yep and it also was the major factor in the war between the states
I know off topic
I know off topic
15 Things You Should Know About "The Race"
- Thread starter Big Don
- Start date
Hmm... well, I've got news for you. If you think that one racial/cultural/ethnic group should be treated different because of that racial/cultural/ethnic difference - no matter how good you think your reasons are - then you are a racist. It does not matter which race(s)/cultural group(s)/ethnicity(ies) to which you belong, or whether or not you are a member of the race(s)/cultural group(s)/ethnicity(ies) which you believe should have special treatment - if you believe in special treatment because of one of those factors - you're a racist.
The purpose of Affirmative Action was to ameliorate years and years of discrimination; it has, instead, lead to a situation in which someone from a discernable minority group can get a job before someone from a non-minority group who has stronger credentials. In the short term, I think that may be a necessary evil - but as 5-0 Kenpo says, which is it only the members of one particular minority that are trying to get compensation for something done wrong to their ancestors? The Aborigines of Australia are trying to get compensation for wrongs done them, that's true... but those wrongs were done within the lifetimes of those who are suing for compensation.
My ancestors immigrated here predominately between 1900 and 1910; the only ancestor I have who immigrated sooner was my grandmother's father, who lived in Chicago. None of my ancestors owned slaves; many were driven out of Eastern European countries because those who were richer (and not Jewish) wanted their lands, their possessions, and their degradation. Many, many other American citizens have similar stories - a relatively small portion of the population is descended from slave owners; many more are descended from those who immigrated after the Civil War, during the Industrial Revolution. Why should we, who had nothing to do with slavery, pay compensation to people whose skin color says "I might be descended from slave" - because, as I have pointed out repeatedly, and you have ignored repeatedly - simply because someone's skin is dark does not mean the person is the descendant of slaves. There are plenty of black people out there who were never touched by slavery, including plenty who live in this country now. Get that through your head and move on, please.
Wait... let me get this straight. Six million Jews were killed (and, by the way, rather complete records were kept of who was killed and who survived... once you've tattoed ID numbers on people it's fairly easy to keep straight who is who, and where you've sent them - and the Nazis did) - and you think that, because a Jewish state was clawed out of the desert, no further compensation is needed? How many Jews do you think survived the Holocaust? What about their family members who died? You think that because a few of them survived to move to Israel, they deserve no further compensation? You think a plot of land is compensation for attempted genocide? You need a healthy heaping dose of perspective here, young man - you've obviously never undergone any serious hardship, if you think land - even a homeland (and one, I might point out, that has never known peace, and which many Jews were against the establisment of... but that's a different topic) is compensation for the Holocaust.
Much of my family were victims of the Holocaust - and I can prove it. Nonetheless, the wrongs that were done to my family were done (with the exception of a few remaining war criminals) by people who are long dead. Why should I expect compensation from the German people at large for something their ancestors did to my ancestors? Imagine what would happen if every person descended from a family member in a war went to the descendants of the other side and demanded compensation for wrongs done to their ancestors. Where would it stop? What would stop it? Once such things begin, they never stop.
It is time to stop the madness, the blame, everything. It is time to convince everyone - white, black, brown, yellow, whatever, that each person needs to be responsible for making the best person of themselves that they can - that each person needs to take advantage of the opportunities presented them - not throw them away and claim racism because "the schools flunked my kid because he's black" (when he didn't show up to school 30% of the time, because Mom didn't make him come - and yes, I know kids and parents like that - way too many); not to claim racism on the part of the teacher for flunking a class, when the student misbehaves, comes unprepared, and then calls the teacher racist for flunking him - I don't think it's too much to expect a 7th grader to bring a pencil, paper and math book to math - but this kid (and a disturbing number like him) did just that - never brought his materials, never paid attention, never attempted his homework, and then called the teacher racist to her face in a meeting between the child, the parent, the principal, and the teachers. It's time people got over it, quit making excuses, and started taking advantage of their opportunities, instead of taking advantage of what claims of prejudice can get them.
Quite simply, affirmative action as put into practice in the vast majority of cases is simply discrimination with a pretty dress on. It's basically saying that since members of the group that person A belongs to may have been discriminated against, they get to discriminate against everyone else. Discrimination is still discrimination...
Great point, and well worth repeating. (One of these days, you're gonna be off my rep stack!)
Brother John
Senior Master
CAN 300 years of rape, murder, torture and enslavement BE repaid?
How does a WHOLE society make up for that? WHO makes up for it? 90% of my ancestors weren't IN this country when slavery was legal anywhere in America.
no, affirmative action was never intended to 'make up for' OR repay centuries of abomination.
Affirmative Action was a government enforced policy aimed at increasing the accessibility of jobs and education for racial minorities. Fine AIM, but bad results...which is why it's no longer the leading effort in this cause.
Overall, "La Raza" isn't a group OR organization, but a sentiment and rallying cry. I work as a correctional officer in the Midwest and I can tell you that in the years of training I've recieved in learning to deal with ethnic minorities and criminal behavior (((please understand: I am NOT equating those two things))) that anyone stating "La Raza" or having it tattooed on themselves or on a shirt/bumpersticker....etc. IS to be regarded as a "Hispanic Gang-member". End of story. When I first heard that there was an actual political activist group calling itself "La Raza" I was SHOCKED!! The fact that they have some aims at good/beneficial or 'right' social programs is BESIDE the point! They're basing it all on RACE. That puts one group above, or over & against all others!
Whatever happened to The United States of America being "THE Great MELTING pot" ??????
Now....it's a discordant mish-mash of opposing groups.....due MOSTLY to groups like "La Raza" or the "Black Panthers".....etc. etc.
WWII happened because people didn't recognize "The Motherland" and Hitler's social agendas for what they were!!!!!
So long as we DIVIDE people by race, ethnicity......etc., we are doing NOTHING but dividing!!
Yes,
and Musalini got the trains to run on time!
Your Brother
John
- Thread Starter
- #145
What is that? An excerpt from the CA Secretary of State's website about Prop 209. What happened? It was reviled as racist AND sexist, in spite of the fact that it aimed specifically to outlaw discrimination OR preferential treatment based on race, etc.
The ACLU, fighting, tooth and nail against a proposition that made discrimination ILLEGAL... hmm...
Empty Hands
Senior Master
What?!? Do you seriously believe this? How can you possibly say this in light of poll tax regimes, literacy tests for voting, widespread intimidation and lynching, Jim Crow laws, and a host of other mechanisms designed to keep black folks down after the Civil War ended?
If this was true, why would the Civil Rights act even be necessary?
I must ask, where is this going?
I hesistate to speak so plainly because the discourse has unfolded in interesting fashion so far but to what end?
The focus is being shifted at every turn and no sooner is one point addressed to the satisfaction of most actively posting here than it is dismissed by those not pleased by the 'answer' and another point substituted.
That's fine for a chat around the table in the pub and is an entertaining chain but it is not really how things are supposed to unfold here in the Study.
If the answer to a point does not please you then rebut it, as cogently and politely as you can. Moving the goalposts just keeps the thread unfurling indefinitely.
At the end of the day, most of us with our opinions fully developed are not going to be swayed by a few paragraphs seen on the Web so there is little point getting fixated on the idea of 'winning' the argument. Such a fiction, however pleasant, does not stand on realistic ground and chasing it feeds an ever heating cycle of "Yes but ..." that can only end in the adult version of tears and being sent to bed without any supper.
I hesistate to speak so plainly because the discourse has unfolded in interesting fashion so far but to what end?
The focus is being shifted at every turn and no sooner is one point addressed to the satisfaction of most actively posting here than it is dismissed by those not pleased by the 'answer' and another point substituted.
That's fine for a chat around the table in the pub and is an entertaining chain but it is not really how things are supposed to unfold here in the Study.
If the answer to a point does not please you then rebut it, as cogently and politely as you can. Moving the goalposts just keeps the thread unfurling indefinitely.
At the end of the day, most of us with our opinions fully developed are not going to be swayed by a few paragraphs seen on the Web so there is little point getting fixated on the idea of 'winning' the argument. Such a fiction, however pleasant, does not stand on realistic ground and chasing it feeds an ever heating cycle of "Yes but ..." that can only end in the adult version of tears and being sent to bed without any supper.
celtic_crippler
Senior Master
I'm an Amercian. That's it. I don't claim aspects of my geneology and place it in front....it's just plain ole' American.
Institutions like affirmitive action only serve to perpetuate racial differences and bias. The government plays into it by using the excuse that these things are meant to "help" the less fortunate and everybody buys into the rhetoric.
Prior to his assasination, MLK was gearing up to address class inequality.... had nothing to do with race. The government perpetuates this garbage to foster dissent amongst AMERICANS and occupy time that would otherwise be used doing something more productive....like challenging the government and eliminating the widening gap between the "haves" and the "have-nots."
Institutions like affirmitive action only serve to perpetuate racial differences and bias. The government plays into it by using the excuse that these things are meant to "help" the less fortunate and everybody buys into the rhetoric.
Prior to his assasination, MLK was gearing up to address class inequality.... had nothing to do with race. The government perpetuates this garbage to foster dissent amongst AMERICANS and occupy time that would otherwise be used doing something more productive....like challenging the government and eliminating the widening gap between the "haves" and the "have-nots."
I was speaking more to the point of the ability of Black Americans with regard to being discriminated against in housing, economics, and other areas of life.
However, to speak to some of your other points:
In 1855 Connecticut adopts the nation's first literacy test for voting. Massachusetts follows suit in 1857. The tests were implemented to discriminate against Irish-Catholic immigrants.
With regard to poll taxes, it precluded poor white people who could not pay the tax, as well as poor black people who could not pay it as well.
You are right when you refer to such things as Jim Crow Laws, however. But, only in the fact that it was a nationwide phenomenom. There were still local area discrimination against many white sub-cultures. They were prevented from voting, from housing, and jobs, just as blacks were. But it was not on as widespread of a scale.
And, even though not on the scale of what was being done to black people, white people were lynced as well. An example was in 1891 when 11 Italian-Americans were lynched (in the largest mass lynching in the U.S.) after being acquitted of killing the New Oleans Police Chief.
And here, from Wikipedia:
The late 19th and early 20th century history of the Mississippi Delta showed both frontier influence and actions directed at repressing African Americans. After the Civil War, 90% of the Delta was still undeveloped. Both whites and tens of thousands of African Americans migrated there for a chance to buy land in the backcountry. It was frontier wilderness, heavily forested and without roads for years. Before the turn of the century, lynchings often took the form of frontier justice directed at transient workers as well as residents. Thousands of workers were brought in to do lumbering and work on levees. Whites were lynched at a rate 35.5% higher than their proportion in the population, most often accused of crimes against property (chiefly theft). During the Delta's frontier era, blacks were lynched at a rate lower than their proportion in the population, unlike in the rest of the South. They were most often accused of murder or attempted murder in half the cases, and rape in 15%.
Now, please dont misunderstand. I am not saying that even the sub-cultures of white people had it harder than black on the macro scale. That most certainly is not true in my opinion. But I do think that a broader perspective in understanding the history of the U.S. in regards to race relations is important to putting some of the statments being made here into perspective.
Now, I do think that we have come a long way in race relations in the U.S. I am a cop, and see some of the biases that people have. Even among white cops. But, and this is not always true of course, it is generally based on the cultural differences in the way they were raised. And then, when these differences are repeatedly seen, it is human nature to ascribe those differences to the vast majority of similar people. Some of those are neutral biases, and some negative. Some are even positive, go figure.
But as long as we try to measure and compare who had it harder, who it was worse for, who was discriminated against or is being discriminated against, we won't put an end to the problem. Right now, illegal immigration and the rise of very violent Latino gangs have focused a lot of attention on Hispanic people. We have groups like Mexicans Without Borders, La Raza (the political movement), and others that are complaining that any attempt to crack down on illegal immigration is unfair discrimination -- and they demand different treatment. I have to adapt to their language; I guarantee that doesn't happen in many other countries! Courts get held up because there simply aren't enough Spanish translators and they can't proceed until they have a translator.
As long as people insist on viewing things through a filter of race/racism, the problem will remain.
I really had you going though, huh?
Sean
At what point was I defending the Nazzis? You should take a logic class some time....
Sean
There is nothing wrong with how you do your job. To run white youths throught the prison system and turning them and there friends into criminals you would really have to run some serious long term undercover operations. They just don't seem to live in the inner city. The problem --AGAIN-- is where they live coupled with criminal activity learned through the criminal justice system or close friends and family members who have. That being said you are out catching the products of this little system.
Sean
I don't have a clue what you're trying to say here.
I've locked up plenty of white people. Definitely more whites than blacks. Probably more Latinos than anything else -- but I'd have to do a lot research to prove it.
Why would it require long term UC work to arrest whites? They commit an assault, they get arrested. They sell dope -- they get popped.
In my personal experience, the deciding factor in someone's conviction isn't their race. It's their access to money to pay for an attorney. If you've got enough money to get an attorney that can fight it, you'll get the best deal possible. If not -- you get whatever lumps are handed to you.
I was unclear. I meant to really run white "youths" through the system, you would have to get them young like the black youths, but the suburbs being the suburbs, there is not a cop on every corner. I know I grew up in the suburbs.
sean
- Thread Starter
- #156
To paraphrase Chris Rock:
That _ wasn't about race, that was about FAME, if OJ drove a bus, he wouldn't even BE OJ, he'd be Orenthal, the bus drivin' murderer.
And are you saying that there are cops on every street corner in urban or inner city areas? If so, you are grossly mistaken.
As an example, the Los Angeles Police Department patrols an area of 498 square miles, and has an officer count of approximately 9,700. That means that there are about 19 officers per square mile. Now divide that among a 24 hour shift, and seven days per week, and you hardly have an officer on every corner. And that would also be assuming that every officer works a patrol function, which they do not.
Where I work, a city of approximatel 10 square miles, we have approximately 70 officers on patrol, and an average of 12-16 officers patrollng at any given time. Not exactly alot, considering the level of crime and activity that we have to respond to.
And so now you are blaming the system for people being criminals. Got any proof of that?
FearlessFreep
Senior Master
A few weeks back, I read about a study of death row inmates and it was interesting because the one determining factor of ending up on death row was.. education level. The higher your education, the less likely you would end up on death row.
From there you can work backward to economic status, etc... and it makes sense
found it
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=death-row-predictor
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celtic_crippler
Senior Master
It's interesting to me how when a particular location is say....70% black the establishment uses that to say one's work-place or local college should also be 70% black in order to adequately represent the community but in the same breath will complain about the fact that 70% of the inmates at the local prison just happen to be black as well.
Basically...I'm just sick of the double-standards, and the non-stop perpetuation of division among AMERICANS. It's not productive.
Unless you're Native American, chances are you or your ancestors are not from here originally.
There are people of Irish, English, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Egyptian, Brazillian, and pretty much every other ethnic descent on the planet living here. Once you become a citizen, you're a bleeping American.
Yes, it's perfectly fine to take pride in your heritage but you should either be an American first and foremost or go live in the country your ancestors came from.
Americans should not be the enemy of Americans. Blacks aren't the only ones to be treated badly in our history. The Chinese and Irish were treated like crap at one time as well. Get over it. There's bigger fish to fry and we can't focus on those fish if we're all bickering like kindergarteners.
Poverty, education, illness....they don't discriminate. Gas prices don't discriminate! There are no race or religious requirements to get food stamps....or to be on death row. If education is indeed the foremost issue concerning folks on death row then why isn't the focus on that instead of race?
I wish people, yes PEOPLE...not any particular ethnicity or religeon, would get as passionate about change in our country (Education, Healthcare, the Economy, etc) as they are about these issues....
Can't we all just get along? :soapbox:
Basically...I'm just sick of the double-standards, and the non-stop perpetuation of division among AMERICANS. It's not productive.
Unless you're Native American, chances are you or your ancestors are not from here originally.
There are people of Irish, English, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Egyptian, Brazillian, and pretty much every other ethnic descent on the planet living here. Once you become a citizen, you're a bleeping American.
Yes, it's perfectly fine to take pride in your heritage but you should either be an American first and foremost or go live in the country your ancestors came from.
Americans should not be the enemy of Americans. Blacks aren't the only ones to be treated badly in our history. The Chinese and Irish were treated like crap at one time as well. Get over it. There's bigger fish to fry and we can't focus on those fish if we're all bickering like kindergarteners.
Poverty, education, illness....they don't discriminate. Gas prices don't discriminate! There are no race or religious requirements to get food stamps....or to be on death row. If education is indeed the foremost issue concerning folks on death row then why isn't the focus on that instead of race?
I wish people, yes PEOPLE...not any particular ethnicity or religeon, would get as passionate about change in our country (Education, Healthcare, the Economy, etc) as they are about these issues....
Can't we all just get along? :soapbox:
A most excellent post, sir. One that deserves to be a 'curtain closer' on this hugely interesting, rambling, discourse.
