ajax18 wrote: ↑Fri Mar 08, 2024 3:48 pm
[...]and no religious upbringing (liberal democrat black communities) been?
Black Americans are overwhelmingly Christian, and in comparison to white Americans, have a very (very) small percentage that have no belief in God. In fact, black Americans are Christian at a higher rate that the general population.
If the Republican Party could figure out a way to not be perpetually racist, and antagonistic to people of color, they could easily tap into the overwhelmingly conservative black American and Hispanic Christian populous. The big Pew dilly a few years back had almost 80% of black Americans as Christian, compared to about 70% of white Americans. (
Pew Dilly Link)
To the question of the thread... I personally do think that there are people who are "good" or "bad" at their core. I think that there are some people who could be put through the most dehumanizing experiences imaginable, and come out the other side still advocating for kindness and humanity. Conversely, I think there are some people that can be afforded every opportunity to emulate kindness and goodness, and still end up pulled towards acting out their sociopathic fantasies on the innocent.
Overall, I think we're largely products of our environments, and to some extent that environmental impact on us can be passed on generationally. There are obviously outliers, but one need only look at recent world history to see the atrocities that "Christian" (or other stereotypically "good" religious communities) will commit or tolerate when properly conditioned. One need only look back a single generation in America to find abhorrent atrocities by so-called "good, Christian" people, that were tolerated to the extent that even the most basic criminal laws were thrown to the wind.
One of the most dangerous things, I think, that can lead otherwise "good" people to do horrible things is "othering." Once you are able to make someone see a given group, or person, as something different than them, all kinds of horrible things can be done without empathy getting in the way.
A while back, Dr. Bokovoy made a comment on Facebook (hopefully I'm not breaking any rules, as I think it was a public comment) that I think is relevant, and that caused me to do some reflecting. For those who don't know, Dr. Bokovoy works with providing and overseeing education for inmates in northern Utah. Paraphrasing: There are no bad people, just choices. Bad choices do not necessarily mean that the person is bad. I disagree somewhat, but I'm not sure if my disagreement is based on anything more than my heart doesn't have the capacity for compassion and forgiveness that Dr. Bokovoy's does.