When will blacks let the past go?

[BabaBooey]

“You think that blacks shoulder a lot of the blame as well, right?”

So when I watch the news and hear a woman living in the projects screaming “The white man just keeps pushing us down” and “I’m mad because I can’t afford my electric bills because you, the white man, keeps it too high for us to pay”, I’m supposed to take it up the ass and smile? Since whites 140 years ago had slaves, it’s OK for blacks to be racist today, but when whites are racist they are seen as evil.
“We refute your point, and you maintain that your point is valid because maybe.”

I believe that you also maintain your point because “Maybe all of the higher ups are white”, and even a greater maybe, “Most of the higher ups in the company are white, and MAYBE it’s because of racism.” I would personally love to see the percentage of blacks that graduate from college, ratios of blacks to whites that do graduate from college, and the average GPA of blacks vs. the average GPA of whites after having graduated. Although it’s just a prediction, I’d bet that the results will give the main reason that a higher percentage of whites have well paying jobs than blacks.

“why are you still looking for a job? If things are so damn rosy, it should take you no longer than a week to get a job.”

I applied to two places, one being the supermarket that we’ve been speaking of, and the other being a supermarket that a lot of my friends work at. After waiting about a week and a half, I gave up on those two and applied at a third place, and got a call two days later. I’m now working there. It took a little over a week, but I certainly wasn’t trying very hard to find a job.
“Not only that, there is no reason why they can’t have a minimum wage job and send their kids to private school! I don’t know what planet you live on or what you consider private school, but most middle class people (of any race) have a hard time affording private school.”

I never said that there was no reason to send there kids to private school. If there was no reason why poor, inner city blacks couldn’t send there kids to a private school, then why would I admire them greatly? It’s like saying most poor inner city blacks commit crimes, but since Mr. X didn’t, he should be admired. You were clearly trying to use my words against me to make your argument look superior, but you failed miserably.
“You didn’t see blacks so they didn’t exist?”

I said they didn’t exist in the areas I visited. If Mississippi is anything like Louisiana, blacks are highly concentrated in cities AS WELL AS their own neighborhoods, usually just outside the city. So what’s so unbelievable about there not being any blacks in the rural areas I visited?
“I can tell by your username and posts that you think that you have learned everything you need to know in life by listening to the Howard Stern Show. Maybe you thought you could test out your wealth of knowledge on our boards. It is not gonna cut it.”

Uh, so my being a fan of Howard Stern makes my argument’s worthless? Yeah, uh, judging by your username, you’re a fan of Michael the Archangel. You’re religiousness, which has nothing to do with the topic at hand, makes your argument worthless. See how stupid that sounds?
“this person also believes that those black people who do live there have nothing to complain about. Flabbergasting.”

I never said they have nothing to complain about. There’s obviously racism in the rural south, but how can anyone say that someone else is displaying a Confederate flag, so he HAS to be racist and is doing so to antagonize blacks, especially when there are very few blacks?
“In the presence of white people with BabaBooey’s attitude, it is really embarrassing to be white.”

Do you want a Kleenex or something?
“Look on the good side guys. Next time there is a “Dumbest thing ever heard” thread on IMHO, we can all participate.”

I call people morons and people want me crucified, but it’s OK for you to say this?
“when one white person displays intolerance or disrespect for other races”

When did I do this? I’m want equal opportunity of success for all races, but not everone does anything with the opportunities given. Does racism inhibit the success of blacks today? Yes. Is this racism widespread enough to make a significant dent on the opportunity of success for blacks? Not even close.

And I have a question for all you liberals. Why is it that you all feel so sorry for poor, uneducated, lazy blacks while poor, uneducated, lazy whites are labeled as “white trash” and often ridiculed?

[Ross]

“I am a member of Amnesty International. But I don’t pay by the year, I pay by the week. Because I thought, ‘What if I join for a year, and then suddenly, overnight, all international oppression and torcher suddenly stops?’ I’d look like a right dick, wouldn’t I?”

• Alexei Sayle

[Ben]

*Originally posted by BabaBooey *
**"It’s a little unclear to me what the point of the Confederate flag is, in your opinion. It seems to me that you’re saying that a certain set of Whites don’t like Blacks, and they symbolize that dislike with a flag which they know will antagonize the Blacks, (in fact, a flag which produces antagonism because historically it has been a symbol of slavery and racism,) but they’re not racist. "

I believe there was a recent thread on this forum about why people still display the Confederate flag, which I participated in. If it’s that big of a deal to you, just go ahead and look it up.

**

I did, but as I implied before, your statements on this matter seem both ambiguous and contradictory.

**
And if the Confederate flag is ONLY about antagonizing blacks, as you say it is,

**

When did I say that? I don’t recall saying anything of the sort.

** why would people in the rural south, where there are practically no blacks, display the Confederate flag? It can’t antagonize blacks if there are none around.

**

Aside from the fact that there really are Blacks in the rural south, why don’t you answer the question for me? If, as you say, the display of the Confederate flag by Whites is a response to Black-on-White racism, then why do they do it when there are no Blacks around? How can they react against their victimization if there’s no one around to victimize them?

Can you understand why I’m having a little difficulty figuring out what, exactly, your position is here?

**
Isn’t that repetitive? If someone dislikes Jews as a whole just because they’re Jewish, doesn’t that make them antisemetic?

**

You’ve misread me again. I was making a metaphor, in which I intentionally described a silly situation in order to explain what I found wrong with your argument.

**
I don’t get what you mean by me seeing this as a “good deal”,

**

I think others have already explained this.

**
whoever does the hiring doesn’t know my race, so they couldn’t discriminate even if they wanted to.

**

And yet the entire reason why this issue was brought up is because you said:

“A nearby supermarket has about 90% of its workforce being blacks, this in a predominately white neighborhood. This store has a black management. Are you sure that these ‘connections’ don’t work both ways?”

Bear in mind, too, that you brought this up in order to rebut the statement, by archmichael, that Blacks suffer from a lack of connections.

If a Black person doesn’t get a job because they don’t have connections to the White employers, then does that not count as discrimination?

**
"Have you read Black Boy, by Richard Wright?

For that matter, do you know the history of Marcus Garvey’s Black Star Line?"

Do you want to take a guess on that?

**

Have I missed something? You seem to think it should be obvious to me that you’ve never heard of these people. What reason would I have for assuming that?

**
Anyway, if they claim that it was impossible for blacks to succeed in the 50’s, I disagree.

**

In other words, I ask you what you make of the evidence which disagrees with you, and you dismiss the evidence (without even knowing what it says) on the grounds that if the evidence disagrees with you, then you’re not going to listen to it. I want you to think for a moment about how that kind of comment would be received by your listeners here.

**
And of course it all depends on what you consider “success.” **

What do you consider to be “success”? How low can the glass ceiling get before it becomes a problem?

-Ben

[archmichael]

Sorry MrO, but I think the last response shows that he is a hopeless troll.

Well at least we were finally able to have him drop the pretense of not being a racist. Here is my proof:

I believe that you also maintain your point because “Maybe all of the higher ups are white”, and even a greater maybe, “Most of the higher ups in the company are white, and MAYBE it’s because of racism.” I would personally love to see the percentage of blacks that graduate from college, ratios of blacks to whites that do graduate from college, and the average GPA of blacks vs. the average GPA of whites after having graduated. Although it’s just a prediction, I’d bet that the results will give the main reason that a higher percentage of whites have well paying jobs than blacks.

Here he is betting that very few blacks make it into college, of those that do more of them fail to graduate, and the ones that do graduate have a lower GPA than white graduates. Did I read that right? Using racism to disprove racism? It’s not the system, it’s the stupid blacks?

[december]

Originally posted by archmichael *
** Here he is betting that very few blacks make it into college, of those that do more of them fail to graduate, and the ones that do graduate have a lower GPA than white graduates. Did I read that right? Using racism to disprove racism? It’s not the system, it’s the stupid blacks?*

I have read that over 50% of Blacks fail to graduate from college. The problem is affirmative action (preferences), which tend to put Black students into colleges where they are worse-than-average students.

Another negative effect of affirmative action is that it helps people ignore the weakness of inner city education. It allows us to perpetrate a school system that gives the average Black child a sub-standard education.

[wring]

*Originally posted by december *
**I have read that over 50% of Blacks fail to graduate from college. The problem is affirmative action (preferences), which tend to put Black students into colleges where they are worse-than-average students.

Another negative effect of affirmative action is that it helps people ignore the weakness of inner city education. It allows us to perpetrate a school system that gives the average Black child a sub-standard education. **

Cite??

[MrO]

*Originally posted by BabaBooey *
So when I watch the news and hear a woman living in the projects screaming “The white man just keeps pushing us down” and “I’m mad because I can’t afford my electric bills because you, the white man, keeps it too high for us to pay”, I’m supposed to take it up the ass and smile?

I’m not clear on how this is going up your ass. You’ve denied saying that poor black people have no right to complain, but this would seem to contradict that. Also, couldn’t you just change the channel?

I would personally love to see the percentage of blacks that graduate from college, ratios of blacks to whites that do graduate from college, and the average GPA of blacks vs. the average GPA of whites after having graduated. Although it’s just a prediction, I’d bet that the results will give the main reason that a higher percentage of whites have well paying jobs than blacks.

Is that what you’d bet? I’d bet the results would suggest that we’ve grown up in a culture that gives a lot more encouragement and opportunity to little white kids than to little black kids. Fortunately, that is changing, as are the ratios of blacks and whites that graduate from college, and, I suspect, the GPAs as well. I would, however, like to see your GPA compared to those of some of my black friends.

I never said they have nothing to complain about. There’s obviously racism in the rural south, but how can anyone say that someone else is displaying a Confederate flag, so he HAS to be racist and is doing so to antagonize blacks, especially when there are very few blacks?

As for the first sentence here, see above. You do imply that black people have nothing to complain about. As for the part about there being very few blacks, that part just isn’t true–see ** tomndebb**'s post a while back.

**“In the presence of white people with BabaBooey’s attitude, it is really embarrassing to be white.”

Do you want a Kleenex or something?**

No, I just want to dissociate myself from you as publicly as possible.

**“Look on the good side guys. Next time there is a “Dumbest thing ever heard” thread on IMHO, we can all participate.”

I call people morons and people want me crucified, but it’s OK for you to say this?**

Can you not see the difference between making a blanket statement about an entire group of people being morons and claiming that what someone said was dumb?

[QUOTE]
**“when one white person displays intolerance or disrespect for other races”

When did I do this?**

[QUOTE]

See above–all your preceding posts.

Is this racism widespread enough to make a significant dent on the opportunity of success for blacks? Not even close.

Must be their GPAs that are holding them back, right? Maybe I was wrong when I said that I didn’t want to write you off as hopeless just yet.

**And I have a question for all you liberals. Why is it that you all feel so sorry for poor, uneducated, lazy blacks while poor, uneducated, lazy whites are labeled as “white trash” and often ridiculed? **

First, feeling sorry is not the right expression. What I feel for marginalized groups in society is not pity, it’s something much more complex. But if there is a difference in the way poor black people and poor white people are perceived, maybe it’s because US society has long been run by white people, for white people, and has always offered far more opportunity to whites than to any other group. Of course all of this has been said before.

I’m tempted here to use ** mikeymichaels**’ trump card, and call the discussion over, but if you have a reply displaying some thought, intelligence, and maybe even a spark of compassion. . . then again, how likely is that?

Very few are able to admit that they’re wrong in public, while the debate is still going on, so I won’t expect that. A few, however, are able to admit it to themselves, later, after learning and maturing a little. Maybe that will be the case here. In the meanwhile, I fear ** archmichael** is right–we’ve got a hopeless troll here.

[december]

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by wring *

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by december *
**I have read that over 50% of Blacks fail to graduate from college. The problem is affirmative action (preferences), which tend to put Black students into colleges where they are worse-than-average students. **

Cite??

Nonetheless, throughout the 1990s the national college-dropout rate for African-Americans has been 20 to 25 percent higher than that for whites. Among those who finish college, the grade-point average of black students is two thirds of a grade below that of whites.

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/99aug/9908stereotype.htm

That the Bowen-Bok sample used is unrepresentative of college students—black and white—is easily demonstrated. In this sample, the graduation rate of black students is 75 percent. In other samples collected by other individuals and organizations, black graduation rates are less than 50 percent. Indeed, black students’ graduation rates are only about half of the graduation rates of white students, many of whom also drop out. At Berkeley, for example, the black graduation rate has been 30 percent—but Berkeley is not part of the Bowen-Bok sample.

http://www-hoover.stanford.edu/publications/digest/993/sowell2.html

Nationally, only 26 percent of black students graduate six years after entering college. That’s about half the graduation rate of white students.

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/williams020900.asp

Incidentally, I highly recommend the latter two articles, which give the argument against affirmative action from the point of view of two leading Black intellectuals, Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams.

[BabaBooey]

“When did I say that? I don’t recall saying anything of the sort.”
You said “historically it has been a symbol of slavery and racism”, which I felt you were implying that the flag is basically just a sign of racism. I apoligize if I made a false assumption.
“If, as you say, the display of the Confederate flag by Whites is a response to Black-on-White racism, then why do they do it when there are no Blacks around?”
As I said before “I feel that only some of the people who display the Confederate flag are racist, definitely not all.”
“If a Black person doesn’t get a job because they don’t have connections to the White employers, then does that not count as discrimination?”

It would be equally discriminating against those whites who don’t have connections to the white employers. It wouldn’t necessarily be a matter of race.
“Have I missed something? You seem to think it should be obvious to me that you’ve never heard of these people. What reason would I have for assuming that?”

You’re right, I should have at least thanked you for recognizing my being intelligent enough to be literate. No I’ve never read either of the books.
“In other words, I ask you what you make of the evidence which disagrees with you, and you dismiss the evidence (without even knowing what it says) on the grounds that if the evidence disagrees with you, then you’re not going to listen to it. I want you to think for a moment about how that kind of comment would be received by your listeners here.”

You are right about the fact that I shouldn’t dismiss evidence just because I disagree with it. And the reason I dismiss it is because I don’t believe that there wasn’t a single successful black person in the 50’s.
“What do you consider to be “success”? How low can the glass ceiling get before it becomes a problem?”

I would consider success living in a nice home and having enough money to buy not only what is necessary to live, but things that are only useful in making your life more enjoyable.
“Bababooey, when you’re calculating how to live on any sort of wage, don’t forget to subtract taxes before you take home a dime.”

How much does the government take from a yearly salary of $13K. And assuming they take anything, do you know what could easily open up room for a complete income tax break for those who make less than $15K a year? Eliminating the necessity of the taxpayers to support people who are too lazy to work!
“Using racism to disprove racism? It’s not the system, it’s the stupid blacks?”

Can you say narrowminded? If someone tried to start an argument with me over what race generally performed better in school, Asians or whites, and he is in favor of Asians, do you think I would cry racism? Even if I didn’t already feel this to be true (Asians generally being smarter than whites), if he showed me statistics on paper showing Asians more often than not outperforming whites of similar education, what’s racist about that?

[elfkin477]

*Originally posted by BabaBooey *
** And if the Confederate flag is ONLY about antagonizing blacks, as you say it is, why would people in the rural south, where there are practically no blacks, display the Confederate flag? It can’t antagonize blacks if there are none around. **

**

I guess I agree that it’s not merely to antagonize blacks, since I was under the impression they displayed it to thumb their noses at us “yankees,” which is a term that northerners are about as fond of as southerners are of the term “rednecks.” Now, if it wasn’t for the baseball team, maybe the term Yankee wouldn’t be so insulting…

[wring]

I dream of a day when I ask december for a cite to back up facts, and he responds with a cite that backs up his facts.

Once again, you’ve linked to op/ed pieces. This is frankly no different than you saying ‘this is true’.

You state that x percentage of black college students drop out and then assert that it’s cause of affirmative action getting them into a college where they couldn’t compete. I asked for evidence. You provided 3 op ed pieces that pretty much re-say what you posted.

Mr. Williams’ article repeats your numbers and assertions, but doesn’t give the source data for the information.

Mr. Sowell’s article lambasts some one else’s research. The study of 90,000 college students, he finds the sampling is unrepresentative, because the data doesn’t match the data for other studies,

In this sample, the graduation rate of black students is 75 percent. In other samples collected by other individuals and organizations, black graduation rates are less than 50 percent. Indeed, black students’ graduation rates are only about half of the graduation rates of white students, many of whom also drop out. At Berkeley, for example, the black graduation rate has been 30 percent—but Berkeley is not part of the Bowen-Bok sample.

Of course, we don’t know how each sample was taken, so we can’t assess which (if either) is more likely to be correct. the fact that they differ doesn’t prove which, if either is correct.

and, in the third, yet another op ed piece, some one takes the trouble to give the ‘data’ they got when they did an ‘experiment’ on students from their classes.

Since you work with stats for a living, I find it troubling to have to continually point these sorts of things out.

Many people drop out of college. Some die. Some transfer to other colleges, some get jobs, some cannot afford to continue. etc etc etc.

We’ll try again. You made an assertion that the blacks drop out because affirmative action places them into schools where they cannot compete. support this with evidence. (ex. "a columbia u 1998 study of 10,000 college students from 300 universities found that x% dropped out because of financial concerns, y% dropped out 'cause they felt they couldn’t compete… etc.)

[archmichael]

The problem is affirmative action (preferences), which tend to put Black students into colleges where they are worse-than-average students.

Oh, I agree whole heartedly that affirmative action is a big problem. Talk about setting people up to fail. The same dynamic happens with Native American students.

Students who are not academically ready are let in, they fail, but on paper they admitted the right amount of black students. Wring, I can only speak of my own college experience.

December I am curious why you chose to chime in when you did. You and I and most of the people who are involved can have an intelligent discussion about the topic of affirmative action. Where as you and I would take a look at the numbers and say that it proves that blacks are not getting the same level of education going into college, people like Bababooey look at the same numbers as proof that blacks are less intelligent. He probably thinks you agree with him

[MrO]

*Originally posted by BabaBooey *
I would personally love to see the percentage of blacks that graduate from college, ratios of blacks to whites that do graduate from college, and the average GPA of blacks vs. the average GPA of whites after having graduated. Although it’s just a prediction, I’d bet that the results will give the main reason that a higher percentage of whites have well paying jobs than blacks.

A few more words I’d like to say in response to this, which I think is applicable to the OP. (BTW, apologies for the length of that last one.)

Do black people really face a tougher time in higher education? Well, aside from many having come from poorly-funded, problem-filled schools (as have some white people too, I admit), there’s the problem of paying for the education. I predict that ** BabaBooey**'s response would be that there are more scholarships and grants for minority students, and they are often given preference for certain types of financial aid. Some argue that this is unfair; the kid’s family should have been able to make the sacrifices necessary to send the kid to college, like some white families do. (Mine, by the way, was too poor to do so, and I worked my way through school. There is plenty of financial aid available to lower-class white kids too. I took advantage of lots of it, and I paid back all the loans.)

Okay, even if we concede that education is the families’ responsibility, we ignore the needs of this generation of prospective black students. A generation or two back, even if not now, it really wasn’t realistically possible for a black family to have the means to educate their children well. Sure, there was Louis Armstrong and a sports player or two, but most of the population doesn’t get to be famous. And even if the families had had the opportunities and squandered them, why should we punish the students for their families’ shortcomings? What we need is an educated populace, not blame.

Gradually, of course, as black families move more and more out of poverty, their need for such aid will be reduced. And it is happening. “Quota systems” have been dropped in many universities, partly because of theoretical debates, but partly because * some of their purpose has been accomplished.* There are more minority students now, more minority professors and administrators. It’s working, at least as well as any other plan has. But the problem is fixed just yet.

[december]

*Originally posted by wring *
**We’ll try again. You made an assertion that the blacks drop out because affirmative action places them into schools where they cannot compete. support this with evidence. (ex. "a columbia u 1998 study of 10,000 college students from 300 universities found that x% dropped out because of financial concerns, y% dropped out 'cause they felt they couldn’t compete… etc.)
**

Fair request, wring, but it’s late and I’m going to bed. I tend to assume that these widely syndicated columnists probably have their facts straight, although one might disagree with their conclusions.

Regarding your request for proof of causation, I doubt whether the kind of survey you’ve requested even exists. I’ve never heard of such a thing. I do know that affirmative action has resulted in Blacks being accepted with substantially worse than average academic records. I know that they fail to graduate to a substantially greater degree. Cause and effect seems apparent, but I can’t prove it scientifically.

One quibble. I don’t claim that the students dropped out because they felt they couldn’t compete; I claim they dropped out because they couldn’t compete.

[wring]

here The survey was conducted by the Higher Education Research Institute, housed
at UCLA’s Graduate School of Education & Information Studies. Results are based on a sample of 75,752 students from a national sample of 365 baccalaureate-granting institutions,
and found that less than half of all college students failed to obtain degrees. if affirmative action is to blame for the blacks, one wonders why the rest of 'em dropped out, or more specifically, if more than half dropped out anyhow, why is it more rational to believe that the one select group of the students had a different and specific reason (‘affirmative action’) to drop out, vs. the rest of them.

in addition, this study also showed that when the perameters were increased from a 4 year completion to a 6 year completion, this greatly increased the percentage of black students. I guess affirmative action only caused them problems for the first 4 years.

[december]

*Originally posted by archmichael *
**December I am curious why you chose to chime in when you did. You and I and most of the people who are involved can have an intelligent discussion about the topic of affirmative action. Where as you and I would take a look at the numbers and say that it proves that blacks are not getting the same level of education going into college, people like Bababooey look at the same numbers as proof that blacks are less intelligent. He probably thinks you agree with him **

I chimed in to add a factual base to the pissing contest between BabaBooey and MrO. I don’t know who’s a racist. However, it seems unfair to indict BabaBooey for racism because s/he expressed opinions that turn out to be factually correct.

[BabaBooey]

*Originally posted by december *
**

*Originally posted by archmichael *
**December I am curious why you chose to chime in when you did. You and I and most of the people who are involved can have an intelligent discussion about the topic of affirmative action. Where as you and I would take a look at the numbers and say that it proves that blacks are not getting the same level of education going into college, people like Bababooey look at the same numbers as proof that blacks are less intelligent. He probably thinks you agree with him **

I chimed in to add a factual base to the pissing contest between BabaBooey and MrO. I don’t know who’s a racist. However, it seems unfair to indict BabaBooey for racism because s/he expressed opinions that turn out to be factually correct. **

And that’s why December is my favorite month of the year.

[MrO]

Does anyone here think that ** BabaBooey** has achieved any kind of victory?

[Biggirl]

*Originally posted by BabaBooey *
I would personally love to see the percentage of blacks that graduate from college, ratios of blacks to whites that do graduate from college, and the average GPA of blacks vs. the average GPA of whites after having graduated. Although it’s just a prediction, I’d bet that the results will give the main reason that a higher percentage of whites have well paying jobs than blacks.

art2full.pdf

We can make numbers do extrodinary things. As per this study white women drop out at more than twice the rate of black women. Why is it that we don’t see whole rafters of well-paid black women as compared to white women?
Look here at a study that looks at why students drop out of their programs.
http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2001/quarterly/fall/post_women.html
The findings from the first analysis support an overall notion that much of the racial/ethnic and gender difference in the entry into S&E programs in postsecondary education can be explained by examining family environment, family support, student behavior, and school factors across race/ethnicity and gender. That is, while the initial findings showed that the racial/ethnic gap only occurred among men and the gender gap mainly happened among Asians and whites, further examination showed that students of any race/ethnicity or gender with the following characteristics had a greater likelihood of entering into (i.e., majoring in) S&E in postsecondary education:

students who had taken advanced science courses;
students who were self-motivated to study science;
students who had parents with relatively higher levels of educational attainment; and
students who had parents with high expectations for their children’s college education.

I have a feeling this is a big waste of time, however. A person who doesn’t see black people in the rural south sees only what they want to. His mind is made up, don’t confuse him with facts.

[archmichael]

It might be just me, but I get a Autumn Wind Chick vibe from Bababooey. How about you?