Go make your own statue

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/14/opinion/why-the-nazis-came-to-charlottesville.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

Very true.

Have you noticed how this conversation has progressed. It has gotten behind the attitude and down to the heart. I have so much respect for all of you, having lived and breathed with roofers for 10 years no comparision to your lifetime. Gentlemen you all deserve recognition that is rarely given. You work hard either on the roof or at a desk.

Where do you want your statue?

egg Said: I acknowledge the point you were making, Tim, and couldnt in good conscience even pretend to argue with it. Moving outside its arc a bit though while reflecting on a wide array of social ills we are facing (in my opinion) which only tangentially involve the discussion taking place in this thread, I have to say that one of my pet peeves is when someone, anyone, thinks that something which needs to be done is beneath him or her. Im not including you in my list of someones, either. One of the things I like most about you is that you walk the talk and you appear to me to have spent your whole life being totally hands-on.

Thats what we need. A whole nation of people willing to do the work that has to be done because it has to be done, not because it pays more or carries a higher level of social esteem. There is nothing more noble than simply doing what needs to be done, whatever that happens to be at the moment. Every new generation brings a whole new crop of people that have to be drilled in basic values. No values, no luck.

If we hope to make America great again it has to go deep. If we take an entire generation of spoiled, unprincipled, self-centered young people and give them all 80k jobs selling medical equipment, real estate, stocks, pharmaceuticals, etc. why on earth would we blather on and tell the vast majority ff the people using shovels and picks and pruning knives to go back to where they came from and leave us alone to pump our own sewage and shop in the malls for cheap Chinese goods? Everything is connected.

Agreed, well said.

One of my biggest fears in life is becoming lazy. I get up at around 4am every morning, I do something for the company 7-days a week. I don't have to get up at 4, but it reminds me not to get lazy. Yesterday I picked up a penny from the parking lot at 7-Eleven. It hurts to bend over like that, I have an artificial leg with a hydraulic knee, the other knee has a ruptured ACL and 2 torn MCLs, and constant lower back pain due to abdominal muscles torn apart in a car wreck that don't support my pelvis. And we collect our loose change in a gallon jug and give it away to a needy family at Christmastime, so the penny has no spending power for me, but picking up the pennies grounds me - reminds me that I'm not too good to pick up a penny.

Do any of you see the common denominator here? WE are white, and I hate filling out applications determining my origin, I personally leave it blank. I don't want to be labelled as white , I am a person, living breathing person, that's it. Until we all come to that conclusion we will get nowhere

I came across a great picture so suitable to topic and don't have a clue how to post it. It is of Gettysburg , a statue and in the grace of sunlight.

I acknowledge the point you were making, Tim, and couldn't in good conscience even pretend to argue with it. Moving outside its arc a bit though while reflecting on a wide array of social ills we are facing (in my opinion) which only tangentially involve the discussion taking place in this thread, I have to say that one of my pet peeves is when someone, anyone, thinks that something which needs to be done is beneath him or her. I'm not including you in my list of someones, either. One of the things I like most about you is that you walk the talk and you appear to me to have spent your whole life being totally hands-on.

That's what we need. A whole nation of people willing to do the work that has to be done because it has to be done, not because it pays more or carries a higher level of social esteem. There is nothing more noble than simply doing what needs to be done, whatever that happens to be at the moment. Every new generation brings a whole new crop of people that have to be drilled in basic values. No values, no luck.

If we hope to "make America great again" it has to go deep. If we take an entire generation of spoiled, unprincipled, self-centered young people and give them all 80k jobs selling medical equipment, real estate, stocks, pharmaceuticals, etc. why on earth would we blather on and tell the vast majority ff the people using shovels and picks and pruning knives to go back to where they came from and leave us alone to pump our own sewage and shop in the malls for cheap Chinese goods? Everything is connected.

egg Said: Tim, I damn sure DO do that type of work regularly but I grant that a few people like me are exceptions to the norm. I actually enjoy mopping and tear off and Im extremely good and efficient at both. .

Well of course there are exceptions. It would be physically impossible for me to do the physical work I did as a roofer in 1982. I'm pretty sure that most of us - on our very best day - couldn't unload 550 100lb bags of granules from a wheat truck and cart them thru a long warehouse hallway and stack them neatly on pallets nonstop for 24 hours. Let alone doing that when we're in our 50's+. Just not possible. I know I couldn't. I doubt seriously that 5% of people could do that on their best day.

That's my point, that most of us have young grunts who do the heavy lifting these days. Those jobs are typically for the unskilled and uneducated, regardless of their ethnicity.

The point of the article is that racism was set up by the ruling establishment to divide and conquer by pitting working whites against their black counterparts .the same game continues today by pitting the working whites against the immigrants while the establishment can enrich itself in peace. "..As a result, the working population in late-17th Century Virginia was quite diverse, including white indentured servants, black and Native American slaves, and free whites who had completed their term of service. Outnumbered, plantation owners grew increasingly fearful of threats to their political control. In particular, there was the danger of a cooperative insurrection across racial lines. The solution was to divide and conquer. Through new laws passed by the Virginia assembly, plantation owners consciously encouraged racial hatred between blacks and poor whites. First, the distinction between freedom and enslavement was specified in explicitly racial, rather than religious, terms. The Virginia assembly established in 1667 that converting to Christianity did not change the condition of blacks and Native Americans in bondage. Previously, some black and native people who could prove that they had been baptized had successfully sued for freedom. Second, the assembly created social distinctions between white servants and black slaves. In 1680, the Virginia assembly passed new legislation preventing “any negroe or other slave” from raising a hand to any white person, a measure that put servants on a par with their masters in their impunity for abuse of enslaved people, and stripped enslaved people of any right of self-defense. In 1691, laws punishing intermarriage between whites and blacks were put in place. Finally, in 1705, the assembly decided that, while white servants could own property, all property owned by slaves was to be seized and sold, with profits “applied to the use of the [white] poor.” Thus the white poor materially benefited from additional oppressions put upon black slaves. In this way, the legal construction of racism helped diffuse the threat of insurrection. Poor white people would now see themselves as allied with those far wealthier than themselves, and would define themselves by race rather than by class..."

Tim, I damn sure DO do that type of work regularly but I grant that a few people like me are exceptions to the norm. I actually enjoy mopping and tear off and I'm extremely good and efficient at both.

Twill, thanks for significant expansion of the scope.

Alba Said: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2017/08/15/when-white-supremacy-came-to-virginia/amp/

Vanessa Williamson suffers a bad case of white guilt. Her article totally ignores the fact that the first and the largest owner of slaves in the U.S. was a black man.

It is a bit of a stretch but not totally divorced from roofing contractors. There is a certain class of employee who does the spudding, the hot-mopping, the shoveling gravel. Oh the owner might boast that he is not above that work, but he damn sure doesn't do it regularly.

People are more separated by class than by ethnicity. And that usually is a factor of a sorting-out process, not by some preconceived notion that a certain race of people should do certain jobs. They are sorted according to their skillset and their actions in society. Blacks are historically less educated, thus they settle to the low-end jobs. Blacks have been duped by black leaders to think they are owed something they don't have, and that mindset holds them down the same way it holds down some white trash hillbilly who was never taught to work his way up.

Alba Said: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2017/08/15/when-white-supremacy-came-to-virginia/amp/

Good read

My apologies, you are correct, I misquoted you. I don't like agreeing with people I disagree with but here we go. I do agree that a formidable black leader would be advantageous to the young black people not just men, to them as a people. Martin Luther was that, I admired him and I think he was a trememdous loss. I found him an inspiration I can only imagine the thoughts knowing he was killed by a white man.

In the 70's I was hitchhicking from Florida to NYC, trucker stopped at a place in Maryland. My one and only true experience of seperate doors for entry and a window to order food. I was appalled and missed breakfast that day.

Roofguy, you said it yourself we were told to stay away from the black kids.

I didn't say we were told to stay away from the black kids, I said that we learned to. We learned this on our own thru experience. In fact my parents couldn't have taught that to us, they were raised in a different time in our hometown where black people were not a factor. My mom's hometown of Iola, KS, until the 60's, still had a sign at the edge of town that said: N#####, Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Ya! They truly were racists in that town.

Black leaders have failed black youth, making them bitter by bomarding them at every turn that whites are the reason they don't have anything.

Alba I read the post and it reminded me of my Mom. As a young girl 0f 15 (Scotland) she entered "the service" in England. The service was a respectable position of training to serve the wealthy. Proper child care, cooking, table service etc., walk and talk like a lady. Their provisions were ample. Was my Mom a slave? treated like one...NO. This was and is still is today a respectable position, so what makes it different?

Roofguy, you said it yourself "we were told to stay away from the black kids". As many do, as chilren, we listen to our peers, that's what we do. I came to the States at 9 yo, never saw anyone other than white, dropped into the south Bronx which was a mix of Irish, German, Italians, Puerto Rican and Negro. Didn't phase me in the least, they were other kids I could play stick ball, roller skate, get wet in the open hydrants etc.

The best I can do is not posion my children and grandchildren with unfounded ideas of a group rather have them approach and deal with an individual. If any individual gives you cause for concern the ball is now in your court.