StrangeSox

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ May 28, 2014 -> 02:11 PM) 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. You have a very weird binary reading of things sometimes. For what it's worth, he also rounded the white wealth percentage up from 14.5%: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/...ut-wealth-isnt/ I think it's simply a matter of stylistic choice there, and we say "a third" a lot in common speech whereas 15% doesn't break down into a nice fraction.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ May 28, 2014 -> 02:08 PM) He also ignores progress the black community has made over the years economically, educationally and socially. http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2014/03...gn-supreme.html 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.

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.

Somewhat related, there was a recent study that got some publicity that found that, even starting as young as preschool, black children are treated more harshly than white children. They're far more likely to be suspended for the same sorts of things white children might get a slap on the wrist for.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 28, 2014 -> 01:45 PM) Again, it isn't just one race being referred to there. That's also not anything that the article is saying either

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ May 28, 2014 -> 01:38 PM) 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? It's not "making" a conclusion 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. It's a good question and if you asked him via twitter or his comments section or email, he'd probably respond. 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.

Your solution is eugenics and the tearing apart of families?

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ May 28, 2014 -> 12:04 PM) I agree education is the key, but plopping a new building with state of the art tech in the middle of the ghetto isn't going to change anything. Kids have to want to be in school. They have to escape the streets. More money may help some, but it's not going to change a lot of what is going on in the poorest areas of the city. But again, a lot of what's going on in the poorest areas are direct results of public policy that created ghettos and prevented the creation of wealth in black communities. What can society do to make kids want to go to school?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 28, 2014 -> 12:25 PM) How does reparations fix any of that going forward? What do we mean by reparations? Again, this article does not advocate for any specific form of reparations. It references one form that would literally just be a study of the legacy of slavery and what sort of reparations may be appropriate. Others have advanced an idea of reparations that would be education and training programs and jobs programs with a goal of racial justice but which would be available to all of the country's poor.

QUOTE (iamshack @ May 28, 2014 -> 12:40 PM) Come on now...how can you say this after you just listed all the advantages you have I'm not saying you're a bad guy or anything, and I have had the same benefits as you...but it certainly allowed for a greater margin of error to accomplish what you did compared to someone without those same advantages. Born on third and think you hit a triple... But you're exactly right, you shouldn't feel bad or guilty about it. The privileges you enjoy because of how you were born and the society you live in are not something you can individually control. Recognizing what those advantages are and working for a more just society, however, is something that is within your control.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ May 28, 2014 -> 12:11 PM) 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. 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." edit: I have to ask again, have you read the article yet? He explicitly uses Obama's children as a point of comparison.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ May 28, 2014 -> 11:33 AM) 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. 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.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ May 28, 2014 -> 11:24 AM) Not sure, but I don't think white people in 2014 look at blacks and say "i'm not going to hire them because they're dark skinned." I think it most likely comes back to a culture issue and the human nature to stereotype. Right. Modern racism is much more subtle than it was in past generations, but it still very much a pervasive and powerful force. 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.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ May 28, 2014 -> 11:26 AM) This is a fallacy too. Tons of whites were "kept down" at the start of our country. But white was still supreme to black. It's not a fallacy to say that a country that was built on slave labor, had all sorts of black codes, at one point denied that any black person could ever be considered a US citizen, had Jim Crow and voter suppression and white terrorism for decades is a country that was built on white supremacy. It was very explicitly white supremacist for quite a while.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ May 28, 2014 -> 11:19 AM) 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. Yolanda is a common black name in this country. Regardless, I had a specific example in mind of Yolanda Spivey/Bianca White. http://brandredresume.com/meet-yolanda-spi...use-of-her-race Have you read the article? The article isn't actually really about any particular reparations scheme. And though he focuses on black americans, I really doubt TNC wouldn't be supportive of broader programs to help all sorts of people. But as far as systematic mistreatment by both private and especially public actors and institutions, only American Indians have a similar claim to African Americans in this country.

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.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ May 28, 2014 -> 10:56 AM) But other than actual, skin head racists, who in 2014 supports those policies/beliefs? The answer is no one, but reading his articles it's like he wants you to believe that everyone is still racist and everyone wants a white supremacy today. Which is ludicrous. We bend over backwards these days for minorities. We've constitutionally determined that everyone needs to be treated equally...unless you're non-white, then it's cool. 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: edit: I will once again go to the well of TNC for his post a few weeks ago, "This Town Needs a Better Class of Racist", a commentary how society may be quick to condemn something as blatant as Sterling saying "don't bring blacks to my games!" but never really cared much about the much more damaging housing discrimination he engaged in. Someone else had posted this Bomani Jones interview in the NBA thread back at the time which addresses the same issue, "about how exasperating it is for those of us who see the everyday effects of race to have to deal with the performative sanctimony of those who deny race's continuing impact in all but the most obvious, largely inconsequential situations[...]" The false idea that we "bend over backwards these days for minorities" contrasted with the reality that shows the complete opposite is exactly why people like TNC advocate for something like HR40. This country is still very much in denial about its past, present and future sins.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ May 28, 2014 -> 08:09 AM) I think this is irrefutable...but the entire point of these posts of yours is that we learn from the past. We have. And things ARE getting better, it just doesn't happen overnight. Well, it doesn't really get better when we as a society refuse to actually talk much about the problem and pretend its all just something from the past that we have no responsibility for today.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ May 28, 2014 -> 08:05 AM) And do they still exclude black america? No, but plenty of people who directly benefited from or were injured by those policies over the decades are still alive. Unless your family came over here in the 1970's or later, you can't say they didn't benefit from it. But after centuries of enslavement, exclusion, terrorism and plunder, are things suddenly equal once we change the law to color-blind policy? Is it not legitimate to ask what the same governments that deliberately ghettoized these communities could do to address the current issues that arise from ghettoization?

QUOTE (Y2HH @ May 28, 2014 -> 08:00 AM) For all of these recent dealings, which can be tracked, traced and proven, I have absolutely no issues with reparations being paid by the Fargo's or BOA's who are lending with predatory practices. I'm not saying "move on" to things that occurred 5 years ago. I'm acknowledging the past, and in doing that I'm not saying to "forget the past" so we can repeat the same mistakes, but I am saying it's time to move on from it, and start concentrating on the present/future. I think it's important to note that TNC does not actually call for any specific sort of reparations in his article. He mentions some things that have been tried, and brings up HR 40 several times which would merely study the issue. He also points out an idea by Charles Ogletree: In the present black america suffers from a huge wealth gap from white america. Educational resources are worse. Economic resources are worse. Employment across all levels of education is worse. To again quote the article, "Sharkey’s research shows that black families making $100,000 typically live in the kinds of neighborhoods inhabited by white families making $30,000. “Blacks and whites inhabit such different neighborhoods,” Sharkey writes, “that it is not possible to compare the economic outcomes of black and white children.”" How do you concentrate on the problems of the present if you aren't willing to use the same tools that created so many of these problems (government policy) to correct them today?

I'll just quote bmags again, because he does a good job of summarizing some of the keystone 20th century public policies that deliberately excluded black america. QUOTE (bmags @ May 27, 2014 -> 04:40 PM) Did your family ever benefit from Social Security? GI Bill? Did your family ever own a home? Were they able to get a 30 year fixed mortgage? Did they use that mortgage to move into their desired neighborhood? Did that neighborhood have good schools? All of these had specific structural barriers practiced on black americans. Imagine if that wealth was denied to your family in these points by the government. Worse, imagine that the denial of those legitimate means of achieving those goals (mortages from banks) pushed your family to try and achieve their dreams through other ways, which were predatory and artificially sucked more money than would be allowed to a non-black family, pushing many into foreclosure and many into poverty. "You" may have not done anything, but you have benefited from a social system that has by and large placed a high premium on building the wealth of white communities, at the very least, at the expense of black communities. And that's the nicest reading of it. The other reading is that it placed a high priority of building wealth of white citizens, and preventing any wealth of black communities.

I meant read TNC's "The Case for Reparations" article, I added the Wells Fargo thing in an edit, sorry that wasn't very clear. TNC's focus is more on mid-20th century public policy to plunder black americans, as he puts it, than on slavery or even Jim Crow. The Wells Fargo example is just another example that this sort of thing isn't some long-ago sin for which few if any people who actually suffered or profited are still alive. It continues to this day, and the effects of the centuries of plunder continue as well. But, ultimately, I think this is the main thrust of his argument, which comes in the context of relating how Germany initially rejected any sort of national responsibility for what the Nazis had done to the Jews but ultimately came to terms with their responsibilities and reparations: An America that has this discussion and acknowledges the past, present and future sins is an America that can be honest and honestly work to prevent the present and future sins from continuing to happen.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ May 28, 2014 -> 07:29 AM) No, but they WERE targets of this in a different country, and they moved on. 1) My family, and probably a lot of your families, weren't even part of this. This happened before my ancestors even arrived here. Also, as perviously mentioned, my ancestors (I'm 1st generation American), suffered horribly in Nazi Germany which wasn't a walk in the park based on any comparison, and imagine coming here during WW2 as a German family that couldn't speak English. However well you think they were received, it was worse. 2) My family lost everything their ancestors had built up for them in Germany when they came here, not that it was much, but all of it was taken. Gone. No property. No possessions. No money. But f*** them because they were white or something, right? 3) What happened during slavery was terrible, harsh, and a thousand other political buzzwords to speak on something with kid gloves. BUT, are you saying they'd STILL be better off today had their ancestors never been forced to come here? Like my ancestors, and probably like yours, their people went through hell so they wouldn't have too. And hell in the US, especially today, is absolute heaven as compare to most other nations. 4) ALL of our ancestors went through some terribly hard times to get us to where we are today. This isn't something African Americans or women own all to themselves. A lot of our families swam through an ocean of s*** so we could be where we are today. So, yeah, I'm sick of hearing about this...and I'm sick of having white guilt forced upon me...because although I'm white, I don't feel guilty in the least. Move on. I had as much to do with this as I had to do with the hardships my family suffered to get me here today. Please read the article. Slavery is only a small part of what's discussed. The focus of Coates' recent work, including a bulk of this article as well as the one linked back in the OP, are of public policy much more recent than slavery, e.g. the redlining that is still going on to this day: http://therealdeal.com/blog/2012/07/12/wel...ination-charge/

QUOTE (Y2HH @ May 28, 2014 -> 07:15 AM) Nope, but we sure can move on. It's probably easier to say that when you and your ancestors haven't been the target of economic and social oppression in this country since before it was even a country.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ May 27, 2014 -> 04:59 PM) Let me ask you this: say the American people agree to pay something. Do you honestly think it will help? Say every black person gets $50k over the next 20 years. What will that solve? Anything? I noticed throughout his entire piece he doesn't mention anything about changes within the black community. That's going to be the answer, if there ever is one. Here's that other article/post by TNC I mentionedt, Other People's Pathologies. It starts off with several links to a back-and-forth conversation he had been having with Jonathan Chait via blog posts.