Whether true or not, this is irrelevant to what I’ve been saying. There’s a lot that needs to be fixed in American society, culture, and (most importantly) public policy. Those are things we can and should do.
If there are things some black people (like any individuals) can do better, hopefully they will. But it’s pointless to point at millions of strangers and say, lazily, “do better!”. This does absolutely nothing. It helps no one. So it’s pointless. Your admonitions towards millions of strangers, most of whom are living their lives totally appropriately, is worth nothing and helps no one. On the other hand, we can change public policy to be more fair and equal and less oppressive and discriminatory, so that’s where the focus should be.
Were you brought up to rely on others or were you brought up to do for yourself (within bounds of course) or it wasn’t going to get done for you?
Ultimately the disconnect is thus: You believe the fault lies with society, I believe that most of the fault lies with the individuals making said choices.
No, I’m saying that because those are problems in the white community. Are you saying that as long as someone else is doing worse, we don’t have to improve ourselves? The excuse that you give the white community for its problems is that it is not as bad as the black community?
Actually, following that thought process answers quite a number of questions. I appreciate you sharing it with me, it was very… enlightening.
And my upbringing is a huge part of my position on this - I was raised in an in tact upper middle class white family. Everything was easy, and everything came easy. I didn’t try hard on school and yet I got mostly A’s. I tried only moderately hard in college and yet got mostly As and Bs. I didn’t really learn to work hard until I got in the Navy, and I did fine. And through all that time (until my late 20s, at least), I experimented with drugs (this was before the Navy), had sometimes unprotected sex, I drank occasionally to excess… And everything worked out fine for me. I never got in trouble with the law. I have a great job and my family is doing very well. Largely because of luck - the luck of the situation I was born into, and the circumstances of this country.
Not because I made magnificent choices that most black people don’t make. But because I had an easy glide path to success, requiring little from me and with tons of room for dumb decisions as a youth.
Most black folks who were as careless as I was would be in prison, or in poverty, or dead. Because they don’t get that same room for error, even though the mistakes I made are almost ubiquitous among young people. And they don’t get that same room for error, for the most part, because society doesn’t allow them to have it. But it allowed it for me, and most of my peers growing up.
The problem is society and public policy, including systems and institutions.
Which one? If it’s about my upbringing, then I guess I was taught to rely on others when appropriate and rely on myself when appropriate. That wasn’t a significant emphasis of my upbringing – the main emphasis was treating others well.
You started the post I responded to with “Whether true or not”. Basically whether or not ANY blame lies at all with the people making the choices or if it’s all the fault of society?
Most individuals bear at least some responsibility for their own situation. I don’t put even a tiny shred of blame on “the black community”, since it’s nuts to me to blame millions of strangers when the vast majority of them are living entirely decent lives. Society is to blame for the disparity in statistical outcomes, at least until society has fashioned an actually fair and equal society.
A problem to be solved is one that adversely affects an over-represented portion of that populace. If people are handling it, then I’d say the problem is being addressed.
Similarly iiandyiii has informed me that the out of wedlock birth rate of black women is falling, so for whatever reason it is being affected in a positive way. Now, if those same women find themselves with kids and need money and contact the government for that money then the problem that they created is now partly my problem. The same situation only different regarding education, drug issues, and crime.
If embezzler a, steals money from me, and I contact the government to get the money back, you are not affected at all, are you? So maybe try a different predominantly other race problem?
Unless you believe in intrinsic racial superiority/inferiority, if statistical outcomes aren’t very roughly equal, than something is wrong with how society is treating those different races with regards to those characteristics. Just as an example, the groups in the US that were treated, by far, the most abominably over the entirety of American history, are black people and Native Americans – it’s not a coincidence that those two groups are also at the bottom of nearly every statistical indicator of well-being. It’s the fault of the US for treating those groups so terribly, and for failing to make up for the past mistreatment that still has very significant ramifications today.
You don’t need to believe in inferior/superior, they could just be choosing their own paths. They and they alone are responsible for their choices , except in cases where the burden falls upon the taxpayer. We should all be limiting that burden.
When we’re talking about millions and millions of people, “just choosing their own path” would equal out, unless there are barriers and obstacles faced by some that aren’t faced by others. People are people, regardless of skin color. The vast majority want the same things, and have the same likelihood of making good or bad decisions. And there’s tons of evidence that there are obstacles that most black people face that most white people do not (and you’ve even acknowledged this, IIRC).
I think this was the excuse, aside from racial inferiority, that the wealthy status-quo supporters have been using for decades and decades. Culture exists, but I’ve seen no evidence that it just so happens that the culture of the two groups we’ve oppressed the most, by far, (black Americans and Native Americans) undervalues traditional achievement and overvalues underachievement. It seems much, much easier for me to believe that centuries of brutal oppression of these two groups has not yet been eliminated, and some of the ramifications of this oppression are still around today.
If there are differences in culture, they are swamped by the actual oppression and discrimination out there. We couldn’t even hope to see how culture is involved until we have some semblance of a fair society – without things like the Ferguson report, showing that police departments routinely target and mistreat black people; without hiring and housing discrimination; without zoning and public policy that relegate so many black people into neighborhoods with no grocery stores, banks, or other essential services; without extensive and ongoing mistreatment of black boys resulting in massive differences in achievement driven pretty much entirely by how these black boys are treated, aside from income differences; without the widespread denigration and dehumanization of black children in education, including the denigration of African American Vernacular English, essentially gaslighting black children whose only fluency is in AAVE; and much more. Once we solve all that stuff, most or all of which could be addressed with public policy, we can look to see if maybe culture is involved.
I agree and would also point out that not only do successful black people embrace a lot of black culture - the Obamas listen to Jay-Z and Beyoncé among others - but a lot of white people also do so (it’s why rap and hip-hop are mainstream music and why everyone is flipping out about Hamilton being on Disney+ this past weekend).