iane and Corey are joined by guests Greg Thomas and Mark Palmer in this groundbreaking discussion about racism, anti-racism, and racial integration, highlighting a number of critical views that have been largely missing from the larger conversation that’s been taking place culturally in recent weeks, months, and years.
Watch as we bring some integral understanding to ideas central to anti-racism and the pluralistic discourse itself — ideas like critical race theory, dismantling white supremacy, eradicating systemic racism, overcoming white fragility, and addressing social privilege. Which pieces we might want to include, and which do we likely want to transcend altogether?
We also address how the conversation about race can be easily reduced to a grievance discourse that fails to recognize the dignity, resilience, artistry, and spiritual power of the black community.
So enjoy the following discussion with Greg, Mark, Diane, and Corey as we try to create a space where we can unite multiple divergent perspectives on race and racism, expand our circles of care, and reignite our sense of shared humanity.
If you enjoy this episode, be sure to check out more episodes of Integral Justice Warrior. Watch them all for only $1!
Previous Episodes of Integral Justice Warrior
Accountability Matters: A Call for Ethics, Empathy, and Equality

About Greg Thomas
Greg Thomas has over 25 years of experience as a writer, producer, broadcaster and educator, and has been featured in publications as various as The Root, All About Jazz, Salon, London's Guardian Observer, the Village Voice, Africana, American Legacy, Savoy, New York's Daily News as well as the scholarly journal Callaloo. He was the Editor-in-Chief of Harlem World magazine from 2003-2006.

About Mark Palmer
Mark Palmer is a Principal with Metcalf & Associates and Global Leadership Coach for Abrasive Technology, Inc., providing leadership development, team building and organizational effectiveness. He is also co-author of the Innovative Leader Fieldbook and a founding member of the Integral Institute.

About Diane Hamilton
Diane is a uniquely gifted, playful, and awake group facilitator, consultant and teacher of Integral Spirituality and Zen. She is a lineage holder in the Soto Zen tradition, and has collaborated with the Integral Institute and Ken Wilber since 2004, developing the Integral Life Practice seminars and the Integral Spiritual Experience global events.

About Corey deVos
Corey W. deVos is Editor-in-Chief of Integral Life, as well as Managing Editor of KenWilber.com. He has worked for Integral Institute/Integal Life since Spring of 2003, and has been a student of integral theory and practice since 1996. Corey is also a professional woodworker, and many of his artworks can be found in his VisionLogix art gallery.
Well thanks for the feedback, but I have to say, this did not strike me as a wholly integral response. It felt needlessly aggressive, dismissive, and accusatory. I didn’t see any of the signatures of genuine integral engagement — no questions, no curiosity, no effort to enfold your view with others. Your paragraphs seem full of unipolar slogans that seem to be coming more from an anti-green, anti-left, and/or anti-state allergy. It seemed to come down to “your view isn’t my view, which means you are wrong.” Not a great way to have a conversation.
If you’d like to have an actual exchange in good faith, we can do that. We can go through each of your points one by one, and I am guessing we would probably find many areas of agreement. Because that is always where I like to start — with an agreement. But your comment did not seem to be an invitation to engage, but rather an opportunity to signal your own virtues. Otherwise you wouldn’t feel the need to lace your comments with personal insults, and would instead try asking clarifying questions in order to deepen the conversation and create more shared reality. It’s not too late for that, but this wasn’t a very good step forward.
In terms of your accusation that I am just so BLINDED by identity politics, I’d ask you to show me your evidence. I am deeply critical of identity politics, and have recorded dozens of hours with Ken and others criticizing id pol. But that doesn’t mean I can’t also acknowledge that, by it’s very nature, identity is political.
What I rail against is the idea that somehow the Boomers got all those problems with racism fully sorted out, and we should be happy with today’s state of affairs. When reality reminds us that yes, the Supreme Court only recently ruled that gay people cannot he fired for being gay. Yes, black people were being convicted and incarcerated at far higher rates than whites for similar offenses. That yes, crack cocaine, which often plagued black communities more than white, was punished far more severely than powder, which is more commonly associated with whites. That yes, crack in black communities was treated as a criminal/moral issue, while heroin and opiates in white communities is treated as a medical issue. That yes, the majority of people who were on death row but later exonerated happen to be black.
To pretend that these things are not problems, to pretend that bias is not still alive and well in many of our social institutions, just seems like putting your head in the sand. As I said in the talk, not all inequitable outcomes are due to bias. But bias always leads to inequitable outcomes.
Politics are always personal, which is why identity is inherently political. And, identity politics are almost always bullshit. Both can be true, and both usually are.
Your definition of “government” also seems somewhat narrow and reactionary, and I am not sure how much room for discussion that leaves us. Government is simply self-organization on a social scale, and the very best ones are intended to promote the public welfare and improve quality of life. You mention that Marxism has never worked, but neither has the sort of stateless libertarianism you seem to be advocating for. It’s almost like any governing or regulatory system that pushes any of these polarities too far is doomed to fail. Which is why the most successful economies, with the highest quality of life associated with them, are typically mixed economies.
You say “You all fail to understand Trump, focusing on the man rather than the movement that got him there.”
100% incorrect. I detest MAGA culture, but I am not ignoring the conditions that allowed it to emerge. I also detest most of WOKE culture, but I am also not ignoring the conditions that allowed IT to emerge, as you seem to be. So I would probably hold a mirror up to you statement, and ask you if you’ve actually thought that one all the way through.
MAGA and WOKE are two sides of an unhealthy and unintegrated polarity. We can attend to the deep features that are driving those groups, while also dismissing the surface structures associated with those groups.
So here’s my overall philosophy: I don’t think it’s wise to engage with people or ideas by starting with “you are completely wrong”. I think it’s much more skillful to actually come in good faith, to bring some epistemic humility and a healthy dose of curiosity, and to first try to work toward some sort of agreement. Some solid ground upon which both parties can stand and actually engage each other.
Which is why I try to meet these sorts of concepts, and really do the work to figure out what might be true, what might be partial, and what babies we might be able to rescue from the bathwater.
And when it comes to issues like “privilege” or “fragility” or things like that, there is a LOT of bathwater. But that doesn’t mean there’s not also an occasional baby to save. And I think I was very careful with my words while talking about these issues, doing my best to accurately locate them within the self-system and placing guardrails around them so they aren’t misused as they so commonly are.
For example, some thoughts about “white guilt”:
“White guilt" is just the flip side of “black resentment”, both of which are the result of the generational traumas that came from slavery and Jim Crow but have not been properly addressed at all during the neoliberal age. That’s how I see it anyway. It’s something to be taken seriously, I think, but carefully – and not to be written off if we want to actually begin healing these wounds. LL injuries require LL healing modalities, and recognizing that both guilt and resentment are natural reactions to trauma is a really good first step in that direction.
As far as I know, I don’t have any obviously oppressive ancestors in my lineage. However, I also understand that having so much insight into our own lineage is a fairly recent phenomenon. Additionally, I think that having a rational capacity to examine our own family history and heritage, and separate that from our ethnic heritage, is itself a developmental “privilege” that can only be acquired at a minimally orange altitude.
But I also think that there is a basic “ethnicity” layer of our identity stack that comes online before we have this rational capacity, and that layer is largely informed by and inherited from our surrounding culture, often in unconscious ways — especially for whites, since “white culture” is taken for granted as a cultural default, and because this aspect of our subjective identity is rarely made into an object for us by other people.
I’m going to repeat that, because it’s important, and it’s why so many people seem to miss the point — white people tend not to have this aspect of our identity made into an object for us by others. Don’t you think this factor — people repeatedly making an object out of your subject for you — would leave a mark upon our emerging identities, one way or the other?
So I think there is an aspect of “whiteness”, “blackness”, etc. that activates within our identity stack well before our ability to rationally self-reflect comes online, and this ethnic identity is largely shaped by whatever collective we happen to find ourselves in.
And this might be a somewhat easier conversation for you and I, since we have a bit more wood behind our arrows, as well as the relatively guilt-free heritage that we both seem to enjoy (though for me, one side of my family were contemporaneously racist, just not necessarily historically racist
) Many other whites, however, do have a family lineage that ties them directly to the eras of slavery/Jim Crow.
And while of course they themselves are not responsible for the actions of their ancestors, I also think that if you know that your own grandfather was a Nazi in 1942, some degree of family shame/guilt/embarrassment is probably going to naturally arise (there is a reason so many German families changed their names after WWII.) Especially if that Nazi grandpa left you an inheritance that makes your life that much more comfortable.
“White guilt” is that same natural response writ large, I think. It’s okay to be ashamed of your racist grandpa, even if you know that you yourself are not a Nazi.
And even if your or my own family history has an unblemished record, I think there is probably an active but largely unconscious layer of our own identities that remain totally undifferentiated from the specifics of our actual family karmas. It’s the part of me that would probably self-identify more as a “white American” more than as a “Dutch-American”. My sense is that most of this guilt/resentment lives within that particular strata, which is why we can have such a hard time locating or dispelling it when we are bringing more rational discernment to our own family history.
And here is my final and possibly most important point. Whenever we are talking about “collective” anything, I think we are actually talking about multiple concentric circles of “we”. So there is an aspect of my collective “we” that only extends to my family history. Within that circle, no, “we” did not enslave black people. But there are other circles of “we” that I belong to, that aren’t quite so cut-and-dry.
Is there a circle of my “we” that includes “all white people”? Probably, yes. And if I am standing in THAT circle, then I cannot say the same. Because this particular “we” DID oppress blacks, and both you and I are probably still members of that circle, even if we are simultaneously members of smaller/narrower/deeper circles that we attend to more regularly (family circles, generational circles, developmental circles, etc.)
Which means that if we are standing in one circle, we can feel no guilt, but if we step into another the guilt can be crushing.
Which is why the LL is so insanely difficult to work with. It’s slippery, and everyone enacts it in a subtly different way. And when the people in that LL are all convinced that their own views, political or otherwise, are substantially more important than they actually are, then we are left only with discord and more suffering.
I’d like to think we can do better than this.
@BobandAnne There is so much here that is problematic with your post that I could chime in on if I had the time. The issue, though, is that I don’t think you’re open to actually having a discussion and considering that your point of view may be more incorrect than what the IL folks provided in their webcast. This is an assumption I’m making based on the way you are writing: aggressively, grammatically incorrect (your use of caps is problematic), and showing no desire to learn about the thoughts and beliefs of those around you.
If there is anything that I feel is an absolutely requirement to play in this forum, it’s an openness to internalize someone else’s perspective. What if Corey is, in fact, more correct than you are in your assertions? Have you taken the time to do the self work to think about, “What if what I’m saying is wrong?” You seem to want us to listen to you without writing in a way that shows you are also willing to listen to us (ie, it’s dialogue that is emphasized on this forum rather than monologues). Corey stated pretty clearly that he’s willing to be in dialogue with you despite your aggressiveness and seeming desire to only convey your points without acknowledging that others have points that may be more valid than your own. Do you think that, as a species, humanity will survive if we’re unable to be open to the different points of views we all have? If so, why might you feel that you are unwilling to play your part?
There’s a lot of conspiracy theorizing going on here, too. That’s sad because we can’t help you with that; only you can. Once someone goes down that rabbit-hole, psychologically speaking, all bets are off based on current psychological research. What I would offer for you to consider is this: how do you determine these things to be true? What makes them feel authoritative to you? Does holding these beliefs help you to feel better? Do they make you feel worse? Do they help you to form lasting, healthy relationships with people? Or do they lead you to increased isolation from the rest of the world, in favor of the group that affirms your beliefs? Can you find the courage to step outside of your cognitive comfort zone to truly consider beliefs that are not your own?
I’ll close by offering for you to consider taking some time to get to your own root cause for these beliefs you list… and then think about whether or not there is more good in you exploring what you value rather than what you believe in or don’t believe in. Because that’s where I think we all will find common ground. As it stands, the way you are approaching this forum–from your aggressiveness to your quality of writing to your desire for us to simply agree with you sans real dialogue–is not doing you any favors, my friend.
Thanks for your engagement Cory. I honor you.
Your statement that my feedback was not wholly integral shows just how much you are caught up in the Identity of Integral.
We do not agree so we will not start off in agreement. It is your belief that we must start in agreement.
I am not my beliefs. I am not my identity. I am not my agreements. I am not my disagreements.
I am Responsible to take good care of my self (Interest), to do all that I agree to do and to not encroach on Others or their Property.
Can we begin by agreeing to this?
Yes, I am a very aggressive gerl when it comes to the Sacredness of Speech. I thoroughly enjoy communion, sharing my thoughts, Ideas, and Concepts. It is fun. I like fun. I am very good at it too. Although I do not enjoy echo chambers and find them very dangerous.
I honor all Communion (Speech), and especially Communion (Speech) that I disagree with. I would never silence those with whom I disagree. EVER and I would never label the speech I disagree with as hateful and try to silence it.
All speech should be allowed, even hate speech. Speech is not Actions. I am not talking about the harm caused by panicking someone by yelling fire in a theator.
Yes, I dismiss the argument that we as a Culture are Racist and this is Systemic.
It is Completely False.
It is a Marxist Plank to systemically change our Culture in a direction towards Increased Slavery to the State.
Yes, there are people that are racist.
I have met some very racist brown people so white people do not have a monopoly on racism.
I personally have never met a racist white person, probably because they would be terrified of being corrected, ostracized and shamed for their stupid belief.
Racism is a belief just like Religion and Government.
I am not my beliefs. I know this is true because my beliefs have changed in Time.
You wrote
“I didn’t see any of the signatures of genuine integral engagement — no questions, no curiosity, no effort to enfold your view with others.
Then you contradict this statement by saying”
“We can go through each of your points one by one, and I am guessing we would probably find many areas of agreement.”
Please define for me Integral Engagement, and how that is different than the engagement we are engaged in? What is LL?
I have gone through my comments and I found these questions which display “curiosity” am I mistaken?
Perhaps it is that you do not like or approve of my questions and therefore are not curious about them and dismiss them aggressively?
Here are some of the Curious Questions I asked most you ignored focusing on doubling down on your Belief about Systemic Racism and White Privilege and White Guilt.
Is there “Systemic/Institutionalized Individual Racism” in our Police Force?
why would she [Diane] tell us about the real Privilege found in Government?
what needs to be Equal?
Should Gregg’s superior Jazz skills be taken from him to create “equality” for me?
In regard to this question, I have another question for you and your guests. What is the differences between skills that produce music and skills that produce Purchasing Power? Is there a real difference?
What are Rights?
Do Any White Folks believe they are Supreme? And let me further ask, Do you know any WF that believe they are Supreme and do they engage in encroachment on those they deem less than or their Property?
In regards to my Racist old woman and Punk, I asked Which one engaged in Wrong Behavior?
So what about the Social Justice Warrior today? Are they wrong for encroaching on others in violence because they have money or a certain skin color?
Collective Shame??? Ridiculous.
Why are there no fathers in Black Families? How did this happen? Crickets here.
Will Freedom ( Capitalism ) or Slavery ( Marxism ) win?
Was Qualified Immunity dismantled for Prosecuting Attorney’s? Politicians? Government Agents? Or Just local police?
What is Government? Perhaps I should ask, What does Government Engage to acquire Compliance?
Do you think that if Hitler were killed as a child, that the Not See movement would have never arisen?
Could you provide Evidence of which statements are Slogans?
Labeling a comment as “slogans” is a fallacious argument, Incomplete Comparison and Strawman
When I decided to learn about Logical Fallacies, I was completely SHOCKED to find how much of my communication engaged Logical Fallacies, and still is. It is a constant and conscious effort to avoid them.
I was also shocked to find Media, Institutions and Government constantly engage in Logical Fallacies.
This is one of my favorite lists with definitions https://www.scribd.com/doc/55849450/Logical-Fallacies-Intellectual-Self-Defense
I am anti Green New Marxist Deal. I am anti Corrupt State. I am Anti-Marxist anything. I am Anti-Corruption anything.
I am not against Clean Air, Clean Water, helping the poor and downtrodden I am not against education, health care or welfare. I am against the Government borrowing money to do these things and then taxing my Income, my Production, My Property, to pay for their borrowed money. The Federal Government Prints Money. They could print 6% above GDP to pay for all of the welfare, schools, sanitation stations and welfare they wanted to.
The Free Market West has the cleanest air and water, helps generously the poorest and downtrodden. Free Market Principles have taken the greatest number of people of all colors out of poverty.
Free Market Principles have fed the most people.
Free Market Principles have healed the most people.
Free Market Principles Have Increased the Purchasing Power of the Most Colorful People who are Privileged to Live in Free Markert Societies.
I am against Treating All Rich People like they are evil and deserving of having all their property taken from them because they have more than someone else.
Marxism is based on the Principle of Coveting.
Free Markets are based on the Principle of Lawful Self Interest through Contracts and Courts.
It is an error in Thinking to demonize the rich. If being rich were a skin color, you would be guilty of the worst kind of Racism. Shame on You. LOL.
I am not my feelings of Shame.
I am against, Left and Right Marxist Government Corruption.
The Right is also filled with Marxist Believing Corrupt Career Politicians and Career Bureaucrats, the left does not have a monopoly on this error in thinking.
Cory, how Do Those in Government Become Corrupted???
You desire to have the Powers of Government handed over to people who think like you.
So How do those in Government become Corrupted?
and
What can we do to Reduce Corruption?
It is not getting rid of the state/government, I can assure you of that.
I do not want the Government Powers to be handed over to me or people who think like me.
I do not believe we need a group of People with rights that no one else has. This guarantees inequality will prevail.
I define Government as the Legal Right To Initiate Violent Force and the Legal Right To Engage In Coercion.
Do I have a right to Initiate Violent Force?
Do I have a right to engage in Coercion?
Does anyone but Government?
If Government has a Right no one else has, that is Inequality.
The Government is the biggest perpetuator if Inequality and you and your friends want to take over Government Rights to create equality.
Good luck with that.
How does “Government” a collective of Individuals either as Politicians or as Bureaucrats, how do they make everyone do what they write as laws if everyone does not agree?
Violent Force and Coercion a right no one else has except for Government.
If your foundation is based on inequality, do you think you will achieve equality?
Certainly, the case is true for Soviet Union under Lenin and Stalin. Germany under Hitler. Cambodia under Pol Pot, China under Moa, numerous South American Countries. Their foundations crumbled underneath them and many people of many colors suffered terribly.
Marxist Government has killed so many 100’s of millions of people who disagreed with them.
When you put words in quotation, it leads the reader to believe that you are directly quoting. You said
“It seemed to come down to “your view isn’t my view, which means you are wrong.” Not a great way to have a conversation.”
I never said that you are wrong.
I do completely disagree with your premise on Racism.
Is this an echo chamber?
I conclude that if you want to bring about lasting change that results in increased freedom then you will forever FAIL if you do not Properly Identify the Problem.
I point out that you do not Properly Identifying the Real Problem and focus on a problem that is insignificant in relation to the Real Problem.
Label those of a Generation as Boomers, Millennials, Gen X Gen Z is labeling Identify Politics. It is normal to group things in an easy to identify lablel.
Those people in the 1960’s failed to create more freedom for everyone because they did not Properly Identify the Problem, which was a Corrupt Government.
Let us not forget that the Democrats created and faught to create and keep Jim Crow Laws and the Left is engaged in Segregation Today against white people. They allowed the KKK Militia to intimidate and kill their Political Opponents just as BLM and Antifa of Today.
The Problem in the 1960; s was the Legal Right to Initiate Violent Force and Engage in Coercion by Career Politicians and Bureaucrats, just as it is today.
Freedom is a virtue I spoke of. Non-Violence, honesty, non-encroachment. Yes, I spoke of these virtues. They are relevant to the conversation.
Definition of virtue
1a: conformity to a standard of right : MORALITY
b: a particular moral excellence
2: a beneficial quality or power of a thing
3: manly strength or courage : VALOR
4: a commendable quality or trait : MERIT
5: a capacity to act : POTENCY
6: chastity especially in a woman
virtue signaling
noun Sometimes Disparaging.
the sharing of one’s point of view on a social or political issue, often on social media, in order to garner praise or acknowledgment of one’s righteousness from others who share that point of view, or to passively rebuke those who do not:
Definition of signal (ing)
1: SIGN, INDICATION
2a: an act, event, or watchword that has been agreed on as the occasion of concerted action
b: something that incites to action
3: something (such as a sound, gesture, or object) that conveys notice or warning
4a: an object used to transmit or convey information beyond the range of human voice
b: the sound or image conveyed in telegraphy, telephony, radio, radar, or television
c: a detectable physical quantity or impulse (such as a voltage, current, or magnetic field strength) by which messages or information can be transmitted
Definition of insult
(Entry 1 of 2)
transitive verb
: to treat with insolence, indignity, or contempt : AFFRONTalso : to affect offensively or damagingly
I am not responsible for your feelings or beliefs.
If I insulted you, please quote me so that I may identify the error in my speech and correct it.
You Said I did not ask curious questions, of which I have shown that I asked many, perhaps they are not the questions you would ask, but they are genuine questions many of which you did not answer, rather, you have chosen to be offended and make your feelings “insulted”
Are you responsible for how I feel?
You said,
“try asking clarifying questions in order to deepen the conversation and create more shared reality. It’s not too late for that, but this wasn’t a very good step forward.”
We share this reality, regardless of agreement or feeling good. By putting forth my comments I have engaged in speech with you and your fellows.
It is your opinion that my comments were not very good.
Opinions do not make reality and are just that. Your statement is a funny kind of Manipulation.
To navigate through reality, I manipulate many things. I manipulate energy to cook my food. I manipulate my keyboard to form words to convey ideas and concepts. I manipulate my muscles to move through space and time. I manipulate gifts that please another I feel good. Sometimes I error in my manipulations.
To err is human and that is how I learn.
I am not my identity.
Referring to Boomers is an example of Identity Politics.
Boomers were not the only generation present during the 1960’s. Many people were present of many identities and generations and as a collective accomplished many good things at that time.
It became socially unacceptable to engage in Racist beliefs. This was HUGE and accomplished more than any law passed by the Government.
I never said I was happy with todays state of affairs. We have a Problem. A really big and Bad problem in Government, not racism.
The Supreme Court Ruled that Slavery was legal in the past. They were wrong.
The Judicial System has become thoroughly corrupted with Executive and Legislative Appointments for Life and only favor Government over the People. We must abolish this and replace it with the Scottish model where Judges are voted on by Lawyers and have Term Limits. This would reduce Judicial Corruption that favors Government.
I believe that a business can hire and fire anyone they want for any reason they want, it is a contract, and the contract is all I care about. If a business discriminates against anyone group, they will lose market share and they will fail.
The Problem with Corporations is when they use their vast purchasing power (wealth) to purchase Legal Monopolies and other Government Laws and Favors through campaign donations (bribe) to Corrupt Career Politicians who make the laws supposedly for the Majority, but, like everyone, Politicians act out of Self Interest.
The Government passes laws that benefit them. This is Inequality.
Qualified Immunity is Inequality.
The Greatest Contributor to Inequality is Government.
What is a right?
A Right is what Everyone Has.
Clinton smuggled a whole lot of cocaine into Arkansas, that was sold to minority groups, tax free and Prohibition Inflated Prices.
I know lots of whites that consumed crack and the rich ones purchased lawyers to keep their interest out of jail and the poor ones sat in prison with their poor brown victimless consumers because of Laws passed by Career Politicians and Bureaucrats in Government a favor to drug companies, police unions, guard unions, prison unions alcohol companies, drug testing companies, diversion companies all invested in by Career Politicians who act out of their own self interest.
There are factions in the Government besides Clinton that profited off those drug deals and there are plenty of other examples.
I have not investigated the races of death row. I am certain that there will be far more whites than blacks just because there are more whites than blacks in the US.
Last year, there were 40 unarmed people killed by police, 10 were black, 20 were white and 10 were another color.
I will investigate death row races. If you have references that look at total populations and not just exonerated, I would be interested in the data.
I am not pretending that there are not biased people or people that believe they are superior to others not of their clan. This is a normal human behavior. People believe in all kinds of things.
Belief is not the problem.
Initiating Violent Force and Engaging In Coercion is a very serious problem and it lies squarely in Government.
Currently, if someone initiates Violent Force, encroaches, or uses coercion in a racist way, the victim can take them to court to seek remedy.
Those that do not get prosecuted are those in Government, Qualified Immunity. A right given to Government but not Us of the multi colored Majority/Masses/Unwashed in their eyes.
Lets talk about Privilige and where it really is. Government.
I am not putting my head in the sand. Everyone has Bias. You have Bias. I have Bias. We all have Bias.
Bias is not the problem.
Initiating Violent Force and Engaging In Coercion in the name of ones bias IS the problem.
ALL Inequitable outcomes are due to Inequality of Rights.
Rights are what everyone has.
When the Government gives itself Rights that No Other Group Can Have, THIS CREATES INEQUALITY.
Corporations, the Rich, Purchase Government Rights and privileges.
This Creates Inequality.
Not all corporations engage in this behavior. Not all rich engage in this behavior.
Why are Officers of the Police who kill people who have no weapon allowed to stay on the Police Force? Do you know?
It is Unions that give Police Force Much of their Policies and are responsible for this policy.
Unions are The Biggest Donors of Career Politicians. Career Politicians set Police Force Policy.
Unions will only give campaign money (bribes) to Career Politicians who favor their Policies.
This is Corruption.
Unions usually only support Democrats and most unions are Marxist.
The Root Word of Politics is Polit, it means Citizen.
Definition of citizen
1: an inhabitant of a city or townespecially : one entitled to the rights and privileges of a freeman
2a: a member of a state
b: a native or naturalized person who owes allegiance to a government and is entitled to protection from it
How interesting, we are talking about Rights of a Freeman with in a city or State.
How very interesting.
Sounds like we should all be talking about Politics.
How is that Politics is banned from the dinner table when it affects everyone everywhere?
Yes, Politics is very personal. So is Identity.
I am not my politics. I am not my identity. These are Beliefs and we all have beliefs. Some are true and real, and some are false and illusion.
Having a belief is not the problem.
Initiating Violent Force and Engaging In Coercion in promoting ones beliefs is a problem.
Giving a Legal Right to Initiate Violent Force and Engage In Coercion to one group of individuals is what Creates Inequality.
Integral Life is a social self-organized collective also.
Does Integral Life have the Legal Right to Initiate Violent Force or Engage In Coercion to get people to do what you advocate?
I define Government by how it gets individuals to do what it advocates.
Looking at the root word of Government we have Gubern which is to steer/guide/control and Ment which is Mind.
How does the Government Steer/guide/control our minds?
They could convince, show by example, teach, but rather, they pass laws backed up by the Threat of Violent Force. A Threat is Coercion.
I assure you that I have studied Government for over 17 years, and it is not narrow nor reactionary. It comes from direct experience and deep study of Law.
Here is another Logical Fallacy, you said,
“You mention that Marxism has never worked, but neither has the sort of stateless libertarianism you seem to be advocating for.”
First of all, I never advocated for a stateless libertarianism (again, identity politics, you love these labels)
I want a lawful state that protects rights and does not promote inequality or initiate violence or engage in coercion.
I want a government that protects contracts and has lawful Courts for Remedy in a Breah of Contract. A return of Tort Law.
I want a government that prosecutes crimes that have victims. I want a Government that does not prosecute victimless crimes which are not crimes.
I want a government that does not have qualified immunity for any reason.
I do not believe in Government.
I believe in Discovering Truth and Following Natural Law.
I believe that I am responsible to take care of myself (interest) by doing all that I agree to do (contract Law) and By not Encroaching On others nor their Property (criminal Law) and if someone breaches a contract or encroaches on me or my property, I want a lawful court that protects individual rights to seek remedy.
When a Government and its court system Protects Individual Rights over Group Rights, they can protect the Majority of the Colorful Masses.
Yes. I have yet to read about or see a successful Marxist Government because the Marxist always seem to ignore human nature, that is the invisible hand of the Economy, Self Interest.
They believe they can create Equality by Giving the Right To control the money, and production to Government, Tax the rich and give it to the poor, creating equality of purchasing power through impoverishing everyone.
They believe the Mantel of Government does gets rid of the individuals Self Interest.
By Giving Rights to Government no others have, this creates the nightmares of history.
Marxist are clueless about how the Economy really works and how humans really work. They believe that they can use the Legal Right To Violent Force and Coercion to force everyone to be equal and it NEVER Works.
Why???
Because of Self Interest.
Again, “MAGA culture” is Identity Politics. I am certain the Majority of People who voted for Trump detest Maga culture as much as you do. It is Propaganda.
Most people lied in the Polls because they did not want to be harassed. I know many Trump Voters that are Democrat blacks and Mexicans that to this day will say they hate the guy and did not vote for him.
People of the Multicolored Majority Voted for Trump because they are SICK and TIRED of Corrupt Career Politicians who ONLY look out for their self-interest.
Trump is a Businessman not a career politician. So, he will vote in favor of his self-interest, which is Business, and this benefits ALL business which employ the most people of the Masses.
He lowered taxes, he got rid of business crushing regulations. He accomplished Prison Reform and that is going to get him the black vote you watch and see.
People will always vote out of their own self-interest.
The Conditions that created Trump is those that hate him, the Corrupt Career Politicians and Corrupt Career Government Bureaucracy. You seem to completely dismiss this or are ignorant of this. To be ignorant of something is fine.
I am not my Knowledge. I am not my ignorance.
I love mirrors.
I am a mirror for you to gaze deeply into.
I am another you. Inlakesh.
Polarity is a force vector, a motion in a direction. All directions lead to the same place, integration.
LOL. Oh, my Corey, you make me laugh. You said.
So, here’s my overall philosophy: I don’t think it’s wise to engage with people or ideas by starting with “you are completely wrong”.
Please show me in my communication where I said “you are completely wrong”
Some people have more skill than others. Skill is always unequal. Not everyone has the same skills. Therefore Skills should not be included in the Definition of what are Rights and has no place in the conversation about equality.
I will do all that I agree to do, and I will not Encroach on you or your property. This we can agree to. Yes? Yes!
Truth is that which is.
Truth is Objective and not based on Perceptions It is Immutable. It can be discovered. It is that which has occurred in the past and is occurring right now.
Natural is inherent having a basis in Nature and not made or caused by man.
Law is an existing condition which is binding and immutable, it cannot be changed or added to. Mark Paseo of What on Earth Is Happening. I do not agree with a lot of what Mark teaches and find him abrasive and abusive, but this is Pure Truth and Golden.
The challenge for me, and all humans is to align our perceptions with Truth and to understand and follow Natural Law.
White Guilt and Black Resentment are Induced states of Believing by those in Government. This induction begins in Preschool and goes on into College and higher education. This induction is also engaged in by Media of all sorts.
No one today that is Rioting has ever lived under slavery as we see in History nor have they lived under Jim Crow laws that have been abolished.
Those who lived through this have probably died and those living would probably think you were crazy to suggest we were living under those conditions today. That is unless they are a Marxist and then there is an agenda to the “trauma”.
You suffer terribly from this error in thinking about White Guilt.
I hope one day you will recognize it for what it is. Government Propaganda to control your mind.
Family History? Are you kidding me? I am a typical American family. My Great Grandma was full blooded black foot Indian. My other Great Grandma was Italian. I have another great grandma that was Danish, and another that was English and another that was French and another that was Swedish. One sister married a black man and another one married a Mexican man. Most Black Americans have TONS of white in them so are they suffering from white guilt and black resentment.
Good Lord. Are you serious?
Having a relative that believes they are superior to black people and having relatives that commit acts of violence against black people are two completely different things.
It is not wrong to believe stupid things.
People do believe stupid things.
The Belief in Government is one of them, and Government is far more deadly to people than any one stupid believing individual.
It is wrong to Initiate Violent Force and Engage In Coercion and we have given this as a right to government.
Now that is INSANE. That Perpetuates Inequality. It codifies Inequality and legalizes Inequality.
Family history is filled with people who have done great things and terrible things. I am not my history and I am not responsible for the good or the bad done by my family in the past.
I am only responsible for what I do.
Are you saying that because some white people did bad things to some other people in the past that we do not have a right to Identity? Culture? Ethnicity?
I am not my identity, nor my society nor my culture. I am not my skin color. I am not an object, but I do have many objects that are my property. My money, production, income is my property. My body is my property.
I am not my property.
I am not what other people say, think or believe about me.
There is nothing wrong with having an Identity, or a culture, or a society. There is nothing wrong with having a heritage.
What is wrong is Initiating Violent Force and Engaging in Coercion in the name of these things.
You should do more research on who were slave owners. Far less people owned slaves than you believe. Remember, most people were subsistence living and could not afford slaves let alone maintain them. Slaves were expensive and expensive to feed and take care of. Only the Uber Rich owned slaves.
When you say that Many other whites do have slavery lineage you are in error. A small minority of people owned slaves for slaves were very expensive.
Jim Crow were laws passed in the 20th century by Democrats which is NOT most Whites and the Republicans opposed Jim Crow Laws and they also are not most whites. Most whites do not even vote like most blacks and it was Career Politicians in Government that passed Jim Crow Laws.
Just to be clear, I do not identify with either Democrats or Republicans. Both sides are corrupted with Career Politicians and both sides hand out Government Favors to the Highest Bidder and pass laws out of their own self-interest.
Shaming an individual works far more effectively to create a change in error thinking than passing any number of laws that Initiate Violence and Engage Coercion. However, I must point out that shaming is a coercion.
I think education and Free Markets would go even further.
Of course, if you have a relative that was a Nazi, out of self-interest you probably would not disclose such information and would denounce the Not Sees.
It is always so easy to see the German Not See behavior, but it is so hard so see it when you Do Not See.
You Do Not See reality as it is, you see it as you want it to be because of your induced white male guilt and self-hate.
Sorry Corey, I completely disagree with you.
I am not my Families success or Failures.
I have no guilt because someone in my family did something wrong to another person in the past.
I recognize that it is wrong to encroach, initiate violence and engage in coercion it is wrong to steal and lie it is wrong to murder and I would not engage in those behaviors out of my own self-interest for those behaviors come with immutable consequences regardless of ones belief.
Belief is Irrelevant.
Looking at history, each new present seems to be improved over the past but there is always some new error to identify and correct.
Instead of being so obsessed with the past and linking to that as an Identity of White Guilt or Black Resentment, better to identify how slavery is being in engage in today.
The 16th amendment is a legal form of Slavery.
Let’s talk about that for that affects all colors and classes of people.
You want to do something about Inequality. Start with the Government.
This is way too much for me to possibly respond to, so I will just say that I hope we can find more shared reality together as we go, and agree to disagree when we can’t. I personally think it’s a bit naive to assume that racism has completely evaporated from the American LL.
Sure. It seems to me that Integral Engagement requires good faith, curiosity, openness, and restraint when it comes to personal insults, character judgments, and ad hominem arguments. People can have different views without being “blind”, “failures”, or brainwashed. No one’s views are 100% accurate, as all of us are creating our own Rorschachian narratives based on the partial and fragmented data we have access too, as filtered through our own kosmic address. And we’ve somehow been convinced that our views are far more important and complete than they are.
So I deliberately try to create the most comprehensive possible view for myself, one that fully acknowledges and integrates both sides of a given polarity whenever I find one, while also weighing individual expressions of that polarity in terms of how significant and/or fundamental the expression is (what altitude it is coming from, and whether it is adequate enough to handle a given level of complexity.) And I try to confront as many of my own shadows as I possibly can, so I know that my view isn’t being occluded by some allergy (anti-left, anti-right, ant-green, anti-amber, anti-state, etc.) I try to approach all arguments in good faith, and even if I cannot agree about the surface features I try to find the deep features where maybe we can create a bit more shared reality.
So, when black people collectively get together to tell the rest of us “we are suffering, please help”, everything inside me tells me that saying “no you aren’t, get over it” is NOT a very integral response. The prescriptions coming from the left may sometimes be bad, but that doesn’t mean the problem isn’t real.
“Should Gregg’s superior Jazz skills be taken from him to create “equality” for me?”
This is a total straw man, sorry to say. No one is saying anything like that. As far as I can tell, you are making the opposite error as the left — they say “there is no such thing as growth hierarchies, they are all dominator hierarchies.” You are saying “there is no such thing as dominator hierarchies, they are all growth hierarchies.” Guess what, you’re both half-right!
Just like when Ken says “the people who think systemic racism has been eliminated, and the people who think it is everywhere, are both right!” Because Ken knows that the issues of racism, sexism, xenophobia, etc. are still alive and well in this country, but the battlefield has moved from the LR to the LL.
So no one here is arguing what you think we are arguing for. There is a big difference between “equalizing Greg’s jazz talents” and, say, black women dying in childbirth 3x more frequently than white women. One is the result of growth hierarchy, and the other is a genuine victim of dominator hierarchies. Unless you saying that black women are just naturally better at dying?
Hello to you Mbohu; nice to bump into you again here on these pages. Hope all has been well for you. No I didn’t see the video you’re referencing, but trauma dissociative responses do seem a little rampant these days in the heat of all that is going on. I’ve been reading a new history of the Lakota Indians covering the period from the early 1600s onward, and talk about historical collective (and also generational) trauma–not just for the Indians, but the Europeans as well. I doubt there are many places on this earth one can place a foot that hasn’t been drenched in blood. I once did a vision-and-dialogue exercise on a relatively private California beach lined with eucalyptus and pine trees that was being considered for a hotel development, asking the land what it wanted. It answered “Blood!” Doing some research later, I learned the site had once been a whaling port, so perhaps the land had gotten used to the blood; it is a good fertilizer, I suppose.
Fortunately, we’ve come a long ways from hatchets and gun powder balls, at least in parts of the world, but surely, we have a long ways yet to evolve. Should such an opportunity be granted; nothing these days seems a sure thing. Ain’t that edgy?!