# I'm fucking mad at the people in the US who support and promote adult bullies. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 21, 2015, 7:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-fucking-mad-at-the-people-in-the-us-who-support-and-promote-adult-bullies/728417 "2015-08-21T07:57:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 145
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2015, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-fucking-mad-at-the-people-in-the-us-who-support-and-promote-adult-bullies/728417/145 "2015-08-23T03:44:02Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Well, it’s more helpful when you respond to what is in the thread you are posting in, but here is what you cited as an example: Here’s another one: > [@Starving Artist - we remember you](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starving-artist-we-remember-you/706204/98): > > You didn’t ask me what the black people you talked to may have thought. Nor did I ask you to take my word. You asked me if I thought black people were treated with dignity and respect in the 50s and 60s. I agreed that they weren’t, but that in very important and significant ways they have it much worse now. > [@magellan01](#): > > Can you tell me, specifically, which part of his post is wrong, or what you disagree with? Because here’s how I break it down: > > 1. black people got vastly better educations in those days > 2. many more were raised in actual families with fathers present > 3. they lived more safely without the pervasive drug, thug and gang culture that exists today > > He ends with opining that if he were a black parent, he feels he’d have a better chance for his kids then as opposed to now. Now, that is definitely something that can be debated, but do you agree or disagree with his claims, 1 through 3? > > Here’s my take: > > 1. given the sad state of a lot of the inner city schools a good portion of black kids attend today, I think this point is correct > 2. indisputably true > 3. I think this is true > > Now, I also think that everything he said could be true but that doesn’t necessarily mean that black people had it “better” back then. 1. seems [pretty easy](http://www.postsecondary.org/last12/1131101age.pdf) to disprove (see page 11 of the link). Black college enrollment looks to have tripled (or more) since the 50s. That’s not the only measure of education, but it seems to be an awfully significant one (and more than enough to refute an assertion that education was “vastly better” for black people back then). Don’t have a problem with 2). 2. I think this was more than countered by the pervasive racism and white supremacist culture. Consistent threats and instances of random violence, rape and sexual assault of black women, rampant employment and housing discrimination, etc . Murder rates now are [below the 1960 level](http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm), though other crimes are higher (most rapes probably went unreported or were ignored by the police in the 50s and 60s, so I doubt those statistics are particularly useful). Adding all this up, and including the fact that so many black people in the 50s would have had little or no recourse and little or no support from law enforcement when they were actually the victims of crimes, then I think life today for most black people in America is far safer than in the 50s. Conversations with older black people confirms this, at least for me. Pretty uniformly (for those who lived in the South, at least), they tell me that they were in near constant fear in the 50s and 60s that they or their friends or relatives would be attacked or raped by white people. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-fucking-mad-at-the-people-in-the-us-who-support-and-promote-adult-bullies/728417)._