Quote Originally Posted by davids View Post
I just watched this on another website and was about to share it here.

I strongly, strongly, strongly recommend each and every one of us white guys shut up and listen to her. She is articulate, she is logical, she is absolutely righteously furious.
She’s absolutely correct in what she says. I got the same story a few years ago from a black friend of mine. He’s a cyclist and runs in some of the same circles I run in. He’s a bit less vociferous in his delivery but the message is largely the same.

How do we move forward? She’s right about the systemic economic inequality. I understand the concept of privilege better than I did a few years ago. Her Monopoly analogy is absolutely spot on.

I think acknowledgement of the problem is a first step. The other day the commissioner of the NFL made a statement that wouldn’t have been made a month ago. A month ago it would have cost him his job. But he needs to go further and say the name Colin Kaepernick. Still, his statement was progress in an organization that has struggled with racial inequality forever. Why does the Rooney Rule exist?

But what’s next? I acknowledge she’s right but I also think that if we accept her sentiment that it’s OK to, literally, burn it down only a literal wasteland will remain. Is that going to benefit anyone? Because I’d bet Target isn’t moving back into the Hiawatha and Lake St. neighborhood.

Today I drove past a burned out Family Dollar store in Aurora, IL. How many people on this forum are Family Dollar shoppers? I’d guess it’s not a frequent destination for most of us. The people in that neighborhood no longer have that store. That store is about 8 miles west of my house and my observation tells me it’s a majority Hispanic neighborhood.

What’s next? We all need to do better. What that means isn’t always easy to define even if the societal issue is easy to see.

Decades of Democrats in office in Minneapolis didn’t prevent that police department from becoming a toxic dumpster fire. So just saying we’re going to vote a certain way doesn’t mean anything. It’s complicated and I’ll be the first to admit I’m not exactly sure I know what I personally can do. But somehow we need to do better. All of us.