I would also ask Shodan what his position is on reparations for slavery. That does not require any belief in present day discrimination, nor does it require punitive damages: just the unpaid labor that has compounded in value to the benefit of affluent white families who have been in this country since it was founded is enough to incur a very large debt. But you can’t sue those families because what their ancestors did was supported by law. So it has to come from the government.
An extra year of your life in prison can’t possibly make any difference to your life. That is what you’re going with? Ok.
“Regards”,
CarnalK
Regardless of your race, if you’re poorer, have fewer job opportunities, or have less education, you’re likelier to become pregnant as a teen. The causal factors include lack of sex education, lack of other opportunities in life, gender power imbalances, and other factors. But it is very clear from the data that the conditions of deprivation are what drive the teen pregnancy rate, not the other way 'round.
Also, you may not be surprised to learn that the worst states for both sex ed and availability of sexual health services happen to be those states in which it was easiest to grow cotton. After Colorado put a bunch of money into comprehensive sex ed and sexual health centers, the black teen pregnancy rate dropped below the white rate in many counties for the first time–and the overall rate in the state plummeted. People like **Shodan **think it is about culture because they need to invent a fiction to cover up the reality that their policy preferences are what cause these problems.
Yup, the abortion rate dropped over 50%.
Then the Republicans refused to continue funding the program. The resulting rise in abortions is blood on their hands, because apparently, they’d rather see abortions than pay for education and birth control.
I’m not categorizing you or Shodan or anyone here. I’m responding to the words in posts and that’s it – if you truly don’t think sentencing disparities are “real injustice”, then you are very wrong, and you should fix your wrongness. There are many real injustices, and that is most definitely one of them.
Why are you concerned about “credit”? What “credit”, anyway? And why must it be credit from me? Why is that important to you? Do you feel the ned for frequent praise for being on the “right” side of positions?
I didn’t say anything about you being a racist, or compare you to Shodan or any other poster (and I didn’t call him a racist either), but you got very defensive from some pretty damn minor criticism (just about what qualifies as “real injustice”). I think that kind of defensiveness is at the heart of this discussion, and this “problem”. Too many folks are just incredibly defensive about this – any sort of criticism, or suggestion that maybe they’re missing something, is unacceptable, and unthinkable, to many. The idea of white privilege consistently sparks incredible defensiveness from many, in this thread and out there in the world.
If people could accept criticism, and nuance, and admit that they don’t understand everything, especially about complex issues like racism and bigotry, then we wouldn’t have to worry about any of this (this being the worry that progressives are losing white males) at all. What you worry about – demonizing white males – is incredibly rare and fringey, by my reading, but it’s magnified, highlighted, and reinforced by skillful right-wing manipulators, and they’re assisted by so many knee-jerk defensive and ultra-sensitive white moderates and liberals like, perhaps, you. Meanwhile, black and brown and LGBT folks and women, etc, are navigating a world that consistently and routinely throws up little obstacles, again and again, making it harder to succeed, even as these obstacles are lesser in significance than 50 or 100 years ago. From my reading and conversations, they have learned too well not to complain in person, lest they rouse the defensiveness of their usually white male bosses, or usually white male law enforcement authorities, or usually white male politicians, etc. So, hopefully, they vote, and let out their (reasonable) frustrations online and in rallies and away from their workplace.
A bit of a rant, but these issues are so complex and interrelated that it’s almost impossible to stick with a single aspect. I’m reminded once again of the words (demonizing white people, maybe, or not?) of Martin Luther King Jr:
"First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action;” who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a “more convenient season.”
Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection."
Yup, same old same old. “You can protest, but not like that.”
Agreed about comprehensive sex ed. I used to live in Missouri, and when my daughter hit middle school, we got forms sent home asking whether we wanted to opt her out of the sex ed section of the health curriculum. I did opt her out, and she went every day to sit in the library with the super religious kids whose parents also opted them out.
I told this story just that way to my very liberal sister and mother recently, and they looked at me aghast. Why on earth would I do such a thing? But they live in Canada and formerly lived in Minnesota, where I live now. In Missouri, sex ed is all about abstinence, and they actually somehow finagle a way to bring teachers in from a conservative religious organization to teach it in a public school. So I don’t know how common this is, but I was opting her out from the other end of the spectrum–and I made sure she had resources to get good, sex-positive information on birth control etc. She is now in high school, and has had a serious boyfriend for several months and is not pregnant yet, or certainly not very pregnant as she is an active athlete in school sports (girls’ participation in sports, by the way, is also associated with lower rates of teen pregnancy and other social problems).
What exactly is it you think I’m dodging, given the fact that I also pressed Shodan on the following points:
It’s abundantly clear that one of the fundamental problems underlying all of this is that for so many of you, there is absolute purity, and there is total shit–and nothing in between. I feel fairly certain Shodan doesn’t believe I am generally on his side.
ETA: Andy, I am not seeking your praise. I’m objecting to your selective quoting of me to justify saying my “injustice meter is out of whack” or whatever it was. To take one comment and not include others that were made in the same conversation on the same day is unfair. That’s all.
Thanks for this information. I just looked up the Colorado initiatives and found this: Colorado sex ed program closes after Trump administration cuts federal grant. That’s pretty bad. 
There are also some lawsuits from other organizations that had their federal grants cut early.
Are you kidding? A year less of income, a year less of experience, a year’s greater likelihood of having one’s friends and connections who might hire you having moved away, retired, or died, and more.
Further, the data shows that black defendants get longer sentences for every crime, not just armed robbery. And black folks are more likely to go to jail for behavior that white folks do at the same rates (i.e. drugs). This is literally taking away peaceful fathers from communities due to racism. A racism you have no problem admitting, apparently… you just don’t appear to care.
I’m pretty sure you’re wrong on the data – Wikipedia says 28% of African-American children did not live with any father representative. Maybe that’s too high, but it’s only 13% higher than for white kids (they’re at 15%). It’s certainly not “most”.
And your last sentence is ironic, since if single-parent households increase criminality, than the racism in the justice system (which you admit exists) is increasing the amount of single-parent households.
Isn’t that both unjust and harmful to society? Shouldn’t society not take away black fathers from their kids at a higher rate than white fathers for the same crimes and misdemeanors?
Yes, they’re all scum, and there’s no point to rehabilitating. None of them can or will ever amount to anything, so there’s no reason to try.
And that’s why we should lock up the black ones for longer than the white ones. Right?
Your attitude here is truly alien to me. You’ve shown compassion in other posts, I just can’t see why you’re so unwilling to have any compassion here. Especially when your concern is for kids, and for kids in single parent households… and you’re so unconcerned about policies and practices that, due to racism, increase the amount of single-parent households for black kids.
See? Plenty of stuff for progressives to shout about without throwing shade on white dudes (although I’m sure some of them will bend over backwards to find a way to do both in the same breath).
Richard Parker talked about the statistics of this. Part of it could be related to access to birth control, and knowledge about birth control, and part of it could be related to religion, and other demographic factors. But more than that, these are just humans. Humans, in many cases, without much to look forward to, and often without much hope for a better life. No wonder that humans without much hope for a better life might engage in riskier activities for short term pleasure and joy, when, from their perspective, that might be the only chance they have for good feelings. When life is comfortable, it’s easy to look askance at risky behavior… but when life is desperate, risks might seem worth it for just a chance at some happiness, even if it’s temporary.
Scolding the desperate and the miserable to behave better is a fool’s errand. These are just humans we’re talking about, not saints with the willpower and mental fortitude of heroes.
Like I said, it’s obvious: you are handwaving away racially biased sentences because “hey, lots of things can go wrong in an armed robbery conviction”.
Missed two posts earlier.
Isn’t this too clever by half? It’s only a good point if it somehow applies to the electoral metaphor.
No, it’s not the same issue at all. One involves putting people in prison who aren’t hurting or threatening anyone. The other involves violent criminals being put in prison — and as I said upthread, the answer there is not to give black armed robbers lighter sentences, but to give all armed robbers, and all violent criminals, heavier ones.
So why, pray tell, would I voice a concern that innocent black defendants routinely get railroaded, yet “handwave away” racial disparities in sentencing? Isn’t the far simpler explanation that I am much more concerned about people who are innocent or whose crimes are nonviolent, compared to people who are guilty of violent crimes?
What are you talking about? Trump is white.
True. None of which have much to do with racism. I’m just saying that using “teen pregnancy” as a result of racism doesn’t seem, to me, to be of much value to discussions of systemic racism and the effects thereof.
You tell me, dude. Why do you think you get a free pass on every idiotic thing you say because somewhere else you made a reasonable comment? That’s not how it works.
All of it could be related to racism… disparate resources to schools to teach about sex ed, for example.
Do you think the choices your parents made in raising you had any impact on the choices you made later in life? Do you think you would have made the same choices if your parents had been cruel, or disinterested, or absent? I’m asking, because you keep making a big deal about your parents making the right choices in raising you, but then turning around and insisting that people whose parents made bad choices are still 100% responsible for those bad choices. So, which is it? Did your upbringing have any role in making you into the person you are today or not?
Yes, the entire criminal justice system is stacked against minorities, from top to bottom.
Also, you don’t really seem to have a good idea of how to disprove things, because you keep fixating on the idea that if you can find one exception to an idea, it disproves the idea in its entirety. Yes, the justice system is stacked against minorities. No, this doesn’t mean that in every single circumstance, every single minority that encounters the justice system is going to be screwed by it. Yes, white privilege is a real thing. No, that doesn’t mean that every white person is going to be doing better than every black person, regardless of situation or circumstance.
Like I was saying, nobody is claiming that white privilege is a panacea that overcomes all obstacles. I think I’ve been pretty explicit in saying it’s not even the most important form of privilege in a person’s life, so I’m not really sure what you think you’re rebutting here. Also, you keep bringing up “life choices” like it’s somehow counter to the concept of privilege, but it’s absolutely not. Yeah, that guy made choices in his life that led him to that death. That doesn’t mean we can’t look at the forces active in society and try to figure out why someone in his position would make those choices, and maybe do something to help people in that circumstance make better choices.
Ah, yes. “You minorities should be thankful you only get treated a little shitty over here, because there’s places where people like you get treated really shitty!” I’m not really sure how, “It’s okay if I do this, because somebody somewhere is doing something worse,” fits in with the philosophy of personal responsibility you’re espousing here. Surely, the onus is on you to behave decently regardless of how shitty people are being in Afghanistan?
We keep locking up black men, mostly. Because, as mentioned earlier, our legal system is inherently biased against minorities.
And yeah, I know, “Well, they shouldn’t have done crimes!” And, yes, they shouldn’t. But when black people do commit crimes, they should be treated the same as white people who commit crimes, right?
Except, of course, they aren’t. Because, again, the justice system is inherently stacked against minorities. Why?
I don’t know, man. It’s a mystery.
I don’t think Shodan is “an actual cop”.
Sure, it could be. Do you have any cites or anything that show that predominantly black schools teach sex ed less than predominantly white schools?