Affirmative Distraction

[crb]

I thought this editorial, was well, reasonable. Written by an african american yale professor.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/06/opinion/06carter.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin

My favorite part is when he says how No Child Left Behind has helped close the test score gap between black and white students... it being a program of course that (thanks to his teacher union masters) Obama wants to end.

[Xaerve]

Read this on my blackberry this morning, in bed around 7AM. Great read.

Thanks for posting it.

[Stretch]

GEORGE: Ladies and gentlemen, this (Opens the door, Steven is standing there) is Steven Koren. His G.P.A. is a solid 2.0! Right in that meaty part of the curve - not showing off, not falling behind.

WYCK: George, the qualifications for this scholarship were suppose to be.. largely academic.

GEORGE: I'm sure we're all aware of the flaws and biases of standardized tests..

WYCK: These aren't standardized tests - these are his grades.

[Daniel]

/agree

I went to a private university in DC that had a remarkably low African American population, most of whom hated me because while they would sit around bitching because there was no where to get a decent haircut because our hair is different, as if it was a problem, I'd tell them that they were full of shit. At one point it got so bad that I told a few of the campus leaders that if they couldn't make it in this world, after going to a 40k a year university, then it was their own god damned fault.

The problem is that there is a group of people who are so disenfranchised, so marginalized that they have absolutely no desire to be involved with the "system". Whereas, those who aren't get lumped into the same arbitrary group who continually misrepresent them.

The Chicago Public High School system has a 18% graduation rate for African American males. Of those, 1 in 40 will graduate from college.

Think about that for a second. 1 in 40. That's a fucking travesty. At the point in my life where my biggest concern is whether or not I can get into UMICH Law school, I've made it. However, the probability there is so low it's not even funny.

That's why I was so upset with Obama when it seemed like he was repudiating the fears and problems of the TUCC community, because for perhaps the first time, you had a man on the national scene who was advocating for these people. Some people say that Obama has no experience, but he made his political career in chicago fighting for the Altgeld gardens community, a torrid housing development where a lot of my friends and family are from.

It's a problem. Anyway, I said my piece. Let the PB "You make excuses, you must have no jobzz!!!11! bullshit parade commence".

[Parkbandit]

Address the core problem.. irresponsible boys like yourself, going around knocking up girls, but not sticking around to help raise them.

But hey.. banging chicks is fun. Raising kids isn't.

[Daniel]

I don't have any kids. Thanks for playing.

[Keller]

nevermind

[Stanley Burrell]

I thought this editorial, was well, reasonable. Written by an african american yale professor.

It's amazing how much insight you can get into someone's political and social biases based simply upon their selective omitting of capital letters.

[Warriorbird]

He's an excellent novelist and a brilliant writer... but I'm not exactly sure how in touch Carter is with the average black American.

[crb]

It's amazing how much insight you can get into someone's political and social biases based simply upon their selective omitting of capital letters.
WTF forum grammar police. Watchout or they'll get you!



He's an excellent novelist and a brilliant writer... but I'm not exactly sure how in touch Carter is with the average black American.

Maybe if he joined a liberation theology church and blamed whitey for all of society's ills he'd be "black enough" for you.

[Warriorbird]

Contrary to many Republicans and even many Democrats I think social class has a lot to do with where you are in life. Obama at the least worked as a community organizer. Carter? Not so much. Wealthy family.

[Daniel]

Maybe if he joined a liberation theology church and blamed whitey for all of society's ills he'd be "black enough" for you.

Because that's exactly what they do, dipshit.

[Stanley Burrell]

Because that's exactly what they do, dipshit.

Ever since the definition of racism was scholarships geared at helping minorities (I forget which PC thread, exactly) I am fairly certain that there are people who have huge cravings for the penis. End sentence.

[Warriorbird]

Don't palm this off on the poor gay folks. They're more sane than that.

[Skeeter]

Jason Whitlock: Imus Isn't the Real Bad Guy
KC Star ^ | 4/11/07 | Jason Whitlock

Posted on Wednesday, April 11, 2007 9:41:32 AM by meg88

Imus isn’t the real bad guy

Thank you, Don Imus. You’ve given us (black people) an excuse to avoid our real problem.

You’ve given Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson another opportunity to pretend that the old fight, which is now the safe and lucrative fight, is still the most important fight in our push for true economic and social equality.

You’ve given Vivian Stringer and Rutgers the chance to hold a nationally televised recruiting celebration expertly disguised as a news conference to respond to your poor attempt at humor.

Thank you, Don Imus. You extended Black History Month to April, and we can once again wallow in victimhood, protest like it’s 1965 and delude ourselves into believing that fixing your hatred is more necessary than eradicating our self-hatred.

While we’re fixated on a bad joke cracked by an irrelevant, bad shock jock, I’m sure at least one of the marvelous young women on the Rutgers basketball team is somewhere snapping her fingers to the beat of 50 Cent’s or Snoop Dogg’s latest ode glorifying nappy-headed pimps and hos.

I ain’t saying Jesse, Al and Vivian are gold-diggas, but they don’t have the heart to mount a legitimate campaign against the real black-folk killas.

It is us. At this time, we are our own worst enemies. We have allowed our youths to buy into a culture (hip hop) that has been perverted, corrupted and overtaken by prison culture. The music, attitude and behavior expressed in this culture is anti-black, anti-education, demeaning, self-destructive, pro-drug dealing and violent.

Rather than confront this heinous enemy from within, we sit back and wait for someone like Imus to have a slip of the tongue and make the mistake of repeating the things we say about ourselves.

It’s embarrassing. Dave Chappelle was offered $50 million to make racially insensitive jokes about black and white people on TV. He was hailed as a genius. Black comedians routinely crack jokes and we all laugh out loud.

I’m no Don Imus apologist. He and his tiny companion Mike Lupica blasted me after I fell out with ESPN. Imus is a hack.

But, in my view, he didn’t do anything outside the norm for shock jocks and comedians. He also offered an apology. That should’ve been the end of this whole affair. Instead, it’s only the beginning. It’s an opportunity for Stringer, Jackson and Sharpton to step on victim platforms and elevate themselves and their agenda$.

I watched the Rutgers news conference and was ashamed.

Martin Luther King Jr. spoke for eight minutes in 1963 at the March on Washington. At the time, black people could be lynched and denied fundamental rights with little thought. With the comments of a talk-show host most of her players had never heard of before last week serving as her excuse, Vivian Stringer rambled on for 30 minutes about the amazing season her team had.

Somehow, we’re supposed to believe that the comments of a man with virtually no connection to the sports world ruined Rutgers’ wonderful season. Had a broadcaster with credibility and a platform in the sports world uttered the words Imus did, I could understand a level of outrage.

But an hourlong press conference over a man who has already apologized, already been suspended and is already insignificant is just plain intellectually dishonest. This is opportunism. This is a distraction.

In the grand scheme, Don Imus is no threat to us in general and no threat to black women in particular. If his words are so powerful and so destructive and must be rebuked so forcefully, then what should we do about the idiot rappers on BET, MTV and every black-owned radio station in the country who use words much more powerful and much more destructive?

I don’t listen or watch Imus’ show regularly. Has he at any point glorified selling crack cocaine to black women? Has he celebrated black men shooting each other randomly? Has he suggested in any way that it’s cool to be a baby-daddy rather than a husband and a parent? Does he tell his listeners that they’re suckers for pursuing education and that they’re selling out their race if they do?

When Imus does any of that, call me and I’ll get upset. Until then, he is what he is — a washed-up shock jock who is very easy to ignore when you’re not looking to be made a victim.

No. We all know where the real battleground is. We know that the gangsta rappers and their followers in the athletic world have far bigger platforms to negatively define us than some old white man with a bad radio show. There’s no money and lots of danger in that battle, so Jesse and Al are going to sit it out.

[Warriorbird]

It is clearly all hip hop's fault.

[Skeeter]

It is clearly all hip hop's fault.

I'm sad you can't read. Did you grow up a poor black child in Chicago?

[Warriorbird]

Yeah. That's totally it. Did you read your article?

That article blamed hip hop. If you couldn't get that much where did you go to school?

[Skeeter]

No the article blamed the black culture and a spiral of self-destruction that black people perpetuate on themselves.

Apparently all you saw was Hip-Hop. Maybe the spirit of Jesse Helmes has possessed you, did you play with a Ouija board this past week?

[Sean]

I agree with his general premise that Imus is a hack but not a real bad guy. But after that I think Jason Whitlock loses it.

[Clove]

I'm sad you can't read. Did you grow up a poor black child in Chicago?Substanceless one-liners are pretty much all he's got. Give him a break.

[Drew2]

Read this on my blackberry this morning, in bed around 7AM. Great read.

Thanks for posting it.

do u sleep naked




fapfapfapfapfapfap

[BigWorm]

It is us. At this time, we are our own worst enemies. We have allowed our youths to buy into a culture (hip hop) that has been perverted, corrupted and overtaken by prison culture. The music, attitude and behavior expressed in this culture is anti-black, anti-education, demeaning, self-destructive, pro-drug dealing and violent.

I can see where WB is coming from when he says that, though the article does discuss other things.

[Warriorbird]

I dunno. I didn't think it could be much more obvious.

"We have allowed ourselves to buy into a culture."

Most people who buy (or illegally download) rap music tend to be white.

The problems that hip hop sometimes represents were around before the music and are much more complex than some former sportswriter turned conservative hack blaming them on the music.

While arguing that things 'aren't so simple' he's oversimplified.

It panders well to the conservative crowd that believes, as Stan so actually eloquently expressed, that racism 'is giving scholarships to minorities.' but is pretty substance-negative in itself.

I wouldn't expect some of you to get that... being a part of that crowd.

[Sean]

I guess if the black youth would abandon the hip-hop culture for the rock culture with its history of decadence, sex, drugs, violence, etc. everything would be okay... Whitlock is right that Don Imus isn't a real threat to black people and he's right that Jesse, Al, and Stringer are disingenuous with their attacks on Imus but his argument beyond that trends towards being as spectacular as you can be to sell newspapers.

[Clove]

Most people who buy (or illegally download) rap music tend to be white.Most of everything in this country are done by white people. Duh, thanks Captain Obvious. Minority.

[Clove]

And the article doesn't so much blame hip-hop culture as claim that it has more of a destructive influence than one bad joke (incidentally he implicates black comedians as well), but yet goes uncriticized. He's pointing out hypocrisy.

I dunno. I didn't think it could be much more obvious.

[Warriorbird]

Gosh. Substantive way to pick something that totally had nothing to do with me dismissing his point. You're the master of content, Clove!

Commercial rap (as a whole) panders a lot more to tween and teen white people than it somehow makes black people sell drugs, sell prostitutes, be on welfare, or 'Superman dat hoe.'

EDIT:

All right. Your update featured a bit more critical thinking. Hip hop was the factor he cited that black culture 'bought into.' I accept his stuff about Sharpton and Imus. I just think targetting hip hop is as much of a dodge of serious issues as his critique of the response to Don Imus.

With a lack of any other problems cited (other than Al Sharpton and Jackson who 'totally represent' all black people', really!)... it seems pretty, well, obvious.

[Clove]

Gosh. Substantive way to pick something that totally had nothing to do with me dismissing his point. You're the master of content, Clove!

Commercial rap (as a whole) panders a lot more to tween and teen white people than it somehow makes black people sell drugs, sell prostitutes, be on welfare, or 'Superman dat hoe.'Your point is pointless. Because you're talking about quantities and not proportions, dipshit.

[Warriorbird]

More... substance. I was addressing commercial rap as a phenomenon (like he was.) I think it is ludicrous to assert that the problems came out of the music when the music is largely a way for tiny portions of the black community to make money off of white people (and the white people who manage them to make even more money.)

You were just being an ass. You like to. A lot of us do on this forum.

[TheWitch]

Rock vs. Hip Hop.

It is to laugh.

The rock culture, whatever the nebulous hell that might happen to be, does not advocate shooting each other, carrying guns at all times to be prepared to shoot someone at any given moment.

Which is all largely beside the point, and I agree with that essay.

AFRICAN AMERICANS (is that capped enough for your ass?) largely hold themselves apart from society as a whole. No, not all of them, any more than all whites (notice the entire lower case so as not to puctuationally imply anything involving supremacy) want to keep the black man down.

If it's convenient to play the race card, the race card gets played.
Meanwhile, the mantra "equal" gets chanted when that's convenient.

No, they don't want equal. They want special, to somehow compensate for bad deeds done hundreds of years ago.

I have no clue what the solution here is, except one sentence:

Take responsiblity for your self.

[Clove]

No this is more of your *shrieks like Ash* hyperbole. Either you're deliberately ignoring the fact that there is a difference of impact that can be distinguished by proportionate listeners, or you're innumerate, or you're deliberately being deceptive, or you're parroting.

This isn't really much different than your "longest war in American history" bullshit statement. It's okay. You do this a lot.

[Warriorbird]

I'm glad you've got such eloquent supporters, Clove.

:)

The man didn't cite dead prez or Mos Def. He said 50 Cent. 50 represents commercial hip hop to his core. Commercial hip hop is based off making money off of white people. It has been since the Beastie Boys. When 'gangsta rap' kicked in hard with NWA and then Death Row et al. it represented the 'bad other' that young white culture loves to buy into. These groups aren't targeted at black kids in the hood (no matter how much they're claiming to be.) The percentages don't matter. For a conservative argument... the money isn't in the hood. Thus the 'bad other' image of the hood is mined to make money off those who actually have it.

While you're trying to pick apart my statements point by point and insulting me you're suggesting that hip hop is responsible for black people's problems. I'm sorry. You can go back with the other 'not at all racist' folks and mourn for Jessie Helms and Strom Thurmond while (and I'm not suggesting that you're racist, mind, just painfully out of touch) while you talk about how black people should be 'standing up for themselves' to avoid talking about the real problems...

...just like, y'know, this hack sportswriter is suggesting that Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson avoid talking about the real problems.

'Responsibility' and 'fix their own problems!' is just the same as the 'playing the race card' you decry. Blaming hip hop is just mockable.
50 Cent is in the hood (Connecticut, actually)! He's making black people not do well in school! Soula Boy Tellem told the kids to 'Superman dat hoe!' He's responsible for teen pregnancy! The Game makes people sell drugs (he started out a male stripper)!

[Daniel]

Rock vs. Hip Hop.

It is to laugh.

The rock culture, whatever the nebulous hell that might happen to be, does not advocate shooting each other, carrying guns at all times to be prepared to shoot someone at any given moment.

Which is all largely beside the point, and I agree with that essay.

AFRICAN AMERICANS (is that capped enough for your ass?) largely hold themselves apart from society as a whole. No, not all of them, any more than all whites (notice the entire lower case so as not to puctuationally imply anything involving supremacy) want to keep the black man down.

If it's convenient to play the race card, the race card gets played.
Meanwhile, the mantra "equal" gets chanted when that's convenient.

No, they don't want equal. They want special, to somehow compensate for bad deeds done hundreds of years ago.

I have no clue what the solution here is, except one sentence:

Take responsiblity for your self.


By hundreds of years ago, do you mean less than one full generation ago?

[Daniel]

And the article doesn't so much blame hip-hop culture as claim that it has more of a destructive influence than one bad joke (incidentally he implicates black comedians as well), but yet goes uncriticized. He's pointing out hypocrisy.

I dunno. I didn't think it could be much more obvious.

I think the problem is that people believe that those people in the ghettos have "Bought into" this hip hop culture, instead of the hip hop culture being a direct result of the life that these people live.

Trust me: There is nothing I find more aggravating than any middle class person talking about being from the hood or being from the ghetto as it's a good thing. However, let's not lose the point that there is a pretty solid basis for a lot of it. That said, I'm becoming more and more disalussioned with "black music" because it's moved away from the social commentary of people like Tupac to more so, I'm gonna make up some bullshit just to sell records to white people who don't know wtf they are talking about.

[Sean]

Originally Posted by Clove
And the article doesn't so much blame hip-hop culture as claim that it has more of a destructive influence than one bad joke (incidentally he implicates black comedians as well), but yet goes uncriticized. He's pointing out hypocrisy.

I dunno. I didn't think it could be much more obvious.

His critique in the article goes well beyond Imus. He's clearly blaming Hip-Hop culture, at least in part, for the problems with the black youth in general.


Originally Posted by Jason Whitlock

It is us. At this time, we are our own worst enemies. We have allowed our youths to buy into a culture (hip hop) that has been perverted, corrupted and overtaken by prison culture. The music, attitude and behavior expressed in this culture is anti-black, anti-education, demeaning, self-destructive, pro-drug dealing and violent.

Anyway, my point is that it isn't Hip-Hop culture that's the problem. We've gone to court on issues like Judas Priest to show that Rock or Metal music isn't responsible for the actions taken by those who participate in the culture. After Columbine people wanted to blame the likes of Marilyn Manson but that was rightly brushed off. But it's convenient to blame Hip-Hop for the woes of the black community.

[Clove]

I'm glad you've got such eloquent supporters, Clove.

:)

The man didn't cite dead prez or Mos Def. He said 50 Cent. 50 represents commercial hip hop to his core. Commercial hip hop is based off making money off of white people. It has been since the Beastie Boys. When 'gangsta rap' kicked in hard with NWA and then Death Row et al. it represented the 'bad other' that young white culture loves to buy into. These groups aren't targeted at black kids in the hood (no matter how much they're claiming to be.) The percentages don't matter. For a conservative argument... the money isn't in the hood. Thus the 'bad other' image of the hood is mined to make money off those who actually have it.

While you're trying to pick apart my statements point by point and insulting me you're suggesting that hip hop is responsible for black people's problems. I'm sorry. You can go back with the other 'not at all racist' folks and mourn for Jessie Helms and Strom Thurmond while (and I'm not suggesting that you're racist, mind, just painfully out of touch) while you talk about how black people should be 'standing up for themselves' to avoid talking about the real problems...

...just like, y'know, this hack sportswriter is suggesting that Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson avoid talking about the real problems.

'Responsibility' and 'fix their own problems!' is just the same as the 'playing the race card' you decry. Blaming hip hop is just mockable.

50 Cent is in the hood (Connecticut, actually)! He's making black people not do well!..

[Warriorbird]

And look. You're not talking. Funny how that works.

[Sean]

Originally Posted by TheWitch
The rock culture, whatever the nebulous hell that might happen to be, does not advocate shooting each other, carrying guns at all times to be prepared to shoot someone at any given moment.

Hyperbole much? Neither does Hip-Hop culture, which for the record is as nebulous a term as Rock Culture.

[Clove]

Anyway, my point is that it isn't Hip-Hop culture that's the problem. We've gone to court on issues like Judas Priest to show that Rock or Metal music isn't responsible for the actions taken by those who participate in the culture. After Columbine people wanted to blame the likes of Marilyn Manson but that was rightly brushed off. But it's convenient to blame Hip-Hop for the woes of the black community.We also defend the rights of Skinheads and Klansmen to free speech, that doesn't mean that the content of their speech doesn't have a negative influence.

The point is, how can you be selective in whom you hold responsible for their public message? They went after Imus, but not Chapelle.

[Clove]

And look. You're not talking. Funny how that works.Mostly because you're attributing a lot of quotes to me that don't exist. Although I make an exception for you, I don't generally respond to bullshit.

[TheWitch]

By hundreds of years ago, do you mean less than one full generation ago?

Are you talking about segregation? Because I wasn't but okay.

Looking back on the horrors inflicted by one group of people on another, segregation probably isn't in the top 10. Neither is it defensible in any way, before you get your feathers ruffled. Discrimination, segregation, none of it's good and I'm not saying it is.

However.

How long does the generation dealing with life in this world NOW have to pay for the mistakes of the people of prior generations? And how many generations of blacks is it going to take before there is some realization that they're in charge of their own destiny and responsible for the consequences of their decisions?

Is giving someone something (college admission, a check, a seat on the bus) just because their skin is black, is that fixing anything? No, that's just creating a whole segment of the population that expects to be "given" to because they're black, and blames whitey when they're not given what they want.

I don't pretend to know what it's like growing up black in the inner city.

What I do know is that the taxes I pay fund this antisocial, anti-establishment crap of 28 year old grandmothers with not a father in sight collecting welfare and spending it on dope. Because 40 years ago great-great-great grandma had to sit in the back of the bus? Come on.

[Sean]

Originally Posted by Clove
We also defend the rights of Skinheads and Klansmen to free speech, that doesn't mean that the content of their speech doesn't have a negative influence.

The point is, how can you be selective in whom you hold responsible for their public message? They went after Imus, but not Chapelle.

I went on the record earlier in this thread that I felt he was right when it came to those going after Imus which would also mean I'd be against going after Chapelle. So we're in agreement on that. I'm not entirely sure where you stand on Hip-Hop culture so I'm not really sure what else you want me to say here...

[Clove]

I'm not entirely sure where you stand on Hip-Hop culture so I'm not really sure what else you want me to say here...Whatever you like, it's a public board.

[Warriorbird]

You drop the randomly inserted insults and I'll drop the hyperbole, Clove.

A simple read of that article suggests 'buying into hip hop culture' as a sin that black culture as a whole is guilty of.

I think the problems go a lot deeper than hip hop. I believe it makes an easy target. I think that you can hold its message contemptable but that it is way too simplistic to blame it for anything.

I think it is way too simplistic to blame racism on skinheads or Klansmen. I think they are symptoms of it.

::

TheWitch... you may not want to pay for anything for poor black people or 'welfare mothers'. I don't particularly feel like paying anything for the war in Iraq. We don't get to choose what our taxes go to or we might have a very different country. It might be nice if we could decide exactly where our taxes went to but I don't think it would ultimately hold up. We each vote for politicians that we feel will act like we wish because that is how we are able to act in America. The politicians act very indirectly because that is the nature of politicial compromise.

Rather than blaming hip hop or 'black people's clannishness' it might be better to analyze the correlation between the number of educated professional people (or skilled laboring people) in a community's correlation to the number of future ones that a community generates. I feel like some sort of tax cut for a professional (or a skilled tradesman) living in an impoverished neighborhood (black or not) might be something wise for the government to do.

Ideas like that rarely get discussed though.

Many ghetto neighborhoods are ruled by what is, in essence, a franchise, drug dealing. If one can encourage a return of more affluent consumers than other sorts of much more useful franchises might show up.

[Daniel]

Are you talking about segregation? Because I wasn't but okay.


I was talking about the "Bad deeds" that you seem to think only happened "Hundreds" of years ago.



Looking back on the horrors inflicted by one group of people on another, segregation probably isn't in the top 10. Neither is it defensible in any way, before you get your feathers ruffled. Discrimination, segregation, none of it's good and I'm not saying it is.

However.

Uh..okay.

That's of course your (incredibly biased and ill-informed) opinion.




How long does the generation dealing with life in this world NOW have to pay for the mistakes of the people of prior generations? And how many generations of blacks is it going to take before there is some realization that they're in charge of their own destiny and responsible for the consequences of their decisions?


I'm gonna go out on a limb and say "At least one".

My father was well into adulthood when he received "equal rights" in America. That means, I as an individual, am the first person in my family who can say that I've lived my entire life where my destiny was entirely in my hands. I think I've done quite well for myself.

However, that's in the face of the environment that I grew up in that was *created* by these "bad deeds" you think are so negligible, to say nothing of being non existent today.

It takes time and it takes effort to undue centuries of "bad deeds" and you can't do it if you purposefully over generalize, willfully misrepresent and blantantly ignore the problems that do exist.




Is giving someone something (college admission, a check, a seat on the bus) just because their skin is black, is that fixing anything? No, that's just creating a whole segment of the population that expects to be "given" to because they're black, and blames whitey when they're not given what they want.

Feel free to use my first post in this thread as a reference, but when have you ever seen me asking for any of these things? Or better yet, feel free to re-read the OP and this time pay attention to the part where he talks about some of the real problems facing Black America.




I don't pretend to know what it's like growing up black in the inner city.



Good. So about about you save the ignorant bullshit then? If you think the worse thing that happened under Jim Crow was people sitting on the back of the bus, then I don't know who to blame: Your lack of education or your inbred relatives.

[Clove]

You drop the randomly inserted insults and I'll drop the hyperbole, Clove.Learn to make accurate points, and I'll stop criticizing you.

[Warriorbird]

My forums crashed. There's an edit in my last that should've been in there earlier, TheWitch.

I'm sorry you have trouble seeing any accuracy in my last post, Clove. I'd have liked it if we were debating an article with a bit more depth. That happens rarely around here.

[TheWitch]

You start out making sense, and then of course you need so scrape the barrel with insults and assumptions about what I do and don't understand.

Nice behavior. It's everybodies fault but yours, isn't it.

That's what I would have said, if I was as ignorant as you seem to think I am.

At no point did I insult you, and at no point did I suggest that it was as simple as a seat on the bus. Nothing is. This also isn't really a venue to get into the finer details of it, so....yea, maybe it seems like I think it's that simple. What I think is that I don't have three hours to write a dissertation.

If you've taken responsibility for your self, which far too many people - white, black, stripped and polka-dotted - don't seem to want to do, then great. If more people - white, black, stripped and polka-dotted - would take responsibility for themselves and not expect handouts and special treatment just because they fall into a "category", that would be even better.

I'm going to step out of this, though, because apparently my opinion as a non-black can only be based in ignorance. Nice stereotype.

[Daniel]

At no point did I insult you, and at no point did I suggest that it was as simple as a seat on the bus.

Actually. Yea you did, in the same breath of insinuating my culture boiled down to "28 year old grandmothers, collecting welfare checks smoking dope".



I'm going to step out of this, though, because apparently my opinion as a non-black can only be based in ignorance. Nice stereotype.

Stereotype? No. Your ignorance has absolutely nothing to do with you being "non-black" and everything to do with your ignorant beliefs that the worse thing minorities have had to endure in this country in "hundreds of years" is being relegated to the back of the bus.

[Sean]

You weren't attempting to insult?


Originally Posted by TheWitch
AFRICAN AMERICANS (is that capped enough for your ass?) largely hold themselves apart from society as a whole. No, not all of them, any more than all whites (notice the entire lower case so as not to puctuationally imply anything involving supremacy) want to keep the black man down.

[CrystalTears]

What I do know is that the taxes I pay fund this antisocial, anti-establishment crap of 28 year old grandmothers with not a father in sight collecting welfare and spending it on dope. Because 40 years ago great-great-great grandma had to sit in the back of the bus? Come on.
Yeah I don't understand how you would consider this an insult in any way.

[Skeeter]

By hundreds of years ago, do you mean less than one full generation ago?

Was there some shit going down in the late 80's early 90s that I don't know about?

[Methais]

That said, I'm becoming more and more disalussioned with "black music" because it's moved away from the social commentary of people like Tupac to more so, I'm gonna make up some bullshit just to sell records to white people who don't know wtf they are talking about.

Tupac was way ahead of his time, as proven here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=695GyciDk24

[Daniel]

Was there some shit going down in the late 80's early 90s that I don't know about?

Well, technically there was the war on drugs but, I was specifically referring to those whose parents were born around or before the civil rights amendment. However you want to break that down is fine with me.

[BigWorm]

Nice nigger behavior. It's everybodies fault but yours, isn't it.

At no point did I insult you, and at no point did I suggest that it was as simple as a seat on the bus.

Yeah because calling a black man a nigger is never an insult.

What the fuck is wrong with you?

[Methais]

Yeah because calling a black man a nigger is never an insult.

OH OK BUT IT'S OK FOR A BLACK TO CALL A WHITE GUY A NIGGER RIGHT?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1o82BVKFp8

[RichardCranium]

Yeah because calling a black man a nigger is never an insult.

What the fuck is wrong with you?


That's what I would have said, if I was as ignorant as you seem to think I am.

You left out this part.

[Deathravin]

You start out making sense, and then of course you need so scrape the barrel with insults and assumptions about what I do and don't understand.

Nice nigger behavior. It's everybodies fault but yours, isn't it.

That's what I would have said, if I was as ignorant as you seem to think I am.

At no point did I insult you, and at no point did I suggest that it was as simple as a seat on the bus. Nothing is. This also isn't really a venue to get into the finer details of it, so....yea, maybe it seems like I think it's that simple. What I think is that I don't have three hours to write a dissertation.

If you've taken responsibility for your self, which far too many people - white, black, stripped and polka-dotted - don't seem to want to do, then great. If more people - white, black, stripped and polka-dotted - would take responsibility for themselves and not expect handouts and special treatment just because they fall into a "category", that would be even better.

I'm going to step out of this, though, because apparently my opinion as a non-black can only be based in ignorance. Nice stereotype.

So... many things wrong... can't... choose just one...

A lot of retarded people don't know they're retarded. You might want to look into it.

[Clove]

And whenever we get a new retard, they always take afront to being insulted. That's just what we do 'round here. Insult retards. Don't be retarded.

[Parkbandit]

And whenever we get a new retard, they always take afront to being insulted. That's just what we do 'round here. Insult retards. Don't be retarded.

To be fair, there are many retards that have posted on this forum for years. I would be negligent in my duties here if I simply gave them a free pass.

[crb]

You drop the randomly inserted insults and I'll drop the hyperbole, Clove.

A simple read of that article suggests 'buying into hip hop culture' as a sin that black culture as a whole is guilty of.

I think the problems go a lot deeper than hip hop. I believe it makes an easy target. I think that you can hold its message contemptable but that it is way too simplistic to blame it for anything.

I think it is way too simplistic to blame racism on skinheads or Klansmen. I think they are symptoms of it.

::

TheWitch... you may not want to pay for anything for poor black people or 'welfare mothers'. I don't particularly feel like paying anything for the war in Iraq. We don't get to choose what our taxes go to or we might have a very different country. It might be nice if we could decide exactly where our taxes went to but I don't think it would ultimately hold up. We each vote for politicians that we feel will act like we wish because that is how we are able to act in America. The politicians act very indirectly because that is the nature of politicial compromise.

Rather than blaming hip hop or 'black people's clannishness' it might be better to analyze the correlation between the number of educated professional people (or skilled laboring people) in a community's correlation to the number of future ones that a community generates. I feel like some sort of tax cut for a professional (or a skilled tradesman) living in an impoverished neighborhood (black or not) might be something wise for the government to do.

Ideas like that rarely get discussed though.

Many ghetto neighborhoods are ruled by what is, in essence, a franchise, drug dealing. If one can encourage a return of more affluent consumers than other sorts of much more useful franchises might show up.


Many ghetto neighborhoods are ruled by what is, in essence, a franchise, drug dealing. If one can encourage a return of more affluent consumers than other sorts of much more useful franchises might show up.

You're a douche. You know shit like that gets protested all the time? The same ignorant douche people who blame everyone but themselves for their problems get all up in arms about people trying to "steal their neighborhood" with redevelopments aimed at attracting more well-to-do people.

I love it when I see an African American (capitalized for your masturbatory pleasure) put out a statement that calls for the African American community to take more responsibility for their own lot in life. Even Barack Obama has done it, and the stereotype exemplified by people like Jeremiah Wright dies a little bit... and then this thread comes along and just reinforces that stereotype. Blame whitey, blame the police, blame republicans, blame jews, blame mexicans, blame canada (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQ7LnK_5L74), but no, don't take any personal responsibility.

The civil war freed the slaves of the South, but there were freed African Americans long living in the north. These people were in this country long before many other immigrant groups. Why is it the Indians, Middle Easterners, or Asians don't have all these problems? Lets look at the Jews? Hmm. Jews got shat on by the Egyptians, shat on by the Romans, shat on by the Germans, Jews have been enslaved and persecuted for far longer than anyone with dark skin and they seem to be doing alright? Right?

Honestly, I'm surprised more African Americans didn't vote for Hillary, I'd think they'd find a commonality in her sense of entitlement.

Here in Michigan in 06, despite some really crass protests that bordered on riots by African American community groups, we overwhelmingly passed an affirmative action ban, more people voted yes on it than anything else on the ballot, including the winner governor. I think most white people are sick of being blamed for problems in the black (excuse me, Black) community. My ancestors didn't reach this country until after the Civil War, and they didn't live in the South, they settled up here. My ancestors never owned slaves, and quite frankly many African Americans also did not have ancestors who were slaves, and it is wrong to blame me or other white people, for your problems, just because people who had a skin color in common with us enslaved people who had a skin color in common with you, 150 years ago.

Even your boy Obama gets this, his whole big race speech after Wright-gate tried to address it.

Some people out there are immune to white guilt. We're not racist, we won't cross the street if you're coming down the sidewalk, we won't make you sit on the back of the bus, we won't deny you the right to vote, and we sure as hell won't be blamed for your problems.

No matter what community you look at, no matter what problems, you can always find someone who made it out with hard work and perseverance. The son of an ex-con highschool drop out can go on to be a doctor or a lawyer.

Success is possible no matter what your skin color or your economic circumstances, you just have to work for it, and take responsibility.

Now go ahead, flame me as a racist because I refuse to be guilty for something someone with a skin color like mine did in history. I also have a skin color in common with Adolf Hitler, not guilty about that. Nero & Caligula, nope, not guilty there. I get guilty about things I personally do, I don't look at the world as "white team vs black team" and associate myself and my success with people who look like me. I try to, you know, consider the content of character and not the color of skin... hmm... who said that?

[Latrinsorm]

What I do know is that the taxes I pay fund this antisocial, anti-establishment crap of 28 year old grandmothers with not a father in sight collecting welfare and spending it on dope.What you don't "know" is the predominant color amongst welfare recipients, or the predominant color amongst welfare recipients of the type you describe. It's clear why you would loudly proclaim this as fact, though:
I'm going to step out of this, though, because apparently my opinion as a non-black can only be based in ignorance. Nice stereotype.By making obviously bigoted statements (including but not limited to that quoted), you give yourself an easy façade to hide behind when anything about what you say is challenged - a transparent technique, but one with which you've clearly blinded yourself.

[Latrinsorm]

Now go ahead, flame me as a racist because I refuse to be guilty for something someone with a skin color like mine did in history.The point is that consigning racial problems in American history to "slavery" is an incredibly disingenuous whitewash of history. Your overeager trumpeting of your powers of vision gives your blindness away.

[crb]

What you don't "know" is the predominant color amongst welfare recipients, or the predominant color amongst welfare recipients of the type you describe. It's clear why you would loudly proclaim this as fact, though:By making obviously bigoted statements (including but not limited to that quoted), you give yourself an easy façade to hide behind when anything about what you say is challenged - a transparent technique, but one with which you've clearly blinded yourself.
That is a great point.

People often forget about the poor white kids from the trailer park in lieu of the poor black kids from the projects.

Do either really have that much opportunity in life?

No, why then do we have so many racially based outreach programs, affirmative action etc? Why not base them on socioeconomic standards and not skin color?

The longer people identify people by skin color as different, the longer racism will exist. This goes to the black community too as they hold themselves apart through skin color all the time. I find it hard to reconcile "We're black, so we're different, but don't you go treating us different, unless it is good, then it is okay." Shit like that doesn't make sense. The us vs. them mentality just perpetuates problems.

[crb]

The point is that consigning racial problems in American history to "slavery" is an incredibly disingenuous whitewash of history. Your overeager trumpeting of your powers of vision gives your blindness away.
Did you expect a 1500 word essay? I'm sorry, I didn't realize one needed a thorough comprehensive listing of all relevant examples in a forum argument.

I figured the reader to have the intelligence enough to extrapolate my feelings of not being guilty for one act I didn't to, to carry over to also not being guilty for other acts I didn't do, and so on.

[Sean]

Originally Posted by Crb
I love it when I see an African American (capitalized for your masturbatory pleasure) put out a statement that calls for the African American community to take more responsibility for their own lot in life. Even Barack Obama has done it, and the stereotype exemplified by people like Jeremiah Wright dies a little bit... and then this thread comes along and just reinforces that stereotype. Blame whitey, blame the police, blame republicans, blame jews, blame mexicans, blame canada, but no, don't take any personal responsibility.

I'm pretty sure no one in this thread has said blame anyone while at the same time take no personal responsibility. Feel free to prove me wrong though.

[Parkbandit]

Even your boy Obama gets this, his whole big race speech after Wright-gate tried to address it.



I wish I had your same optimism that this was true and not just another empty political speech.

[Methais]

Ever wonder why the majority of the minority whiners are black? Howcome the Asians, for example, aren't whining about everything and blaming it on white people?

When do you hear about Japanese Americans justifying a drive-by shurikening by blaming it on us for bombing them in WW2? That was a lot more recent than slavery, and probably killed a lot more people too.

If blacks hadn't been enslaved centuries ago, then Tyrone Jamal Jackson would be running around some African jungle right now chasing tigers or whatever it is REAL Africans do, instead of waddling down the road with his pants down to his knees with a stolen glock in his pocket, slinging crack to 12-year-olds and blaming it on white people.

I'm not saying be thankful for slavery, I'm saying be thankful that you live in America today, regardless of how you got here. If not, please choose from one of the following:

1. Shut the fuck up.
2. Go back to Africa, your "homeland" that you know nothing about, yet insist on being referred to as African anyway.

http://www.lucasalexander.dk/images/Arnold-Stop-Whining-sizdow.jpg

OFF TOPIC:
http://www.deadlinehollywooddaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/09/Arnold_In_Pink.jpg

[Stretch]

Ever wonder why the majority of the minority whiners are black? Howcome the Asians, for example, aren't whining about everything and blaming it on white people?


I'm not gonna lie, if I was born in an environment where people get teased / bullied for liking reading, I'd probably fail at life too.

[crb]

I'm not gonna lie, if I was born in an environment where people get teased / bullied for liking reading, I'd probably fail at life too.
... and isn't that a problem. Racist African Americans like to discount the accomplishments by people like say Condoleezza Rice by denigrating them for "acting white."

As if it is a bad thing to join productive society, work hard, and get educated.

[Methais]

... and isn't that a problem. Racist African Americans like to discount the accomplishments by people like say Condoleezza Rice by denigrating them for "acting white."

As if it is a bad thing to join productive society, work hard, and get educated.

http://www.phatpimpclothing.com/hi/phatpimp/images/myspace/opportunity_suckas.jpg

[Stanley Burrell]

AFRICAN AMERICANS (is that capped enough for your ass?)

If this is in response to post #8 in this thread, then shut your idiot ass the fuck up.

If this isn't in response to post #8 in this thread, then shut your idiot ass the fuck up.

In summation, we know you like black because because you went above and beyond to capitalize.

This is going to be fucking awesome when Obama's president. Mainly because of shits like you.

[radamanthys]

The classic definition of racism is the belief that one race is superior or /more deserving/ than another.

Many outspoken black leaders feel that their race /deserves more/ because of past issues. Do the math.


And I hope Obama gets elected so the race baiters can be all "AMERICA HATES BLACK... oh, wait, fuck." 'Course, you'll hear, "he's not really black". Psh.

I lived in a mostly black neighborhood growing up. All older folks, some of the best people I ever knew. It's not a matter of blacks being incapable of succeeding, at all. I see quite a bit of choice, entitlement and culture that is 'keeping them back'. In my elementary school, for some reason the kids who got free lunch always had the best sneakers, the most game systems, etc. Bill Cosby has it spot-on right.

Drug laws, I think, are the single biggest issue, with entitlements second in. Italians got a bad rap after prohibition, because of organized crime. What are gangs but the new mafia, risen out of new prohibition?

Oh, and well I'm at it... I don't call myself an Italian American, I'm a fucking American. Unless you're from Uganda, stfu about being African.

Hell, my pop was born in Germany. A majority of blacks are more American than I am.

This is America. You're only poor if you wanna be.

[Daniel]

I'm pretty sure no one in this thread has said blame anyone while at the same time take no personal responsibility. Feel free to prove me wrong though.

I'd like to see this proven as well.

[Parkbandit]

Can I use the 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon method?

[Daniel]

The classic definition of racism is the belief that one race is superior or /more deserving/ than another.

Many outspoken black leaders feel that their race /deserves more/ because of past issues. Do the math.


I'd rather take issue with your misunderstanding of the english language.

Feeling as if your race got screwed over by another race and probably deserve some sort of consideration is alot different then say..believing your race is better than another and thus it's okay to screw over another race.



And I hope Obama gets elected so the race baiters can be all "AMERICA HATES BLACK... oh, wait, fuck." 'Course, you'll hear, "he's not really black". Psh.

I lived in a mostly black neighborhood growing up. All older folks, some of the best people I ever knew. It's not a matter of blacks being incapable of succeeding, at all. I see quite a bit of choice, entitlement and culture that is 'keeping them back'. In my elementary school, for some reason the kids who got free lunch always had the best sneakers, the most game systems, etc. Bill Cosby has it spot-on right.

Drug laws, I think, are the single biggest issue, with entitlements second in. Italians got a bad rap after prohibition, because of organized crime. What are gangs but the new mafia, risen out of new prohibition?

Oh, and well I'm at it... I don't call myself an Italian American, I'm a fucking American. Unless you're from Uganda, stfu about being African.

Hell, my pop was born in Germany. A majority of blacks are more American than I am.

This is America. You're only poor if you wanna be.

Ironically, I'd agree with you 100%. However, I believe a couple of more things that maybe you don't, such as that certain groups in America have to walk more uphill than others, primarily based upon historical reasons. I won't agree that that hill is shrinking, rapidly, but I won't deny that it exists (or even go so far as to say that it's actually the opposite).

[Daniel]

Can I use the 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon method?

You mean Logic?

Sure.

Give it a shot.

Please ;)

[Parkbandit]

You mean Logic?

Sure.

Give it a shot.

Please ;)

I could do that.. or just make unsupported claims like the US Military uses 60% of the total US energy...

[Daniel]

I thought not.

[crb]

Bill Cosby has it spot-on right.

Bill Cosby is a good man, for sure. HE is worth 10 sharptons.

[TheWitch]

I'd rather take issue with your misunderstanding of the english language.

Feeling as if your race got screwed over by another race and probably deserve some sort of consideration is alot different then say..believing your race is better than another and thus it's okay to screw over another race.



Ironically, I'd agree with you 100%. However, I believe a couple of more things that maybe you don't, such as that certain groups in America have to walk more uphill than others, primarily based upon historical reasons. I won't agree that that hill is shrinking, rapidly, but I won't deny that it exists (or even go so far as to say that it's actually the opposite).

Daniel, the point many of us are trying to make here isn't that consideration shouldn't have be given. Consideration has been, and continues to be, given. My question is, at what point does it become incumbant upon the group of people to whom that consideration is being given to say, okay, cool. We'll take it from here. Stop seeing our skin color, we'll stop asking you to take our skin color into consideration.

As a female, I'm also walking up a steeper hill than white male America. You realize less than as century ago, women couldn't vote. Less than 40 years ago, women weren't allowed into many colleges, were required to wear skirts into the workplace, were not even considered for management positions, and to this day are paid roughly 70 cents to the dollar for the same job as a man.

Not all white males in America are walking a flat road, either. Everyone has their crosses to bear, and how steep that hill is becomes less about skin tone or nationality or ethnicity when the person bearing the cross realizes, it's their burden and finds away to carry it.

I disagree with entitlements - which is what I believe this thread started out about - in the vast majority of situations, for white or black or women etc etc, simply because I believe that it takes away the drive to succeed that is inherent in people. Why work hard if you don't have to?

[g++]

I think we can all agree that our race/gender has a harder time of it then your race/gender. When will people realize that we all have it harder than everyone else based on our race/gender. Whatever our race/gender may be.

[Warriorbird]

None of my post was directed at you, crb. With that said I love to be the source of rants/serious discussion even if it is completely misguided.

I think there tend to be arguments about development when people are kicked out of their homes and not compensated fairly. I've been house-sitting for my aunt in Baltimore and walking her dog through a lot of neighborhoods... some of them black, some of them definitely not affluent.

You know what I've seen on three separate occasions? Poor black people campaigning for community redevelopment. So if you do it right... people will be campaigning for you not against you.

[crb]

Some reading:

http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=3719
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2006/01/18/083418.php

[Warriorbird]

Better than blaming hip hop. I prefer to try to think on solutions rather than bemoaning 'lack of responsibility' however. People like the writer of that second article need to be working on helping their community rather than fleeing it. It'd be nice to give them some enlightened self interest towards doing that.

But no. I'm apparently 'a douche.' who 'protests everything.'

[g++]

None of my post was directed at you, crb. With that said I love to be the source of rants/serious discussion even if it is completely misguided.

I think there tend to be arguments about development when people are kicked out of their homes and not compensated fairly. I've been house-sitting for my aunt in Baltimore and walking her dog through a lot of neighborhoods... some of them black, some of them definitely not affluent.

You know what I've seen on three separate occasions? Poor black people campaigning for community redevelopment. So if you do it right... people will be campaigning for you not against you.

LOL meanwhile NE baltimore is being bull dozed by Hopkins and probarbly wont stop. Its interesting Hopkins has actually reached a point where they own so much land in NE, that by bulldozing section 8 housing and planting grass it raises the rest of their properties values enough that its actually profitable for them to destroy homes for no reason. Isnt that insane?

[Warriorbird]

I didn't say I was there! That is pretty crazy.

[Fallen]

Good. I don't go to Baltimore because it is a god damn slum. Glad someone is trying to clean up that mess.

[g++]

Good. I don't go to Baltimore because it is a god damn slum. Glad someone is trying to clean up that mess.

You dont tip anyway, you wont be missed.

[Latrinsorm]

Did you expect a 1500 word essay? I'm sorry, I didn't realize one needed a thorough comprehensive listing of all relevant examples in a forum argument.

I figured the reader to have the intelligence enough to extrapolate my feelings of not being guilty for one act I didn't to, to carry over to also not being guilty for other acts I didn't do, and so on.Apparently I wasn't clear. Any depicition of racial inequities as purely and distantly historical is disingenuous. Demanding that you not be held "guilty" is nothing more than a distraction - topically appopriate and humorously ironic. Your position that a balancing of racial discriminations is a punishment for you only serves to illustrate how racist the current climate remains - if it was not, your punishments would have literally no effect.
This is America. You're only poor if you wanna be.I have a two-pronged question for you, or anyone else who holds this belief:
Do you believe that success for a person in general is solely a function of effort?
If so, do you believe that your personal level of success is solely a function of the effort you personally have exerted?
Everyone has their crosses to bear, and how steep that hill is becomes less about skin tone or nationality or ethnicity when the person bearing the cross realizes, it's their burden and finds away to carry it. ... Why work hard if you don't have to?This is a false dichotomy. Nobody is proposing that people of any minority be granted college degrees ad hoc. Affirmative action is intended to alleviate situations most graphically illustrated by Ole Miss in 1962. Nothing about the admission policies in question were overtly racist: they simply allowed the existing environment to continue, which all but ensured that a non-white student would never be admitted.

My parents were alive when the Governor of a state publically vowed to bar a "Negro" from attending a university - and a football stadium full of people cheered! How can you possibly hold the position that those sort of environments have been totally eliminated? How can you possibly hold the position that surmounting centuries of racism is and ought to be the burden of the oppressed? Can you think of anything more effective at taking away the human drive to succeed than repeated and undeniable evidences of inevitable failure?

[Clove]

Apparently I wasn't clear. Any depicition of racial inequities as purely and distantly historical is disingenuous. Inequities exist presently for everyone for a multitude of reasons. I believe the challenge was are the inequities extreme enough to hinder African Americans more than anyone else. Obviously opinions differ.


I have a two-pronged question for you, or anyone else who holds this belief:
Do you believe that success for a person in general is solely a function of effort?
If so, do you believe that your personal level of success is solely a function of the effort you personally have exerted?I know I can answer "yes" to this. I succeed as much as I wish to.


My parents were alive when the Governor of a state publically vowed to bar a "Negro" from attending a university - and a football stadium full of people cheered!Me and my father were riveted to the Dukes of Hazzard 30 years ago too. Now we laugh at the reruns.

[crb]

My parents were alive when the Governor of a state publically vowed to bar a "Negro" from attending a university - and a football stadium full of people cheered! How can you possibly hold the position that those sort of environments have been totally eliminated? How can you possibly hold the position that surmounting centuries of racism is and ought to be the burden of the oppressed? Can you think of anything more effective at taking away the human drive to succeed than repeated and undeniable evidences of inevitable failure?

How can you possibly believe that setting apart a group of people based upon skin color is the way to end racism?

"These people are different from us because of their skin color and they need extra help." is as racist as saying "These people are different from us because of their skin color and they should be lynched."

What you should be saying is "These people are the same as us, no matter what color their skin."

A liberal typically believes in equality of outcome. The world isn't right unless people succeed equally. A conservative believes in equality of opportunity, the world isn't right unless people have equivalent chances.

Most conservatives will say opportunities are equal, and the world is right. Even the poorest inner city school districts have more money than the poor rural districts. And we have laws galore preventing discrimination in things like hiring and college applications. So the opportunity is there, if less of a certain group chooses to avail themselves of that opportunity through a culture that denigrates education and accomplishment, that is their own fault.

Yes, more minorities are incarcerated, yes, minorities tend to make less money, yes, minorities tend to be less educated, yes, minorities tend to be poorer, die younger, be unemployed, etc etc etc. None of these are evidence of racism. Just because something is so, doesn't mean you can apply any causation you please.

Asians & Jews are both minorities, Japanese Americans where wholesale imprisoned by the government more recently than African Americans were. Jews have been fucked over for thousands of years. Neither of those two ethnic groups have problems succeeding in society. Maybe could it be that their parents and greater communities teach them to be personally responsible, to work hard, and that education is a good thing?

Even actual African Americans, I'm talking first generation immigrants who still have the accent, they don't have the same problems as other people who share their skin color who have been here for generations. Like all other immigrant folks they work hard, they appreciate the opportunities this country provides for them, and they don't blame others or seek handouts.

[TheWitch]

:yeahthat:

[Parkbandit]

Me and my father were riveted to the Dukes of Hazzard 30 years ago too. Now we laugh at the reruns.


I CALL LIE AND FABRICATION ON THIS!

It won't be 30 years until January 26, 2009.

Fucking lying piece of shit.. your racism and fabrication sickens me.

[g++]

Even actual African Americans, I'm talking first generation immigrants who still have the accent, they don't have the same problems as other people who share their skin color who have been here for generations. Like all other immigrant folks they work hard, they appreciate the opportunities this country provides for them, and they don't blame others or seek handouts.

I think its really because they are so high on khat they actually enjoy driving cabs.

j/k

[CrystalTears]

I CALL LIE AND FABRICATION ON THIS!

It won't be 30 years until January 26, 2009.

Fucking lying piece of shit.. your racism and fabrication sickens me.
OMFG HYPERBOLE, MAN! KEEP UP!

[Clove]

I CALL LIE AND FABRICATION ON THIS!

It won't be 30 years until January 26, 2009.

Fucking lying piece of shit.. your racism and fabrication sickens me.Fuck. Busted again.

[Ashliana]

How can you possibly believe that setting apart a group of people based upon skin color is the way to end racism?

Believe it or not, I'm fairly conservative on this issue. But I honestly don't see "affirmative action" causing any schools to take in hordes of inferior students. I graduated from George Mason University with my undergrad in '06. GMU (they love touting this) was rated by #2 most diverse school in the nation by the Princeton Review. But the reality is that almost every single student at the school--I lived on campus for 4 1/2 years--was white. In fact, most of the dark skinned people I saw were from African countries.


"These people are different from us because of their skin color and they need extra help." is as racist as saying "These people are different from us because of their skin color and they should be lynched."

Your assertion is fallacious. They don't need extra help because they're inferior genetically and the playing field has to be evened. They need extra help because they're both passively and actively discriminated against at every step of the way. Without making gross generalizations or assumptions about your life, I can't say.

But the average caucasian who grows up in a decent suburb has a much higher chance of going to, and graduating from, college, than most black people and especially urban blacks. Is this because they don't put in the "effort"? No. There are a multitude of theories on this. Social disorganization theory, social learning theory, labeling theory/etc. It's more about the difference of poor culture, as this isn't exclusive to blacks or necessarily minorities.

We live in a society that blames poor people for being poor, which is simplistic and unproductive at best, and shows a nearly sociopathic glossing-over of reality at worst.


A liberal typically believes in equality of outcome. The world isn't right unless people succeed equally. A conservative believes in equality of opportunity, the world isn't right unless people have equivalent chances.

I obviously can't speak for all liberals as you (shouldn't) speak for conservatives. But I believe in an equality of opportunity as well. The difference is that you seem to think that these underpriviledged kids have the same opportunity as the average middle-class caucasian, which is bullshit.


Most conservatives will say opportunities are equal, and the world is right. Even the poorest inner city school districts have more money than the poor rural districts. And we have laws galore preventing discrimination in things like hiring and college applications. So the opportunity is there, if less of a certain group chooses to avail themselves of that opportunity through a culture that denigrates education and accomplishment, that is their own fault.

This just goes to show you that throwing money at a school district doesn't save it. Urban life in most city centers is vastly different, and coincidentally more expensive than rural life. Comparing dollar to dollar amounts without compensating for cost of living disparities is nonsensical. The propensity of black families to not have a father is well documented, especially in the urban environment. This combined with high costs of living, usually meaning multiple jobs for the remaining parent, equal little supervision for children or children being kept with an aged grandparent. Kids are kids, kids are mischievious and they also get caught up by those older, even less-supervised adults running around in gangs.

Now, to an unsupervised child whom has had little "rolemodel" direction in life, but can see the direct impact of crime/etc, sees expensive things on TV all day they can't afford, but that those people in the gangs with stolen goods/money/etc can afford them, versus the comparatively less interesting, boring, "valuable" (they're viewing this in the short-term--they're children) reality of school, it's not hard to see why this cycle repeats itself.


more minorities are incarcerated, yes, minorities tend to make less money, yes, minorities tend to be less educated, yes, minorities tend to be poorer, die younger, be unemployed, etc etc etc. None of these are evidence of racism. Just because something is so, doesn't mean you can apply any causation you please.

They might not show causality, but there's a definite relationship which you can't deny. This has a cause, even if you're not willing to explore it.


Asians & Jews are both minorities, Japanese Americans where wholesale imprisoned by the government more recently than African Americans were. Jews have been fucked over for thousands of years. Neither of those two ethnic groups have problems succeeding in society. Maybe could it be that their parents and greater communities teach them to be personally responsible, to work hard, and that education is a good thing?

Incidentally, Jews are an ethnic, not racial minority. The Japanese Americans were detained; they weren't enslaved for hundreds of years. It's a whitewashing of history to claim that the blacks haven't had their culture essentially destroyed and reformed based on slavery. Asians were never (and still aren't) a huge population of our country--either are Jews, whereas the population of blacks was/is sizable, and most importantly --was created in this country willfully to serve a purpose--their forced labor.


Even actual African Americans, I'm talking first generation immigrants who still have the accent, they don't have the same problems as other people who share their skin color who have been here for generations. Like all other immigrant folks they work hard, they appreciate the opportunities this country provides for them, and they don't blame others or seek handouts.

A good and bad comparison. It actually proves my point--it's the entire black culture that has arisen out of the massive and undeniable racism of the last two hundred years here. A black person from Africa coming today will suffer from residual racism, but not be a part of the destructive culture or unfortunate, urban circumstances that have formed as a result of it.

[CrystalTears]

So say a white child and a black child graduate with the same grade point average from the same high school, both in the same poor bracket. Both get accepted into the school. Who is going to have the better chance to pay for and actually attend college?

[DeV]

So say a white child and a black child graduate with a 4.0 average from the same high school, both in the same poor bracket. Who is going to get the most help to get into college?
Say a white child and a hispanic child graduate with a 4.0 average from the same high school, both in the same poor bracket. Who is going to get the most help to get into college?

Whoever has the most determination to succeed and rise above their environment. Whoever has the most support and encouragement necessary to build bridges of success while eliminating failure. A nation cannot be successful when it fails its children. All children.

[CrystalTears]

I had to reword it a bit because someone pointed it out to me. I didn't explain it how I wanted it to. :(

My point was trying to understand affirmative anything regarding attending schools since there are more possibilities for minorities than white children. So if a white child has the same ability as them, he'd probably have a harder time attending college for several reasons.

My bad.

[DeV]

Who is going to have the better chance to pay for and actually attend college?That's up to the individual now isn't it?

[DeV]

My point was trying to understand affirmative anything regarding attending schools since there are more possibilities for minorities than white children.I'll go you one further and say that there are more opportunities for hispanic children than for whites and blacks, but who's complaining right?


So if a white child has the same ability as them, he'd probably have a harder time attending college for several reasons.
I have a really hard time believing this unless you care to list some of the "several reasons" you speak of. The numbers simply do not support your assertion.

[CrystalTears]

I'll go you one further and say that there are more opportunities for hispanic children than for whites and blacks, but who's complaining right?
Yeah I'm a minority. That wasn't what I was getting at. Sorry that I chose black, but that was the focus of this discussion.


I have a really hard time believing this unless you care to list some of the "several reasons" you speak of. The numbers simply do not support your assertion.
That's why I was asking, because I honestly don't know, and was just wondering that of people who insist there are.

I'm sorry that I'm not explaining stuff right. I'll stop. :)

[Bobmuhthol]

<<Who is going to have the better chance to pay for and actually attend college?>>

Race has nothing to do with this.

[CrystalTears]

Race has nothing to do with this.
Yeah I know, was just following the flow of the thread. I've been pwnt already. :(

[DeV]

I'm sorry that I'm not explaining stuff right. I'll stop. :)Heh, it's totally cool. I was just trying to guage where you were coming from!

[Sean]

Originally Posted by Crb
A liberal typically believes in equality of outcome. The world isn't right unless people succeed equally. A conservative believes in equality of opportunity, the world isn't right unless people have equivalent chances.

Apparently everyone in this thread is a conservative. In fact I can't think of anyone on this board who would fall under your definition of a typical liberal except maybe Backlash or TheE and even them I doubt are for everyone having to have an equal measure of success. Clearly some people (you, TheWitch, etc.) believe that opportunity is equal now and others (Daniel, myself, etc.) believe that it isn't. But that in no way means that those who feel we need to work towards better equality in opportunity feel that everyone needs to obtain equal measure of success.

[Ashliana]

So say a white child and a black child graduate with the same grade point average from the same high school, both in the same poor bracket. Both get accepted into the school. Who is going to have the better chance to pay for and actually attend college?

Do you really think ANY student with a 4.0 grade average and good references is going to have trouble getting into college? Maybe not Harvard, but one of my roommates got into GMU with barely a 2.5GPA and 1100 on her SATs. A lot of people start off with even lower, by first going to a community college.

I don't believe in racial "quotas." But I think if you want to address the underlying problem--economic disparity, and in general, improving conditions of the poor, then education is the best place to start. There's also been research on loans--banks are far more likely to give out loans, including college loans, to cauciasans than minorities, and the minorites they give loans to get higher interest rates.

[Bobmuhthol]

<<There's also been research on loans--banks are far more likely to give out loans, including college loans, to cauciasans than minorities, and the minorites they give loans to get higher interest rates.>>

Call me racist, but don't more caucasians seeking loans have higher-paying jobs than minorities seeking loans?

[BigWorm]

Do you really think ANY student with a 4.0 grade average and good references is going to have trouble getting into college? Maybe not Harvard, but one of my roommates got into GMU with barely a 2.5GPA and 1100 on her SATs. A lot of people start off with even lower, by first going to a community college.

I don't believe in racial "quotas." But I think if you want to address the underlying problem--economic disparity, and in general, improving conditions of the poor, then education is the best place to start. There's also been research on loans--banks are far more likely to give out loans, including college loans, to cauciasans than minorities, and the minorites they give loans to get higher interest rates.

Agreed, quotas are fucked up. But the way that affirmative action is SUPPOSED to work is that when deciding between two virtually equal candidates, the school should pick the one that will make their campus more diverse.

[Ashliana]

<<There's also been research on loans--banks are far more likely to give out loans, including college loans, to cauciasans than minorities, and the minorites they give loans to get higher interest rates.>>

Call me racist, but don't more caucasians seeking loans have higher-paying jobs than minorities seeking loans?

The other factors--income/etc are adjusted for. The finding was that race, by itself, played a factor.

[Ashliana]

I'm having trouble finding the exact article, but this refers to it:

http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2007/03/16/a_smoking_gun_on_race_subprime_loans/

[Latrinsorm]

I know I can answer "yes" to this.How much did your parents financially contribute to your upbringing? Rounding to the nearest thousand dollar amount will be acceptable.
How can you possibly believe that setting apart a group of people based upon skin color is the way to end racism?It is neither my goal nor possible to "end" racism. It is my stated goal to alleviate its results as much as possible without infringing upon higher rights; thus, I would not support a program where avowed racists were simply dragged into the street and shot. With the knowledge that the government is in general a clumsy and imprecise apparatus, it does not bother me overmuch that a clumsy and imprecise program such as affirmative action (or any other so-called "entitlement" program) exists. It is enough that is measurably better than the alternative - National Guardsmen patrolling our state campuses, etc.
What you should be saying isI would encourage you to have a firmer grasp of what I am saying before recommending what I should be saying. I say "I would" because I recognize that your partisan worldview is irrevocably flawed, and that through such a lens such encouragement is indecipherable.

Your ignorance of discrimination against Asians or Jews is in no way evidence that discrimination does not continue to exist against blacks - quite to the contrary.

[longshot]

He's an excellent novelist and a brilliant writer... but I'm not exactly sure how in touch Carter is with the average black American.

He's no Bill Cosby

;)

[TheWitch]

Apparently everyone in this thread is a conservative. In fact I can't think of anyone on this board who would fall under your definition of a typical liberal except maybe Backlash or TheE and even them I doubt are for everyone having to have an equal measure of success. Clearly some people (you, TheWitch, etc.) believe that opportunity is equal now and others (Daniel, myself, etc.) believe that it isn't. But that in no way means that those who feel we need to work towards better equality in opportunity feel that everyone needs to obtain equal measure of success.

I don't necessarily believe that opportunity is equal yet, no.

What I do believe is that making opportunity artifically equal by saying things like (this is a grossly exagerated and simplified example, please lets not get caught up here) is the wrong thing to do:

"Okay! This year at UCLA we're going to admit 20,000 students in the freshman class. 10,000 of those can be white, but no more. Minimally 5,000 must be black, and 5,000 have to be some other race, ie hispanic, asian. That way, we even out opportunity roughly proportionate to the country! Go us!"

What happens here? Merit goes out the window, that's what.

People are handed an opportunity not necessarily based on anything they've achieved, or any potential they've proven to have relative to everyone else, but first and foremost by their skin color.

It shouldn't work for whites, it shouldn't work for blacks, it shouldn't work for anyone. Naive, maybe. I'll admit to that.

[Latrinsorm]

People are handed an opportunity not necessarily based on anything they've achieved, or any potential they've proven to have relative to everyone else, but first and foremost by their skin color.People are handed opportunities constantly due solely to their parents, who received them from their parents, and so on until those oh-so-ancient tragedies of the past are directly active in today's world. And of course, white folk can be crummy parents, and certain white folk had to deal with parallel treatment. Should we, as a country, be content simply with the environment where people can sometimes, if they work a thousand times as hard as other people, manage to break even? Or, broadly speaking, should we try and learn from past mistakes?

[Apathy]

You do realize the people who qualify for those affirmative action opportunities that are just being handed to them tend not to be the kid who got straight F's and walks thuggity thugging, right?

If you, as a middle-class white, are unable you distinguish yourself enough from the other ranks with the advantages over them you've had available to you in your life, you deserve to lose.

[Stretch]

I graduated from a good university with a 3.4 and got a 171 on my LSATs.

I'm pretty sure I'd have a better shot at a top ten law school if I was black.

Them's the breaks, I guess.

[BigWorm]

I graduated from a good university with a 3.4 and got a 171 on my LSATs.

I'm pretty sure I'd have a better shot at a top ten law school if I was black.

Them's the breaks, I guess.

What makes you more appealing to a top ten law school than a black person with a similar GPA and LSAT?

[Parkbandit]

What makes you more appealing to a top ten law school than a black person with a similar GPA and LSAT?

I think his point is.. what makes him LESS appealing to a top ten law school than a black person with a similar GPA and LSAT. Sorry you missed the point.. although it's pretty clear when you read his post.

[Clove]

How much did your parents financially contribute to your upbringing?What's your point? That my parents worked hard to be middle class? Or that middle classed black parents don't get as much from each dollar spent on their child than white middle classed parents? Or poor black families are more disadvantaged than equally poor white families because their black?

[Daniel]

What's your point? That my parents worked hard to be middle class? Or that middle classed black parents don't get as much from each dollar spent on their child than white middle classed parents? Or poor black families are more disadvantaged than equally poor white families because their black?

I'd imagine his point is that your parents definitely had more opportunities than their black counterparts and thus had more to provide you for your upbringing.

[Daniel]

Daniel, the point many of us are trying to make here isn't that consideration shouldn't have be given. Consideration has been, and continues to be, given.


I don't think I've ever said that consideration isn't being given. I'm saying that you obviously aren't giving enough if you believe that the biggest thing people have had to deal with in the last "hundreds of years" is more than being sent to the back of the bus.


Stop seeing our skin color, we'll stop asking you to take our skin color into consideration.


I could care less what your skin color is. I want equality. If you can show how whites are significantly disadvantaged in this country than I'm more than willing to support programs that help them. You think I've made this into some black vs white issue, when it's a matter of OPPORTUNITY which in this country is hard to distinguish between races.



As a female, I'm also walking up a steeper hill than white male America. You realize less than as century ago, women couldn't vote. Less than 40 years ago, women weren't allowed into many colleges, were required to wear skirts into the workplace, were not even considered for management positions, and to this day are paid roughly 70 cents to the dollar for the same job as a man.

Yea. I think this is a problem too. What is your point? injustice elsewhere does not invalidate other injustices.


Not all white males in America are walking a flat road, either. Everyone has their crosses to bear, and how steep that hill is becomes less about skin tone or nationality or ethnicity when the person bearing the cross realizes, it's their burden and finds away to carry it.

I don't think I've ever said this is not true. However, that doesn't make injustice right or desirable.


I disagree with entitlements - which is what I believe this thread started out about - in the vast majority of situations, for white or black or women etc etc, simply because I believe that it takes away the drive to succeed that is inherent in people. Why work hard if you don't have to?

Here I was thinking that the OP was about dismissing the fallacious arguments about racism in this country and addressing the real problems that we face in America.

Silly me.

[Daniel]

You do realize the people who qualify for those affirmative action opportunities that are just being handed to them tend not to be the kid who got straight F's and walks thuggity thugging, right?

If you, as a middle-class white, are unable you distinguish yourself enough from the other ranks with the advantages over them you've had available to you in your life, you deserve to lose.

This is of course the crux of the issue for people like CRB. They created this false impression that everything they have done in this world has absolutely nothing to do with anything other than their effort. Therefore, to suggest that other people have had it harder than them is perceived as some sort attack on the effort they have put in and what they think they have deserve, rather than a commentary on the situation they found themselves in life.

I posted on this quite a bit before and it ended up with Parkbandit suggesting that someone from Malawi has the same shot at getting a law degree as someone in America..which, needless to say is ridiculously wrong.

[Sean of the Thread]

I vote that everyone get a fucking clue.

[BigWorm]

I think his point is.. what makes him LESS appealing to a top ten law school than a black person with a similar GPA and LSAT. Sorry you missed the point.. although it's pretty clear when you read his post.

A black student offers increased diversity. Asian American law students are much more abundant than African American law students in my experience.

How would you recommend deciding between two candidates who are virtually equal except only one comes from a racial/ethnic/religious background that is not well represented on your campus?

[Methais]

Let's trash on Mexicans for a few pages. GO!

[Keller]

If you, as a middle-class white, are unable you distinguish yourself enough from the other ranks with the advantages over them you've had available to you in your life, you deserve to lose.

Basically.

[radamanthys]

Why is it, then, that fresh-off-the-boat Africans are finding so much success here, as compared with their long ago patriated counterparts?

Logic determines that It's not a matter of race but of cultural upbringing. I'm sure that part of it is memory of past injustices. However, it's not an issue of a current institutionalized discrimination.

Take this in the context of a metaphor of a fistfight. Generations ago, Whites punched and blacks got knocked down. The country offers a hand, but instead of using it to be helped up, it seems expected that the nation is forced to pull the full weight, rather than just a helping hand up. If a guy did that in real life, they'd be dropped. It'll happen: eventually if whites are continually blamed for every problem within the black (or, perchance, any minority) community, whites'll give up. What then?

If there was zero consideration given institutionally, would blacks be able to prosper exclusively on their own merits? I argue no- not in the current iteration. It's not a matter of race. Other 'diverse' cultural groups have succeeded, even though they look/act differently than white counterparts. African immigrants aren't having the massive issues. It's cultural, intrinsic to American blacks. There's a modicum of personal responsibility attached to the issue that's just not there.


Poor does not equal black. Poor equals poor, and THAT's what really sucks. Is there discrimination? Yes. Is there racism? Yes. It's gonna exist no matter how many tax dollars we throw at the problem. Fuck, if I tried to walk certain streets at night, I'd get my ass beaten, too. Racism is not something that only whites can do. It's something that EVERYBODY does.

Consider it this way: I've gotten my ass kicked for being white. Not just a punch or two, either. I was down on the ground as a group of blacks kicked me, calling me honky and some other fucked up stuff. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sucks for me. I'm not begging for a scholarship.

Daniel... you don't want equality. It's apparent from everything you've said on the matter that you want enhanced consideration (institutional), above and beyond what others get. That's not equality. If you wanted equality, you'd have

[Clove]

I'd imagine his point is that your parents definitely had more opportunities than their black counterparts and thus had more to provide you for your upbringing.So in other words, middle class blacks have less opportunities than middle class whites. Definitely not the case where I spent most of my childhood.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willingboro_Township%2C_New_Jersey

And certainly wouldn't think so in your case either Daniel. If you want to say that African Americans have proportionately higher poverty level, I can agree. But frankly a redneck, trailer-trash poor white boy isn't going to have any more opportunities than his "black counterpart" and a middle classed white boy isn't going to have any more opportunities than his "black counterpart".

[Daniel]

Why is it, then, that fresh-off-the-boat Africans are finding so much success here, as compared with their long ago patriated counterparts?

Logic determines that It's not a matter of race but of cultural upbringing. I'm sure that part of it is memory of past injustices. However, it's not an issue of a current institutionalized discrimination.

Take this in the context of a metaphor of a fistfight. Generations ago, Whites punched and blacks got knocked down. The country offers a hand, but instead of using it to be helped up, it seems expected that the nation is forced to pull the full weight, rather than just a helping hand up. If a guy did that in real life, they'd be dropped. It'll happen: eventually if whites are continually blamed for every problem within the black (or, perchance, any minority) community, whites'll give up. What then?

Um..Who said whites were blamed for every problem of the black community? I beg you to go back and read my first post in this thread and notice that I acknowledge several problems exist within the black community. That does not that mean that there are still not historical issues that need to be worked on.

Allow me to give you another example that is probably more appropriate:


That beginning is freedom; and the barriers to that freedom are tumbling down. Freedom is the right to share, share fully and equally, in American society--to vote, to hold a job, to enter a public place, to go to school. It is the right to be treated in every part of our national life as a person equal in dignity and promise to all others.

FREEDOM IS NOT ENOUGH

But freedom is not enough. You do not wipe away the scars of centuries by saying: Now you are free to go where you want, and do as you desire, and choose the leaders you please.

You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, "you are free to compete with all the others," and still justly believe that you have been completely fair.

Thus it is not enough just to open the gates of opportunity. All our citizens must have the ability to walk through those gates.

This is the next and the more profound stage of the battle for civil rights. We seek not just freedom but opportunity. We seek not just legal equity but human ability, not just equality as a right and a theory but equality as a fact and equality as a result.

For the task is to give 20 million Negroes the same chance as every other American to learn and grow, to work and share in society, to develop their abilities--physical, mental and spiritual, and to pursue their individual happiness.

To this end equal opportunity is essential, but not enough, not enough. Men and women of all races are born with the same range of abilities. But ability is not just the product of birth. Ability is stretched or stunted by the family that you live with, and the neighborhood you live in--by the school you go to and the poverty or the richness of your surroundings. It is the product of a hundred unseen forces playing upon the little infant, the child, and finally the man.

I'll let you figure out who said that.



Consider it this way: I've gotten my ass kicked for being white. Not just a punch or two, either. I was down on the ground as a group of blacks kicked me, calling me honky and some other fucked up stuff. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sucks for me. I'm not begging for a scholarship.

Uh. Okay. Do you need a scholarship? Did this ass beating somehow effect your ability to perform at a higher level? Did it limit you from doing well in high school and thus unable to get to the next level at all? If so, I'd more than support assistance for you to get back up.




Daniel... you don't want equality. It's apparent from everything you've said on the matter that you want enhanced consideration (institutional), above and beyond what others get. That's not equality. If you wanted equality, you'd have

Really? You sure that doesn't have anything to do with your selective reading of my words and gross assumptions of my motives?

Never once has someone asked me in this thread what it is I feel is necessary to help out the situation today. I find that telling, because it shows that not a single person really wants to hear anything I say. They just want to hear "Whitey is the problem!!" "I don't want to work for anything" "Gimme gimme gimme" When I haven't said any of that.

[Daniel]

So in other words, middle class blacks have less opportunities than middle class whites. Definitely not the case where I spent most of my childhood.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willingboro_Township%2C_New_Jersey



Notice I said "parents" clove.

If a black person's parents is middle class in today's world and they can't make it..that's their own fault.

The problem is that a lot of people in America who *aren't* middle class have worked hard and still not been able to achieve that status. The point is that there are people in our parent's generation who worked just as hard as your parents did and don't have the same thing to show for it. That has a direct impact on what it is they are able to provide their children and it has nothing to do with an absence of personal responsibility.

As for myself, my mother isn't faculty and is apart of the staff. As such, I make about twice as much as she does now. She's doing fine now, but we definitely weren't a middle class family growing up.



And certainly wouldn't think so in your case either Daniel. If you want to say that African Americans have proportionately higher poverty level, I can agree. But frankly a redneck, trailer-trash poor white boy isn't going to have any more opportunities than his "black counterpart" and a middle classed white boy isn't going to have any more opportunities than his "black counterpart"

For the former: That's EXACTLY what I'm saying.

For the latter: I don't think I've ever disagreed with that, except to say that there are still more pitfalls for the poor african american than their white counterparts (I'm specifically referring to 7 to 1 sentencing disparities in America). That acknowledgement doesn't mean I support programs that one over another. I support programs that specifically target those who need the most help in America, whether they be black or white. The consequence of course is that more black people will be helped than white, but that's a course a function of reality.

[radamanthys]

That's fair. What do you propose as solutions, then? It'd allow for more... intellectual disputation, at least.

[Stanley Burrell]

Let's trash on Mexicans for a few pages. GO!

In Soviet Mexico, border crosses YOU.

(You lose en Español tambien.)

[crb]

<<There's also been research on loans--banks are far more likely to give out loans, including college loans, to cauciasans than minorities, and the minorites they give loans to get higher interest rates.>>

Equality of outcome is not equality of opportunity.

Black people get paid less, and have worse credit, because they tend to be uneducated and irresponsible. The bank is not racist, they have mathematical formulas for deciding these things. It is simply that Black people, in general, have shittier lives. It isn't because of their skin color, it is because of the culture that has permeated the last 30 or 40 years within the inner cities.

I'm not racist, I don't give a fuck what color your skin is, but you know what? I'm definitely culturist (if such a word exists). Some cultures are vastly inferior. For instance, fundamentalism muslim culture, very very inferior. Also, inner city thug culture, very very inferior. Inner city white thugs have the same problems as Inner city black thugs. People just don't seem to care or realize that because they figure all the suburban and rural whites put the "white team" far enough ahead.

It isn't wholly a poverty issue either. Some of the poorest people you'll find are white people who live in rural areas. Growing up I knew a farm kid who slept in a tent, a tent, because his house was too small for all the kids. But, many of them (always exceptions) grow up being instilled with values like hard work and responsibility, and they end up alright. There are people out in the country without running water, no heat other than wood burning, and outhouses. It isn't just poverty, it is culture.

You can't legislate or do anything else to make black people have better lives. You can only provide the means for them to help themselves, which most people think have been provided (hence, the success, I mean, acting-white, of dark skinned people who try hard, work hard, and act responsible, all the African immigrants, etc, people without entitlement issues). You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink.

Stop worrying so much about what you think society owes you, and start being proactive in your own life.

[CrystalTears]

Black people get paid less, and have worse credit, because they tend to be uneducated and irresponsible. The bank is not racist, they have mathematical formulas for deciding these things. It is simply that Black people, in general, have shittier lives. It isn't because of their skin color, it is because of the culture that has permeated the last 30 or 40 years within the inner cities.
You say this, and then you followup with...


I'm not racist, I don't give a fuck what color your skin is, but you know what? I'm definitely culturist (if such a word exists). Some cultures are vastly inferior.
Okayy

[AnticorRifling]

You say this, and then you followup with...


Okayy


Probably because the discussion at hand was in regards to whites and blacks, just a guess.

[CrystalTears]

You can't say you're not racist when you completely stereotype black people as being uneducated and irresponsible.

[Clove]

You can't legislate or do anything else to make black people have better lives.Obviously you can't legislate respect either.

[Ashliana]

Equality of outcome is not equality of opportunity.

Black people get paid less, and have worse credit, because they tend to be uneducated and irresponsible. The bank is not racist, they have mathematical formulas for deciding these things. It is simply that Black people, in general, have shittier lives. It isn't because of their skin color, it is because of the culture that has permeated the last 30 or 40 years within the inner cities.

Yes, and where did this culture come from? As a society, we destroyed black culture for the hundreds of years we enslaved them. We prevented them from forming lasting, family structure, prevented them from owning land and property, prevented them from learning to read, write and make art, and on top of that, to this day, significant discrimination based on skin alone--not culture--exists.

But this isn't an exclusively black culture. It's a culture of the poor, and a continued cycle in which people just like you blame the poor for being poor, all the while ignorantly assuming they had all the priviledges, advantages and opportunities that you had, but chose to be less successful than you.


I'm not racist, I don't give a fuck what color your skin is, but you know what? I'm definitely culturist (if such a word exists). Some cultures are vastly inferior. For instance, fundamentalism muslim culture, very very inferior. Also, inner city thug culture, very very inferior. Inner city white thugs have the same problems as Inner city black thugs. People just don't seem to care or realize that because they figure all the suburban and rural whites put the "white team" far enough ahead.

A culture is what it is because it's the environment in which they grow up. People don't choose "an inferior culture" out of some kind of moral fault. If we want to help change the root of the problem--economic disparity, urban crime, etc--you have to fight to help change it.


It isn't wholly a poverty issue either. Some of the poorest people you'll find are white people who live in rural areas. Growing up I knew a farm kid who slept in a tent, a tent, because his house was too small for all the kids. But, many of them (always exceptions) grow up being instilled with values like hard work and responsibility, and they end up alright. There are people out in the country without running water, no heat other than wood burning, and outhouses. It isn't just poverty, it is culture.

You're undermining your own point. Yes, it's culture. Those white people you mention live in a much more cohesive, accepting community, don't face discirmination based on their skin type and didn't grow up in the pervasively negative and self-destructive culture to which you previously referred.


You can't legislate or do anything else to make black people have better lives. You can only provide the means for them to help themselves, which most people think have been provided (hence, the success, I mean, acting-white, of dark skinned people who try hard, work hard, and act responsible, all the African immigrants, etc, people without entitlement issues). You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink.

Stop worrying so much about what you think society owes you, and start being proactive in your own life.

Yes, and one of those means for them to help themselves is helping them overcome the additional challenges they face in obtaining a higher education.

[Sean]

Originally Posted by Crb
Stop worrying so much about what you think society owes you, and start being proactive in your own life.

How's the air up there? Now that your off your soap box here's something to consider... every black member of this board who has posted in this thread (Daniel, DeV, and I that I'm aware of anyway) is college educated, has a professional career, etc. WE KNOW THAT BLACK PEOPLE CAN SUCCEED. We understand what it takes and have applied it to our own lives. That however doesn't mean that we should stop taking up a cause to better the lives of those who aren't as fortunate to have had the means and opportunities that us three were provided with. It also doesn't mean that we want white individuals or anyone else to not succeed. It doesn't mean that we think all black people even should or have to goto college, or that we should all be CEOs, or that everyone should even succeed in general. I feel as bad for the poor rural white kids as I do for the poor inner city black kids. You'll never see me say, as a black taxpaying citizen of the United States, anything like:

"What I do know is that the taxes I pay fund this antisocial, anti-establishment crap of 28 year old grandmothers with not a father in sight collecting welfare while living in a trailer and spending it on crystal meth. Because years ago great-great-great grandma lost his job at the Ford plant or lost his job to outsourcing? Come on."

[Clove]

It's still a poverty issue, not a race issue. Help the poor advance, and any groups that are disproportionately poor will receive proportionately more benifit.

I worked under a black, female superviser for 4 years. It isn't about skin color.

[Clove]

And... you'll always be from NJ, Sean.

[Sean]

Originally Posted by Clove
And... you'll always be from NJ, Sean.

The stench of Jersey will always be with you Clove. It impacts everything you do in life.

[TheWitch]

"What I do know is that the taxes I pay fund this antisocial, anti-establishment crap of 28 year old grandmothers with not a father in sight collecting welfare while living in a trailer and spending it on crystal meth. Because years ago great-great-great grandma lost his job at the Ford plant or lost his job to outsourcing? Come on."

You know what? I'm equally unhappy about spending tax dollars on white trash who refuse to help themselves as I am about spending tax dollars on blacks who refuse to help themselves, as I am about spending tax dollars on medical care for illegal aliens when citizens of this country go without.

I do not like entitlements. The idea is sound, people in crisis get a helping hand from the government. The implementation has fallen apart to the point where there is an entire subset of Americans, be they black or white, and non-Americans, who don't use the system just for assistance in crisis. No, they keep having children, feigning injuries mental and physical, and finding various and sundry other excuses why they need help to continue on the dole.

[Warriorbird]

Ah, the welfare mother meme. Circa 1970.

Dunno if you missed this bit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_reform

It still has flaws but it isn't nearly the issue it once was.

The cost is now quite overshadowed by corporate welfare and our antics in the Middle East.

Our government aid programs are now much more hampered by illegal immigrants getting aid. This could be solved some with national identification measures but A. a lot of Democrats don't support those and B. The Republicans tend to shoot themselves in the foot over it because a number of their large corporate masters (ADM, Walmart, every construction company that ever donated to Republicans) want illegal immigration to continue unchecked.

[Clove]

The war is bad, mmmkayy?

[Sean of the Thread]

Wait...black people post on this board?


AIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE




Seriously some people need to get a fucking clue and quit being so ignorant. Of course the four black people that post on this board have a college education...they're using a computer!

For those keeping track let me list those I know off the top of my head:

Dev
Sean
Daniel
Keller


Ok back to spamming allstar votes. Make this thread die already it's shit.

[Warriorbird]

Okay Clove. Tell me how the Iraq War has benefited me. You're not allowed to use, "It protected America from another 9-11!"

Or we could stay on topic. Think welfare is flat up evil? Insert 'Independent' rant here.

[Sean]

Haha Keller.

[Clove]

Okay Clove. Tell me how the Iraq War has benefited me. You're not allowed to use, "It protected America from another 9-11!"

Or we could stay on topic. Think welfare is flat up evil? Insert 'Independent' rant here.After you explain to WTF the Iraq War has to do with African American racism in the United States.

Dead... fucking... horse.

[Warriorbird]

I was... wait for it... suggesting that we waste a lot more money on one thing than another thing.

http://www.sightphonics.com/

Which brings up a valid point. What other place do people get mocked and laughed at for reading besides the hood? It is sometimes known as the Garden State...

For an actual valid point:

Why is the idea that we spend money to try to improve some people's lives so offensive to people? Wouldn't be better off as a whole not having regions stuck in wretched poverty?

[Clove]

I was... wait for it... suggesting that we waste a lot more money on one thing than another thing.We know what you were doing. Injecting your pet issue into an unrelated topic.

[Tolwynn]

Why is the idea that we spend money to try to improve some people's lives so offensive to people? Wouldn't be better off as a whole not having regions stuck in wretched poverty?

I take offense at how the money is doled. It needs to be policed better so people who really need it get it. When I worked as a bagger at Food World way back when, I lost count of the people rolling up in Cadillacs, Mercedes, Lincoln Mk. VIIs, what have you, that were on WIC. What the hell, if you're driving a $20k -$40k automobile, you sure as hell don't need government assistance to pay for food.

IMHO, such money spent could be better used in other ways - want to make a real difference? One good way would be to subsidize more education, from vo-tech to college, depending on ability, so people can do something to get themselves out of the whole poverty cycle.

[TheWitch]

Why is the idea that we spend money to try to improve some people's lives so offensive to people? Wouldn't be better off as a whole not having regions stuck in wretched poverty?

Sure, if throwing money at it worked. As opposed to creating a dependant bunch of people who largely decide to give up taking control of their own lives, or sit back and enjoy their meager government subsidized existance which they find preferrable to working.

To say it another way, I have no issue spending money to improve peoples lives if the people in question are willing to put forth the effort to do so themselves.

[Latrinsorm]

What's your point?My point, primarily, is that it is incorrect to ascribe any person's level of success solely to the amount of effort they have personally put in. You have an incalculable debt to your parents, who are similarly indebted to their parents, and so on. The point then is not to compare the opportunities to black and white children from economically equal backgrounds (though that remains important); the point is to realize that there is no law (physical or otherwise) that states a person's success is a function of their personal effort. To hold the converse, that a person who is not successful is simply lazy, is therefore the pinnacle of ignorance.
Why is it, then, that fresh-off-the-boat Africans are finding so much success here, as compared with their long ago patriated counterparts? Logic determines that It's not a matter of race but of cultural upbringing.I'm trying to reverse engineer the "logic" you've used; feel free to stop me if your unstated premises differ:
1) African-Americans are not successful.
2) Africans are (can be?).
3) In the eyes of the discriminatory, African-Americans and Africans are equal.
4) Therefore, discrimination cannot be what is repressing African-Americans.

Do I have your logic right?
The implementation has fallen apart to the point where there is an entire subset of Americans, be they black or white, and non-Americans, who don't use the system just for assistance in crisis.And yet your first post in this thread contained this gem: "AFRICAN AMERICANS (is that capped enough for your ass?) largely hold themselves apart from society as a whole. ... No, they don't want equal. They want special, to somehow compensate for bad deeds done hundreds of years ago. I have no clue what the solution here is, except one sentence: Take responsiblity for your self."

It's entirely reasonable to not want to support people who don't put forth effort, I haven't seen anyone disagree with you about that. What you have failed to defend to any degree is the assertion that a "large" proportion of AFRICAN AMERICANS fall into that group.

[Clove]

My point, primarily, is that it is incorrect to ascribe any person's level of success solely to the amount of effort they have personally put in.No, it isn't. No effort==no success. You can be given anything and everything- it's up to you to utilize it. Your success in anything is largely dependent on your effort (exception for George W. Bush), to suggest otherwise is absurd.

[Sean]

Whats your definition of success?

[Clove]

Whats your definition of success?A Reasonable Rate of Return.

[AnticorRifling]

Whats your definition of success?

My boss and I were joking about success at lunch and he said "Success is having a car so fly that I you automatically know I'm better than you."

[TheWitch]

It's entirely reasonable to not want to support people who don't put forth effort, I haven't seen anyone disagree with you about that. What you have failed to defend to any degree is the assertion that a "large" proportion of AFRICAN AMERICANS fall into that group.

Taken out of context, you can twist it that way, sure. Which is pretty out of context now versus the discussion then.

Anyway.

There is a "large" segment of the black population that doesn't want to, has not been taught to, whatever the case may be, do the things necessary to live in this society in a peaceful way. Large doesn't mean 50%, large is a vague sort of thing.

Large is enough in this case to be responsible for these kinds of statistics, since I know how you love documentation.

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/race.htm

That's not me, that's not my ignorance, that's statistics. On one form of violent crime.

I lack the time and motivation to dig up similar links to point to the proof in the assertation that there is a significant segment of the black population that seems to be more interested in killing, mostly each other, that it does in pursuing a college education and making a better life for themselves and their children.

There are also the Al Sharpton's of the world, who I don't believe do anyone any good at all, who want special consideration for blacks out of one side of his mouth and equal treatment out of the other depending on the cause of the day and which serves it better, but largely ignore the actual plight of the inner city black.

I am prepared, as a white person, to see beyond the color of peoples skin. I'm not foolish enough to believe that all people would say the same. What I do believe is that if black people saw past the color of their own skin, versus the color of other peoples, it might be helpful.

So, since this isn't my masters thesis, I'll get back to doing something else.

[Parkbandit]

Why is the idea that we spend money to try to improve some people's lives so offensive to people? Wouldn't be better off as a whole not having regions stuck in wretched poverty?


Because for every person that is actually helped, there are 5 lazy pieces of shit growing even more lazy due to the nanny state it creates.

And no Latrine.. I don't have the fucking source on the 4 out of 5 people on welfare are lazy fucks... so save your "OMG U R MAKING THAT STAT UP" comment to masturbate with later.

[Warriorbird]

I understand the criticisms of welfare. I got into a really nasty debate with a bunch of Democrats in high school. I was in favor of welfare reform. They weren't. They were enraged at what Clinton was doing.

I just have a difficult time being against the many other programs that aren't welfare when I feel our government makes much larger spending mistakes and that those programs might actually help.

[Methais]

DeV is black?

http://images.encyclopediadramatica.com/images/6/6b/Neo_Whoa.jpg

[Sean]

DeV is the Wesley Snipes of the PC...

[Warriorbird]

She kills vampires and dodges her taxes?

[Parkbandit]

I understand the criticisms of welfare. I got into a really nasty debate with a bunch of Democrats in high school. I was in favor of welfare reform. They weren't. They were enraged at what Clinton was doing.

I just have a difficult time being against the many other programs that aren't welfare when I feel our government makes much larger spending mistakes and that those programs might actually help.


I used to think that the exceptions outweighed the help that the truly needy were receiving. In any program, there are people who will take advantage. Once I started my own company and began working with HUD and other local government housing programs, I began to see how badly these handout programs needed some serious reform. JUST the fact that there are SO many people home during our work, compared to regular apartment complexes was irritating enough.. but then when you looked at the material items inside the apartments and the pimped out rides in the parking lots.. it really was a wake up call to me on what these programs are doing to people.

These handout programs are rewarding laziness.

[Clove]

She kills vampires and dodges her taxes?She dodges vampires and kills taxes.

[AnticorRifling]

She kills vampires and dodges her taxes?

No, she's purple.

[crb]

You can't say you're not racist when you completely stereotype black people as being uneducated and irresponsible.
It isn't racist if it is a statistic.

The average african american (not capitalized because I want to fuck with you) has a lower credit score because of irresponsibility in making payments. African Americans (capitalized this time, what could it all mean!) on average reach lower levels of education than whites (less graduate both highschool and college).

It isn't racist to say that. It is just pointing out a sorry truth.

[crb]

Yes, and where did this culture come from? As a society, we destroyed black culture for the hundreds of years we enslaved them. We prevented them from forming lasting, family structure, prevented them from owning land and property, prevented them from learning to read, write and make art, and on top of that, to this day, significant discrimination based on skin alone--not culture--exists.

But this isn't an exclusively black culture. It's a culture of the poor, and a continued cycle in which people just like you blame the poor for being poor, all the while ignorantly assuming they had all the priviledges, advantages and opportunities that you had, but chose to be less successful than you.



A culture is what it is because it's the environment in which they grow up. People don't choose "an inferior culture" out of some kind of moral fault. If we want to help change the root of the problem--economic disparity, urban crime, etc--you have to fight to help change it.



You're undermining your own point. Yes, it's culture. Those white people you mention live in a much more cohesive, accepting community, don't face discirmination based on their skin type and didn't grow up in the pervasively negative and self-destructive culture to which you previously referred.



Yes, and one of those means for them to help themselves is helping them overcome the additional challenges they face in obtaining a higher education.
1. What additional challenges in higher education? Hrm? Don't point to a statistic showing lower black enrollments and call it the fault of a college. If a student cannot meet the entrance requirements that isn't racism. It is a problem with the student, the student's family, and the student's schooling or lack thereof.

2. What racism? Hi, its 2008, Barack Obama might be the next president, and he even won white states like Iowa. This isn't 1856, or 1956, it is 2008. The Cosby show was one of the most successful shows in history. Will Smith tears up at the box office, millions of white kids wear shaq jerseys, and their white dads take them to see mostly black players play ball games. Interracial couples are everywhere. What racism? Do some people tell racist jokes? Sure, I've heard racist jokes, but how is that preventing someone from getting a job or going to school or checking a book out at the library? Where are the hangings, the segregation, hmm? Oh right, you're living in the past, thats where they are.

3. I know a guy who was so poor that he had to take baths in the sink, literally. His dad was at times a janitor, or a short order cook. I'm not sure what his mom did, she died relatively young. He worked his way through college and medical school and is a very successful doctor.

You're right, I do blame the poor for being poor, and 99% of the time, it truly is their own fault. Sure, our personalities are shaped by our upbringing, and one could say then it is partially the parent's fault for turning out a bad kid, but that doesn't change the facts on the ground as they were. America is the land of opportunity, which is why so many immigrants flock here to work. So unless you have some sort of real handicap your life is usually the result of your own bad choices.

Likewise, plenty of rich educated parents turn out fucked up kids that don't amount to shit.

[crb]

Ah, the welfare mother meme. Circa 1970.

Dunno if you missed this bit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_reform

It still has flaws but it isn't nearly the issue it once was.

The cost is now quite overshadowed by corporate welfare and our antics in the Middle East.

Our government aid programs are now much more hampered by illegal immigrants getting aid. This could be solved some with national identification measures but A. a lot of Democrats don't support those and B. The Republicans tend to shoot themselves in the foot over it because a number of their large corporate masters (ADM, Walmart, every construction company that ever donated to Republicans) want illegal immigration to continue unchecked.
Republican corporate masters like Wal*Mart?

Hmm... quick... guess which former presidential candidate served on the board of Wal*Mart?

Guess which presidential candidate this year had the most earmarks? The least? Guess which one supports more corporate subsidies? Guess which one voted for tax breaks for the oil companies, guess which one voted against it? Guess which one has more corporate donors?

... and you say Republicans have corporate masters? Fuck, dude, this isn't even considering unions yet.

[Ashliana]

1. What additional challenges in higher education? Hrm? Don't point to a statistic showing lower black enrollments and call it the fault of a college. If a student cannot meet the entrance requirements that isn't racism. It is a problem with the student, the student's family, and the student's schooling or lack thereof.

The higher interest rates and decreased probability of student loans among those groups with controlled equalities, for minority students? I referred to one general study that focused on auto loans, but have not yet been able to find the study I'm directly referring to.


2. What racism? Hi, its 2008, Barack Obama might be the next president, and he even won white states like Iowa. This isn't 1856, or 1956, it is 2008. The Cosby show was one of the most successful shows in history. Will Smith tears up at the box office, millions of white kids wear shaq jerseys, and their white dads take them to see mostly black players play ball games. Interracial couples are everywhere. What racism? Do some people tell racist jokes? Sure, I've heard racist jokes, but how is that preventing someone from getting a job or going to school or checking a book out at the library? Where are the hangings, the segregation, hmm? Oh right, you're living in the past, thats where they are.

Except we had lots of people in numerous states that turned out to vote for Hillary, citing race as their #1 factor in picking Hillary? There's no doubt that racism is not as prevalent as it once was. Ask any black person how they feel, what they experience about the difference in respect shown to white people in their presence, the different looks they get at night and the increased attention from police, and come back and tell me "What racism?"


3. I know a guy who was so poor that he had to take baths in the sink, literally. His dad was at times a janitor, or a short order cook. I'm not sure what his mom did, she died relatively young. He worked his way through college and medical school and is a very successful doctor.

We're not only talking about race or ethnicity, it's also about culture. The poor culture that so many have been sucked into. Not everyone is victim to it. Does that mean no problem exists? No. Under your argument, even one success story means that "these people aren't a product of their circumstances, it's their own fault because at least one person made it despite the odds."


You're right, I do blame the poor for being poor, and 99% of the time, it truly is their own fault. Sure, our personalities are shaped by our upbringing, and one could say then it is partially the parent's fault for turning out a bad kid, but that doesn't change the facts on the ground as they were. America is the land of opportunity, which is why so many immigrants flock here to work. So unless you have some sort of real handicap your life is usually the result of your own bad choices.

Likewise, plenty of rich educated parents turn out fucked up kids that don't amount to shit.

Unproductive at best, ignorant and mindless at worst. America might be your land of opportunity--that's the point. Things are different when you grow up with one parent who is always at work, have no family to supervise you, everyone at school is delinquent, have overworked, stressed out, lowly paid teachers who don't have the resources to bring you individual attention, and a general sense of apathy--compared to the self-destructive life of drugs, pre-marital and unprotected sex, which bring quick, immediate, cheap thrills as opposed to a school or academic life they (they're children, not adults raised in your fantasy land) have no hope of achieving.

[Bobmuhthol]

<<There's no doubt that racism is not as prevalent as it once was.>>

You're retarded for this statement alone. I'm sorry to be the one to have to tell you this.

[Warriorbird]

Walmart and ADM both give more to Republicans and lobby Republican Congress members harder, crb. All I was saying.

[Ashliana]

<<There's no doubt that racism is not as prevalent as it once was.>>

You're retarded for this statement alone. I'm sorry to be the one to have to tell you this.

And what exactly about that statement is wrong? It should be plainly obvious to anyone today that racism is not as prevalent as it once was. The point I was making is that he was arguing racism "no longer exists--look, there's a black man running for president." One does not rule the other out. Racism still very much exists, even if greatly lessened.

You can disagree all you want, but the retard is you for attacking someone personally for their opinion.

[Methais]

<<There's no doubt that racism is not as prevalent as it once was.>>

You're retarded for this statement alone. I'm sorry to be the one to have to tell you this.

I've always wondered this, but what do you have against using [ QUOTE ] tags as opposed to << >> ?

[Bobmuhthol]

<<You can disagree all you want, but the retard is you for attacking someone personally for their opinion.>>

Actually, the retard is Ashliana for linking to this quote directly in an effort to make me look bad. Oops!

<<I've always wondered this, but what do you have against using [ QUOTE ] tags as opposed to << >> ?>>

Because I can type <<>> a lot faster than I can write out quote tags / use the button.

[Clove]

Lame.

[RichardCranium]

Things are different when you grow up with one parent who is always at work, have no family to supervise you, everyone at school is delinquent, have overworked, stressed out, lowly paid teachers who don't have the resources to bring you individual attention, and a general sense of apathy--compared to the self-destructive life of drugs, pre-marital and unprotected sex, which bring quick, immediate, cheap thrills as opposed to a school or academic life they (they're children, not adults raised in your fantasy land) have no hope of achieving.

This pretty much sums up me. I'm white.

[Clove]

This pretty much sums up me. I'm white.And he's looking for cheap premarital sex.

[Ashliana]

This pretty much sums up me. I'm white.

Where did you grow up? If what I said truly describes your living conditions growing up and more--being influenced by siblings or even family members in gangs, threatened with violence constantly, seeing people shot in your neighborhood, etc, and you managed to make a life for yourself, then you should be proud and deserve congratulations.

[Parkbandit]

<<I've always wondered this, but what do you have against using [ QUOTE ] tags as opposed to << >> ?>>

Because I can type <<>> a lot faster than I can write out quote tags / use the button.

I thought it was because...


Quoting used to suck / not exist. I'm not changing for you!

[RichardCranium]

Where did you grow up? If what I said truly describes your living conditions growing up and more--being influenced by siblings or even family members in gangs, threatened with violence constantly, seeing people shot in your neighborhood, etc, and you managed to make a life for yourself, then you should be proud and deserve congratulations.


South Louisiana. And yes to all of the above.

[TheWitch]

Where did you grow up? If what I said truly describes your living conditions growing up and more--being influenced by siblings or even family members in gangs, threatened with violence constantly, seeing people shot in your neighborhood, etc, and you managed to make a life for yourself, then you should be proud and deserve congratulations.

Interesting you need to keep raising the bar for his success in life to be considered an achievement. If he were black, would that bar have needed to have been raised?

What is the solution here? Throwing more money at it has done nothing, and in fact a case could be made for it having made matters worse.

When you're dealing with a mentality that says striving for a successful, law abiding life is being too "white", what is the solution? I don't pretend to know.

What might be the solution doesn't lie with government and more stupid white people throwing more money and rhetoric at it and giving free passes to people.

There needs to be a realization among this segment of the population that the lifestyle of gangs and drugs and guns is a dead end. Literally. That having children as a child yourself is only going to perpetuate these issues. That raising children to respect themselves and each other isn't white, it's human.

[Bobmuhthol]

<<I thought it was because...>>

Somehow those two responses are contradictory?

[crb]

The higher interest rates and decreased probability of student loans among those groups with controlled equalities, for minority students? I referred to one general study that focused on auto loans, but have not yet been able to find the study I'm directly referring to.

Again, you're looking at something like FICO score, which is mathematical, and inferring it is racist.

It isn't racism that prevents many black people from getting loans, it is shitty income and shitty credit.

In fact, I'm fully supportive of banning race on any government or otherwise form that isn't to do with healthcare (you gotta keep it in healthcare because diseases do affect different races differently). In my opinion, the bank, or university, or government has no right or need to know what color your skin is when you apply for something. Will you stand with me and agree on that?

[Ashliana]

Interesting you need to keep raising the bar for his success in life to be considered an achievement. If he were black, would that bar have needed to have been raised?

The life of everyone who gains financial independence from their parents and the state is an achievement. Whether one deserves congratulations on it is a different matter. I clarified my supposition to make sure we were talking about the same. I naturally have no way of verifying what he said; I don't see how Southern Lousiania is equivalent to growing up in say, Harlem, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.


What is the solution here? Throwing more money at it has done nothing, and in fact a case could be made for it having made matters worse.

Now this is the question. What is the solution? What is the basis of all (not literally "all") conflict? Crime and struggle can be boiled down to the same thing, whether it's Al Qaeda's struggle or the poor, working man in the US. A want of resources. The more comfortable someone's life, the more they have to lose, and the less they want to risk it. This applies to both wars and crime.

What is the solution to poverty? Is it redistribution of wealth? I wouldn't say so. I do believe charity is useful and honorable for struggling families working hard to make ends meet. But what about the struggling mother who has given up on having a productive, useful life and instead tries to manipulate the welfare system? Is this her greed, fault, etc? Is this because the system is broken and she can make more money by not working and continuing to have kids, than she could by having 2 or even 3 jobs with her current education?

Some people like to oversimplify and say "Well, she should go back to school." And some people do. But life, alone, with kids and a mountain of bills makes it hard to go back to school. Especially if you don't have the credit to finance it. And in the meantime, you blaming the mother does what for the children? Creates more just like the mother. If you want to address the actual problems of today, placing blame accomplishes absolutely nothing. No child deserves to be punished because their circumstances weren't as lucky as yours or mine.


What might be the solution doesn't lie with government and more stupid white people throwing more money and rhetoric at it and giving free passes to people.

If we'd come up with a real, working solution to this, we wouldn't be here today. But our current, harshly punitive system of judice is ineffective at anything other than incapacitation. Contrary to the propaganda you might've heard, we do not and have never spent any appreciable amount of money trying to rehabilitate offenders compared to the amount we've spent on imprisoning them.


There needs to be a realization among this segment of the population that the lifestyle of gangs and drugs and guns is a dead end. Literally. That having children as a child yourself is only going to perpetuate these issues. That raising children to respect themselves and each other isn't white, it's human.

The lives of our lowest class are dismal, void of hope, and a constant struggle for even the basics. It's not a "free ride on the government dole" as some people are conveniently, from their middle or upper-middle-class homes or dormitories, claim. I'm not talking about any specific person; but unless you've dealt with it directly, I very much doubt anyone would have any idea what they're talking about.

I've volunteered in both Legal Aid and my county's Commonwealth Attorney's office and volunteer in a homeless shelter in DC two days a month. The unbelievable amount of assumptions that rise out of people making snap judgments based on what they see in the media or Law and Order are completely disjointed from reality and patently false.

[Latrinsorm]

No effort==no success.People are born with millions of dollars in the bank. How much effort did it take you to be born?
Your success in anything is largely dependent on your effort (exception for George W. Bush), to suggest otherwise is absurd.Your success in anything is also largely dependent on luck, to suggest other than that is absurd.
That's not me, that's not my ignorance, that's statistics. On one form of violent crime.If you are taking the position that all murders are reported and all murderers are convicted, you are in fact ignorant. If you are not taking that position, then how can you cite your statistics with any conviction?
I lack the time and motivation to dig up similar links to point to the proof in the assertation that there is a significant segment of the black population that seems to be more interested in killing, mostly each other, that it does in pursuing a college education and making a better life for themselves and their children.I've never proposed that every member of the black population is a saint. I have no doubt that there is a significant segment of every population that not only seems to be but in fact is more interested in killing, raping, pillaging, and all manner of travesties.
I am prepared, as a white person, to see beyond the color of peoples skin.You seem unconcerned that in doing so you become blind to the problems that exist regardless of your insistence that they do not.
And no Latrine.. I don't have the fucking source on the 4 out of 5 people on welfare are lazy fucksIt would actually be 5 out of 6, but who's counting? :)

[Sean]

Originally Posted by TheWitch
When you're dealing with a mentality that says striving for a successful, law abiding life is being too "white", what is the solution? I don't pretend to know.

I know this wasn't your point but it sparked a stream of thought so I'm using your post as a starting point.

The whole notion of someone acting too white or too black is starting to get ridiculous. I'm not disagreeing that there are portions of the black community that associate certain activities and parameters of success related to things like education with "white" America. However, I find it's also, in addition to that community, a situation that perpetuated by parts of "white" America. If you want to take the high road and say that you don't see color just an individual and that you shouldn't have to treat me differently because of my skin tone then I also don't expect things such as being complimented on my mannerisms and ability to speak. Not only is that demeaning to me as an individual but it shows that despite the talking points you have a lowered expectation of me based soley on the color of my skin. Obviously I'm not talking about all white people or even most but I am talking about a very real phenomena.

On the flip side of the coin the labeling of all things hip-hop related as "black" culture is equally as problematic. Hip-hop or urban culture is not necessarily part of black culture. It's a culture that black individuals have embraced in addition to it being embraced by whites, latins, europeans, etc. It's a global trend. When you tell people they are just trying to act "black" when they follow the fashion trends of hip-hop it's usually with a tone of condescension and associated with things like loose clothing, jerseys, jewelry, etc. By linking all of the perceived negatives of hip-hop culture with black culture the stereotype that both are bad is fairly damaging. Again this is something that happens both in black and white circles and I'm not singling out white people as the only ones who associate hip-hop with black culture. However, anecdotally, I've found that the negative association between the two tends to come more from white individuals.

Again I'm not singling out TheWitch, it just happens to be a convenient example. When I mentioned earlier that Rock culture could be viewed equally as damaging as Hip-Hop culture this is response that I received:


Originally Posted by TheWitch
Rock vs. Hip Hop.

It is to laugh.

The rock culture, whatever the nebulous hell that might happen to be, does not advocate shooting each other, carrying guns at all times to be prepared to shoot someone at any given moment.

Obviously there's a sense of hyperbole in her words but it shows a pretty weak understanding of a lot of things associated with hip-hop inaddition to a glossing over of the negative qualities associated with other genre based cultures like Rock culture and all of it's subcultures. As with most things in life its easier and more fun to discussion the negative contributions of some individuals and apply them more broadly than we should. For every Michael Vick there's a Braylon Edwards, for every Suge Knight there's a Russell Simmons, for every rapper talking about bitches and gats there's a rapper talking about politics, etc. That being said conscious rappers like The Roots, Talib Kweli, Common, Lupe, etc. all get airplay so it's not like they are underground and you have to dig under rocks to find their CDs that aren't about drugs and gunplay it's just more trendy to talk about people like 50 Cent, Lil Wayne, etc. because we like to as a society expound upon the negatives while sweeping the positives under the carpet. Thus creating a cycle of negative associations which are mainly a function of media outlets needing to sell information, somewhat understandably.

As a whole I think we as a society just need to quit looking at labels like black, white, rock, hip-hop, whatever and associating them with their perceived negative attributes. I don't expect anyone to look at me and not notice that I'm black. I do hope that one day people can look at me notice that I'm black but then not automatically associate that with hip-hop which they've assigned a negative value to and then lowering their expectations of me. Or even accept that when looking at me that I might take my fashion from a different magazine but that doesn't make me any less of a human being just someone who is different than themselves.

Anyway, that's my rambling on that subject now it's time to leave work.

[Clove]

People are born with millions of dollars in the bank. How much effort did it take you to be born?None, but it doesn't guarantee success. You can piss away millions pretty easily.
Your success in anything is also largely dependent on luck, to suggest other than that is absurd.And luck is not prejudiced, either.

[Bobmuhthol]

<<None, but it doesn't guarantee success.>>

Neither does effort.

[Sean of the Thread]

Okay I stand corrected. I just got a u2u from Keller with his real pic. My apologies.

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b236/Japgross/bolton3.jpg

[crb]

I know this wasn't your point but it sparked a stream of thought so I'm using your post as a starting point.

The whole notion of someone acting too white or too black is starting to get ridiculous. I'm not disagreeing that there are portions of the black community that associate certain activities and parameters of success related to things like education with "white" America. However, I find it's also, in addition to that community, a situation that perpetuated by parts of "white" America. If you want to take the high road and say that you don't see color just an individual and that you shouldn't have to treat me differently because of my skin tone then I also don't expect things such as being complimented on my mannerisms and ability to speak. Not only is that demeaning to me as an individual but it shows that despite the talking points you have a lowered expectation of me based soley on the color of my skin. Obviously I'm not talking about all white people or even most but I am talking about a very real phenomena.

For sure.... but you know who those white people are? The liberal douches.

For the sake of argument, you've got three types of white people.

1. Racists - not very many of them out there, I've never met someone who was truly racist where they would try to interfere someone of a different color, but I'll take your word for it, they're out there, maybe in Texas.

2. Apologists. The liberal douche Obama supporters (http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/06/11/white-people-in-the-news-june-11-2008/?cp=10) who are doing so out of white guilt or to prove to themselves or the world that they really are socially progressive (http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/165189/). These are the people who are going to complement you on your speaking (note, how they're enthralled of Obama). They do so thinking they're doing the right thing by telling you how special and nice you are, not realizing of course that their very actions are setting you apart and treating you different. Note as well, I'm not disparaging Obama here. If you're a liberal with liberal beliefs and want liberal policies in our government, Obama is your candidate, and thats fine. But the truth is many of his white supporters aren't supporting him out of any sort of policy position (you can prove this to yourself, ask his supporters to discuss his policies with you, they normally end up dumbfounded then mumble something about not liking Iraq).

3. Pragmatic fuckers like me, and I'm sure Park Bandit and TheWitch. Otherwise known as non-racists who are immune to white guilt. We're going to treat you the same as we treat everyone else, and that might not be very nice all the time, but it'll be the same treatment. We'll also have the same expectations.

[Parkbandit]

<<I thought it was because...>>

Somehow those two responses are contradictory?

Not contradictory... just different.

One is being so stubborn, you look stupid.

The other is being so lazy, you look stupid.

Big difference, but in the end, I guess you are right. You remain stupid.

:shrug:

[Bobmuhthol]

They're different sentences. I'll give you that; you're on top of things!

[Daniel]

For sure.... but you know who those white people are? The liberal douches.

F.

Actually, my experiences are quite the opposite. I find it funny that you think the only people who do that are "Liberal Douches" as if there aren't conservative (racist) assholes, such as yourself.

I also find it funny that you can find the time to quote line for line to respond to someone who agrees with you but have not actually responded to any of the points made by people arguing against you.

[Apathy]

3. Pragmatic fuckers like me, and I'm sure Park Bandit and TheWitch. Otherwise known as non-racists who are immune to white guilt. We're going to treat you the same as we treat everyone else, and that might not be very nice all the time, but it'll be the same treatment. We'll also have the same expectations.


It isn't racist if it is a statistic.

The average african american (not capitalized because I want to fuck with you) has a lower credit score because of irresponsibility in making payments. African Americans (capitalized this time, what could it all mean!) on average reach lower levels of education than whites (less graduate both highschool and college).

It isn't racist to say that. It is just pointing out a sorry truth.

So which statement do you actually believe? Do you treat each person as an individual and expect the same for everyone or have different expectations based on skin color?

I'll even help you - having a different expectation based on skin color doesn't make you a racist, or a race hater. It is a strong prejudice based on who knows what, which is how the human brain operates anyways.

Allowing interactions to be influenced with negative bias with said person based on that prejudice though = racism. An example would be you refusing to listen to a black person about finances since they on average have shittier credit scores than white people.

[Daniel]

That's fair. What do you propose as solutions, then? It'd allow for more... intellectual disputation, at least.

Well, this is off the top of my head:

I'd support more funding for head start activities in youth.

The basis of education starts in youth. It makes no sense to have affirmative action at a higher educational level if someone isn't going to graduate from high school.

I'd create substantial incentives for teachers to work in at risk or lower income neighborhoods.

Often times the worse schools also have the worse teachers because A) It's harder to teach there and B) They pay less. This inbalance needs to be reversed.

Provide federal funding to equalize education expenditures within regional areas

Due to the fact that schools are normally funded by local tax payer money, you often find that richer communities have more access to educational funds than their poorer communities, which in turn creates a povery trap. I don't advocate bringing one down to help the other. So, this should happen through the fed.


I'd encourage federally funded universities to adopt need-blind admissions policies for people below the poverty line (I'd probably even raise it above that to the point where there is a correlation with low income and not attending college, but I don't have the time to run the numbers).

This one is intuitive. People won't expend effort on something that has no discernible outcome for them. What I personally paid in tuition is what my mother makes each year. If I didn't have scholarships (academic and military, thanks) I wouldn't have gone to college.

Expand benefits and opportunities for community service, like Americorps, or other forms of national service, rise the stakes if someone does it from their own community

Give people a reason to give back to their communities.

and finally:

Fix racial sentencing disparities

This is probably the only one that has anything to do with race. It's a huge fucking problem that is killing the poorer communities. People make mistakes, and they shouldn't be facing the better part of a decade if they are simply doing something to try and take care of their families. This is not to say don't punish someone, but don't ruin their life either.

[crb]

Actually, my experiences are quite the opposite. I find it funny that you think the only people who do that are "Liberal Douches" as if there aren't conservative (racist) assholes, such as yourself.

I also find it funny that you can find the time to quote line for line to respond to someone who agrees with you but have not actually responded to any of the points made by people arguing against you.





So which statement do you actually believe? Do you treat each person as an individual and expect the same for everyone or have different expectations based on skin color?

I'll even help you - having a different expectation based on skin color doesn't make you a racist, or a race hater. It is a strong prejudice based on who knows what, which is how the human brain operates anyways.

Allowing interactions to be influenced with negative bias with said person based on that prejudice though = racism. An example would be you refusing to listen to a black person about finances since they on average have shittier credit scores than white people.

I don't know what the fuck you two are talking about.

1. I tend not to respond to stupid little fuckers who make stupid little statements. One can only point out so many times that math is not racist, it grows tiresome.

2. One more time... math isn't racist. I don't believe that african americans (on average) make less money and have lower credit scores, that is a statistical fact. It is like saying "Oh, you believe that 2+2=4" I don't believe it, it isn't faith, or opinion, it is fact. It isn't an opinion to hold.

If an economist is black I wouldnot disvalue his opinion because of his skin color.

But douches like Latrinstorm say that racism exists because black people have a harder time getting student loans. I point out that they have a harder time getting loans because they're poorer and have worse credit. The bank isn't racist, it is just crunching the numbers. You can take the causality further back. Why do they have poor credit and poor income? Lack of education and responsibility. Why do they lack education and resposibility? Because they're a product of a culture, community, and education system that does not encourage those things to the degree that it should.

So, do blame the bank and call it racist? No, do you blame the FICO formula for giving you a low number? No. Do you blame society for not paying you big bucks? No. You blame the culture, community, and education that failed you when you were growing up. And if you want to change something for the next generation, you change the culture, the community, and the education. Or atleast... you should.

Is that clear enough or should I draw you a picture?

[Latrinsorm]

But douches like Latrinstorm say that racism exists because black people have a harder time getting student loans.Everything I need to say that racism exists can be found on this board.

I will also point out that arithmetic and statistics aren't the same thing, and further that even the arithmetic you apparently so treasure is not fact but a relation of axioms. I think that provides you with ample opportunity to realize the error in your reasoning. :)

[Daniel]

I don't know what the fuck you two are talking about.

1. I tend not to respond to stupid little fuckers who make stupid little statements. One can only point out so many times that math is not racist, it grows tiresome.

2. One more time... math isn't racist. I don't believe that african americans (on average) make less money and have lower credit scores, that is a statistical fact. It is like saying "Oh, you believe that 2+2=4" I don't believe it, it isn't faith, or opinion, it is fact. It isn't an opinion to hold.



Oh yea? You like math?

How about 7 to 1 sentencing disparities for blacks v. whites for the same crimes?

I guess that proves that racism exists huh?

[crb]

Just for you daniel, because you actually posted something that didn't come from you ass, I'll do a point by point response you wanted.


Well, this is off the top of my head:

I'd support more funding for head start activities in youth.

The basis of education starts in youth. It makes no sense to have affirmative action at a higher educational level if someone isn't going to graduate from high school.


1. Affirmative Action makes no sense, period. Head Start programs are extremely important and I fully support funding them. It is amazing the difference they can make.



I'd create substantial incentives for teachers to work in at risk or lower income neighborhoods.

Often times the worse schools also have the worse teachers because A) It's harder to teach there and B) They pay less. This inbalance needs to be reversed.


They don't pay less than rural schools. But the problems with teachers in our public education system go way beyond all that. We need to pay good teachers more, and fire bad ones, and yes, I would agree that in more challenging areas teachers should be paid more, like in any other profession.



Provide federal funding to equalize education expenditures within regional areas

Due to the fact that schools are normally funded by local tax payer money, you often find that richer communities have more access to educational funds than their poorer communities, which in turn creates a povery trap. I don't advocate bringing one down to help the other. So, this should happen through the fed.


You're right and wrong here. Property taxes tend to fund schools and property tax receipts in cities are very very very high, you're thinking of only the low income housing, and not all the other buildings that pay property taxes. The poorest schools are in fact the rural ones. Here in Michigan I believe they even tried to even it out, the rural schools got the least amount of money per pupil.



I'd encourage federally funded universities to adopt need-blind admissions policies for people below the poverty line (I'd probably even raise it above that to the point where there is a correlation with low income and not attending college, but I don't have the time to run the numbers).

This one is intuitive. People won't expend effort on something that has no discernible outcome for them. What I personally paid in tuition is what my mother makes each year. If I didn't have scholarships (academic and military, thanks) I wouldn't have gone to college.


I don't have much opinion on the admissions, but I will say that many people do not avail them of the cheaper options. You can take 2 years at a community college for very little, and then transfer to a big state university or private school. Community colleges accept almost anyone, and generally tuition is cheap for locals. Credits are standardized and transfer to any other public school, generally.



Expand benefits and opportunities for community service, like Americorps, or other forms of national service, rise the stakes if someone does it from their own community

Give people a reason to give back to their communities.


This is fine, except you need to be careful it doesn't become an avenue for pork barrel spending. Government overseers steering volunteers into projects that materially benefit, in some way or another, the overseer.



and finally:

Fix racial sentencing disparities

This is probably the only one that has anything to do with race. It's a huge fucking problem that is killing the poorer communities. People make mistakes, and they shouldn't be facing the better part of a decade if they are simply doing something to try and take care of their families. This is not to say don't punish someone, but don't ruin their life either.

So, your opinion is that judges and or juries are racist and give people with dark skin harsher sentences than people with white skin?

Or, perhaps, like the loan thing, could it be that, on average, African Americans are more likely to be repeat offenders, more likely to have resisted arrest, more likely to have other aggravating circumstances attached to their crime? Could there be a reason for the longer sentences?

Like the whole crack/cocaine issue. Crack sentences were harder than cocaine sentences, people called it racist, but isn't crack more dangerous?

[crb]

Oh yea? You like math?

How about 7 to 1 sentencing disparities for blacks v. whites for the same crimes?

I guess that proves that racism exists huh?
Do all the crimes exist in a vacuum with no other circumstances surrounding them?

Drug possession vs drug possession is not a comparison.

Did the first offender have a record? Did the first offender resist arrest? Did the first offender plead guilty or innocent? Did the first offender cooperate with police in providing his dealer? Details detail details.

Show me a judge who sentenced a white guy with the same record and qualities who commited the same crime, the same way, was arrested in the same fashion, and provided the same degree of cooperation, with verbatim testimony, as a black guy the next day who was sentenced longer, and I'll buy your argument.

Else all you got is Latrine's argument "Less African Americans can get loans, banks are racist."

Big picture.

[Daniel]

Just for you daniel, because you actually posted something that didn't come from you ass, I'll do a point by point response you wanted.


Lol. The Irony.



1. Affirmative Action makes no sense, period. Head Start programs are extremely important and I fully support funding them. It is amazing the difference they can make.

Where the fuck did you get affirmative action from?






They don't pay less than rural schools. But the problems with teachers in our public education system go way beyond all that. We need to pay good teachers more, and fire bad ones, and yes, I would agree that in more challenging areas teachers should be paid more, like in any other profession.


Less pay takes into account rural schools. This is a non point.





You're right and wrong here. Property taxes tend to fund schools and property tax receipts in cities are very very very high, you're thinking of only the low income housing, and not all the other buildings that pay property taxes. The poorest schools are in fact the rural ones. Here in Michigan I believe they even tried to even it out, the rural schools got the least amount of money per pupil.


Once again, I said low income. I made no distinction for rural\Urban.

It would apply equally to both. Non-point again.



I don't have much opinion on the admissions, but I will say that many people do not avail them of the cheaper options. You can take 2 years at a community college for very little, and then transfer to a big state university or private school. Community colleges accept almost anyone, and generally tuition is cheap for locals. Credits are standardized and transfer to any other public school, generally.


Yea...absolutely. Poor people are not going to college because they can't afford to go to harvard.

You're just being stupid here.



This is fine, except you need to be careful it doesn't become an avenue for pork barrel spending. Government overseers steering volunteers into projects that materially benefit, in some way or another, the overseer.


Americorps and TFA are two remarkably effective and underfunded programs. I think we can swing this.




So, your opinion is that judges and or juries are racist and give people with dark skin harsher sentences than people with white skin?

Or, perhaps, like the loan thing, could it be that, on average, African Americans are more likely to be repeat offenders, more likely to have resisted arrest, more likely to have other aggravating circumstances attached to their crime? Could there be a reason for the longer sentences?

Like the whole crack/cocaine issue. Crack sentences were harder than cocaine sentences, people called it racist, but isn't crack more dangerous?

Or it could be math.

[crb]

oh, and gang affiliation too, lets not forget that.

[crb]

Where the fuck did you get affirmative action from?




The basis of education starts in youth. It makes no sense to have affirmative action at a higher educational level if someone isn't going to graduate from high school.

Daniel, you're not helping diffuse any negative stereotypes about the intelligence of African Americans.

[Daniel]

Do all the crimes exist in a vacuum with no other circumstances surrounding them?

Drug possession vs drug possession is not a comparison.

Did the first offender have a record? Did the first offender resist arrest? Did the first offender plead guilty or innocent? Did the first offender cooperate with police in providing his dealer? Details detail details.

Show me a judge who sentenced a white guy with the same record and qualities who commited the same crime, the same way, was arrested in the same fashion, and provided the same degree of cooperation, with verbatim testimony, as a black guy the next day who was sentenced longer, and I'll buy your argument.

Else all you got is Latrine's argument "Less African Americans can get loans, banks are racist."

Big picture.

Sorry CRB. This is math. People with similar records and circumstances have different sentencing averages by race.

The studies have been done.

[Daniel]

Daniel, you're not helping diffuse any negative stereotypes about the intelligence of African Americans.

Tell me. What does a negation particle mean to people of your kind?

[Apathy]

So, your opinion is that judges and or juries are racist and give people with dark skin harsher sentences than people with white skin?

Or, perhaps, like the loan thing, could it be that, on average, African Americans are more likely to be repeat offenders, more likely to have resisted arrest, more likely to have other aggravating circumstances attached to their crime? Could there be a reason for the longer sentences?

Like the whole crack/cocaine issue. Crack sentences were harder than cocaine sentences, people called it racist, but isn't crack more dangerous?

Be fair, you're using the same line of logic on Daniel's statement I used on yours and you refuted that the two could be inclusive. I'm not interested in trolling you yet - you need to get more Lashy for that.

I'll go ahead and add two positive items to the rearrangement of finances.

1) Restructure the Teaching Profession. Difficult to do because of the correct lack of (fed)government influence, but changing teaching to be in the same line of pay as say, a doctor, while also being as difficult to achieve, would be a good start to a change in the education system.

2) Fund more education in prison. Hell make it mandatory. Prisoners who learn nothing but how to be criminals end up back in prison, imagine that.

[Warriorbird]

Sentences for possession were 7 times worse for black people than white people with all other factors being the same. That and likelihood of death penalty vs life in prison were the only documentable areas of racial differences. I suspect that it is a mix of judges, juries, and access to quality lawyers. Some areas were also much worse for black people to be sentenced in than others.

[Daniel]

Sentences for possession were 7 times worse for black people than white people with all other factors being the same. That and likelihood of death penalty vs life in prison were the only documentable areas of racial differences. I suspect that it is a mix of judges, juries, and access to quality lawyers. Some areas were also much worse for black people to be sentenced in than others.

It's okay. If the math doesn't support his prejudice than it's not good math.

See how that works?

[crb]

Yea...absolutely. Poor people are not going to college because they can't afford to go to harvard.

You're just being stupid here.

You're mom only makes like $3k a year?

You said your tuition was as much as she makes, you said you'd not have gone if you didn't have scholarships. Let me quote it since you seem to forget what you say:



This one is intuitive. People won't expend effort on something that has no discernible outcome for them. What I personally paid in tuition is what my mother makes each year. If I didn't have scholarships (academic and military, thanks) I wouldn't have gone to college.

Around here community college tuition is around $60 a credit hour around here for locals. 15 credits a semester is average, $1800 a year. Say you worked really hard and did 20 credit hours a semester, $2400 a year. Say 10 total classes a year and you need a $50 book, on avg, for each, that still only adds $500.

You could have a part time job still, say you made $7, which is below minimum wage, but for easy math... for 20 hours a week, which you can easily do while doing 15-20 credit hours of school (almost all college students I have ever known have done so). If you lived cheaply, like college students are supposed to do, that'd cover living expenses, barely, but it would. You'd have roommates to be sure.

[crb]

Sorry CRB. This is math. People with similar records and circumstances have different sentencing averages by race.

The studies have been done.
I'm curious how your studies numerically qualify things like testimony or attitude towards the judge or jury. Linkage please.

[Warriorbird]

"Attitude" and testimony were not considered. I think if they were unprepared for court that would be a factor in attorney more than anything else.

[crb]

Be fair, you're using the same line of logic on Daniel's statement I used on yours and you refuted that the two could be inclusive. I'm not interested in trolling you yet - you need to get more Lashy for that.


Ummm... no.



I'll go ahead and add two positive items to the rearrangement of finances.

1) Restructure the Teaching Profession. Difficult to do because of the correct lack of (fed)government influence, but changing teaching to be in the same line of pay as say, a doctor, while also being as difficult to achieve, would be a good start to a change in the education system.

There is like 1 doctor on average for every 1000 people. Imagine the class sizes. I'm all for paying teachers more. I think they should make 60-100k and all have masters degrees (atleast say 4th grade on up). So long as school districts get free reign to fire bad ones. But making it as difficult (and rewarding) as the medical profession would be a little overkill.



2) Fund more education in prison. Hell make it mandatory. Prisoners who learn nothing but how to be criminals end up back in prison, imagine that.

Absolutely, no arguments here. Cheaper to educate than incarcerate, or reincarcerate as the case may be.

[Sean]

You're mom only makes like $3k a year?

You said your tuition was as much as she makes, you said you'd not have gone if you didn't have scholarships. Let me quote it since you seem to forget what you say:



Around here community college tuition is around $60 a credit hour around here for locals. 15 credits a semester is average, $1800 a year. Say you worked really hard and did 20 credit hours a semester, $2400 a year. Say 10 total classes a year and you need a $50 book, on avg, for each, that still only adds $500.

You could have a part time job still, say you made $7, which is below minimum wage, but for easy math... for 20 hours a week, which you can easily do while doing 15-20 credit hours of school (almost all college students I have ever known have done so). If you lived cheaply, like college students are supposed to do, that'd cover living expenses, barely, but it would. You'd have roommates to be sure.

So much for the equality of opportunity.

[Daniel]

I'm curious how your studies numerically qualify things like testimony or attitude towards the judge or jury. Linkage please.

It's called statistics. You know..Math?

Here:

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=4&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.courts.state.pa.us%2Findex%2F supreme%2FBiasCmte%2FFinalReport.ch4.pdf&ei=4F91SI7RNYuqevWB4eUC&usg=AFQjCNFZIg69F8pWsfObbm48fKjuYwfekQ&sig2=YEW4KVAJWpNyGwhUxbC31g

Quotes by State:



Nevertheless, after controlling for legally prescribed factors and mode
of conviction, the study found that the defendant status characteristics
of race, ethnicity, gender, and age definitely affect sentencing outcomes
of all kinds.




In its survey of judges, district attorneys and public defenders, the
committee concluded that a significant number of judges and district
attorneys could not disagree with the statement that race and ethnicity has
an effect on plea bargaining, conviction, and sentencing.


The task force also received considerable testimony at its public hearings
about discriminatory conduct in all aspects of law enforcement, which
contributes to the overrepresentation of minorities in prisons. This
perception was supported by the task force’s survey of opinions of judges
and court managers. In response to two questions regarding prosecutorial
discretion, 30 percent suggested there was some discrimination in the
exercise of prosecutorial discretion.49 Further, 47 percent of the responding
judges and court managers agreed that there were small increments
of discrimination against minorities at each step of the criminal
justice process.50



e task force conducted public hearings
and surveyed judges and attorneys. With regard to sentencing, the task
force concluded that there was a perception of a disparity in prosecutorial
decision-making based upon the race and ethnicity of both the accused and
the victim. The perceptions were based upon the belief that:



Sentencing disparity was among the issues
the task force studied. It cited a court disposition study of cases in 1991,
which found that whites were significantly more likely to be placed on
probation while similarly situated minorities were sentenced to
incarceration.


155
The DCJS study also found that when data for the state’s
ten most populated counties were separately analyzed, racial disparities that
were obscured in the statewide data became apparent.63 Overall, the DCJS
study found that the probability of incarceration was generally higher for
minorities than it was, under certain circumstances, for whites.64 In surveys
of judges and litigators, the commission also uncovered additional evidence
of disparate treatment in the sentencing phase of the criminal process. The
surveys asked a series of questions regarding the frequency with which white
defendants receive preferential treatment in the criminal courts. Overall,
44 percent of the judges and litigators answered that white defendants were
“often/very often” less likely to receive a prison sentence than African
American defendants.65 Differences of opinion were found to exist among
litigators from different racial/ethnic groups, but a substantial proportion of
each group said they had witnessed biased sentencing “on a regular basis.”66
The surveys also uncovered the perception among the respondents that
minority defendants were afforded a narrower range of dispositional
alternatives.67 The charge of racially biased sentencing was also expressed
repeatedly at the commission’s public hearings.68




Among the topics studied by the commission was disparate sentencing in
the criminal justice system. The commission conducted personal interviews
and reviewed other reports and statistical data and concluded that, “Many
minorities perceive that Ohio’s criminal justice system discriminates against
them because of their race or minority status.”69 The commission noted
that this perception is “not unique to Ohio, but represents the views of
many minorities throughout the United States.”70 The commission stated
that, while it recognized that racial discrimination did not account for all
differences in treatment of white people and minorities, “a factual basis for
this perception clearly exists.”71 The report noted that African Americans
were arrested, convicted, and sentenced to prison in Ohio almost 10 times
as frequently as whites and that the incarceration ratio of African
Americans to whites was 9.8:1, which was 28 percent higher than the
national average.72 The commission indicated that its efforts to empirically
validate the information obtained from testimony on this topic had been
frustrated by the failure of judges and court administrators to respond to
a request for information, data, and comments that would have enabled the
commission to consider whether race had a critical influence on the
sentencing patterns of Ohio’s trial courts.

[crb]

"Attitude" and testimony were not considered. I think if they were unprepared for court that would be a factor in attorney more than anything else.
I won't argue that poor people have worse access to quality legal representation, and that could result in longer prison sentences, but that is a poverty issue, not a racial issue.

What is your solution? Have judges take economics into account "well... you're poor, and I have to factor in that you might have had a shitty lawyer, so maybe I'll give your sentence by apparently a factor of 7?"

Or, perhaps, we go back to the root, culture, community, education. Fix those three things, get more black people out of poverty, and the average sentencing will go up as they'll be able to afford better lawyers... or even so... maybe not get arrested at all as they realize crime is bad?

Which brings up another point... can it really be economics? I mean, white or black, people of the same economic standing tend to commit the same crimes the same way with the same records and all other variable? Lets consider two white guys. One white guy gets caught with cocaine. He is 40, married with kids, employed and fairly wealthy, no record, no arrests, was fully cooperative with the police. Another white guy gets caught with cocaine, 22, 4 prior arrests, 2 for possession, one for disorderly conduct, one for aggravated assault, no convictions. Unemployed, has gang tattoos, was uncooperative with the police.

Same crime right? Same sentence?

I have no problems if the second white guys gets more time, no problem at all. Do you? What if now one guy is white and one guy is black? Does the equation change? My opinion certainly doesn't.

[crb]

It's called statistics. You know..Math?

Here:

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=4&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.courts.state.pa.us%2Findex%2F supreme%2FBiasCmte%2FFinalReport.ch4.pdf&ei=4F91SI7RNYuqevWB4eUC&usg=AFQjCNFZIg69F8pWsfObbm48fKjuYwfekQ&sig2=YEW4KVAJWpNyGwhUxbC31g

Quotes by State:
Statistics is not the science of applying numbers of subjective concepts.

Daniel, what number is the color red?

You're being very very dumb. I don't know if it is on purpose, you're being argumentative, or you're just dumb. I'm making the point that sentencing statistics cannot possibly take into account all the subjective information that goes into sentencing, subjective information that isn't skin color, and you're saying "its statistics, math, duh"


All the stuff you quoted says there is a correlation between race and sentencing, and that some people have an opinion (opinion surveys are useless as scientific tools for measuring anything other than opinions) that race matters after they see this correlation, but you haven't shown or proved causation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation

[Daniel]

I'll forgive you if you didn't read all of the excepts but the report itself was a quantitative study that found causation between race and sentencing. The quotes itself were from other studies that found similar findings; some of which were surveys to the process through which this happens and others through empirical study.

[crb]

I'll forgive you if you didn't read all of the excepts but the report itself was a quantitative study that found causation between race and sentencing. The quotes itself were from other studies that found similar findings; some of which were surveys to the process through which this happens and others through empirical study.
I did read all the excerpts, and it was all correlation and opinion polls.

I cannot read the PDF because vista shits on adobe acrobat.

[Daniel]

You're mom only makes like $3k a year?

You said your tuition was as much as she makes, you said you'd not have gone if you didn't have scholarships. Let me quote it since you seem to forget what you say:


My personal example is not indicative of a nation. I'd hope someone as well versed in Mathematics would understand that.





Around here community college tuition is around $60 a credit hour around here for locals. 15 credits a semester is average, $1800 a year. Say you worked really hard and did 20 credit hours a semester, $2400 a year. Say 10 total classes a year and you need a $50 book, on avg, for each, that still only adds $500.

You could have a part time job still, say you made $7, which is below minimum wage, but for easy math... for 20 hours a week, which you can easily do while doing 15-20 credit hours of school (almost all college students I have ever known have done so). If you lived cheaply, like college students are supposed to do, that'd cover living expenses, barely, but it would. You'd have roommates to be sure.

Okay. So what do you do if say, your mother is poor and you have to help take care of her?

[Sean]

Okay. So what do you do if say, your mother is poor and you have to help take care of her?

You shake farts out of sheets for 22 years then start your higher education.

[crb]

My personal example is not indicative of a nation. I'd hope someone as well versed in Mathematics would understand that.




Okay. So what do you do if say, your mother is poor and you have to help take care of her?
You called me stupid for suggesting that some people fail to make available to themselves the cheaper option of community college.

Two posts up you said that you would not have gone to college had you not gotten the scholarships to attend an apparently expensive school, or atleast more expensive than what I suggested.

I did not say all people, I said some people, since you basically admitted to being one of them, you've validated my point, and yet you found it stupid?

I give up.

[Daniel]

I did read all the excerpts, and it was all correlation and opinion polls.

I cannot read the PDF because vista shits on adobe acrobat.

Convenient excuse, but it doesn't help if you lie about something easily refuted


The DCJS study also found that when data for the state’s
ten most populated counties were separately analyzed, racial disparities that
were obscured in the statewide data became apparent.



entencing disparity was among the issues
the task force studied. It cited a court disposition study of cases in 1991,
which found that whites were significantly more likely to be placed on
probation while similarly situated minorities were sentenced to
incarceration

This was the first one BTW:



Nevertheless, after controlling for legally prescribed factors and mode
of conviction, the study found that the defendant status characteristics
of race, ethnicity, gender, and age definitely affect sentencing outcomes
of all kinds.


he commission stated
that, while it recognized that racial discrimination did not account for all
differences in treatment of white people and minorities, “a factual basis for
this perception clearly exists.

[Daniel]

You called me stupid for suggesting that some people fail to make available to themselves the cheaper option of community college.

Two posts up you said that you would not have gone to college had you not gotten the scholarships to attend an apparently expensive school, or atleast more expensive than what I suggested.

I did not say all people, I said some people, since you basically admitted to being one of them, you've validated my point, and yet you found it stupid?

I give up.

It's called an example to illustrate a point. It's not meant to be a deep analysis, but rather to show what I am referring to.

I'm sorry you are unable to grasp that concept.

[Apathy]

You could have a part time job still, say you made $7, which is below minimum wage, but for easy math... for 20 hours a week, which you can easily do while doing 15-20 credit hours of school (almost all college students I have ever known have done so). If you lived cheaply, like college students are supposed to do, that'd cover living expenses, barely, but it would. You'd have roommates to be sure.

$7/hr = $140/wk.

$280wk = $7,280/yr.

How about no tax.

7,280 - 2520 - 700 for books - 3 credit hour courses.

4060/yr. / 12 months

338.38/month.

Take out rent, utilities, and food. I'm guessing wherever you live has a low cost of living ($60 a credit hour?). Feel free to change these numbers

$200/month rent
$50/month utilities
$50/month food

Leaving you with $38.38 a month. Paying no taxes. Thats to cover a car if you need transportation, or public transportation, medical and dental expenses if you need it (you're not going to get insurance part time), unseen expenses, wardrobe, entertainment.

Sorry, but no way.

Even a full-time job at $7/hr would barely sustain you in that scenario (345/month leftover).

[Daniel]

To say nothing of the blatant idiocy that is suggesting that working full time in college is the same as being able to go on your parents dime.

[Sean of the Thread]

rofl @ $60 a credit hour

[Tolwynn]

Doable, but it can seriously suck. My only transportation during four years of college was the shoe leather express. I tried budgeting more for it, but failed and wound doing $30 for a month of food once, which translated to a shitload of ramen.

You're forgetting that can you do more than 20 hours of work a week during breaks if you arrange things right, which makes for more money.

Also, if you can hit Pell grants, loans, or whatever, they're pretty much a gold mine when you're operating on so little money.

[Daniel]

Doable, but it can seriously suck. My only transportation during four years of college was the shoe leather express. I tried budgeting more for it, but failed and wound doing $30 for a month of food once, which translated to a shitload of ramen.

You're forgetting that can you do more than 20 hours of work a week during breaks if you arrange things right, which makes for more money.

Also, if you can hit Pell grants, loans, or whatever, they're pretty much a gold mine when you're operating on so little money.

So, what happens when you throw in the factor of having to support other people (not neccessarily kids) and\or illness, sickness?

[Tolwynn]

You're pretty much fucked in those scenarios, wouldn't argue otherwise. Sometimes you run those odds, though, just like folks who forgo insurance and hope for the best.

[Daniel]

Which brings us full circle to the fact that *all* African Americans have started form that point at one time or another, where you run that "Risk". So, it's pretty ridiculous to attribute *all* failures to laziness or stupidity.

[Apathy]

Which brings us full circle to the fact that *all* African Americans have started form that point at one time or another, where you run that "Risk". So, it's pretty ridiculous to attribute *all* failures to laziness or stupidity.

wait what?

[Tolwynn]

Did you forget the italics or something? I mean, seriously.

[Daniel]

I worded it awkwardly, but essentially the starting point of most African Americans in this country is pretty well known.

So, while since equality some have able to make it, the odds are that some haven't and that had absolutely to do with effort, or a lack thereof.

[Clove]

Which brings us full circle to the fact that *all* African Americans have started form that point at one time or another, where you run that "Risk". So, it's pretty ridiculous to attribute *all* failures to laziness or stupidity.I was with you... then you jumped the shark.

[Daniel]

Like I said, awkward post. Let's just forget that happened. kthx.

[Clove]

Like I said, awkward post. Let's just forget that happened. kthx.k-k.

[Parkbandit]

Which brings us full circle to the fact that *all* African Americans have started form that point at one time or another, where you run that "Risk". So, it's pretty ridiculous to attribute *all* failures to laziness or stupidity.

:rofl:

My favorite part is how you surrounded your retarded terms like Fact and All with asterisks.. highlighting how fucking retarded using them is.

[Ashliana]

:rofl:

My favorite part is how you surrounded your retarded terms like Fact and All with asterisks.. highlighting how fucking retarded using them is.

My favorite part is how you've stayed out of the actual discussion, because you have next-to-nothing to say about it, but you still want to be a negative, reactionary troll pony, marching in line with the others. :rofl:

[Warriorbird]

Pretty standard.

:rofl:

[Parkbandit]

My favorite part is how you've stayed out of the actual discussion, because you have next-to-nothing to say about it, but you still want to be a negative, reactionary troll pony, marching in line with the others. :rofl:


My favorite part is how you assume.. but then again, making an ass out of yourself is 2nd nature isn't it.

If you MUST know though, I'm on vacation. You are only entertaining to me when I'm bored at work and have nothing better to do. I'll be back at full force though come the 20th. By the way.. next week when I don't make a single post.. maybe you can make a new assumption.. other than I'm on a cruise.

[Parkbandit]

Pretty standard.

:rofl:


Pretty standard from you is right.. adding absolutely zero with a one liner. You are a class act for sure. Make sure you don't insult anyone though.. you've already decried doing that in another thread today...

[Back]

:rofl:

[Warriorbird]

We care. Really. Your vacation plans are important to us.

[Ashliana]

My favorite part is how you assume.. but then again, making an ass out of yourself is 2nd nature isn't it.

I'm making a judgment based on the information you've made available.


If you MUST know though, I'm on vacation. You are only entertaining to me when I'm bored at work and have nothing better to do. I'll be back at full force though come the 20th. By the way.. next week when I don't make a single post.. maybe you can make a new assumption.. other than I'm on a cruise.

I'll be waiting with bells on.