Tribal Wokeness - People, Protestors, Police
*Alert, if anything I write about in this post triggers you, pause for a second to think a bit deeper, grow thicker skin or click away.
Alright for the past couple weeks things have really popped off. Acts of rage, fear and violence have culminated over the last week that demonstrates how much fixing the US needs. A few cracks later the whole house of cards falls down revealing a completely broken system.
To be fair in the span of three months our world has experienced events akin to:
- Insane natural disasters
- The Spanish Flu
- The Great Depression
- Civil Unrest riots
This has been made even worse since many people are without employment and forced in a bad mental state at home.
For anyone it is an overwhelming surreal events to experience or even hear about. Too much has transpired that personally at some point I became desensitized to the bad things reported in the 24/7 news cycle. One cannot take so much negativity. Willfully keeping myself in the dark for those brief weeks I generally felt content.
A tip: Bad news is easy to grip the public. To keep sane, tune that out.
Small update:
Unfortunately I could not completely stay away when I caught onto the updates of the riots. For a good amount of time I had no idea what was happening. The riots got so out of hand over George Floyds death that even I went back into the rabbit hole. I wasn’t angry at the world for whatever tragedy happened, I’ll get more on that later, but I was frustrated at myself that I let external events trigger me.
Firstly, I would like to acknowledge that racial discrimination, police brutality bad things. The right for peaceful protest, free speech to criticize our government mean that we truly live in a free society. However we must question if what is going on is for the right reasons. Another thing, Black lives matter, in fact All lives matter. This is uncontroversial.
The group and recent resurgence of this movement are flawed. Ben Shapiro gives a great breakdown of the critiques of the movement at minute 1:13:
“The slogan is fine… That black people are under existential threat in the United States… and that the vast majority of people in the United States don’t care is black people are under existential threat.” - Is untrue
The white or privileged protestors are spreading this weird issue that people have racial guilt if you do not protest. It is like a religion itself spreading the action of anti-racism. Pretty much there exists this privileged class of Tribal Wokeness.
I am not saying that the black community has not been oppressed in the past, but when individuals are trained by their environment that they are systemically victimized, it absolves them of any personal responsibility and action.
I am very against this as a person for asserting individual responsibility.
This is very damaging to an individual to be raised under the idea that they are systemically oppressed
The implication from the media is that if you do not do X thing, it means you are against it. This kind of low-effort/low-resolution thinking and action implicates that people who don’t partake in said the protests are somehow the problem.
Yet again the media and woke left are turning this issue into an “Us vs Them” situation. Where in fact most people generally agree with the idea but are too busy to virtue signal.
At minute 7:00 of Ben’s recent video he lays out the definition of how “The Left” considers a group victimized:
A group that is victimized is when it has experienced outcomes that are not equal to other groups. It is considered when a group is underperforming economically or societally compared to the average.
History has no bearing on the matter at all, Jews, Asians have been historically victimized, but they aren’t considered in “Identity movements” because they are doing well by these metrics.
In this age to feel a sense of goodness is to virtue signal
Instead of actively working on yourself, people can get a quick hit of dopamine and a sense of belonging by signalling on social media that they support X or Y cause/movement. It is very minimum effort just to pander to the masses.
Know this, following the herd or groupthink is dangerous. This will take away your ability for independent thought and reasoning. It takes away the work to look deeper into issues.
Blowing up these issues puts forth the idea that society has not made progress
Basing all arguments on the grounds of identity politics is detrimental to society
Don’t take for granted all the good things we have in our society
How to actually act if you want to influence others or be immune to their effects
Sadly, western society quickly forgets and ignores all the progress we’ve made in the last 60 years.
At the same time, we can’t fully end racism. DO NOT BE NAIVE.
As a rudimentary example to demonstrate the evolutionary significance of prejudice, fear and racism: Suppose you were a toddler who was bit by a vicious dog, that would be a traumatic experience. Your brain registers the idea that dogs are scary, you develop a fear of dogs after that. Evolutionarily this fear kept us aware and alive.
Prejudice and racism develop in a similar way.
Everyone has unconscious biases and prejudices which can not be “Solved” by a catch all general solution. Or by calling up the government office. Change must come from within, at an individual level.
Last thoughts
Beneath the injustice that was George Floyd’s murder at the hands of an office and his complicit colleagues, he was a repeat offender…. Understand that other people get killed by cops too. I don’t condone what happened, in fact this is good that the police are held accountable for their rash actions. In this case he was not targeted specifically his appearance. Now that all the media is focused on this issue, it takes away attention from other issues. Our emotions stirring has abstracted away our ability to see things at a finer grained level.
Unfortunately the well meaning but brainless Leftists have martyred a person for the wrong reasons or the situation fit perfectly for their agenda.
I want a call to action to bring back our compassion and empathy for BOTH SIDES. Momentarily we dehumanized the police, the police dehumanized the rioters and protestors.
Reality is, we can’t treat everyone the same because individuals are all different. Instead we can strive towards everyone having equal opportunity, not outcome, for everyone to better their own lives. More so in communities that have a history of poverty and crimes (The areas that rightfully should be protesting).
I can’t believe I need to point this out, but we need to be reminded to see and treat everyone like humans. Here, resident bad-ass Jocko Wilink put out a video that properly wakes us up.
* Note: Fuck it, call me some racist, alt-right libertarian for all you care of the sources I am referencing
Keep this in mind: It is very surface level/low effort thinking to silence someone by calling them a racist, bigot or what have you. When their thoughts or opinion differs from you, only to shut them up, stopping any chance of a civil discussion.