Third Way Progressives, Screwing the Plebs

[cascadiance]

55. I briefly worked as a store detective during my college years and did witness this sort of racism...

I worked with a few people that had been working in this larger department store for a while, and a couple of women store detectives had cops as husbands that probably shared their mind sets. They weren't really bad people for the most part, but it did bother me when they told me to watch black people more, and also to watch middle eastern or Indian women with big purses as those women were more likely to use those big purses to put stuff in to. I could see the logic of saying, hey watch people (women of course primarily) with big purses, as perhaps that might be a more likely place to stuff things with, but to characterize it mostly as a person of color's problem (whether it was AA or middle eastern) wasn't good for me. I used to live in the middle east, and knew a lot of people good and bad from there, some of them my best friends.

I looked at all people and caught a white couple putting an Atari game in a baby crib box, and another young white guy being a bit obvious of putting a number of pizza boxes right next to a bunch of record albums, which sure enough he stuffed the record albums in to later in a certain part of the store. Management liked me looking for that BEHAVIOR of potential thieves, which didn't focus on a person's skin color as being more likely to commit the crime.

I guess looking back on it, those people seemed nice, and I also used to work along side other POC security people in that store, some of them personal friends of Magic Johnson and Jay Vincent who were high school students and later college students in that area then (met Jay Vincent once when he was talking to them then). So, I can see how this cultural attitude, perhaps where some of them aren't even aware when they carry it, can infect a lot of people who are responsible for law enforcement type of activities. Perhaps more of us when seeing this, even when young junior people starting on such jobs, should ask why the racial stereotypes are being pushed to look at for determining if someone is a likely suspect to watch, etc.

I think that just like POC completely have my sympathy in not wanting this kind of racial stereotyping and excess law enforcement scrutiny thrown at them just because of their skin color or other characteristics they might have, I also think it is important that we also judge everyone for what they do, and not by their racial, religious, sexual preference, etc. characteristics. POC obviously have a bigger problem in that area to deal with, but I don't think it helps if a lot of white supporters of Bernie Sanders, who WANT to help fix these problems are lumped together and criticized for others' behaviors as well.

I shared some personal experiences right here so hopefully you can see my mind set and how I felt about encountering such things that are much more damaging to POC but which I also took exception too, to see how I feel about those issues personally, and also to help you understand that I don't think my supporting Bernie Sanders in any way diminishes trying to help BLM achieve their goals as well as all Americans being lifted out of the messes they are in currently with the way this country is screwing everyone now that isn't in the wealthy class. We all need to work together and try to help each other with these issues, not remain divided and say that each of our issues are the only ones that count and should be worked on.