A perspective on Ferguson

[ApatheticNoMore]

Most things have been tried before many many times, including what he suggests. Some have worked for awhile, some have worked better than others, and some were murdered in infancy too many times to even begin to begin. Poets, and priests and politicians they've all had their say. So whether one has hopes for a vastly better future, I suppose depends on how utopian one is .

I understand.........but if he's talking about everyone........we are made up of our past/our upbringing/our education/our parents/our experience/our culture, etc., etc. Even though the idea expressed appears to be a lofty one, I'm not sure we can separate who we are "deep down inside" with everything that's happened to us, and what's going on around us.

I've always believed that what I am ultimately is just consciousness, a single human consciousness didn't even mean to imply more, but yes I'm also conditioned to be a lot of things by my upbringing and society, maybe by genes etc.. The self beyond that is something akin to "the better angels of our nature" without the need to deny less pleasing parts (also of course without the ability to completely avoid doing so).

[SteveinMN]

we are made up of our past/our upbringing/our education/our parents/our experience/our culture, etc., etc. Even though the idea expressed appears to be a lofty one, I'm not sure we can separate who we are "deep down inside" with everything that's happened to us, and what's going on around us.

Oh, no one said it would be easy! Yes, we are products of what our parents and faith traditions told us, of our experiences, etc. But that does not mean we have to perpetuate those beliefs.

A few years back, I saw a joke (?) that I think well illustrates this point:

A union worker, a Tea Party member, and a CEO are seated at a table with a plate of a dozen cookies. The CEO takes 11 of the cookies and then turns to the Tea Partier and says, 'Watch out for that union guy. He's out to take your cookie'.

People will react to that joke differently based on who they think made the cookies, who they believe is represented by each person at the table, etc. So much of what we believe (what some people "know to be true") is determined by how a situation is cast. Propaganda, colorful stories that don't hold up to facts, plays to xenophobia -- all of it makes it hard for most people to step back and look at situations in different terms and to question why they agree with what they've been told.

how do we do this? Do you think he was talking about everyone, or more towards the whites or more towards the blacks? If so........how are we supposed to think differently.....especially if the present reality for us brings us to the same conclusions?

What is that present reality? Is the reality that a particular ethnic group is just a bunch of "takers" willing to perpetuate their lower standard of living by destroying their own "nest"? Some people will think so. Is it that, as Richard Wright wrote, "violence is a personal necessity for the oppressed…It is not a strategy consciously devised. It is the deep, instinctive expression of a human being denied individuality"? A number of people -- especially in Ferguson -- would agree to that. Is it a reaction to this new Gilded Age in which so many people who had a shot at a comfortable life 20-30 years ago now find themselves scrabbling to keep afloat? Is it that poor Americans have been poor for so long they don't know how to become better off financially?

I think everyone has a stake in this. And true discussion of the issues has to go beyond watching reading about stores being looted and watching TV talking heads with their own stakes in the situation. We need to get to the questions behind the questions, like why the police department in Ferguson is overwhelmingly white despite the makeup of the population in that city. Or whether supplying local police forces with surplus materiel makes them act more like a militia and whether that's an appropriate response to rioting. Or how concepts like a middle class or social mobility are being hollowed out and whether we're okay with that.

But as long as we're distracted by loud voices, we won't get to that point.

[ApatheticNoMore]

What is that present reality? Is the reality that a particular ethnic group is just a bunch of "takers" willing to perpetuate their lower standard of living by destroying their own "nest"?

a certain race seems to do this a lot, in fact it seems all they do! The human race.

I think everyone has a stake in this. And true discussion of the issues has to go beyond watching reading about stores being looted and watching TV talking heads with their own stakes in the situation.

I think to a large extent I don't live in Ferguson. While I may have a certain understanding of multicultural society, I still don't live in Ferguson.

We need to get to the questions behind the questions, like why the police department in Ferguson is overwhelmingly white despite the makeup of the population in that city.

Yea there may be hard limits (people with felonies can't vote etc. and it's disenfranchised a lot of minorities - but I have no idea how many in Ferguson that applies to), but then given that the rest of society does it and repeatedly chases after all that glitters, attaching more importance to the Presidential election, even though they have very little influence over it, compared to local politics where their voice and vote might actually matter, because of all the hype, maybe people of Ferguson have the same weakness as the general population seems to have. Because it's easy to get emotional about the presidential election, it's a national sport (even if one votes a 3rd party that won't win, then they are emotional about: "ugh none of the above"). But local politics OMG so boring, you can't even debate it on the intertubes. I understand why people don't want more boredom, their lives and often mind-numbingly boring jobs and all the boring chores that are part of life (and it's a pretty bureaucratic society which adds to the boring chores - waiting 2 hours for the DMV etc.) and stuff are often boring enough! But nothing will be achieved out of that ....

[catherine]

Thanks for this video, Xmac! I also appreciate CathyA's questions and Steve's explanations as well as the rest of the discussion.

Part of the answer as to how we get to working on this "inside job" I think is self-inquiry. You're right, Cathy--it feels like we're sheets of paper bonded together--and what our parents told us is one layer and what we see in the outside world is another layer, and the the messages that you got from your friends and teachers and everyone else about who you are is another layer, and your own self-recrimination is another layer, and peeling those layers apart is almost impossible. But I personally think meditation and self-inquiry can go a long way in discovering within you what's real vs. what's just cultural veneer.

[Xmac]

But as long as we're distracted by loud voices, we won't get to that point.

Loud voices on the outside and loud voices on the inside.

All the while there are the subtle, quiet voices on the outside and on the inside.

Sometimes the voice of true wisdom or knowing speaks on the outside and the speaker doesn't even notice.

I've asked questions to my students many times to see how well they know their stuff. There have been a many times in which they answer correctly, quietly out loud first, without even noticing they did. Then thinking kicks in (loud inner voice) and they speak that: the wrong answer.

This absolutely fascinates me. It's unfiltered pure knowing quietly showing up.
So, it seems we must become like it for it to be heard: quiet.

'Silent' has the same letters as 'listen'.