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There has been a lot of discussion of race in the United States, hasn't there? I posted on another site (I won't link to it, of course) a question of what was missing in the national discussion of race. Honestly I was thinking I might get Ta Nehisi Coates fans telling me 'America is a racist country! White people are just racist!'
Maybe it's the digital divide, but I mostly got white guys saying Blacks (note 'Blacks' not African-Americans) are just violent and they commit all the crimes. Blacks are 'just like that'. They complain that's never talked about because they get labeled racist.
Well, that is racist. The racist position is that everyone belongs to a 'race', and 'race' carries various characteristics that are unalterable and define everything about a person. As a lifelong bleeding heart liberal, I have to say at least the neo-Nazis are honest enough to call themselves racist. If you want to take the 'those people are like that' approach you should be ready to take the heat.
What's wrong with the racist position is it doesn't explain anything. 'Race' is used as a mystical, indivisible quality you just have, inherited from your ancestors but is never really explained. If you think it's DNA, lots of people have had their DNA analyzed and the DNA suggests ancestry from all over the place. I've met people who tell me they 1/8th Polish and 1/2 Cherokee.
If you believe in racial stereotypes, what happens if a Black/Jewish couple have children? Violence-prone accountants?
If you look at the history of the idea of Race, you quickly realize it was invented in the 19th century to justify slavery and colonialism. No accident that 'race' today always creates a hierarchy where - surprise - the Europeans who invented it are on top.
The next response I get is the 'we know which race commits the crimes, we know who fills up the jails.' Well, you don't know who commits the crimes. You know who gets arrested. I, for example, am a middle aged white male who is also a criminal. I have never been arrested. Twenty years ago, for about 10 years, I violated US drug laws on a regular basis. Someone who breaks a law has committed a crime, and someone who commits a crime is a criminal. I never came close to being caught.
As a teenager I ran a red light and was pulled over by a cop. I didn't have my license on me. Was I shot in the head? Nope, the cop let me go with a warning. Not even a ticket.
'Black'. No wonder some folks prefer it to African-American. African-American suggests a culture and history that starts to explain things. I refer for further reading 'Ghettoside' by Jill Levoy about gang violence in South Central Los Angeles. The African-American that began arriving in the 40s and 50s came out of the Jim Crow South where clearly the police and courts were not dispensing justice. I don't suggest that one fact, or any one fact, is going to explain all racial problems in America today. But I suggest the answers lie in understanding history and culture, not perpetuating stereotypes.
The racist position is that everyone belongs to a 'race', and 'race' carries various characteristics that are unalterable and define everything about a person.
Well... nobody believes that, so I guess there are no racists.
Well... nobody believes that, so I guess there are no racists.
Well with the first clause of his sentence the progressives and government strongly believe everyone belongs to a race, but he built a strawman with the second clause. You could though make the case it's the progressive libs who explain everything by race. So maybe it's true, progressive libs are the racists?
Maybe it's the digital divide, but I mostly got white guys saying Blacks (note 'Blacks' not African-Americans) are just violent and they commit all the crimes. Blacks are 'just like that'. They complain that's never talked about because they get labeled racist.
Well, that is racist. -
not racist because the term black is being uses as an adjective to describe a group of people that have a common denominator as being one of color. its just an adjective. Now one could also use an adjective as ghetto, youth, from aka south side. but its the facts of the topic that describes the crime. Now i know you want to be describe as an individual, but that is just not possible when you are talking about groups.
There has been a lot of discussion of race in the United States, hasn't there? I posted on another site (I won't link to it, of course) a question of what was missing in the national discussion of race. Honestly I was thinking I might get Ta Nehisi Coates fans telling me 'America is a racist country! White people are just racist!'
Maybe it's the digital divide, but I mostly got white guys saying Blacks (note 'Blacks' not African-Americans) are just violent and they commit all the crimes. Blacks are 'just like that'. They complain that's never talked about because they get labeled racist.
Well, that is racist. The racist position is that everyone belongs to a 'race', and 'race' carries various characteristics that are unalterable and define everything about a person. As a lifelong bleeding heart liberal, I have to say at least the neo-Nazis are honest enough to call themselves racist. If you want to take the 'those people are like that' approach you should be ready to take the heat.
What's wrong with the racist position is it doesn't explain anything. 'Race' is used as a mystical, indivisible quality you just have, inherited from your ancestors but is never really explained. If you think it's DNA, lots of people have had their DNA analyzed and the DNA suggests ancestry from all over the place. I've met people who tell me they 1/8th Polish and 1/2 Cherokee.
If you believe in racial stereotypes, what happens if a Black/Jewish couple have children? Violence-prone accountants?
If you look at the history of the idea of Race, you quickly realize it was invented in the 19th century to justify slavery and colonialism. No accident that 'race' today always creates a hierarchy where - surprise - the Europeans who invented it are on top.
The next response I get is the 'we know which race commits the crimes, we know who fills up the jails.' Well, you don't know who commits the crimes. You know who gets arrested. I, for example, am a middle aged white male who is also a criminal. I have never been arrested. Twenty years ago, for about 10 years, I violated US drug laws on a regular basis. Someone who breaks a law has committed a crime, and someone who commits a crime is a criminal. I never came close to being caught.
As a teenager I ran a red light and was pulled over by a cop. I didn't have my license on me. Was I shot in the head? Nope, the cop let me go with a warning. Not even a ticket.
'Black'. No wonder some folks prefer it to African-American. African-American suggests a culture and history that starts to explain things. I refer for further reading 'Ghettoside' by Jill Levoy about gang violence in South Central Los Angeles. The African-American that began arriving in the 40s and 50s came out of the Jim Crow South where clearly the police and courts were not dispensing justice. I don't suggest that one fact, or any one fact, is going to explain all racial problems in America today. But I suggest the answers lie in understanding history and culture, not perpetuating stereotypes.
You must have got a passing grade when you took the "YES SIR, NO SIR test".
There has been a lot of discussion of race in the United States, hasn't there? I posted on another site (I won't link to it, of course) a question of what was missing in the national discussion of race. Honestly I was thinking I might get Ta Nehisi Coates fans telling me 'America is a racist country! White people are just racist!'
Maybe it's the digital divide, but I mostly got white guys saying Blacks (note 'Blacks' not African-Americans) are just violent and they commit all the crimes. Blacks are 'just like that'. They complain that's never talked about because they get labeled racist.
Well, that is racist. The racist position is that everyone belongs to a 'race', and 'race' carries various characteristics that are unalterable and define everything about a person. As a lifelong bleeding heart liberal, I have to say at least the neo-Nazis are honest enough to call themselves racist. If you want to take the 'those people are like that' approach you should be ready to take the heat.
What's wrong with the racist position is it doesn't explain anything. 'Race' is used as a mystical, indivisible quality you just have, inherited from your ancestors but is never really explained. If you think it's DNA, lots of people have had their DNA analyzed and the DNA suggests ancestry from all over the place. I've met people who tell me they 1/8th Polish and 1/2 Cherokee.
If you believe in racial stereotypes, what happens if a Black/Jewish couple have children? Violence-prone accountants?
If you look at the history of the idea of Race, you quickly realize it was invented in the 19th century to justify slavery and colonialism. No accident that 'race' today always creates a hierarchy where - surprise - the Europeans who invented it are on top.
The next response I get is the 'we know which race commits the crimes, we know who fills up the jails.' Well, you don't know who commits the crimes. You know who gets arrested. I, for example, am a middle aged white male who is also a criminal. I have never been arrested. Twenty years ago, for about 10 years, I violated US drug laws on a regular basis. Someone who breaks a law has committed a crime, and someone who commits a crime is a criminal. I never came close to being caught.
As a teenager I ran a red light and was pulled over by a cop. I didn't have my license on me. Was I shot in the head? Nope, the cop let me go with a warning. Not even a ticket.
'Black'. No wonder some folks prefer it to African-American. African-American suggests a culture and history that starts to explain things. I refer for further reading 'Ghettoside' by Jill Levoy about gang violence in South Central Los Angeles. The African-American that began arriving in the 40s and 50s came out of the Jim Crow South where clearly the police and courts were not dispensing justice. I don't suggest that one fact, or any one fact, is going to explain all racial problems in America today. But I suggest the answers lie in understanding history and culture, not perpetuating stereotypes.
No. The answers lie in people accepting differences instead of saying stupid crap like, "I don't see any color".
Are you black? What's wrong with being black? Are you not proud of the fact that you're black?
Are you white? What's wrong with being white? Are you not proud of the fact that you're white?
What makes up the color of someone's skin is melanin. Some people have more, some people have less. There ARE differences between black people and white people. There ARE differences between males and females. There ARE differences in how you see the world and how I see the world. We are NOT all the same inside and outside. It doesn't define "everything" about you, but the differences do define a lot about you, that's why you are YOU and not me.
When you stop pretending that we have no differences, and instead embrace the fact that we are all different, only THEN can you start to work on the issue of racism.
All of this race talk is on the news and from the Obama administration. Nobody where I live talks about race tensions and people from all races get along just fine. These are dirty tactics from politicians to try and divide the people any way they can and race baiting is most often used. They also divide the people on religion, gay rights, abortion, immigration ... it goes on and on. These are tactics right out of the Saul Alinsky playbook to force social engineering change. It's all on the news but rarely actually seen in public.
Whites stereotype blacks, blacks stereotype whites, whites and blacks stereotype Asians...the reason for stereotypes is that they are generally true in one group compared with another group. To me it's not depressing, it is what it is. Just one of my gropes with the Politically Correct Nazi Code of Conduct....you can't be honest. Political Correctness is just a web of lies.
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