Tag: racism

Your Privilege Allows You To Turn a Blind Eye to Our Treatment

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In all honesty, I am not sure what I expected from Drew Brees. He is an amazing quarter back for the New Orleans Saints. But what I was clear on years ago when he initially responded to Colin Kaepernick’s peaceful protest is he was determined misunderstand him.

Drew Brees is the perfect example of a person choosing to misunderstand you because their privilege won’t let them hear you.

Colin Kaepernick and countless other NFL, NBA and NCAA players stated the way in which taking a knee was a peaceful protest for injustice at the hands of police targeting Black people. Interview after interview black person after black person said we are peacefully protesting the disproportionate murders of unarmed black men and women by police with no justice resulting from “investigations” and trials. And in fairness, to the backlash in the last 24 hours Drew is only doubling down on his comments made at the time.

Drew doubled down on those comments almost 2.5 years later knowing these facts:

⁃ George Floyd was murdered in what could have been a simple arrest.

⁃ Since Colin started his peaceful protest, we’ve seen at least 20 incidents in the news reflecting the reason why he protested.

⁃ International protests were taking place and protests in all 50 states in the country he lives in with the focus on murder at the hands of the police. You cannot turn on a news channel or scroll social media without seeing a brand, public figure, or athlete sharing the why.

⁃ He lives and works in a city with one of the highest populations in terms of the percentage of black people. A town that would not be the same without black culture.

⁃ He works with a large group of black people.

Drew Brees values black contributions, black culture, but he does not love the black experience. He gets to grow and he gets to change, but if you can watch countless people be murdered on tv with no justice and then tell people how they should protest, you are part of THE problem. At this point, it is ok for everyone who enjoys the NFL to say they like the NFL so much that there isn’t much they can do that would stop them from watching.

Colin and the numerous others did not loot; they respectfully explained their position and they did not burn down a thing. Yet they’ve all been slandered, riddled with death threats and in Colin’s case denied employment. Black Lives do not Matter to Drew Brees because HE thinks his privilege trumps (no pun intended) black humanity.

Views… from the Left

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The next two blogs will be dedicated to this year’s Presidential Election results.

I needed two parts to discuss the emotion that people on both the left (liberal) and the right (conservative) feel. Now that I have laid the framework let’s start with the left.

Donald Trump seems to represents a caricature that is representative of white male privilege. It seems the message that we shared and lessons we teach our children, by electing someone who has zero experience of public service and libels nearly every minority group. Lessons about treating people as equals and being respectful, being an inclusive society.

Throughout the campaign he called “Latino immigrants” rapists and murderers, he said “the blacks” are living in poverty and their neighborhoods are a wreck and he said that John McCain should not be considered a war hero, because he was captured during his time serving our country. These are Donald Trumps words. The transcripts of his speeches are available.

Donald Trump, through no fault of his own, was born wealthy. He ran on working hard and assisting the middle class. The trouble is he has never been a part of the middle class and probably has not driven a car or purchased a gallon of milk ever. Donald Trump also admittedly has not paid taxes in over 20 years and claims that’s smart. He then went on to say there should be a Muslim ban and identification system. That is banning an entire religion of people from our country and tagging people similar to the system used in Nazi Germany.

Here is where things get dicey. To vote for and elect a person who slanders entire groups of people allows those that voted for him to ignore everything he has ever said about individuals. Individuals who are black, Latino immigrants and those who are surviving Prisoners of war.

To allow a person to govern a country where people of all races live and say those disparaging and unfounded things is ignorant, dangerous and disrespectful. These remarks became a daily antic of Donald’s which lends MANY to say he believed the things he said. The morality we compel our children to have, that we hold our neighbors to and expect from ourselves seems to have been thrown out the window by people supporting a persons who says them.

For those of you who say I can not be and am not racist, fearful of Muslims and I respect war veterans your vote said that you side with Donald J. Trump’s opinion on the groups I mentioned. Maybe you are not a racist, biased against a religion and you respect veterans. Your vote was symbolism and seems to be an admission of sorts that you do not have a problem with your elected leaders disrespecting, offending and marginalizing a group of people. As a note President Obama was heavily criticized for the views and words of his pastor, not him, he was called a racist after a video of a sermon, Jeremiah Wright preached where he used the term, “white devil”. In this instance President Obama did not share those sentiments nor did he say those words.

The question that has risen, leading to protests in major cities across our country, why is it acceptable to behave in the way Donald Trump has throughout this entire election cycle? The common consensus shared from those who did not vote for Donald Trump is he incited closet racists, bigots, homophobes and hate. You may not be any of the individuals, but a vote for him seems to state you do not have a problem supporting someone who is. The part says that you may in part agree with some of the assertions Donald made.

This blog is not meant to point fingers or name call, simply to provide perspective.

Share your views and your respectful thoughts and let’s create a dialogue.
#iamjoecarnell

Racism Does Not Exist… If you are Lil’ Wayne

Posted in education, Humanity, Life, Music, Social JusticeTagged , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Undisputed hosts individuals with opinions. Usually the guests are focusing on sports and sports related topics as the show is housed on sports juggernaut ESPN.

Tuesday, September 13, 2016 the shows guest was none other than Lil’ Wayne. During the segment that he appeared, the New Orleans native fielded questions about his business relationship with Birdman, his former rap partner, and business partner.

However we will focus on the ignorance that was then shared via Lil’ Wayne after a series of questions from host Skip Bayless. Skip asked Lil’ Wayne his thoughts of Colin Kapernick’s choice to not stand for the National Anthem. Kapernick’s boycott was launched, because he feels that people of color are being murdered by police without cause or punishment to the officers committing the reported crimes. Wayne first went on to say he does not know much about what Kapernick is referencing in terms of police brutality and then dropped a bomb. He believes racism does not exist!

Wayne used the example that his concerts are predominantly attended by white people and that he has been “blessed” and never experienced racial biased in his 33 years.

As I type this I have to take a deep sigh. Just on Sunday during a conversation with a friend who happens to be a New Orleans native, I said we have to be careful which musicians we support. The reasoning I stated verbatim, “Many artists are getting rich, by sending our young people false messages and they end up negatively impacting the masses.” Wayne proved my point. A man that has made millions of not hundreds of millions glorifying drug use, gun violence and dangerous sexual behavior since he was 16. That’s 17 years of music that has influenced young men and women to commit crimes for which the justice department reports they will be more harshly punished.

Wayne has encouraged the behaviors I mentioned above and done so without fear of the penalty he would face, because his money and connections afforded him a pass or so he thinks.

Yet many of the young black men and women who support his concerts and list be to his music will NEVER get a fraction of the “blessings” he has referred to. All that said, because he has not experienced it, it does not exist.

Even more dangerous Wayne is providing a sort of cosign to non-people of color who have been afforded privilege and cannot understand the fear that law abiding people of color face because of the acts of peers who live a life Wayne raps about.

My sigh earlier was one of disappointment. Not anger. I am disappointed in the loved ones, friends and business partners from Louisiana that have worked with Wayne and failed to have meaningful conversation about how people that look like him and live the life he raps about are being impacted. You see Wayne is from a state where black men are incarcerated at a rate more than double their white counterparts and face the death penalty more likely than any other group of people.

The danger in supporting artists who are not educated and not in touch with our communities is they send a message of ignorance to young men and women and profit off it while they get a pass. I’ll wrap this up, but if you continue to support artists who spew ignorance on a song do not expect your society to change. I for one will not be supporting any of Wayne’s work past or present starting today. It is not, because I disagree with his statement. It is because I find his statement to be dangerous and wreck less given his part in contributing to incarceration rates and behaviors associated with his lyrics.

If you missed he interview I speak of see the link below:

Undisputed – Lil’ Wayne 9/13/16

Did you know…

Posted in Faith, Family, Humanity, Politics, Social JusticeTagged , , , , , , Leave a comment

Leading up to yesterday’s election I knew that things would not be good for the HERO act. 

  (Image of commonly distributed marketing materials for anti-HERO promotion)

I was shocked that people of color Hispanic and or black did not know that it protected equality based on their race. Instead everyone I spoke to focused on an issue that wasn’t even an issue (at least according to the text in the actual act). 

What I saw was that good ole’ fashioned word of mouth and some pretty horrible television ads had produced one of life’s most dangerous feelings FEAR. The opponents of PROP 1 latched onto a fear that men dressed as women would use the ordinance to prey on kids. 

Every time I saw a person of color discussing it in person or via social media it was clear they hadn’t read the ordinance and believed the unsubstantiated and offensive hype.

I won’t say much other than in 2015 I thought we made more progress. It reminds me of opponents of equality scaring people away from the polls in the 60’s. Even more disturbing in Houston, on the day of the election, a donut chain opens (which happens to be one of my favorites) and there was a line for at least 12 hours before the opening and 12 hours after. Voter turnout was low. Of nearly 2.5 million registered voters only about 25% turned out. I’m sure the donut shop had well over 2,000 guests throughout the day. I saw people who live nor work no where near the location posting about “happening” to drive by.
I’m at a lost for words, but I know for sure that should this voter turnout and fear baited messaging be used again, the presidential election won’t be clean sweep for any politician no matter their affiliation. If we think so then we are surely in more trouble than we realize.

Huffington Post’s article details, cites and provides actual language, and provides a high level view of how cities much smaller in Houston were affected. 

  (CampaignForhouston.com web image)
I’m at a lost for words, but I know for sure that should this voter turnout and fear baited messaging be used again, the presidential election won’t be clean sweep for any politician no matter their affiliation. If we think so then we are surely in more trouble than we realize.

The anti-hero movement did a lot. If anything what it did is allow secretly and not so secretly LGBT individuals and families to latch on to what so many believe, that is that individuals in the LGBT community and perverts/pedophiles are one in the same. 
I’ll stop there, but there’s a definite distinction. We need to be honest, but open minded enough to have a conversation for understanding and not to simply speak. 
Read the Huffington Posts article which not only details and cites actual language, but provides a high level view of how cities much smaller in Houston were affected. 

CLICK HERE FOR THE HUFF POST ARTICLE



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