having white police.

Make all law enforcement officers people of color.

[Blue_true]

46. That is not a "good" solution at all.

What we do is have zero tolerance for racism in policing. What is happening now is police officers that clearly have an issue with some people, innocent people, are keeping their badge until they kill it seriously harm an innocent or cooperating person from the group(s) that they had shown bias against.

[SoonerPride]

48. I didn't say it was a good solution

But it is the only solution.
there aren’t enough non-racist white people who want to be cops to force the racists to the exits.

As long as there are white police imposing “the law” on people with black and brown skin, it will be inherently racist and often explicitly so.

It is systemic.

The only way to end it is to literally change he the system.

No
White
Police.

[Blue_true]

52. So we make it clear that if they let their personal feelings enter

into how they perform their jobs, they get fired, and if their action lead to harm, they go to jail. If we do that, the racists will walk away from police work out if their own accord and get replaced by people with a more balanced view.

I disagree that White society is just so corrosively racist that good cops can't be found there. It seems that studies indicate that 20-30% of Whites harbor hard racial views, that means 70-80% don't and can be convinced with an argument that is crafted on moral and ethical grounds. I do believe that if we say to that 70-80% that they can't have certain jobs because of what they look like, we start to add to the 20-30% that is just morally blind. Why do you think that using a tactic (denying jobs because of what a person looks like) that got us to where we are, gets us to a better world?

[demosincebirth]

28. Listen to your old black relative, he's right. They may sugarcoat it, but in the

south it is deeply ingrained.

[Hortensis]

34. He's far too young to be a foolish, defeated old man. He's witnessed

great advances in his life, including the racial advances during his adulthood that were large among a number of big advances in equality that precipitated the RW's "culture wars" backlash.

The march of history in the post-Enlightenment world always has been forward on this, but not without setbacks. Hopefully he can somehow come to understand that. It's a great comfort and source of strength to me at times like this.

And seriously, could clinical depression be what's behind this?

[kentuck]

35. It will change when these people start going to jail.

They have always gotten away with it.

I believe it is going to change.

[LiberalFighter]

40. There are some that will not do anything. He is one of them.

He ain't that old either. Nor does he understand that it is not the same as it was a few years ago. The key is that in the past it was your word against a cop. And a cop would always win. With cell phones it is changing.

[Blue_true]

50. There are people that are just complainers.

They see wrong and complain about it, but they are not willing to take the simplest of actions to confront the wrong and bring about societal change that make that wrong a thing of the past.

[LiberalFighter]

55. I've known a few of those.

As soon as I figured the person just liked to complain I was done with them.

[zak247]

51. Maybe...

The only way there will be change is if the young folks get out and vote Trump and the GOP out.

One has to first give at least lip service and belief to the truth before it seeps in the heart. Those in the GOP don't even believe there is a problem and if they do they don't care about it. Look what Rand Paul is doing now on the lynching bill.

IF young folks don't do that then there will be NO CHANGE.

They came through with Obama but failed in 2016 so we have gone backward.

So indeed if they don't come out and vote for Biden and other Dems then we will get no progress and all these protests will be for naught.