I think you must have gone to one of those underfunded schools that LHoD was talking about. There was this thing called the “Southern Strategy” employed by the Republicans in the sixties and seventies. Most people with an elementary school education have heard of it. From you moniker, I would guess that you attended a poorly funded school where they didn’t have the money to fully educate you. I salute you for continuing your education and being excited to share with those around you. Good job.
Yes, and Manhattan didn’t have indoor plumbing a thousand years ago.
Why do people who don’t know that American political parties evolve think their opinions have any value on a message board? You’d think it would jog their cognition when they go back 150 years for their example of a non-racist Republican. 
ETA: On reread, I see I was “late to the party”, with several other Dopers also struck by the ignorance in this post.
This is pretty much spot on.
The term “Ku Klux Klan” has referred to a number of quite distinct movements, which can generally be divided into four groups:
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The Post-Civil-War Klan, which was quite literally ex-Confederate soldiers waging a sort of unofficial anti-black guerrila war, and which was crushed by government force.
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The early-20th-century Klan, which was a legitimately influential political and social club for white Protestants, opposed to anyone who wasn’t one. They were as ferociously anti-Catholic as they were anti-Black. Legitimate political, business and civic leaders were members. This Klan more or less fell apart by the early 30s and was pretty much dead by the time the Second World War started.
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The Civil Rights Era Klan, which was a partial resurgence of Klan #2 in response to the civil rights movement. It wasn’t nearly as big or as influential but it had some important members, and
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Today’s Klan, which is, to be perfectly frank, just a bunch of underemployed losers.
The days of something like the Klan having legitimate political power are over. The Klan can’t own a cable news station or buy Congressmen.
So, society must implement solutions to hypothetical problems?
You could go hiking through the woods next weekend, be bitten by a tick, and contract Lyme disease. Now, since this actually has happened to some people, should you just go ahead and apply for SSDI right now? Or, since it is probably difficult to eradicate ticks, maybe society should just prohibit hiking through the woods?
Many of those evil white voters believe that success in life requires education and hard work, and might be a bit more optimistic about the future of this Country if more minorities were graduating from STEM programs.
Surely the Lockheed Martins of the world would like to hire more minority engineers, if they could find any…
It’s not hypothetical – studies have been done. Resumes and job applications were sent out, and “white-sounding” names on applications got significantly more call-backs then “black-sounding” names with identical qualifications.
Beg to differ. I distinctly recall a few years ago a member of congress talking on a news show how the Democrats freed the slaves, back in the day.
Ignorance of how the parties evolved goes both ways.
Cool! Have you ever been to the doctor? Because if so, you may just be an expert on medicine!
Or, y’know, maybe not. Maybe experience as a consumer of a service does not always translate to knowledge of the service.
Let’s take your example. Impoverished students in a city utilize more education dollars than wealthier students in a largely suburban state. Apples to apples?
Certainly not. Impoverished students generally require much more in the way of wraparound services: transportation, breakfast, lunch. Homeless students require services under McKinney-Vento. Students in poverty have higher percentages of disabilities that require IEPs, requiring additional services. Students in poverty often suffer from PTSD or other emotional/mental disabilities that require, you guessed it, additional services.
And that’s setting aside the fact that the cost of living in Baltimore is 20% higher than the cost of living in Salt Lake City, and likely higher still than the cost of living in suburban/rural areas of Utah.
Not that I mean to lecture someone that went to an inner-city school. Please, do tell us what you know about the experience.
Probably not a problem for those whose parents chose assimilation (and stayed out of the woods).
Seriously? For one thing, black culture has been in America (and contributed to America) for as long as any aside from Native American culture… for another, do you really think discrimination is okay because of the first name one’s parents chose?
Do you think employers that gladly toss resumes with black-sounding names into the garbage suddenly become color-blind when the black guy named John Smith shows up for the interview?
There are plenty of black Americans with black-sounding names who are fully assimilated. Or at least as assimilated as both the president of the US and the richest African-American of the 20th century.
There’s a reason I caveated it with “most”. But yes, plenty of ignorance both ways.
That still doesn’t mean a big reveal of this is ever likely to work like one of those Jack Chick tract-style “gotchas” where stating a basic fact triggers a major conversion in the other party, and certainly not here (and even less so at Howard U).
…so maybe the scale of the problem is exaggerated today. I stand by my statement concerning professional engineering organizations.
The only time I was tasked with hiring someone (in an office environment), I chose the Hispanic candidate over the whites and Asians. There were no black applicants.
Do you think discrimination based on black-sounding first names is okay, or is it a societal problem?
So because you have never been in a position to discriminate against black people, that means black people aren’t discriminated against?
Is that what you’re saying?
No, but demonizing GOP voters as white supremacists isn’t going to build more bridges.
Why would we want to build bridges with GOP voters who are busy embracing Trump’s naked hate speech? If calling them racists hurts their feelings - good! They should feel bad about applauding the new champion of the Nazi party.
Fuck them. Let them pull themselves up by their ruggedly individualistic bootstraps and build their own damn bridges.
Also. Contrary to what you may have read here in this thread, a simple google search will reveal that the KKK is not extinct. They have their own websites and if one wished, one could read copious statements about how excited they are to have Donald Trump advancing their ideas with such regularity.
Then why did you mention your own hiring experience? And what did you mean with the “assimilate” dig against applicants with black-sounding names?
cite?
So here’s the problem with the conversation. Either white supremacy and institutional racism are things, or they ain’t. If they are, pretending they’re not will be about as effective as pretending you don’t have cancer. If they ain’t, then let’s show that they’re not, so we can quit wasting time worrying about them.
But characterizing discussion of white supremacy as “demonizing” people who support it simply obfuscates the issue. Let’s address things clearly and cogently and honestly.
Cite.
However, keep in mind that these two questions are not equivalent:
- Do people who have committed crimes vote Democratic?
- Do people who vote Republican think racist things?
A tiny minority of Democratic voters are ex-felons. A significant percentage of Republicans are racist.
Note also that a significant percentage of Democrats are also racist; I will in no way apologize for the Democratic party here. I do think that at this point, several Republicans, Trump at their head, are waving the racist flag in order to rally racist white people to their cause.