Symbol vs. literal. This is America's problem, race problem. A revelation given to me about race relations.

True words.

I see one side as having a victim mentality that is driven by inflammatory emotional reactions. The other side is more data-driven, and makes an effort to process information with a minimum of personal attachments..

These groups don't separate purely along racial lines. What's more, arguments that boil down to just two sides are ripe for manipulation by external forces. Additionally, conclusions that pit one side against another tend to oversimplify elements of the situation in order to produce an 'A vs. B' situation.

Ethnic groups are made up individuals.
Sweeping generalizations about races can seem accurate if you forget this fact.

Its not just Blacks. Its women, and the LGBTQ blah blah blah

Any group that proves you are a victim and gives you an excuse for being a failure and blaming someone else but yourself

“There are many who find a good alibi far more attractive than an achievement. For an achievement does not settle anything permanently. We still have to prove our worth anew each day; we have to prove that we are as good today as we were yesterday. But when we have a valid alibi for not achieving anything we are fixed, so to speak, for life.”

- Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind: And Other Aphorisms

Last Edited by Weisshaupt on 02/25/2022 12:58 PM

Cool way of looking at the situation

I agree, America is beyond doomed.

Interesting idea but I don't think it's possible to generalise in that way.

For one thing, most non-black people with limited education tend to generalise from a single word/phrase, concept, sign or symbol.

In evolutionary and anthropological terms, it's a hardwired survival mechanism. Which may have something to do with black people's autonomic use of symbols...

For another thing, in the west, white people founded a phenomenally rich and diverse symbology aeons ago before most people could read. Just take a western art history course to see that.

Equally, peoples native to other regions of the world contemporaneously developed their own rich symbologies before language was codified and written down. E.g. Look at the art of Australian Aborigines, the Celts and Picts, Africans, the Chinese, the Indians, the Incans and the Mayan peoples... and the ancient Egyptians.

It takes time and training to read and write properly and then to comprehend and put into context what you're reading.

How well do black people do at school?

Then there's the heavy load of anxiety and trauma that black and vulnerable people suffer. Anxiety and trauma severely deplete an individual's capacity to stop and think about what perceived 'enemies' are saying and doing. (Applies to anyone really who suffers anxiety and trauma but in the US, these conditions are widespread amongst poor black people and other minorities.)

Of course the rightist whites do literal data - they're mostly well-schooled and far less affected by poverty, anxiety and trauma.

IMHO, as a former teacher and someone from a family from many places, I would say that seizing the opportunity to get a good education is the only way out of this apparent disparity in thinking and analysis.