There is a lot of conscious discrimination, but there is also a lot of unconscious discrimination. Unconscious discrimination by white people is something that only white people can cure.
White people in general viewing blacks objectively would not think that the preponderance of their experiences with black people are bad. It’s because of several different kinds of societal factors, and it’s something that happens in the minds of white people.
Why are they “more visible”? It’s because the media make them more visible. It’s because white people engage in confirmation bias of their prejudices that they choose those things themselves as the ones that they consider “more visible.”
Black people as a whole cannot ever guarantee that no black person will engage in negative behavior. Black people as a whole cannot ever choose which specific black people’s behavior white people will choose to pay attention to and remember. Your Obama example only shows that a black person has to be a superstar in order to measure up to a mediocre white person.
This is blaming the majority of blacks for the behavior of a minority of blacks. This is something that white people don’t have to worry about, because white people never have to answer for the behavior of a minority of white people.
And when you say “blacks are misrepresented by a significant portion of the black community,” I think you should be saying “whites misrepresent blacks by holding up the behavior of a minority of blacks as being representatives of blacks as a whole.”
What is happening with respect to misrepresentation is not because black people are doing something to themselves. It’s because of something that’s being done to them by white people.
If you actually agree with Eschereal’s analogy, then what you are saying in this thread is hard to make sense of.
She wrote a book where government regulation and incompetence led to a massive rail disaster. Because in real life, corporations never take shortcuts that put profit ahead of safety.
I have news for you, whites are not the only one that develop those apprehensive feelings. Other blacks do as well towards blacks they suspect pose a threat. Fair doesn’t count for much, right or wrong doesn’t count for much. The problem will not be resolved until mainstream society no longer has a reason to be apprehensive. This puts an unfair burden on blacks I agree 100% but it is a burden only they can resolve. And yes as whites we need to keep calling attention to it and do our part but no free passes.
You’re just piling stereotypes and prejudices on top of each other and calling them facts. Black people can’t resolve a burden that they didn’t create.
And WTF is free passes supposed to mean? White folks get free passes all the time just for being white? Are you taking those away?
Oh my. Two points:
(1) Blacks develop prejudices against blacks in part because our society trains that.
(2) Many problems, including street crime, correlate more strongly with economic status than with race. The fact that poverty is prevalent among blacks is largely due to a vicious circle featuring prejudice.
I would say that it is society that needs to improve, rather than black people or white people specifically. But given the ignorance you show here, I think it fair to stress the thinking changes required from prejudiced white people.
And it confirms my own prejudices to see such ignorant sentiments voiced by someone who found Ayn Rand’s ideas enticing!
Disclaimer: When I was in high school, an Ayn Rand fan-girl latched onto me. (She also disliked people who listened to Bob Dylan.) I was too shy and insecure to tell her it was her cute friend I lusted after. Meanwhile, said cute friend made out with every boy in our clique … except me: I was off-limits, “belonging” to the Ayn Rand girl.
Maybe this helps explain my antipathy for Ayn Rand.
I don’t disagree with you as to what is right and fair, I just feel the most effective strategy will come from the inside. great roll models are a good start. I detest racism and consider it a huge human tragedy. Awareness is a good start but it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, we are not integrating the way we should be, people are still apprehensive. Anything to alleviate the apprehensiveness will go a long way toward ending racism. I hate to use the term both sides because we are all really on the same side but blacks in general will bear more of the burden simply because they stand to bear more of the burden.
I got a good cross section of opinions. I am still interested in finding out out more about her. I am not so sure how much of it I will accept.
I didn't see it as a total hijack, racial issues play into the aspect of her theories that I am interested in.
I was very disappointed in the chapter on her in Michael Shermer’s “Why People Believe Weird Things.” It was mostly a slam at her personality, her cult/clique, her weird behavior, and so on. He didn’t actually analyze Objectivism to demonstrate its flaws.
Is there a good resource that does this? A book or essay or even a blog that takes apart Objectivism without making it all about Rand?
In 1963 she wrote a lengthy essay denouncing racism as “the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism.” It was reprinted as one of the chapters in The Virtue of Selfishness.
Atlas shrugged is an 1,100 page strawman. The only thing that anyone should take seriously from it is the idea that people should try to do things to the best of their ability. Everything else is utter bullshit.
My primary premise that I don’t know how Ayn Rand feels about is that when individuals do discover a source for increasing their own value they will fiercely defend it, primarily by stepping up to the plate and working harder, becoming better at it.
There’s a reason serious philosophers laugh at her: her “ideas” are 100% substance- and thought-free. They’re internally contradictory and externally divorced from reality.
Meanwhile, said cute friend made out with every boy in our clique … except me: I was off-limits, “belonging” to the Ayn Rand girl.