“There are fine people on both sides of the human edible debate.”
“The Democrats protest our plan to turn poor people into hamburgers. They’re really just upset because while they talk about reducing poverty and unemployment, we’re moving ahead and doing something about it.”
And most of them go wonderfully with fava beans and Chianti.
Without comparing proverbial apples to apples, that’s a hard question to respond to. But let’s first consider the fact that many Asian Americans have come to the United States since 1965. The years in which immigration restrictions began to loosen coincided with the years in which African Americans finally began to receive some equal protection under the law, which would mean that Asian Americans, though many of whom might have been poor, would have entered the United States in an era facing comparatively less discrimination than what African Americans would have faced in the years leading up to the Civil Rights era. That’s not to say that Asian Americans haven’t faced discrimination and challenges since coming to the United States - they absolutely have. But for many it’s different.
Consider as well that immigrants generally outperform native born citizens of all stripes. It often requires considerable resources and a certain amount of grit to immigrate here in the first place. Even if one arrives as a refugee with nothing but the clothes he’s wearing, there’s the grit part that self selects more productive members of society from the start. That can change in as little as a generation, though many of these values and the fruits of the immigrant’s labor are passed down to the next generation. That’s in contrast to citizens who are targeted for discrimination from the start, with generation after generation repeatedly treated with suspicion by the criminal justice system and deprived of opportunity by white communities.
Again, without really knowing how to make an actual valid comparison, that’s a hard question to respond to. What are American citizens of Caribbean descent? Do you mean immigrants who come to the U.S. from the Caribbean? I refer you back to the above. Unless you’ve got an exceedingly generous welfare state and very loose restrictions on immigration, which we don’t have, immigrants are generally going to be more productive than native-born Americans. And although some of that grit may be lost within as little as a single generation, the children of immigrants often embrace the values of their parents, which puts them in a good position going forward. Conversely, many of the children of African American parents in, say, Chicago’s south side or St. Louis’ north side, are born into unstable situations. It’s a hard cycle to escape from.
The thing is though; the only vacuum that exists is a true understanding of the history of this country in regards to how non-white groups have been treated and even pitted against each other. For example Lum vs. Rice. Apologies for the long post. https://www.britannica.com/event/Gong-Lum-v-Rice
Mr. Lum was first generation Chinese. He arrived in the US illegally to avoid the Chinese Exclusion Act, by crossing the Canadian border and met up with a relative in the South. Later he married. His wife who was also Chinese, but came to the U.S. as a child (indentured servant), was familiar with Southern customs and in fact, even socialized with white southerners in church. Mr. Lum opened a grocery store, had children and began living the American dream. Note his children attended white schools until the family moved to another town and this was during the Jim Crow era.
In 1924 and now in a new location, the family found themselves for all intents and purposes ‘colored’, and suffered a lack of rights and privileges; most importantly access to higher performing white schools. Mr. Lum enrolled his girls in the local public school, which was whites only. On the first day, the girls were asked to leave the school and instead enroll in one of the colored schools.
Mr. Lum valuing the importance of a good education and seeing how inferior the colored schools were, sued to have his children attend the white schools, as they weren’t black (colored). The case went all the way to the Supreme Court, where he lost and was told that he was not white and therefore, didn’t have the right to attend a white school. After the case, the Lums moved to another state and enrolled their daughters in a white school.
So when we talk about similar experiences, but different outcomes, this to me is a good example. Clearly, Chinese immigrants suffered greatly, and in many instances, laws were created specifically to hinder their rights. However, in the case of the Lums, we see that despite this, they were still afforded more rights than the African-Americans who had been in the country longer and have had even more burdens placed upon them. So, for example, the Chinese exclusion act was repealed in 1943, while the Civil Rights Act, which covered everyone was passed in 1964. So for 20 years longer, African-Americans still had the burden of Jim Crow in some form.
[ul]
[li]Ms. Lum, for example, was allowed some degree of access to white southern society; this access could certainly allowed her and her family the ability to interact and even network with the majority population. In the Jim Crow era, African-Americans are denied this ability.[/li]
[li]Mr. Lum is able to open a business, and by becoming a merchant, is granted special privileges not allowed to Chinese laborers. He becomes successful enough that he can afford to hire a lawyer to fight his discrimination case. In the Jim Crow south, how many African-Americans are even allowed to acquire such wealth? How many are allowed to change their status because of their career? Segregation for the African-American in the Jim Crow era doesn’t allow for exemptions.[/li]
[li]Finally, his daughters were allowed to attend white schools, even for a time. Moreover, after they lost the case, they moved to another state and once again had their daughters attend white schools. In the Jim Crow era how many black students would have the ability ever to attend a white school? This isn’t a question of integration, but the acknowledgment of how deliberate the creation of ‘colored’ schools was used as a weapon to create and maintain the disparity of opportunities for African-Americans. Moreover, it was something Mr. Lum, could avoid by simply moving Arkansas, however for the African-American, moving to Arkansas would not release them from the effects of Jim Crow.[/li]
[/ul]Now here’s the thing, none of this takes away that Mr. Lum and his family were hard-working or that he was discriminated against. Clearly, they were, however, I also have to acknowledge that African-Americans were also hard-working people, and also discriminated against. So why different outcomes?
To me, it seems that the system was rigged specifically against African-Americans. The Lums and other people of color were caught up as a side-effect. This is why doing something like moving to another state reduced the Lum’s burden; while for African-Americans, no such relief was forthcoming for another forty years, with the Civil Rights Act and other reforms in the 1970s.
Remember the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964, and then the voting rights Act in 1965 and Loving v. Virginia in 1967. So we’re talking a little more than fifty years ago when the system was finally legally obligated to provide African-Americans full rights. IMO this means anyone born after that time, is the first generation of African-Americans with full and legal rights in this country. Think about that; we have a group of people who have been represented in this country for 300-400 years, that’s what 12-15 generations and we’re only now dealing with the first generation or two of truly freed people. That’s messed up.
And here’s the thing, those civil rights protestors who got their skulls bashed in, hoses and dogs set on them and even killed, opened the door for the next generation of non-white immigrants who came to the country. However, this group came into it without the centuries-long baggage of being told they are inferior for generations, by every form of communication available; by the only country they have known. So to these new and different immigrants, American wasn’t the cruel stepmother she had been to the African-Americans; to the new immigrants, America was the magic fairy; granting them opportunities.
I think it’s a lot easier to be a stranger in a strange land than to be treated as one in a land that is your home. I think it cuts deeper to have a parent tell you’re worthless than a stranger on the street and many immigrants despite the history in their own countries, don’t have the same relationship with America, that African-Americans have had for centuries.
I thought this one was already pointing to incest.
Great post, thanks.
East coast liberal elitist.
The Robert Wright Sam Harris has sparred with?
Holmes, your post makes some good points. But I can’t help but notice a contradiction:
I mean, it was actually called the Chinese Exclusion Act. That doesn’t sound like a side effect.
Googling, yes same guy. I wasn’t previously aware that they were acquainted.
Sam Harris is on my list of people that I don’t follow for reasons of dubiousness. I find it hard to take seriously a guy who says that Salon and Vox have “the intellectual and moral integrity of the [KKK]”. And I don’t especially like Salon currently. Reading the fuller quote doesn’t make it better.
Posing as a brave truth-teller then comparing Ezra Klein to the KKK takes the prize. Five dubious-faces! :dubious::dubious::dubious::dubious::dubious:
ETA
Heh. Brad DeLong: "Sam Harris convinces me that he is not part of what Charles Murray calls the “cognitive elite” "
http://www.bradford-delong.com/2018/04/sam-harris-convinces-me-that-he-is-not-part-of-what-charles-murray-calls-the-cognitive-elite.html
I guess his doctoral committee at Stanford let one slip through the cracks :rolleyes:
The point was that he is quick to see bias in others, which he calls identity politics, but gets angry when you note he is practicing the same.
Anger is fine. The problem is that he hasn’t answered the point. Or rather he has: he does it with ad hominems. And only ad hominems. This is the sort of thing that 3rd rate thinkers do.
If you can’t articulate your answer to a reasonable critique and can only reply with bluster and nonsense accusations, then …you will be thought to be foolish on this message board. Articulate people can articulate reasonable responses to their position. Harris can’t.
I’ve seen many many better interview subjects than Sam Harris.
It’s ok to be a 3rd rate thinker by the way: I don’t think Harris is a crackpot, and I’m agnostic about how he ranks relative to, say, a typical AP journalist. But being a 1st rate thinker requires a certain sobriety which Harris lacks. That or you need to be pretty damn creative, which Harris isn’t. It’s simply not all that daring to prop the awesomeness of Caucasoids: this sort of thing is embedded in our history.
Consider a thought experiment. Some rando has a podcast with about 100 episodes. 98 of them involve interviews with members of his race. The other 2 showcase folk that aren’t exactly in disagreement with rando’s world view.
Do I have a problem with this guy? No. I don’t. (Really!) Because he’s a rando. I might take issue if this was a television show. But a guy with a podcast can do what he wants, even if he has an audience of 100,000. Or a million.
But in this instance rando rants about identity politics. Which is ok too. He gets angry when it is pointed out that his podcast list looks a lot like he’s practicing within-race identity networking as well [1]. That’s ok as well. But if he can’t acknowledge his limited worldview, that suggest a certain lack of self-knowledge. Which is not a characteristic of the very smart or very sharp.
[1] “Within race identity networking”? Hey, I never said I was 1st rate.
He didn’t say it was. I’m guessing you read the post but can’t think of a rebuttal but just want to cling to your half-assed notions based on a podcast, or you didn’t read his post and want to respond anyway. In either case, you’re damaging your credibility, and it’s pretty goddamn annoying.
You think you have the right to believe whatever the fuck you want. Well, you can, but that doesn’t mean the rest of us have to take you seriously.
Seconded.
I think Holmes’ post uses one example - out of undoubtedly many - to show that while immigrants indeed suffered racism, they were still of a higher status than African Americans.
Not immigrants really, but people [not WASP but not black] whether immigrant or 7th generation (it’s not limited to color, most Jews are white). The stuff the Lums went through is stuff that other “semi acceptable” groups such as Jews or white Hispanics have and do go through. With the same face, name, accent, background, there will be people who consider you’re part of the “in” group and people who consider you are not.
We have it a lot easier to “become acceptable” by moving or by Anglicizing our names, but the question is, why should anybody have to change their identity markers in order to please a bunch of bigots?
Note: specific terminology used in reference to the US; change as adequate to localize.
I had said “That doesn’t sound like a side effect.” Asahi quoted that and responded:
Huff and puff and gaslight away, but he literally said “To me, it seems that the system was rigged specifically against African-Americans. The Lums and other people of color were caught up as a side-effect.”
So it’s not my credibility in jeopardy here. :dubious:
Okay, I admit, that was a bit of numbskullery on my part to write that comment as it was written (caffeine deficiency syndrome).
What I meant was, it’s really missing the larger, more important point. Nobody’s arguing that Asian Americans like the Lums didn’t face racism and had their lives irrevocably changed because of it. There were pretty nasty anti-Chinese riots out West in Colorado, Washington, and California. Tacoma was ethnically cleansed of Chinese at one point.
But as was pointed out in holmes’ post, other non-whites typically held slightly higher status than the descendants of former slaves. Moreover, the Chinese immigrants of the 19th Century, may have had advantages that enabled better adaptation to systematic racism. They were able to establish ethnic communities in which economic activity took shape. While many White leaders wanted to expel the Chinese immigrants, others were interested in capital trade with China, with Chinese immigrants serving as intermediaries.
Chinese were able to establish themselves as independent merchants and capitalists, which is comparatively harder to do when you’re a recently-freed slave living in a largely agrarian society and your only skill is working your former master’s land that he still owns. Black slaves owned no property. They had no employment. They were still dependent on white land owners. And they were still living in a society that was very much paranoid of blacks taking revenge on their former masters. Keep in mind that before industrialization attracted black migrants from the South, the black population in the South was almost equal to the white population in some states. This fear of black vengeance fueled white paranoia, which led to black codes that forbade ownership of firearms and further led to the establishment of a new legal culture in which blacks were still de facto inferior.
#nogaslightingjustnotenoughsleep
I was wondering! Thanks for acknowledging this.
Sure, although you can say the same about black men vs. women, about lighter-skinned blacks, etc.
Anyhow, I thought both your post and holmes’s were informative and interesting. I acknowledged that about holmes’s in the same post where I said I couldn’t just let the “side effect” line slide when he had just posted about something as blatant as the Chinese Exclusion Act.
Perhaps I was imprecise with my language. However, it seems to me the contradiction is because of a lack of context when you pulled two unrelated quotes out of their respective paragraphs and joined them together as one concept, when in fact they refer to two different events.
The Chinese Exclusion Act was to provide a historical context to what the Chinese dealt with, as well as Mr. Lum’s ability to work-around it, i.e., crossing the border from Canada and becoming a merchant. Something that African-Americans under Jim Crow would have a difficulty and little opportunities to do. Moreover, the majority of the post dealt with Jim Crow, which was a system designed specifically to keep African-Americans on the lowest rungs of society.
This is the system and laws the Lums went to court to fight against because they believed it shouldn’t apply to them, as they were not African-American; the true targets of Jim Crow. The inability of the Lum’s daughters to attend a white school was a side effect of Jim Crow on them as a non-black family; it was not designed for Chinese-Americans. That they got caught up in it was a side effect of having a system designed to divide privileges between only two groups white and colored; even if the those affected weren’t originally part of the equation. An effect we must note was lifted once the Lums left to another state.