If it is race and not culture, emilynghiem, why do black people in America murder each other in such large numbers?Yes! It is cultural, not racial.That is clearly a cultural difference, and here it happens to be black versus white.
Unfortunately Carib Gyal as even Asclepias pointed out,
this does get projected onto race, and that adds to the conflict.
it is hard for "white and black" people to work together on the Freedmen's Town history
and expect there to be trust. Instead, there were incidents like one time a sale of the land back to the community
got BLOCKED because one of the Black leaders didn't trust one of the White people involved. So instead of
taking back control of the land and the school (that later got torned down) it went into the hands of the public school
that tore up gravesites and tore down houses seized by eminent domain. So race was a factor in why the
community kept getting taken advantage of.
The author of the book on Freedmen's Town history also couldn't get support united around defense
because he was white and misjudged for having some other motives besides preserving the Black history
that his doctoral work was focused on. And the head of the local museum also had some people divided against
her just because she was white and they didn't trust her when she worked with the schools and city on projects.
Race and distrust of race has been part of the reason people stay divided and not fully empowered.
So that is part of the equation, either race directly or perceptions and race relations.
The part that is directly is the spiritual wounds and resentment carried from
one generation to the next that is tied to nationality and race. That is part of the dynamics of
the injuries that must be addressed if you are going to heal the wounds and break the cycle of abuse and poverty.
Hi Carib Gyal
Race is a factor in the socioeconomic conditions.
The two areas of race I focus on the most here:
1. the SPIRITUAL karma connected and carried by race and passed from previous to later generations
where anything unforgiven or not healed is passed down and can manifest as resentment,
including by race.
The race isn't causing the problem, but the *spiritual problem* is projected onto race as a factor.
Race does become a factor in identifying and healing to break the cycle.
(Similar to grouping people by religion, where the same problems happen in all groups, but if this gets projected onto a particular religious identity, that religion becomes a factor of organizing socially to solve the conflict.)
I go by what people tell me, if they identify by race (or religion), I trust them to tell me where they need to focus.
Asclepias has made it clear he is focused on race, so that is a factor for him and I work with him in that way.
I trust that is part of his spiritual path to focus on community solutions to problems associated with racial inequality and history he is trying to address.
2. the issue of financial and political standing that is behind by 150 years due to slavery,
where some generations affected by this need extra support to catch up on learning laws of property
and business/financial management.
I run into this everyday.
I have neighbors and coworkers without any experience or clue where to start with
owning their own property, or rentals or business, much less owning their own city district
because they've never had that experience in their families or social circles.
They have not inherited a sense of ownership that other families get from their parents or grandparents.
So if you are wondering what is the deal with American Blacks
that is where a lot of this victimhood powerlessness comes from.
Not only were family lines broken by slavery, but the rapes to breed more
slaves were blamed on whites and the slavery laws were enforced by
a predominantly white system.
Part of the strategy of keeping Blacks enslaved and unable to unite to liberate themselves
was to divide the FIELD slaves from the HOUSE slaves who got more privileges.
The Urban slaves who were educated were able to move toward independence faster
by understanding land and business ownership and trying to teach this to others.
But the poor uneducated Blacks who stay in the cycle of poverty get taken advantage
of in this system that makes money off bad credit decisions and our prison system
where the industry and contractors make money off the crime. There is not equal
motivation to get people off welfare and out of the system. Politicians play on this
for sympathy to get elected and the plans for campuses to get people educated
require direct investment and participation, where people aren't educated and empowered to take that on.
Of course, if you have Black struggling to get by while their neighborhoods are being taken
over and their families split over jail where they can't work to take back ownership of their communities,
you are going to see dependence on drugs, crime and incarceration as the life they are brought up in.
It's a vicious cycle, and resentment over race has added to it and kept it going.
#1 the Spiritual wounds of genocide that are mixed in with race
have to be healed first if people are going to be EMPOWERED
to solve their financial and political issues in a unified orderly way.
#2 the physical reality of turning prisons and poor districts
into sustainable campus programs to break the cycle of poverty
depends on educating people on the laws and rights they have
equal authority to invoke to CLAIM land and ownership so they can have equal status.
They are generations behind on the learning curve.
So the factor of organizing by community and cultural identity
DOES involve RACE. People align and identify with role models
based on this. So where that IS a factor for them, sure,
I recognize that and have to be willing to work with it.
I can't just take my world view and IMPOSE it on someone else.
If they identify by race, that means to work within their ways
of representing themselves, their interests and community,
in order to build solutions as Asclepias seeks to do.
I have met with political leaders who urged me to understand
the unity has to come first, and then the changes can follow.
So racial identity and history is part of that process of unifying,
so people FEEL empowered so they CAN take on the responsibilities
instead of feeling it is hopeless trying to fight the system run by others.
Thanks for asking, and I hope you and Asclepias are able to find
and focus on points of agreement so you can unite your resources
and uplift more people to get past the negative conflicts concerning race.
If you see it as cultural, that's one way to describe the problems and solutions going on.
If Asclepias sees it as racial, that's a factor also that a lot of people want to address.
Whatever it takes to motivate people to change the dynamics,
from victimhood to empowerment, it's important to work together
even if we call it or focus on different things. What are the solutions we can all agree on.