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Black unemployment has quadroupled since the 1950's, and their vibrant inner city communities turned into ghettos after desegregation and public aid. Therefore, you can make the argument that blacks' pockets were fuller and their lives were more fulfilled in the 50's.
Given these facts, how can you say things are better now for the formerly 'oppressed peoples' ? This is all I have to say about racism. Not everything was bad about Helms' era, nor was everything bad about the man I'm sure. Also, not everybody on here is "calling out racism." That is a term that you coined, but many on here are just dancing on the man's grave. That, my friend, is simple disrespect, internet anonymity aside.
Given these facts, how can you say things are better now for the formerly 'oppressed peoples' ?
I have no idea what you're talking about.
Things are obviously better than the 50's for black people. Today they have made enormous strides in all facets of life: business, employment, academia, sports, etc. This progress is simply incomparable to the days of Jim Crow and before Brown v. Board of Education and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Now it's illegal to discriminate on the basis of race in employment, housing, education, access to public accommodations, etc. No one in their right mind would want to live without those protections.
We still have more problems and more work to go, obviously.
*And, for the record, Jessie Helms deserves utmost disrespect for the unrepentantly racist legacy he left behind in the United States Senate.
Helms believed in his country, and he helped make it better (rightly or wrongly) his whole life. RIP. All the balled up negativity on this thread is worse than any racist comment Helms ever made. Stupid armchair starbucks liberals...things were better in the 50's.
Thank you. I wasn't going to post anymore to this thread as I felt it got hijacked by a bunch of people displaying a lot of insufferable self righteousness toward a man who while not perfect was a defender of this country against it's biggest enemy of the latter half of the 20th century, communism.
These people are outraged by wrongful positions taken by this man 40 to 50 years ago and the fact he didn't redeem himself by becoming a full fledged supporter of affirmative action. That's the real sin to many of them. Not what he said in the 1960s, but the fact that later on he opposed racial quotas and set asides in hiring and college admissions. The only way to redeem himself was to become like George Wallace and support race quotas. Jesse Helms wisely chose not to do this. Race quotas are wrong, period. It is simply replacing one kind of government racism, segregation, with another, quotas.
One final observation about the hate filled posters. These people who are so outraged about Helm's racism will go into a voting booth in November and vote for a man who chose to belong to and regularly attend an explicitly racist church that taught "black liberation theology" and who's preacher constantly whipped his congregation into a frenzy with negative rants about greedy white supremacists controlling America. This politician also crudely characterized his white grandmother as a "typical white person" for supposedly stereotypical statements about a black man she meant on a street. I wouldn't say Obama should be totally judged by these acts but for crying out loud, if they can so easily forgive him in 2008 and vote for him, they can forgive the Helms statements of 40 years ago.
Thank you. I wasn't going to post anymore to this thread as I felt it got hijacked by a bunch of people displaying a lot of insufferable self righteousness toward a man who while not perfect was a defender of this country against it's biggest enemy of the latter half of the 20th century, communism.
These people are outraged by wrongful positions taken by this man 40 to 50 years ago and the fact he didn't redeem himself by becoming a full fledged supporter of affirmative action. That's the real sin to many of them. Not what he said in the 1960s, but the fact that later on he opposed racial quotas and set asides in hiring and college admissions. The only way to redeem himself was to become like George Wallace and support race quotas. Jesse Helms wisely chose not to do this. Race quotas are wrong, period. It is simply replacing one kind of government racism, segregation, with another, quotas.
One final observation about the hate filled posters. These people who are so outraged about Helm's racism will go into a voting booth in November and vote for a man who chose to belong to and regularly attend an explicitly racist church that taught "black liberation theology" and who's preacher constantly whipped his congregation into a frenzy with negative rants about greedy white supremacists controlling America. This politician also crudely characterized his white grandmother as a "typical white person" for supposedly stereotypical statements about a black man she meant on a street. I wouldn't say Obama should be totally judged by these acts but for crying out loud, if they can so easily forgive him in 2008 and vote for him, they can forgive the Helms statements of 40 years ago.
obama, unlike helms has never gone out of his way to profess hatred/indifference to those different than himself. sure, obama has been misquoted at times to the medias' advantage, but has he examplified outright hatred the way that helms did? helms was in the senate a very long time. you do not have to go back "40 years" to find a hateful comment from helms. in fact, you only have to go back to the 90s, not too far in the past. his outrageous comments are well within the memories of many freedom loving americans.
Things are obviously better than the 50's for black people. Today they have made enormous strides in all facets of life: business, employment, academia, sports, etc. This progress is simply incomparable to the days of Jim Crow and before Brown v. Board of Education and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Now it's illegal to discriminate on the basis of race in employment, housing, education, access to public accommodations, etc. No one in their right mind would want to live without those protections.
We still have more problems and more work to go, obviously.
*And, for the record, Jessie Helms deserves utmost disrespect for the unrepentantly racist legacy he left behind in the United States Senate.
Desegregation of sports, wow. Is that better, or a 25% unemployment for blacks nowadays? 70% of black babies born out of wedlock... vs. the SAME level as whites in the 1950's...
How have we made "enormous strides" in black schools considering the staggering dropout rate of black high schools (80% in Chicago). Sure, more get into college because of Affirmitive Action, but most end up dropping out. So tell me again, how is it better?
You speak of discrimination as if it doesn't exist anymore. It's still there too...
Black unemployment has quadroupled since the 1950's, and their vibrant inner city communities turned into ghettos after desegregation and public aid. Therefore, you can make the argument that blacks' pockets were fuller and their lives were more fulfilled in the 50's.
And of course in the 1850's black unemployment rate was 100%.
Sounds like a pretty suspect statistic to me.
Any official US stats to back up your claims?
Closest I found to your claims was the following:
"For example, in 1950 the unemployment rate for whites was 3.07 per cent whereas the rate for blacks was 6.24 per cent. Similarly, by 1980 the unemployment rate for blacks was 9.82 per cent, compared with only 4.74 per cent for whites"
Desegregation of sports, wow. Is that better, or a 25% unemployment for blacks nowadays? 70% of black babies born out of wedlock... vs. the SAME level as whites in the 1950's...
How have we made "enormous strides" in black schools considering the staggering dropout rate of black high schools (80% in Chicago). Sure, more get into college because of Affirmitive Action, but most end up dropping out. So tell me again, how is it better?
You speak of discrimination as if it doesn't exist anymore. It's still there too...
Sigh.
Several things:
(1) I said more than just sports (which are still important). And for that matter, we're talking about progress generally speaking; not just progress from desegregation. But of course business and other employment fields are really where blacks have made strides since the 1950's.
(2) If you want to claim education opportunities and attainment for blacks are the same now or worse as in the 1950's, then that's just ridiculous.
(3) I'm well aware discrimination still exists, but now we have *laws* such as Title VII (of the 1964 CRA), the Fair Housing Act (FHA), other federal statutes, and various state anti-discrimination statutes that (a) make it unlawful to discriminate based on race in all those areas I listed before; and (b) provide for remedies to redress the discrimination. By contrast, in the 1950's and 1960's, blacks had *no* recourse if they were discriminated against in all those areas I listed before. In fact, up until 1954 (the Brown case), racial segregation of all types was still legal! Moral of the story? Progress.
(4) With all due respect, I don't trust you or the figures you claim. Moral of the story? Provide credible citations for that kind of stuff. I'd like to see it myself.
That's your job (to prove me wrong). I doubt you can, as you know the points that I made - 80% high school drop out rate in Chicago alone, 70% births out of wedlock, and 20-25% unemployment - are true among blacks today. Need I bring up encarceration rates, violent crime rates, drug abuse rates, and other unhealthy black habits... Habits that were the same if not lower than those of whites in the 50's.
Bottom line is that things have certainly changed since the 50's, but there is little "emperical, numerical, or statistical" evidence that things are actually better, if there is even a way to measure 'better'. So do yourself a favor and stop playing messiah like O-bama or Sharpton.
That's your job (to prove me wrong). I doubt you can, as you know the points that I made - 80% high school drop out rate in Chicago alone, 70% births out of wedlock, and 20-25% unemployment - are true among blacks today. Need I bring up encarceration rates, violent crime rates, drug abuse rates, and other unhealthy black habits... Habits that were the same if not lower than those of whites in the 50's.
Bottom line is that things have certainly changed since the 50's, but there is little "emperical, numerical, or statistical" evidence that things are actually better, if there is even a way to measure 'better'. So do yourself a favor and stop playing messiah like O-bama or Sharpton.
I don't think you understand how reality works.
You make a statement, you back it up if asked. Otherwise, you have no credibility and your point is merely an opinion with no basis in fact.
Did you miss the recent post with several links.
You can make any statement you want so long as you can back it up.
Care to provide some data on your allegations?
Thank you. I wasn't going to post anymore to this thread as I felt it got hijacked by a bunch of people displaying a lot of insufferable self righteousness toward a man who while not perfect was a defender of this country against it's biggest enemy of the latter half of the 20th century, communism.
These people are outraged by wrongful positions taken by this man 40 to 50 years ago and the fact he didn't redeem himself by becoming a full fledged supporter of affirmative action. That's the real sin to many of them. Not what he said in the 1960s, but the fact that later on he opposed racial quotas and set asides in hiring and college admissions. The only way to redeem himself was to become like George Wallace and support race quotas. Jesse Helms wisely chose not to do this. Race quotas are wrong, period. It is simply replacing one kind of government racism, segregation, with another, quotas.
One final observation about the hate filled posters. These people who are so outraged about Helm's racism will go into a voting booth in November and vote for a man who chose to belong to and regularly attend an explicitly racist church that taught "black liberation theology" and who's preacher constantly whipped his congregation into a frenzy with negative rants about greedy white supremacists controlling America. This politician also crudely characterized his white grandmother as a "typical white person" for supposedly stereotypical statements about a black man she meant on a street. I wouldn't say Obama should be totally judged by these acts but for crying out loud, if they can so easily forgive him in 2008 and vote for him, they can forgive the Helms statements of 40 years ago.
At least you defended him a lot better than NCN, and made a lot more sense than in your previous post on this thread. I'll give you a rep for the effort.
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