Help me understand

Hi reddit, I made this post on a social platform and well you can see what happened.
I'm looking for some insights from people around the globe on what transpired and help me step out of the conversation and better see it objectively.

I've edited all the uses of "f*ck" to be as such. The other party felt the need to continue to use the word.

------

WC - Original Post
This societal guilt needs to end; yesterday.

We are to feel guilty for just about everything these days.
"You use plastic? You probably hate the environment"
"You don't eat organic? Eww, you're so toxic"
"You eat meat? You're cruel and inhumane"
"You think? You're a bigot"
"A police officer shot someone? That savage!"

How about "Thanks for putting yourself in a dangerous situation on a daily basis so that I can sleep peacefully at night"
How about "Thanks for farming the land all season so we have food to eat"
How about "We need better ways of handling garbage and so I've taken the time to research alternative methods and invented a means for companies to implement. Here are my findings"
How about "I appreciate you have ideas to bring to the table. Let's discuss them and present facts like civil adults and avoid name calling and attacking each other vs the problem at hand"
How about we start realizing what is keeping this world going are humans, you know, like the person looking back in the mirror when getting ready in the morning.

So there requires forgiveness of the faults of being human and empathy for their struggle.
It is never about making the "right" decision;
It is about making a better decision than yesterday.

What I've concluded as "better" is a decrease in suffering while increasing the opportunities to do better tomorrow.

RS
This sounds like a critique against judgement, not guilt. Although I think that judgement is usually the mirror that reflects the insecurities of the person doing the judging, so maybe it's both. I don't think that there's anything wrong with practicing any of the above (foregoing plastic or meat, striving to eat organic, thinking (!), holding an organization accountable for systemic racism and discrimination).... The problem comes when people militantly enforce their beliefs on everyone around them joylessly with the intention of making others feel bad for not being "good enough". I think that the best way to affect change is to show the world how your own choices have enriched your life.

WC
I see judgement as the process of assessment and guilt as a tool used to persuade individuals to alter their course to align with that judgement. I suppose "Social Shaming" could even be substituted for "Societal Guilt."

Judgement -
"the ability to make considered decisions or come to sensible conclusions."

Guilt -
"a feeling of having done wrong or failed in an obligation"

Shame-
"used to reprove someone for something of which they should be ashamed."

I'm all for personal growth. I think it is great you've taken the initiative to find a way to remove plastic from your lifestyle and that you're sharing your process along the way.

From what I've read in your current journey you are speaking of the personal changes you're making and giving people the knowledge if they choose to follow your path. I have yet to see you post all over the internet telling people they are terrible human beings because they continue to use plastics.

You're leading by example.

--
Someone wants to be a vegan? Cool, but to broadcast non-vegans as terrible inhumane individuals because they choose to continue to eat meat, in my opinion, is when I disagree with their methods of persuasion.

Judgement in this context would be that someone has assessed, based on their research, that not eating meat is the right thing to do, and that's cool. Props for making the transition. Fill up some Instagram and Pinterest accounts with some amazing recipes, or bring a dish to a potluck for people to try out with a link to the recipes nearby.

--
I personally have never had to walk into a building where I've been informed someone was armed and dangerous. I've never had to walk down hallways worrying whether someone was going to shoot me in the back of the head at any moment.

Taking a life must be a heavy burden on someone's soul, but someone out there has to do the dirty work else we return to a state of anarchy; not because I believe people are inherently evil, but because there are some out there that want nothing more than to see others suffer. I've learned the hard way that not everyone out there has the best intentions. Machiavelli has said that one cannot be good for goodness sake, because those who are not good will do whatever it takes, and if someone is always good, they are bound to be easily duped.

A (fictional) example of this is Batman's #1 rule to never kill, else he becomes no different than the criminal, and that villains will kill without hesitation. Accidents happen and at times people have died, but more often than not, he leaves it for the justice system to make the judgement call of punishment.

In the context of policing, people will be shot. Someone last night was complaining that he was detained for 20 minutes while he was questioned because he matched the description of someone. I asked "what happens if police stop making those checks and it turns out the person they were going to question was the person, but because of social outcry, police stop policing and a murderer roams free?"

We tend to know so little about a situation, and how we're informed is usually through a media source that is based on hype and controversy. Therefore there is a lot of "fake news" and "misinformation" these days because it pays. What if an officer shot someone, who happened to be of a darker complexion, and it turns out that person past part of a gang that was distributing firearms and narcotics?

Social media is basically forming a body of "Stop stopping the criminals and let them roam free." - Everyone's child is a saint and interviews are always going to be biased when interviewing friends and family. "Oh Jimmy was a sweet kind boy" - "Well we found he was trafficking minors and transporting firearms" - "No no, not my Jimmy" - "Actually yes, we've been investigating them for months" *News Story Headline* "Unarmed person shot and killed" with a video of someone appearing to be innocent, except moments before someone started recording the person was shooting at police and threw the firearm in the bushes.

--
Ironically I've been told all my life that I am to move on past all my surgeries. That they are in the past and it helps no one to conjure up things that can't be changed. I've had many 'friends' tell me to get over it and stop being a 'victim'.

Yet I'm always reading about how I am to feel guilty, or be ashamed, about things that happened hundreds of years ago as though I, or anyone alive today, were the ones that personally transported slaves, or murdered hundreds of thousands of people.

If I were to tell someone to "get over it" they would call me a racist, or a bigot, because of the atrocities their great great great great great relative faced. Yet expressing my pain of growing up as a human guinea pig is pathetic and requires shaming. So I suffer in silence about what it is like to have my body mutilated, a life of extreme physical, mental, and spiritual pain. How the beginning developmental years of my life were spent in and out of hospitals and my social skills were stunted.

People forget the time I -gave- away everything I owned to friends and family and moved across the country with a week's worth of clothing and my laptop, but they are quick to bring up and judge me on the time I said something on social media. They are quick to forget that when they ask for help I offer whatever resources I can, be it my time or energy, but are quick to bring me down for previous decisions I've made that have negatively affected my life.

--

We appear to be living in a in a time of social warfare.

Those who have weak foundations are jumping behind any cause that gives them a sense of purpose. This is one of the tragedies of the fall of religion; "God is dead" as said by Nietzsche. As others have highlighted since "the problem is not that people stopped believing in God, but they started believing in anything."

--

Perhaps this is just a transition, or an awakening of sorts. This is the first time in recorded history that humans have had global communication and the sharing of ideas.

Again paradoxically, now when people are becoming more inclusive of other cultures, they are now blasted with "cultural appropriation" because of a difference of ethnicity. It is a paradox of "we are all one" to "you're different and it is insulting you are attempting to be inclusive."

--

🎶Why can't we be friends... why can't we be friends🎶

SN
*I deleted a post because it was rude in my opinion telling me to shut the f*ck up and that I didn't know what I was talking about*

SN
Wow you deleted comment thanks for contradicting yourself. Keep hiding from truth and make assumptions of things you have no knowledge of.


WC
**Private message sent after deleting post**
You missed the part about having civil discussions.

Telling me to 'shut the f*ck up' falls short of that.

You're welcome to engage and communicate your point without the need to become hostile.
I didn't enslave anyone. Neither did my parents or my parents parents. My mother, aunts, and grand parents all worked in factories growing up.

You're generalizing and that is dangerous.

You seem to forget my personal story and my personal struggle. The struggle I lived through and continue to live.

If anything I can say you enslaved me for having me work for hours and hours over the course of months without any compensation.

You used and played me.


SN
I come with facts you deleted it. (no judgment call on you there)

SN
That’s right you don’t have the guts to look at history, the guts sit down unlearn how your suffering isn’t equal, the guts to even mention facts, the guts to sit down with black people in your life and have conversation.

WC
"The Public Health Service started working on this study in 1932 in collaboration with Tuskegee University, a historically black college in Alabama."

And as I stated in my message; you appear to forget my personal ongoing struggle.

Not a study someone else faced at a different time in history.
An actual experiment performed on my body, with my organs, and my life.

Which goes back to highlight my point that I suffer in silence because of the hostility / lack of empathy I face.

We've spoken a lot and you are well aware of my struggles of trying to make a life for myself, but I should just "shut the f*ck up" because what do I know.

WC
Does it feel good?
Does it feel good to attempt put someone down?
This isn't a discussion of ideas, these are personal attacks.

"You don't have the guts... "
You're right.
Mine were modified 16 different times and eventually removed.

SN
lol you don’t get the point and the reference to the gut is deliberate. Never did I say anything about your family but of course no one has that comment to make their own opinion. Yes you need to shut the f*ck up. Don’t talk about the black experience and think you can add your personal suffering in the conversation. What you seem to neglect is how what happen to you is due to lack of accountability of years of abuse by systems that traumatized marginalized people and allows abuse to continue. Our laws have not changed since the 1960s. Like I said in my deleted comment go read a book. No need for you screen private message I won’t read.

SN
[link to the-father-of-modern-gynecology-performed-shocking-experiments-on-slaves](https://www.history.com/news/the-father-of-modern-gynecology-performed-shocking-experiments-on-slaves)

WC
Thank you for confirming your conscious effort to make personal attacks.

SN
You’re welcome. When you try talk about the black experience correlate to yours. You lost all respect. I dare you to name one book you pick up in your life time to learn about the black experience in this country?

WC
The screenshot isn't for you, it is for others to see I messaged you when I had deleted the post with an explanation why.

In addition, you've now shared that you're unwilling to have a discussion, ie "I won’t read."

Have you picked up a book on experiments performed on infants? How about the holocaust? Nutritional experiments performed on the indigenous? Women's rights?

This is the very 'societal guilt' this whole post is about.

This is an attempt to degrade me because you feel your books are more substantial. You minimize my -personal experience-, something I continue to experience to this day, and tell me it is irrelevant than something that happened in the past.

You paint such an ugly picture of me despite the multiple trips I had taken to Toronto to help you. How when you asked me to help someone you liked I drove down to meet with and help.

Then you message me and told me never to talk to her again because she was back on a dating site.

If you want to live in the past that is your prerogative, but don't come here attempting to make me feel 'guilty' for something I've had no part in.

WC
I am unable to imagine someone like Martin Luther King Jr telling someone to "shut the f*ck up" because he read something he disagreed with personally.

He was intelligent in his use of conviction

He went through difficult times.
He lived through it.

And as a result, he made history.

SN
You know what happens when systemic racism isn’t address? It hurts everyone. [link to backfire-const-adam-hill](http://projects.thestar.com/backfire-const-adam-hill/)

SN Leave your white guilt at the door and shut up and read.

WC
What is white guilt?

WC
You're right, systematic racism hurts everyone:
"'We are not calling for the slaughter of white people - at least for now" [link to White-South-African-farmers-removed-land](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5443599/White-South-African-farmers-removed-land.html)

WC
[link to urban dictionary white guilt](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=white%20guilt)

"White guilt:
The result of a wide spread racist propaganda campaign launched against European-Americans by various racist groups, individuals, Government public schools and was encouraged by many media outlets in the late 1990s.

The propaganda campaign goals were to diminish any sense of a European-American’s pride in oneself and their community. To encourage European-Americans to feel that the only way for them to feel is self-sacrificing for non-whites and to ignore their own interests. And to tarnish history with over exaggerations, wild claims all while pressuring publishers of books to underplay great accomplishments of history.

Most European-Americans see the propaganda for what it is, however to this day many still hold onto white guilt because it was the way they were taught in school as children and don't realize it is the result of a propaganda campaign.

At the height of the propaganda campaign was the Wichita Massacre, where several black men brutally beaten and murdered many whites in the ice cold feilds of Wichita, the media grossly hid the story from public view despite organizations such as the European-American Issues Forum bringing the case to their attention. Also came in to play was the notion to give greater punishment to whites who commit racial based crimes and ignore racial based crimes against whites.

A few examples of the propaganda campaign against white people of European ancestry:

"White folks was in caves while we was building empires... We taught philosophy and astrology and mathematics before Socrates and them Greek homos ever got around to it." -- Rev. Al Sharpton

"There's no great, white bigot; there's just about 200 million little white bigots out there." -- USA Today columnist Julienne Malveaux

The white man is our mortal enemy, and we cannot accept him. I will fight to see that vicious beast go down into the lake of fire prepared for him from the beginning, that he never rise again to give any innocent black man, woman or child the hell that he has delighted in pouring on us for 400 years." -- Louis Farrakhan who campaigned for congresswoman Cynthia McKinney in 2002, City College audience in New York

"I want to go up to the closest white person and say: 'You can't understand this, it's a black thing' and then slap him, just for my mental health." -- Charles Barron, a New York city councilman at a reparations rally, 2002

"Civil rights laws were not passed to protect the rights of white men and do not apply to them." -- Mary Frances Berry, Chairwoman, US Commission on Civil Rights

(I) "will not let the white boys win in this election." -- Donna Brazile, Al Gore's Campaign Manager on the 2000 election

"The old white boys got taken fair and square." -- San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown after winning an election

"The Medicaid system must have been developed by a white male slave owner. It pays for you to be pregnant and have a baby, but it won't pay for much family planning." -- Jocelyn Elders

In a disgraceful pursuit to spread white guilt Susan Sontag stated: "The white race is the cancer of human history.""


WC
I already read the article when you first posted it by the way.

That's what "Thanks for putting yourself in a dangerous situation on a daily basis so that I can sleep peacefully at night" is about.

SN
Paul Pendler, Psy.D., of the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University Medical School and Phillip Beverly, Ph.D., Department of History, Philosophy, and Political Science at Chicago State University, wrote The Racism Root Kit: Understanding the Insidiousness of White Privilege. ( aka White Guilt). When White people defer to an internal “root kit,” or set of ingrained responses, to cover our racial biases and shut down those who intend to make us face them. Not only did you just embarrass yourself by referencing the wrong definition but you demonstrate the very act in itself (you don’t understand) by posting about South Africa, which has nothing to do about any of statements you made nor what I said. So nice try Will. I reference a story about Brantford Police, which you clearly don’t understand nor are you incapable of figuring out how point A and B of this is about a system that allows itself to not be accountable because of people like you who hide in their cowardly denial of their white guilt to bring about change. Thank you for showing others who you truly are and the help you need to unpack your racist views.

WC
I also said that people make mistakes and that being human means errors are going to be made; especially in high stress environments. The article also states that "The officers would later describe their colleague as obsessive, paranoid and delusional."

You exclude that an officer is walking into a home where "Jones had (a history of) drinking and taking drugs, including crack. He’d dropped out of high school, been arrested after brawling with his older brother, resulting in him being charged with assaulting a police officer."

Or how the person that called into the police said "“Yes, uh, my son is in the house, and he’s drunk and I need him removed,” she said, her tone annoyed. “He’s just throwing things around and goin’ crazy.”"

So you have a police officer walking into that environment. An extremely intense situation where someone "He was oscillating between anger and despair and making little sense." and that even the mother "She wanted to get closer to her son to reassure him and convince him to put the knives down."

So yea humans make mistakes. Especially walking in dangerous environments where mentally unstable people are on drugs and holding weapons.

---

It is as though this whole time you waited for an opportunity to attack. With all the personal insults you make it is as though you've been harboring hatred towards me for a while despite all the hours I put in to help you with your project.

I treat every human with the same amount of dignity and respect because I learned at an early age what it is like to be a social outcast for superficial differences. So I do what I can to be inclusive of anyone.

You can say all you like about me, but I know who I am at the end of the day. My post has nothing to do with race, yet you've decided to make it the issue, and then you've attempted to take my words and fit them into some box and portray me as a terrible person.

If I were a coward, as you say I am, the last thing I would do is make a post that calls attention to these issues. I'd want to hide from this very scrutiny. Yet here we are...

--

Are you asking me to be aware that people throughout history have faced different degrees of injustice all around the world for different reasons? Sure they have. That's a no brainer. As the Buddha would say, "life is suffering."

What I don't get is why people are supposed to "feel guilty" about things long since past. The best we can do is correct them today. Telling people to "shut the f*ck up" and insulting them is far from the answer of healing the world.

--

You had no problem sending me months worth of work, or having me make multiple changes over time. You had no problem having me pay for your hosting or domain. You had no problem with me traveling to Toronto to help you.

Except all along the way you kept playing mind games of asking for a feature only to say "I didn't ask for that" after it was completed. You were very calculated in the times you wanted to be recorded and not recorded.

Except that time you went on camera saying that I had completed the project. You said it in front of a room full of people that were watching from other parts of the globe. Then when I had finally sent you all the project files you called me up to tell me you weren't paying me and blaming me why your funding didn't go through. - "You didn't finish the project on time and so we didn't get the funding" - Passing the blame on to me despite I have a recording that has you stating otherwise.

--

Call me what you will, scream it from a rooftop, because at the end of the day, when you go out to take a pole from every person I've ever crossed paths with and ask them if I had treated them in any way unfairly or unjustly, you're going to embarrass yourself and come up empty handed.

Have I made mistakes throughout my life? For sure. For the most part they are self inflicted. I have noticed in recent years, as my health improves, that there are people out there that befriended me simply because of how lowly I treated myself and how unworthy I felt in this life. I was an easy target.

And now that I am beginning to open up and speak up, those people dislike that I've ceased to allow that kind of behaviour now that I am gaining my strength and stride. They dislike that I'm over turning rocks and asking questions.

I face my demons on a regular basis. I'm making peace with myself. I do it through self reflection and small steps. I do it by looking in the mirror. If you notice my comments are about the topic at hand, where as your grievances are directed at me.

When my comments include you, they are in question of the integrity of your character through my personal experience while helping you.

---

You mentioned systemic racism and I demonstrated how systemic racism happens around the globe. How is exclusively removing the land from people of a certain skin colour not systemic racism?

---

If you choose to continue to berate me and insult me I will have to remove you from my friends list. My friends are a reflection of the person that I am, and if you harbor this much anger and hatred toward someone that has done nothing but attempt to help you, then I am unable to be friends with you.

If you disagree with what I have to say, communicate what you disagree about, and stop slinging insults like this is some elementary school playground.

WC
"Problem 3: This definition is disempowering The concept of white supremacy uses the current and historic context to fix the social power of whites as definitively higher than all other groups. By doing so, the quality of power becomes inherent or fixed to ethnicity; white people have more power than other groups because of their race. However, since ethnicity cannot be changed, the implication is that their higher power also cannot be changed.

This is disempowering for all groups that strive to reduce racism. For example, whites who are aware of the privileges afforded to them from their current and historic social power may nevertheless be trapped by ‘White guilt’ (Steele 2006); they cannot strive to attain their goal for reducing racism because they cannot change their ethnicity. Similarly, individuals from racial groups other than white also cannot strive to reduce racism because their ethnicity precludes them from having the power to affect the discourse on race relations and the way power is distributed across racial groups. They too must accept racism as an ‘unchangeable fact’ because their ethnicity is unchangeable. To overcome this sense of disempowerment for all racial groups, it is important to note that levels of power are not inherent to race; they are reactive to circumstance and therefore can change. In other words, the past does not (have to) dictate the future. "

[link to Only_White_People_can_be_Racist_What_does_Power_have_to_with_Prejudice](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/238768093_Only_White_People_can_be_Racist_What_does_Power_have_to_with_Prejudice)

---

This sounds an awful lot like what you've been doing. Intentional comments to hurt me (calling me a coward and saying I am gutless; referring to my surgeries), minimizing my personal experience, and telling me to "shut the f*ck up" and put me down.

"Sue and his colleagues delineated three forms of microaggressions: microassault, microinsult, and microinvalidation. Microassaults are explicit racial slurs with the intention to hurt an intended victim through name-calling. Microinsults are subtle communications that convey rudeness and attempt to demean one’s racial identity. Finally, microinvalidations are comments that intend to exclude or nullify the feelings or experiences of persons of color."

[link to PaulPendler-Root-Kit](https://sachscenter.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/PaulPendler-Root-Kit.pdf)

---

Yet all I did was discuss an overarching problem and suggest people act with empathy for those who are struggling.

---

Lastly:

"In his post, Hill intimated that more work needs to be done. He called for mental health challenges to be taken as seriously as physical disabilities, claiming to have been “harassed, abused, bullied, and threatened.” Hill said he’d been screaming out for support for years.

“My cries for help were not answered.”"

---

Here you posted publicly, multiple times, insulting me personally (and expressed that it was intentional) and belittling my experience when I at no point in time gave any justification of your reasoning.

SN
This is sad. Why do continuously imply that I’m insulting you because I have informed you to shut the f*ck up? Which again no one has access to make their own opinion of in the context I mentioned in or is it cause I called you coward for not seeing bias in your actions. Where I stated you are just contradicting yourself. You don’t have the knowledge nor do you have the necessary resources to have this kind of level of conversation but you state I have agenda to attack you.

So let's get the facts straight because you continue to take your words off the table:

A) Your denial that this post has nothing to do with race:

Your words:
“What if an officer shot someone, who happened to be of a darker complexion, and it turns out that person past part of a gang that was distributing firearms and narcotics”

“Yet I'm always reading about how I am to feel guilty or be ashamed, about things that happened hundreds of years ago as though I, or anyone alive today, were the ones that personally transported slaves, or murdered hundreds of thousands of people”

(Aka black people you are talking about here)

B) You make dangerous rhetoric about policing:

“In the context of policing, people will be shot. Someone last night was complaining that he was detained for 20 minutes while he was questioned because he matched the description of someone. I asked "what happens if police stop making those checks and it turns out the person they were going to question was the person, but because of social outcry, police stop policing and a murderer roams free?"

(we’re going move pass the white privilege you display here and go straight to legal rights everyone has that you are trumping on to not be arbitrarily detained, the right to silence, the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure, and the right to counsel. Yet you claim this violation of rights is required to keep people safe. A statement we should value from you cause you have the facts or better yet a background in criminology right?)

Here is the long-term effects of this kind of practice from police stops: [link to Toronto Police Services Board](http://www.tpsb.ca/items-of-interest/category/29-items-of-interest)

C) I make a statement about the harms systemic racism in keeping police accountable and the ripple effect it has on everyone with a direct article to your statements about faith, doing the right thing and policing in Brantford, by a major paper in Canada and your first statement is:
“You're right, systematic racism hurts everyone”:

You send me title about an article in South Africa:
"'We are not calling for the slaughter of white people - at least for now"... ( Yes as you stated globe racism)

(Yet again you show your vast knowledge in this area.
You send an article that has no context to our conversation. Anyone who has read the article I posted in its entirety would see the hardship of this families situation and the walls that are designed to protect evening good officers from doing the right thing. Of course, you must have know SIU, the department that investigates police who kill individuals origins comes from the outcry of black people demanding justice for several police killings of black men 1980s. The same organization that exists now that didn’t charge this officer for killing this young boy. Like you said the past is the past, what role does it play now?. Let's forget successive governments failing to provide it with adequate resources, and by police officials aggressively resisting its oversight. Special Investigations Unit ( SIU) continues to struggle to assert its authority, maintain its balance against powerful police interests, and carry out its mandate effectively or the long history Brantford police has for abusing its powers.)

(Surely your understanding of policing is advance than us and your method of understanding terms like: “White guilt”,(nonslang word) but instead by Judith Katz, the author of the 1978 publication White Awareness: Handbook for Anti-Racism Training.)

So go ahead Will remove me from your list of friends cause I’m taken personal attacks on you. You’re absolute right, I spend the last 2 years working with ex-police officers,lawyers, psychologists, and developers to understand a problem most people can’t even grasp just so I can insult you by stating the obvious hateful words to men who confess his demons but lacks the moral aptitude to admit he has no f*cking knowledge about race, policing and accountability while he simultaneously denies starting this conversation.

So go ahead Will silence me show your friends I'm the bad guy. Like you said the past is past what role does it have for the future.

SN
Will,
Aww this cute you're trying to get caught up on matters of racism and the things I sent you.

(Yes it was intentional) Did this hurt you? I'm sorry I assumed you would be able to handle such harsh insults like "coward" seeing you have a comparable experience to black people who been called worse in front of their own face.

Sorry next time I'll remember you don't have thick skin.

WC
Would it have been difficult to say either of these statements?

"Hey Will I disagree with what you said above and I find it offensive. Especially after learning what I did while working on my project. Here are some resources I hope may better inform you of your position and statements."

or

"Hey Will can you better explain what you mean by these statements? I find them highly inaccurate and they are upsetting me. Here are some resources that will help you better understand my perspective. Are you aware of what happened in Alabama and the Syphilis experiments?"

--

Thick or thin skin, you're using abusive language and being vindictive. Your research doesn't give you the right to -continually- belittle and degrade someone; it empowers you to educate.

Instead, you return to insulting someone as though it is going to better illustrate your point. Is it really that difficult to stay on topic without resorting to ad hominem attacks?

I'm only highlighting your insults because they lack any value to the topic at hand and hypocritical in nature; exclaiming injustice while being no different than an oppressor who believes they have the right to put someone down because they have a notion in their mind they are better than the other.

In this instance, "your research puts you on a higher level" which allows you to look down your nose and exclaim "you're unable to discuss this topic."

We both would have made it a lot further down this path had you remained civil and chosen the path of educator.

Farewell

SN
Where are my manners? I get it your demanding I speak to you in the Canadian way, a faux of politeness because you don’t project racist views. I mistakenly took your innocent comments of ignorance as factual statements of your bias and white guilt rather than a confused individual with a warm heart. Who was incapable of picking up a book, talking to a friend or visiting black organization in his community before making up the assumption of topics he has no knowledge of but would post it online. Forgive me for the mistaken identity. Next time I’ll use the softest of languages.

WC
I demanded nothing from you.
It is about staying on topic.
Be critical of your point and spend your time executing your message.
Criticising me as a person for circumstances I have no ability to change is a waste of energy and time.

The reason I chose to include the part of "who happened to be of a darker complexion" for the very reason of how this all spiraled out of control.

Look what happened simply for saying "darker complexion."
Everything else became blindsided. The environment, animal welfare, women's rights, etc. Everything meant nothing and the entire message was lost; why? Because of six letters.

Somehow six letters constituted message after message of degrading comments when the first message was simply to highlight the volatility of the very subject.

People are unable to change the past no matter how much they try. All I can say is "That sucks to have happened." I could write a book saying it one hundred different ways, but in the end, that is all.

Working with people today, forgiving people today, having empathy for people today, is the only way of changing the past.

Treating them as an equal, and using my suffering as a point of reference for their pain, is the only way I can empathize. I am unable to feel their hurt, but I am able to feel my own suffering and relate.

It is funny that the first article you posted was in regards to medical experiments being performed on people. It helps illustrate a second point; how someone believes they can diminish and minimize my personal experience.

"Maybe it's my fault.
Maybe I let you to believe it was easy, when it wasn't.
Maybe it's my fault that you didn't see that failure gave you strength.
That my pain, was my motivation." - Michael Jordan

You're right that I need help, but the help you're providing of making snarky remarks will never achieve the help I need.

I need people that will help inform me better of the world around me, and they best be prepared to prove it, but if all they are going to do is strike me with sticks, and throw stones, I'm going to remove myself from that environment. I'm only going to endure it for so long before I conclude this person cannot be civil and communicate what ails them, and my being there is only making things worse by presenting a target.

You're angry because you've learned of a vein of injustice. There are many of them and they all have their grotesque stories. I could ask you how many children's hospitals you've been in. I could ask how many books you've read on experiments performed on children.

Except a book is unable to tell you what it is to be in my skin.
Have you had people use your body to advance scientific knowledge?
Were you taken away from your parents and brought into a room where they medicated you and removed parts of your body?
Were you ever confined to a bed and connected to machines via many tubes and your body stapled in the name of science?
Have you internally bled until you lost your mind, body, and soul?
Have you lost all hope of life and prayed for your life to be taken because the pain was too much to endure?
Do you know what it is like to hate yourself to the point of wanting to take your life?
Do you know what it is like to stand after having your entire abdomen opened up like a frog in science class?

That's your privilege.
A body to call your own.
A comfort in your own skin.
Except here I am as an individual and you use ghost stories to tell me I know nothing of pain and suffering.

Only now do I recognize that sacrifices need to be made
The few are sacrificed for the many.
I harbored a great deal of anger as a result.
Until I learned that anger is destructive, and I became afraid of it.
I tucked it away and pretended like it could be squashed out.
But it leaks out; it is found in words and actions.
Whether overtly, or covertly.

There is nothing you could say today that would actually cause me to become angry because I learned how to be at peace with my injustices. I acknowledge that your anger is really for those who performed the injustices you highlighted, and many others, and that I simply provided an opportunity for you to express it.

There is nothing you could say to belittle me because I am at peace with my life's story. You can turn over every stone and point out every flaw and I'll laugh.

When I moved to Penticton someone asked me "If you were a character from Wizard of Oz, who would you be" and I said "The lion because of how cowardly I've been."

How often do I joke that I "don't have the guts" to do something and laugh about it. Except your words carried a tone as though they were intended to be daggers and dig into me as if they would drive your point home.

So please, say exactly how what I said offended you.
Express how you justify my suffering isn't universal.
Communicate your pain in a way that people can learn from it.
Use your words to build something instead of using them in an attempt to destroy someone.

SN
Hey Will, correct me if I’m wrong but what you’re saying is?:

A) Because you had several horrific surgeries that cause horrendous problems and suffering to you. This means you are excused from being called out when you inflict embed racist views, demonstrate your denial of your white privilege while discussing topics about policing or just flat out make an assumption on things you have no knowledge of and call it (guilt)?

B) You’re incapable of having racist views because this would mean an attack on your personal character (I have black friends moral dilemma). Therefore the compassion, care and emotional growth you have shown in your life and to others, dominates any preconceived subconscious bias you developed or subtlety of exposure to them. Should prompt any disagreement with you as a resemblance of hate against you (moral dilemma) and of your skin colour rather than the context of what you said. Therefore I am taken a personal attack on you. When I used the words guiltless as metaphor or symbolism for your cowardly action of: deleting my comment then informing me that you never enslaved anyone through a private message as if I have no recollection of your history.

C) You think I diminish and minimize your personal experience because I make a reference to the past.
When it is not I who continuously discloses their ongoing struggle and pain, not I who introduced the topic in the first place and nor was it I who got sensitive when I was told to “shut the f*ck up” when I failed to make the connection and to leave their personal suffering out of this discussion. Therefore I’m taking everything out of context and not spotting your contradicting statements. My anger as you stated comes from me learning: “a vein of injustice”, rather than you acknowledging the abuse you received didn’t happen overnight but started because of practices of violence of dehumanization of Indigenous and marginalized people. That not only have direct influence in your life but also mine. While most of the data on race-based inequities in health care are not recorded in Canada, your problems are closely linked to the discrimination of healthcare disparities and social structures of historical legacies of perpetuating stereotypes. Why? The institution that provided your diagnosis comes from this legacy. What you term: “ghost stories”, are essential pieces that help you identify these structures and how they operate. For example, these stories can help you make shape of the policies around you today. like 1969 protest at Sir George Williams University in Montreal (now Concordia University). No need for me to explain it’s significance I’ll let you figure that out instead of you continuously allow your arrogance to fog your intelligence.

Let this be the last time I post on here as you have displayed your arrogance far outweighs your ability to understand. You think your actions are not racist good for you protect that moral duality but don’t you dare debase or erase my understanding of the comments you made. How foolish do you have to be to call someone educator in one moment and another who misinterpreted “darker complexion”? No Will, I read entirely all of your microaggression comments and took the courtesy of removing any mentioning of your suffering and chose to have a difficult conversation with you. It is you who is dictating all these rules, it is you who continues to write down these comments, it is you who is diluting their own preference in their decency to be the antidote for solving problems, it is you who failed to reach out to knowledgable friend before discussing matters you know so little about, it is you who thinks their action or errors of words come from a single root cause and it is you who relentlessly continues to convey their own opinion and feed it down our throats as pieces of evidence and conceal any facts to support it.

If you want to change this or unlearn it then I can guide you in the right direction or you can just shut the f*ck up!

WC
A) Nothing I said was racist. I used the words "darker complexion" to illustrate a point, and you then turned it into a matter of race. In the context it was to show that people are guilt tripped into just about anything.

I didn't say "What if an officer shot someone of a darker complexion"
I very intentionally said "What if an officer shot someone, who happened to be of a darker complexion, and it turns out that person past part of a gang that was distributing firearms and narcotics"

I very distinctly made mentioned of a darker complexion because of the hype that surrounds race  regardless if there was truth of other factors involved; ie, gang involvement, firearm distribution, and selling narcotics.

In regards to "Someone last night was complaining that he was detained for 20 minutes" - and if what if that person complaining was white but I never gave those details? What if I told you the person followed up with "Yea you make a good point." ?

What if 'detained' meant being pulled over for a burnt out headlight? What if 20 minutes was a guestimate and the person never looked at the clock before and after to actually know? How does the view of those words change? What if that person was me, and the conversation was with myself to better understand the situation? If the presumption is race related, and race was not a factor, where is the point founded?

B) Racism to begin with, is the notion that someone loves their race and believes it to be superior than others. When did I say anything that exclaimed that? Maybe you have racist views. The research paper  I shared spoke of the fallacy that racism is exclusively a white issue. That there are many races that have racist views against other races that have nothing to do with whites. How the idea that 'Racism = White Power' is wrong and oppressive to all sides.

I deleted your comment because it was inappropriate to a discussion. I messaged you immediately after and explained why I deleted it, and that if you want to have a discussion so be it, and I wouldn't tolerate someone telling me to "shut the f*ck up"

You have zero insight into how I view the world despite my efforts of giving you a glance via language. Perhaps you need to go read some papers, and be educated on the affects of early age trauma that happens to children, and what it does to a person as they grow up.

If you equate a deleted comment to that of slavery, I'm sorry but you have a lot to learn. It was your choice to be crass, and it was my choice to remove it. Comparing a the deletion of a Facebook comment to slavery... uh yea...

C) Perhaps if you had an iota of compassion or empathy for someone that has experienced a great deal of trauma in their lives, they wouldn't need to continually repeat themselves. You speak of my sensitivities to being told to "shut the f*ck up," and I could say the same of how sensitive you were to read the word "darker."

--
Which rules?
You mean be civil and stay on topic vs personally insulting someone to make a point?
That's not a rule, that is how a discussions work if they are going to make any kind of progress.

Your original post started with a reference to an article that told the story of a group of African-American men that were involved in a Syphilis study. You proceeded to tell me that you have worked with people and are better informed in the subject matter of policing. You then proceeded to tell me to shut the f*ck up because I didn't know what I was talking about.

It is sad that for the first time in this whole discussion when you break down your point and begin to bring to the table the parts that bother you, without the need to be insulting and so that we can have a discussion, you decide I'm too arrogant to speak with.

Am I impervious to racial views? Not at all. No one is. You too can be racist. In addition, anyone can be ignorant of their view as well. You filled in a lot of blanks without any kind of clarification.

My experience definitely altered my perspective of the world in comparison to the majority of the people I know. I supposed I should begin to find other people marginalized in similar ways and we could all connect on what it is like, and I could begin to better understand parts of who I am. Except I would never find my way out if I did that. I would become engrossed in it. It is only those who enter the unknown by leaving the comforts of their known, that return with stories to tell, and see the world differently. Much like I'm attempting here.

I was talking about how trigger sensitive the world is online, and you were talking about discrimination in the justice system. My use of language was very specific in intention and you bit the hook.

There were many hooks. Robin could have returned with "You're a bigot in your misunderstanding of the word judgement and guilt. So shut the f*ck up and get informed before you begin speaking on an online platform." and then proceeded to reference a website that explains the difference between the words judgement and guilt. A vegan friend could have done the same.

As for white guilt; "White guilt has been described as one of the psychosocial costs of racism for white individuals along with empathy (sadness and anger) for victims of racism and fear of non-whites."

I'm sorry, but my empathy extends beyond racism. I become depressed after every family meal because I look how much effort they put into make that event possible, and I don't know if I'll give be able to return the favor for all they've done for me. I get a feeling behind the back of my eyes when I see someone who is only trying to get by as a human, but for whatever reason is falling short. I empathize for the last person picked on a team, but gives 110% on the field. I empathize for the older woman that can't find her way home, and I appreciate those who have helped me find my way 'home'. I empathize with the stray pet that has become skittish because of how previous humans have treated it. I feel for the father that can't afford a vehicle, and he and his son are denied passage on a bus because he is carrying a bed frame.

What kinds of guilt are those? If I empathize with the Jewish population for what they experienced during the holocaust is that Nazi guilt? German guilt? What if I empathize for a woman who is beaten by her husband? What if I empathize with a child that was sexually assaulted at a young age? What names do those 'guilt' have?

'White guilt' is a very narrow lens to view the world through. Empathy extends beyond superficial characteristics.

It wasn't until days before my aunt passed away from cancer that in a room with my sisters and cousin she look at me and said "this guy needs to be cut a break" - By then her lips were turning blue from the lack of oxygen. She and the rest of my family would say I was lazy all throughout my teens and twenties. I would be grounded and yelled at for low school grades and missing so much school. Only when she was on her death bed that she have insight into what it was like to live the majority of my life.

It would appear you have yet to reach such a low point in your life to have taught you a kind of empathy for others. A kind of forgiveness and empathy to their situation. For one you repeatedly decided to use sensitive information as a means to attack with, and therefore you've proven no different than someone who judges someone based on their race.

People could probably learn a lot about social warfare by reading this entire thread. How easily someone uses one word to justify their reasoning for degrading someone else.

--

You're right, my surgeries are a result of a history of injustice. I could remain angry at the world for it, and attempt to destroy every part of it, but instead I realized that they too are human. They act out of fear. They act out of social pressure. They act out of misunderstandings. "To err is human, to forgive divine."

The best I can do is help those around me who are suffering. Help lift their spirits. Help give them hope.

"How about we start realizing what is keeping this world going are humans, you know, like the person looking back in the mirror when getting ready in the morning.
So there requires forgiveness of the faults of being human and empathy for their struggle.
It is never about making the "right" decision;
It is about making a better decision than yesterday.
What I've concluded as "better" is a decrease in suffering while increasing the opportunities to do better tomorrow."

Help people instead of hurt people.
How were your personal insults supposed to help me?
How is telling me to shut the f*ck up going to help?
How is saying I'm gutless going to help?
How is calling me a coward going to help?
How does patronizing me when I do research going to help?
How is telling me I need thicker skin going to help?

Now you're saying I'm arrogant and not worth talking to.

You're right I continually disclose my pain because I am at peace with it.
I wear it like a badge of honour because I learned to transform the pain into a story of triumph.
I learned to love my neighbor and forgive my and their transgressions.

When you're willing to open up, and tell your personal story, I'm willing to listen, and perhaps by doing so I can begin to see the lens you view the world through.

Your story. What growing up was like for you. How life knocked you down. How you found the strength to get up again.

You know what makes people's eyes glaze over? When I tell my story. I used to get upset about it. When I first discovered that the person that diagnosed me had lost their medical license. There was a class action lawsuit against him which was followed by rewriting the book on pediatric pathology. The surgeon was found in an article admitting to unnecessarily performing a similar operation on a new born baby boy. I was furious and I wanted blood. I wanted answers. I wanted to the truth. I was seeing red and I was on a quest to destroy anything in my way because of how unjust it all was.

Then the years that followed taught me that humans make mistakes. Sure I may have been misdiagnosed and all my surgeries were unnecessary, and because humans were ignorant I suffered for no reason at all. But my anger wasn't going to grow me a new large or small colon. My destroying the medical system wasn't going to remove my scars.I learned a lot. It caused a lot of self reflection and soul searching that I may have never otherwise went through.

Just because you viewed "darker complexion" as racist doesn't mean it is, especially in the context of the original thread, and the sub thread that made the reference. Just because you apply the term "white guilt" onto my situation doesn't mean it is being applied to the right context.

Your argument is that you have worked with people who have researched these things. You've defined yourself as an authority of these labels because someone passed down information to you. I'd argue the only people that can really make those assessments are the individuals that studied it and have all the details.

If I were to say "in Javascript to define a variable var, let, and const are used." Now that you have been informed of a fragment of the truth, does that make you an authority of all scripting languages? Because you became the authority here with people informing you of injustice. Maybe this post inspires you to go back to school and study this material in depth. Then instead of "he said she said" you can say "I studied and researched and my findings were acknowledged and peer reviewed."

If I were to present a hammer and one person used it to build a frame of a house, and the other used it to murder someone, does it mean the hammer is strictly a weapon and only a weapon? No it depends on the context it is being used that makes that definition. What was the context of the use of "darker"? It was to demonstrate the volatility of the subject matter. Funny the whole post was about "societal guilt" and you soon there after applied the phrase "white guilt."

You became the example and demonstrated the very need of the post by giving the word "darker" power and using it as a platform.
The same applies to the person from Newfoundland that finds the term "Newfie" offensive.
The same applies when someone is labeled gutless or a coward.