Muhammad Rasheed's Blog, page 181
January 4, 2018
January 2, 2018
The Flimsy Camouflage of the Alt-Right
Brit Bennett - Sensitivity readers are only controversial if you ignore the fact that in this diverse country, it is entirely possible to publish a book that has been selected, read, and edited by only white people
The average book will pass through a white agent, a white editor, a white publicist, a white sales team, a white cover artist, and white booksellers. And this process is considered natural and objective.
A Cultural Critic - Good writing is good writing. You are judging the perspective of a person based on skin colour alone. That is #racist. Shame on you.
Muhammad Rasheed - You're saying that as if all people are cookie cutter copies of each other with only skin color being the only difference between us. Don't ignore political and cultural biases.
A Cultural Critic - Britt is doing precisely that—ignoring individual differences between people—as the suggestion is that race is all that matters. I’ll be blunt enough to call it #racism.
Muhammad Rasheed - No. The problem is that cultural biases are built into those individuals, and reinforced among each other when one particular group with it's well known myopic viewpoint holds a monopoly of power over an industry. That's where the #racism comes in.
A Cultural Critic - So a white man is so inescapably conditioned by his #whiteness and #masculinity that he is incapable of stepping outside of his alleged privileged perspective? We then reach important conclusions about who this person is based on his race and sex alone. That’s dangerous thinking
Muhammad Rasheed - It also adds some insight to the nature of the very real systemic racism prevalent in the country, and to a degree explains why monopolies/cartels are wrong, and why anti-trust laws are necessary. No good comes from all the gatekeepers being of one group like that. None.
Unless the only "good" you wish to see in society are for more whites than any other group to pass through the gate.
Muhammad Rasheed - Anyway, yes, it's been scientifically proven that whites are inescapably conditioned to be incapable of stepping outside of their privileged perspective.
Gutsell, J. N., & Inzlicht, M. Empathy constrained: Prejudice predicts reduced mental simulation of actions during observation of outgroups. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (2010), doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2010.03.011
A Cultural Critic - I guess I should just accept my #WhitePrivilege and self-flagellate.
Muhammad Rasheed - Based on the historic record, I think it's much more dangerous to pretend an all white male cartel of gate keepers isn't problematic for anyone not a white male.
A Cultural Critic - As matter of historic record, yes. But this isn’t 1950 anymore—the social, legal, political landscape is quite different today. But to my point, you can’t obviously escape conclusion that judging another’s perspective based on skin colour is #racism. I’m not okay with that.
Muhammad Rasheed - It's not 1950, but the blunt and anti-Black attitudes publicly vomited by your parent's generation have become the coded, political talking points of the modern white conservative. The only thing that has changed is the "politically correct" dressing over top your true feelings.
You're pretending that this is only about the shallow prejudice of "skin color," while we BOTH know it's about cultural indoctrination, long-held resentments, and long-held promises with the white elite who've agreed to uphold the white race over Blacks to keep you from slavery.
A Cultural Critic - If you don’t want to engage the issue at hand, that’s fine.
Muhammad Rasheed - All of these points are indeed the "issue at hand," and exactly why that graph's revelation of the cartel of white male gatekeepers over the publishing industry comes across as ominous and insightful as it does.
A Cultural Critic - Systematic racism is real. “Cultural indoctrination [and] long-held resentments” are also real. That’s not what we are talking about. I would never judge your viewpoint on the basis of your skin colour alone. That’s textbook #racism. You haven’t explained how it’s not.
Muhammad Rasheed -
Systemic racism = REAL.Cultural indoctrination & long-held resentments = REALThe socio-economic exclusion of POC by white males because of the above = REALJudging white males solely because of "the color of their skin" = NOT REAL
A Cultural Critic - Racism is morally egregious, and we should call it out in all of its manifestations. I just wish to judge people on the content of their words and actions rather than judge people on the basis of skin colour alone.
Muhammad Rasheed - Racism is an economic system design to elevate one group at the expense of another. Any proclamations of having a zero tolerance for the tradition needs to start there and center it to be considered serious. The "judging on skin color" is just the marketing campaign support.
A Cultural Critic - Are you saying that the empirical veracity of the first three points leads you to conclude that white males can’t escape their privileged position—and so when we judge white males as white makes, we are in fact judging them on the basis of this larger edifice?
Muhammad Rasheed - No, I'm judging what you want me to believe regarding your expressed opinion of "skin color," as it conflicts with the truth of how white males have behaved within the last 500 years. Your credibility here is at a deficit.
A Cultural Critic - A very #Marxist view of #racism. I disagree with this diagnosis, but it’s intelligible and perhaps defensible.
Muhammad Rasheed - It's a very well-documented view of how the systemic racism you admitted to came into being and flourished into the present day. It's the very source of the West's obscene wealth, particularly that controlled by the legacy families known as the 1%.
I have little interest in Marxism, and don't care how the facts of this history align to Karl's viewpoints.
A Cultural Critic - M. Rasheed wrote: "No, I'm judging what you want me to believe [...] Your credibility here is at a deficit."
Okay, now I have no idea what you are saying.
Muhammad Rasheed - lol Try.
What do you THINK I'm saying, CC?
A Cultural Critic - I thought you were saying that it’s reasonable to judge white men quo white men because of long standing history of systematic racism, cultural indoctrination. In that sense, when you judge a white man as a white man, you aren’t judging him vacuum: you’re judging in largr context
I thought you were saying that, but you flat out rejected that claim before questioning my credibility.
Muhammad Rasheed - Okay, I interpreted your summary as saying that it's acceptable to judge whites based on shallow skin color because of things that happen outside of the individual's control.
What I was rejecting was the idea that this cartel of whites was innocent based on the nature of how systemic racism functions. Your insistence that the OP's anger at seeing the graph results was unfair makes your credibility suspect.
A Cultural Critic - I just don’t believe in judging a person’s perspective on anything other than their words and actions—not their race, cultural heritage, or historical factors outside of their control. If that makes my “credibility suspect,” so be it.
Muhammad Rasheed - Put yourself in my shoes and see it from my perspective for a minute just so you can understand the other point of view. Systemic racism has two functions:
1) To maintain a permanent bondsman class to enable the 1%'s wealth hoards to grow
2) To partner with the poor whites to save them from being at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder. "Whiteness" is the racist aristocracy birthed from this partnership that today is coded as "the promise to the white working class."
The structure still functions today as it had back in 1950, it's just covered up with the smoke & mirror politically correct talk. The infamous wealth gap between the two races is by design, and cartels of white men are the gatekeepers that make sure their race is always ahead. None of this has anything to do with "skin color." It's not about "race." That talk is just the marketing campaign/justification for the true point of systemic racism, which is no less than plundering the wealth of one group to feed to the aristocracy. I'm the one being plundered, and my protests are dismissed by those doing the plundering, and the middle class and poor whites who support manage the system for the elites to make sure THEY don't become the plundered.
No matter what happens to them, they rest assured still that at least they aren't ME.
I'm fighting for my freedom still, after 150 yrs of fighting in the war that abolished chattel, yet here I still am. I cannot afford to not be suspicious of a group of white male gatekeepers.
Muhammad Rasheed - Do you understand? I am at war. I'm being deliberately prevented from building wealth over generations for my legacy. I've been politically and economically excluded from the mainstream to prevent me from escaping the exploitation trap created for me.
This is my state in the country of my birth, and you think I can afford to treat my active enemy with kind-hearted generosity without judgment, when he only EVER sees me as his prey.
Muhammad Rasheed - Before I can have that attitude that you can certainly afford to have, I will need the following conditions met:
1) Stop exploiting & plundering Black peopleDo this and I too will be able to live in a utopia La-La land, capable of seeing the OP's white male gatekeeper charts without instantly flinching in rage & disgust for good damn reason.
2) Pay them their Reparations due from generations of plunder/theft of their property
3) Stop suppressing their vote
4) Step aside and allow Blacks to do business and manage their own political affairs without hate/interference; allow them to be equal citizens of these United States of America, enjoying all the freedoms you currently take for granted.
A Cultural Critic - I agree that systematic racism has some of its roots in economics (not just evolutionary tribalism) and that white males disproportionately occupy privileged societal positions, in large part, because of this structure. I disagree, however, with your fatalism about white people
Muhammad Rasheed - lol That's because you are a white person indoctrinated into worshiping yourself as the son of god, and the pinnacle of human evolution. Of course you would reject the truth of what our groups' relationship has meant to me. You've justified my status by convincing yourself that I deserved every evil thing your group does to me ("He was like a DEMON!!" ~Officer Wilson).
January 1, 2018
Special Deliveries
WHITE PEOPLE'S RACISM MESSAGE #1 (Roman J. Israel, Esq): "Listen, please stop worshiping the civil rights leaders of the past. Even though they did vital, maybe even great work for the time they were in, they were still very flawed, very BLACK individuals who were not worth praising. The world has moved on, and left them FAR behind. It's better to just get over the past and move forward to a bright new post-racial world. We can't do that by idolizing racist old Black activists who no longer have a place, but only by compromise. You just have to accept that poverty and the criminal element is the unfortunate reality of being African-American. It just is, and the better we can all accept that fact -- and accept that without working for us kind-hearted and well-meaning whites -- you don't have any kind of chance of staying off the streets and sleeping in a gutter. You'll just have to understand that there is an acceptable number of Blacks who must be eaten up by the natural order of things, and that many HAVE to go to prison forever just to keep our economy going. They give up their worthless Black criminal lives so that GOOD Americans can live full and well. Stop looking to the figures behind you and trust us whites to take over the progress from here. Here's the two-time Academy Award winning actor, and pillar of the African-American community DENZEL WASHINGTON!!! to explain it to you in your own vernacular. May White Jesus® bless you."
WHITE PEOPLE'S RACISM MESSAGE #2 (Bright): "Racism has nothing to do with us white people, and it's certainly not 'systemic' in our post-racial society. That's absurd. The past is the past, and WE'VE moved on. When will you? When will YOU learn to move on, Black people? You see, we no longer see color since we've now embraced the fact that The Only Race is the Human Race™. The only racism that exists is the racism that Blacks keep in their hearts by holding on to grudges and resentments from wrongs (were they really 'wrong' though? #AgreeToDisagree) that haven't been enacted in our society for decades or even centuries. Racism is all in your head, and as soon as YOU let the past go and learn how to forgive us whites from old naughtiness, and turn the other cheek when our precious & vulnerable mentally ill whites accidentally shoots a (probably criminal) Black person in a church or whatever, then racism can finally die, and our nation can be great once again. Here's the multiple Academy Award and Golden Globe nominated, Grammy award winning artist, and pillar of the African-American community WILL SMITH!!! to explain it to you in a way you can better relate to. May the very White Jesus® show you the way."
December 30, 2017
Message to the Sunken Place
Dear Black Republicans,
You support an earlier observation of mine, that Blacks have never had a problem building wealth. There were wealthy free Blacks during the very heart of the slavery era. The problem is that were it not for racism, MORE Blacks would be wealthy, and poverty among our communities would actually be rare, but we've been prevented from building legacy wealth over the generations. Our wealth has been continuously siphoned off -- our property STOLEN -- and used to feed the hoarded money bins of the dominant class of our racist aristocracy (which explains where the "lazy" stereotype comes from, as whites encourage you to continue to "work twice as hard as anyone else" since you are supporting your household AND his). When I point this fact out, you keep coming to refute it using your individual success story as the proof that there is no racism, or that it's "not really a big factor." The facts of history demonstrate that you will need something stronger as proof. What do you have?
Throw Down Your Rod!
~M. Rasheed
___________________________________
Honda to pay $25M for overcharging minority buyers on loans
How Toyota May Have Started Overcharging Minority Customers
Justice Department, CFPB Say Mortgage Lender Overcharged African-American and Hispanic Borrowers
U.S. Government Uses Race Test for $80 Million in Payments
Survey Finds Insurance Companies Charge Black Drivers Living in Predominately African-American Neighborhoods 70% More for Auto Insurance
City Council alert: Fifth Third Bank hiked interest rates on minority customers
Wells Fargo Deliberately Pushed Dangerous Loans On Blacks, Hispanics: Lawsuit
Feds: BancorpSouth illegally denied black consumers fair access to mortgages
Just FOUR Home Loans Were Given To African-Americans In This Major City In A Whole Year
Credit Card Debt’s Mighty Grip on Black America
5 Big Companies Sued for Racial Discrimination
‘I Put in White Tenants’: The Grim, Racist (and Likely Illegal) Methods of One Brooklyn Landlord
Hasidic neighborhood in South Williamsburg is a top beneficiary of Section 8, but some question whether law is strictly followed
Just as I Suspected, Paying Rent Is Racist
[INTERVIEW] Richard Rothstein "The Color of Law"
BOSTON. RACISM. IMAGE. REALITY.
That was no typo: The median net worth of black Bostonians really is $8
[REVIEW] The History Thieves by Ian Cobain – how Britain covered up its imperial crimes
The Case for Reparations
Black Workers Really Do Need to Be Twice as Good
December 27, 2017
Racism is Theft: The Deliberate Widening of the Racial Wealth Gap
Honda to pay $25M for overcharging minority buyers on loans
How Toyota May Have Started Overcharging Minority Customers
Justice Department, CFPB Say Mortgage Lender Overcharged African-American and Hispanic Borrowers
U.S. Government Uses Race Test for $80 Million in Payments
Survey Finds Insurance Companies Charge Black Drivers Living in Predominately African-American Neighborhoods 70% More for Auto Insurance
City Council alert: Fifth Third Bank hiked interest rates on minority customers
Wells Fargo Deliberately Pushed Dangerous Loans On Blacks, Hispanics: Lawsuit
Feds: BancorpSouth illegally denied black consumers fair access to mortgages
Just FOUR Home Loans Were Given To African-Americans In This Major City In A Whole Year
Credit Card Debt’s Mighty Grip on Black America
5 Big Companies Sued for Racial Discrimination
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Q . "Is our society wrongly declaring certain things as racist that are not racist?"
Muhammad Rasheed - Yes, the dominant class of the United State’s racist aristocracy (and their subjugated and indoctrinated supporters) has been labeling those who criticize racism as racists themselves, generally for no other reason than because they talk about the issue and make whites uncomfortable in the telling.
To pull this off, it’s necessary for the racist to attempt to redefine the meaning of “racism,” so that they may play victim and avoid accountability for their willing support of a system designed to economically build them up at the expense of others. The entire point of racism and why it exists, comes from targeting Black people for subjugation, exploitation, and the plundering of their wealth. The justification for doing so has created a surface-level ideology supported by the oppressor class, that pretends Blacks are inferior beings. The latter would not exist without the former, and the former defines to the smallest degree the race issue in the United States. To decree that the prejudiced/bigoted feelings of a racist are divorced from the white race’s never-ending history of exploiting Black people for profit, and is all that encompass the definition of racism, is a fiction.
It benefits the racist for the oppressed to never fight the oppression — to never even bring the topic up — enabling the racist aristocracy to enjoy their plundered loot unopposed. Therefore, the dominant class has created the idea that those who bring the topic to the forefront of the national conscious in order to fight for the long over-due righting of traditional Western wrongs are themselves racists (“reverse racism”) in order to get them to shut up.
Our quality of life as Black Americans revolves around economics in a country with a capitalist tradition. Along side that tradition is another, more nefarious tradition, which has involved the plundering of our wealth, preventing us from building legacy wealth over generations, which is responsible for the ever-widening wealth gap between the two races. Whites have deliberately kept us away from wealth building opportunities they made available for themselves, while charging us higher fees and taxes. The nature of racism is theft, and the bigotry and prejudiced attitudes is how they justify that theft.
Racism touches every aspect of our lives whether we are conscious of it or not. We all need to be in that fight so it can finally stop. We are at war.
Blacks have never had a problem building wealth and working hard, etc. It’s our ability to keep the fruits of our labor, own our own communities, and build legacy over generations that has been deliberately sabotaged. There are tools at our disposal that can finally empower us fully, but using them effectively will lead to one certain outcome: We will be physically attacked by frustrated whites, fearful that their racism gravy train will stop.
There’s only one way to improve conditions for Black people. That’s to weaponize our spending power with a nation-wide boycott, spending only on Black businesses, and then arm ourselves in defense for the certainty of American Civil War 2.0.
December 26, 2017
The Science of Justifying Wrong
Artist's depiction of the exact amount of energy and thought that went into using Christianity to justify slavery.
Muhammad Rasheed - [WIKI] “Joseph Smith and Brigham Young reasoned that black skin was a result of the Curse of Cain or the Curse of Ham."
Dafuq kind of 'reasoning' was THAT?
[WIKI] "Joseph Smith founded the movement in Western New York in the 1820s."
Oh, okay. Now it makes sense. That was the typical "reasoning" mindset during slavery.
Zod Hamilton - Thats one of the ways they justified slavery by Christian rules.
Muhammad Rasheed - Christianity had nothing to do with that. They pulled that shit out of their ass FOR the slave institution and pretended it was Christianity. Christian Americans led the fight against slavery at every step of the way, and claptrap similar to what Smith "reasoned" was the counter.
Steve Plater - Exploited Christianity is more like it.
Hall Hall - @M. Rasheed... Let’s not hide the fact that Christianity was used by the slave masters to justify slavery. And to keep the black man turning the other cheek.
Muhammad Rasheed - 1.) The slave owners cheerfully used any and everything to justify keeping their gravy train rolling, while other Christians used their religion to lead the fight against slavery.
2.) The "turn the other cheek" doctrine didn't stop the slaves from revolting in uprisings all the time though. hahaha The slaves knew when people were blowing smoke up their butts.
Obviously the fault isn't with the religion , but with the evil ones who just wanted to enrich themselves at the expense of others.
Ken Peck - This theory predates Smith & Young by several centuries. Yes, it was used to justify slavery. You might be interested in this book: Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi
Muhammad Rasheed - So far I'm having issue with how Kendi is using the word "Muslim." Is he aware that it describes the practitioners of a religion, and not a race? Most of the Arabs are a dark-skinned people.
Muhammad Rasheed - Kendi wrote: "The lineage of this curse of Ham theory curves back through the great Persian scholar Tabari (838-923) all the way to Islamic and Hebrew sources."
The idea of the Curse of Ham from the bible doesn't inflict "blackness" upon the boy. That interpretation of the tale comes from the Talmud, as Kendi references in the above quote, which is interesting for several reasons, not the least of which is that it was the Jews who set up the model for the Atlantic Slave Trade in the first place, and did so with a smooth, and well-practiced fluidity demonstrating that they had been using that method for quite some time.
Muhammad Rasheed - The using of the "Ham's curse" concept -- which never had anything to do with Christianity -- to justify slavery, while the big fight to end slavery was always led by Christians from their own rightly-guided understanding of the bible, means that the fault is with the corrupt and greedy enslavers, not with Christianity.
Ken Peck - Or maybe Martin Luther, who came up with the notion that any idiot could interpret the Bible for himself.
Muhammad Rasheed - I don't see your point in context. The concept of the curse of Ham affliction being 'blackness' came from the Talmud, as the rabbis themselves sought to justify why it was okay to trade in Black bodies. Obviously their Christian trading partners eagerly received the concept from them so they could simultaneously get rich and sleep at night.
