Soxbadger

It actually isnt true Jenks. Neither side can claim some sort of superiority on the issue. If what you said was right then we shouldnt care if Iran gets a nuke, because as you said "cant fix crazy" so we should do nothing to attempt to mitigate the potential disaster. Cause well, cant fix crazy. Am I right?

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ May 28, 2014 -> 05:06 PM) Because there is no solution. You can't fix crazy. One side of this issue needs to accept that. I think both sides of the issue need to accept this. Society can exist without the general population owning guns.

It would have been amazing for Chicago. And Olympics wouldnt be worry about 2022 because the US wouldnt be "freezing" them out.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ May 28, 2014 -> 03:19 PM) Yes, and what was the very next sentence he wrote? So no, his argument isn't that black people are powerless, it's that black people becoming more respectable in the eyes of white society won't fix it because at its heart American racism is about disrespect. So black people have agency, but they cannot change the nature of the racism of society. That is not the same as saying black people are powerless, can't stand on their own two feet and can't do anything on their own. I think he's riffing off of what black nationalist writers, like Malcolm X, have said in the past when he says that. The problem is that if you dont try and fix your own problems, no one is going to help you. And when you have an author completely dismiss anyone who says "We should do more to improve ourselves" it shows a complete lack of understanding of the issue. I have no problem helping people, but Im not sure what good my help will do. You just said it yourself, black people becoming more respectable wont fix it. So no amount of money, education, etc will fix this problem because black people will still be disrespected by white racists. But it has a lot of words, so it must be smart. (edit) Its actually really disheartening because it completely diminishes the accomplishments of many well respected black Americans.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ May 28, 2014 -> 03:11 PM) Help, or restoration for generations of exploitation and plunder, doesn't imply that you have no agency. According to his very article it does: No matter what black people do, they cant fix it. He wrote this, not me.

Then I dont get the point of his article. Wasnt the argument that they started off the race with a disadvantage, so they can never ever catch up, unless of course someone else helps them.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ May 28, 2014 -> 02:35 PM) Until is the key word there. America isn't and cannot be whole until those debts are reckoned with. That does not say or imply that America cannot or will not reckon. Why would a black american have a moral debt with respect to anti-black public policy? Right, the ultimate point of the article is that its not at all the fault of black people. That it is OUR fault because before any of us were born, people made laws that were unfair. Its defeatism. It completely takes away the ability of black people to stand on their own two feet. He doesnt even see his own racism, thats the shocking/tragic part. That he somehow believes that blacks are incapable of rising on their own, that they need OUR help. Many blacks treat their own kind poorly. There were black slave holders, black businessmen, black pastors, black slum lords. But they have no moral debt right? Even if they actually caused harm, they have less moral responsibility than me, because I may have gotten some sort of tangential benefit from a policy that no one in my family ever supported.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ May 28, 2014 -> 02:14 PM) I don't think Noah's reading of that article by Coates is accurate. I've never taken away the message that "no progress has been made" from his writing. That's a pretty odd reading when he writes at length about the Contract Buyers League and the opening up of federal programs along with the diminishing use of legal redlining. He may not say "no progress has been made", but he clearly believes that we are doomed to failure Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole. And its interesting that he uses "WE", cause I dont really think he believes he has a moral debt.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ May 28, 2014 -> 02:07 PM) What do you imagine he's "get[ting] away with" there? He could have just as easily and correctly said that blacks have a negative wealth rate that's more than double the white rate. That would be even more dramatic than whatever trick you think he's trying to pull by saying "more than a third" instead of 33%. FWIW I found Sharkey's email address and dropped him a line asking if he might be able to expand on what Coates was referencing there or at least point me to the proper reference. Hes trying to imply that all white people have it made and all black people dont. Otherwise why round 1 number and not the other? Its a classic word trick. If I want to make something sound smaller: "Less than 16% of white people have negative wealth" If I want to make something sound bigger "Over 14% of white people have negative wealth" If I want to be accurate "15% of white people have negative wealth" Its clever, most people wont pick up on it.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ May 28, 2014 -> 01:44 PM) It's not "making" an conclusions there but simply reporting a fact that other research has found. It's an article in a magazine about a large, broad topic, not a detailed research paper on a narrow, specific issue. Perhaps the answer to your question lies in the cited research work. I don't think that's the right reading of what he's saying at all, and you can look back to some of his other articles like the "other people's pathologies" one I linked for some more writing specific to that situation. It seems to me that you're bringing a bunch of prior assumptions about what TNC is saying into your reading of the article and its coloring your response to it. And it's not something that TNC came up with, the "twice as good" idea. Its not my job to write a better article, if he wants to convince me that A+B= C then he should do it. Its a bunch of pretty words and anecdotal stories. But when he wrote it, he had the conclusion already. It is self serving, even down to the slight of hand use of percentages versus fractions: So here is something interesting. See how he switches from percentages to fractions. Its clever most people arent good with fractions so he can get away with saying more than a third of blacks have negative wealth (interesting that the white percentage is exact where he rounds the black percentage). Secondly his conclusion "effectively the black family is working without a safety net" is not even supported by his numbers. Using his facts, 85% of whites have positive wealth and 67% of blacks have positive wealth. So why is only the black family working without a safety net?

We dont really want to eliminate gang activity. Too much money in them mines.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 28, 2014 -> 01:26 PM) At the formative years stage, it is the parents who aren't sending their kids to school. They don't see a value in it. That is the culture. According to the article you are now racist for saying that a person could perhaps improve their own lot in life. That is just racist at the core, there is nothing wrong with people not sending their child to school, its just a racist belief that somehow if you do better youll get more respect.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ May 28, 2014 -> 12:58 PM) There are more than two "teams." The sociological concept of intersectionality examines how these different categories (male/female, straight/bi/gay, cis/transgendered, black/white/asian/indian, rich/poor, christian/hindu/atheist, etc. etc.) intersect in society. An example of this from the article would be comparison of upper-middle class black and white families: "Sharkey’s research shows that black families making $100,000 typically live in the kinds of neighborhoods inhabited by white families making $30,000." The problem is that the whole article is just making conclusions without really explaining: WHY? Thats the problem I have, no one wants to turn the mirror and ask WHY. Are blacks being prevented from living in white neighborhoods? Is there some sort of current policy that prevents black people making $100k from living in a nicer suburb? If there is, then go after it. But if black people are just choosing to live in worse neighborhoods, who am I to tell them what to do? The saddest part of the entire article was this: Like those African Americans are bad people because they think through hard work and dedication people will respect them more individually. Its sick, its twisted. When anyone has the audacity to say "Maybe we should fix our own mess" they get attacked. Because you know, saying that maybe we could do better, is racist. That is my problem with this whole calamity of an article.

QUOTE (iamshack @ May 28, 2014 -> 12:16 PM) Ok...I guess I will just agree to disagree. I dont expect people to agree. Agreeing with me means that most of us would have to give up significant advantages in life. Not race/gender, things like leaving money to your children, primary education based on merit, not on location etc. No one that had a stacked deck really wants those things. Most really want the advantage, they just want to pretend that they care about others so they can sleep at night.

QUOTE (iamshack @ May 28, 2014 -> 12:05 PM) Badger and Jenks...do you guys really believe what you're typing, or do you just have your lawyer hats on in here? I get that a solution isn't particularly easy to come by, but you both are pretending as if the teams are now fair and square, when they clearly are not. To use a sports analogy, this is akin to comparing the Yankees to the smallest revenue team in the league, and expecting them to both win the same number of titles. The deck is stacked, and you, me, SS and Badger have benefited and will continue to benefit from it. I'm not saying you should give up all those benefits and go live in the projects or anything, but you could at least have the decency to recognize that you have indeed benefited. I have never said the teams are fair, the teams are anything but fair. The problem is that the article doesnt really understand the teams. The teams are rich and poor, not black and white. White people dont have some sort of communal "lets screw black people", neither do black people. All poor people, black, white, whatever, deserve a better chance in this country. Not because of what happened in the past, but because bad things are happening today. Because the system is rigged today so that rich people get better advantages than poor people. So the deck is stacked, but the stacking is based on wealth. You cant compare Obama's child to a kid on the south side, it does not matter if they both came from slave families, if they both suffered racism, whatever. Those decks have been reshuffled a million times. But no one wants to actually really shuffle the deck. So I absolutely believe what I wrote. I think that all of this is completely missing the point and just creates the fallacy that allows the deck to continue to be stacked.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ May 28, 2014 -> 11:39 AM) Consider it a relay race, then, where the first 3 runners for one team all have 100 pound weights. Each generation that gets oppressed leaves the next one that much farther behind at the start of the next leg. People can and have overcome bad things. The history of abolition is a story of blacks and whites working to overcome slavery. The history of the civil rights movement is the same. That does not mean we, as a society, should not work to undue the bad things we have done and to prevent more bad things from happening in the future. The US government and various state governments which perpetrated white supremacy and black oppression still exists. Most people in the US do not have direct ancestry that suffered the same sort of fate that black America has at the hands of the US government and its various state governments. It's not arbitrary to pick as a starting point the starting point of the country and political entity in which we live. So how do you explain Jews? Jews were oppressed by blacks to start. They have been oppressed for thousands of years. Yet Jews in America ( http://www.jewishfederations.org/page.aspx?id=46193 ) are doing as well or better than most other groups. They had no relay race advantage. Its just they are used to having their lives destroyed over and over again. So what is the excuse? And its the definition of arbitrary. You are picking the US, completely ignoring that there were thousands of "relay races" before you even got a chance in this country. Fairness isnt about punishing people who had nothing to do with a crime. If that was fairness, then we should give the US back to the Native Americans.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ May 28, 2014 -> 11:33 AM) Government is one particular tool that can be used to change it. Works programs, better education, more equal resources, police forces that don't immediately view every black person as a likely criminal who should be stopped and frisked are all important components. But the first step is getting people to recognize the reality of our history and our present, which is what I've taken away from this article. Coates didn't set out to make sweeping policy proposals with this piece, just as every diagnosis doesn't necessarily need to come with a prescription. The real first step is to man up and take responsibility for your own actions. Slavery was bad, minorities in America have gotten a bad shake. But you cant forcefully change peoples opinions. If you want to change peoples opinions, you need to do something to change it. Writing unnecessarily long articles about how minorities have had it bad (while you completely focus on blacks while ignoring everyone else) doesnt help your cause. It alienates the people who may have helped you.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ May 28, 2014 -> 11:22 AM) Re: white supremacy, let me frame it like this: We had a society built on explicit white supremacy for centuries. It resulted in the impoverization of blacks and the enrichment of whites. If we suddenly and immediately change to 100% colorblind, race-neutral policies with zero reparations or restoration, how are you not just locking in the 300 or so years of white supremacy? To use an analogy, you can't run a race with one runner loaded with an extra hundred pounds of weight, remove that weight half way and then pretend it's all equal from that point on. Its not the same race. Not one person who was alive 300 years ago is alive today. You just seemingly have this strange view that no one can overcome bad things. That no one has ever had their life ripped away from them, that no one has had their property taken by a govt, that no one has been enslaved etc etc. Its as if you are ignoring the vast truth, most people in the world have suffered this fate. If anything it is the rare few who can honestly say that at no point in history did they get a bad shake. The race analogy makes no sense. You are picking arbitrary beginnings, why not go back 5,000-10,000 years? Or does that not fit into the "look at how bad this one select group had it" while completely ignoring that many other groups had it as bad (if not worse) and do not suffer the same societal problems.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ May 28, 2014 -> 11:08 AM) How do to reconcile that claim with the reality that black unemployment is higher across all levels of education? That black income is lower across all levels? That sending a resume with a "black" name like Yolanda gets zero callbacks but changing the name to Jennifer but otherwise leaving the resume identical results in callbacks? That there are still landlords like Donald Sterling who conspire to keep certain groups of people out of affordable housing based on race, that two of the biggest banks in the country have relatively recently paid 9-figure fines for ongoing discriminatory lending practices? We have sitting Supreme Court justices who call voting rights protections "racial entitlements" and vote to gut them. Sotomayor did a good job of responding to the idea that the only truly equal path forward is "color-blind" policies in her dissent in the recent affirmative action case: Yolanda is spanish/greek origin so that would be really odd if someone assumed they were black. Why not just change it to "send a resume with a non-protestant name" because thats really what we are talking about. Not just black people. Thats my problem here, that there are millions of americans who have suffered "unfair" treatment. In fact the reason why most Americans came to this country was to escape some sort of "unfairness." Sometimes its about individual responsibility. I have no problem helping people who need help today. I would raise taxes, whatever to help the unfortunate. But I am not going to pay them for the bad actions of others. That makes no sense and will do nothing to help any of this.

Sometimes the govt isnt the answer. You cant just wave a magic wand and fix it. You keep saying that blacks were excluded, well news flash, many minorities were excluded. This entire nation was built on exclusion. Here is a fun one, women have been excluded in this country since its inception. Should women get reparations? Because here is the odd historical twist. Almost every person in America had some family member who was excluded to their detriment at some point in American history. Whether its race/religion/gender, someone somewhere did not get a fair shake. So its great that he thinks his people are deserving of something more, that they were treated unfairly. But it just doesnt solve anything, if anything it would probably be counter-productive. You cant force people to like a race or religion.

QUOTE (bmags @ May 27, 2014 -> 05:20 PM) I'm comparing slavery to slavery, and I feel pretty confident in that analogy. So the people you want to give money to were actually slaves??? I did not think that any actual slaves were living... (edit) And that is ultimately where this all falls apart, you want to give money to people who theoretically may have suffered some harm, but it cant be actually proven that any of the individuals did. And that is why time matters, I cant expect that Russia will pay me back from my familys land being taken, nor Ukraine, nor Egypt nor any of the other thousands of people who legitimately stole from my ancestors. If someone can prove they are damaged TODAY, they are deserving of compensation. If someone shows that they were denied a loan TODAY because of discrimination, they deserve something. But not 10 years ago, not 50 years ago, not 100 years ago, it has to be recent. Like it or not, you eventually have to get over bad things happening.

QUOTE (bmags @ May 27, 2014 -> 05:16 PM) That would have been a great speech to give slaves. Shows how completely out of touch you are that you equate "unfair lending practices" with "slavery".

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ May 27, 2014 -> 05:01 PM) That's your problem though, the "government" didn't do a lot of this. The problem is that people cant admit that there will always be racism, unfairness, etc in society. And that all we can do is try and give people a chance. Not an equal chance, maybe not even a fair chance, but if the stars align anyone can be anything in this country. Sometimes you gotta make your own breaks.

QUOTE (bmags @ May 27, 2014 -> 04:54 PM) The slave trade featured more millions of deaths, a tearing apart of 450 years of families, abuse and rape of a group of people. edit: don't want to get into an oppression olympics. The only difference is the time that passed. Time means something.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ May 27, 2014 -> 04:46 PM) I'll move the goal posts, as Balta will erroneously claim, but killing 6 million members of your group and making tens of millions more homeless is a little different than what happened to blacks here in the US. Not to mention its irrelevant. Germany does not equal the US. And last I checked half of Germany didn't fight Hitler to free the Jews. And I like the whole "Did your family get a loan?" Well sure my father did, my grandfather also had a factory taken from him by the US govt (discrimination). One of my great uncles suffered a debilitating illness because they couldnt immigrate to the US (due to discrimination) quick enough. So whats my ledger look like?