The claim that I have the most problem with is the claim that America of the '50s was a better place for black people than America now.
Huh? Here’s what he said:
(bolding mine)
He’s saying that life for black people due to racism got better with each decade. He also claims that the number of people killed through lynchings ids dwarfed by the number killed by what he describes. I doubt one can deny that. Even if you add in all the other non-lynching killings.
This is not the first time I’ve had this discussion with SA. Here’s a past example. He’s made these claims repeatedly, and when I see it (or when I see posts from him along the same line of thought) I’ll challenge it pretty vigorously.
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:
[QUOTE=Starving Artist]
But I do think black people got vastly better educations in those days, and that many more were raised in actual families with fathers present, and that they lived more safely without the pervasive drug, thug and gang culture that exists today.
I’ve said before and I’ll say again that despite segregation I’d much rather have been a black parent in the 50s and 60s than today.
[/QUOTE]
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:
- black people got vastly better educations in those days,
- many more were raised in actual families with fathers present
- 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:
- 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
- indisputably true
- 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.
Here’s another one:
- seems pretty easy 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). - 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, 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.
Remember that the OED is descriptive, not prescriptive, and any new word that gets enough traction will be added. “Groovy” is in it, and I expect to win my million internet bucks in a few years. Start saving!
“Bully” is a more-precise description. One can be a prick or an asshole without being a bully, but all bullies are pricks AND assholes.
“Cishet” will never be in the OED, because it’s too precious and stupid to live.
It’s never been my contention that life overall was better for black people then. But it was a lot better in the areas I mentioned, and the biggest reason those areas are worse now is because of a combination of liberal social engineering that has screwed things up for everyone, and liberal protectionism of every negative and destructive aspect of black culture that has arisen in the meantime, even those that contravene issues that liberals are ordinarily passionate about, such as the often overt, violent and sexual misogyny found in rap music.
Then I guess you don’t have much of a problem with my statements because never said that. What I said was that certain important aspects of life were better for black people in the 50s.
The problem is what you usually challenge isn’t what I actually said. An example can be found just above.
You’re correct that it isn’t the only measure of education. But you’re wrong in concluding that it’s significant. The black population has virtually tripled since 1950 and that alone could account for the difference. And that’s actually pretty sad when you consider the many strides that have been made in integrating the two cultures and the number of programs that exist now to assist black students in getting a college education. One would expect that with all the strides that have been made in other areas there would be a much more statistically significant percentage of black students gaining admittance to college than was the case 65 years ago.
But there isn’t. And why is that I wonder? My guess is that it’s because a huge number of black kids are growing up in fatherless households, raised by mothers who were too young and too ill-educated themselves to raise up kids with the kind of values that lead to doing well in school. But then we’ve also evolved a school system that passes kids from grade to grade whether they learn anything or not with the result that we now have kids ‘graduating’ high school who can’t read or write even at a first grade level.
Go to the library sometime and take a look at a few magazines like Life, Newsweek and Time from the early sixties when blacks were demonstrating to integrate white schools. You’ll see sweet, well-dressed, polite young kids who were already well educated. They spoke well and had correct grammar and to all outward appearances were just as well educated within their segregated communities as white kids were in theirs.
This is what I’m talking about when I say that black people got vastly better educations in those days. Family units were largely in tact, with parents who got involved in their children’s education, and somehow everyone managed to learn the subjects and legitimately pass to the next grade, with the result that those who graduated high school actually knew 12th grade subjects. Amazing, huh?
But then liberals came along and fixed everything. Now we have kids being raised by kids without a father in sight, going to schools who pass them from grade to grade provided they can be arsed even to show up, and whose glamorous cultural influences are gangsters, drug dealers, thugs and thieves.
Liberals scoff at family values. They cry ‘racism’ at the merest hint that black kids would be better served by dressing better, learning and using proper grammar, and trying in other ways to prepare themselves for a career and life as adults. And they defend and in effect promote music that leads to terrible treatment of girls and women, whether through sexual infidelity, dismissive chauvinism or physical violence, and often a combination of all three.
And all of this speaks only to problems of education. Black kids these days, especially in inner city environments, also have to run a gauntlet of drug, violence and gang activity that creates a much greater threat to their physical safety by far than existed in the 50s. And of course that doesn’t even speak to the large number of black kids caught up in that life and committing that criminality and violence.
These are the reasons I’ve said that I’d much rather be the parent of a black child in the 50s than now, and I stand by that.
When you’re talking to all these nebulous “old black people” about then vs. now, I’d wager you don’t ask them about it in the context I’m talking about. Ask them what they think of the quality of education black kids are getting today vs. then, and ask them about the quality of their homelife and the values black kids are being taught, and ask them wether they think black kids are safer in their communities now than they were then. I haven’t the slightest doubt that if they’re honest they’ll tell you, “yeah, these aspects of black life were indeed much better then”.
June Cleaver: “Ward, I’m very worried about the Starving Artist…”
There are some items in that Gish gallop that are accurate but mostly SA is not looking at any research.
To begin with, he is mistaken about the population increase explaining the hight school graduation; researchers look at percentages, not the totals, so they do report that SA is wrong on this.
He is also wrong on the number of black students going to college, their competition rates are more than double than since the 60’s (Yes, I do think that their numbers do need to increase more indeed but the sorry point from SA was that the numbers of blacks going to college did not significantly increase all these decades), and just by simple numbers he is also wrong with the idea about blacks getting more education during his favorite decades.
So yeah SA, serious researchers before there was iiandyiiii did ask many black people and looked at the numbers before and now. You even got that wrong. I’m not amazed at that.
I’m afraid it’s you who are wrong, June. (And while we’re at it, could you please explain to your viewers who think LITB was a documentary on the 50s, that it was you, yourself, who chose to wear pearls while doing housework because they hid a deep hollow in your neck that cast a large shadow from the lights on the set, and that after a few years you started to wear high heels because the boys were growing and you needed to appear taller than them? Thank you ever so much.)
Now, I’m afraid it’s you who are wrong, dear lady. My comments about the black population having tripled referred to college entrance rates, not high school completion rates. And yes, if there are three times as many black people now it stands to reason that if three times as many blacks are entering college it’s a pretty good indicator that something has gone wrong, as black kids now enjoy much less discrimination than they did in those days and they have many programs to assist them getting into college that didn’t exist in those days. So, a net loss in my book.
And speaking of high school completion rates vs. those in the 50s, wouldn’t you agree that such statistics are meaningless given that kids today can graduate high school unable to read or write even at a first grade level? All high school completion rates really mean these days is that the kids in question managed to show up, not that they necessarily learned anything. (Same holds true for white kids, btw.)
Maybe if Trump gets elected he can bully schools into requiring that kids actually learn stuff.
Of course, but what the Pew researchers did was the same for college, they looked at percentages, so this was a very useless point to make here.
Yes. It was you.
Since the same holds true for white kids, there are then other reasons why the gap exists. Some are indeed are very unsavory so they are ignored by you.
We already established that you were wrong on your basics, so just like climate change deniers in congress that have no clue on what to do since they ignore the science, so it is that people like you or Trump should never be allowed to apply their wishful thinking to education solutions that are incomplete at best.
:smack:
Of course there is. Drugs, criminality, gang life, pressure not to ‘act white’ (i.e., study and do well in school), negative cultural role models and any number of other impediments that have grown up in the wake of the breakdown of society that has occurred since the late sixties also come into play and affect the number of black kids who make it to college. I have a friend who’s a black guy who grew up in South Central L.A. Some of his old neighborhood even shows up in a couple of scenes in Straight Outta Compton. He was one of five siblings. He studied hard, was bullied over acting white, moved to the midwest to attend college, married a white woman, has a home and family in the midwest now and is one of the nicest, funniest, most good-natured and charismatic people I’ve ever met. None of his siblings made it out of the hood. They’re all dead. Multiply that by a few million over the decades and it’s not hard to see why black college attendance rates haven’t risen like they should.
No, you’ve established nothing. Trust me, no one on your side of the aisle has any business criticizing anyone over education solutions, incomplete or otherwise.
Again, not only your sweeping say so of "I haven’t the slightest doubt that if they’re honest they’ll tell you, “yeah, these aspects of black life were indeed much better then” was correct. It was wrong on many of the items where you foolishly use anecdote instead of data. Just look at life expectancy, once again you are ignoring a lot to continue with your wilful ignorance.
Of course, as usual, one has to stop you there because you are not looking at the data:
One important lesson to take here, your sweeping generalizations are not justified, and then as a kicker experts are not sure about what are the main factors in that decline. A lot of moderate and liberal ideas are part of it, with some conservative ones too, and more policing.
Speaking about the bully with a badge reason for being:
Correction of post #154: Again, your sweeping say so of "I haven’t the slightest doubt that if they’re honest they’ll tell you, “yeah, these aspects of black life were indeed much better then” was not correct. It was wrong on many of the items where you foolishly use anecdote instead of data. Just look at life expectancy, once again you are ignoring a lot to continue with your wilful ignorance.
So 30+ years after the gigantic spike in crime that followed in the wake of the counterculture revolution it finally started to decline about 15 years ago (and even now is probably still twice what it was in the 50s), and you think this somehow negates my arguments? That your position is “Oh, well, crime is going down now so no harm, no foul for everything that’s happened over the last 50 years”? Tell that to all the people who’ve had kids or family members wind up in prison or die from drug and/or crime related activity over all that time.
And besides, what about all the other impediments to black education and ability to lead quality lives which I mentioned, like "drugs, gang life (which is still pervasive even if murders are finally beginning to subside), pressure not to act white, negative cultural role models and a wholly impotent school system? Lessening gang murders do nothing to ameliorate the damage done by these negative factors.
Is that any different than “oh, well, racism was already declining in the 1960s so no harm, no foul for everything that happened in the preceding 250 years”? Tell that to all the people whose ancestors were slaves, or whose parents were lynched.
Given the blatant fraud in which Trump University/Trump Entrepreneur Initiative engaged, it is highly unlikely that Trump has any interest in seeing that kids “actually learn.”
Good luck in convincing dictionaries and academics to use your definitions of “grown up” and “reduce.”
And once again, telling others to concentrate on anecdotes is just a recipe to continue doing what it is not effective, like in your case attempting to rewrite the past and the present, then as now there was/is a lot of Republicans who did their part to improve the conditions of minorities, we all have to do a lot more work, it is really dumb to demand a retreat based on your anecdotary.
Of course in the end you have to go for a straw man, I already did point that some conservative ideas can be part of the solution, you continue to look ridiculous by denying that your main ideas are just retrograde.
And so are the bullies that you are supporting, but as the lyrics of the song used in the PBS documentary on the civil right era Eyes on the Prize go:
As I said, there is still lots more to do, and the bullies have another thing coming from the minorities in the USA when November 2016 comes along.