First you say:
Then you say:
You’re just not getting it. Try harder.
Yes, and the Jewish and Asian experience was not comparable to 500 years of slavery and segregation. You could not rape Jewish and Asian women with impunity and then sell off their children. Asian and Jewish Culture was not destroyed and replaced by a slave culture imposed on them over 500 years.
Of course it would make a difference. And perhaps some of the differences are the result of innate differences. I would be inclined to believe that more of the differences are the result of innate differences if there was anything approximating a level playing field. Why do Caribbean and African blacks do so much better in the college admissions process and in college generally than the descendants of American slaves? I mean they have more of your precious superior white genes in them than the Caribbeans and the Africans.
I mostly disagree with Chief Pedant on that, as long as we have a fair democracy. There are a few areas where I think quotas might make sense. Cops might be a place where I think racial quotas would be useful for now.
While Asians didn’t have it as bad as African-Americans, they had it pretty bad. And worse, because of white guilt, the school system and police won’t adequately protect Asians when they become the targets of African-American rage at white discrimination.
Lots of people have had it bad, or not, in ways that have nothing to do with their race.
Wow…affirmative action must really be bad if it has forced almost all of the major corporations to fire their White male leadership and replace with less qualified minorities and women. And how about the millions of other White males throughout the middle management structure in the private and public sectors throughout the US? They must have all been terminated as well.
How dastardly!
Oh wait…
That didn’t happen…
Incompetent White males can still get work far more easily than any other group. And keep it despite being incompetent. Simply because they are….a protected class.
Whew…here I was thinking that affirmative action was doing anything to change the power structure in the United States. How silly of me.I guess it really isn’t that big of a problem for most people.
While there have been a few notable examples of this claim, it is hardly representative of the situation of most (or, frankly, of very many) of the people in the U.S. who (or whose ancestors) immigrated from Eastern Asia. For one thing, black-on-Asian violence tends to occur when black and Asian neighborhoods share limited space in inner cities. However, the majority of ethnic Asians do not live in such communities, (nor, for that matter, do a majority of blacks), so the people affected by such a situation are not going to reflect the general conditions or responses of the majority of the group.
So you’re saying AA is completely ineffective anyway?
Prove that.
Not at all.
I’m saying that affirmative is an undercover way for prejudiced people to complain about their failures to maintain the status quo of White male dominance of the economy. It’s a non-issue for most people and when it becomes one, the person usually mewling about it almost all have other racial issues that they’ll also share if you bother to listen.
**The American economy.
**
Minorities have a minimal role in running it and yet somehow despite also making up less than a third of the population, the economy of this nation has fucked up royally. That could all be due to criminal action, but a great deal of it can be directly traced to stupidity and incompetence.
Since none of the major players are minorities or beneficiaries of affirmative action, it’s clear that a large number of incompetent White men have been placed into positions where they reached or exceeded their level of incompetence.
The US Congress
A overwhelmingly White male legislative body which cannot assist in governing this nation. Some of that could be due to intentional obstruction, but a greater portion of that can be traced to people who are unable to perform the task for which they are hired to perform the role for which they were/are employed.
Affirmative action is settled law. It’s been in place for decades and most people have no problems with it. The ones who do ALWAYS have problems with race.
Not “completely ineffective” but not nearly as strong of an impact as most ppl think it is. As i’ve stated earlier, whites are the main beneficiaries of affirmative action:
http://www.ncsu.edu/project/oeo-training/aa/beneficiaries.htm
A white felon has the same chances as a black person w/o a criminal record at getting a job:
http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2008/08/09/study-black-man-and-white-felon-same-chances-for-hire/?hpt=ac_mid
This comes pretty close to hitting the nail on the head. But those kids won’t have a chance of getting into a good college if they don’t have a good education up to that point. The problem that disproportionately affects young Blacks is the sad state of schools in our inner cities. And what looks like the most promising solution to that Charter Schools. Once a kid has the education that can get him into an A-list college, I think it’s them up to them.
Thanks for the links. Intriguing. Quite a monkey wrench in an already goofy system.
Well, that’s good stuff, but it falls far short of the very sweeping statement that was made.
I don’t think its easy to make the argument that Asians have it worse because cops abandoned Koreatown to rioters during the LA riots so they could go protect Beverly Hills. The riots lasted a couple of nights, very few Asians were killed, raped or had their children sold during those nights. However, it is a good example of why we have the second amendment. The government can’t (and sometimes won’t) always be there to protect us), blacks under Jim Crow understand this as well as Korean shopkeepers during the LA riots.
I think you are making the mistake of assuming that race neutrality is not racist. Sometimes race neutrality can be very racist, in fact it is one of the primary forms of racism today. You don’t have to be an evil bigot that burns crosses and hates minorities to be racist anymore these days, you only have to want to maintain your own privilege. You just have to oppose efforts to eliminate the subordination of racial minorities.
If you prefer, let me restate by saying that “I condemn racism” and that doesn’t mean that I have to embrace race neutrality in a world that is not race neutral.
But you’re going beyond that - you’re engaging in racial prejudice by telling me that you can assume that I have certain beliefs or background due to my race, or that you can say that my statements or beliefs are caused by my race. This is unacceptable. It is the exact same logic that is used by racists.
It’s just as unacceptable in any other situation anyway. You cannot tell me what I think or assume something about me for any reason, and you cannot tell me what the causes of what I think or say are. Ever. For two reasons - first, it’s a logical fallacy, and second, it’s incredibly rude and unfair. If you can’t find a way to debate without doing it, I’m not interested.
Still, I have to respond to this one:
Opposing efforts to eliminate the subordination of racial minorities is not “race neutral” though! That’s where your absurd argument breaks down.
Your argument allows you to brand opposition to any idea, no matter how ridiculous or wrong, as racist just because your proposal has the intent or effect of trying to remedy past racism (and not even necessarily present racism). To take an extreme example - you propose a tax on white people of $10,000 a year to be paid to blacks, to remedy white privilege. By your logic, there is no possible opposition to that idea that isn’t racist. You can dream up any policy that, as long as it takes away from whites and gives to blacks, is justified because to oppose it would be racist. Heck, you could even propose enslaving whites with blacks as the masters. You could propose any policy that had been used against blacks in the past, no matter how loony–and in fact, you have.
You don’t seem to realize that this is not a race war in which one side needs to win more spoils if it lost them in the past. The end of racism is a peace treaty. It was a rejection of race-based policies - race neutrality - on the grounds that racial prejudice is wrong. It is a rejection of using race to judge people, not just shuffling the victims around. Racial discrimination and slavery were WRONG. They’re still wrong.
And that’s one of the inherent problems with the term “white privilege.” It is muddled. It could mean situations where whites still benefit from racial discrimination today. Or it could just mean historical remnants of past discrimination. The two are very different. By mixing them up, you can make it sound like someone who opposes any policy against it is supporting current racial discrimination. That’s how you can end up saying things like “opposing efforts to eliminate the subordination of racial minorities” is the same thing as opposing efforts aimed at white privilege. It’s how you can institute race-based policies and call anyone who opposes them the racist. It’s how you can say really quite amazing things like “race neutrality can be racist.”
I didn’t make assumptions about your beliefs based on your skin color, I guessed your skin color and gender based on you beliefs. BIG FUCKING DIFFERENCE!!!
As for your background, I have no idea what your background is, I don’t recall making any assumptions about your background.
Like I said, I never assumed anything about what you believe based on your skin color, I guessed your skin color and gender based on your beliefs. Once again BIG FUCKING DIFFERENCE!!!
Nowhere do i even imply that all or even most white males share your beliefs but the people who hold your beliefs are almost always white males. Its not a genetic defect, it is the result fo social conditioning that you have been exposed to your entire life. Many white males can recognize the effects of the social bias in the world in which they live,others cannot but non-white males almost invariably see the effects of social bias.
Oh, please, now you’re denying it?
You repeatedly made assumptions based on my skin color, akin to “a white person would think like that” etc.
The latest example was:
If you don’t see how that’s making a judgement of me based on my race, you’re beyond help.
But hey, even guessing skin color based on belief counts. If you see a difference, you’re not thinking this through.
I’m not going to go digging for further examples. Suffice it to say that your entire philosophy assumes that you know what my background is. The term “white privilege” assumes it. AA policies assume it. You think you can know that I enjoy certain advantages due to my race. You think you know me because of my race. You don’t.
Like I said, I never assumed anything about what you believe based on your skin color, I guessed your skin color and gender based on your beliefs. Once again BIG FUCKING DIFFERENCE!!!
Nowhere do i even imply that all or even most white males share your beliefs but the people who hold your beliefs are almost always white males. Its not a genetic defect, it is the result fo social conditioning that you have been exposed to your entire life. Many white males can recognize the effects of the social bias in the world in which they live,others cannot but non-white males almost invariably see the effects of social bias.
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Holy shit! You deny it, and then you do it in the next sentence!
You don’t know shit about my social conditions. You don’t know shit about what I’ve been exposed to.
And that sentence is just the icing on the cake. Yeah, you’re not making any racial presumptions.
I suggest you take a few days without posting and then come back and read your own posts with a fresh eye and see if you can finally get it.
I commend the effort and cross-referencing here, but the point where “Treating people in a manner not influenced by their race is racist!” was the point where I checked out.
Honestly, I think that with that level of disconnect in basic terms, debate is basically impossible.
The only thing that keeps me going is the fascination. I wonder how someone could square such opposite ideas. It’s like wondering how Jefferson wrote “all men are created equal” and then went home and whipped his slaves. Some people are just so amazingly not self-aware.
Denying WHAT!!!??!!
In post 66 you ask “who here is white?” then you tell pro-AA whites that if they support AA, they should quit their jobs and encourage their bosses to give them to black people. :rolleyes::smack:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=17133788&postcount=66
I respond to that post in post 75 by saying that I think you are white because of your attitudes and beliefs. I lay out how the attitudes and beliefs you express are rare among minorities (or women). So, I am not assuming your beliefs based on your race, I assumed your race based on your beliefs, not the other way around.
I have trouble believing that you can’t understand the difference there.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=17134081&postcount=75
Nowhere do I say that all white people think like that, I said that people who think like that tend to be white. Are you really having trouble understanding WTF I am saying?
You have reading comprehension issues.
Why don’t you explain it to me because I can’t read your mind (although half your poss seem to rely on my ability to read your mind, facial expressions and body languge) and I think once you put what you are thinking in writing the incoherence of your objections will become obvious to you.
The only assumption I am making (other than the assumption that you believe what you are writing) is that you are white and that assumption is based on your posts.
I don’t know about you because of your race, I know your race because of your posts. Remember the chronology of how your race entered the discussion. You made a bunch of posts and based on those posts, I assumed that you along with a few other posters were white.
You’re not a frikking snowflake dude, you are not unique and your thoughts are not original. You fit an archetype, your way of thinking is not uncommon and it is almost exclusively held by white males. I pegged you for that archetype based on your posts not your race. I assumed your race because it would be unusual for someone with your opinions to be anything other than a white male. the dynamic that causes white males to think like you do is well laid out and is not a moral judgment.
No I don’t.
Yes I do, I am beginning to suspect I know more about you than you do.
Why don’t you take a few years (I’m going to make another assumption and assume you are fairly young) and see if the wisdom of age hasn’t opened your eyes. I “get” how you are thinking, I don’t have to take a course in critical race theory to understand how you think, your posts explain how you think pretty well. Its highly influenced by your life experience as a white male living in a white male dominated society. You may not like the fact that your race affects how you perceive the world but it does.
And there it is. That’s it - you have never met me, yet you think you know me more than I know myself.
Really not much more to be said at this point. robertliguori is right – there’s no point in talking to you. But you know what? Since you know me better than I know myself, just imagine what I would say instead of asking me! You don’t need me around.