Gunfight at the O.K. CorralFollow

"personal actions" is so broad as to be meaningless in this context. Everything can be said to be the result of "personal actions". What actions specifically are you speaking of? What actions are taken consistently in a given manner that it rises to become a substantial and measurable impact on the entire state of black America? And if this is consistent and broad, then isn't your term "personal actions" really just another means of referring to "institutional favoritism"? I suppose we could make a distinction between an individual engaging in racially biased actions and businesses, schools, organizations, etc doing so.

I'll also point out that you are, once again, doing exactly what you accused me of doing: Singling out a single "cause" for the problem. In this case, I kinda can't help but notice that the two things you talk about are both (presumably) some form of racism. I disagree that racism, in any form, is more than a small contributor to the current state of black America. I pointed out a number of other factors, none of which have anything to do with racism, but that all help contribute to the disparate condition blacks find themselves in. And instead of responding to my list, you just ignored it and repeated your own claim (with a wording change included).

As long as you insist on assuming that the disparate conditions of blacks in the US is the result of racist behavior, you're going to miss all of the other factors. And IMO, that's going to prevent the very solutions that need to be implemented from ever being adopted. And will thus perpetuate black poverty in the US. Broaden your mind on this topic. Chanting "racism" over and over might make you feel better. It might get others to rally to your cause. But it will never actually solve the current problem. Because blacks aren't poor in the US because of evil white folks deliberately keeping them down (well, except maybe some of the good ol boys in the Democratic party). It's almost entirely because of well meaning folks thinking they are "helping" blacks, while actually hurting them. The people supporting more welfare, more food stamps, and more political empowerment for blacks certainly aren't doing so because they hold a racist view of blacks. They think they're doing the right thing.

But they are not.



And? I didn't mention the skin color of the person who killed the black person. I spoke of civilians versus police. Because their actions seem most geared towards the police. Zimmerman was latino. It is interesting that you couldn't help but make this into a white vs black issue. But the cops are black as well, right? Especially, the police forces in the locations being protested the most, there's a lot of black cops. So this isn't about white killing blacks, it's about cops killing blacks. But then that begs the question? If it's not about the race of the person pulling the trigger, then why not spend more time focusing on gang killings? Is it that they don't want to oppose the gangs, but are ok with opposing the police? That seems... backwards. Given that crime is one of the feedback effects in poor neighborhoods that keep them poor. You'd think the number one concern for blacks in the US would be the ridiculously high rate of death from this cause.

Yet instead, it's focused at the rare isolated events where a cop or watchman kills a black man. Of course, in nation of 300+ million people, these rare events will occur often enough to continue to make news and keep the cause active, but they aren't really the problem here. Worse is that they seem to almost deliberately pick the most controversial cases to highlight. Almost like it's not about trying to prevent black deaths, but to pick cases where they know a lot of people will look at the same facts and say "Um... maybe the guy wasn't wrong to pull that trigger when he did".

It's a pattern of action you take if you want to create conflict, not if you want to solve a problem.

Edited, Jul 28th 2016 3:26pm by gbaji

That would be, as they say, the crux of the problem.

Here; I'll give you an example you can understand:

"I disagree that socialism, in any form, is more than a small contributor to the current ideology of the Democratic party"


You would rightly argue that in that statement I'm either woefully uninformed about the issue or deliberately lying to obfuscate the truth. As you do in yours...get it yet?

Which is what I said. To which you responded to ask if I agreed that it was a combination of just two things. I've said twice now that it's more than that.



Ok. But it's not useful to be that broad IMO. What specific actions are contributing to the problem? What specific examples of institutionalized favoritism are contributing to the problem? You can't fix something that vague. You cant even discuss it.

And I'll point out (again) that despite your own language being incredibly broad, by limiting your list to just those two things, you're still leaving out a whole set of other things. They very ones that I have mentioned repeatedly. The impact of the welfare state, for example, does not fall either into "personal actions", or "institutional favoritism". So you're demanding that I agree to restrict our discussion to a range of things that I don't agree constitute even the most major factors involved. I'm not going to do that, because I don't agree with it.

I've been very specific with my list of contributing factors (although I'll totally admit that's not likely to be close to a full list of factors). You're free to respond to my points, or to add your own (but please add something specific that we can actually talk about). I'm not going to agree to arbitrarily limit the discussion just to the things you seem to want to talk about.

You think that it's primarily racism that is causing the current state of black America? Specifically as it relates to disparate poverty rates? I get that this is a narrative the left loves to trot out, but where's the evidence? If racism itself were the primary cause, wouldn't we be uncovering vast racist plots all the time? It would require large percentages of the population constantly and consciously making decisions to prevent blacks from succeeding out of a belief that their own race is superior (that's what racism means, right?).

The problem is that this is exactly the circular reasoning I'm talking about. You start with the assumption that disparate racial outcomes are the result of institutionalized racism in a society. You then see that the racial outcomes are disparate and accept this as proof that institutionalized racism is alive and well. The problem is that this all derives from your own starting assumption.

I challenge that assumption. 50 years ago? Sure. Today? I'm just not seeing it. Sure, you can find some guy over there, or over there, using the occasional racist slur, and maybe, just maybe that guy might just be in a position once in a great while to hamper some black person's success. But on the kind of scale we're talking about? The numbers involved? The size of the poverty gap? I don't see how that's possible.

But if we abandon the starting assumption, broaden our thinking on the issue, and accept that there could be forces in our society that can adversely impact a group of people who share a common attribute (skin color in this case), where the cause of that impact has nothing at all to do with racism, then we can start looking around for examples of this. And when we do, we start seeing a whole host of factors out there that affect blacks to a different degree than whites. And most of them exist because of well meaning people, with no racist intent at all, who think they are helping people. I've listed several. There are many more. But you can't get past the assumption that if something bad happens to someone, someone else must have intended that bad thing to happen.

In the real world, bad things happen to people, even to groups of people, without needing harmful intent all the time. You didn't intent to lose control of your vehicle and hit that other car, but it happened. To assume that accidents only happen by malicious intent is absurd, right? Yet, that's essentially what you're arguing here. Until people drop this ridiculous assumption that racial disparities can only be the result of racism itself, we can't ever even start discussing this issue. Which is sad, because the people most harmed by that are (once again) the very people you presumably think you are siding with.



Oh, I get it. But my response to that statement wouldn't be to mock your statement, or dismiss it out of hand. I'd ask you for evidence to support your position. I'd also provide support in opposition that presumably supports my position (like, I don't know, providing example of behavior by the Democrats which matches with socialist behavior). Neither you nor Alma have done that. You've just restated the assumption that racial disparity can only result from racism and moved from there. Restating the same starting assumption isn't an argument, when the starting assumption is the very thing in dispute.

I can show you, step by step, how any of a number of welfare programs contribute to keeping black people poor in this country. It's not even that hard to do. I seem to recall we got into this very discussion some months back, and I showed the stats for black in the US relative to whites, and you could see both groups steadily improving right up until the late 1960s (when most of the Great Society legislation actually started to have an impact), and then suddenly it was like some magical wall divided the two groups. Whites continued on a steadily improving condition, with poverty rates decreasing to a current relatively steady point, while blacks stopped improving and have stayed at a much higher rate (about double the rate of whites) of poverty ever since.

Is that not evidence that something happened right then that inhibited blacks reaching parity with whites in this regard? What happened? The welfare state happened. Prior to that happening, blacks were improving economically at a steady pace. There's no reason to assume that they would not have erased the existing poverty gap between them and whites within a couple decades. But then... it just stopped. And they've been stuck in the same spot ever since.

You can't explain that with racism. Racism has quite clearly decreased dramatically over the last 50 years. Yet the relative condition of blacks has not. That should be your first hint that there's something else going on.

That depends on the particular scenario. If you want to solve the problem with welfare, you have to first acknowledge that the individual on welfare could be from personal choices or it could be systemic (or something out of their control).

Favoritism towards and/or against a particular demographic due to historical social practices, laws and/or norms. These practices may or may not be intentional. For example, hiring the pretty girl over the less attractive girl or providing better/good deals to your close friends or family.

So we agree?

Are you saying his telling everyone that he gets pulled over every twenty feet isn't evidence that racism doesn't exist anymore?

Edited, Jul 29th 2016 9:53am by lolgaxe

ASYLUM FAVOuRITISM!!!

That you're insisting on a meaningless and overly broad terminology that basically says something is either "high" or "low" (or, I guess, somewhere in-between now)? Sure. Meanwhile, you're steadfastly avoiding discussing any sort of details.

Edited, Aug 1st 2016 3:20pm by gbaji

Did you argue with him when he pulled you over? Did you insist he was profiling you? Did you threaten to report himto his supervisor? Did you call him a "cracker cop" even just once? Cause, I think that might just have changed your experience.

Yay! Victim blaming and not caring that the burden of professionalism lies with the person who volunteered to work in the law enforcement field!!

I love it!

If you can't even admit the existence of a very general category of a problem, how are you able to provide a specific solution that addresses a problem under that general category?