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What were formers slaves "given"? Some schools a Freedman's Bureau and not much else after the Civil War. How were they supposed to buy land when in many cases the resources they had was their own labor? In many cases formers slaves went on to be share croppers are menial wages that barely allowed them to survive. In many cases economic slavery replaced chattel slavery.
If you don't have money your freedom to "Do whatever you want" is limited. Jim Crow segregation, voter intimidation and rampant discrimination where used to economically disenfranchise Black Americans.
that's a single case... but trust me ...most immigrants didn't got anything! and a lot of them came in the US with nothing or in the best cases with 5-10$. And they didn't had nobody here and no associations and NGOs to scream for benefits!
I am not trying to say some whites didn't grow up in poverty. When you got that important interview though, and you sat in front of them, could they possibly tell that you were from an impoverished background? No, they couldn't. Minorities can work their butts off and get nowhere fast because of that inevitable face to face barrier. I am from and still live in the inner city today (I'm 18). I see firsthand how hard people work to get very little, while my surburbia buddies have life basically handed to them. The level of commitment has to be 10 times more because I have had to basically go against the grain of my culture and become a total outcast, which is not easy for ANY teenager. While my peers are selling narcotics and doing other crimes, it is perfectly okay for a white person to go to college because everyone else is doing it. I cannot stress how hard it is to stay focused andd on the right path when friends that you've grown up with are dying and getting incarcerated on the daily basis. I am always constantly torn between two totally different worlds. I can never fully concentrate on improving my place in society when I am trying to get everybody I grew up with on the same page. Lot's of people say "just do you" but I will never become a "sellout" (abandoning your culture 4 money) which is basically what has to be done for a black man to enter "White America" succesfully.
You contradict yourself here. First you say that you're trying to concentrate on improving your place in society but then you say you refuse to sellout because you won't give up your inner city thug culture just to have a better place in society. I don't get it. Do you want a good life or do you want to stay in the trashy place you're in now?
Also, it makes no sense to say it's easy for whites to succumb to peer pressure to go to college. In some groups of whites, yes, there is peer pressure to get a higher education, but in many, this is not the case. It's not something you do just b/c you're friends are doing it. It's not really a valid argument to say you hang out with your ghetto friends b/c it's the peer pressure thing to do while whites go to college b/c that's their peer pressure thing to do. Anyone who goes to college has to work hard while they're there to finish, it's not as easy as high school (i.e., go to school, turn in homework and pass with flying colors).
Your first argument also has some flaws. You're basically saying that a white person from the poor section of town will present himself better than a black person who lives next door. Not true. Any person who is obviously uneducated and ignorant will not have a good chance at getting a job. Put on some clean clothes, fix your hair and speak properly, and you will have no problem getting a job.
The South was the best place for the blacks! They had free food and free housing for little work. When they moved to the north they started to cry for benefits and they realized what they lost. Oh... and you know that there were as many whites as blacks who worked the crops, no? Just 3% of the whites owned slaves... compared with 7% of the blacks.
Today the South is the least segregated in the US (check the census data ...there were some maps based on it even here on the forum).
Former slaves were NOT given free food and housing. The share cropping system for Southern Black Americans was basically economic slavery. These people PAID rent on land they have to PAY for food, clothing, seed, mules, plows and any other implement they needed. If they could not pay for these things they were forced to go into debt, further assuring that they could not be economically free. The money they earned for whatever crops they harvested was strictly controlled by White land owners. The system was specifically set up to stop the economic advancement of Black Americans.
The share cropping system, a persistent and organized campaign of domestic terrorism, voter intimidation, segregation, housing and business loan discrimination and an entire political, social and economic system dedicated to keeping Black Americans subservient is what drove many Black Americans out of the South. To deny this is to deny history and it also insults your intelligence.
Oh and by the way I lived in Texas for over 20 years I been to Dallas, Houston, New Orleans, Birmingham, Mobile, Jackson, Memphis, Little Rock, Shreveport, Monroe, Miami, Tampa, Orlando, Atlanta, Augusta, Columbia, Charlotte, Richmond, Norfolk and numerous smaller towns. The South is still segregated as hell. It's so ingrained in the culture of some places people literally don't know of any other way to live. In fact a couple of years ago Morgan Freeman did a documentary about a small town Mississippi where they still held segregated senior proms. He actually put up the money to have the local high school’s first integrated prom. SOME WHITE AMERICANS STILL WANTED AND IN FACT HAD A WHITE ONLY SENIOR PROM.
Why is Obama always considered black? He is just as much white and he was raised by his white mother and never knew his black father. So why is he not white?
Probably because he himself identiified himself as a Black American. He even filled that parituclar choice out when he completed his 2010 Census form.
Morgan Freeman is wrong. His answer is basically "Let's sweep this under the rug and act like it doesn't exist". The fact people can stop talking about race does not mean that people won't continue to act racist toward you as many Black Americans that work in Corporate America will only be too glad to tell you.
Poverty is often indicative of the level of violent crimes committed. There is simply nothing better for these people to do with their lives than commit crimes. If they had any morals at all, they would be at work and taking care of their families rather than out making trouble. The non-working poor also have a sense of entitlement so they believe they can rob, cheat and kill for whatever they believe they're owed. They feel completely justified in their actions in many cases.
Why do you honestly think so many people, both black and white, are afraid of going in the ghetto? It's a poor, run-down area with high crime. Drugs, meaningless violence, home invasions and armed robbery are just a few examples. Generally, minorities commit most of these crimes. "White crimes" are generally related to money, like theft and manipulating someone out of their money, like the crooked CEOs we heard about on the news last year. I will say that to me, it seems like more white women are raped than black women, but I can't say who the perpetrators are, although I believe whites are probably responsible for more of that behavior. (And yes, that is a violent criminal act.) Much white crime targets people we know while minority crime tends to be directed at any random person, without even having a reason. Not to say either are justified, but I believe I'm safer around white people b/c the chance of a random crime happening to me is much less than if I were to take a stroll through the ghetto.
So, if you're saying the culture, not poverty level, has to do with why minorities have a high crime rate, are you admitting there is something inherently wrong, then, with minority culture?
White collar crimes are usually committed because of greed. There are more white people in CEO positions and positions of power, so they are in a better position to commit white collar crimes. If just as many blacks were in these positions, do you think it would never happen? Another straw man.
Whites might be more qualified for some positions but that is not to say that blacks are never qualified and don't deserve a chance. However, you don't know the dynamics of every successful company, so you're not in a position to tell them they're wrong b/c they do not have a black person leading the way. Maybe they don't have a qualified black person to promote, maybe no black people even work there, you just don't know.
And why do we keep talking about Fortune 500 companies? There are many, many, many successful companies that are not Fortune 500s. Mind you, chain stores and franchises are counted as their own separate companies and might be more successful as a whole than any Fortune 500 company.
Sigh... obviously you've never been outside of the US. If you'd ever been south of the border, you'd realize that the poorest of the poor (ie those who live on less than a couple dollars a day) commit the least amount of crimes. Crime in Latin America is nearly exclusively an urban phenomenon, not too dissimilar from the way it is here. While the urban poor are committing most of the violent crime, they are not nearly as poor as those living in the tiny rural farm communities. Part of it is that community isn't valued as much in the big city... part of it is that city life is far more of a dog-eat-dog lifestyle than rural life would ever be. In America, crime and poverty are equated in large part because the vast majority of the US is fully urbanized.
And you're brainwashed if you think that white people don't deal their share of drugs and murder their share of people. Ever heard of the Hells Angels? KKK? Aryan Brotherhood? Seriously? Places like Iowa have some of the highest rape rates in the country... they're also lily white. You trying to compare what I presume to be a typical white middle class neighborhood with the ghetto is ridiculous. Obviously you've never been to a white ghetto. Its equally dangerous.
Well no **** white collar crime is committed because of greed. WTF do you think drives drug dealing? Prostitution? Do you think they do it because they like it?
And why are you trying to separate "minority culture" from American culture? Do white people have a monopoly on "American culture"? You're no different than the other *******s who think that non-whites/christians/heterosexuals = unamerican.
I'm not black. And I will not stop talking about racism. Because when blacks are oppressed that means Jews, gays, Latinos, the impoverished, etc. can also be oppressed, sooner or later all minority groups can be oppressed.
That actor is an Uncle Tom. He is acting on behalf of what white Anglo people want to hear. No white person wants to hear a black man address issues head on like Jimmy McMillan has addressed poverty.
So Obama and Morgan Freeman are both Uncle Toms. So if someone has made a name for himself and does not act racist or play the victim card, that makes him an Uncle Tom?
You asked me if I worked the fields and then you posted all those lies?
You know that there was slavery in Europe too and the slaves were white, no? Do I have to tell you that 95% of the population was enslaved?
My grand grand mother used to work for a land owner and from what I know from my father she said that it wasn't that bad being a "slave"
The experience and the opinion of your grandmother is just that, her experience and her opinion. She speaks for nobody but herself.
The experiences described by Black Americans that lived through the Jim Crow era tells a completely different story. It pretty much explains that the migration where Black Americans left the South was one of the largest migrations of people in this country in the 20 century
Its not every black man... its black men who completely assimiliate into mainstream culture. To do that would mean to literally have or pretend to have the mainstream state of mind (which pushes the issues that poor blacks and poor people in general face safely to the side unless it can make a good COPS episode). A successful black man that does not give a **** about the struggles his fellow black men face is labeled an Uncle Tom. Successful black men that do care largely don't exist... the mainstream doesn't support them. Instead, it lashes against them and calls them "bigoted" and "anti-american". Some will immediately assume I'm talking about Reverend Wright (when I'm not).
Do you not see how what you're saying is racist?? You're sitting there telling us not to use a blanket statement when you yourself are doing just that.
You have a problem with your own kind who decide to get out of the ghetto and make something of themselves. Anyone who wants to be successful must assimilate to the mainstream to a certain extent. The mainstream does not push the issue of poor blacks, etc. to the side unless it can be on Cops! What world are you living in? And why do you think the so-called Uncle Toms don't care about the struggles of their fellow black man? How do you know that? Maybe these people can see past all the crap "their people" are spewing and get to the point, which was the whole point of this thread...it's not going to stop until minorities stop perpetuating it! Rev Wright is a great example, btw.
I agree. Sometimes it seems as if white people can't accept the truth from a primary source and are content with fantasy beliefs instead of just shutting up and listening.
Maybe you should shut up and listen when I tell you your beliefs are out in fantasy land.
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