Senate "Race" Relations (was "U.S. Society and Black Men")

Other factors? I'd argue the lack of positive male role models, as well as poor leadership in their community - leadership that has decided to distract people from the failures of the War on Poverty by crying "racism" as opposed to admitting the War on Poverty has had some very deleterious side effects - and that they failed to address those side effects. Why the decided to, I do not know, but they've decided to try to distract from the problems an their own failures rather than to honestly admit they messed up, and try to fix things.

 

Very curious how you say women are outperforming men at high school and so there are affirmative-action type of policies to ensure a "close to 50/50" ratio at school, and then you turn around and call it "affirmative action for white men."

Aside from the fact that such policies don't exist, why do you consider program designed to create gender equality something that benefits only "white men"? If we pretend the policy you described actually existed, wouldn't it help men of all races?

It's probably a good idea. The few of us in this forum who want the accused to have a fair trial can see a tremendous conflict of interest in place.

 

Wait, let me make sure I'm understanding you. Charges were announced 11 days from the time of the murder. During this time, a complete investigation had been submitted to the district attorney and reviewed. Every single person who was in contact with the victim in the last several hours of his life was a direct employee of the state. Most of the relevant crime scenes were vehicles or properties directly owned by the police department. Everyone was available for interviews and most of what happened was either on some sort of record with the police, the hospital, or by private parties filming. There's almost no scenario imaginable where more complete information about a crime is available. In addition, we have confirmed and universally acknowledged instances where the officers in question deliberately lied to their own superiors and internal investigators about what happened.

You don't think that all of these factors could've sped up and investigation that still took almost two weeks? Your only answer is seriously that mobs of black people are taking over?

 

Love this....

 

How ironic that half of those arrested in the Freddie grey case are black. And one is a black woman. Makes you understand that police officers while tasked with keeping of safe. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Makes you wonder if cops routinely did this in Baltimore for fun.

There idea of patrol isn't protecting but bullying the neighborhoods they run in.

 

That's not ironic... it's totally predictable.

 

What does the race of the officers have to with it?

The problem that the people or Baltimore are speaking out against is our police force's propensity of killing unarmed black men.

 

I doubt they would be rounding up black teens in middle class neighborhoods. These are the poorest neighborhoods they bully. That way they can keep them in line.

The police are clearly targeting poor people in poor neighborhoods. Trust me in places with poor whites they get just as harassed by the cops.

 

The Freddie Grey incident shows us that their are good cops, bad cops and racist bad cops. But no matter if they are racist or not, nobody likes a bad cop.

 

Poverty and race two different issues, but they are connected. I'd much rather be a poor white kid in this country than a middle class black kid. Life is more difficult and more dangerous in this country if you are black. That's just a fact.

 

Cops are bullies, trust me had one for a brother in law.

 

I don't think all cops are bullies but you can't deny that it is a profession that attracts bullies. Which is why harsher psych evals are needed in the weeding of that behavior

 

He's more like Mr. Miyagi catching flys with chopsticks.

 

Excellent town hall special on CNN with Anderson Cooper.

 

I want to tip my hat to you, Merk. I've become a bit less patient in these discussions, which is why I've taken a break from it. Thanks for keeping engaged. Hopefully, someone (likely not the people you're actually engaging with, but someone lurking) will gain some insights they previously hadn't considered.

In that vein, I thought we might all find this article interesting. I posted something similar by the same author a while back (I think) about "white fragility". I find this to be a bit less caustic an article but well worth the read.

A few gems:

I'm fairly convinced that while there are, undoubtedly, unapologetic racists who have participated in this discussion--passively and actively--most are not. The ones who insist on withdrawing, denying, arguing, minimizing, and/or ignoring these issues are doing so as a response to what the author calls "racial stress". I've observed that many white people respond to being called (or even hinted at being called) a "racist" is as damaging to their sense of self-worth as being called a "nigger" is to many black Americans. That's why I avoid that accusation as much as possible.

 

If white privilege exists, how do you explain the success of Asians in the United States of America? http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/asianamericans-graphics/

The simple answer? Intact families. That's the true privilege. And that one you can only get from your patents and one you can only give your children. It's up to you, not society and certainly not your government.

they place a greater value on marriage, parenthood, hard work and career success.

 

that a certain people group or race of people are generally 'successful' does not invalidate the presence of privilege for another race or people group. why would that be the case?

 

Wax on wax off?

 

Why are you so invested in the notion that you are not privileged? Do you honestly think that if you were born in the heart of the Congo as a young, black girl, you would have the financial success you have today? We all have varying degrees of privilege that we did nothing to earn. I'm an American. That automatically puts me among some of the richest people in the world. I had nothing to do with that. I don't feel guilty for it either. But I am certainly aware of how blessed I am to have been born here. So I don't look down my nose at people who were not so fortunate and ask "Why don't they just get an education?" (for example).

You're a white man born in the United States. Whether you want to admit this or not, you're automatically better off than 90% of the people on this planet.

 

i think the answer is probably right there in his post. "you do it yourself". the notion of any sort of privilege flies in the face of his ideal of radical, randian individualism. he is john galt. of course, that some people are born more privileged than others based simply on their race or gender seems obvious to most of us but for some accepting that basic fact would mean denying a primary basis of their ideology.

 

This is a good example of what I said earlier about why I don't think discussing privilege on an individual level is productive. Privilege is a systemic bias, but just because there is a systemic bias doesn't mean that everyone who benefits from the system was aided by that bias.

For illustration, let's consider the average height of men and women. You get a pair of overlapping bell curves like this:


Just because men on average are taller than women on average doesn't mean that every man is taller than every woman. Even though men have a 5 1/2 inch "bias" in that chart, there are still a significant portion of women who are taller than the median man's height, and there are a significant portion of men who are shorter than the average woman. Just knowing a person's gender doesn't tell you anything significant about what height advantages they may or may not have compared to anyone else.

In the same way, just because J-Rod is a white male doesn't automatically mean that he has experienced greater "privilege" than your average black male. You simply cannot generalize that way down to the individual.

Discussing privilege only works when you are talking on the systemic level, not the individual level.

 

i'm sure a lot of white men think this.