"I'm a part of the problem. I'm a white, Anglo-Saxon, (raised) Protestant, straight, male."
Indeed. You are a part of the problem.
It seems that this "labelling" mentality, or the need to fit every human being into the right box (social class), runs very deep in your society.
I am not implying that your country is unique in that aspect.
It's just that your reasoning seems affected (and biased) by these poisonous social constructs which, in my opinion, are at the root of the problem.
These negative social constructs, which are embedded into your culture and formalised through the use of various labels in the english (american) language, are intrinsically racist, homophobic, xenophobic etc.
To create a more "pure" line of argumentation, which would results in more valid abstractions, relevant on a global scale (a prerequisite necessary to arrive at any universal truth), one would need to "elevate" himself above these culture specific labels, mind numbing social constructs and specific circumstances.
The real questions what we need to ask are why racism exists in the first place?
Or, to make the problem even wider and more universal, why is there a consistent appearance of vertical social hierarchies in all historical societies and cultures?
Is this kind of social stratification an unavoidable side effect caused by a combination of factors like;
homo sapiens living in a large communities, that span millions and billions of different people (handling the coordination and cooperation of such large communities requires complex systems of ideas / social constructs that act as emulgators which hold the entire structure together; culture, art, music, language, laws, religion etc...)
inescapable deficits of human nature like biases, lower drives, animal insticts, intuition
the need to control limited resources amongst an ever increasing population within a society (more control equals more power)
the "selfish gene" effect which states that every human being acts with an intent to optimise the survival chances of itself and it's offsprings..
etc..
There has always been vertical social division, looking on a time and space scale throughout history. And there have always existed the privileged casts in contrast to the unprivileged masses. But, the manifestation of this same fundamental principle was different and unique to every culture .
For example the Indians have the caste system, the Europeans had the aristocrats and the nobles on one side and the unprivileged feudal casts on the other side. Nazy Germany had the concept of an aryan race as the supreme world wide cast, and heavily discriminated against jews, gipsies, people of different colour etc. Etc. I won't go into more examples because they are so numerous we could fill thousands of pages.
The only globally universal social vertical stratification I can think of is misogyny (discr. against women).
So this is not a uniquely american problem.
The BLM movement , and the larger socio-economic differences between "straight white males" and "gay black women", on the other hand, are just a latest in the line, and very american manifestations of the vertical stratification problem that all large societies and civilzations face.
This is not a problem that can be solved by renaming the master branch to main branch on github (Microsoft really plans to do this because of all this BLM "madness"), or by putting up BLM or LGBT+ banners on various websites. This is just virtue signalling by individuals and corporations, and it has no effect in the real world.
The real change comes from educating the minds of children, i.e. investing heavily in the reform of the education system. Pouring a lot of cash into that system to improve the education of all citizens, regardless of a specific label.
And this type of change comes slowly.
For now the best course of action is to put band-aids across different sectors, like defunding your undereducated and overly violent police force. Lowering the prices of admissions to colleges throughout the country, for every citizen. Passing more laws that will bridge the social and economic gap between every US citizen.
But, if I got the right impression of your political system, every social measure which aims to improve the lives of all US citizens equally, like free healthcare (which is mostly privatized in the US and as a result simple procedures cost thousands of dollars), or free education, is met with sword and fire in you congress and declared "socialist" or "comunist".
And people actually believe these pro-capitalist politicians, because the average american is so poorly educated and brainwashed that they don't understand how fundamentally flawed these arguments are. This line of argumentation dates from the end of the 2nd world war, and has been further intensified throughout the cold war. The primary reason for its inception and wider cultural adoption, seems to stem from an irrational fear from the "commie" threat.
The results of living in such a hyper capitalistic state is that the personal debt of the average american citizens is ever increasing. This leads to more anxiety and stress, and ultimately a more unhealthy society. The divisions in you society seem to also be growing because of the increasing gap between your super rich 0.01% and the rest of the population. This could be slowed down and mended by introducing progressive taxing of the rich and super rich, but this brings us back to the "commie threat" and/or socialism/comunist argumentation (straw man in essence).
A good example of a successful state with a very strong, state run, social system (public healthcare, education, pro demographic laws etc.) is Sweden. The only "downside" to their model is that they have little bit higher personal tax. But even after the higher tax is deducted from the gross salary, the average net salary is so high that the majority of people can afford a very comfortable life and don't have to worry about old age, and hospital bills.
So actually there is a lot to consider...
On the bright side, the overall improvements and advancements of the human civilisation in the 20th century have created an unprecedented opportunity to address these issues with much more success.
The increased wealth, improved technology, the advancement of science and medicine, the light speed exchange of information on a global scale etc. are all giving us a fighting opportunity to stop this vicious cycle of oppression against specifically labeled parts of our societies, present from ancient times.
Sorry for the bad english and the numerous gramatical and syntactical errors. English is not my primary language, and I don't have the time to fix all of this.
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"I'm a part of the problem. I'm a white, Anglo-Saxon, (raised) Protestant, straight, male."
Indeed. You are a part of the problem.
It seems that this "labelling" mentality, or the need to fit every human being into the right box (social class), runs very deep in your society.
I am not implying that your country is unique in that aspect.
It's just that your reasoning seems affected (and biased) by these poisonous social constructs which, in my opinion, are at the root of the problem.
These negative social constructs, which are embedded into your culture and formalised through the use of various labels in the english (american) language, are intrinsically racist, homophobic, xenophobic etc.
To create a more "pure" line of argumentation, which would results in more valid abstractions, relevant on a global scale (a prerequisite necessary to arrive at any universal truth), one would need to "elevate" himself above these culture specific labels, mind numbing social constructs and specific circumstances.
The real questions what we need to ask are why racism exists in the first place?
Or, to make the problem even wider and more universal, why is there a consistent appearance of vertical social hierarchies in all historical societies and cultures?
Is this kind of social stratification an unavoidable side effect caused by a combination of factors like;
There has always been vertical social division, looking on a time and space scale throughout history. And there have always existed the privileged casts in contrast to the unprivileged masses. But, the manifestation of this same fundamental principle was different and unique to every culture .
For example the Indians have the caste system, the Europeans had the aristocrats and the nobles on one side and the unprivileged feudal casts on the other side. Nazy Germany had the concept of an aryan race as the supreme world wide cast, and heavily discriminated against jews, gipsies, people of different colour etc. Etc. I won't go into more examples because they are so numerous we could fill thousands of pages.
The only globally universal social vertical stratification I can think of is misogyny (discr. against women).
So this is not a uniquely american problem.
The BLM movement , and the larger socio-economic differences between "straight white males" and "gay black women", on the other hand, are just a latest in the line, and very american manifestations of the vertical stratification problem that all large societies and civilzations face.
This is not a problem that can be solved by renaming the master branch to main branch on github (Microsoft really plans to do this because of all this BLM "madness"), or by putting up BLM or LGBT+ banners on various websites. This is just virtue signalling by individuals and corporations, and it has no effect in the real world.
The real change comes from educating the minds of children, i.e. investing heavily in the reform of the education system. Pouring a lot of cash into that system to improve the education of all citizens, regardless of a specific label.
And this type of change comes slowly.
For now the best course of action is to put band-aids across different sectors, like defunding your undereducated and overly violent police force. Lowering the prices of admissions to colleges throughout the country, for every citizen. Passing more laws that will bridge the social and economic gap between every US citizen.
But, if I got the right impression of your political system, every social measure which aims to improve the lives of all US citizens equally, like free healthcare (which is mostly privatized in the US and as a result simple procedures cost thousands of dollars), or free education, is met with sword and fire in you congress and declared "socialist" or "comunist".
And people actually believe these pro-capitalist politicians, because the average american is so poorly educated and brainwashed that they don't understand how fundamentally flawed these arguments are. This line of argumentation dates from the end of the 2nd world war, and has been further intensified throughout the cold war. The primary reason for its inception and wider cultural adoption, seems to stem from an irrational fear from the "commie" threat.
The results of living in such a hyper capitalistic state is that the personal debt of the average american citizens is ever increasing. This leads to more anxiety and stress, and ultimately a more unhealthy society. The divisions in you society seem to also be growing because of the increasing gap between your super rich 0.01% and the rest of the population. This could be slowed down and mended by introducing progressive taxing of the rich and super rich, but this brings us back to the "commie threat" and/or socialism/comunist argumentation (straw man in essence).
A good example of a successful state with a very strong, state run, social system (public healthcare, education, pro demographic laws etc.) is Sweden. The only "downside" to their model is that they have little bit higher personal tax. But even after the higher tax is deducted from the gross salary, the average net salary is so high that the majority of people can afford a very comfortable life and don't have to worry about old age, and hospital bills.
So actually there is a lot to consider...
On the bright side, the overall improvements and advancements of the human civilisation in the 20th century have created an unprecedented opportunity to address these issues with much more success.
The increased wealth, improved technology, the advancement of science and medicine, the light speed exchange of information on a global scale etc. are all giving us a fighting opportunity to stop this vicious cycle of oppression against specifically labeled parts of our societies, present from ancient times.
Sorry for the bad english and the numerous gramatical and syntactical errors. English is not my primary language, and I don't have the time to fix all of this.