Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I don't argue that blacks made mistakes (as an explantion for socioeconomic gaps) because all groups make mistakes. It adds nothing and subtracts nothing by mentioning that blacks have problems of their own making because ALL human groups or races do. Thats a WASH. Thus.....mentioning it plays no role in explaining why social economic differences exist between blacks and whites.
What it adds is a potential way out. The past cannot be changed. What can be changed is their strategy for the future. Many blacks are long gone from the ghettos.
You don't understand how human nature works. Human nature manifest socialization, most profoundly and primarily, through emulation. What opened up widest and first for blacks in America was entertainment and sports. Thus, blacks were disproportionatly made famous by entertainment. Hence, young blacks are socialized to see entertainment and sports as what they should strive for....via socialization through emulation. Blacks don't historically have the role models that whites have had to emulate. Its changes recently, especially in TV roles and with the election of a half black president. However, entertainment and sports is still primarily where blacks see black success and this is why they gravitate towards sports and not other avenues. The truly believe that they can find success in sports and entertainment even though the odds are greatly against it, because they see so many African Americans finding success in it. Thus, people don't just choose as you say. They are socially conditioned to make choices based upon what they see people like them achieving and doing.
I'll add a more detailed response to this tomorrow when I have more time, but for now I'll just say that I understand, and to some extent agree.
Quote:
You don't understand. It has nothing to do with Maryland vs Michigan. If you tie a baby elephant up with a rope when it is young it will struggle to break free but fails because it does not have the strenght. By the time that elephant reaches adulthood it has the strenght to break the rope that bound it......but it has been conditioned by the past to believe it cannot...and hence it does not break the rope. Ina more sophisticate human way....then same thing applies to black people. The conditioning of the past has impacted blacks mentally to the degree that we have been conditioned to fail. Furthermore, structurally and logistically, as well as economically, we are in the most likely position to fail as well.
What are your suggestions as to how society can go about changing, or at the least, reversing that process today? You've described fairly thoroughly how the present situation, at least for some blacks, has come to be, but I haven't seen any suggestions as to how to improve it. I've provided several examples of places where large numbers of blacks have, despite the past, become quite successful (independent of entertainment or sports), but you haven't really addressed how they were able to overcome past injustices to become successful today, or how they could be an example to others. I hope I'm wrong, but it almost seems that you believe that blacks in America are unable to succeed today because of the past.
As the discussion continues, I'd like to ask everyone to remain calm and respectful. I've seen enough threads about significant and important issues derailed by emotional outbursts, we don't need that here.
Yac.
What it adds is a potential way out. The past cannot be changed. What can be changed is their strategy for the future. Many blacks are long gone from the ghettos.
As naturally they would be. Look....black people are not all CLONES. Stop talking of black people as a monolith. Each black person has unique experiences and individual variation is abilities exist between some individuals as other. Hence, the theory that if one black has made it that ALL black can make it is invalid. There is no room for exceptionalism, as an explanation or the opposit. Your argument, as presented, makes it seem like all blacks have the exact same experiences (in degree and kind), the exact same hole or predicament to climb out of and the exact same genetic capacity to do so (yes...some individuals are genetically superior to others in regards to intellectual and emotional intelligence).
Often times black success is used as a hammer against blacks who don't find success. It would be like black people claiming that any white person who does not achieve the success of Bill Gates.....as failures and under achievers in life. If Bill Gates did it....whats the rest of white peoples excuse? However, many whites can see exceptionalism in Bill Gates and realize not all whites have the ability to do what he did....because he had some above average capabiliities or skill sets. However, when black people become successful.......it then says to some people that the rest of black people have no excuse and that it invalidates all the reasons that blacks who are not successful give for their shortcomings.
I'll add a more detailed response to this tomorrow when I have more time, but for now I'll just say that I understand, and to some extent agree.
What are your suggestions as to how society can go about changing, or at the least, reversing that process today? You've described fairly thoroughly how the present situation, at least for some blacks, has come to be, but I haven't seen any suggestions as to how to improve it. I've provided several examples of places where large numbers of blacks have, despite the past, become quite successful (independent of entertainment or sports), but you haven't really addressed how they were able to overcome past injustices to become successful today, or how they could be an example to others. I hope I'm wrong, but it almost seems that you believe that blacks in America are unable to succeed today because of the past.
There were blacks who found their way to freedom, in America, during the heights of slavery. Does one draw from that historical fact that blacks who was enslaved have no one else to blame for their predicament but themselves? Were the remaining enslaved blacks personally irresponsible, which led to their continued enslavement? One cannot or should not use THE EXCEPTIONAL as a way to invalidate or discredit the ORDINARY. In other words, the ORDINARY should not be held to the standards of the EXTRAORDINARY. Should I be expected to play basketball like Michael Jordan just because I am black and not give weight and understanding to our God given difference in height and natural ability? “Well Jordan did…..what’s your excuse for not being able to do it”? Is that FAIR to ordinary me….with ordinary height and abilities? Please…don’t use black success as ammunition against blacks who have not found equal success, because it may very well be an unfair juxtaposition.
The greatest period of black advancement or renaissance in America was during the period of black consciousness. This is a period when blacks were attempting to reverse engineer our identity away from the way society defined us for centuries. This is when slogans such as “I’m black and I’m proud”, “Black is Beautiful”, “I am somebody” and a host of other reaffirming phrases were popular. This was necessary because blacks had internalized the negative images of themselves feed from society over 300 years. Blacks were consciously helping one another to lift one and other up. Education was a key component of this consciousness. However, during this era then FBI head J. Edgar Hoover declared “Black militancy” the number one internal threat to American internal security. Not long after that, drugs flooded the black communities of this nation. There has been no greater setback to black progress, the last 40 years, than drugs…..and yes…..I am saying that the government targeted black communities, in order to destroy black militancy (which was really a self defense and black uplift movement) which it saw as a threat to America.
Mexico City Olympics....Tommy Smith John Carlos
Black people, urban and suburban, need a black consciousness. They don’t need a “anti-white” consciences, they need a consciousness of how the situation evolved to what it is and how we have been conditioned by history to self perpetuate our own inequality and how things like drugs is part and parcel to that. The problem is that blacks are bound in what we can do because of white reaction. If blacks try to be conscious and lift up black people……whites will attack it out of ignorance claiming that if they did such as whites, for whites, they would be called racist, while ignoring that whites are not at the bottom of any equality indexes that would warrant a “white uplift”. Many whites would not WANT to understand…..they just don’t want blacks to have the ability to do and have anything that they don’t or cannot have. If blacks can say the “N” word…..why can’t whites? If blacks can have a BET (black entertainment network) why can’t whites? Such questions totally disrespect the history and hole that black people are trying to climb out of as a people….and such hinders our ability to climb out of these holes. That’s my suggestion and it’s a totally organic suggestion meaning that it does not require anything or ask anything of white folks.
Last edited by Indentured Servant; 12-31-2010 at 07:55 AM..
As naturally they would be. Look....black people are not all CLONES. Stop talking of black people as a monolith. Each black person has unique experiences and individual variation is abilities exist between some individuals as other......
I use common terms. When I say that jews have done well, that doesnt mean every single jew. By 1970, ~ 10% of Detroit's Jews were involved in blue collar jobs and the largest group were simple white collar workers that were not in the professions. They werent all doctors in bloomfield.
Yet I still noted that jews in general were doing well without leaving the impression that I was talking about clones. I just don't see any way to have a discussion if you are going to imply that everyone is a racist with every post. Good luck.
Quote:
Often times black success is used as a hammer against blacks who don't find success. It would be like black people claiming that any white person who does not achieve the success of Bill Gates.....as failures and under achievers in life. If Bill Gates did it....whats the rest of white peoples excuse?..
I'm not implying it will be easy or soon. But if the culture doesnt value education, there will be missed opportunities for those who do have the talent. It slows down the entire process.
I use common terms. When I say that jews have done well, that doesnt mean every single jew. By 1970, ~ 10% of Detroit's Jews were involved in blue collar jobs and the largest group were simple white collar workers that were not in the professions. They werent all doctors in bloomfield.
Yet I still noted that jews in general were doing well without leaving the impression that I was talking about clones. I just don't see any way to have a discussion if you are going to imply that everyone is a racist with every post. Good luck.
One cannot single out blacks as LACKING in some quality or ability, relative to others, without implying racial inferiority. After over 300 years in this country there should exist no cultural difference between blacks and whites worthy of note.....unless society was structured so that there would be. Hence, the only way that the implied "culutural inferiority" of blacks would exists is that racial oppression created and incubated, deliberately, that such be the case. To argue something "black" or something unrelated to EXTERNAL causation is without a doubt a claim of black inferiority relative to those groups who find themselves in a better socioeconomic condition than blacks overall.
People are always saying that blacks are trying to BLAME. No....blacks are trying to EXPLAIN. Everything that exists EVOLVED into what it now is and hence NOTHING can be explained without talking about the chain of actions the begot reactions over time. It just so happens that 90% of the history, measured in years, of blacks in this country has been under a form of legalized racial oppression. Hence, one cannot explain the black condition today without using this history and when blacks do this whites feel as if they are under attack and that they must defend white people.....and in doing so it makes the whites that do so seem racist. Good white folks do not need to defend the reputation of what bad white folks did. Don't use your goodness as the cover up for others not so goodness. It should not have to be said that there have ALWAYS been whites who were against black oppression and who took no part in it. However, such people should not by used to invalidate the claims that blacks were oppressed in this nation by whites and that blacks today are still suffering the reverberations of past racism which accounts for their condition of inequality today. Many people feel the need to defend "whites" and the way they employ to do that is by arguing that it was not whites that caused the inequality that exists today.....but some "defect" in black people relative to others that did. Its the defect that leads us to make excuses more than others, to be lazier than others, to be more irresponsible for others, to be more violent than others....etc.
Why, after 300 years, would blacks and whites be different in anything in America besides appearance....if not for differences in experience and treatment in this nation? Again, when one eliminates the EXTERNAL causation for the differences that do exist, socioeconomically, then they are saying that the causation (for the difference) is INTERNAL. In other words, there is something about black people, unrelated to anything that happened to them in this nation, that causes them to perform below the norms of whites in this country. If the value "12" is said to be the belief of racial inferiority of blacks, relative to whites, and it is known that such a belief means that one is "racist", then no one will say "12" because they do not want to be stigmatized. So what do they do instead. They just say "6" and then they say "4" and then they say "2".....and when I add it all up....guess what....it equals the value "12". Then I say "you are saying 12"....then they argue no they did not and they will cease to debate because they say I am accusing them of saying 12, the straw man fallacy......when what they really said was "a dozen" or "6 + 4 + 2". People need to realize that ONE... I CAN ADD and TWO.....synonyms don't fool me. Those maybe strategies for one to fool themselves into thinking they are not this or that....but not me.
Last edited by Indentured Servant; 12-31-2010 at 09:20 AM..
One cannot single out blacks as LACKING in some quality or ability, relative to others, without implying racial inferiority. ...
I can single out any group for relative economic success without talking about their racial (genetic) traits. I'm talking about cultures. Some American subcultures outperform others, even in the face of discrimination.
IIRC, American Jews and East Indians outperform WASPs on a per capita basis, despite WASPs having a several hundred year head start as free agents in the economy. Something they are doing is working. That's not to suggest that WASPs are mentally ill or genetically inferior.
Yes, blacks have additional burdens due to extreme racism in the past. There is no remedy for that but attitude and time. I have no belief that blacks are genetically inferior, despite you suggesting it with your every post (and thus calling me a liar).
Indentured Servant, I've noticed that you have a lot of theories with no basis in fact and that you manufacture these theories to fill a need to blame white people for all of the problems facing Blacks. If anything suggest black inferiority, it is your own argument.
What you are claiming is that Blacks are completely powerless with respect to controlling and shaping their own destiny. This is false on many levels. First, our society in general has for quite some time been bending over backward to advance Blacks. We instituted affirmative action programs that discriminate against Whites for the "greater good," we have constructed numerous black institutions that would otherwise be considered racist such as the Congressional Black Caucus. Hollywood goes out of their way to never cast a black man in a negative role almost always casting them in only the best ones and in far greater percentages than their actual 12% of the population. How many Latinos do you see as the guy on the horse in the Old Spice commercial? They are 13% of our population.
Second, every person has free will and is ultimately responsible for their own decisions. To maintain that the individual is fully incapable of making wise choices due to an environment that his grand father grew up in is preposterous and irrelevant. Exactly what kind of influence is required for a person to understand that the shouldn't murder people? And what good is this belief? At what point in time do you believe the problems that face the black community will be solved if the victim mentality is adhered to and Blacks continue to blame Whites for all of their problems? If they never take upon themselves, responsibility for their own self determination, how long do you suppose it will be until someone comes along and does it for them?
The answer is never. Right or wrong, fair or not, everyone is ultimately responsible for their own self determination and their own actions. That is and always will be a fact of life and it does no good to cast blame because it won't make a difference anyway.
Third, you falsely blame Whites for the lousy conditions in so many black neighborhoods that allegedly causes Blacks to make bad dissuasions. The type of systematic racism that you speak of is ancient history to put it simply. Few of the people we are discussing ever experienced and of it. In fact, they grew up in a society that is very much the opposite - one in which there is a clear and deliberate effort to advance Blacks. Your "legacy of slavery" argument simply doesn't hold water.
Here are some words from Thomas Sowell - it seems he is blaming attitudes such as yours for the problems facing Blacks in America today.
"The current self-destructive misdirection of energies in black ghettoes cannot be explained by a "legacy of slavery" or "racism." For one thing, this level of self-destruction in black communities did not exist half a century ago, when racism was worse and the black population was generations closer to the era of slavery. Moreover, a virtually identical pattern of self-destructive attitudes and behavior has been found among British lower-class whites, where none of this can be blamed on racism or a legacy of slavery. (See "Life at the Bottom" by Theodore Dalrymple.) What the two self-destructive communities on opposite sides of the Atlantic have in common is hearing a steady diet of propaganda blaming all their problems on others, and depicting "society" as determined to keep them down, regardless of anything they might do to try to lift themselves up."
Another monumental fallacy you seem to insist on committing no matter how many times you are corrected is that you insist there are only two possibilities. You repeatedly insist that either one argues that the conduct of Blacks is 100% the cause of white oppression and that all other groups would react in exactly the same manner. Or, if you do not accept that premise, you must believe that Blacks are inferior. Why is is so difficult for you to wrap your brain around the concept that there are other explanations?
I have challenged you on this a few times and you have chosen not to respond. Clearly, it is because you don't have an answer and do not want to let go of your false dilemma even when the fallacy is pointed out to you. There are a number of explanations why factors other than white oppression might be to blame for the self-destructive conduct of Blacks that don't suggest inferiority. The fact that you keep deliberately avoiding the subject in favor of your own debunked theory really shows that you are unwilling to discuss things objectively and for some reason need to cling to beliefs that are obviously fallacious.
In the end, you must understand that your attitude is bad for everyone and is counter productive. You mentioned the notion of learned helplessness in your elephant example. But the fact is, society isn't teaching helplessness - you are.
I can single out any group for relative economic success without talking about their racial (genetic) traits. I'm talking about cultures. Some American subcultures outperform others, even in the face of discrimination.
IIRC, American Jews and East Indians outperform WASPs on a per capita basis, despite WASPs having a several hundred year head start as free agents in the economy. Something they are doing is working. That's not to suggest that WASPs are mentally ill or genetically inferior.
Yes, blacks have additional burdens due to extreme racism in the past. There is no remedy for that but attitude and time. I have no belief that blacks are genetically inferior, despite you suggesting it with your every post (and thus calling me a liar).
East Indians are a FILTERED demographic. Many, if not most, come here on special work visa for their special skills and others come over as students who performed highly and are from elite families in India. Hence, you are not getting the TYPICAL East Indian in America, but rather, an elite sub class.
In regards to Jews.....its not a race and Jews are also WHITE! Discrimination is only sustainable when the discriminated group can be easily identified. I would have never known Jerry Sienfield was Jewish if not for his name or his proclaim. I would have never known that Bill O'reilly is Irish if not for his name. So how could I discriminate against them if they changed their names. Now....Wesly Snipes or Danny Glover...no matter what they call themselves or no matter whether they choose to identify themselves as "black" its self evident. There is no opportunity to "fool". So again, you are talking apples and oranges.
You keep taling about culture without defining culture or how culture develops or evolves. Cultures require relative isolation to develope and any group that has been in America as many generations as African Americans have, after being stripped of their African Culture long ago, would have to have been ISOLATED for there to have developed a "sub culture". So what phenomenon created the isolation of blacks to develope the sub culture of which you refer? Don't just make observations.....provide explanations!
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
