So we want to talk about individualism

[emilynghiem]

Well maybe I distorted the context then... If they both lived and survived times of racial conflict, and the relationship goes back that far, I can see it was more a statement about them. But then what you have is example of how INDIVIDUAL dialogue is a lot more honest and productive than group identification and conflict.

The collapse of OVERT SYSTEMIC racism in the South actually occurred very quickly. DESPITE whatever Washington did after the CRA. There was HONEST and open life discussions and ties develop all over the cultural map. Charlie Pride and the great R&B artists converted more redneck haters than the DOJ or govt. SPORTS was another beachhead where in the South, it provided great opportunities to smash a lot of racial stereotypes. When your star running back gets carried off the field on a stretcher and happens to be black, no one rejoices. The South largely did not have the Govt Designed and Funding segregated cities and neighborhoods that the Feds foisted on people from the 20s thru the 60s. Towns were segregated, but those lines were NOT institutionalized and the boundaries came down more easily.

Love it. Trying to tell your friend IM2 about the VALUE of viewing folks as individuals. And that's a beautiful example. ESPECIALLY the value of integrated sports and culture. If you don't want SEGREGATION, you gotta accept INTEGRATION. And I've told you before, it would be really constructive to see some flight from those segregated cities to the REST of America. Living cloistered by race may be a convenience for some. But they are screwing themselves by remaining in places that abuse them thru the legal system and cheat them out of opportunities for education and jobs.

I fear all this polarization is pushing the black community to REMAIN segregated by choice. In which case, they suffer the consequences of NOT integrating. They should not blame those consequences on me or "white people". And I fear INTEGRATION" may be a dying cause. There are many other places that welcome all folks who want the same values. They need to learn they are FREE to leave Baltimore, Philly, or the killing fields of Chicago..

Maybe you start seeing the value of looking at people as individuals. ..

You always have a mouthful of crap t say about what blacks should do. So you can blame blacks but we can't say anything about what the almighty whites should be doing. People do not have t leave cities their families have lived in for generations because some idiot thinks that the only way for blacks to improve is to move into white communities. I say that since blacks pay taxes that social service, infrastructure money and tax abatements should be given to blacks to rebuild and redevelop their communities. If a white business can get a 40 year tax abatement so should a business owned by someone black in the black community.

Blacks in Chicago have been asking for the past 30 years for resources that can be used to rebuild their communities and reduce the violence,. This idiot doesn't want anyone to blame whites but then who do we blame when we see the facts?

How Chicago's White Donor Class Distorts City Policy

Chicago’s 2015 mayoral race was one of the most expensive in the nation’s history, with big donors playing an outsized role in financing both candidates’ campaigns. In fact, over 90 percent of the money raised by the two major candidates came from donors giving more than $1,000, and more than half (52%) came from donors outside of the city.[1] Both the Chicago mayoral and council elections are primarily financed by white, male donors who don’t reflect the racial and class diversity of the city’s residents. The experience in Chicago is emblematic of national elections, where a small cadre of white major donors—.01 percent—accounted for over 40 percent of all campaign contributions.[2]

New research provides disturbing evidence that the financing of our elections by a small group of big donors has very real consequences in terms of the public policies that get enacted.[3] In fact, when the preferences of the donor class diverge with those of the average voter, it is the donor class’s preferences that win. But donors and voters don’t always agree. For example, while 34% of non-donors living in Chicago support the Bowles-Simpson austerity plan, 62% of Chicago donors do. The preferences of the white, male and rich donor class diverge strongly from ordinary Chicagoans but it’s their agenda that’s being implemented. The solution is a robust public financing system that empowers the more diverse small donor pool and brings more diverse voices to the political system.

www.demos.org/publication/how-chicagos-white-donor-class-distorts-city-policy

This means that programs necessary to non white communities are ignored.. Programs and opportunities that would reduce the violence and crime.

The report’s key findings:
•The 2015 mayoral election was dominated by big money, with candidates raising more than 92% of their funds from donors giving $1,000 or more.
•These big donors are disproportionately white. Though whites make up 39% of the population of Chicago, they make up 88% of donors giving more than $1,000. While only 6% of Emanuel’s donors were people of color, 39% of Garcia’s donors were.
•Chicago donors are overwhelmingly high-income. Though only 15% of Chicagoans make more than $100,000, 63% of donors did and 74% of those giving more than $1,000 did.
•The donor class is more supportive of budget cuts than average Chicagoans and more opposed to policies that would bolster opportunity.
•In the council races there were also deep disparities. In these races, 79% of donors were men, 82% were white and 54% had an income over $100,000.
•Only five overwhelmingly white wards accounted for 13 percent of Chicago’s population, but 42 percent of donors to the Chicago mayoral and aldermanic races.

Note the underlined information. The people ask questions about why things are in Chicago and idiots like our president don't know these facts and want to present simple minded temporary solutions like threatening to send in the national guard.

In 2012, three political scientists performed a survey of wealthy Chicagoans (called the Survey of Economically Successful Americans, or SESA) and compared their preferences to those of the general population. Those surveyed had a median wealth of $7.5 million and two-thirds of them were political donors. he authors use the sample to examine the policy preferences of the wealthy in general, but given that the survey was Chicago-based it offers insights into how the donor class influences policy. As the table shows, the wealthy are far less likely to support a living wage and the government ensuring a decent standard of living.

While more than three-quarters of the general public agree that the government should “make sure everyone who wants to go to college can do so,” only 28% of the wealthy agree. While nearly nine in 10 average Americans agree that the government should spend whatever necessary to ensure all children attend a good public school, only 35% of the rich agree.

Although the questions are not identical to the SESA survey, a poll of Illinois residents finds that only 16 percent favor cuts to K-12 education, and less than a quarter support cuts to programs for poor people.[12] Only 13 percent of Illinois residents support cuts to programs for those with mental health problems.[13] There are deep divides between the donor class and the general public. The current path Chicago is following, with cuts to mental health services, infrastructure and public schools, is responsive to the preferences of the donor class, not average Chicagoans. Chicago has closed 49 schools, predominantly in black neighborhoods.

I live in Kansas and if I take US 24 to KC I will pass through about 20 all white tows. Yet we won't be hearing how whites are cloistered in segregated communities. Many of these towns are not in good economic shape, but you won't hear our individualist here talk bout how these people should more. But he is sure able to run his mouth off about Baltimore. So when one looks at Baltimore and when one sees the facts, what are we supposed to think?

Baltimore’s Economic Devastation Goes Back To Racist Housing Policy

While the uprisings in Baltimore stem perhaps most directly from a long history of unchecked police brutality, sparked by the death of Freddie Gray in policy custody, it also comes in a city that has long suffered economically. Today, the city’s unemployment rate is about 8.5 percent, compared to a national rate of 5.5 percent. It has a 24 percent poverty rate. The city’s median income is $41,385, compared to a median income of $73,538 for the state of Maryland.

There are stark racial differences in these numbers, too. The share of the city’s employed black men of working age dropped 15 percent between 1970 and 2010, while white men only saw a drop of 4.2 percent. By 2013, less than 60 percent of black men ages 25 to 54 were working, compared to nearly 80 percent of white men. Black Baltimore county residents earned a median income of $58,131 in 2013, compared to $68,112 for white people.

There are many causes of a city’s economic decline, and much of Baltimore’s job loss is tied to the falling fortunes of the manufacturing sector. But the fate of the city’s black population has much to do with deliberate policy choices related to housing

Baltimore’s Economic Devastation Goes Back To Racist Housing Policy

So this guy doesn't want whites to be blamed for this, but who made the deliberate racist housing policies? I guess blacks did this to themselves.

What this man needs to did get rid of the white fragility and stop playing the victim whereby he thinks everyone is blaming him when they say whites. I am not going to post a disclaimer every time I post saying not all whites are responsible just to please whites. I don't care if whites are tired and don't like what is said. I've lived 56 years with this bullshit. I don't get to tell it to stop and it stops just because I'm tired of it. I see things as I see hem. And I see them based upon study and evaluation of fact.

Because I do deal with whites as individuals and I know plenty of whites who don't spend time crying about how I should not make things about groups, who understand why things are said, who have shared their opinions with me and we have been able to work and construct positive solutions to problems. So I know when I am being confronted by a white person who is full of it.


.

Dear IM2 because Blacks DO identify as a group and empower each other
with Black leaders and Black-led programs as models, that's why Blacks leading
Blacks can get the reforms done by working as unified communities and movement.

You can't have it both ways.

If you want to complain and point out injustices affecting this culture and population
as a collective identity then the solutions will also be implemented collectively and unified!
o
I agree with you that we should address individuals if we are so big on individual success and failure.

We should use both individual and collective approaches to their best advantage,
not use them in contradictory ways that defeat the very arguments we are trying to resolve

Emily, Try making sense. Whites see each other as a group and for 241 years have enacted laws and policies the benefit their group. You are far too old to let whites manipulate your mind as it appears is being manipulated now. These things you talk about have been tried, but whites have not changed. Spend your time telling whites what they need to do. Your way does not work, and for you tell us trying to stop whites from continuing their racism as

defeating something is perhaps a thought you need to re consider.

Whites see each other as a group and for 241 years have enacted laws and policies the benefit their group.

Laws were enacted to improve the lives of citizens. The majority of citizens have always been white. That is a baseless argument.

Laws were enacted that excluded citizens because of color. So much for your silly excuses.

(1) Emily, Try making sense. Whites see each other as a group and for 241 years have enacted laws and policies the benefit their group. You are far too old to let whites manipulate your mind as it appears is being manipulated now. These things you talk about have been tried, but whites have not changed. Spend your time telling whites what they need to do. Your way does not work, and for you tell us trying to stop whites from continuing their racism as

defeating something is perhaps a thought you need to re consider.

Whites see each other as a group and for 241 years have enacted laws and policies the benefit their group.

(2) Laws were enacted that excluded citizens because of color. So much for your silly excuses.

Dear IM2
(1) Sure so does everyone!
The problem is unequal treatment.
So the solution is respect everyone!

If individualism helps respect each person on their terms use it!
If understanding collective culture and class helps respect someone use that!

Let's agree not to ABUSE either individualistic or collective
approach to reject or blame one person or group more than any other when oppression has happened.


(2) Sure this oppression has and still happens.
But that white culture isnt the source of where laws come from.

Laws come from nature
Laws come the spiritual collective

People have written these down with biases.
But the source of the laws is above and beyond human limits and biases.

In the end, IM2 it isn't going to matter who was rich poor black or white.

Right NOW sure it matters.
The rich and privileged classes have more access to resources
and political representation and legal defenses to promote their interests.

Where you and I and others disagree most
(and I even argue this with Conservatives who sound like whiny victims to me):
The power and authority comes from KNOWLEDGE of the laws,
living and enforcing them, both individually and in relations
then collectively in groups where the foundation is built on truth and justice.

Fighting over class or party, race or whatever is not going to get people
educated on the real basis of the laws.

To me that's part of the PROBLEM but the solution
comes from sharing in equal knowledge and empowerment
DIRECTLY by the laws so ALL people benefit and develop
both individually, and in relations, and in community groups, tribes and nations.

So I don't see "people in power" as having sustainable power
if it's built on oppression in the first place.

The REAL power I see is who has knowledge of the laws
and can teach and empower people to govern and build things THEMSELVES.

That's power.

And it doesn't come from being white or black or this religion or party or that one.

The people who invest their own LABOR into building
and empower EACH OTHER are the ones practicing
the REAL authority of law, regardless who "may or may not" receive credit under
the "white" cultural media or history or politics of awarding points and elections to bullies and oppressors.

that kind of power is NOT sustainable and isn't building real solutions that will last.

So I do NOT define power based on "white privilege"
but based on true KNOWLEDGE practice and authority of law
that is beyond race and color and beyond any human limits.

It comes from the human spirit both individually and collectively.

That's where I'm coming from.

I'm not going to "attack the system as white and individualistically oppressive"
thinking that's going to change things.
I'm going to USE all the given systems we have to their best benefit and advantage
and check ABUSES of ANY of these systems, individual or collective, white or black
cultural bias, whatever can be used for bad can also be used for good.
So use all these available avenues for GOOD.

I do agree with you we should teach how NOT TO ABUSE individualism.
But attacking it as bad without teaching the good use of it is also BIASED.

if we are going to be fair, we should teach both the good use and the bad abuses,
so that we USE the good strengths as the way to CORRECT the bad flaws.

If you throw the whole system out, you can't use it correct itself.
Same with bad religious abuses or bad govt abuses:
the purpose of the laws of church and state
are to CORRECT and PREVENT abuses.

So that's where I would USE the given systems even individualism
to correct these abuses and injustices that are being pointed out!

 

[Lastamender]

Well maybe I distorted the context then... If they both lived and survived times of racial conflict, and the relationship goes back that far, I can see it was more a statement about them. But then what you have is example of how INDIVIDUAL dialogue is a lot more honest and productive than group identification and conflict.

The collapse of OVERT SYSTEMIC racism in the South actually occurred very quickly. DESPITE whatever Washington did after the CRA. There was HONEST and open life discussions and ties develop all over the cultural map. Charlie Pride and the great R&B artists converted more redneck haters than the DOJ or govt. SPORTS was another beachhead where in the South, it provided great opportunities to smash a lot of racial stereotypes. When your star running back gets carried off the field on a stretcher and happens to be black, no one rejoices. The South largely did not have the Govt Designed and Funding segregated cities and neighborhoods that the Feds foisted on people from the 20s thru the 60s. Towns were segregated, but those lines were NOT institutionalized and the boundaries came down more easily.

Love it. Trying to tell your friend IM2 about the VALUE of viewing folks as individuals. And that's a beautiful example. ESPECIALLY the value of integrated sports and culture. If you don't want SEGREGATION, you gotta accept INTEGRATION. And I've told you before, it would be really constructive to see some flight from those segregated cities to the REST of America. Living cloistered by race may be a convenience for some. But they are screwing themselves by remaining in places that abuse them thru the legal system and cheat them out of opportunities for education and jobs.

I fear all this polarization is pushing the black community to REMAIN segregated by choice. In which case, they suffer the consequences of NOT integrating. They should not blame those consequences on me or "white people". And I fear INTEGRATION" may be a dying cause. There are many other places that welcome all folks who want the same values. They need to learn they are FREE to leave Baltimore, Philly, or the killing fields of Chicago..

Maybe you start seeing the value of looking at people as individuals. ..

You always have a mouthful of crap t say about what blacks should do. So you can blame blacks but we can't say anything about what the almighty whites should be doing. People do not have t leave cities their families have lived in for generations because some idiot thinks that the only way for blacks to improve is to move into white communities. I say that since blacks pay taxes that social service, infrastructure money and tax abatements should be given to blacks to rebuild and redevelop their communities. If a white business can get a 40 year tax abatement so should a business owned by someone black in the black community.

Blacks in Chicago have been asking for the past 30 years for resources that can be used to rebuild their communities and reduce the violence,. This idiot doesn't want anyone to blame whites but then who do we blame when we see the facts?

How Chicago's White Donor Class Distorts City Policy

Chicago’s 2015 mayoral race was one of the most expensive in the nation’s history, with big donors playing an outsized role in financing both candidates’ campaigns. In fact, over 90 percent of the money raised by the two major candidates came from donors giving more than $1,000, and more than half (52%) came from donors outside of the city.[1] Both the Chicago mayoral and council elections are primarily financed by white, male donors who don’t reflect the racial and class diversity of the city’s residents. The experience in Chicago is emblematic of national elections, where a small cadre of white major donors—.01 percent—accounted for over 40 percent of all campaign contributions.[2]

New research provides disturbing evidence that the financing of our elections by a small group of big donors has very real consequences in terms of the public policies that get enacted.[3] In fact, when the preferences of the donor class diverge with those of the average voter, it is the donor class’s preferences that win. But donors and voters don’t always agree. For example, while 34% of non-donors living in Chicago support the Bowles-Simpson austerity plan, 62% of Chicago donors do. The preferences of the white, male and rich donor class diverge strongly from ordinary Chicagoans but it’s their agenda that’s being implemented. The solution is a robust public financing system that empowers the more diverse small donor pool and brings more diverse voices to the political system.

www.demos.org/publication/how-chicagos-white-donor-class-distorts-city-policy

This means that programs necessary to non white communities are ignored.. Programs and opportunities that would reduce the violence and crime.

The report’s key findings:
•The 2015 mayoral election was dominated by big money, with candidates raising more than 92% of their funds from donors giving $1,000 or more.
•These big donors are disproportionately white. Though whites make up 39% of the population of Chicago, they make up 88% of donors giving more than $1,000. While only 6% of Emanuel’s donors were people of color, 39% of Garcia’s donors were.
•Chicago donors are overwhelmingly high-income. Though only 15% of Chicagoans make more than $100,000, 63% of donors did and 74% of those giving more than $1,000 did.
•The donor class is more supportive of budget cuts than average Chicagoans and more opposed to policies that would bolster opportunity.
•In the council races there were also deep disparities. In these races, 79% of donors were men, 82% were white and 54% had an income over $100,000.
•Only five overwhelmingly white wards accounted for 13 percent of Chicago’s population, but 42 percent of donors to the Chicago mayoral and aldermanic races.

Note the underlined information. The people ask questions about why things are in Chicago and idiots like our president don't know these facts and want to present simple minded temporary solutions like threatening to send in the national guard.

In 2012, three political scientists performed a survey of wealthy Chicagoans (called the Survey of Economically Successful Americans, or SESA) and compared their preferences to those of the general population. Those surveyed had a median wealth of $7.5 million and two-thirds of them were political donors. he authors use the sample to examine the policy preferences of the wealthy in general, but given that the survey was Chicago-based it offers insights into how the donor class influences policy. As the table shows, the wealthy are far less likely to support a living wage and the government ensuring a decent standard of living.

While more than three-quarters of the general public agree that the government should “make sure everyone who wants to go to college can do so,” only 28% of the wealthy agree. While nearly nine in 10 average Americans agree that the government should spend whatever necessary to ensure all children attend a good public school, only 35% of the rich agree.

Although the questions are not identical to the SESA survey, a poll of Illinois residents finds that only 16 percent favor cuts to K-12 education, and less than a quarter support cuts to programs for poor people.[12] Only 13 percent of Illinois residents support cuts to programs for those with mental health problems.[13] There are deep divides between the donor class and the general public. The current path Chicago is following, with cuts to mental health services, infrastructure and public schools, is responsive to the preferences of the donor class, not average Chicagoans. Chicago has closed 49 schools, predominantly in black neighborhoods.

I live in Kansas and if I take US 24 to KC I will pass through about 20 all white tows. Yet we won't be hearing how whites are cloistered in segregated communities. Many of these towns are not in good economic shape, but you won't hear our individualist here talk bout how these people should more. But he is sure able to run his mouth off about Baltimore. So when one looks at Baltimore and when one sees the facts, what are we supposed to think?

Baltimore’s Economic Devastation Goes Back To Racist Housing Policy

While the uprisings in Baltimore stem perhaps most directly from a long history of unchecked police brutality, sparked by the death of Freddie Gray in policy custody, it also comes in a city that has long suffered economically. Today, the city’s unemployment rate is about 8.5 percent, compared to a national rate of 5.5 percent. It has a 24 percent poverty rate. The city’s median income is $41,385, compared to a median income of $73,538 for the state of Maryland.

There are stark racial differences in these numbers, too. The share of the city’s employed black men of working age dropped 15 percent between 1970 and 2010, while white men only saw a drop of 4.2 percent. By 2013, less than 60 percent of black men ages 25 to 54 were working, compared to nearly 80 percent of white men. Black Baltimore county residents earned a median income of $58,131 in 2013, compared to $68,112 for white people.

There are many causes of a city’s economic decline, and much of Baltimore’s job loss is tied to the falling fortunes of the manufacturing sector. But the fate of the city’s black population has much to do with deliberate policy choices related to housing

Baltimore’s Economic Devastation Goes Back To Racist Housing Policy

So this guy doesn't want whites to be blamed for this, but who made the deliberate racist housing policies? I guess blacks did this to themselves.

What this man needs to did get rid of the white fragility and stop playing the victim whereby he thinks everyone is blaming him when they say whites. I am not going to post a disclaimer every time I post saying not all whites are responsible just to please whites. I don't care if whites are tired and don't like what is said. I've lived 56 years with this bullshit. I don't get to tell it to stop and it stops just because I'm tired of it. I see things as I see hem. And I see them based upon study and evaluation of fact.

Because I do deal with whites as individuals and I know plenty of whites who don't spend time crying about how I should not make things about groups, who understand why things are said, who have shared their opinions with me and we have been able to work and construct positive solutions to problems. So I know when I am being confronted by a white person who is full of it.


.

Dear IM2 because Blacks DO identify as a group and empower each other
with Black leaders and Black-led programs as models, that's why Blacks leading
Blacks can get the reforms done by working as unified communities and movement.

You can't have it both ways.

If you want to complain and point out injustices affecting this culture and population
as a collective identity then the solutions will also be implemented collectively and unified!
o
I agree with you that we should address individuals if we are so big on individual success and failure.

We should use both individual and collective approaches to their best advantage,
not use them in contradictory ways that defeat the very arguments we are trying to resolve

Emily, Try making sense. Whites see each other as a group and for 241 years have enacted laws and policies the benefit their group. You are far too old to let whites manipulate your mind as it appears is being manipulated now. These things you talk about have been tried, but whites have not changed. Spend your time telling whites what they need to do. Your way does not work, and for you tell us trying to stop whites from continuing their racism as

defeating something is perhaps a thought you need to re consider.

Whites see each other as a group and for 241 years have enacted laws and policies the benefit their group.

Laws were enacted to improve the lives of citizens. The majority of citizens have always been white. That is a baseless argument.

Laws were enacted that excluded citizens because of color. So much for your silly excuses.

Is your history as bad as your math?

 

[emilynghiem]

It's funny how whites.....blah blah blah

No, it is funny how you create numerous threads a day about how terrible whites are...all the while trying to point out how whites are racist.

Now THAT is funny.
At the same time, sad. Sad how empty your life must be that you spend hours a day on the internet making long ass threads that maybe-maybe one person actually reads.
You should re-examine your life. You live once. Everyday you waste here you will never get back.

Dear iamwhatiseem
It IS part of that process and no it's NOT a waste of time.
We NEED to discuss this in depth, every angle and every perception of every case
of conflict to resolve and understand.

Thanks IM2 for posting thoughtful deep perceptive content.
This is the most comprehensive discussion and debate I've seen yet
over what causes the racial bias to go in circles instead of pinpointing and resolving the many conflicts
involved.

As I go back and reply and read through all the material this is covering,
I'll try to remember to thank all your posts for solid content. There's
more of them than there is of me. So this will take time. Thank you!!!

 

[emilynghiem]

Okay IM2 I read more of the download on individualism
to pinpoint these points of "bias" that overgeneralize "individualism"
(and also "universalism") so as to EXCLUDE other meanings, process or application of these.

This bias states only ONE presentation of what these things mean.

The best way I can try to explain the BIAS here, one of my professors
in art history who lectured on political/social history as the context foart,
explained the difference between ETIC and EMIC. One is the description
of a cultural group from OUTSIDE and one is from INSIDE.

Once you are HOSTILE and against a culture you are describing (especially if you feel it does NOT represent you), this
causes a DIFFERENT bias than if you are supporting it from either inside or outside because it DOES represent you.

The article described the Discourse of Individualism as "only treating people as individuals"
which isn't the only meaning of it or application; and also criticized "universalism"
as treating "all people equally the same" which isn't taking into account
DIVERSITY including the people who EXPRESS and see themselves by GROUP identity.

That Collective culture IS included in what makes that person individually see things and interact as they do.

Now, if you are saying that "THOSE INDIVIDUALS" who impose or project
THEIR individuals views on people,
and thus unfairly project either THEIR collective stereotypes by group
or FAIL to recognize someone's collective identity in a positive way
because the perceiver is too busy projecting their OWN individual perception,
you (and this author) are both "blaming individualism collectively"
instead of blaming the people ABUSING it.

And I'm sure you are thinking that is me
"abusing individualism" to "justify" and defend this?
NO, I am saying it is flawed and unjust to do it,
but blaming "individualism collectively" is not the only way.

SOME people may respond to correcting it by you framing it this way.
But OTHERS need it framed individually in order to correct this problem.

So I would THINK the better way to present this issue
is to present it BOTH ways, instead of just blaming it on this
"collective culture of indivdualism"

What I have read so far is not what I use individualism or universalism for.
So I barely recognize what you are trying to say,
though I know we must be arguing about the SAME problem:

People take whatever their system is, project that onto others who use a different system,
then wonder why that doesn't work but ends up offending and imposing on both people!

The way I take and apply these, for both individualism and universalism:
is to try to understand each person's way of seeing and saying things.
That INCLUDES if they use or don't relate to individualism or collectivism; and
that INCLUDES if they project their ways onto others as their language or process.

I try to hear my neighbor using THEIR system
even if they do project theirs onto mine,
and try to work it out anyway, even where I will also come across to them
as projecting MY ways of seeing or saying it, knowing we are coming from
different perspectives and LANGUAGES for saying these things.
===========================
As for ALTERNATIVE parallels for saying the equivalent
of your arguments about individualism/collectivism

A. I already pointed out another person brought up DUE PROCESS
and assuming Innocence until proven otherwise; so this is a more
specific application of similar principles of judging someone
by "collective association" instead of taking their individual case
and only holding that person responsible for their own acts, not the entire group

I agree that this legal process GETS ABUSED where for example
with reparations or with a mass riot, if you cannot pinpoint and prove
which INDIVIDUALS did which acts, you aren't allowed to punish a
whole group collectively.

B. I had thought of one other "parallel" paradigm I use
in place of "individualism/collectivism":
I frame people's personality patterns in terms of
"mommy issues" and "daddy issues"

If people have good relations with their mother
and family they tend to have good communications.
If they have bad maternal relations, they have
problems communicating with others and this
manifests as "mommy issues."

If people have good relations with their father
this manifests in their romantic relations, so if
they have "daddy issues" this surfaces or repeats
as "control or authority" issues in their relationships
especially romantic partners, as well as politics.

IM2 I would guess that the "collectivism"
applies to the "mommy issues" or maternal
side of relationships; while the "individualism"
manifests in the "daddy issues" of
control and authority, individual will choice and determination.

My point is this is INDEPENDENT of race as in White/Black.
All people are affected by what we inherit from our
mothers and fathers, either strengths or problems/patterns
we might repeat until we resolve past issues we carry.

What I call the maternal side or mommy issues
may be what manifests when people frame
things or project "collectively" or "in relation with others."

What I call the paternal side or daddy issues
may be what you are calling this
"abuse of individualism" to marginalize or
exclude people by "restricting" the framework
to just individuals. Which is NOT what I use it for.

I agree that people CONSTANTLY abuse whatever systems we use,
and we "misexplain" or project our own perceptions onto others.
I agree that if you take "universalism" in the wrong direction,
sure, you end up imposing "one generic view" for everyone
and that does no good at all. Of course that can't be the purpose,
as the point is to respect the unique gifts and purpose in each person.

Something is MISSING from this whole "discourse"
that attempts to blame it on the SYSTEM of either
white "individualism" or white imposed "universalism"

I understand that people impose their own cultural ways,
but that's everyone not just whites.

I understand these systems can be commonly abused
but that's NOT the proper use of them in the first place.
Just like due process is NOT supposed to be abused
to bypass or obstruct justice for anyone, that's self-defeating too!

What I DO understand is that the European linear
language and way of documenting history as a timeline
DOES impose bias and discrimination.

If it were as simple as just BLAMING individualism
or BLAMING universalism, we'd be done by now.

but it's EVERY system of laws, of religion,
of politics and govt that has been ABUSED
by class dominance to benefit the few in power
over the masses.

The article in the download also seemed to
blame "whites as the dominant group in the US"
but when acknowledging this is because of economic
and educational advantages (and I mean including owning
the property and process of laws and governance)
this is framed as WHITE instead of that CLASS of
generations that could have been anyone.

So that is where you lose me on that bias.

Otherwise, with the CONTENT of the issues,
minus the blaming this on white culture,
instead of the abuse which I agree is causing the
disparities to continue in circles,
I agree with the issues in principle.

The language is hard to get through because
of biases I don't have toward these cultures
or ways of expression that I see as used for good,
not just in this limited discriminating way
that I do not use these systems for.

If OTHER people abuse them, either individualism
collectivism or universalism to abuse or disparage others,
I would sooner blame this on
* psychological "mommy issues" if they are
having problems COMMUNICATING and that's the point of failure
* spiritual "daddy issues" if they are projecting
'power and control issues" to DOMINATE over some other
person or group.
By framing it as maternal or paternal patterns/issues,
that is INDEPENDENT of race, everyone is born of
a mother and father and has these psychological
ties whether conscious or unconscious, spiritual or social.

So that to me is universal AND it allows me
to understand each person individually.
Then if we use collective terms to express and
share our experiences, that is INCLUDED
in individualism and universalism the way I use it!

Not this abusive way to exclude people by pigeonholing or projecting.