Seattle’s (former?) Capitol Hill neighborhood

[Josh]

One of the most interesting things in this thread is people like Ken and joshuabgood (who are both white men who hold significant privilege) lecturing the rest of us why a lawless, violent zone of people that (as far as I can tell) is mostly privileged white people (antifa activists, college students, and so on) is actually a good thing, and how un-Christian we are to express any concerns at all about an insurrection.

I would be far more open to being lectured about the evils of white supremacy or of white men from someone who, you know, isn't a white man of privilege himself. I keep hearing over and over about how we need to listen to other voices. Perhaps to hear those voices, the people who are loudly proclaiming these things need to sit down and actually allow other voices to have a chance to speak.

[Ken]

If you are white then you benefited from it whether or not you or your family actually participated, and regardless of which side you ancestors fought or didn't fight during the Civil War.

This really infuriates me. This sets me off and I will not respond because it will take me to a place I do not need to go.

Please do not throw white privilege at me. You will not like the results.

I don't know anything about you or your family history. But if your family was white and lived in this country for more than one generation then they lived in a society in which advantages were tilted towards whites and away from blacks. Whether they made advantage of those benefits and were able to pass them on down to their children and grandchildren is an entirely different issue. There are millions of white families in poverty, and white children who have grown up with no advantages. That is utterly true. It is also true that their parents and grandparents and great grandparents grew up in a society in which they had opportunities that were not available to black people. Many white families were able to accumulate generational wealth through building businesses and farms and human capital like education, and pass it own down to subsequent generations. Opportunities that were denied to black people at that same time. But this is also a free society and people are free to fail, or be cheated, or suffer bad luck, or piss away whatever is given to them. Life is not fair. Never has been and never will be.

I know my parents and grandparents and great grandparents worked hard for every single penny they ever earned in rural Oregon and rural Pennsylvania where they are from. They were simple people. None of them were rich. They lived hard modest lives trying to keep their farms alive and and their children fed. I also know they would have had a lot harder time of it had they been black. In fact, they almost certainly would never have been allowed to be farmers in rural Oregon or PA in the first place.

[Josh]

I know my parents and grandparents and great grandparents worked hard for every single penny they ever earned in rural Oregon and rural Pennsylvania where they are from. They were simple people. None of them were rich. They lived hard modest lives trying to keep their farms alive and and their children fed. I also know they would have had a lot harder time of it had they been black. In fact, they almost certainly would never have been allowed to be farmers in rural Oregon or PA in the first place.

I happen to know someone who came here as a young man who is a person of colour, along with his wife, and brought few advantages along with him. He worked hard and eked out a living and eventually brought lots of his relatives to America too. By the time they had children, they were able to move to a much better neighbourhood with better schools. Their children now live productive, upper-middle-class types of lives, and are well educated (more than I am).

This is not to say that a white person of identical circumstances wouldn't have had it easier, but the differences are not at as stark as this narrative would lead us to believe. Differences of class are much more significant than differences of race. I will paraphrase what a beggar on the street told me a few days ago: "Don't listen to all of this separation stuff. Black or white or anything else, we should all be united." The real "privileges" here are those the 0.1% keep hoarding for themselves, and just how stark the gap between rich and poor continues to become. When an all-out war is being waged on the middle class, stirring up animosity between people of different races is quite a useful sideshow and distraction.

[Ken]

One of the most interesting things in this thread is people like Ken and joshuabgood (who are both white men who hold significant privilege) lecturing the rest of us why a lawless, violent zone of people that (as far as I can tell) is mostly privileged white people (antifa activists, college students, and so on) is actually a good thing, and how un-Christian we are to express any concerns at all about an insurrection.

I would be far more open to being lectured about the evils of white supremacy or of white men from someone who, you know, isn't a white man of privilege himself. I keep hearing over and over about how we need to listen to other voices. Perhaps to hear those voices, the people who are loudly proclaiming these things need to sit down and actually allow other voices to have a chance to speak.

Nowhere in this thread will you find any comments by me suggesting that the Seattle CHAZ is a good thing, or something I support. I think it is a silly and mostly harmless exercise by silly and mostly harmless people, of which there are far too many in Seattle. And with all the other economic and pandemic issues facing this country, the fact that Trump is obsessing about this one tiny group of protesters occupying a few park blocks in Seattle rather than doing his actual job to manage the economy and pandemic shows me how unfit he actually is to be president.

What I don't support is military solutions to social problems like sending in Federal troops to attack some harmless protesters. And yes, I watched the entire video posted here and didn't see anything but silly people in tents and drumming in the streets which is pretty normal for Seattle at any time of the year.

I do support letting the mayor and governor sort it out for themselves as is their job. The mayor is responsible for law enforcement in Seattle, not Trump. He's got plenty of other things on his plate. And if it takes a couple weeks to do things peacefully through negotiation then fine. Of all the lawlessness occurring in this country this month, I don't think this silliness in Seattle even rises to the top 10,000. And no, I don't think there is any sort of domino theory of "autonomous zones" that says if Federal troops don't go in and crack heads that this will spread like a virus across the country.

[temporal1]

.. I do support letting the mayor and governor sort it out for themselves as is their job.
The mayor is responsible for law enforcement in Seattle, not Trump. ..

it seems you’re overly emotional and defensive on this, which may be causing you to not read very well.
a couple of pages back you seemed to conclude “this forum” supports military aggression, no.

i find members here MOSTLY are interested in peaceful solutions in all matters, Capitol Hill, no different. attempting to discern what’s going on, on various levels, is part of that, and may deserve varied responses.

when i mention President Trump offered assistance, which was abruptly and with frivolous insulting language rejected, i would have hoped that the mayor and governor might rather have said, “no, thank you.” i was attempting to point out the unnecessary political jabs unleashed when appreciation would have worked just fine.

as well, you have chosen to overlook EVERY mention about military presence NOT equating to violence, in the vast majority of cases, domestic and international, this is the case. the POTENTIAL of aggression does not always happen. thank God.

President Trump has accomplished a lot of de-escalation. He is NOT given fair credit for it.

i consider the mayor’s and governor’s words as aggressive and deliberately escalating political tensions. pandering to their base.

at this time, while accepting taxpayer funded aid for necessities, AND while commandeering others’ private properties, businesses, etc., AND while requesting and accepting charity from still others, the kiddies on Capitol Hill are enjoying a fantasy .. that will .. ?? who knows?

they seem now to have morphed into their version of some 60’s hippies’ communes .. however, those communal self-sufficiency experiments were done on property acquired legally, not high-dollar city locations appropriated through riots, their self-sufficiency was not gov funded for display .. today, i read, Cap Hill has become a bit of a tourist attraction, people visiting and taking selfies.

no matter WA state parks .. remain largely closed? i believe King County remains in Phase 1 of the gov’s virus response plan - UNLESS you’re protesting. or something like that.

if anything is being proven, it might be how impractical and not attractive the entitled white kiddies’ little experiment in hating Capitalism while living completely off charity of Capitalism appears.
most people of all colors recognize that. my daughter lives in a barrio. she tells me everyone’s working. not interested in Cap Hill.

before my son moved to Cap Hill, i read about it. i wished he wasn’t there, but he was an adult.
i visited. he eventually moved. life goes on.

[ken_sylvania]

Somehow this CHAZ thing reminds me of Rehoboam and the Israelites. Remember how the young men told him to assert his authority and show the people who was boss, but the old men told him to back off a bit? Seems there's probably some wisdom in de-escalation.

[Judas Maccabeus]

[video][/video]

Too many people with not enough to do. Anyone actually work?

JM.

my thoughts exactly. But why work if there are people outside willing to send you everything you need. The whole thing is just ludicrous and would be actually funny if it was not so serious.

I suspect this will sooner or later fall apart. Kum By Yah only goes so far.

Most of these people seem to have no experience running anything other than their mouths.

J.M.

[temporal1]

Somehow this CHAZ thing reminds me of Rehoboam and the Israelites. Remember how the young men told him to assert his authority and show the people who was boss, but the old men told him to back off a bit? Seems there's probably some wisdom in de-escalation.

There is more than one way to skin a cat.
However, the mayor and gov could have proceeded exactly as they have without responding as they did to their president’s offers of help in a critical moment.

[Wade]

This is such a farce. But a potentially very dangerous farce. This has nothing to do with black rights. This has everything to do with anarchy.

For those that think this is an innocent harmless thing. What would you say when it happens in your city or town and in your neighbourhood?
The law is either for everyone or no one and if these people are not dealt with it will spread. Mark my words.
Notice that there are actually very few blacks. Couple of brave black ladies that have far more guts than I would have. But of course they ain't black enough. They do not speak for "real" blacks.
Again I will not tell the authorities how they should deal with them.. That is not my job. But as Christians the last thing we should be supporting is anarchy for the sake of anarchy. There is nothing Christian about that. Nothing.

Agreed, and this is what Christ said about lawlessness:

Matthew 7:23And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

[silentreader]

This is such a farce. But a potentially very dangerous farce. This has nothing to do with black rights. This has everything to do with anarchy.

For those that think this is an innocent harmless thing. What would you say when it happens in your city or town and in your neighbourhood?
The law is either for everyone or no one and if these people are not dealt with it will spread. Mark my words.
Notice that there are actually very few blacks. Couple of brave black ladies that have far more guts than I would have. But of course they ain't black enough. They do not speak for "real" blacks.
Again I will not tell the authorities how they should deal with them.. That is not my job. But as Christians the last thing we should be supporting is anarchy for the sake of anarchy. There is nothing Christian about that. Nothing.

Agreed, and this is what Christ said about lawlessness:

Matthew 7:23And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

You remember that Jesus actually said that to/about those whom we would call professing Christians?