|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Discussion Topic: is this still true ?
Michael Rodriguez added to this discussion on July 9, 2020
|
I know it’s a shocker, but I’m with Joyce on this one. And I think this forum is respectful enough to discuss any topic.
|
|
|
|
|
Discussion Topic: is this still true ?
Mark Niemann added to this discussion on July 9, 2020
|
Concerning race: I’m doing my part to have an open ear. I’m of the opinion that race should be a non-factor. It is not a determining element in to any decision I make. However, in order to cover any blind spots I may have based on my experience, I’ve ordered two books, ordered a movie, and tried listening to more voices.
Interestingly, I’ve found that there have been voices shouting from the rooftops concerning issues within the black community and those voices have been suppressed. Not by those of a different skin color, but by their own! I was actually saddened to hear individuals called “coons”, “boot-lickers” (a term I didn’t know existed), “Uncle Toms” and the like.
One wormhole I went down stemmed from a speech given by Dr. Ben Carson a few years back. (I’ll find and post the link.) I was fascinated by what he was describing. Inventors, entrepreneurs, business owners, community leaders, scientists, etc. I coupled the contents of that speech with information that Thomas Sowell had presented in a lecture or book. He found that economists considered what occurred the among the black culture from 1865-1950 (85 years; roughly four generations) a miracle. Basically, in terms of being forced to remain illiterate (actually against the law to teach a slave to read and write!) to become as prominent and prolific among the communities as leaders in their fields, all in just four generations, was remarkable!
4m 7s: https://youtu.be/9XGJor8No7k
The best point of the whole video (and that’s saying something!) is the remark at the end as he states that “and the same can be said across other groups of people”.
Ultimately, I have decided that hate is too great a burden to bear. I’ll stick with love. (Pretty sure that was MLK.)
|
|
|
|
|
Discussion Topic: is this still true ?
Don Bork added to this discussion on July 10, 2020
|
Add to your list the documentary “Freedom Summer” which was 1964. More than a decade after the dates you stated. I rewatched it recently, unbelievable the hate exhibited. Lynchings with little justice being served. All during my lifetime and some others on this forum. So little progress????.
|
|
|
|
|
Discussion Topic: is this still true ?
Don Bork added to this discussion on July 10, 2020
|
Add to your list the documentary “Freedom Summer” which was 1964. More than a decade after the dates you stated. I rewatched it recently, unbelievable the hate exhibited. Lynchings with little justice being served. All during my lifetime and some others on this forum. So little progress. Sad.
|
|
|
|
|
Discussion Topic: is this still true ?
Steve Lester added to this discussion on July 10, 2020
|
Thanks for the kind words, Mr. P.
I was locked out of the sign in for quite a while, then one day I could miraculously sign in. I thought maybe Hank had something to do with it.
|
|
|
|
|
Discussion Topic: is this still true ?
Steve Lester added to this discussion on July 10, 2020
|
I first started presenting positions in writing about racial issues over on Themat's board in 2004 or so. A lot of folks weighed in and the conversations could be very confusing. One day I was frustrated enough to print out some threads in whole and just studied then. As I perused the opinions I circled certain words as I went along (about 15 in total). I suddenly realized that they could be classified into three broad categories, as follows:
1. Words describing racist behaviors.
2. Words describing racist attitudes.
And most fundamentally,
3. Words that described racist BELIEFS.
This was the framework I would use in all future discussions.
To elaborate----a displayed racist behavior can be situational and could depend on a current attitude. A suggested racist attitude can be situational and would depend on a racist belief. At any point observations, and the labels attached to such observations, can be arguable. For example if a behavior is labelled as racist, one may ask what is the racist belief underlying the behavior. If the answer to that question is "wanting" then the label "racist" may be incorrect.
Another example. Hate is an attitude. When present it may lead to questionable behaviors. It is important to identify the beliefs that "informed" the formation of hate.
Another example. It has been claimed that minorities cannot be racist. My answer is that minorities can certainly have racist BELIEFS, but that any racist BEHAVIORS would be situationally encumbered and often severely so.
In sum racist beliefs are learned, via the environment and institutions, including families. These two causes or not exhaustive, BTW. To eliminate racist behaviors one must change racist beliefs.
|
|
|
|
|
Discussion Topic: is this still true ?
Mark Niemann added to this discussion on July 10, 2020
|
|
Quote from Don Bork's post:
|
|
"Add to your list the documentary “Freedom Summer” which was 1964. More than a decade after the dates you stated. I rewatched it recently, unbelievable the hate exhibited. Lynchings with little justice being served. All during my lifetime and some others on this forum. So little progress????."
|
Will view. Thank you.
Steve: that is some serious attention to detail. I appreciate your work and the fact that you’ve shared some of it here.
|
|
|
|
|
Discussion Topic: is this still true ?
Brady Hiatt added to this discussion on July 10, 2020
|
M-Rod - I agree about this board.
When I study history and read about current world happenings, it is very clear to me that the sin problem of hating another because of an immutable trait (skin color, sex, etc) has been and seemingly will always be an issue. A change of system - while it can make improvements and therefore should be pursued, will never eradicate the problem. Listening to my families experiences (if I can gert an Australian to marry one of my daughters, we’d have a rep from every liveable continent— and that’s down-low goal of mine :). ), minority friends, and both liberal & conservative experiences my eyes have been opened to things I never recognized or considered before.
I am more convinced than ever that my main focus in attacking the sin of hatred of different skin color is in my town, my school. I have little to no influence on a large scale. I have influence on my students and wrestlers.
|
|
|
|
|
Discussion Topic: is this still true ?
John Joyce added to this discussion on July 11, 2020
|
Brady, that’s something I subscribe to in many facets of life, act locally and together we can affect large scale change.
And I also completely agree that it’s near impossible to eradicate the hate from individuals universally. We should continue to work however we can to do so. But beyond that, the inequalities built into our systems of Gov’t/law, judiciary, enforcement, and finance from their start should not be tolerated and need as many people as possible united against the status quo to progress toward actual equality. Sadly, the actions of our past perpetuated by a feedback loop built into the system widen the gap as we try to progress. That would be the basis of my belief that we need to start over. I don’t have all the answers there, and I agree that we should work to what the redesign looks like in the interim, but I feel we have a moral obligation to speak out and address these matters any chance we get.
I’ve always found this forum to be of the utmost respect and civility. I have no interest in arguing with anyone, and I don’t think we are anywhere near that being a concern. If the discussion isn’t welcome though, I’m ok with that. It is a wrestling forum. Cheers!
|
|
|
|
|
Discussion Topic: is this still true ?
Justin Hayes added to this discussion on July 11, 2020
|
The specific sin is that of partiality; because our natural born spiritual DNA is selfish, we fail to love our neighbor (or God) in the way that we gleefully love ourselves, our appetites, our ambitions.
And we are fine with it because of spiritual blindness.
We aren't "clean slates" at birth. You didn't teach your toddler to jerk the toy away from his sibling...it was/is the natural manifestation of his/her inherent nature. You didn't teach your teenager to be ungrateful and insolent, it just bubbles forth. No one taught us to flip out when our own idiosyncrasies or self-determined "boundaries" are violated (as we define them, in tandem with our situational ability to impose them, of course).
While it is a manifestation of partiality, "racism" doesn't own the monopoly on partiality. All of human history shows non-stop conflict between humans that stems from an innate desire to love self above all else for any and all reasons that our self-idolizing hearts can conjure.
One could have disdain for animal lovers. Or obese individuals. Or the wealthy. Or the opposite sex. Or people who don't take care of their lawn. Or other cultures. Or those who don't obey traffic laws. Or...pick the preferred poison of who you really are in the hidden cellar of your personal thought life.
"Education" has the potential (not guaranteed) to impact how some navigate human interaction and the stewardship of material things/opportunity, but it has no power to change the human heart. "Law" has the potential (not guaranteed) to manifest (in some) behavior compliance, but it is impotent to change the inner man.
There is an objective reason why the world is and has always been in turmoil: the fallen nature of humans.
|
|
|
|
|
Discussion Topic: is this still true ?
Michael Rodriguez added to this discussion on July 11, 2020
|
|
|
|
Discussion Topic: is this still true ?
Justin Hayes added to this discussion on July 14, 2020
|
|
Quote from Michael Rodriguez's post:
|
|
"Damn, well said."
|
It's true, 100%, we all know it deep down.
So we pathologically try to come up with some form of self-righteousness by which we can justify ourselves (because both our conscience and spirit gnaw and nag at us). We LOVE to hold others to standards that we believe we consistently meet, no matter how petty.
But here is the rub: we don't contend that we meet the standard perfectly. Just consistently (as we define "consistency", of course). Or that we meet the standard better than our neighbor (as we define "better", of course).
If you hope to justify yourself before a holy God, you'd better know what the standard is before you offer your nuanced, subjective, self-righteous standard...
BECAUSE DEATH IS COMING.
Jesus, whom I believe is God incarnate and actually, physically raised from the dead in time and space, essentially says there are two ways to Heaven:
Be absolutely, utterly perfect in every way, shape, or form, all of your days...or put your trust in Him, because He has actually done the aforementioned on our behalf.
God has an absolute standard: Perfection.
As obviously no one can meet the standard, He has graciously incarnated Himself, lived out His own standard by every metric flawlessly over the course of 33 years in human history, and then orchestrated his own substitutionary sacrifice, in love, for us.
He met the moral standard we can never meet, then went the long mile and traded out our sin for His righteousness on a cross. God does it all, A-Z...and that should be good news -the BEST news- to each of us!
By putting our true, wholehearted belief in Him, we can both have our sins forgiven and be made lawfully perfect by proxy in God's sight, the perfect melding of justice and mercy.
It takes orders of magnitude more "faith" to believe we evolved from primordial whatnot and are inherently a "good people" than it takes to be honest about our desperate fallenness.
I'll take being justified by grace through faith in the historical person of Jesus Christ over whatever pitiful self-righteousness I could hope to muster.
There are some real thunderstuds on this site. Men who know what embracing the grind is. Men who have trained themselves to push through suffering with a grin on their face. Men who can be reasoned with.
I triple dog dare everyone to consistently read through the Gospel of John (ESV is a solid, well rounded version), consider it, actually know what Jesus contends about who we are and Who He is, then come to a conclusion. :)
|
|
|
|
|
Discussion Topic: is this still true ?
Brady Hiatt added to this discussion on July 15, 2020
|
|
Quote from Justin Hayes's post:
|
|
"So we pathologically try to come up with some form of self-righteousness by which we can justify ourselves (because both our conscience and spirit gnaw and nag at us). We LOVE to hold others to standards that we believe we consistently meet, no matter how petty."
|
This is even more evident today. Does any of those screaming so loudly in the -- world/US/media/social media --believe they are incorrect? Nope. We are so good at deceiving ourselves. Well, at least I am. So thankful that my eternity isn't based upon my works. They are imperfect, and that is grading myself on a generous curve.
We are not guaranteed tomorrow. A truth brought far to close to home for me again a couple weeks ago as a former wrestler of mine was shot and killed in Columbus after attending a gathering after a wedding.
|
|
|
|
|
Discussion Topic: is this still true ?
Michael Rodriguez added to this discussion on July 15, 2020
|
Brady...So sorry for your loss.
Justin...One good days I'm agnostic and on bad days I'm atheist and I still find a lot of truth in your first post.
|
|
|
|
|
Discussion Topic: is this still true ?
Justin Hayes added to this discussion on July 15, 2020
|
|
Quote from Michael Rodriguez's post:
|
|
"Brady...So sorry for your loss.
Justin...One good days I'm agnostic and on bad days I'm atheist and I still find a lot of truth in your first post."
|
I understand, M-Rod. :)
How did we get here? Why are we here? What happens to us when we die?
When we can be honest, we accept that there are many things that are true that we don’t completely understand and/or that we are personally uncomfortable with...but true nonetheless.
I’m an impoverished beggar hoping to tell my beloved brother beggars where there is a smorgasbord of truth; good, transforming spiritual nourishment!
Jesus didn’t come to Earth to make “good” men “better”, but to make spiritually dead men alive.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
