rms
Active Member
I guess that's totally possible, but without any kind of witnesses and proof that scenario can't be presented, and we have to go on a legality of things, no? So it kind of seems irrelevant--which is sad when it comes to a life.
Dakryn's Batshit Theory of the Week
- Thread starter Ender Rises
- Start date
I guess that's totally possible, but without any kind of witnesses and proof that scenario can't be presented, and we have to go on a legality of things, no? So it kind of seems irrelevant--which is sad when it comes to a life.
Einherjar86
Active Member
You're right, and it is unfortunate; but if I might do a bit of academic posturing here (which I know some people don't like)...
Even though all the evidence and testimony points toward the scenario that you're describing (and I agree that it does), this doesn't change the fact that it still fits a traditional racial stereotype. Even though the actions may be psychologically non-racial - that is, Zimmerman felt no racial hostility at all in shooting Martin but was merely defending himself - it still appears as a racially charged image.
Black people view this image very differently than white people do, on average. This doesn't mean that blacks are constitutively different than whites, or anything of the sort; it means that their historical circumstances have conditioned them to respond to this image in a certain way. When we, as whites, try to gloss over the issue by insisting that no racial bias is present in the image, we do a disfavor to blacks who perceive it that way. We insinuate that their perspective is flawed.
Now, before someone criticizes me for being a relativist, let me be very clear: I'm not saying that both perspectives are correct or that Zimmerman needs to be re-tried and found guilty. This won't assuage anyone or clarify the issue. I'm not trying to accuse Zimmerman of being racist or trying to suggest that anyone in particular is racist and needs to be found guilty of anything. I'm merely suggesting that racism pervades our culture down to our very language and history of our institutions, and that the symbolic structures of our culture (i.e. the court systems, legal systems, law enforcement, etc.) cannot escape this fact.
The correct response shouldn't be to claim that the case isn't racist at all and that race-baiting is responsible for the majority of racial hostility experienced; this does nothing but perpetuate the problem. What we need to do is accept that the case is, in fact, saturated in racial overtones and tendencies. We need to admit this: "Yes, in fact, the Zimmerman case is racist, heavily racist in fact."
The majority of the West (I'm speaking specifically of America) has never owned up to its racism. Instead, it wants to sweep it under the rug.
Even though all the evidence and testimony points toward the scenario that you're describing (and I agree that it does), this doesn't change the fact that it still fits a traditional racial stereotype. Even though the actions may be psychologically non-racial - that is, Zimmerman felt no racial hostility at all in shooting Martin but was merely defending himself - it still appears as a racially charged image.
Black people view this image very differently than white people do, on average. This doesn't mean that blacks are constitutively different than whites, or anything of the sort; it means that their historical circumstances have conditioned them to respond to this image in a certain way. When we, as whites, try to gloss over the issue by insisting that no racial bias is present in the image, we do a disfavor to blacks who perceive it that way. We insinuate that their perspective is flawed.
Now, before someone criticizes me for being a relativist, let me be very clear: I'm not saying that both perspectives are correct or that Zimmerman needs to be re-tried and found guilty. This won't assuage anyone or clarify the issue. I'm not trying to accuse Zimmerman of being racist or trying to suggest that anyone in particular is racist and needs to be found guilty of anything. I'm merely suggesting that racism pervades our culture down to our very language and history of our institutions, and that the symbolic structures of our culture (i.e. the court systems, legal systems, law enforcement, etc.) cannot escape this fact.
The correct response shouldn't be to claim that the case isn't racist at all and that race-baiting is responsible for the majority of racial hostility experienced; this does nothing but perpetuate the problem. What we need to do is accept that the case is, in fact, saturated in racial overtones and tendencies. We need to admit this: "Yes, in fact, the Zimmerman case is racist, heavily racist in fact."
The majority of the West (I'm speaking specifically of America) has never owned up to its racism. Instead, it wants to sweep it under the rug.
Dak
mentat
Well I think that it's blatantly obvious that our legal system and history is racist. Look no further than the War on Drugs and disproportionate incarceration rates.
However, that and this are apples and oranges. Even more so given that Zimmerman faced a trial by jury which included other minorities. This wasn't the open-shut drug sentencing by bigoted judges that thousands of minorities face every day.
However, that and this are apples and oranges. Even more so given that Zimmerman faced a trial by jury which included other minorities. This wasn't the open-shut drug sentencing by bigoted judges that thousands of minorities face every day.
Einherjar86
Active Member
Dak
mentat
I'm not referring to the verdict. I'm referring to the process and the law. The process and the laws are skewed in particular instances against minorities. This particular case was not like that.
Einherjar86
Active Member
How is that not related to the verdict? In any case, it still doesn't matter because that's not what I focused on at all.
rms
Active Member
With all this discussion and sure on a completely superficial level of black assaulter and white victim, how do we change? Does saying there are racial problems in America do anything on THIS issue? This case is so minimal to all the real problems out there..
Einherjar86
Active Member
It is minimal; but on its own, each case is minimal. Taken together, they comprise a shift in a cultural attitude.
Acknowledging the racial overtones of these issues will hopefully allow us to approach the problems in different ways. That is, we need to see how the image we have of blacks (or any minority group) can be conditioned by very real cultural circumstances. The emphasis on race that comes from talking heads like Jackson and Sharpton actually does harm to the issue in this case since it attempts to rewrite some non-racial problems as racial ones.
For instance, I am willing to admit that race-mongering has contributed to the democratic effort to sweep economic imbalance under the rug. Walter Benn Michaels wrote a book a few years ago titled The Trouble With Diversity in which he argued that identity politics (specifically race) were obscuring the more important issue of economic hardship and inequality.
The point isn't to react drastically and claim that race is no longer an issue at all, but to look at the situation through a historicist lens and admit that, due to the treatment of blacks in America over the past several centuries, many of them are isolated in economically devastated communities. Racism may no longer be a problem on an individual level (although there are doubtless many racist whites in the country today), but the entire situation cannot be assessed without recourse to racial issues. The problem, in this sense, is primarily economic, but it feeds into our image of blacks in general (i.e. they commit crimes, they're violent, they don't work hard, etc.). Their economic conditions can offer an explanation for the tendencies that we take to be so natural (or some people do, at least...).
EDIT:
On another note, I've been working my way through an absolutely incredible text that might offer one of the most interesting analyses of the marriage between capitalism and the State, Deleuze and Guattari's Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. I know that Dak would enjoy this text, but I also know you have a lot on your plate already, and this book is definitely not an easy one to break into. It took me about one-hundred pages before I finally started getting a working knowledge of the terms they use. That said, the weaving together of capitalism, statism, and psychoanalysis is pretty riveting. One of the overarching claims is that the Oedipus complex (and much of traditional Freudian psychoanalysis) is a tool of the State that rationalizes its edification, at the behest of the capitalism that wants to see its "territorialization" (their term).
Just a few quotes:
Acknowledging the racial overtones of these issues will hopefully allow us to approach the problems in different ways. That is, we need to see how the image we have of blacks (or any minority group) can be conditioned by very real cultural circumstances. The emphasis on race that comes from talking heads like Jackson and Sharpton actually does harm to the issue in this case since it attempts to rewrite some non-racial problems as racial ones.
For instance, I am willing to admit that race-mongering has contributed to the democratic effort to sweep economic imbalance under the rug. Walter Benn Michaels wrote a book a few years ago titled The Trouble With Diversity in which he argued that identity politics (specifically race) were obscuring the more important issue of economic hardship and inequality.
The point isn't to react drastically and claim that race is no longer an issue at all, but to look at the situation through a historicist lens and admit that, due to the treatment of blacks in America over the past several centuries, many of them are isolated in economically devastated communities. Racism may no longer be a problem on an individual level (although there are doubtless many racist whites in the country today), but the entire situation cannot be assessed without recourse to racial issues. The problem, in this sense, is primarily economic, but it feeds into our image of blacks in general (i.e. they commit crimes, they're violent, they don't work hard, etc.). Their economic conditions can offer an explanation for the tendencies that we take to be so natural (or some people do, at least...).
EDIT:
On another note, I've been working my way through an absolutely incredible text that might offer one of the most interesting analyses of the marriage between capitalism and the State, Deleuze and Guattari's Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. I know that Dak would enjoy this text, but I also know you have a lot on your plate already, and this book is definitely not an easy one to break into. It took me about one-hundred pages before I finally started getting a working knowledge of the terms they use. That said, the weaving together of capitalism, statism, and psychoanalysis is pretty riveting. One of the overarching claims is that the Oedipus complex (and much of traditional Freudian psychoanalysis) is a tool of the State that rationalizes its edification, at the behest of the capitalism that wants to see its "territorialization" (their term).
Just a few quotes:
Deleuze & Guattari said:
Deleuze & Guattari said:
Deleuze & Guattari said:
Dak
mentat
Wow. I dont fully grasp, second hand and out of context, the references to the second hand, but if its the direction I think its taking it sounds sublime in its perceptivity.
Edit: In response to racism/classism, I think the real story is classism. There is an economic warfare being waged, and mostly."unconsciously". There is no less an amount of "PWT" than "PBT". The afflictions of the underclasses are dispersed rather equally economically. The difference is that PWT is dispersed more rurally, and the PBT more urbanly, which creates a more praetorian friendly dynamic against the PBT.
Edit: In response to racism/classism, I think the real story is classism. There is an economic warfare being waged, and mostly."unconsciously". There is no less an amount of "PWT" than "PBT". The afflictions of the underclasses are dispersed rather equally economically. The difference is that PWT is dispersed more rurally, and the PBT more urbanly, which creates a more praetorian friendly dynamic against the PBT.
Einherjar86
Active Member
Deleuze and Guattari definitely have a Marxist bent, but this text is one of the most powerful analyses that incorporates capitalism as a necessary development and important to what they call the deterritorializing of flows. In fact, I'm not entirely certain where they stand on economics, since their Marxism is very sympathetic toward Marx's own acknowledgment of capitalism's positive aspects. They seem to also privilege this in their argument; but perhaps I'll know more once I finish the text. There is another really interesting, kind of enigmatic quote that seems to suggest they support total non-regulation:
Deleuze & Guattari said:
Jimmy... Dead.
contemplative curmudgeon
Dak
mentat
rms
Active Member
I don't think I understand the point behind that image, are they saying hoarding cash and items without value are the same thing?
I was rewatching Curb Your Enthusiasm last night and I think this sums up the Trayvon Martin debate, check it out from 2:40-end
http://youtu.be/-7flZEDMT6I
Christ sakes can't remember how to embed Youtube.
I was rewatching Curb Your Enthusiasm last night and I think this sums up the Trayvon Martin debate, check it out from 2:40-end
http://youtu.be/-7flZEDMT6I
Christ sakes can't remember how to embed Youtube.
Dak
mentat
They are saying that accumulating items is crazy and bad, because said hoarding deprives others to the point of destitution. This is ignorance of "hoarding" itself, and how the monetary system works.
Einherjar86
Active Member
Monetary system aside, it's more appropriate to say that someone hoards books; they end up in private libraries, and are often a point of pride. But no one looks at someone who has a private library and says: "That's an awful pathology."
Dak
mentat
I think the concept of "hoarding" is ignorant to begin with, in its inherently negative connotations.
Jimmy... Dead.
contemplative curmudgeon
I just can't believe a person (I'm speaking of the FB post) with a masters in philosophy can post such drivel.
The Ozzman
Melted by feels
Dak
mentat
Philosophy is such a broad umbrella, doesn't really mean shit for description. Dr Phil could write "philosophy".
This was floating around in conspiracy circles years ago. Guess it wasn't paranoia after all.
Edit: I just noticed the post date was 2008. Sounds about right.
