When I say chopstick Asians, I am not being racist against Asians. It was an observation I made in the race and IQ threads. Some folks talked about the Asian IQ as if it was almost entirely genetic and I pointed out that there were some genetically indistinguishable parts of Asia with vastly different IQ levels. There was a high correlation between Asians (other than Indians (I think there is a different dynamic occurring there) whose culture historically used chopsticks and Asian cultures that didn’t.
Of course the real difference is that the cultures that used chopsticks (China, Japan, Korea, Viet Nam) all adopted the use of chopsticks when they adopted other parts of Chinese culture, particularly confucianism. These countries ALL had an imperial exam system at some point in their history in the effort to achieve a confucian state run by scholars. For THOUSANDS of years, the Imperial exam in these countries has been a recurring element of society and for much of that time the most obvious means of socioeconomic improvement. So you had a long and recurring rewarding of scholastics that you didn’t have in feudalism or as a slave in the south. That’s not to say that there is NO genetic element to Asian IQ but the emphasis and deeply held almost religious belief that it is important to develop the mind probably has something to do with it.
You’re twisting what I said. What I said is that poor kids have a negative effect on the academic performance of schools. And when the school is 88% economically disadvantaged (to use the school district’s term), that means that an absurd percentage of the kids in the school are likely to suffer from all the problems that poor kids have- inadequate nutrition, lack of basic pre-school learning, and so on.
This is borne out by the poor performance of the school - it’s been on the TEA PEG list for something like 3-4 years running. (TEA PEG FAQ)
If it was the neighborhood kids, and not the apartment kids, the performance of the school would be much more like White Rock, Merriman Park or Moss Haven, all of which have low apartment percentages and high performance because they’re primarily composed of homeowner kids, not apartment kids, and there’s no practical distinction between the homes in the various school zones, other than a slightly higher property valuation in the non-Skyview ones because the schools don’t suck.
It’s not so much that I think the other kids don’t deserve a quality education- they do, but that mine DO. Those other kids are their own parents’ problems, not mine. I can’t undo hundreds of years of discrimination, poverty and other problems, but I can put my kids in a school where they’ll have the tools they need to succeed. Anything else is negligent on my part- my first duty is to my own children.
That’s why I said that the school district ought to scrap their neighborhood school policy. That dumb-ass policy is how you get nearly 100% black and poor schools like Thurgood Marshall Elementary school or Forest Lane Academy less than a mile and a half from nearly all-white, high performing elementary schools like Moss Haven or Merriman Park. They ought to either rezone and gerrymander to even out the apartment percentages across the entire southern half of the district, or implement a busing plan to even it out. What they have now isn’t equitable, and does a disservice to both the poor children in the majority poor schools, and to the non-poor kids zoned for those schools.
But until they do that, I’m stuck having to deal within those boundaries that are drawn, and that means doing my damnedest to put my boy somewhere other than the local elementary school.
White on white crime is a big problem but it is not as big a problem as black on black crime. Black people are murdered at six times the rate of white people. If black people killed each other at the same rate as white people killed each other then murders in Chicago would decline by 90%. If police officers stopped killing black people then the black homicide rate would decline by 4%. The reason there is so much white on white violence is that there are about 5 times as many white people as black people.
As a side note relating to this, it’s an interesting fact that people - both white and black - have a tendency to wildly overestimate the percentage of the population which is black. (Similar for gays.)
It’s weird but also serious IMO, in that it leads people to overestimate (or underestimate) various racial disparities.
So… even if the apartment building is next door the people in it aren’t part of the neighborhood? Can you even hear what you’re saying?
Maybe part of the problem is that you don’t see renters and “apartment people” and the poor as your social equals, they aren’t as good as your sort. You think that doesn’t trickle down to the kids in the school?
It still comes down to you not wanting “those people” around you and your family.
Why would you think that? Police don’t kill blacks because they think its fun, rather blacks get killed because the criminals that police deal with are overwhelming black. It’s about the high cost of information. A police officer who wants to go home at night has to size up the people they see and determine those most likely to hurt them, waiting till they pull out a gun and shoot someone isn’t a good option, and when 66% of all violent crime in new York including 80% of all shootings are committed by the 25.5% of the population made up of Blacks is it unreasonable for them to become more cautious around blacks?
Part of the problem is that the apartment people have NO involvement in any of the civic institutions whatsoever. From the perspective of the home-owning population of the area, they seem to be a massive resource drain on the school district as well as a massive headache for the local police department.
Most of us would be entirely happy if they all went somewhere else. They don’t add jack shit in the way of useful or productive contributions to the area, and seem to entirely take and/or fuck things up for everyone else who obeys the law, educates their kids and isn’t generally obnoxious.
Why in the hell would I want to have “those people” around me and my family?
Just like in other states in the (racist) USA where there’s a significant black and white community, they only police the blacks so of course statistics are going to show it’s slanted high in the black community.
So again I ask you the same question I asked Puddleglum: So you’re saying it’s basically okay to ignore white on white crime while at the same time really be focused on black on black crime? Cause that’s basically that’s what the police do, and then use the statistics to back up their original agenda.
How nice to know you would not want me to live next door to you, what with me being a renter and all.
I find it hard to believe that an entire apartment complex, much less all of them in your town, are inhabited entirely by thieves and sinners and morons.
It does beg the question if they’re not part of the neighborhood they live in because they’re really all scum, or if because they’ve been soundly rejected by the homeowners based solely upon the fact the rent rather than own irrespective of any other quality?
No, the poll shows that a majority of white Americans thought that the sit ins and freedom rides hurt the fight for equality. Note, 57% of people thought that the tatics being used would hurt integration in the South. Also note that the same polls show that greater than 50% of the whites polled believed that if the positions were reveresed, the protests and marches would still not be justified.
So it may be that a large portion of the whites polled believed in equality but thought there was a better path to get there.
In hindsight the the protests and marches did affect change. At that time not everyone thought what King was doing would work. As I am sure you know, King and Malcolm X diaagreed on tactics quite a bit.
For the Freedom Riders, that’s not what the poll asked – it asked whether they approve or disapprove of the Freedom Riders’ actions. Further, it asked whether they were favorable or unfavorable to the March on Washington. And in both cases, white people pretty overwhelmingly disapproved/unfavorably viewed the Civil Rights activists.
In addition to having little understanding of racism and discrimination against black people, I believe these polls show that most white people at the time opposed Civil Rights protests – whether out of racism or ignorance I don’t know. They were swayed eventually, but according to the polling probably not until after (and maybe long after) the Civil Rights Act was passed.
That’s an interesting observation / opinion that I’m in no postion to have an opinion about.
As a university academic, I was aware that the university ruling class was disinterested in protests and marches.
As an AUS, I’m aware that the massive Vietnam protests in Aus had no effect on government policy.
Having been friends with communists & student politicians for a very long time, I was taught that the purpose of protests and marches was not to effect change. The purpose of protests and marches was to embolden & energise the membership (and to accustom them to obeying orders).
I’ve not read any analysis of the strategy of the American Civil Rights movement. Recomend some essay available on the Web?
Probably because they’re these kinds of apartments:
[ul]
[li]Story 1[/li][li]Story 2[/li][li]Story 3[/li][li]Story 4[/li][/ul]
It’s not renters in general; if these were say… young out-of-college singles, families saving for their first houses, and middle-class/upper-middle class singles, I don’t think there would be any grumbling at all.
Instead, in my area, it’s the poorest, most violent, most criminal set of people you literally could find in the area. (the police chief describes the apartments as a “beehive” that distributes crime into the rest of the city in story 4 above).
Maybe it’s unfair, but it’s awfully hard NOT to paint everyone who lives there with the same brush- the Forest/Audelia apartments are the worst of the bunch, but the nearby ones are only marginally better (they’re like a half-mile away).
From the perspective of the homeowners who live south and north of those apartments, those people have nothing to offer, and bring a lot of negative problems to the area. Nobody in their right mind who can afford it wants to live near or among these people, and nor do they want their kids going to school with their children either.