Are people too hung up on race?

In My Humble Opinion
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Tymp, there’s also possibility D–that, given a white person and a black person on trial for the same crime, a black person is more likely to be convicted and sentenced to jail than a white person is (we already know that blacks are more likely than whites to receive the death penalty for the same crime). Not to mention E–the police in some areas concentrate their efforts on pursuing black suspects rather than whites. After their arrest, of course, D comes into effect. Also, certain crimes which are classically conceived of being “more likely” to be committed by blacks (say, possession of crack) carry harsher penalties than “white” crimes (like possession of cocaine).

With all the hoopla in the news recently over people on death row being found not to have committed the crimes of which they were convicted, and the deal in L.A. with the police framing people, does anyone know the percentage of those people who were black and the percentage that were white? That might be an interesting statistic.

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C) that a higher percentage of black individuals commit crimes not because of a conspiracy, not because of racism in our society, but because of their biology – because they are black.

Answer C is, obviously, a horrifically bigoted and racist statement. It is also the answer that fits most closely with the things that you have posted.

No matter how you view the data that London_Calling has presented, it does have implications with regard to the OP. “Trolling” has a clear, well-established definition. This does not fit in that definition.
**
[/QUOTE]

Ok. I may be wrong about the trolling thing.

Where did I mention about biology having a crucial role in this? I am unsure. BTW- the part about the alien overlords does mention biology being a function, but I meant that as a joke. Or did I miss something? I don’t think anyone is biologically “programmed” to be better or worse in any way, unless say, you are destined to be a bad piano player because you have no fingers or something sad as that.
<flame off>

I think that the actions and decisions of an individual make more of a difference in a person’s life than their ancestry. Many racially bigoted groups may disagree with me. That’s not a bad thing. I think for myself. I don’t need or want to conform to any group based on ancestry. (I don’t like the term race because we’re all in the human one, and therefore not all that different.)

BTW- is option “C” trolling, I’m not sure (as you know). Fill me in.

<dives for cover>

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or was the “you” you were referring to LC?

I almost hope not. I got good and worked up over that one. It’d be a waste of a good rant.

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You didn’t find answer “C” funny? I’m insulted! I’ll sic the alien overlords on you next time I’m abducted.

Dammed anal probes!

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For an intense visual depiction of poverty and race, try to see American Pictures. It plays on college campuses all the time, and I was lucky enough to see it. It’s a Danish photographer’s attempts to show “the devastating results of oppression.”

http://www.american-pictures.com/english/

I’ll say up front that I don’t agree with everything the guy says, especially the sort euro-psychobabble stuff on his web site, but the show of pictures will make you weep.

Are we too hung up on race? In many ways, yes. I definitely agree with the posters who point to “activist leaders” who need to stir things up to keep themselves relevant. This is not a function of minority groups - for every Jesse Jackson there is a David Duke or some other photo-op whorepoverty pimp stirring things up.

But things are not fine, here in America. Prison statistics, education statistics, HIV/AIDs statistics, gun violence statistics, poverty statistics all tell us that the problems for some minority groups in America are REAL. Getting people angry about race doesn’t seem to lead to any solutions to the problems. It leads to anger, helplessness, resignation, and divisiveness. Liberal whites try to solve the problems, and create bigger problems. Non-whites distrust Whitey’s solutions…

Ack, I could go on forever.

D.Lerious, glad you see yourself as a member of the human race and aren’t too hung up on things. That’s the way I try to stay as well.

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Thanks, pldennison. Your answers D & E are the result of racism, so they really wouldn’t fit on my list. However, those are some really great points that I wish I had thought of when I was posting my reply to Wonko.

I guess that, just by looking at hard data regarding such things as prison populations, conviction records, life expectancy, and poverty, we can answer the OP with a definite yes and no.

Yes, racism still persists, it is wrong, and people need to get over it.
No, the effects of racism still persist and we need to draw attention to them and try to make adjustments.

Wonko,

I think that I illustrated how your assertion that individual choice is the only cause of imprisonment and that race and racism play no roll is, in fact, a racist sentiment. The facts and figures would then imply that individuals of certain races are more likely to participate in certain behaviors, not because of the influence of society, but because they are born to it. Do you see how denying the effect of racism is racism?

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Although it’s true that there used to be a discrepency between minimum & maximum penalties for possession of crack cocaine and cocaine, that is no longer true. That discrepency was shot down as violative of the Equal Protection Clause. Interesting note: the answer, of course, was to simply raise the maximum penalty for possession of cocaine.

Anyway, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t still a discrepency of actual sentences given between crack and cocaine possession. I don’t know the answer to that. My guess is that there is still a discrepency in sentences actually given. However, I tend to believe that discrepency (and discrepencies in racial incarceration) is generally the product of economics. The more money you have, the less likely you are to receive harsher sentences.

Of course, I still think intentional racism exists. However, I also believe that the true problem with race in America centers around systematic racism. The fact that a disproportionate % of minorities are in the lowest economic categories cause so many other problems. The real trick is to find a way to counteract two centuries of systematic deprival.

So anyway, as a white male, yes, I find that society makes too big of a deal out of race. I wish it wasn’t such a big issue. However, there is a reason it is such a big issue in our country. We, as a country, still have major racial issues to resolve.

Personally, I believe the “cure” rests in fixing the economic disparities through affirmative action centering on a need-based system instead of a race-based system. (ex. the Univ. of CA need-based scholarship program). My hope is that this type of affirmative action will still have a substantial affect on racial disparities without causing the societal tension our current AA system has caused.

Anyway, that’s my 2 cents–probably not even worth that.

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Wonko,

I think that I illustrated how your assertion that individual choice is the only cause of imprisonment and that race and racism play no roll is, in fact, a racist sentiment. The facts and figures would then imply that individuals of certain races are more likely to participate in certain behaviors, not because of the influence of society, but because they are born to it.
**
[/QUOTE]

born to what exactly? What is the it?

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WTF? A higher likelihood of imprisonment or the committing of crimes, Wonko. That’s what we’re talking about here, right? Certain data points have been presented. You and I seem to disagree on the cause for the facts as they stand.

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Wonko,

I think that I illustrated how your assertion that individual choice is the only cause of imprisonment and that race and racism play no role is, in fact, a racist sentiment.
**
[/QUOTE]

How do people get into prison without committing a crime? Do people just get rounded up for no reason, and just get thrown in jail just to keep the ratios of racial groups even?
I know that some people are in jail and are not guilty, and we have recently seen reversals of decades old judgements due to DNA testing and such, but most everyone in jail has at least one common trait. They are criminals, and probably bad ones, because they got caught.

Everyone knows how to get into jail.

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ra·cism 1.The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others.
2.Discrimination or prejudice based on race.

Where did I say this…

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what causes them to have a higher liklihood of committing a crime exactly?

Obviously it is happening. I suspect it is an issue of environment.

How is that racist precisely?

sorry about the intervening posts, I missed yours in my Posting Frenzy. (I think I wore out my “P” key…)

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To clear up…

Environment can be a -factor- but individual choice is more powerful than ones surroundings.

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Here’s a slant that might return to the OP’s concerns:

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/campushate_000612_chat.html

I think the campus is just a smaller unit of the USA and when we look at what’s cooking on campus we are seeing what we were taught at home and how we feel at home.

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Wonko – That’s pretty much like saying “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” (i.e .poverty doesn’t cause crime, people cause crime). So, it might just be there is a fundamental difference in philosophy that can’t be overcome on this issue.

At least you acknowledge that environment can be a factor – albeit not so important as individual choice. Given that is your view, then put that view together with the statistics (that say a person is 7 times more likely to go to prison in the US if they are born Black rather than White) and what other conclusion can I come to except to think that you believe it’s genetically based ? There seems no alternative.

Thing is Wonko, (as I alluded to in my earlier post) it is pretty common currency among sociological and psycological professionals to believe poverty is the leading cause of crime - check any search engine.

That may be poverty in the conventional sense of housing, welfare, education, money, healthcare, etc, or it might also be in what they call ‘poverty in values’. That means anything that kids are exposed to like from absent parents (just ‘absent’ or, as seems quite likely, in prison), no parents, living with crime and criminals – even petty drug type crime – in your community, school, etc. Kids build their value system on a whole combination of things they are exposed to.

Mix up any combination of the above and you can more easily end up with a kid who feels disenfranchised – not part of anything going on in mainstream society – than a kid living in a nice house in the suburbs.

And the statistics also seem to say, once you’re in the trap it’s incredibly hard to get out.

IMO, the real issue - the one underlying those prison stats - is that things are now much worse than they were 15 years ago. Poverty is punished more severely, there is greater economic division, it is harder than ever to get out of the poverty trap and crime is increasing (300% increase in prison population between 1980 and 1995) in a time when the US economy has (historically) never enjoyed more sustained growth.

It might be that at a time when the wider society is enjoying (never before seen) sustained economic growth, things are actually getting much worse for the poor. (Poor = minoroty groups = “whats the problem ?” = why get “hung up” on race).

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London Calling- I um, agree with you… will you please shut up now?

Thanks.

Outwardly, he admitted defeat; Inwardly… Well inside he was laughing like hell. You see, he had a picture in his head, of a gun. It was sorta running/levitating down the street, stopping at banks, and holding them up. The funny bit is where the gun had to tap out the demand for money in morse code on the counter. When it got the money, it couldn’t take it anywhere- because it had no hands!

This has been the most fun, London Calling. I salute you as a fellow angry ranter, and thanks for the fun! We should do this again!

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I always liked this variation:
Guns don’t kill people, Bullets do.

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Semms like things are pretty busy in your head there, Wonko. And interesting. You take care.

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Wonko,

What is the source of your anger? Why are you reacting so violently to LC’s posts? Are you reading some sort of affront in his words that I am missing, or is the whining belligerence your simple form of mental masturbation?

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You too LC -wink-.