It may be more valuable to look at the cause of why blacks are viewed negatively as opposed to finding numerous ways to show how they are viewed negatively.
^^^^^knowledge
Hey,
My response was to Rockadelic's question. If you can form a direct question as he did, then I'd be happy to dignify it with a response. But, while I'm typing, I'll respond. Simply put, the history of the U.S., as I stated in my earlier response, explains the nature of racial-ethnic relations in this country to the present day. Historians, sociologists, and psychologists have chronicled the problem since Gunnar Myrdal, Robert Park, John Hope Franklin, E. Franklin Frazier, Robert Merton, Kurt Lewin, Erving Goffman, Gordon Allport, etc. since the early 1900s. Some other useful reading includes the 1966 Coleman Report, more recent work by Roland Fryer, Steve Levitt, and others.
Peace,
Big Stacks from Kakalak
You should stop regurgitating titles from you class syllabus and man up and read the Bell Curve.
It's biological man.
Dude, "The Bell Curve"?
Wow.
Stacks, you hold a ton of weight on this forum. You are respected and don't need to prove shit to anyone.
Please stop engaging with this fucking fool. It would really hurt to see you go on account of an idiotic race-baiter.
Big_Stacks"I don't worry about hittin' power, cause I don't give 'em nuttin' to hit." 4,670 Posts
parallax said:
Dickwidth said:
Big_Stacks said:
Dickwidth said:
It may be more valuable to look at the cause of why blacks are viewed negatively as opposed to finding numerous ways to show how they are viewed negatively.
^^^^^knowledge
Hey,
My response was to Rockadelic's question. If you can form a direct question as he did, then I'd be happy to dignify it with a response. But, while I'm typing, I'll respond. Simply put, the history of the U.S., as I stated in my earlier response, explains the nature of racial-ethnic relations in this country to the present day. Historians, sociologists, and psychologists have chronicled the problem since Gunnar Myrdal, Robert Park, John Hope Franklin, E. Franklin Frazier, Robert Merton, Kurt Lewin, Erving Goffman, Gordon Allport, etc. since the early 1900s. Some other useful reading includes the 1966 Coleman Report, more recent work by Roland Fryer, Steve Levitt, and others.
Peace,
Big Stacks from Kakalak
You should stop regurgitating titles from you class syllabus and man up and read the Bell Curve.
It's biological man.
Dude, "The Bell Curve"?
Wow.
Stacks, you hold a ton of weight on this forum. You are respected and don't need to prove shit to anyone.
Please stop engaging with this fucking fool. It would really hurt to see you go on account of an idiotic race-baiter.
Hey Parallax,
I know man! The funny part is his assumption that I haven't already read it (which I did as a doctoral student 20 years ago). Please don't think I'm taking the man seriously. I know better than that and thanks for the kind comments. I have already studied the position he stated (again, as a doctoral student), as Arthur Jensen, Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, J. Phillipe Rushton, and other hereditarians (e.g., Lloyd Humphries, Malcolm Ree) are quoted in my dissertation (along with environment-based arguments for inequalities too). The argument he poses relates to the genetic heritability of intelligence. Hereditarians estimate that IQ is 80% inherited based upon studies of identical twins raised apart; however, these studies do not account for environmental influences on intellectual development. Studies on transracial adoptions (e.g., Scarr & Weinberg, 1978; Scarr, Weinberg, & Waldman, 1993) and early childhood interventions (e.g., Campbell & Ramey, 1994) show that urban, minority youth display higher IQ scores (a) in more enriched (middle-class) environments, and (b) after receiving remedial training to resolve knowledge/skill deficits. Proper science requires a balanced analysis of a research question.
Campbell, F.A., & Ramey, C.T. (1994). Effects of early intervention on intellectual and academic achievement: A follow-up study of children from low-income families. Child Development, 65, 684-698.
Jensen, A. R. (1998). The g factor: The science of mental ability. Wesport, CT: Praeger.
Scarr, S., & Weinberg, R.A. (1978). The influence of “family background” on intellectual attainment. American Sociological Review, 43, 674-692.
Scarr, S., Weinberg, R.A., & Waldman, I.D. (1993). IQ correlations in transracial adoptive families. Intelligence, 17,541-555.
It may be more valuable to look at the cause of why blacks are viewed negatively as opposed to finding numerous ways to show how they are viewed negatively.
^^^^^knowledge
Hey,
My response was to Rockadelic's question. If you can form a direct question as he did, then I'd be happy to dignify it with a response. But, while I'm typing, I'll respond. Simply put, the history of the U.S., as I stated in my earlier response, explains the nature of racial-ethnic relations in this country to the present day. Historians, sociologists, and psychologists have chronicled the problem since Gunnar Myrdal, Robert Park, John Hope Franklin, E. Franklin Frazier, Robert Merton, Kurt Lewin, Erving Goffman, Gordon Allport, etc. since the early 1900s. Some other useful reading includes the 1966 Coleman Report, more recent work by Roland Fryer, Steve Levitt, and others.
Peace,
Big Stacks from Kakalak
You should stop regurgitating titles from you class syllabus and man up and read the Bell Curve.
It's biological man.
Dude, "The Bell Curve"?
Wow.
Stacks, you hold a ton of weight on this forum. You are respected and don't need to prove shit to anyone.
Please stop engaging with this fucking fool. It would really hurt to see you go on account of an idiotic race-baiter.
Hey Parallax,
I know man! The funny part is his assumption that I haven't already read it (which I did as a doctoral student 20 years ago). Please don't think I'm taking the man seriously. I know better than that and thanks for the kind comments. I have already studied the position he stated (again, as a doctoral student), as Arthur Jensen, Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, J. Phillipe Rushton, and other hereditarians (e.g., Lloyd Humphries, Malcolm Ree) are quoted in my dissertation (along with environment-based arguments for inequalities too). Proper science requires a balanced analysis of a research question.
Peace,
Big Stacks from Kakalak
Word homie.
Certain strutters NEED to stay. You're one of them.
Overall, my point in this thread is to point out a possible reason for why the Brown case occurred, not to vilify anyone. Unconscious biases are very powerful and resistant to change. The comments above reflect general trends and, of course, exceptions exist. Nonetheless, U.S. society is a fertile breeding ground for racial-ethnic inequalities, and they're steeped in a very long history older than all of us here on Soul Strut.
Peace,
Big Stacks from Kakalak
This begs the question, who in this ongoing conflict bears the burden of change? What new legislation do you propose to remedy the conflict between the police and the black community. Thought experiment: what if the black community as a whole completely abandoned any form of crime or harassment, what if, hypothetically, the
entire black community poured all their collective efforts in reformation? The question then becomes, how long, and how many years will it take before no officer is prejudice? (Consciously or unconsciously) If a shift occurred, so that it was to think that a black person is equally likely as any other racial group to be culpable in the eyes of the law, how many generations?
To be part of any racial subset is to be biased, it's natural, it's inbuilt. I did not say that it is right. It is how we operate and have operated for millennia, it's evolutionarily obvious why we have this disposition. It's the same reason why prison communities self segregate on race. Again, I'm not saying this is right, it's just how we've evolved.
So it seems obvious that the climate of judicial law only reaches so far. You can emancipate in 1865, then a hundred years later demolish Jim Crow laws and make blacks equal in every way in the eyes of the law. After this what more can be done in the courts? Where does the onus lie? How do perceptions change? As bad as the black community has had it, the barriers are removed. Yes perceptions still take hold and are hard to abandon. But to change millions of perceptions, it takes millions of examples. No person regardless of the color of their skin will ever get treated differently by me or by I think the vast majority of whites. I love black people. I love their music and their resilience. I think black is beautiful and culturally significant in our everyday discourse.
We understand the plight of black people, and we also strive to not stand in their way of progress. And yes we are ashamed of the past, and where racism and discrimination exist it should be abolished. So the discussion rests on perceptions, and how to change them. And herein the problem really lies. Why, asks the black man, should I strive to follow the law and general societal expectations when, after all, it's all designed to put me down and elevate the white people? Generations of black people have been discriminated against and separated and every effort has been made to block their upward progression.
Yet, strangely there seems to be a strong and growing black middle class and upper class, of whom seem to share common qualities with there white counterparts, namely the values of education and strong family ties.
And the white man asks, why is it I try to be a good human and love all people, I'm liberal and I follow culture and trends and I want everyone to succeed, and I will join in any protest against the status quo, that despite monumental efforts in dynamic societal change that the angst between groups of people, who were never a part of the perverse racial animus of previous generations, and consequently didn't suffer the same oppression. Why is it that this tension still exists?
It's clearly ingrained perceptions held by both groups. How to change perceptions outside of the thoroughly and legally and justifiable laws that took so much effort to enact? Well, perhaps, it seems to me that it begins in the subculture, and can only be altered from within that community, by their intellectuals and leaders. And this cancer of promise and hope grows, metastasizes, becomes malignant, and finally unshakeable and conclusive. It seems to be the only way.
Because, seriously, how else can things change for the black community and the police? Really? All I hear is complaining. Would an indictment suffice? How about a conviction? Good, right? But that just one case, one cop? How do you change systemic racial prejudice?
Seems to me to that to institute a systemic and internal groundswell-reversal of the bad apples that it should become as taboo for some small numbers of blacks that commit crimes to cease being celebrated in hip hop culture, ie thug life, and then to be universally denigrated across all black culture as it is I've heard that many blacks are resented for being educated or smart, they are chided for acting "white".
I'm sure most black Americans reading this will instantly think, oh how easy to write and say, but he has no idea what it is like to be black and this is far reaching wish thinking, oh if it were so easy. I do understand how hard it is, I can use my imagination. It's powerful. And if used properly, empowering.
To bridge the gap in racial relations, we most first acknowledge that the majority of us on both sides just want peace and harmony. And biologically and evolutionarily we are easily swayed and biased, and this is natural. But it must be overcome in rational human beings. The key here is that both sides, both being equally human, are both subject to natural biases. So to ground yourself on the purely victim side wil never allow you to overcome or even see the things we share and have in common. And this will forever color the dialogue.
The heart of this, if you haven't caught on is that this is about biases or profiling or at bare it is about perceptions and how we should begin to change them. Racism is not profiling. Let's come together. The racial card is so easily employed nowadays and with such levity that it seriously detracts and diminishes all the good arguments worth debating between the black community and law enforcement.
The black community needs a clear and rational - and young - leadership. Who will answer the call? Who is the young black leader? Where is this generations MLK? You might be reading this. Please rise up and act.
As soon as young blacks can shift their thoughts from victims to entrepreneurs or visionaries, then the long chapter on the black renaissance and it's fruition will be studied and examined and cited by future humans in the centuries to come. That is the the only way.
PS I'm sure there are many spelling and grammatical mistakes above. Sorry. I write posts usually in streams of thought and minimally edit them. Pressed, though, I will and can clarify my position.
Asking the black community to "completely abandon any form of crime or harassment" is racist because it assumes that the entire black community is criminals. Yet even when black folks are upstanding citizens and abide by the law, they still get pulled over for driving while black, they get followed in stores, they get stopped and frisked. When the son of a retired police officer gets stopped in a movie theater and asked for their ID - just because they are going to a movie - that's a problem. When a father gets harassed by a highway patrol officer because his car is broken down on the side of the road, that's a problem.
If folks have problems with creating artificial advantages for people, then perhaps we should start with removing the artificial advantages that whites have enjoyed for generations.
Hey, Zilla, are you genuinely unaware of how Ferguson is basically a neo-feudal state designed to wring money out of its black citizens in order to support a useless and mostly white power structure? Because it seems like you would have to be willfully blind not to know such things.
Big_Stacks"I don't worry about hittin' power, cause I don't give 'em nuttin' to hit." 4,670 Posts
prof_rockwell said:
Asking the black community to "completely abandon any form of crime or harassment" is racist because it assumes that the entire black community is criminals. Yet even when black folks are upstanding citizens and abide by the law, they still get pulled over for driving while black, they get followed in stores, they get stopped and frisked. When the son of a retired police officer gets stopped in a movie theater and asked for their ID - just because they are going to a movie - that's a problem. When a father gets harassed by a highway patrol officer because his car is broken down on the side of the road, that's a problem.
If folks have problems with creating artificial advantages for people, then perhaps we should start with removing the artificial advantages that whites have enjoyed for generations.
Hey Soul_Zilla (and others),
Professor Rockwell's statement sums it up well (though I won't call Zilla racist because I don't know him). This is why I keep pounding the point that unconscious biases are powerful and serve as a huge impediment to harmonious racial-ethnic relations in the U.S. I am the upstanding Black citizen he described, yet me and my wife endured daily racial slights during our time in Milwaukee (and other places too). I have been followed, stopped and questioned by cops, and so on. My wife was pulled over by three cops at gunpoint while on her way to work! So yes, while the Black community (and other communities as well) has personal responsibility to engage in lawful conduct, our society's institutions must be fair and just to all its citizens (which is not the case).
Another fallacy in Soul_Zilla's treatise is that there is a level playing field. The lack of residential integration (i.e., blocked access to high-amenity White communities with good schools, low crime, etc.) is a big contributor to inequality. Zilla's statement assumes that all U.S. citizens have access to sound, public (or private) education, safe environments, etc. Bear in mind, this is not necessarily just a Black problem, but a poor people's problem. Poor Whites in Appalachia, for instance, are disenfranchised too in their quest for the America dream given their under-education (see Stephen Ceci's work on this topic). But, Black (and poor) folks are typically located in communities with lower tax bases, and correspondingly, lower educational quality (see Jonathan Kozol's book "Savage Inequalities" about this topic). I make this point to my students when I say that being a product of Montgomery County (MD) schools, it's not surprising that I ended up earning a PhD. I'm a product of some of the best school systems in the nation during the 70s. Yet, most people like me don't have the fortune of having such an educationally-enriched environment. This, along with low socioeconomic status (SES), is where inequality starts. I see this within my own family wherein there is a far-from-trivial relationship between the quality of rearing environment and life outcomes (e.g., educational attainment, employment history, arrest/conviction record, mortality, etc.). Volumes of education and sociological research supports the relationship between SES and life outcomes (see work by Stephen Ceci, Diane Halpern, David Williams, Norman Anderson, etc.). Those of us who had enriched environments did well, and those who lacked such environments did poorly.
The cultural isolation (and misunderstanding) between races contributes to the large reliance on stereotyping, and the cultural mistrust that characterizes intergroup relations (see John Dovidio's work on 'aversive racism' for thoughts on this issue). Essentially, with exceptions (of course), Black and White folks live in (and come from) two different worlds. The above issues, to me, underlie some of the poor relations between the police and Black folks.
I think dudes like you and Soul Zilla need to stop pontificating on subjects you don't seem to grasp and spend that valuable time reading articles like this:
Stacks, do you think that some police apologists/insecure ______ists don't like to consider the consequences of everything you've been saying; namely that America is not a socially mobile place with equal opportunities for all? Easier to blame individuals rather than society? Could this be driving the denial in some (more than outright racism)?
Big_Stacks"I don't worry about hittin' power, cause I don't give 'em nuttin' to hit." 4,670 Posts
Duderonomy said:
Stacks, do you think that some police apologists/insecure ______ists don't like to consider the consequences of everything you've been saying; namely that America is not a socially mobile place with equal opportunities for all? Easier to blame individuals rather than society? Could this be driving the denial in some (more than outright racism)?
Hey Duderonomy,
Actually, my main point in this thread is that a lot of the biases some people exhibit are unconscious. I have never said that people explicitly go out in the world and try to act in a biased manner. A lot of it rests on peoples' backgrounds, ideologies, experiences, etc. that inform how they process information (i.e., none of us are 'pure' cognitive processors). More directly related to your question, Peggy McIntosh has studied the concept of 'white privilege' which she describes as some Whites' denial that some of their advantages in society at-large result from inequalities against lower-status groups. She calls this the 'myth of meritocracy' and she highlights the myth as a key source of esteem among the privileged. This might explain why people who hold a strong (or high) social dominance orientation (i.e., people who strongly endorse and support group-based inequalities) fiercely defend the notion of the 'level playing field', rugged individualism, and the non-existence of racism. I should note that social dominance orientation is not race-based, and even some members of disenfranchised groups hold such beliefs (see work by James Sidanius, Felecia Pratto, Shana Levin, and Lawrence Bobo on the topic). As I said earlier, people who possess a high social dominance orientation also tend to be higher in racial prejudice, sexism, homophobia, political conservatism, individualism, right-wing authoritarianism, etc.
So, I view the denial as a psychological defense against evidence that contradicts the myth of meritocracy. The acknowledgement of status-based advantages undermines the belief that people have achieved success solely upon their own merits; yet, successful people usually have benefitted from someone's help and/or taken advantage of their access to needed resources (e.g., educational, material, financial, institutional, etc.). This trend has been evident among the ruling class of pretty much all societies in the world throughout history. Ultimately, it's a not-so-nice, but very common human tendency.
I know you answered this before but, where did you go to high school?
I am Walter Johnson '74, but I lived in BBC neighborhood.
Dan
Big_Stacks"I don't worry about hittin' power, cause I don't give 'em nuttin' to hit." 4,670 Posts
LaserWolf said:
Hey Stacks,
I know you answered this before but, where did you go to high school?
I am Walter Johnson '74, but I lived in BBC neighborhood.
Dan
Hey LaserWolf,
I attended elementary school in MD (Glen Haven Elementary in Silver Spring). My brother went to Sligo Junior High and Northwood High School. I went to junior high and high school in Fayettenam.
Zilla are you saying this is all on the black community to reverse the perceptions?
While everyone else just sits around and waits? Doing nothing themselves?
Not sure about that one.
Zilla are you saying this is all on the black community to reverse the perceptions?
While everyone else just sits around and waits? Doing nothing themselves?
Not sure about that one.
If you equivocate any harder you'll bust a gut. Time to shit or get off the fence, son.
I know that sounds mean, but seriously - you're a grown man. At some point you should look clearly at the issues of your time and take a stand. The "both sides suck" fallacy might seem appealing on some level but in the end it's the domain of weasels and wascals. If you want to be Luke Russert when you grow up choose that path. He's a human footstool. Don't be one.
Asking the black community to "completely abandon any form of crime or harassment" is racist because it assumes that the entire black community is criminals. Yet even when black folks are upstanding citizens and abide by the law, they still get pulled over for driving while black, they get followed in stores, they get stopped and frisked. When the son of a retired police officer gets stopped in a movie theater and asked for their ID - just because they are going to a movie - that's a problem. When a father gets harassed by a highway patrol officer because his car is broken down on the side of the road, that's a problem.
If folks have problems with creating artificial advantages for people, then perhaps we should start with removing the artificial advantages that whites have enjoyed for generations.
Hey Soul_Zilla (and others),
Professor Rockwell's statement sums it up well (though I won't call Zilla racist because I don't know him).
Another fallacy in Soul_Zilla's treatise is that there is a level playing field.
Of course the playing field isn't level, life isn't fair. The game is rigged but it's not rigged on race. It's between the rich and everyone else. If blacks make up a disproportionate amount of the poor then what we see isn't surprising. My point is that to change the perceptions of the police department towards the black community, as awful as they are, that it's up to the black community to change from within. Because you're not going to magically-clean-slate change the internal perceptions (or Stack's euphemism: biases) of the police community. And of course I'm talking about a small portion of the black community. All should not suffer for the choices of a few.
No one is offering up any solutions here it seems. Here's one, how about decriminalizing drug offenses. Complete legalization. Why? Tons of people are arrested and jailed, both white and black, for petty drug charges. And because it's a black market and underground, it attracts more serious crimes and violence. Eric Holder did good work in reducing the mandatory minimum sentences judges are forced to give on nonviolent drug offenses. The problem is he didn't go far enough. It's time we gave up on the war on drugs, besides it's very un-American, we are about individualism and freedom. What's more antithetical than trying to govern what another person decides to ingest and how they live their life.
Another problem presents itself here, one cannot talk frankly and honestly about race relations without being called a racist. Unless you're black. Lazarus and Rockwell couldn't wait to hurl that pejorative at me. Cove questions my knowledge. Stacks, the most intelligent poster here, wisely says he can't call me a racist because he doesn't know me. All I want to contribute to the discussion is rationality and honesty. One cannot, it seems to me, possibly be both racist and intelligent. The two cannot cohabit the same mind. They are fundamentally antagonistic and mutually exclusive. For the very simple reason that no human chooses their parents. And therefore their race and upbringing. Through a lottery of birth I'm a white guy, I could've been black or Asian,etc. So it makes no sense to be discriminatory or hateful or prejudice against others who also had no choice or say in their parents. This seems so obvious to myself and others that I can't believe I had to type it out for people like Lazarus and Rockwell.
To move forward and improve things we must change things. Police body cams and legalization. Simple and effective. So now I turn the mic over to you, what are your solutions to this problem?
Asking the black community to "completely abandon any form of crime or harassment" is racist because it assumes that the entire black community is criminals. Yet even when black folks are upstanding citizens and abide by the law, they still get pulled over for driving while black, they get followed in stores, they get stopped and frisked. When the son of a retired police officer gets stopped in a movie theater and asked for their ID - just because they are going to a movie - that's a problem. When a father gets harassed by a highway patrol officer because his car is broken down on the side of the road, that's a problem.
If folks have problems with creating artificial advantages for people, then perhaps we should start with removing the artificial advantages that whites have enjoyed for generations.
Hey Soul_Zilla (and others),
Professor Rockwell's statement sums it up well (though I won't call Zilla racist because I don't know him).
Another fallacy in Soul_Zilla's treatise is that there is a level playing field.
Of course the playing field isn't level, life isn't fair. The game is rigged but it's not rigged on race. It's between the rich and everyone else. If blacks make up a disproportionate amount of the poor then what we see isn't surprising. My point is that to change the perceptions of the police department towards the black community, as awful as they are, that it's up to the black community to change from within. Because you're not going to magically-clean-slate change the internal perceptions (or Stack's euphemism: biases) of the police community. And of course I'm talking about a small portion of the black community. All should not suffer for the choices of a few.
No one is offering up any solutions here it seems. Here's one, how about decriminalizing drug offenses. Complete legalization. Why? Tons of people are arrested and jailed, both white and black, for petty drug charges. And because it's a black market and underground, it attracts more serious crimes and violence. Eric Holder did good work in reducing the mandatory minimum sentences judges are forced to give on nonviolent drug offenses. The problem is he didn't go far enough. It's time we gave up on the war on drugs, besides it's very un-American, we are about individualism and freedom. What's more antithetical than trying to govern what another person decides to ingest and how they live their life.
Another problem presents itself here, one cannot talk frankly and honestly about race relations without being called a racist. Unless you're black. Lazarus and Rockwell couldn't wait to hurl that pejorative at me. Cove questions my knowledge. Stacks, the most intelligent poster here, wisely says he can't call me a racist because he doesn't know me. All I want to contribute to the discussion is rationality and honesty. One cannot, it seems to me, possibly be both racist and intelligent. The two cannot cohabit the same mind. They are fundamentally antagonistic and mutually exclusive. For the very simple reason that no human chooses their parents. And therefore their race and upbringing. Through a lottery of birth I'm a white guy, I could've been black or Asian,etc. So it makes no sense to be discriminatory or hateful or prejudice against others who also had no choice or say in their parents. This seems so obvious to myself and others that I can't believe I had to type it out for people like Lazarus and Rockwell.
To move forward and improve things we must change things. Police body cams and legalization. Simple and effective. So now I turn the mic over to you, what are your solutions to this problem?
The reason people feel they can't talk frankly about racism is because they can't discern between calling an idea racist from calling a person racist.
Pointing out that your assumption is racist is not calling you as a person racist. Stop trying to frame the conversation in your terms.
Assuming intelligent people can't be racist is extremely naive. As Stacks has pointed out, biases are often times unconscious.
My solutions? How about educating human resource departments on unconscious biases in hiring? Blacks routinely have to send out 50% more resumes JUST TO GET A PHONE CALL than whites. White ex-convicts are 5% more likely to get hired than a black with the same qualifications with no criminal record.
Sure, legalizing drugs will do SOME good, but how about giving blacks and whites the same sentences for similar crimes? Blacks routinely get sentenced more often, and for longer periods of time than whites who commit the same or similar crimes.
A lot of people make noise about affirmative action, and how a 'lesser qualified person of color' gets an opportunity instead of a 'more qualified white person'. Well, as Stacks has already shown, much of a person's success/qualifications/education can be directly tied to how affluent of an environment they grew up in. What if we change AA to be based on income or wealth status? Considering that almost half of the population living in poverty is black or latino, and that poverty rates are also almost twice as high in black and latino demographics, you would probably see an even larger jump in the number of PoC getting into colleges, etc etc.
Zilla are you saying this is all on the black community to reverse the perceptions?
While everyone else just sits around and waits? Doing nothing themselves?
Not sure about that one.
If you equivocate any harder you'll bust a gut. Time to shit or get off the fence, son.
I know that sounds mean, but seriously - you're a grown man. At some point you should look clearly at the issues of your time and take a stand. The "both sides suck" fallacy might seem appealing on some level but in the end it's the domain of weasels and wascals. If you want to be Luke Russert when you grow up choose that path. He's a human footstool. Don't be one.
Laz why do you care more about [em]how[/em] you say something than [em]what[/em] it is you say?
You are a great example of a successful American. You have acheived a higher station in life than I have and I don't believe you are successful because of or in spite of your race. I believe your success can be attributed to things that almost every successful person has and that most of the 9 million black people and 25 million white people who live in poverty never had. That is that you were raised correctly, taught the value of education and hard work and made conscience decisions to "do the right things" in your life. While there are many successful people who did not have that advantage, not having those things makes you start in a deep hole.
Other than those things what would you attribute your life success to?
I don't know what a society can do to insure everyone gets these things and I don't see how they get the blame that not everyone does?
Big_Stacks"I don't worry about hittin' power, cause I don't give 'em nuttin' to hit." 4,670 Posts
Rockadelic said:
Stacks,
You are a great example of a successful American. You have acheived a higher station in life than I have and I don't believe you are successful because of or in spite of your race. I believe your success can be attributed to things that almost every successful person has and that most of the 9 million black people and 25 million white people who live in poverty never had. That is that you were raised correctly, taught the value of education and hard work and made conscience decisions to "do the right things" in your life. While there are many successful people who did not have that advantage, not having those things makes you start in a deep hole.
Other than those things what would you attribute your life success to?
I don't know what a society can do to insure everyone gets these things and I don't see how they get the blame that not everyone does?
Hey Rock,
First of all, I thank you for the kind words. Oddly enough, despite all of the research I have quoted in this thread, personally I do believe in self-determination and I preach it to everyone (especially some of my lazy-ass students); however, you must have resources to fuel one's self-determination to realize success. My discussion here has centered on people at the margins, those who come from disparaged areas who don't even have the basics like a good school, a safe place to live, stable rearing environments, wholesome meals, etc. I did not come from such a background, but a fair share of my relatives did. For instance, I have relatives that lived where "The Corner" miniseries was shot in Baltimore, MD, so I've seen REAL poverty up-close and personal (and it's not pretty). Not surprisingly, they have experienced all of the outcomes associated with urban blight and poverty such as under-education, underemployment/joblessness, arrests/imprisonment, drug and alcohol abuse, fractured family structures, early mortality, etc. The ones in Michigan, North Carolina, and so on who lived in similar circumstances also didn't fare well. So, my main issue is why high-quality K-12, compulsory education is more of a privilege than a right in one of the richest nations in the world. Group-based inequalities fuel a lot of this nation's problems, and a lot of it (not all) starts with differential access to the basic necessities to becoming a productive citizen. I was fortunate to come from an intact family that could provide the necessary resources and role modeling to give my brother and I a good shot at productive lives. I just wish everyone had access to resources I enjoyed, and let my father tell it (at times), took for granted. Then again, Karl Marx said that excess breeds apathy.
When I was a kid, in the 60s and 70s, when I child reported being molested little or nothing was done.
If the molester was a family member, teacher, coach, religious leader and they denied the charge it was assumed the child was lying or mistaken.
The same was true of women who reported rape.
If the attacker was known to the woman or if the woman was not beaten, it was assumed that the woman was lying.
Even if it was a stranger or the woman was beaten a sure fire defense was to say that the woman made the man do it by the way she dressed or acted.
Gladly, today, the police and the courts take sexual assault accusations seriously.
Blaming the victim is no longer acceptable.
Unless you are posting on soulstrut about police killings.
I've stated this here before but for the sake of this conversation I'll do it again. My Grandfather dropped out of school to pick tobacco and help support his family when he was 10 years old. My Mom did not get her first pair of shoes until she was 5. I have relatives in North Carolina today that are uneducated(by choice), live in squalor and blame everyone but themselves. I will always remember my Mother telling me that no matter how poor you were your house should be clean, clean is free. In my opinion my poverty stricken relatives have no one to blame but themselves. In my lifetime they have raised two more generations that lack the motivation to do anything but be a burden on society. They blame everyone but the person in their mirror.
It's no coincidence that your success can be directly tied to your family. It wasn't the quality or lack thereof of the education you received in Public School because there are plenty of people in EVERY school that don't take advantage of the education available to them...and there is not a High School in the U.S. that doesn't have great success stories from alumni. You and I both went to schools that provided us with a decent education but those who didn't make the effort or dropped out did not realize our success. I am certain we both have friends that are either dead or in jail that were given access to the same basic tools that we were but were lacking those key motivating values.
Maybe I'm naive and will be accused of preaching bootstraps but I think there is a good chance that both of us would not have been successful without the family support and values instilled upon us. It is impossible for a society to provide these things but it certainly is our burden when they are not provided.
I believe that in order to be intellectually honest about this issue we have to start with personal accountability. Helping people who are willing and motivated to help themselves. Every once in a while one of my white trash relatives will lift himself up out of the hole his family has been digging for 100 years and make it out....but no one is going to wave a magic wand and fix them all. Regardless of what society can accomplish there will always be people like this...of every sort. And as long as they exist we will be able to point a finger and say society is at fault......it's not imo.
When I was a kid, in the 60s and 70s, when I child reported being molested little or nothing was done.
If the molester was a family member, teacher, coach, religious leader and they denied the charge it was assumed the child was lying or mistaken.
The same was true of women who reported rape.
If the attacker was known to the woman or if the woman was not beaten, it was assumed that the woman was lying.
Even if it was a stranger or the woman was beaten a sure fire defense was to say that the woman made the man do it by the way she dressed or acted.
Gladly, today, the police and the courts take sexual assault accusations seriously.
Blaming the victim is no longer acceptable.
Unless you are posting on soulstrut about police killings.
Laughable, you're grasping at straws here. Very poorly phrased, let me help you out and rewrite this, so that the implications and subtext bubble up to the surface:
Back in the days of yore, 4 or 5 decades ago, when I was a wee lad, kids were raped and everybody looked the other way. It was a dark time, a he said she said kinda thing. Long before DNA testing, that forensic evidence that doesn't lie.
Not just kids mind ya, ladies too. You had to be careful though, don't beat her up, cause ya know, your "she asked for it" defense loses some weight. Don't worry though the cops and the courts (traditionally male dominated professions) know what you mean. This wasn't a black white thing though, no, rape is equally dished out here. And the (majority) white cops and judges equally held no one to account.
But nowadays things are different. Yeah I'm not sure what things changed. Maybe standards of evidence or the erosion of social stigma or perhaps the internet.
Gladly, today, the police and the courts (whom I trust on certain issues) take sexual assaults seriously.
Blaming the victim (whom I choose based not on evidence but on how I feel) is no longer acceptable.
Unless (quickly switching topics to serve my underlying purpose) you are posting on Soulstrut (a forum where people go to express their opinions on topics) about a police killing in self-defense.
Comments
Dude, "The Bell Curve"?
Wow.
Stacks, you hold a ton of weight on this forum. You are respected and don't need to prove shit to anyone.
Please stop engaging with this fucking fool. It would really hurt to see you go on account of an idiotic race-baiter.
Hey Parallax,
I know man! The funny part is his assumption that I haven't already read it (which I did as a doctoral student 20 years ago). Please don't think I'm taking the man seriously. I know better than that and thanks for the kind comments. I have already studied the position he stated (again, as a doctoral student), as Arthur Jensen, Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, J. Phillipe Rushton, and other hereditarians (e.g., Lloyd Humphries, Malcolm Ree) are quoted in my dissertation (along with environment-based arguments for inequalities too). The argument he poses relates to the genetic heritability of intelligence. Hereditarians estimate that IQ is 80% inherited based upon studies of identical twins raised apart; however, these studies do not account for environmental influences on intellectual development. Studies on transracial adoptions (e.g., Scarr & Weinberg, 1978; Scarr, Weinberg, & Waldman, 1993) and early childhood interventions (e.g., Campbell & Ramey, 1994) show that urban, minority youth display higher IQ scores (a) in more enriched (middle-class) environments, and (b) after receiving remedial training to resolve knowledge/skill deficits. Proper science requires a balanced analysis of a research question.
Campbell, F.A., & Ramey, C.T. (1994). Effects of early intervention on intellectual and academic achievement: A follow-up study of children from low-income families. Child Development, 65, 684-698.
Jensen, A. R. (1998). The g factor: The science of mental ability. Wesport, CT: Praeger.
Scarr, S., & Weinberg, R.A. (1978). The influence of “family background” on intellectual attainment. American Sociological Review, 43, 674-692.
Scarr, S., Weinberg, R.A., & Waldman, I.D. (1993). IQ correlations in transracial adoptive families. Intelligence, 17,541-555.
Peace,
Big Stacks from Kakalak
Word homie.
Certain strutters NEED to stay. You're one of them.
[em]whoever[/em], brah
Stacks you're the man for dropping knowledge. Thanks.
Thanks, BeatChemist! Dude is entitled to his viewpoint. I just prefer to let the science speak for me.
Peace,
Big Stacks from Kakalak
White supremacy means never having to say you're sorry for your lousy sentence structure.
This begs the question, who in this ongoing conflict bears the burden of change? What new legislation do you propose to remedy the conflict between the police and the black community. Thought experiment: what if the black community as a whole completely abandoned any form of crime or harassment, what if, hypothetically, the
entire black community poured all their collective efforts in reformation? The question then becomes, how long, and how many years will it take before no officer is prejudice? (Consciously or unconsciously) If a shift occurred, so that it was to think that a black person is equally likely as any other racial group to be culpable in the eyes of the law, how many generations?
To be part of any racial subset is to be biased, it's natural, it's inbuilt. I did not say that it is right. It is how we operate and have operated for millennia, it's evolutionarily obvious why we have this disposition. It's the same reason why prison communities self segregate on race. Again, I'm not saying this is right, it's just how we've evolved.
So it seems obvious that the climate of judicial law only reaches so far. You can emancipate in 1865, then a hundred years later demolish Jim Crow laws and make blacks equal in every way in the eyes of the law. After this what more can be done in the courts? Where does the onus lie? How do perceptions change? As bad as the black community has had it, the barriers are removed. Yes perceptions still take hold and are hard to abandon. But to change millions of perceptions, it takes millions of examples. No person regardless of the color of their skin will ever get treated differently by me or by I think the vast majority of whites. I love black people. I love their music and their resilience. I think black is beautiful and culturally significant in our everyday discourse.
We understand the plight of black people, and we also strive to not stand in their way of progress. And yes we are ashamed of the past, and where racism and discrimination exist it should be abolished. So the discussion rests on perceptions, and how to change them. And herein the problem really lies. Why, asks the black man, should I strive to follow the law and general societal expectations when, after all, it's all designed to put me down and elevate the white people? Generations of black people have been discriminated against and separated and every effort has been made to block their upward progression.
Yet, strangely there seems to be a strong and growing black middle class and upper class, of whom seem to share common qualities with there white counterparts, namely the values of education and strong family ties.
And the white man asks, why is it I try to be a good human and love all people, I'm liberal and I follow culture and trends and I want everyone to succeed, and I will join in any protest against the status quo, that despite monumental efforts in dynamic societal change that the angst between groups of people, who were never a part of the perverse racial animus of previous generations, and consequently didn't suffer the same oppression. Why is it that this tension still exists?
It's clearly ingrained perceptions held by both groups. How to change perceptions outside of the thoroughly and legally and justifiable laws that took so much effort to enact? Well, perhaps, it seems to me that it begins in the subculture, and can only be altered from within that community, by their intellectuals and leaders. And this cancer of promise and hope grows, metastasizes, becomes malignant, and finally unshakeable and conclusive. It seems to be the only way.
Because, seriously, how else can things change for the black community and the police? Really? All I hear is complaining. Would an indictment suffice? How about a conviction? Good, right? But that just one case, one cop? How do you change systemic racial prejudice?
Seems to me to that to institute a systemic and internal groundswell-reversal of the bad apples that it should become as taboo for some small numbers of blacks that commit crimes to cease being celebrated in hip hop culture, ie thug life, and then to be universally denigrated across all black culture as it is I've heard that many blacks are resented for being educated or smart, they are chided for acting "white".
I'm sure most black Americans reading this will instantly think, oh how easy to write and say, but he has no idea what it is like to be black and this is far reaching wish thinking, oh if it were so easy. I do understand how hard it is, I can use my imagination. It's powerful. And if used properly, empowering.
To bridge the gap in racial relations, we most first acknowledge that the majority of us on both sides just want peace and harmony. And biologically and evolutionarily we are easily swayed and biased, and this is natural. But it must be overcome in rational human beings. The key here is that both sides, both being equally human, are both subject to natural biases. So to ground yourself on the purely victim side wil never allow you to overcome or even see the things we share and have in common. And this will forever color the dialogue.
The heart of this, if you haven't caught on is that this is about biases or profiling or at bare it is about perceptions and how we should begin to change them. Racism is not profiling. Let's come together. The racial card is so easily employed nowadays and with such levity that it seriously detracts and diminishes all the good arguments worth debating between the black community and law enforcement.
The black community needs a clear and rational - and young - leadership. Who will answer the call? Who is the young black leader? Where is this generations MLK? You might be reading this. Please rise up and act.
As soon as young blacks can shift their thoughts from victims to entrepreneurs or visionaries, then the long chapter on the black renaissance and it's fruition will be studied and examined and cited by future humans in the centuries to come. That is the the only way.
PS I'm sure there are many spelling and grammatical mistakes above. Sorry. I write posts usually in streams of thought and minimally edit them. Pressed, though, I will and can clarify my position.
If folks have problems with creating artificial advantages for people, then perhaps we should start with removing the artificial advantages that whites have enjoyed for generations.
Hey Soul_Zilla (and others),
Professor Rockwell's statement sums it up well (though I won't call Zilla racist because I don't know him). This is why I keep pounding the point that unconscious biases are powerful and serve as a huge impediment to harmonious racial-ethnic relations in the U.S. I am the upstanding Black citizen he described, yet me and my wife endured daily racial slights during our time in Milwaukee (and other places too). I have been followed, stopped and questioned by cops, and so on. My wife was pulled over by three cops at gunpoint while on her way to work! So yes, while the Black community (and other communities as well) has personal responsibility to engage in lawful conduct, our society's institutions must be fair and just to all its citizens (which is not the case).
Another fallacy in Soul_Zilla's treatise is that there is a level playing field. The lack of residential integration (i.e., blocked access to high-amenity White communities with good schools, low crime, etc.) is a big contributor to inequality. Zilla's statement assumes that all U.S. citizens have access to sound, public (or private) education, safe environments, etc. Bear in mind, this is not necessarily just a Black problem, but a poor people's problem. Poor Whites in Appalachia, for instance, are disenfranchised too in their quest for the America dream given their under-education (see Stephen Ceci's work on this topic). But, Black (and poor) folks are typically located in communities with lower tax bases, and correspondingly, lower educational quality (see Jonathan Kozol's book "Savage Inequalities" about this topic). I make this point to my students when I say that being a product of Montgomery County (MD) schools, it's not surprising that I ended up earning a PhD. I'm a product of some of the best school systems in the nation during the 70s. Yet, most people like me don't have the fortune of having such an educationally-enriched environment. This, along with low socioeconomic status (SES), is where inequality starts. I see this within my own family wherein there is a far-from-trivial relationship between the quality of rearing environment and life outcomes (e.g., educational attainment, employment history, arrest/conviction record, mortality, etc.). Volumes of education and sociological research supports the relationship between SES and life outcomes (see work by Stephen Ceci, Diane Halpern, David Williams, Norman Anderson, etc.). Those of us who had enriched environments did well, and those who lacked such environments did poorly.
The cultural isolation (and misunderstanding) between races contributes to the large reliance on stereotyping, and the cultural mistrust that characterizes intergroup relations (see John Dovidio's work on 'aversive racism' for thoughts on this issue). Essentially, with exceptions (of course), Black and White folks live in (and come from) two different worlds. The above issues, to me, underlie some of the poor relations between the police and Black folks.
Peace,
Big Stacks from Kakalak
this reminds of that joke The Simpsons once made about Fox News -
"Fox News: not racist, but #1 with racists!"
I think dudes like you and Soul Zilla need to stop pontificating on subjects you don't seem to grasp and spend that valuable time reading articles like this:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/09/03/how-st-louis-county-missouri-profits-from-poverty/
This doesn't have any bearing on the issues at hand here...but...
Please to look up what "begging the question" ACTUALLY MEANS.
Stacks, do you think that some police apologists/insecure ______ists don't like to consider the consequences of everything you've been saying; namely that America is not a socially mobile place with equal opportunities for all? Easier to blame individuals rather than society? Could this be driving the denial in some (more than outright racism)?
Hey Duderonomy,
Actually, my main point in this thread is that a lot of the biases some people exhibit are unconscious. I have never said that people explicitly go out in the world and try to act in a biased manner. A lot of it rests on peoples' backgrounds, ideologies, experiences, etc. that inform how they process information (i.e., none of us are 'pure' cognitive processors). More directly related to your question, Peggy McIntosh has studied the concept of 'white privilege' which she describes as some Whites' denial that some of their advantages in society at-large result from inequalities against lower-status groups. She calls this the 'myth of meritocracy' and she highlights the myth as a key source of esteem among the privileged. This might explain why people who hold a strong (or high) social dominance orientation (i.e., people who strongly endorse and support group-based inequalities) fiercely defend the notion of the 'level playing field', rugged individualism, and the non-existence of racism. I should note that social dominance orientation is not race-based, and even some members of disenfranchised groups hold such beliefs (see work by James Sidanius, Felecia Pratto, Shana Levin, and Lawrence Bobo on the topic). As I said earlier, people who possess a high social dominance orientation also tend to be higher in racial prejudice, sexism, homophobia, political conservatism, individualism, right-wing authoritarianism, etc.
So, I view the denial as a psychological defense against evidence that contradicts the myth of meritocracy. The acknowledgement of status-based advantages undermines the belief that people have achieved success solely upon their own merits; yet, successful people usually have benefitted from someone's help and/or taken advantage of their access to needed resources (e.g., educational, material, financial, institutional, etc.). This trend has been evident among the ruling class of pretty much all societies in the world throughout history. Ultimately, it's a not-so-nice, but very common human tendency.
Peace,
Big Stacks from Kakalak
I know you answered this before but, where did you go to high school?
I am Walter Johnson '74, but I lived in BBC neighborhood.
Dan
Hey LaserWolf,
I attended elementary school in MD (Glen Haven Elementary in Silver Spring). My brother went to Sligo Junior High and Northwood High School. I went to junior high and high school in Fayettenam.
Peace,
Big Stacks from Kakalak
While everyone else just sits around and waits? Doing nothing themselves?
Not sure about that one.
If you equivocate any harder you'll bust a gut. Time to shit or get off the fence, son.
I know that sounds mean, but seriously - you're a grown man. At some point you should look clearly at the issues of your time and take a stand. The "both sides suck" fallacy might seem appealing on some level but in the end it's the domain of weasels and wascals. If you want to be Luke Russert when you grow up choose that path. He's a human footstool. Don't be one.
Of course the playing field isn't level, life isn't fair. The game is rigged but it's not rigged on race. It's between the rich and everyone else. If blacks make up a disproportionate amount of the poor then what we see isn't surprising. My point is that to change the perceptions of the police department towards the black community, as awful as they are, that it's up to the black community to change from within. Because you're not going to magically-clean-slate change the internal perceptions (or Stack's euphemism: biases) of the police community. And of course I'm talking about a small portion of the black community. All should not suffer for the choices of a few.
No one is offering up any solutions here it seems. Here's one, how about decriminalizing drug offenses. Complete legalization. Why? Tons of people are arrested and jailed, both white and black, for petty drug charges. And because it's a black market and underground, it attracts more serious crimes and violence. Eric Holder did good work in reducing the mandatory minimum sentences judges are forced to give on nonviolent drug offenses. The problem is he didn't go far enough. It's time we gave up on the war on drugs, besides it's very un-American, we are about individualism and freedom. What's more antithetical than trying to govern what another person decides to ingest and how they live their life.
Another problem presents itself here, one cannot talk frankly and honestly about race relations without being called a racist. Unless you're black. Lazarus and Rockwell couldn't wait to hurl that pejorative at me. Cove questions my knowledge. Stacks, the most intelligent poster here, wisely says he can't call me a racist because he doesn't know me. All I want to contribute to the discussion is rationality and honesty. One cannot, it seems to me, possibly be both racist and intelligent. The two cannot cohabit the same mind. They are fundamentally antagonistic and mutually exclusive. For the very simple reason that no human chooses their parents. And therefore their race and upbringing. Through a lottery of birth I'm a white guy, I could've been black or Asian,etc. So it makes no sense to be discriminatory or hateful or prejudice against others who also had no choice or say in their parents. This seems so obvious to myself and others that I can't believe I had to type it out for people like Lazarus and Rockwell.
To move forward and improve things we must change things. Police body cams and legalization. Simple and effective. So now I turn the mic over to you, what are your solutions to this problem?
Ah, something we might all agree on.
The reason people feel they can't talk frankly about racism is because they can't discern between calling an idea racist from calling a person racist.
Pointing out that your assumption is racist is not calling you as a person racist. Stop trying to frame the conversation in your terms.
Assuming intelligent people can't be racist is extremely naive. As Stacks has pointed out, biases are often times unconscious.
My solutions? How about educating human resource departments on unconscious biases in hiring? Blacks routinely have to send out 50% more resumes JUST TO GET A PHONE CALL than whites. White ex-convicts are 5% more likely to get hired than a black with the same qualifications with no criminal record.
Sure, legalizing drugs will do SOME good, but how about giving blacks and whites the same sentences for similar crimes? Blacks routinely get sentenced more often, and for longer periods of time than whites who commit the same or similar crimes.
A lot of people make noise about affirmative action, and how a 'lesser qualified person of color' gets an opportunity instead of a 'more qualified white person'. Well, as Stacks has already shown, much of a person's success/qualifications/education can be directly tied to how affluent of an environment they grew up in. What if we change AA to be based on income or wealth status? Considering that almost half of the population living in poverty is black or latino, and that poverty rates are also almost twice as high in black and latino demographics, you would probably see an even larger jump in the number of PoC getting into colleges, etc etc.
Laz why do you care more about [em]how[/em] you say something than [em]what[/em] it is you say?
You are a great example of a successful American. You have acheived a higher station in life than I have and I don't believe you are successful because of or in spite of your race. I believe your success can be attributed to things that almost every successful person has and that most of the 9 million black people and 25 million white people who live in poverty never had. That is that you were raised correctly, taught the value of education and hard work and made conscience decisions to "do the right things" in your life. While there are many successful people who did not have that advantage, not having those things makes you start in a deep hole.
Other than those things what would you attribute your life success to?
I don't know what a society can do to insure everyone gets these things and I don't see how they get the blame that not everyone does?
Hey Rock,
First of all, I thank you for the kind words. Oddly enough, despite all of the research I have quoted in this thread, personally I do believe in self-determination and I preach it to everyone (especially some of my lazy-ass students); however, you must have resources to fuel one's self-determination to realize success. My discussion here has centered on people at the margins, those who come from disparaged areas who don't even have the basics like a good school, a safe place to live, stable rearing environments, wholesome meals, etc. I did not come from such a background, but a fair share of my relatives did. For instance, I have relatives that lived where "The Corner" miniseries was shot in Baltimore, MD, so I've seen REAL poverty up-close and personal (and it's not pretty). Not surprisingly, they have experienced all of the outcomes associated with urban blight and poverty such as under-education, underemployment/joblessness, arrests/imprisonment, drug and alcohol abuse, fractured family structures, early mortality, etc. The ones in Michigan, North Carolina, and so on who lived in similar circumstances also didn't fare well. So, my main issue is why high-quality K-12, compulsory education is more of a privilege than a right in one of the richest nations in the world. Group-based inequalities fuel a lot of this nation's problems, and a lot of it (not all) starts with differential access to the basic necessities to becoming a productive citizen. I was fortunate to come from an intact family that could provide the necessary resources and role modeling to give my brother and I a good shot at productive lives. I just wish everyone had access to resources I enjoyed, and let my father tell it (at times), took for granted. Then again, Karl Marx said that excess breeds apathy.
Peace,
Big Stacks from Kakalak
If the molester was a family member, teacher, coach, religious leader and they denied the charge it was assumed the child was lying or mistaken.
The same was true of women who reported rape.
If the attacker was known to the woman or if the woman was not beaten, it was assumed that the woman was lying.
Even if it was a stranger or the woman was beaten a sure fire defense was to say that the woman made the man do it by the way she dressed or acted.
Gladly, today, the police and the courts take sexual assault accusations seriously.
Blaming the victim is no longer acceptable.
Unless you are posting on soulstrut about police killings.
I've stated this here before but for the sake of this conversation I'll do it again. My Grandfather dropped out of school to pick tobacco and help support his family when he was 10 years old. My Mom did not get her first pair of shoes until she was 5. I have relatives in North Carolina today that are uneducated(by choice), live in squalor and blame everyone but themselves. I will always remember my Mother telling me that no matter how poor you were your house should be clean, clean is free. In my opinion my poverty stricken relatives have no one to blame but themselves. In my lifetime they have raised two more generations that lack the motivation to do anything but be a burden on society. They blame everyone but the person in their mirror.
It's no coincidence that your success can be directly tied to your family. It wasn't the quality or lack thereof of the education you received in Public School because there are plenty of people in EVERY school that don't take advantage of the education available to them...and there is not a High School in the U.S. that doesn't have great success stories from alumni. You and I both went to schools that provided us with a decent education but those who didn't make the effort or dropped out did not realize our success. I am certain we both have friends that are either dead or in jail that were given access to the same basic tools that we were but were lacking those key motivating values.
Maybe I'm naive and will be accused of preaching bootstraps but I think there is a good chance that both of us would not have been successful without the family support and values instilled upon us. It is impossible for a society to provide these things but it certainly is our burden when they are not provided.
I believe that in order to be intellectually honest about this issue we have to start with personal accountability. Helping people who are willing and motivated to help themselves. Every once in a while one of my white trash relatives will lift himself up out of the hole his family has been digging for 100 years and make it out....but no one is going to wave a magic wand and fix them all. Regardless of what society can accomplish there will always be people like this...of every sort. And as long as they exist we will be able to point a finger and say society is at fault......it's not imo.
Laughable, you're grasping at straws here. Very poorly phrased, let me help you out and rewrite this, so that the implications and subtext bubble up to the surface:
Back in the days of yore, 4 or 5 decades ago, when I was a wee lad, kids were raped and everybody looked the other way. It was a dark time, a he said she said kinda thing. Long before DNA testing, that forensic evidence that doesn't lie.
Not just kids mind ya, ladies too. You had to be careful though, don't beat her up, cause ya know, your "she asked for it" defense loses some weight. Don't worry though the cops and the courts (traditionally male dominated professions) know what you mean. This wasn't a black white thing though, no, rape is equally dished out here. And the (majority) white cops and judges equally held no one to account.
But nowadays things are different. Yeah I'm not sure what things changed. Maybe standards of evidence or the erosion of social stigma or perhaps the internet.
Gladly, today, the police and the courts (whom I trust on certain issues) take sexual assaults seriously.
Blaming the victim (whom I choose based not on evidence but on how I feel) is no longer acceptable.
Unless (quickly switching topics to serve my underlying purpose) you are posting on Soulstrut (a forum where people go to express their opinions on topics) about a police killing in self-defense.