What exactly makes you characterize these protestors as racists?
I would hope both ratios would go down to 1. From the data so far, I think 21 is too high. What value would make you raise your eyebrows?
As far as placing “the onus away from blacks”, it should be away from (the vast majority of) black people. Most black people have done nothing wrong (which you agree with in another post), so of course they should have no onus on them. I think you mean that the onus should be on some small number of bad actors among black people, rather than “blacks” which implies black people as a group.
As far as the straight linear relationship – I don’t know. I just think 21 times is too high. I want more data, and a better explanation.
Again, what number would make you start to suspect that the ratio is too high? 100 times? 1000? With such a small amount of data, and the history of treatment of black people in this country, it’s appropriate in my mind to say “this number looks bad – can you provide more data, and an explanation for this number?” Maybe the number would be different for you, but for me, 21 times raises my eyebrows at the least. I’m not calling for anything drastic, and I’m not making any final conclusions. I’m just saying “this number looks too high – more data is needed, and an explanation, but I’m worried that the best explanation might be racism”.
How do you know? Would you say this is so for any value, or just the value of 21?
A value of 10 might make me lean less in the direction of racism as the best explanation. But I’d still want more data.
What proportion would be high enough that you would start to worry that it might be caused by racism, or some other unjust behavior?
I totally disagree – you’re actually saying that racism is understandable here! That’s shocking to me.
When has racism ever been understandable? To me, it never is, and the victims of racism are never responsible. If someone blames all black people for the actions of a very small number, that’s totally on them – not anyone else, not even the small number of bad actors. If a lyncher blames all black people because his brother was killed by a black man, then the lynching still can only be blamed on the lyncher, not the black man who killed his brother (the responsibility he bears is only the murder he committed).
If someone thinks “what’s wrong with them”, that that’s their mistake, and their problem. If someone stigmatizes white people as labor exploiters, then that’s their mistake, and their problem. The same goes for any group. It’s always wrong to blame a group for the actions of a small number.
Sure, criminals should stop doing crime. People should be better people. But any person, black or white, is only responsible for their own actions. A cop who mistreats a black person is totally responsible for the mistreatment – no one else is. If a black man punches a cop who is behaving responsibly, then no one but the puncher is responsible.
Crime is a problem – and I’m fine with going after criminals, and blaming criminals for crime. The problem being discussed here is supposed mistreatment of black people by cops. You seem to be saying that it exists, but it’s not the fault of the cops. If that’s not what you’re saying, I greatly apologize, but you really implied that – especially with your use of “understandably” above. I’m saying that if cops are mistreating black people, then the onus is on the (bad) cops to change. If it’s the institution – if police training, tactics, and common practices, like the protection of the Brotherhood – that’s responsible for mistreatment of black people, then the onus is on the leadership of police departments, including our legislators and executives.
I don’t think racism can ever be eliminated – but we still need to try. But I’m not even talking about eliminating racism – I’m talking about eliminating, or reducing as much as possible, police mistreatment of people due to race (again, probably due to a small number of bad cops, as well as possibly police training/culture/practices). From my experience, discussions with people, the statistics and facts I’ve read and heard, and other reasons, I think this is a problem in our society – and it always has been. I think the problem is lesser now than in the past, but it’s more visible because of technology. I think most cops, like my cousin, are fine individuals. I think mistreatment of black people by cops can only be blamed on those who commit this mistreatment, and I don’t believe it has anything to do with disparities in crime statistics. I believe it has something to do with racist perceptions that young black men are violent and dangerous by nature of their race – but those racist perceptions existed long, long before we ever had any crime statistics of any kind.
Further, I believe that these racist perceptions and mistreatment actually influence the statistics. If there is a cause and effect relationship here, I think mistreatment of black people does more to cause the disparity in crime rates than the disparity in crime rates does to cause the mistreatment in black people. The reason I believe this, again, lies in American history – in the past, police treated black people much, much worse than they do today. In the past, this was not in the least based on crime statistics.
In essence, I think America has changed a lot, but I think that all of the perceptions and feelings that ‘cause’ mistreatment of black people (in addition to racism in general) still exist (to a lesser degree) among significant parts of our population, including probably some number (hopefully small) of cops. And these same feelings, which have never been warranted and are always wrong and evil, cause some cops to mistreat black people now just as they did 100 years ago.
It is my guess that the ratio is out of whack. It is my assumption that racism plays some role in this. Let’s call it X. I want to reduce X to as close to zero as possible. I’d say racism comes in two flavors One is the blatant racism of a KKK Dragon who believes blacks to be inferior beings. The other is the softer racism that view a group as “other” and make generalities. We are hard wired to look for patterns in the world around us. If an easily identifiable group (skin color) exhibits more of something—positive or negative—than other groups, or the general population, they will be associated with that attribute. For instance, on the positive side, blacks are thought to be better athletes, particularly where speed is the most important characteristic. A look at the NFL or Olympic runners definitely supports that contention. Similarly if are empirically over represented in another area, like criminality, then there is an association built that links blacks, writ large, with criminality. This is true even though the VAST number of blacks do not have world-class speed, nor are they criminals.
Now, there’s little we can do about the KKK Grand Dragon. But the other form of racism is actionable, as it is tied to the actions of black criminals. Is this fair to the majority of law abiding blacks. No. But it’s just as “unfair” as blacks to be thought of as faster runners. So, in this flavor of racism we can remove the “justification”. And that is by having blacks commit crimes at no higher rate than other sub populations.
I’m not all that interested in the ratios because I don’t know what they should be. Also, because I assume that racism is playing some small role. Instead I think efforts are better spent changing the thing that we have control over. The criminal behavior of of blacks. I imagine you bristle each time I pout the onus on “blacks” writ large. But that is the reality of it. As per my red, green and yellow aliens example earlier.
The word is loaded. And emotional. Think “bias” and I think my point is better understood. The bias isn’t against black skin, per se, it’s against a group that exhibits a greater proportion of criminal behavior. A group that just happens to be black.
Of course we agree on this. Where I would alter things is the phrase “blame all black people”. I think the number of people who do that is infinitesimal. But the problem does exist in the black community. And that community is very vocal in glorifying criminal behavior (rap, hip-hop). And it doesn’t help the cause AT ALL when people try to come to the defense of Michael Brown. Should he have been killed? No. But he really brought it upon himself. To get in a froth over that and march and fabricate the childish lie as a chant, “Hands up, don’t shoot”, makes the problem of racism worse. Much worse. The same with anytime a black guy does IN FACT commit a crime (like the scumbags who tried to crush Reginald Denny’s skull with a brick" during the Rodney Kind Riots) and his family and community rally around the “good boy”.
I disagree with this, as far as there is a “them”. At what point are we—animals hard-wired to look for patterns—allowed to identify what is threatening. You may want to go pet that cute animal down at the lake, but it’s a world of difference fun wise if that animal is a golden retriever or a bear. At some point, it dawns on the all but the densest of us that “bears are not like golden retrievers”. If I took all college male athletes in the country and lined them up, but hid them behind a screen so all you could see was one hand, and then said that you and I were going to pick 12-man teams and compete on the running track, and the winner would get $1o million dollars and the loser had to clean bathrooms for a year, how many white guys do you think you’d be picking?
I agree with this. At the same time, if one wants something, one should be willing to do what is needed to acquire it. I said before that it’s not fair, but if a law abiding black person wants to be looked at with the same degree as suspicion as a white banker, he should do two things. One is adopt the dress and mannerisms of a banker. The other would be to work to reduce the amount of criminality in the black community—reduce the number of black people committing crimes. And as I said before, I feel that the only way to do this is to improve the education blacks can tap into in the inner cities. Even then, it will be tough, given the break up of the black family. But I do think it can be done.
Do you think the cop who shot Michael Brown was racist? I think he was miles from it. Are there bad cops? No doubt. Some are racist, I’m sure. I think many more are simply dicks on a power trip. But do you think that if all the racism and racists were excised from the police forces that blacks still wouldn’t have a rate of criminality completely out of whack with the general population?
I think this is absolutely wrong. I think you’re entrenched in the past. And as long as you, or are are there, there will never be a world without racism. Really.
Nope. See above.
Thanks for the thoughtful and vitriol-free discussion so far.
I understand these parts of human nature, but I don’t believe that they’re hard-wired to the point that we can’t do anything about them – in my view, these sorts of characteristics play a much smaller role in human interaction than in the past. Including the negative characteristics like distrusting outsiders. So I think this can continue to improve.
I talked more about the supposed “justification” for such racism in other paragraphs – I think we just strongly disagree on that.
I don’t believe this is the case – these biases long predate any difference in criminal statistics. I think it’s much more likely these biases, which exist to a lesser extent now than in the past, still exist for mostly the same reason as in the past.
Since we know that past American racism was completely bunk and based on nothing, it doesn’t make sense to me that modern American racism, which is lesser in quantity and severity, would somehow be based on some reasonable/understandable biases.
The problem exists in the black community the same as it does in the American community – I don’t believe it’s useful or fair to single out the black community. I think blaming hip-hop music is very foolish (as well as useless… nothing increases the popularity of an entertainment genre like blame from older generations) – there is lots and lots of socially conscious, peaceful, and positive hip-hop. To me, “Cop Killer” (which is an oldie by now!), as an example, is the same sort of violence-fantasy-song as “I Shot a Man in Reno Just to Watch Him Die”… just with a different genre, harsher language, and a black person on the microphone.
I certainly disagree with the idea that protests are making racism worse. It may or may not be persuasive, depending on the protest and tactic, but peaceful protests (even if they’re wrong about something), and most of these protests are peaceful, don’t reasonably or understandably cause any bias.
We’re all human, and all (or mostly all) able to make distinctions more than just skin color. Skin color is not a reasonable, understandable, or valid way to classify people as to the threat they pose.
As far as the athletes, it would depend on the sport/distance. Further, most of the guys either one of us would be picking would have both black and white ancestry. If West African ancestry truly was a serious advantage in sprinting (which is what I assume you’re getting at), one would think that the best sprinters would come from the place with the most and broadest West African ancestry (i.e. West Africa), and not an island country with a cultural obsession with sprinting (Jamaica) or a sprawling country in which very few people have “pure” West African ancestry. But the running thing is a different discussion, so if you want to continue it, I think we should start a new thread.
I don’t believe that’s reasonable. If it is, it just confirms that being black makes it significantly harder to succeed just by virtue of their race. Not only would, if this is true, a black man have to adopt cultural traits that he may not have grown up with and feel natural adopting (and therefore may not be able to do so “naturally”), but he also, according to this, has to spend extra-curricular time outside of school/work on the monumental tax of fixing education in the inner cities.
I don’t believe these are reasonable requirements to foist upon someone who, in all likelihood, already worked very hard to get where he is. In my view, the only thing someone needs to do to deserve to be treated with respect and dignity is to be peaceful, law-abiding, and to treat others with respect and dignity. And most black people qualify. In my view, black people shouldn’t have to go to some extra mile beyond that of white people to reasonably expect to be treated in a dignified and respectful manner – even though in the past this was exactly the case.
For example – Jackie Robinson didn’t have to just be a great baseball player… he had to stoically endure horrific insults, indignities, and a myriad of other difficulties. He was held to a much, much higher standard of behavior.
I don’t believe this is a reasonable expectation for black people. And society is better now than it was then – so we know this kind of thing is not immutable.
I just want to continue the progress.
No idea if the Brown shooter was racist. If all the racism and racists were excised from police forces I believe that, over a significant amount of time, disparities in criminal behavior would go down significantly or even disappear. As I said before, I think the mistreatment causes these disparities more than the disparities cause the mistreatment.
So we just totally disagree here.
I believe that racism now isn’t that different from racism in the past in character (though it’s very different in both quantity and acceptance by society overall). I think the racists now are racist for pretty similar reasons to the racists in the past – there are just many fewer now, and their beliefs are much less accepted by society. But I believe racist cops now are pretty much the same as racist cops 100 years ago – but 100 years ago most cops were probably racist, and now it’s a much smaller proportion. I think the reasons for racist beliefs both now and in the past are the same, and are completely unreasonable, completely not understandable, and absolutely unacceptable.
iiandyiiii,
Just have time for a quick reply. First I think we se things differently as to what things are the responsibility the individual person and what things are the responsibility of the larger group.
I noticed that you didn’t say who you’d pick on your team. All we have to go on is skin color. Looks like I’ll be winning the millions and you’ll be cleaning bathrooms. If you do not chose black athletes the odds of you winning are almost non-existent. Your choice. But you’re swimming upstream against a torrent of reality.
As far as the Johnny Cash song, I don’t by the comparison at all. Just listen to the tone of the song. It’s a lament.
We agree that the racism of the past was based on 100% nonsense. Slavery is bad. Chattel slavery like we had in the U.S. is way worse.
Just to be clear, I’m not saying that there is anything about being black that leads one to criminality. The problem is 1) an easy-to-identiffy group 2) the disproportionate poverty that group suffers 3) the density of their inner city communities, 4) the fact that poorer people are more likely to commit crime, and 5) the degree to which these criminals will be policed and caught due to #3. Being black is not a cause of a higher degree of criminality. It is an attribute of a group that is disproportionately poor and living in dense inner cities with shitty schools which give the next generation very little chance of extricating themselves from poverty and moving up.
One final thing. I don;'t think it’s asking too much of anyone to adopt the social codes of those he wants to be treated like. There have been countless poor Irish, Italians, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and Blacks who have moved from wearing the usual attire from their poor neighborhoods and saw the benefits of shopping at Brooks Brothers.
The title of this thread.
I’m sure we do see things differently as far as group vs individual responsibility – I don’t think it’s either-or… any time you are asking something from a group, that means you’re asking something from every individual in that group (in my view). So I’m only comfortable assigning group responsibility when I believe every individual in the group actually bears responsibility, and every individual should be doing something about it. Those kinds of things are few and far between, in my view, and only apply when everyone in a group is doing something wrong (like, say, the Nazi party, Al Qaeda, the North Korean leadership, or the KKK). Otherwise, I blame individuals. Who is to blame for the widespread southern bigotry of the past? Not every southerner, and not every white southerner… but every southerner (and northerner) who owned slaves; everyone that took part in the poor treatment of slaves; everyone who supported bigoted politicians; everyone who demanded that black people call them “sir” and “ma’am” and used slurs like “boy” and worse; every cop who treated a black person differently based on race; and the like. As far as the issue of crime – whether it’s the disparity in crimes statistics for black people, or crime in general, the only ones to blame are the criminals, or anyone who directly protects the criminals. The black community bears no responsibility. Rappers bear no responsibility, unless they committed crimes. Al Sharpton bears no responsibility, unless he committed crimes. As far as the issue of police mistreatment, the blame lies with those who commit the mistreatment, or those who directly protect the mistreaters.
I don’t think the “team” question is particularly relevant, but I’d pick the people who look like the best athletes, or if I had to go by skin color, then at random. Like I said before – in all likelihood, whoever we both picked would have both black and white ancestry. I’ve seen zero evidence (or even zero suggestion) that black athletes with darker skin are better than black athletes with lighter skin. If you want to discuss race and sports more, let’s go to another thread.
For the music, YMMV. But there are lots and lots of violent songs that aren’t rap songs – some are laments (as are some rap songs), some are fantasies, and some fall into another category. But rap has no monopoly on violence, misogyny, or obscenity, and there is plenty of rap and hip hop that has nothing but a positive message.
As far as culture and dress, I have no problem with people dressing how they want. And I don’t have a problem with people “dressing for success” – wearing a suit will certainly open doors that are closed for ripped jeans. What I have a problem with is the idea that a black person who doesn’t want to be seen with suspicion must dress like a white banker – I don’t believe that’s a reasonable demand for one to be treated with dignity. It reeks to me of the same sort of justification that used to demand that black women straighten their hair… some workplaces actually didn’t allow black women to wear their hair naturally! As if natural African textured hair was something shameful, or dirty, or ugly, or unprofessional.
Huh? What aspects? The idea of marketing an idea to a particular demographic? Because that’s all this is. Do you find it racist when blackpeoplemeet.com uses black people in their advertising?
Huh? Folsom Prison Blues is a song about a man in prison who’s lamenting the loss of his prison due to what he’d done, as he’s reminded of his incarceration by a train passing by the prison. It’s not about the shooting of the man in Reno, etc…
**Cop Killer**is more of a violence fantasy told from the perspective of someone fed up with police brutality who goes on a killing spree.
Not at all sure how you can actually be familiar with the two songs and claim they’re at all the same.
Fine. Maybe that wasn’t the best example. If you don’t like that one, how about “Earl Had to Die”, “She Wore Red Dresses”, or “Pardon me, I’ve Got Someone to Kill”.
By the way, those three are all great songs. I have nothing against violence in music – it’s part of humanity, and it should be part of music.
Racism disguised as marketing. How clever. In this case, a group of people (the protesters) targeted a group of people (the restaurant staff plus the customers) for abuse simply because of the color of their skin. You can chose to overlook the obvious racism, or dismiss it as some social necessity, but I consider the protesters actions to be racism.
I’m not familiar with blackpeoplemeet dot com. Do they force their views on others? Do they force others to listen to the spiel? Do they hover threateningly (diners choice, not yours) over diners while they’re trying to enjoy a meal? If not, then you’ve chosen a poor example for comparison.
What makes you think the restaurant staff were white?
So what if, as a white brunch patron I invite one of the Black activists to sit down with us and tell us his or her viewpoint? A few months ago, this was the takeaway from #yesallwomen: when an aggrieved group wants you to be made aware of their experience, only an asshole goes into denial mode.
Or would they say “no, we don’t want to communicate with you. It’s just fun to yell at white people.”
What’s that you say? That there were non-white staff working in what these racist protesters call “white spaces”? The racist protesters defined their targeted-for-harassment victims by their skin color.
You’ll have to ask the racist protesters. They chose their targets based on skin color.
Could you repeat that in English?
Or, just marketing. What makes you so certain that it’s racism?
Wait, there was abuse? None of the stories I read reported abuse. Please elaborate.
It’s not a social necessity; while the problem is very real, this isn’t a productive way to address it, in my opinion.
It’s a dating site that specifically caters to black people. I see their ads a lot, because I watch a lot of NBA games, and NBA games are, per capita, more likely to be watched by black Americans than white ones. Their ads feature black actors. They are specifically targeting people, based on the color of their skin. Is this racism, too? Again, this is the only aspect I am inquiring about, the supposed racism of targeting white people specifically with a campaign, be it for advertising or political action, not the wisdom, effectiveness, or character of this protest.
Once again, the racist protesters chose their victims based on the color of their skin. Unless you believe that “white spaces” refers to something else?
The patrons were attempting to dine in peace. The racist protesters decided to illegally use the dining area as a platform to publically discuss alleged murders. The racist protesters were harassing the restaurants patrons. That’s abuse. Feel free to chose another word.
We agree that this tactic was not a productive way to address this issue.
AFAIK, every dating site caters to people who voluntarily chose to use the service. Their advertisement is usually placed at socially, and legally, acceptable areas. The sites are privately owned and can chose to market their services to whomever they chose. So - no it’s not racism or racist.
If a dating site begins forcing their way into your home and demanding that you listen to their spiel only because you are what-ever-color-you-are, then yes, they are racist. They are also guilty of criminal trespass and public stupidity.
If I’m following you…
Tailoring and marketing a message for a certain racial group = not racist.
Expressing that message in a disruptive way = racist
I don’t get it, at all. You seem to be saying that using racial classifications to treat people differently, in the sense of marketing to them, isn’t racism unless the message is presented in a particular way (in person), that isn’t socially acceptable. The racism comes from the way the message is delivered, in other words, not from how the “target” is selected. Evidently this makes sense to you, but I remain confused. Oh well. Thanks taking the time to explain.
Targeted harassment based on race isn’t racist?