This is happening to America and Americans, and thus America and Americans should do something about it. Black people are doing plenty about it – whether it’s advocating inside their communities or advocating for better and more just public policy.
Is this how you envision one of her talks going? Going around the room and every talking about what they do? Interesting, but I don’t think that that is what people come to see her for.
I sometimes piss people off by interrupting their racist jokes. I make myself a bit of a pariah in places when I tell people that certain words are not appreciated. I don’t let instances of casual racism (when I notice them) go by unremarked.
There are quite a number of assumptions and assertions that my massively predominately white (and Trump supporting) area likes to make about minorities. Countering those narratives gets me into trouble, and causes damage to my social standing, but I do so anyway, as I see it as the right thing to do.
I don’t go out of my way to hire black or minority employees, but of my 15 employees, only one is a white male, and he is gay. When I had a client get upset that I “allowed” a N* to work on his dog, I fired the client. I took a bit of a reputation hit from that, actually, as he was a shitty enough racist to slander me quite a bit on social media.
It really isn’t enough to just not be racist yourself, you have to call it out in others. If you don’t call it out on others, they may not even realize that they are being racist. If you aren’t calling it out in others, then you are probably not noticing it in yourself either.
I never said most white people in that post, I was talking about the people who complain about the term “privilege.” Is it your impression that most white people complain about the term?
In any case, it is obvious that most white people do not care enough, or we wouldn’t have these problems.
No. They didn’t dig this hole. Why should it be on them to fix it?
The thread isn’t about the black community, it’s about a situation created by a centuries-old dynamic between black and white communities that has created a horrific mess, a Gordian knot that continues to strangle 15% of the population and which has provided excess resources and opportunities for the white population. I cannot imagine how anyone could look at this situation and think this is a problem for the population being strangled.
It is? Why am I sure that what’s illegal and ‘racism’ ain’t gonna be anywhere near the same thing?
CMC
This is an interesting idea and one that I hadn’t thought about. I had assumed that per capita parity should be sufficient, if only because we often don’t even achieve that and so it wouldn’t be a bad goal to shoot for, all else being equal.
I’m still not convinced that the funding level should be much greater, but now that you brought up the idea, I can think of many reasons that schools in places that have low average socio-economic outcomes need to be funded at a higher level just to achieve education parity, and no reasons to think that they need less.
And that is the assertion with which I disagree. You see it as all their fault, I see many contributing factors, most of which are out of their control.
And there you go again, with “black culture”. There is no “black culture” any more than there is a “white culture.” It’s just a boogieman that lets you blame everything on something nebulous. It excuses society from it’s obligations to treat everyone fairly.
You go on to say that black people are not inherently bad, just that the way that black people live is bad. I disagree entirely with the idea that they are “entitled”.
When people break out of a cycle of poverty, that should be a celebration of the individual for escaping a problematic upbringing and environment, but also a condemnation on society that allows and perpetuates those environments. Having people break out of a cycle of poverty doesn’t fix that cycle of poverty, it only exploits it in allowing only the most exceptional individuals to rise out of it. If what you say is true, that a 2 parent family is superior to a 1 parent family, then how would you recommend a child go about acquiring that superior familial structure? If you don’t have instructions on how a child can secure themselves a more robust environment to be raised and educated, then how can you justify blaming them for not being raised in a robust environment that values education?
In my eyes, WE need to work on the problems affecting a big, disproportionate part of the population as well as work to get everyone the things that they need to help themselves. We need to avoid being divided, and insisting that everyone take care of their own.
Since when? If I tell my neighbor that he doesn’t belong here, and I use choice racial slurs when I do so, what law have I broken?
Now, discrimination in employment and housing is illegal, when it is caught. You know how I know that it still goes on? Even with fines and potential criminal charges, people are still getting caught discriminating against people based on race for housing and employment. Unless you are truly asserting that we have caught them all, finally, then we have a bit more work to completely eradicate it, and we will have plenty of those who will be working against our interests.
Do you have any recommendations or resources to offer for the mandate that you have put upon the “black community”?
Right, advocating legislative change to do what exactly?
I am on board with police reform. You had a laundry list of monetary benefit, with no skin in the game for the people who are perpetuating poverty by having single parent households that are far out of norm. Criminal elements that are far outside the norm.
You want one without the other, I want both.
Police and justice reform would probably help with the 2 parent homes.
When the father is not around because he is jail for drug or other non-violent offense, or because he cannot live in subsidized housing due to criminal record, it is society who has taken that parent away from the child.
Sorry, racism of the types we are discussing is already illegal. Discrimination on the basis of race is quite illegal. Someone telling you that you don’t belong doesn’t hurt anything except some feelings or pride but then we aren’t talking about that type of racism.
Mando Jo, the problems that I am referring to, they DID dig those holes but you aren’t responding to those issues.
I do not blame the children, I blame the parents (where that blame rightly rests) but we as a country aren’t doing a damn thing about that, and from this thread not only aren’t we doing anything, we are excusing that behavior.
I don’t want division, I want acceptance that some of the blame rests with the people making the choices and then help offered by the rest of the population while the fixing happens on the inside. That is the opposite of divided. Divided is blaming the entirety of the problems that plague black communities. If it isn’t black culture then why are they so heavily represented in bad categories? Prison, crime rates, unwed mothers, educational standards etc …
More funding for schools might be a good step but I have seen studies that had shown it didn’t matter. Has this suddenly changed?
Police reform and justice reform (this one is probably a biggie and might likely be way way out) may indeed help with the 2 parent household thing, and something I am well on board with.
Their are a lot of people who think funding should be exactly equal, because any remaining achievement gap is the result of “black culture” and they need to “fix that themselves” (note that receiving tax money doesn’t count toward “fixing that themselves” because tax money is coded as white help, no matter who pays taxes)
But if affluent schools add 10% or more to their funding in excess of allocations through boosters or PTAs or donations, it’s not fair to take that into account, because that’s because “involved parents” (code for relatively affluent) are willing to “invest” in their kids, which is just more evidence that “black culture” is the problem.
That’s not the exact argument being made here, but it’s where the “black culture is the problem” logic gets you.
Your golden child analogy reminds me of how the power imbalance of sexual relationships in the workplace is damaging to women even if those relationships are completely consensual.
No one ever forces. Possibly the boss or producer or whatever doesn’t even make the first move. But it becomes obvious to anyone and everyone that the promotions, starring roles, whatever…only go to the women that say yes.
This is coercion in the broader social sense if not on an individual level. The women gaining the advantage aren’t necessarily doing anything wrong. They may even be hot for the boss, or genuinely in love with the producer. Maybe it leads to an LTR or marriage. They are just living their lives and pursuing their own happiness and it would be unfair to criticize or blame them. But it’s still harmful in the broader social context.
Do people not really comprehend how they can be part of perpetuating a broadly damaging system without being personally at fault? I’m having trouble understanding the lack of perspective and imagination ( both here and in other conversations I’ve had IRL) I’m never sure if they are genuine or disingenuous.
My child is more important than your child (to me) and they rightly should be. I get to decide how much extra I am willing to prioritize my child. Without a complete re-distribution and continual redistribution of wealth you will always have areas like this. Political funding is another one.
Equal outcomes is socialistic and also incredibly (not smart).
Of course they have skin in the game! Overwhelmingly, they’re in worse situations than other families. And society gives them very, very little chance to get out of the hole they’re in.
And they’ve made no different mistakes than I did – I had unprotected sex, used drugs, broke the law in petty and minor ways, etc., as a younger man. But I was in an upper middle class white family – and such mistakes, while common in families like mine, rarely have lasting consequences. In poor black families, there can be devastating, lifelong consequences.
And if your experience was like mine, it was minimized. You experimented with drugs. You engaged in youthful indiscretions. You borrowed things with asking and snuck into places you weren’t supposed to be. Under all that was the assumption that you were basically a good kid.
And that mimimizing language was part of the issue, which is why the language is such a large part of the privilege.
Did your unprotected sex result in pregnancy that the woman had that you walked away from? How about being picked up and imprisoned for your drug use? Petty and minor abuses of the law are handwaved away. When they get bigger than petty and minor, people go to jail which derails chances of successfully pulling yourself out of poverty.
Dude, why not just cut to the chase and overtly state that you don’t think black folks deserve any type of equality or fair treatment until such a time as we demonstrate to all the racist ass white people that we are all perfect, collectively and individually.
I understand you may not think that is the message you are sending, but you would be wrong.
The problem is that children that look like you are also, in general, going to be more important to you than children that do not look like you. Is that how it rightly should be?
It’s great that you can prioritize your child over that of others, but by definition, not everyone can do that. So, you have parents of a child that is not as assertive as you are, and that child doesn’t do as well since you have made sure that your child is prioritized.
We do need a continual redistribution of wealth. That’s what taxes and social safety net are. In Ohio, it was declared by SCOOS that funding schools by property tax was unconstitutional, as it meant that different districts would get vastly different funding. Yet, we still fund out schools with property taxes, and different districts get vastly different funding.
No one is asking for equal outcomes, that’s pure strawman. However, you can tell by the severe inequality in outcomes that opportunities are also very unequal.
Correct, that is not the intended message. You do not need to be perfect, you just need to be accepting of the problems that blame the black community is a black community issue and work to fix it (but the message that I hear most often is that it is all a result of racist policy and people) , while asking and getting the help needed to get it done.
That might not be the message you are meaning to send but that is what gets heard.
Please do not put words in my mouth.
My child
Looks has zero to do with it, those were YOUR words.
Taxes and a social safety net are not and definitely were not, intended to be a wealth distribution. They were meant to be a safety net for people not to fall UNDER.
When we got caught by law enforcement, they usually gave us a stern lecture on drugs or property rights and let us off with a warning. On a bad day they might drag us home and talk to our parents or throw away our drugs. Because there was this big giant reluctance to impose any consequences that might derail our futures.
When my teen brother got a DUI, my dad made a phone call to a local judge he’d worked for and the charge just disappeared. No paper, all traces gone, like it didn’t happen. That one even freaked out my dad, who was just looking for leniency. But we took it.
I don’t think any of my male peers ever knocked up a girl, but in my largely Protestant world that would’ve been fixed by some lectures and a parent financed trip to a clinic and maybe some other parent financed gifts to smooth over ruffled feathers. It was a little more difficult for the Catholic girls and most expensive for both sets of parents, but the girl would go spend a year with an aunt in another state, then come back like nothing had happened. Because no one wanted to derail our promising futures.