Prometheus 6

one of these days we're going to have a terminology summit.



fyi, here are my terms.



whitefolks - average american who knows he's white and knows what it means.



blackfolks - average american who knows he's black and knows what it means.



institutional racism: pretty much equals what you call 'systemic
racism'. i prefer institutional because 'the system' is everything.
institutions can be isolated. clearly institutional racism at dennys
can't (and shouldn't) be cured the same way as institutional racism at
nationwide insurance. but they can be cured. you want to talk about
curing 'the system', where do you start? when do you finish?



individual racism: people believe in an idea or they don't. it's simple
enough to investigate that despite the fact that nobody ever does.
people generally don't bother to separate the idea from the act. so
when somebody says 'prejudiced' i say that's just soft pedalling
squishy language and excuse making. can you call somebody a nigger
without believing black people are inferior? of course. can you think
that black people are inferior without ever calling them a nigger? of
course. can you believe blackfolks are inferior without ever doing
anything racist? yes, yes, yes.



i say it's the idea that counts. it allows me to distinguish between intent and effect.



it's also possible to be a bigot because of institutional racism
without ever asking yourself hardball questions about whether or not
you are racist. i think this is the touchy area where a hell of a lot
of whitefolks are. they have no idea what questions to ask, are afraid
of the answers and won't dare ask anybody who's not white. so they
either go ass-backwards into discussions saying 'i know i'm the ofay
white racist but..' or start off with stupid shit like 'everybody is a
little racist...'. understandable, dumb, probably not excuseable,
especially since my answers have been on the net for as long as they
have.



again that's a lot of nuance for people who are generally just
interested in name-calling, or avoiding being name-called. but you and
i know the net and name-calling is where most people are at.





the term you are missing is 'white supremacy'. black people can be
white supremacists. that's exactly what an uncle tom is, a black person
(fits into blackfolks) that believes whitefolks are superior.
similarly, a 'banana' is an asian who wants to be white because she
believes whites to be superior. yes virginia there are coconuts too.



here you can demonstrate that millions more americans believe in
various forms of white supremacy than black supremacy (if that's the
point you want to make). furthermore, you make racism something that's
not 'owned' by blackfolks, which is an idea gets under everybody's
skin, especially mine.



i'm not sure i get your idea of reversing the races, or putting a negro
in whitefolks heads, so i won't say that i think it's not helpful until
i get it.



but my prej

my prejudice says it won't work. analogies don't work. role reversals don't work. just deal with the shit head on.



15% of the people who respond to my poll come out straight racist. not
just bigoted, but answering 'true' questions like: 'races are naturally
antagonistic' and 'each race has its unique message to the world'.

As usual commenting on your comment could become a whole post.



I'm assuming when you say it won't work you see the intent of this pot
as challenging racism or changing someone's mind. It's not. The intent
is to communicate a specific subjective experience. I admit that's
somewhat disingenuous…given the current state of discussion and the
nature of humans there's a pretty specific set of probable reactions
and responses a successful effort ould bring about. But my effort is
seriously to bring a new piece of data into the discussion.



To do this I only needed to isolate a couple of specific ideas, The
only difinitions in the repeated post that were mine were of nigger,
racist, niggerism and racism. Stated raw because we react to them raw.
All the elegant discussion is had a step back from the gut check we all
make when we're hip-deep in it.



A terminology summit is an interesting idea—I came close enough to
saying "amusing idea" that I needed to get this in here. For my part, I
generally find it easiest and best to understand and assume the
terminology of the folks I'm talking to. I'm pretty good at it and it
hands me my best tools and weapons. Ed "Darkstar" Brown knows me from
(what used to be) the Afroam-L mailing list and can confirm this.



Finally, for now, I note you find the subjective (idea) more important
than the objective (action) and use objective measures to gauge things.
I find the objective more important—more accurately, I don't give a
damn about the subjective as long as the objective is correct. The most
useful tool to give folks to keep their objective in check (most folks do want to) is a yardstick they can accurately use.

Where
do asians fit into all of this? Because there was a lot of talk about
black and white. But Asians also play a pivotal role in many of the
major "race" events in the last 25 years.



Look at the LA riots. Many white owned stores were passed by during the
riots while the Korean owned stores were torn apart. (Site: "Blue
Dreams" for more on relations between the africana, caucasian, and
asian communities of LA)



A lot of class reductionists use the Asian American situation as an
arguement for why we shouldn't talk about race but should only focus on
class. I strongly disagree with this, but i'm curious how you work
communities such as the Korean American community in LA into this
system?



I understand how koreans can't be racist towards whites. But would you
allow koreans to be racist towards african communities? And can
Africans be racist towards Koreans or is that out of bounds?



Also, I worry about using analogies for racism that involve amounts of
people. Because this lets people say "So once there is certain number
of black people in the US, racism will disappear" - which is completely
untrue. I think the most important points should be "Your bosses are
Black. Your kid's teachers are Black."

I had to add the following to the post:



LATER: I think I need to be clear. This is NOT a statement on race relations. There is NO
statement on who hates or is capable of hating based on the rather
ill-defined concept of race in any of this post, but in particular not
in the text that follows.



What I'm doing is communicating the subjective experience of being
Black, independant of economic class. Being an actual countable
minority of the population is an integral part of that experience.



I can't speak to the subjective experience of being Korean or Asian in the USofA.

ok i get you. yes and i think putting a negro in the head of whitefolks helps to convey the subjective experience.



i tend to think that white supremacy is 80% of the problem and the
varying degrees by which all people buy into it determines the
relationships between people of color.



it's the same brand of racial prejudices. for example. i don't think
that koreans have come up with an entire new set of stereotypes to
apply to blackfolks. white supremacy says 'niggers steal'.
anti-semitism says 'kikes cheat'. koreans don't come up with new names
for blackfolks or jews and attach different values.



but in addition to this there is a layer which is specific ethnicity by
ethnicity. i would say that ethnic rivalries tend to be more specific
beefs. they don't translate nationally. for example, the blacks vs jews
conflict exemplified by the crown heights fights in new york city did
not resonate in los angeles. blacks and jews here in los angeles simply
don't have a negative history. but the issues between the lubavitchers
and black muslims is legendary there.





btw. darkstar and i go waaay back. we need to get him into the
blogosphere. actually, visioncircle.org is my multi-author blog. feel
welcome to put your more interesting and authoritative stuff there. if
things work out, it could be the subjective spot where negrophile is
the reporting. a long time ago several of us dreamed of this, we called
it 'higher ground'. it was lester kenyatta spence, ed brown, art mcgee,
michael r. hicks and myself. hell, i still have the logos. lester is
already posting regularly at visioncircle. i'm going to chase down the
other bros. thanks for reminding me.

Gah!
Racism is prejudice or bias against anyone/any group by virtue of their
race -- which may also be directly related to their ethnicity and
country of origin.



I see it on ALL sides. Whites against peoples of ALL colors; peoples of all colors against whites and other peoples of color.



I've seen Koreans biased against anyone not Korean - pick another
race/ethnic group/country of origin, I've seen it. I've worked with
corporate-sponsored internal diversity groups as a consultant, watched
these groups compete against each other because of racism. GAH!!!



NO ONE GROUP HAS EXCLUSIVE DOMAIN OVER RACISM!!! YOU -- ALL YOU HUMANS -- ARE CAPABLE OF IT!!!



What we need to do is remove race/ethnicity/country of origin as
delimiters between people, see it for what it is -- physical responses
to environment (genetics) and arbitrary social constructs (memetics),
both of which are embedded in the smallest amount of human genetic and
memetic material. The question becomes, which genes and which memes
will rule this earth?



And then step back and take another look: the survival of all genetic
and memetic material (human and otherwise) requires the complete
co-operation of the entire human genome.

Cobb:



You mentioned SCAA a while back, so I figured you knew Darkstar. Art is
administering the remains of Afroam-L, whose death was caused by a
pathogen I unwittingly unleashed years ago.



I believe I have Michael Hick's address around too. Last known as of
February this year. I just sent him email with our blog addresses.

Rayne:



Gah! Racism is prejudice or bias against anyone/any group by virtue
of their race -- which may also be directly related to their ethnicity
and country of origin.



I feel you, sis. And for purposes of constructive engagement, I'd work with you and your definition.



For purposes of this post, I'm taking that word, and the word "nigger,"
away from you and everyone else. Within this post, the thing you
describe is known as "race hatred." And it's not under descussion.



There is NO statement on who hates or is capable of hating based on the rather ill-defined concept of race in any of this post.



Neither is there a description of the problem nor prescription for its
solution. There is only the verbalization of a specific subjective
experience, the essential experience of being Black independant of
class, economic resources or any other quality.

So...the
"n-word" is a bad piece of memetic material, bad in that was
deliberately constructed from other bad memetics (racism). There are
other equally bad memetic material, like the negative words for Asian
and Hispanic/Latin peoples or peoples of non-Anglo origin (chink,
zipper-head, wetback, wop, and so on). Humans across the genome use
them against each other - period.



We who are not black cannot know exactly what the qualia of being black
is, any more than you can know the qualia of being Asian or female. The
common denominator here is that none of us can know exactly of the
qualia of other's lives, cannot share the same human experience with
any degree of certainty. That is the unifying trait of humanity.



You cannot know what it is to be the only woman walking into a board
room filled with male executives -- no matter the color of woman, no
matter the color of the board members. You can hazard a guess to the
relative qualia of discomfort. We all of us share that as humans.



We need to agree that we are all capable of sharing this discomfort,
and agreeing that certain memetic material is inherently bad -- highly
flawed, buggy social software -- that should belong to NO ONE. That one
person's/group's negative label(bad meme) can easily be used against
others.



As an example, let's use the MSBLaster virus; just because it only
strikes MS WinOS users doesn't make it right for Mac users to use the
label against them (say, "viral-loaded WinScum"), nor even for MS users
to use it against others or themselves. The virus is bad -- we need to
work to be rid of it. It could just as easily be turned against those
not affected; kill the viral meme, regardless of who is affected.



Same with all other bad memetic material. It works against the entire genome.



The question is, how do we purge bad memes without affecting good memes? How do people kill memes, the "n-word" among them?

Okay, Rayne. I'll work in memes with you.



The common denominator here is that none of us can know exactly of
the qualia of other's lives, cannot share the same human experience
with any degree of certainty. That is the unifying trait of humanity.



You're wrong. We all share a single human experience. What this post
offers is a sharing of the Black experience, by using white experience.
I haven't asked anyone to give up their viewpoint. I've asked them to
insert their viewpoint into the situation Black people find themselves
in.



For instance, I DO know what it is to be the only Black
person in a board meeting full of white executives. It's a easy
parallel to you woman's example.



There's a huge difference between saying you don't
understand (which, due to lack of experience, is forgivable) and saying
you CAN'T understand. When you say we can't share experiences, you
actually declare there's a absolute difference between us. You can't
build unity that way, understand?



The question is, how do we purge bad memes without affecting good memes? How do people kill memes, the "n-word" among them?



You don't...you're asking for light without shadow, sis. The best you
can do is change the context in which they operate. Look at how the
"liberal" meme was changed. How, in fact, the "conservative" and
"libertarian" memes were changed.



In fact, initially there was only Black and White under consideration
when dealing in race and racism. Your definition of racism represents a
casting of the original meme into a wider context.



Those "bad memes" you mentioned are not the root memes, you see. They
are values assigned to "identity memes" (to coin a phrase on the fly).



What is needed is either a context where the values are not invoked,
one where the difference in identity memes are seen to have positive
value sufficiently compelling as to be universally accepted or a
framework that offsets the negative values sometimes attached to the
identity memes.



We still have gills, fer chrissake. They operate in a prenatal
environment and as our physical developmental context changes they
change into lungs. But we don't get rid of them.



Tha arrow of time points in one direction only. The goal you want to
accomplish can't be done by uncreating ideas. We must grow to the point
that the ideas are insignificant parts of the whole.

Earl, you wrote:

"I find the objective more important—more accurately, I don't give a
damn about the subjective as long as the objective is correct. The most
useful tool to give folks to keep their objective in check (most folks
do want to) is a yardstick they can accurately use."



I find this really interesting and would like it if you expanded on it.
What I hear you saying is that we can't control our gut responses to
one another, but we can control how we behave to one another. Is that
what you mean? Cause you know I am still working out my "liberal white
guilt" [said with tongue in cheek, but we know there's more than a
grain of truth in it] and I am wondering to what degree it is possible
to purge myself of those knee jerk split-second bursts of emotion at
the synapses.

how do memetics and genetics and qualia translate into something that is tangible to the law and politics?



if these are tools to help us understand how the ideas flow and how to
rid them from our minds, that's all good. but my point about the belief
in ideas had everything to do with the fact that people will be
suseptible to particular political arguments and will act on those
ideas in what they percieve is their self-interest.



the racism inherent in jim crow was not a pervasive idea because of
memetics. it was a pervasive idea because it was the law, and police,
judges and elected officials enforced it. nobody bothered to map
genetics anything onto negroes, people knew one when they saw one.



i want to know how understanding memetics helps us make a uniform hate
crime standard across 50 states. if it cannot, then i have little use
for it. i want to know how thinking about the qualia of whitefolks
helps us turn around the politics of proposition 54 and why that way of
thinking about the problem makes better sense than the kind of writing wood is doing.

ibyx:



What I hear you saying is that we can't control our gut responses to
one another, but we can control how we behave to one another. Is that
what you mean?



Nope. I'm saying I can't control other people's gut reaction so I focus
on their objective behavior. As Cobb said, a person can believe Black
people are inferior without ever performing a racist act. My position
is, as long as they don't perform a racist act I don't care what their
gut reaction is because it has no impact on me.



I may go into white liberal guilt later.

Cobb:



i want to know how understanding memetics helps us make a uniform
hate crime standard across 50 states. if it cannot, then i have little
use for it.



You're going to have little use for it, then.



You're looking to change the results within the current paradigm.
Memetics is an attempt to change the paradigm, to swap it out. As it
happens, I don't think it'll work for the majority of people…it's kind
of like expecting a kid to learn jazz saxaphone by studying musical
history. Which is not to say it's a useless field to study, but you
gotta learn to play the instruments before studying the various
stylings can help you expand your repetoire.

memetically speaking (i think) there's one tool i have found useful.



the idea is to defeat essentialism by making the distinction between
the look of race from the meaning of race. this is useful in the
instruction of pro-colorblind people to get over the myth that
'mentioning race just reinforces racism.' they suffer the cognitive
error of believing that one always means the same (putatively negative)
things when one says 'black'.



the instructive device is to sing 'amazing grace' to the tune of the theme to gilligan's island.

this doesnt' get body one out of the ghetto, but it's always fun to do.

Hmm. I see for Cobb a need for definitions.



Meme = a transferrable, replicable piece of knowledge, information, concept or idea



Memetics = the aggregate of memes and the study of the same



Think of genes as hardware, memes as software. Genes can be modified to
a degree, as can hardware, but there are design limitations. Memes
change modified and suppressed to a larger degree than genes because
they are intangibles.



A society's culture, its laws, its knowledge, even its religions are
all memetic. We learn them, and pass them on once acquired. We can
change memes, just as we've grown in knowledge over the centuries,
changed our laws accordingly, changed our worldviews.



Prometheus believes that memes, like genes, can only be suppressed and
not deleted. I'm not certain of that; I think of the ancient Egyptian
rulers who struck out the history of others who pissed them off
royally, literally removing them ("so let it be written, so let it be
done"). They are no longer part of our conscious history; we struggle
to know anything of them. Can we not do the same, refuse to own any
part of racism including sub-memes/meme-lets like racial epithets and
labels? Can we not excise them and leave our future heirs and assigns
struggling to piece it into the historic meme?



Think of bad memes like racism as a type of virus that is infectious;
it has certain limitations of infection, a fairly specific rate of
contagion. We have a lot of examples of "cures" or "healing"; cannot we
not get rid of this meme instead of just telling each other, "Hey, you
don't know what it's like inside this particular meat suit."



[Promotheus: my guess is if you and I both walk into a board room
filled with white male board members, none of them will expect YOU to
get coffee for them. You still have the advantage of capital that comes
with your gender. The single unifying theme is that every individual
human experience is different; we have the opportunity to learn from
each other to our mutual benefit if we learn to transcend and override
the negative social software someone else transferred to us.]

the instructive device is to sing 'amazing grace' to the tune of the theme to gilligan's island.



THAT is about the funniest thing I've read all month.



I think of the ancient Egyptian rulers who struck out the history of
others who pissed them off royally, literally removing them ("so let it
be written, so let it be done"). They are no longer part of our
conscious history; we struggle to know anything of them. Can we not do
the same, refuse to own any part of racism including
sub-memes/meme-lets like racial epithets and labels?



If we were a command culture, like the Egyptians, a Deocracy, then the
God we worshiped could issue such a command. But that's still done out
of HIS self-interest, and still would take at least a generation to
accomplish. It would still have holes in it. And as long as a social
structure that implements the division existed…for instance some
pharoahs tried to eliminate the worship of other dieties only to have
them return after the pharoah's death…it will fail.



That's Cobb's point. Refusing to use the memes would have pretty much
the same effect as Proposition 54...racism would continue, unspoken of,
unreflected on because the social structure and mechanisms assume
racial division. You are at a strategic loss by refusing to recognize
those divisions are active.



my guess is if you and I both walk into a board room filled with
white male board members, none of them will expect YOU to get coffee
for them. You still have the advantage of capital that comes with your
gender.



And your "get the coffee mechanism" applies to me when I'm in a
department store. In what context do you find yourself rendered
invisible as I have been as a consultant in board meetings? I'm sure
you can find a parallel.



You say the only thing we share is that we can't share. You don't see a problem with that?

And THAT response is a PERFECT example of the inability of humans to have a Vulcan Mind Meld.



When I talk about the ancient Egyptian culture as an example of writing
out a meme, I'm talking about this specific act of writing out the meme
-- not the expansion of the example to mean that we, a modern
democratic (allegedly) society, should emulate Egyptian culture to a
"T". It's the specific act of using agency,
actively choosing the meme to use rather than allowing the meme to use
us, actively choosing to suppress a meme to the point of extinction. It
is this particular point of success which I look to, not the entire
culture. (Christ, next you'll think I'm into embalming and cat
worship...)



As for the example of humans' inability to share "qualia": I'll use Damali Ayo's exhibit flesh-tone series #1
as an example. A fairly random sampling of humans are used to interpret
the color of human flesh, with widely varying results. If the
interpretation of flesh-tones is this broad, what of anything else we
humans experience that is not a singular point of reference, what of
intangibles?



We have to agree to disagree -- and that in itself is a form of agreement, of contract, of sharing, communion.

And THAT response is a PERFECT example of the inability of humans to have a Vulcan Mind Meld.



Be nice.



When I talk about the ancient Egyptian culture as an example of
writing out a meme, I'm talking about this specific act of writing out
the meme&helliplIt is this particular point of success which I look
to, not the entire culture. (Christ, next you'll think I'm into
embalming and cat worship...)





I haven't said you were suggesting we do it. You must receive if you wish to be received.



What I'm saying is the only way that will work is if we were a command
culture along the lines of Egypt. That or universal agreement, which
you will not get as long as a class of people benefit from the cultural
structures that assume racial division. More, the written isn't the
thought. Get rid of a specific word without getting rid of the thought
and we'll just make another word.



The fact is, this entire discussion of memes has nothing to do with the
original point of the post, which I stated. You fixate on memes, so
(hoping we'd get to a point where you were receptive) I chose to work
in your zone for a minute.



But let me ask you...how can you expect to deal in effective memes for
a viewpoint you have no experience with? You want to tell folks how to
get out of the house when you don't even want to examine the floorplan.



You CAN understand the subjective viewpoint of Black folks. I have
given you the instructions on how to see it…at which point you will be
no more able to describe it than I, which is why I didn't try to describe it.



When you have the means to understand, agreeing to disagree isn't a form of agreement, it's a form of avoidance.

as
soon as i checked ayo's site, i could smell the adrian piper in the
air. i basically skimmed everything until i had proof. and there it was
down near the bottom of the interview.



i think ayo's inspiration for 'postructuralist theorists' whomever they
may be can be useful for artists, especially for performance artists.
but i think such folks have painted themselves into the corner of
hating spike lee for the rest of their lives.



i like the idea that there are anti-racist and gender-bending themes in
the new forms of highbrow cultural production, and i appreciate the
cleverness and subtlety of such artists. but i despair of such
productions ever having the moral impact of an arthur miller play, and
i look forward to the day when dramatic performances can set the world
on fire as did lorraine hansberry in her day.

R: And THAT response is a PERFECT example of the inability of humans to have a Vulcan Mind Meld.



P: Be nice.



I meant absolutely no disrepect in saying the above, Prometheus; that
you were not able to deduce that is the limitation of this medium. The
only way we can be absolutely certain of other's experience is through
what would be a "Vulcan Mind Meld" -- but that is not possible. We can
only approximate and agree that there will be gaps in our understanding
of each other's experience. (You and I won't even agree on the same
shades of green or red -- it's impossible.) Saying there is no gap,
that we won't understand fully each other's experience, is denial of
diversity. I expect you to be very different from me in a hundred+ ways
or more; hell, yeah. That's important in as many ways.



p: What I'm saying is the only way that will work is if we were a
command culture along the lines of Egypt. That or universal agreement,
which you will not get as long as a class of people benefit from the
cultural structures that assume racial division. More, the written
isn't the thought. Get rid of a specific word without getting rid of
the thought and we'll just make another word.



Getting rid of a word is only part of the meme, that is entirely true
and that is my point. But we do have to start somewhere -- like the
image of a burning cross. The burning cross in my mind has no other
connotation than a threat of violence against people on the basis of
their race. Remove that image long enough and the link to meaning may
be broken.



Do you want to permanently imbue the burning cross with meaning by
saying that YOU (black Americans) OWN IT? I don't think so if that
comes at the risk of permanently embuing its associated meme of racism
against black Americans.



Let me put it another way, perhaps in your own terms: if EVERYONE in
the U.S. was a n*gger, could be called such by anybody, would the word
continue to carry its original meaning? Is that one way of breaking not
only the ownership but the underlying meme to which it is attached?



If NOONE in the U.S. were a n*gger, could we also break the link?



Pick another word-become-symbol, like the negative words chink,
wetback, zipper-head, wop, so-on; what will it take to break any of
them as well? Are these not as ugly to the people at which they are
thrown? Should they want to OWN them at the risk of perpetuating them
and the meme that gave rise to them? Really, can you know what it is to
be a "gawddamned slanty-eyed yellow-skinned zipperhead"? Should an
Asian seek to OWN that because of their history, regardless of whether
you can get into that epithet? Or should the effort concentrate on
breaking the entire meme -- words-made-symbols representing the notion
of racism?



Much of this appears to be but an exercise in semantics and semiotics -- but human cult

culture
is built on semantics and semiotics. Our perceptions of reality, our
consciousness, is reflected in semantics and semiotics. How do we
change reality -- change the input and output of our perceptions and
consciousness, to change the core of our culture? That is the question
here.



Damn, I just lost another two paragraphs because of the weird way
Haloscan is acting. I'll have to leave you with that much for now,
Promotheus.

Cobb,
I frankly don't look beyond the artist's work or their own descriptions
of what went into the work or what the work means to them. I don't give
a rat's butt about anything more than that (including their source of
inspiration), because the creative spirit of the artist and the
interpretation of the beholder/participant requires extensive
individual internalization. Art is too subjective for me to care much
beyond a few degrees of contact (me and the artist; okay, maybe in case
of Monet it's me, him and the gardens).



In the case of Ayo's Flesh-tone series #1 I know I made different observations than she shared about her creative experience. I wrote of it: Fascinating,
really, that there were so many different reactions to her request and
even more interpretations of the color of her flesh. It’s as if this
were an experiment to document the range of differentiation in human
experience of qualia – which in turn may even influence our reactions
to other humans of all colors.



In what shade would you see me, I’m left to wonder? What shade of flesh do I see myself?



If there’s so many interpretations, why does it matter at all except as an expression of art?



Anybody's antipathy towards Spike Lee or Adrian Piper had nothing to do
with my observation or experience. Maybe we don't need an Arthur Miller
now either...

Rayne:



Saying this:

And THAT response is a PERFECT example of the inability of humans to have a Vulcan Mind Meld.

followed by this:

(Christ, next you'll think I'm into embalming and cat worship...)

means that this:

I meant absolutely no disrepect in saying the above, Prometheus;
that you were not able to deduce that is the limitation of this medium

at best reflects a limitation in the USE of the medium, not the medium itself. At worst, it's a game to make your point.



I state this directly so you know how to deal going forward.



We can only approximate and agree that there will be gaps in our
understanding of each other's experience. (You and I won't even agree
on the same shades of green or red -- it's impossible.)



The same would apply to me and any other Black person. You can approach
it as closely as Cobb (who I only pick on because several others simply
haven't posted in these comments).



You say you cannot understand the subjective experience of being Black. I say you are wrong, and have given youthe tools to do so.



In the sidebar is a link to the Racism discussion. The first article
discusses how Black people are approaching this bottom-up, whereas the
mainstream is approaching it top-down. Give it a read.



culture is built on semantics and semiotics. Our perceptions of
reality, our consciousness, is reflected in semantics and semiotics.
How do we change reality -- change the input and output of our
perceptions and consciousness, to change the core of our culture? That
is the question here.



That is NOT the question here. That is NOT what this post was about. Do you recognize that? If not, go back and re-read it.



In addition, you must recognize there is a HUGE difference between
changing your perception of reality and changing reality. This was an
exercise in changing your perception of reality.



I'll give your meme approach a try when you convince the rest of the world to do so.

Art
is too subjective for me to care much beyond a few degrees of contact
(me and the artist; okay, maybe in case of Monet it's me, him and the
gardens).



And yet racial experience is ALL subjective. It's ALL an interpretation of a human filtered through the memes one has absorbed.



This is why you conclude one can't understand another's experience. You have to get subjective to do so, and you won't.