Just wondering what exactly you have planned here. Will it be internet tough guy postings from your blackberry while crossing the street to avoid a scary black guy?
I’m not saying that actual intermarriage is the solution, although it couldn’t hurt. I’m saying that we Americans are all here together and we have to put up with each other in various ways, as in a marriage, and my personal experience is that “frank discussions” about race cannot be productive. The very few Americans who still truly deny that black people have historically been mistreated are not going to be reachable through any kind of discussion. I also doubt that those calling for a “frank discussion” are really interested in a discussion. What they want is to tell people what they’d like to impose on them. Again, not a step toward harmony.
You’re taking a narrower view of affirmative action than most people do. Even the term as used in several Executive Orders has not had a consistent definition. I think the complaints center around things like racial preferences in employment, college admissions and government contracting, which are ubiquitous. These are a matter of policy (and often not even government policy), not law. The Bakke case only ended hard quotas, and then only in certain circumstances. There is still plenty of wiggle room allowing policies that give advantages to certain minorities, like the SDB and 8(a) programs.
Also, the fact that women have been the greatest beneficiaries of AA does not mean that racial or ethnic groups have not also benefited significantly.
Bakke did not end AA; it was the first of a great many successful challenges to AA to the point where AA has little serious impact any more–particularly when the claim is that AA is harming whites. It simply is not. For example, repeated Supreme Court rulings since Bakke have placed increasing burdens on minority plaintiffs in discrimination suits to the point where they pretty much have to catch the employer admitting on tape or before witnesses that he or she has discriminated before a case can be successfully pled.
The quotas, (originally implemented to overcome the fact that the seniority system in place in many institutions was going to prevent blacks from ever attaining any levels of authority), are certainly not good policy, particularly after 37 years, or so, of rather decent (if still imperfect) color blind hiring. Those quotas tend to be dead letters, now, anyway. Quotas in college placements still trouble us, but they really do not prevent white kids from getting a college education. (They have prevented some white kids from getting in to their preferred colleges, which is not a good thing, but they have never kept a kid out of college altogether.) This leaves awarding jobs to black-owned businesses, and, anecdotally, so many of those black corporations have been fronts for white companies, I’m not sure that they have seriously hurt any whites, either.
This idea is pervasive. How do you know what these people are thinking? Wanting people to listen with an open mind and without judgment is not an imposition.
No, (s)he is using a factually correct view of affirmative action. The program that has helped white women more than any other group.
The Bakke case did not only end hard quotas. It fundamentally changed the legality of racial remedies and the way courts look at race because Powell turned racial groups into competing ethnic groups and said every ethnic group has faced some hardship at some point, and therefore we cannot support one over the other. Further, questions of affirmative action did not end with Bakke, as City of Richmond v. J.A. Croson Co. continued with the idea that past discrimination is no longer a reason to give preference to blacks over whites. These, combined with the Michigan case, have effectively gutted one of the original aims of affirmative action - making up for past racial mistreatment. While there is some wiggle room with enhancing diversity in certain settings, it has become far more difficult to hire a black over a white simply because of the color of his skin. Several states have banned affirmative action.
You said people have problems with policies favoring affirmative action and not the law. I disagree. I think many white people think the government is forcing employers to hire blacks over them, when this is borderline illegal now, and will certainly be after the next Supreme Court challenge. If there is a policy to increase diversity in employment, it is probably coming from the company itself for economic or image reasons and not a government mandate. And if a black person is given a job over a white person because of company policy, the white person can definitely sue and will probably win.
All of this means the broad view that you suggest most people take of affirmative action is misinformed and dated. A frank discussion on race might show this.
It seems to me that the black/white situation in this country is like a marriage in which there is virtually no communication, very little consideration for the validity of the other person’s point of view, absolutely no give and take, and where neither party can voice or even hint at having a problem with something the other party does.
Anyone with a shred of intelligence knows that such a marriage would be doomed from the start, and yet everyone wonders why we haven’t made more progress with regard to racial harmony in this country.
Until we get to the point where both sides are willing to listen to the complaints of the other side, recognize and admit where they’ve been wrong and work in good faith to become more compatible with each other, whatever progress gets made in improving relations between the races is going to be glacially slow and rife with problems that don’t need to be there. Kind of like now.
“I ain’t never been to jail!”
“What, you want a cookie? You’re not suppossed to go to jail you low expectation havin’ motherfucker!”
It is also counter-productive if one side does not call the other racist as soon as the “frank discussion” ventures onto uncomfortable topics. That’s the kind of false accusation of racism I am talking about.
No, actually I did not. “By and large” is not overly broad. “100%” is overly broad, which is why Whack-A-Mole changed what I said to what he wanted me to have said.
Which is much of the problem with having “a frank discussion about race”. Very often, people will not/cannot/ do not react to what is said. They change it and react to that.
People have a very limited number of stock responses to statements about race. If they encounter something that isn’t fitted to those responses - well, change it and say what you were going to say anyway.
Regards,
Shodan
What bullrun doesn’t seem to understand is, I am the white guy who will butt in the face, and bite the nose off the “cracker” that tries to entice me with his racist bullshit. And I know there are plenty more out there like me, who actually know blacks and Asians and will do the same. So be wary who you are spouting your shit off to. We aren’t all what we seem.
Hey, and I have a skinhead.
Chris Rocks.
Coln Quinn had a shirt lived political comedy show on Comedy Central for a while. One black comedian made the observation; “I know the police do racial profiling. It’s happened to me plenty of times. Some black people are so pissed about it they forget they actually are criminals. They get pulled over with an open bottle on the seat and a joint in their hand and say” Hey man, what you hasslin’ me for?"
But I never heard a preacher use the “F” word so many times.
My kinda preacher. Who wants some pious sounding muthafucka who wants to suck all the fun out of life?
Yeah One of the first things I noticed in this thread was how the liberals supported burnig down buildings. It’s shocking.
and this
I’d like to know what action you’ve taken to defend the rights of any minority. Whites suffer 1/100th of the of the racism that blacks have dealt with for generations and all of a sidden they are outraged about rights.
I think as more people of mixed race enter the mainstream population generation by generation it will help racism fade more into the background. My suster married a black man in the late 60s and in rural Maine we found out who the racists were in our family. Now I live in the south and mixed couples are pretty common. I dated a lovely black woman a few times and she made a comment about me not knowing black culture. It was the first time I became aware that a few streets away from where I live was a whole other culture of people born and raised in the same country I lived in.
I think a lot of people don’t appreaciate that. I also think that cultural difference maintains a seperation that it needn’t. Things get attached to the difference, some bad attitude associated with skin color rather than just the human individual. I’ll elaborate more on this in another post. I do think that a FDOR can help us to understand the differences in culture and not attach attitudes to race. I can believe this will happen over time without a disucusion but if a discussion hurries it along that’s a good thing.
Circuit City was sucessfully sued for discrimination and for good cause. I think the fear of law suits pushed companies to things like quotas and the rush to hire and promote more minorities was viewed as AA and reverse racism by people who were affected. Unfortunately the minorities got too much blame for what amounted to a financial and PR move by companies.
I asked earlier why this particular story was told and what it had to do with race and I never got an answer . I 'll throw it out for general discussion with an observation.
IMO the action in this story isn’t associated with race. The guy was a punk and punks come in a wide variety. I’ve noticed that sometimes we associate the actions of an individual with thier race when we don’t need to and it doesn’t help.
I noticed in retail a tactic of creating drama and feighned outrage to get something. I’ve have to say I’ve noticed it more from black customers. Maybe that’s my imagination, I can’t be sure. It doesn’t matter, because from my perspective it’s a person pulling a stunt to try and get something and I respond as a person who works for a company. I respond to the person and the action and there’s no real reason to associte this behaviour with race. Other customers do it as well. If I harbor resentment at the race for this action rather than the action aprat from race I create an opportunity for racism to take hold. I see this a lot among individuals of both races. People attach an action or attitude to a race rather than the individual. This expresses it self in a lingering resentment or judgement of the race rather than the individual. Can a FDOR help us to change this attitude from within?
I’m almost afraid to ask, but WTF are you talking about? Some kind of Turner Diaries scenario?
I thought that was included in my answer.
Whack-A-Mole did indeed respond to what he thought you were saying rather than what you actually said. And that kind of thing is a major problem in discussions like this. But yes, I did think it was a very broad answer. It might work better if you let go of the ‘by and large’ issue and addressed specific issues.
I just watched President Obama have a FDOR on the view. It wasn’t a BFD and all our problems aren’t solved but IMO having our black president have a discussion about race with a mixed group of ladies might be onme small step in the right direction
in a side note, even though I don’t agree with hm on all fronts and I thought he weaseled concerning Afghanistan it was a huge relief and pleasure to hear our president speak intelligently on a variety of issues.
A homegrown superstar muslim footballer helping us win the World Cup, would be all Muslims needed to become fully acceptable - well, as fully as these things ever can be - into UK society.
One of the problems with a frank discussion of race is that it is like pulling teeth to get anyone to admit that they are not listening.
OK, specifics.
Most of the problems of the black community are not caused by white racism. Therefore, most of the problems of the black community will not be addressed by talking about racism. Therefore, a frank discussion about race cannot focus on racism if it is to be productive.
One of the major causes of the problems of the black community is the fact that a large majority of black children in the US are born out of wedlock (somewhere around 70%), and also that most black children grow up without the long-term stable presence of a father or father figure in the home (cite). Growing up without a father figure is associated with a higher risk of practically every social ill disproportionately affecting blacks (cite).
There’s a specific issue for you, and it will be difficult to find a reason to blame it on whites. The breakdown of the black family was not caused by slavery - most slave families were intact (cite). Welfare reform of the 90s did a lot to get black women into the work force and off welfare, but had little effect on out-of-wedlock births. It seems to be part of that black culture that everyone is so eager to deny exists, and seems to be associated with black folks’ troubles a lot more than the fact that Denny’s didn’t let you sit where you wanted twenty years ago.
So let’s have a frank discussion about that.
Regards,
Shodan