Combating Racism in America

[sothereiwas]

3 minutes ago, NuevoYorko said:

I am not using my time very well.

I can't argue. 

All I'm saying is that virtually everyone agrees that George Floyd shouldn't have died when he did (my vote would be for him to die the instant he pointed a pistol at a baby, call me crazy) and virtually everyone agrees racism exists. To say some people think George should have been executed in the street a few weeks ago or that some people deny racism exists is not a useful assertion in my opinion. 

On the other hand, to assert that a person who says an example of institutional racism requires citation of a racist institutional policy is denying racism exists is a classic example of a straw man argument. That's not the original assertion at all. Racism exists, and insomuch as each person has a right to their own feelings, is even legal. Institutional racial discrimination is hypothetically illegal, although not all instances of such policies are yet abolished. 

[Ellener]

3 hours ago, Weezy1973 said:

do you think descendants of slave owners are wealthier? Or do you think descendants of slaves are wealthier?

A friend in Montserrat ( Caribbean ) told me once that all freed slaves there were given their own piece of land and that contributed significantly to the prosperity and education and 'belonging' of later generations. 

[NuevoYorko]

Here is an example that, in my opinion,  illustrates  endemic and systemic racism in America.  

In 2016, during campaigning, trump was asked in a "town hall" type of event aired on Fox (I would link it but there is quite a lag time on links; the clip is easy to find) how he would address  "black on black" crime.  Incidentally, the person asking the question was a black man.

His response:  "Stop and frisk." 

Why is this racist?  

Starting with the question:  Why is there a category of crime labeled as "black on black"?  More white people are killed by white people than by other races.   Crimes of white people are not attributed to their ethnicity, as a general rule.  This is discriminatory.

Further;  addressing it via "stop and frisk."  Since the issue has been identified as specific to black people,  a solution for it that involves targeting black people for the procedure of "stop and frisk" is racially discriminatory.  

Have at it.

[sothereiwas]

Seems convoluted. 

[NuevoYorko]

1 hour ago, sothereiwas said:

Seems convoluted. 

Would you like to discuss it in the context of the thread topic?

[Libby1]

Blue Peter, a children's programme in the UK  has been pretty widely applauded for having a short segment about racism on its show.  Lots of us grew up with Blue Peter, and I can remember at school in the playground we would often talk about what had been on Blue Peter the previous day.  I don't know if the show is as popular with kids as it was, given all the competition it would now have from other channels/the internet, but for people with children who want to know what's meant by racism I think it hits a good tone.

 

[sothereiwas]

Sure, I mean, the operative question seems to be "why would Trump say that", and for me, the least convoluted answer would be "he was a resident of NYC for a long time, and was almost surely aware of the supposed benefits of stop and frisk, as exemplified, for instance, by the statements of Mayor Bloomberg. As such, he responded to the specific question with an answer he believed would work, based on information he'd been exposed to for decades."

"In response to allegations that the program unfairly targets African-American and Hispanic-American individuals, then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg has stated that it is because African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans are more likely to be violent criminals and victims of violent crime.

On June 17, 2012, several thousand people marched silently down Manhattan's Fifth Avenue from lower Harlem to Bloomberg's Upper East Side townhouse in protest of the stop-question-and-frisk policy. The mayor refused to end the program, contending that the program reduces crime and saves lives"

 Trump was probably aware of such statements as well as other less official information.

 

The conclusion "because he's racist" requires several assumptions that are questionable, and a willingness to make those assumptions in the interest at arriving at a predetermined conclusion. 

 

I personally think Terry stops should have never been legal, but that's something to take up with the SCOTUS. 

Edited June 12, 2020 by sothereiwas

[sothereiwas]

1 hour ago, NuevoYorko said:

Why is there a category of crime labeled as "black on black"?

The FBI tracks crime demographics. Drilling into those statistics, we see that blacks are disproportionately likely to be victims of crime, so that's where we we have the category "crimes against blacks". If we drill further into it, we find that a disproportionate amount of crimes committed against blacks are committed by other black people. This is likely why we have such a category.

TL,DR; Black people are often victims and we want to fix that, long pole first. 

[Weezy1973]

@sothereiwas I think the different ways we see the discrepancies between the white and black population (for example wealth and poverty), is the level of importance we place on the environment one grows up in. 
 

We have no control over the family / environment we’re born into, but that has a dramatic impact on the rest of our lives. If that’s the case, it’s easy to see how the discrepancies we see now are due to past environments where racism was rampant. 

I don’t want to put words in your mouth, so correct me if needed, but I get the sense that you don’t think our upbringing has an important impact. And with some gumption and hard work, people are able to overcome whatever disadvantage they may have had. 

Edited June 12, 2020 by Weezy1973

[sothereiwas]

2 hours ago, Weezy1973 said:

I get the sense that you don’t think our upbringing has an important impact.

Actually, I believe we live in a universe that's governed by physical laws. Taking that to the logical end point, we are composed of collections of collections of the tiny little bits that make up the universe. All those little bits are governed by both deterministic and random natural events, and influenced by interactions with our environment. None of those things are within our control. In a very real way, we are just cogs in the machine of the universe. Taken to an extreme, one could conclude that this means no one is responsible for anything, it's all just the outworking of the universe. In fact, some recent mathematical work indicates that it's possible that when time came into existence (that's a fact, but we don't really have adequate natural language to express ideas such as "before there was time") everything happened. We perceive it as happening linearly, but it's possible that's just our perception. 

That's interesting and possibly true, however it's mostly useless outside the realm of theory, at least for now. 

The fact is that we can apply imperfect models to a lot of things, and while those models might not be correct, they are often useful. Much more generally useful than the 'truth' above. We know that what an individual is likely to do can be predicted based on what they have already done, and that what we see as incentives and disincentives can seem to alter behavior, so we use these useful models to help us predict and mold events. 

Taking it back to a more down to earth level, we are all products of everything that has happened before. At one point, my ancestors killed other people, and were also slaves. Some had a degree of wealth, most did not, certainly none within the last few centuries. Some relocated under extremely harsh conditions for ideological reasons, many died in privation. None to my knowledge ever owned slaves, but if we could look back enough millenia anything is possible. 

Where to draw a line? Who draws the line?

Today, within what might be called living memory, we live in a time and place when and where 60% of the people in the lowest 20% have parents who were not in that quintile, and the same is true of their parents parents. Similarly, over 60% of the people in the top 20% were not born into families who had that status. Under those conditions, each individual has had a decent opportunity for their grandparents, parents, or themselves, to improve their situation dramatically, and that's just 3 generations, maybe spanning back to 1960. 

Before the recent media fuelled upheavals, more opportunity was available to more people than possibly any time before. So sure, in the aggregate where people started is absolutely certain to have a lot to do with where they are in the aggregate, with conditions having an increasingly reduced influence as they recede into what we perceive as the past. Individually, opportunity has been knocking for everyone.

People need to get off their ass and answer the door. 

[Halosglow]

Hello Everyone I am new here 

           In my opinion I believe it has to do with Television why all races are the same but different only by color. And like the author said that has has never mattered and it has never made a difference to me or anybody I know. Growing up we all hung together and there were people of all colors and sizes some rich some poor some middle class. I never knew at the time that some were any different then myself. I knew history and was just glad everyone was included during my life. But never have I ever been racist I have witnessed others trying to be and I stood up and said what I felt I needed to say. And would do it any time I would have to. The thing is this I rarely seen it in my 56 years of life on earth. from my circle or in public. Now I had six brothers that partied with their friends every day. And I seen the cops come to my house many times. And they would always rough up my brothers. But my brothers were always doing things wrong. They were either drunk or high and disrespectful. I would always be yelling for them to please just do what they said. But nope they would keep going until they were billy clubbed and taken away. A few of them did time in prison. And always came out and went right back in because they didn't stop breaking the law. I am white by the way. And this stuff went on for years. Did I hate the cops NO because I knew my brothers were not doing the right thing. I was only eight when it started. And as I got older I had my run ins with the police and I always complied with what they said and they were always really understanding and respectful. After the cops came a few dozen times they knew my family very well and I am sure they were not thinking anything nice about us. What I am trying to say what the cops do is all up to the person they are dealing with. Their jobs are very dangerous. And I know they don't want problems when they are called or they pull someone over. But it happens. And if you are a person whom has been arrested many times and they know you by name and keep getting called because you don't get your s*** together. Then you know when you doing something wrong your going to get caught up in some beef. I personally do not blame the cops for doing the things they did to my brothers. They were grown men they know wrong from right but never stopped. They did not murder my brother. But my brother was never out for more then a week and he was right back in. The last time he got out he Died of a heron over dose. My point in the matter is that I dont think what they do has anything to do with the color of the persons skin. But with their rap sheets. What they did to that man was wrong. But the story is they knew each other and had beef before. And I think he killed him on purpose. And being he was a cop he thought he would get away with it. But he won't. If people don't want problems quit doing stupid stuff. And this goes on to why people do stuff like steal, rob, sell drugs. They want to be fly just like all the famous people that they put on T.V. and they don't want to do it the right way. They want they easy way to fame and fortune because its been poured down every ones throat. The television is nothing but a brain washing device that government uses against us every single day. Not just that and personal issues as well broken homes from the government putting people in prison for petty stuff and for things they never even did. A lot of folks have been incarcerated for nothing. People of all colors are the same go through the same struggles and all bleed red and hurt and dream of the things they want. If only the people who serve this country were honest but they are not they are filthy greedy criminals worst then any citizen ever. This is my opinion sorry so long 

[NuevoYorko]

5 hours ago, sothereiwas said:

The FBI tracks crime demographics. Drilling into those statistics, we see that blacks are disproportionately likely to be victims of crime, so that's where we we have the category "crimes against blacks". If we drill further into it, we find that a disproportionate amount of crimes committed against blacks are committed by other black people. This is likely why we have such a category.

TL,DR; Black people are often victims and we want to fix that, long pole first. 

White murder victims are generally killed by other white people.  

57% of convicted rapists are white males.

Most rapes are committed by men over the age of 30.

More poor people are involved in street crime than middle or upper income people.  

96% murders are committed by men. 

 

I don't take issue with including race / ethnicity / socio-economic status /age / gender in the compilation of data, but why is being black the only aspect that warrants a specific law enforcement procedure - and, further, one that resonates with Americans enough to earn a place in a campaign for the presidency?  

 

 

 

[sothereiwas]

Just now, NuevoYorko said:

White murder victims are generally killed by other white people.  

That's true, and also doesn't change anything. While I can't pretend to know why the person who asked Trump that specific question did so, all I can say is that in my opinion the reason we have paid attention to that particular statistic isn't the race of the offender, it's that the race of the victim is terribly over represented in terms of victimization, and that prompts the attention and analysis of why this is so. We want to fix it. 

The reason we don't generally hear the term "white on white" crime isn't because we don't care about white victims, it's more because that slice of the crime pie isn't terribly disproportionate compared to crime overall, so we don't tend to single it out as a separate thing. 

[Halosglow]

Crimes against blacks are we talking about innocent blacks that are just living life. Or criminals? I am not saying that cops have not been profiling they do it to all races not just blacks. They do it because of the way you dress or walk even. which has nothing to do with the color of someones skin. Yes there are dumb ass egotistic a**h*** cops. But the reason the blacks feel like its just them is because nobody makes a big deal out of what anybody does to anybody else. So it may seem like they are targeting them. When a cop has a chip on his shoulder he is that way to everybody he encounters. What needs to happen is the thin blue line needs to be erased from the force. And police need to keep each other in check.

 

[TheStickisback]

On 6/11/2020 at 5:41 PM, amaysngrace said:

Interesting @sothereiwas

What I find even more interesting is the policies put into place by Bill Clinton that disproportionately impacted black men specifically that led to their incarceration.  

It’s tough to be home and a family man when you’re sitting in jail. 

Its why a lot of Black people hated when Hillary ran because they never forgot the superpredator speech she made

[TheStickisback]

4 hours ago, Halosglow said:

Crimes against blacks are we talking about innocent blacks that are just living life. Or criminals? I am not saying that cops have not been profiling they do it to all races not just blacks. They do it because of the way you dress or walk even. which has nothing to do with the color of someones skin. Yes there are dumb ass egotistic a**h*** cops. But the reason the blacks feel like its just them is because nobody makes a big deal out of what anybody does to anybody else. So it may seem like they are targeting them. When a cop has a chip on his shoulder he is that way to everybody he encounters. What needs to happen is the thin blue line needs to be erased from the force. And police need to keep each other in check.

 

Thin blue line needs to be erased plus some supreme court decisions need to be reevaluated in terms of dealing with police

[schlumpy]

1 hour ago, TheStickisback said:

Its why a lot of Black people hated when Hillary ran because they never forgot the superpredator speech she made

I was not a friend of Hillary Clinton way before she labeled me a deplorable but I did not remember her labeling black youth as super predators. I don't like to slam someone for something they didn't really say or was lifted out of context so I looked it up.

Politifact confirmed the quote but with a caveat. Mrs. Clinton did not directly refer to black youth but the way in which she said it could lead the listener or reader to a reasonable inference that she had said exactly that. 

Very surprising.

Edited June 13, 2020 by schlumpy

[Emilie Jolie]

My personal experience as a foreign white person witnessing racism in the USA has been when I went to visit family a few years back. My relatively middle class cousin (white married to a Black man) invited me to join a house party in a 'Black' neighbourhood in D.C - that was how it was described to me, literally, by white and black people. I was given a speech about 'being careful' and 'keeping safe', and all I could think of was the shocking level of insidious internalised racism, and how normal that seemed to be for them all. That was my first eye-opening experience. A 'Black' neighbourhood, I later learned, was synonymous with very dangerous and mostly impoverished, regardless of who actually lived in it.

Anyway. The party was great but too much drinking was involved so my cousin and her husband decided to stay put for the night. I wanted to head back home by taxi but was told no taxi driver was going to come pick me up from that neighbourhood unless I told them I was white. I wasn't prepared to do that, so I spend the night there too. That was a disconcerting experience, and a tiny example among a myriad others. The people I met all worked hard, they had families and very long commutes, by the way. That experience was one of the reasons that spurred me into being more politically active.

The stigma attached to being Black and poor is very strong, even among the African American community themselves. It seems they are looked down upon even by their own, which shows how dangerously internalised structural racism actually is. It's definitely stronger than for any other ethnic group. That's what I noticed anyway in all my trips to the USA. It's not just police brutality or whatever makes headline news. It's how a lot of people see what their position is in US society. 

So to answer the question, the best way to combat racism is to reduce the inequalities in the education sector, and ensure the poorest in society get access to a quality education that will raise aspirations and help build a better self-image.

Edited June 13, 2020 by Emilie Jolie

[sothereiwas]

4 hours ago, Emilie Jolie said:

So to answer the question, the best way to combat racism is to reduce the inequalities in the education sector, and ensure the poorest in society get access to a quality education that will raise aspirations and help build a better self-image.

Maybe we should stop incentivising single motherhood. 

I can't argue with the gist of the balance of your post, all I would observe is that the worst racists I've come across tend to live in large, Democrat run urban centers. I would not be shocked to learn that the people you were surrounded by in DC were predominantly Democratic voters (most of DC is) who held mostly to the Democratic platform. Something for you to ponder if you find a moment. I've done so myself and I'm not sure why that is, but I've traveled a fair bit and it holds fairly constant in my experience. The stereotype says the white country hick is going to be the one popping off the racist behaviors, but that's not been my experience for the most part. It's mostly urbanites of all colors who have done so in my direct experience, and urbanites vote mostly blue. 

 

[Emilie Jolie]

I don't want my post to be misinterpreted, so I will clarify just in case. The party I went to was great, all the people I met were lovely, warm, welcoming, interesting to talk to, hard working family people. Yes, there were a handful of single mothers too. Also hard working. My cousin and I were the only 2 white people there and we were safe. The idea that 'black' neighbourhoods are filled with dangerous criminals and lazy single mothers is what structural racism looks like. That day, I was ashamed of being white. I've experienced racism myself, on arrival to the USA actually, because of my last name, but the colour of my skin and middle class, highly educated background got me out of situations in which others would have struggled. I'm conscious of that.

I don't think combating racism is a Dem vs Rep political point-scoring thing, sincerely. Nobody wants to think themselves as racists anyway. I've met religious bigots, antisemites, anti-muslims, etc. who don't know or think that they are, of every political shade and skin colour. All of this is a variation on racism. There is no hierarchy in racism, it's all bad. It's just that in the USA, because of its history, the anti-black racism is more ingrained because it was part of the law for so long. That's why so many people flipped a switch when Trump wanted to make it legal that no immigrants from Muslim-majority countries was to get into the country. 

Incidentally, the USA is one of the only countries I know where racism is not illegal. I find that shocking, and telling. That's my opinion as a foreigner.

Edited June 13, 2020 by Emilie Jolie

[sothereiwas]

5 minutes ago, Emilie Jolie said:

My cousin and I were the only 2 white people there and we were safe. This is what structural racism looks like.

Maybe the host wasn't close friends with a lot of white people, I don't think it follows that he or she was a racist due to the guest list. 

 

6 minutes ago, Emilie Jolie said:

Incidentally, the USA is one of the only countries I know where racism is not illegal.

Organized racial discrimination is mostly illegal except when applied in a way that's beneficial to minorities, and only then in some cases. As for outlawing racism, how a society could justify trying to control the feelings of its members ... must be a euro thing. Not going to fly in a free country.

[Emilie Jolie]

6 minutes ago, sothereiwas said:

Maybe the host wasn't close friends with a lot of white people, I don't think it follows that he or she was a racist due to the guest list. 

 

You misunderstand me. I don't think they were racist. I think they were victim of endemic racism - how can it not be, when even taxi drivers won't take punters there unless they're white? I wonder how you interpreted my post? I wasn't talking about anti-white racism - I was talking about anti-black racism, to be clear.

Edited June 13, 2020 by Emilie Jolie

[sothereiwas]

6 minutes ago, Emilie Jolie said:

how can it not be, when even taxi drivers won't take punters there unless they're white?

People will see things through their own lenses, however in my talking to actual taxi drivers, it's not the color of the customer as much as the simple math of known variables that can be applied in computing the odds of being victimized. People who live in high crime areas are more likely to be criminals. People who live in low crime areas are less so. In a scenario where a discriminator can help determine whether a person is likely to live in the high crime area, people in a vulnerable position, like taxi drivers (food delivery people often do a similar thing)  take the factors they can know and do the math. It's not provably or even probably racist as such, since this simple safety computation doesn't reveal any feelings of superiority based on race, particularly, as is often the case, since the person making the computation is of the same race. 

[Emilie Jolie]

So why are they called black neighbourhoods? If that's nothing to do with race, call it something else. The assumption that a white punter was automatically a safer client is also a problem - do you see that?

[sothereiwas]

11 minutes ago, Emilie Jolie said:

So why are they called black neighbourhoods?

I'm not sure, but I assumed that's because mostly black people live there. 

 

12 minutes ago, Emilie Jolie said:

The assumption that a white punter was automatically a safer client is also a problem - do you see that?

In my information gathering, the assumption was that a white person was less likely to be a resident of the area, and a non-resident was less likely to be a criminal.I'm not saying it's OK, I am saying that it's good to understand what's really being considered in making the choice. Also, I've heard that said in other places, but I've never seen it be true. I lived in "the black neighborhood" while I was in LA and observed plenty of taxis and food deliveries servicing my neighbors at all hours. I suspect it's one of those things that sometimes happens, but not often.