I grew up in the northwest so I'm not even familiar with racial problems. But my mom grew up on Mississippi and was in 1930. So she definitely had experiences. She told me she never even really saw it but if you weren't envolved on either side at the time she said they didn't bother you. By they I mean kkk or blacks. She didn't tolerate racist on either side. Thats all she really ever said. As far as current events (she passed away in 2014) based on her experience any race issues was only to divide and conquer. It kept people apart and was used to distract.

I also was raised as color blind and was taught that in school. And that it was about character not color. But culture is very influential on people and culture teaches you to be separate and different.

My father was in the air force a few years after they desegregated it. FYI a Democrat (Woodrow Wilson) segregated the military and a Democrat (Harry Truman) desegregated it. But he experienced racism towards him for being white. Black officers even told him it was payback and that now they can be in charge of some white boys. So he had mixed feelings. He judged the person character it just took longer to earn his trust.

I tell these stories because there is wisdom and understanding with age. Or at least there should be. The youth have no concept of what transpired years ago. None of us were there. The 1619 project is a joke. 1791 is when the American clock starts and how fast we moved to make everyone equal. And America has done more then any other nation. We are also the most diverse nation. No other country has had to deal with ALL OF MANKINDS conflicts. Most countries are homogeneous. So they don't have these conflicts. For the entire history of their country.

I only see the human race.

Be the change you want to see in the world.

This is how I was raised and what I feel.

I'm just theorizing here; there's probably lots of different possible reasons.

Anyhoo, here's a big problem with "judging people by the content of their character": some people are poor of character. Some are thieves, or drug dealers. Some have killed a cheating spouse. Some have raped. George Floyd himself has a home-invasion robbery on his rap sheet. Yes. "Has". He's dead, but his sins live after him.

People of poor character do not look fondly upon a system that judges by the content of their character. They resent that system, and they want something else. Something that does NOT judge a person by their actions. If you don't judge by actions, what else is there?? Not much, actually. There's things that you DO, and things that you ARE. Skin color is an easy one--and it's instinctive. Humans a natural bias towards other people who are similar to themselves. So skin color makes a natural bonding agent. I wish it wasn't this way, but it generally is.

Now, aside from a NATURAL tendency to bond based on skin color, there can be an artificial one as well. Some politically astute people exploit this natural bonding tendency to exert control. A political party, for example, might run a candidate of a particular ethnic group in order to bait people into voting for them. And when you get right down to it, American politics boils down to power. Political parties want to win, first and foremost--their actual agenda takes a distant second to actually winning that next election. Politicians clearly don't have much objection to lying, so it's possible the Democrats simply resorted to identitarianism in an attempt to cement their voting base.

Again, just a theory. Roll it around in your gearbox and see what comes out.

I think there are more of us out there who were raised without taking a person's skin color into the equation of how we judged someone for their actions. The problem I keep seeing is that race is being used more and more for a select group to gain an advantage and its getting worse. The thing is we are also in a time when an opportunity is the greatest for anyone who chooses to use the opportunity. There are no guarantees for equal outcome only equal opportunities, and when people try to use skin color to change the outcome you only get more problems.

First off, your disclaimer about being a silent pede doesn’t make you less suspect when a shit ton of people have recently made their first post or comment after 3 months of having joined.

Anyway, I also was raised to see the content of one’s character. In fact, I was taught to not judge at all. The thing is, the content of the character we’ve witnessed over the last week is undeniably worse than the imaginations one might suppose if he were a racist.

How do we come to terms with this? Shall we overlook despicable behavior or shall we judge based on their actions? Maybe you haven’t answered this question in your own mind, but I sure have.