I guess. Unless “People should be treated equally. But, since people weren’t treated equally for such a long time, perhaps we should help out those who have been treated unequally to allow them to catch up to the people who weren’t treated unequally” is an inconsistent position. But if it is, so what? You just want to hear them say that? For what?
Right. But unfair advantages in the past were a sign of insufficient progress on human rights and unfair advantages to a whole different set of people is unfair now. Instead of giving a leg up based on skin color or genitalia we could, and it would be vastly less controversial, focus on class based remedies.
Maybe. Sounds like a good topic for a debate “Should we focus on class based remedies instead of race based remedies?”
But focusing on making liberals says that current remedies to overcome past injustices against races is “racist” makes your opinion itself seem racist. Maybe you should focus less on what “liberals” think, and more on what “Americans” can do to help the less fortunate of our country?
Well, it’s pretty terrific then that I never said that minorities agree on what individual acts of discrimination are. Dodged another bullet.
What I said - several times, as a matter of fact, in this thread alone - is that darker-skinned people say constantly that they are being discriminated against by white people. And that I, unlike WillFarnaby, believe them when they say this. Therefore, racially-based discrimination actually occurs. And in large numbers. And that we should not stand around waiting for everybody in the world to become colorblind before whites do something to alleviate this.
Are you, as an apparent non-liberal, saying that any or all of is not true? You know us liberals: we hate saying things that aren’t true. That’s how you tell us from conservatives.
Treating people “equally” is of no value when one person (or people) begins with massive advantages. If we accept everyone being treated “equally,” then whites and Asians would dominate colleges while Africans would continue to be disadvantaged. On an individual basis we might say each person is treated as “equal” but in reality the outcome is not “equal” by any definition of the word.
This is the root claim of affirmative action. The status quo is inherently “unequal” and it will continue to be “unequal” until we take steps to correct it.
The paradox is that being race-blind sounds “equal,” but upon examination it is absolutely not.
I’m a moderate - I’m not really in love with either side. It is true what you say - I misjudged things by not taking into consideration the entire context of your comments.
I am very touchy about people that try to stereotype groups of people - especially if they are people I am close to; my biases spring from that.
Really I’m irritated by politics in general because these are serious issues, and they do effect people I know. Oftentimes, however, they are dealt with too much in the abstract and it fosters a sort of tribalism that I don’t see helping anybody.
Well, if you realize that, why keep doing it? Switch to something else that a debate can be had on. Keeping pushing it like that just seems like you want to “win” a debate with people on a message board instead of trying to understand what others are saying.
Cheap shots do nothing to make your point and when they veer over near personal attacks they not only fail to make your point, they come close to getting you silenced.
Because there is a subset of liberals that cynically exploit these concepts and I think they are dangerous in the long term. It’s very unfortunate that the two party system is so stable in the US because each party is infested with a counterproductive contingent.
And you feel it is your job or duty to root out this “subset” that exists on this message board and expose them for the hypocritical people they are? Or would you rather have a good discussion about an important topic?
The sins of each side are nowhere near of the same magnitude. Right now most office-holders from one party are consistently cheerleading indecency, incompetence, and bigotry. There are no sins of the present Democratic party that come close.
I think it’s possible to do both. Because I think it’s important if real justice is to occur that the inherently contradictory positions that some hold are accurately identified, the predictable ad-hominem reaction handled, and the underlying motives exposed.
I’d do the same in a thread about religion and how the adherents are often exploited for the good of the powerful.
I won’t go as far as to say that I will accept every claim of discrimination. But I won’t dismiss them either. I’ll listen to claims of discrimination and if a pattern emerges, I’ll believe it exists. And that pattern has emerged in many cases and I believe that discrimination is real.
To a certain extent, I can agree. But there are a couple of important counter-arguments that shouldn’t be put aside.
First, there are problems that all back people face that are separate from the problems of being poor. You can be a middle-class black person or even a wealthy black person and still experience racism.
Second, resources are always limited. There will never be enough to give everyone all of the help they need. And I believe, based on history, that if you just help poor black people through programs intended to help poor people in general, then the priority for resources will be given to poor white people and poor black people will just get the scraps. The only way you can be sure that poor black people get adequate resources is to specifically earmark a share of the resources for their exclusive use.