Critical Race Theory policy in hiring at UT

[Wulaw Horn 19070]

3 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Sounds like we are making progress. However, I have to address the below:

As I and others have said many many many times, the concept of systemic racism isn't about labeling individuals as "racist" or casting aspersions or blame onto others. It is about understanding and describing the problem of unintentional racism. You aren't being called racist. Stop thinking like that. 

That’s what people hear because the argument is being made in a shitty way that isn’t getting through. This is why I said it has to be made (if it’s going to succeed and you get the buy in you want) in a logical and emotionless way where people aren’t feeling attacked because of something they didn’t do. 

[Dahobbs 17534]

11 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

That’s what people hear because the argument is being made in a shitty way that isn’t getting through. This is why I said it has to be made (if it’s going to succeed and you get the buy in you want) in a logical and emotionless way where people aren’t feeling attacked because of something they didn’t do. 

No, that's what people hear because they can only think about themselves. See, you think calling it "racism" is bad because it invokes the negatives associated with racism and feels like someone is being called racist. From the other perspective though, it is important that people understand how bad the problem is, how disgusting it is that it still exists, and understand the importance of fixing it. If it didn't make you and others feel uncomfortable, it would be ignored and limited to academic discussion. Nothing would be done and the problem would keep self-perpetuating. It needs to make people uncomfortable for them to take it seriously. We should be uncomfortable with it. It isn't something we should want to live with.  

Also, LOL at the idea that the way to get people to do something about the problem is to be logical and emotionless. Bullshit. The way you connect with someone is through emotion. That is what drives human beings. Make them understand. Make them empathize. That's how companies market their products and services, by connecting them to an emotion. Aren't you a lawyer? Is cold and emotionless the way to reach a jury? Of course fucking not. 

Edited May 22, 2021 by Dahobbs

[TwiceHorn 31482]

3 minutes ago, Catdaddyhorn said:

That's simply not true. At least not to the same degree. The GI Bill and post WWII housing policies did a good job of rectifying things to a large degree for ethnic whites. And white looking hispanics have been able to blend in as well over the generations. There's a reason this problem is much more entrenched in some communities than others. Because they were much more exhaustive, punitive,  and all consuming for some groups than others.  

Yep.

You still have to make the right choices and be lucky.  But the fact is that blacks were foreclosed from making a lot of good choices from jump.  And that's not ancient history as some would like to believe.

It's pretty much beyond cavil that the post-war expansion was a uniquely good time to be an American.  A white American at least.  And a lot of white Americans screwed the pooch.  Probably more than did it right.

But black Americans were pretty systematically, de jure and later de facto, excluded from participating in that boom.

[Captainant 27675]

1 minute ago, Wulaw Horn said:

This is why I said it has to be made (if it’s going to succeed and you get the buy in you want) in a logical and emotionless way where people aren’t feeling attacked because of something they didn’t do. 

Once again: this is an example of privileged people viewing equality as oppression. It's not THEIR fault, but they are the beneficiaries of it and in some cases the unknowing perpetuators of it. It's not that it's a personal thing, it's that when economic policies like tax cuts affect everyone equally but a byproduct of them is that minorities are hurt worse than whites.

It's because privileged folks don't want to acknowledge that their opportunities were made possible at the expense of minority groups. Just ask Lee Atwater how it got started.

Quote

Atwater: Y'all don't quote me on this. You start out in 1954 by saying, "N****r, n****r, n****r." By 1968 you can't say "n****r"—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me—because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "N****r, n****r."

 

[Catdaddyhorn 3444]

34 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

That’s why I said we are talking past each other. I’m saying that we have fixed the current problem (I put numbers to it and it’s just a micro micro issue- less than a Starbucks a month with a super easy fix going forward- but that report should be viewed as awesome news as it pertains to the current system). And I acknowledge the legacy affect and acknowledge that’s the harder part. We aren’t on opposing sides on this (at least I don’t think we are) and I’d love to see us attack the legacy of racism that our ancestors gifted to us. Because I think the country is onboard with that. And I think it’s possible for people to be reasonable if the thing is dealt with in the right way and it’s dealt with logically as opposed to emotionally. 
And that logic, to my way of thinking goes something like this- there’s been harm in the pay because of racism that was inherent in the system. We realize very few people now act with any explicit racism, but let’s all try to figure out how to settle up for this legacy we were left in a way that doesn’t blame people who weren’t part of cresting that legacy but benefited from it. 
Maybe that looks like every black person that can trace their lineage in this country to a certain point in time automatically qualifies for a house. Hell, maybe even at 0 interest rate. And it’s government guaranteed. I don’t know- I’m just throwing out one simple idea. 
my own families story is that both my grandparents were both dirt poor. One bought a house and left their kids $500k (split 4 ways) in inheritance because they died with 0 money in the bank but a paid for house. The other grandparents never bought and they will leave nothing to their kids. So I get what a big boost homeownership is. It’s why I believe it’s why makes the American dream happen. So, let’s fix that. 

A big part of what people miss in these discussions is how much the post WWII housing production created the structure of the world we currently live in. It wasn't just that people were able to get houses, the profit of which were passed down to their loved ones. It's the communities that were built out of it. The destinations of commerce that it allowed people to take advantage of. Even if I didn't have a house I could now go work in some service of this new entity created. I could now create products and services to take and advantage of these entities spread throughout the nation. I could create schools that served this entity and built upon itself. And the absence of these opportunities created a literal vacuum elsewhere where these entities of commerce and community building weren't allowed to exist. 

Edited May 22, 2021 by Catdaddyhorn

[TwiceHorn 31482]

When you start to acknowledge the systematic beatdown that has been the black experience in America, and not just in the ancient past, you stop demanding that they pull themselves up by their bootstraps (or explain why the interracial violence situation is the way that it may be).

Then you can move on to more productive discussions about how the situation can be fixed.

Aspects of CRT may be heavy on placing blame and blame isn't productive either.  But neither is denying that there's an inequality of opportunity that still exists.

[Judge Roybeanbag 11819]

32 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Yep.

You still have to make the right choices and be lucky.  But the fact is that blacks were foreclosed from making a lot of good choices from jump.  And that's not ancient history as some would like to believe.

It's pretty much beyond cavil that the post-war expansion was a uniquely good time to be an American.  A white American at least.  And a lot of white Americans screwed the pooch.  Probably more than did it right.

But black Americans were pretty systematically, de jure and later de facto, excluded from participating in that boom.

This is perhaps one of the biggest and most important overlooked points in recent history.  All that middle-class growth, all the wealth built by baby boomers parents, that was almost exclusively white.  Blacks largely missed out on the largest economic building block of the century.  

[Catdaddyhorn 3444]

33 minutes ago, Catdaddyhorn said:

A big part of what people miss in these discussions is how much the post WWII housing production created the structure of the world we currently live in. It wasn't just that people were able to get houses, the profit of which were passed down to their loved ones. It's the communities that were built out of it. The destinations of commerce that it allowed people to take advantage of. Even if I didn't have a house I could now go work in some service of this new entity created. I could now create products and services to take and advantage of these entities spread throughout the nation. I could create schools that served this entity and built upon itself. And the absence of these opportunities created a literal vacuum elsewhere where these entities of commerce and community building weren't allowed to exist. 

And the dichotomy of these two environments coexisting in the same world creates an obvious power imbalance of which we judged, made laws, and schooled and treated people differently because of this power imbalance. And even when the laws aren't explicitly racist everything created out of this world carries that imbalance along with it. That's why even in the police discussion when people attempt to debate whether individual policemen like Chauvin are racist its pure folly and misses the point entirely. They live a world where they're routinely dealing with the fallout out of our past where they absorb our value system telling them the impoverished are less than human. We reinforce this value system in everything we do. Shit look at California. Many of the current homeless are people who within the last few years lost their homes due to wild fires. As they struggle to find places to recover we punish that effort with reckless abandon. 

Edited May 22, 2021 by Catdaddyhorn

[Wulaw Horn 19070]

28 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

When you start to acknowledge the systematic beatdown that has been the black experience in America, and not just in the ancient past, you stop demanding that they pull themselves up by their bootstraps (or explain why the interracial violence situation is the way that it may be).

Then you can move on to more productive discussions about how the situation can be fixed.

Aspects of CRT may be heavy on placing blame and blame isn't productive either.  But neither is denying that there's an inequality of opportunity that still exists.

Very well said. Both parts. That was the poi JT so was trying to make about logical that I didn’t phrase properly. I should have said make the argument I’m a way that wasn’t attacking people and making them feel like they are being blamed or called names. 
There is racism in this country undoubtedly. And there are people that call non racist shit racist all the time. The second isn’t as meaningful and important as the first but it also does nothing to help, and actively harms, the idea of fixing the first. 
This isn’t a moral equivalency argument in other words, it’s tactical and about persuasion. And it’s almost never a great persuasion tactic to start out by calling people names  

 

[Wulaw Horn 19070]

12 minutes ago, Judge Roybeanbag said:

This is perhaps one of the biggest and most important overlooked points in recent history.  All that middle-class growth, all the wealth built by baby boomers parents, that was almost exclusively white.  Blacks largely missed out on the largest economic building block of the century.  

This is true, undoubtedly. But it’s also true that so did most whites and basically 100% of poor whites. This is why there are such large swaths of the country antagonized by racial talk I would suspect, especially when it comes from affluent and successful blacks in media, politics, education etc. 
And, by the way, that’s a totally fair and cogent point and should be thought about. In the same way the world wasn’t set up for blacks to thrive in it a generation or two ago it sure as shit isn’t set up right now for the poor and disadvantaged to succeed either. So, talking about race exclusively in these terms is antagonistic to poor whites. And it’s scary (afraid something is going to be taken from them) or insulting (being called a racist by lots of people if you don’t comply) to a lot of other whites. Again, this is a tactical point not a fairness point. 

[Dahobbs 17534]

17 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

Very well said. Both parts. That was the poi JT so was trying to make about logical that I didn’t phrase properly. I should have said make the argument I’m a way that wasn’t attacking people and making them feel like they are being blamed or called names. 
There is racism in this country undoubtedly. And there are people that call non racist shit racist all the time. The second isn’t as meaningful and important as the first but it also does nothing to help, and actively harms, the idea of fixing the first. 
This isn’t a moral equivalency argument in other words, it’s tactical and about persuasion. And it’s almost never a great persuasion tactic to start out by calling people names  

 

I agree, calling names doesn't help. Fortunately, that isn't what systemic racism is about. Unfortunately, some people are always going to react negatively to this topic because they don't want to acknowledge it. 

[VRHorn 718]

20 hours ago, Johnny Sack said:

Yes I do.  If we want to have a legitimate conversation about race on a collective basis where we generalize people on race, then let's discuss violence.  Particularly interracial violence, where 90% of the time in a violent interaction between a white person and a black person the white person is the victim.  Maybe we should have our own version of "the talk".

As a reminder, this poster has dropped the n word at least 6 times on this very site.

[jimmyjazz 45958]

Percentage of Americans with credit scores below 640:

Black -- 54%

Hispanic -- 41%

White -- 37%

Asian -- 18%

 

The racial component is already cooked in, even though the rate-determining algorithms don't factor in race.  (This is not to say the differences in credit scores across race are entirely the result of system racism, but it's surely a factor.)

Race and credit scores

[Brisketexan 105145]

Percentage of Americans with credit scores below 640:
Black -- 54%
Hispanic -- 41%
White -- 37%
Asian -- 18%
 
The racial component is already cooked in, even though the rate-determining algorithms don't factor in race.  (This is not to say the differences in credit scores across race are entirely the result of system racism, but it's surely a factor.)
Race and credit scores

Poverty is a trap from which it is he’s to escape: punishing late fees, a single car breakdown can cause you to lose your subsistence-level job, etc etc.

The more of a group that starts the current race from the poverty starting block, the more of them who will stay there. That’s just a simple truth.

By putting a majority of black people in a situation where poverty was the most likely outcome, we ensured that future generations would remain mired in the same trap. Yes, there has been some level of climbing out; that is good, no doubt, and as a society, we have made some systemic changes that helped that happen. So, we absolutely have done some right things. But the scales remain way out of whack. Both things can be and are true.

Also, what Judge Roy said is spot-on. Our biggest boom in history was 1945-1975. For most of that period, as that elevator shot to the top, black people were largely frozen out, forced to take the slow stairs, if even that. And here we stand on the 50th floor, asking the exhausted people on the 5th floor what their fucking problem is.

[fattyflattie 4639]

21 hours ago, Captainant said:

It was, and it was from the dems chasing the votes they lost after passing the civil and voting rights acts. And likewise, the folks who were instrumental to the passage of the 90s crime bill have since said they made a mistake and have been working to fix it. 

And their efforts to address those past misdeeds is why this thread exists. It upsets the folks who enjoy the disparity in treatment at the hands of cops and the law writ large, and would rather nobody reflect critically on it. 

So...sorry we put some potential votes over the wellness of a generation of your people. My bad.  Trust us, we’ll get it right this time. 

[synoptic 138]

3 hours ago, Dahobbs said:

So you agree some complex, ethical topics need to be taught in school, right? Where is that line? For instance, when does a book become too much about morality or ethics to be taught? What particular moral or ethical lessons are allowed? Historical significance doesn't seem like much of a limitation. 

Here is an example to illustrate the difference between teaching topics that are shaped/motivated by moral values vs ethics class - teaching that the US allows capital punishment while other industrialized nations do not vs arguing or examining why or why not capital punishment should be allowed.  

In the case of Jefferson's statement "all men are created equal," even this almost universally agreed claim is very difficult to give proper examination.  For one, many people don't think people are created.  2nd, it says men and not people nor men and women.  Suppose we want to modernize it, should it be "all people are equal," "all people are born equal," "all people deserve equal outcomes," etc?   3rd, Jefferson nor none of his peers really seemed to believe the statement in its literal meaing as slavery was allowed and only men with property could vote, so what did they really mean by it?  4th, is the statement even true and if so, how do we know it is true?  Some people are better athletes, better at academics, more handsome, contribute more to society than others, etc.  Should we just accept it as a maxim?  5th, Jefferson owned slaves and raped at least one of them, so why should we care what he has to say?  And so on.

I don’t get the point of third graders having these discussions.  What would happen in such an effort is the teachers/curriculum would simply attempt to install their preferred views and values.    

[Johnny Sack 8397]

5 hours ago, Catdaddyhorn said:

Those sorts of pricing controls only began in what, the last decade or so? We're talking 80+ years worth of damage here. That being said, even with algorithms they're still finding issues. 

Minority homebuyers face widespread statistical lending discrimination, study finds

https://newsroom.haas.berkeley.edu/minority-homebuyers-face-widespread-statistical-lending-discrimination-study-finds/

When people talk about systemic racism this is what they mean. Turns out that 100+ years of discriminatory policies and practices by legal fiat has long term consequences which don't resolve themselves simply by people no longer being mean to each other. 

Which is why reparations should happen.  

[Pancho 44805]

22 minutes ago, synoptic said:

Here is an example to illustrate the difference between teaching topics that are shaped/motivated by moral values vs ethics class - teaching that the US allows capital punishment while other industrialized nations do not vs arguing or examining why or why not capital punishment should be allowed.  

In the case of Jefferson's statement "all men are created equal," even this almost universally agreed claim is very difficult to give proper examination.  For one, many people don't think people are created.  2nd, it says men and not people nor men and women.  Suppose we want to modernize it, should it be "all people are equal," "all people are born equal," "all people deserve equal outcomes," etc?   3rd, Jefferson nor none of his peers really seemed to believe the statement in its literal meaing as slavery was allowed and only men with property could vote, so what did they really mean by it?  4th, is the statement even true and if so, how do we know it is true?  Some people are better athletes, better at academics, more handsome, contribute more to society than others, etc.  Should we just accept it as a maxim?  5th, Jefferson owned slaves and raped at least one of them, so why should we care what he has to say?  And so on.

I don’t get the point of third graders having these discussions.  What would happen in such an effort is the teachers/curriculum would simply attempt to install their preferred views and values.    

3rd graders aren’t having those discussions.  

[Johnny Sack 8397]

1 hour ago, VRHorn said:

As a reminder, this poster has dropped the n word at least 6 times on this very site.

Unless I was quoting the Democratic Senator Robert Byrd I don’t believe that’s the case.  But go ahead and quote me if I’m wrong.  

[Johnny Sack 8397]

1 hour ago, VRHorn said:

As a reminder, this poster has dropped the n word at least 6 times on this very site.

Here’s the 6 pages search results for the use of that word on this website.  And yes I did criticize Grand Kleagle Byrd for using that word.  Lots of familiar faces on this list.  
 

https://www.surlyhorns.com/board/index.php?/search/&q=Nigger&quick=1

[workswithseed 2109]

20 minutes ago, Johnny Sack said:

Here’s the 6 pages search results for the use of that word on this website.  And yes I did criticize Grand Kleagle Byrd for using that word.  Lots of familiar faces on this list.  
 

https://www.surlyhorns.com/board/index.php?/search/&q=Nigger&quick=1

@fattyflattie this is what they were talking about.

Didn't a journalist get big time in trouble for saying it in a quote? 

Edited May 22, 2021 by workswithseed

[Johnny Sack 8397]

Just now, workswithseed said:

@fattyflattie this is what they were talking about.

Didn't a journalist get big time in trouble for saying it a quote? 

@VRHorn criticized me for criticizing and quoting Grand Kleagle Robert Byrd for using the N word in a 2001 interview.  And misrepresented that I was “dropping” the word.  I wasn’t.  
 

He doesn’t have a problem with his cabal buddies using it. 

[workswithseed 2109]

1 minute ago, Johnny Sack said:

@VRHorn criticized me for criticizing and quoting Grand Kleagle Robert Byrd for using the N word in a 2001 interview.  And misrepresented that I was “dropping” the word.  I wasn’t.  
 

He doesn’t have a problem with his cabal buddies using it. 

https://nypost.com/2021/02/09/war-erupts-at-ny-times-after-donald-mcneil-ousted-over-n-word-controversy/

A full-blown war has erupted inside the New York Times over the ouster of long-time science reporter Donald McNeil for his use of the N-word on a trip to Peru in 2019.

Current and former staffers have been locked in heated debate since McNeil’s removal last week over whether it was justified, including on Twitter and in private Facebook group posts reviewed by conservative Web site Washington Free Beacon.

This is what I meant.

[Dahobbs 17534]

1 hour ago, synoptic said:

Here is an example to illustrate the difference between teaching topics that are shaped/motivated by moral values vs ethics class - teaching that the US allows capital punishment while other industrialized nations do not vs arguing or examining why or why not capital punishment should be allowed.  

In the case of Jefferson's statement "all men are created equal," even this almost universally agreed claim is very difficult to give proper examination.  For one, many people don't think people are created.  2nd, it says men and not people nor men and women.  Suppose we want to modernize it, should it be "all people are equal," "all people are born equal," "all people deserve equal outcomes," etc?   3rd, Jefferson nor none of his peers really seemed to believe the statement in its literal meaing as slavery was allowed and only men with property could vote, so what did they really mean by it?  4th, is the statement even true and if so, how do we know it is true?  Some people are better athletes, better at academics, more handsome, contribute more to society than others, etc.  Should we just accept it as a maxim?  5th, Jefferson owned slaves and raped at least one of them, so why should we care what he has to say?  And so on.

I don’t get the point of third graders having these discussions.  What would happen in such an effort is the teachers/curriculum would simply attempt to install their preferred views and values.    

Ok, maybe I understand. I don't think anyone expects third graders to discuss Nietzsche or Platonic idealism. But certain moral and ethical concepts are introduced, at an elementary level, to students. For instance, the exercise where students are divided into groups, with some having privileges to play and others do not has been fairly common. Is that sort of teaching inappropriate in your view? Are discussions of fairness off limits? I certainly agree that we can't start 3rd graders at the deep end of the pool, but we can and do introduce ethical and moral themes in school. Are you saying we shouldn't do that? It seems like the limits you actually intend on enforcing are more about the level of the class as opposed to the general subject. If that is the case, then sure, starting a second grader off on transcendental idealism is about as pointless as starting him/her on quantum superposition. Without some context, those things are going to be meaningless to them and impossible to teach. Let's start shallow. But avoiding a general subject all together does our children and society a disservice.   

Edited May 22, 2021 by Dahobbs

[52-80 19159]

7 hours ago, Catdaddyhorn said:

That's simply not true. At least not to the same degree. The GI Bill and post WWII housing policies did a good job of rectifying things to a large degree for ethnic whites. And white looking hispanics have been able to blend in as well over the generations. There's a reason this problem is much more entrenched in some communities than others. Because they were much more exhaustive, punitive,  and all consuming for some groups than others.  

Pretty much every immigrant that came to America arrived with 0 land, 0 credit score, 0 inheritance, and nearly 0 dollars. 
 

Whats to stop people today from building their scores and getting a mortgage?  The age-cohort of every other non-white immigrant didn’t get to participate in post war housing boom, so  why does that get to serve as the excuse for just a single group of people?  

[Catdaddyhorn 3444]

9 hours ago, 52-80 said:

Pretty much every immigrant that came to America arrived with 0 land, 0 credit score, 0 inheritance, and nearly 0 dollars. 
 

Whats to stop people today from building their scores and getting a mortgage?  The age-cohort of every other non-white immigrant didn’t get to participate in post war housing boom, so  why does that get to serve as the excuse for just a single group of people?  

Because housing discrimination isn't the  sum total of the damage done to black people. Being segregated away from the rest of america into densely impoverished communities for generations can have a corrosive cultural and mental toll on people. Being otherized, criminalized, terrorized, and bombed into subjugation also has an affect on people. There isn't a large city in this nation where black people weren't literally bombed when they attempted to partake in the American experience. Part of the assimilation process for immigrants into America is incorporating anti-black views. It's American as apple pie. Are you fucking seriously trying to compare the black american experience to immigrants ? 

Edited May 23, 2021 by Catdaddyhorn

[Catdaddyhorn 3444]

12 hours ago, 52-80 said:

Pretty much every immigrant that came to America arrived with 0 land, 0 credit score, 0 inheritance, and nearly 0 dollars. 
 

Whats to stop people today from building their scores and getting a mortgage?  The age-cohort of every other non-white immigrant didn’t get to participate in post war housing boom, so  why does that get to serve as the excuse for just a single group of people?  

Also let's not forget fact that black americans were citizens deserving of the benefits the United States government gave to citizens at the time. They are not and were never immigrants to this country. This obvious truth tends to get overlooked in discussions like this when the status of black americans gets compared to immigrants. 

James Baldwin hits on this mentality when discussing how black people at the time received Bobby Kennedy's statement "that it's conceivable that in 40 years we might have a negro president"

 

 

 

Edited May 23, 2021 by Catdaddyhorn

[Celery Man 20958]

certainly not scholarly but I feel like family and community are part of every immigrant story/myth in America. The Italians or the Irish are other for a generation or two and they have a community and there's some bidirectional americanization that occurs and Italians are as American as pizza pie. But the way that a) black families and black culture were attacked and in some ways destroyed (only caveating because obviously the cultures of enslaved people persisted and were the seed for MUCH TO MOST of what makes American culture great) and b) black people CONTINUED to be fought and rejected by American society even as we harvest their culture, it is not comparable. And it does have a huge impact, not just on people inheriting the old place or whatever but the type of behaviors and conditions that create stability and helps the next generation become more prosperous. 

I was reading.... either in "Fault Lines" or an article about it (ah, in the article excerpt from the book that caused me to purchase it - https://www.texasobserver.org/ive-lived-in-east-austin-for-60-years-and-i-dont-recognize-it-anymore/ ) someone talking about gentrification in Austin. Gentrification is an issue that... it's obviously sad when people are priced out of their "home" (on a micro scale, people and their house, on a macro scale, "people" and their community). And everyone hates seeing the places they love change, even though it is universal that places change. I'm a gentrifier and I don't know what the fuck else to do about it. I just want a home - i don't want to drive the price up or displace people. And I love shopping where the brown people shop. Anyways, I'm getting on a tangent - the thing that made me think a bit differently about the gentrification of black neighborhoods in Austin had to do with the absolute loss of community - 

Quote

It is sad to me that when African Americans arrive today they have a hard time finding Austin’s Black community and culture. An executive who transferred here from out of state had to follow a Black family home from Sears just to find the barbershops and Baptist churches that serve the community. Another woman who recently moved to Austin asked me, “Where are we?”

It's not micro - it's not the "well they have to move but they sold their house for a bunch of money and can now afford to" blah blah blah (which of course is not the only gentrification story), it's the "There was 1 black area in Austin, now there are 0 black areas in Austin".

I have a fussing baby I'd like to think and write more (and more better about this) but i cannot

[mchookem 16336]

everybody worried about their kid learning too much about racism in the U.S. can relax now (at least in TX!)

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/texas-republicans-ban-teachers-racism_n_609a96c8e4b063dccea1a3ef

 

[Poe It Up 126]

8 hours ago, Catdaddyhorn said:

Because housing discrimination isn't the  sum total of the damage done to black people. Being segregated away from the rest of america into densely impoverished communities for generations can have a corrosive cultural and mental toll on people. Being otherized, criminalized, terrorized, and bombed into subjugation also has an affect on people. There isn't a large city in this nation where black people weren't literally bombed when they attempted to partake in the American experience. Part of the assimilation process for immigrants into America is incorporating anti-black views. It's American as apple pie. Are you fucking seriously trying to compare the black american experience to immigrants ? 

I knew white supremacy needed a bigger umbrella, but incorporating minorities? That’s pretty forward thinking. 

[MaybeACoordinator 8349]

 

On 5/20/2021 at 3:56 PM, DaysOff said:

Why is that fucking Canadian that can't pronounce about or sorry everywhere now? Never heard of him six months ago.

 

He is getting talked back up now he is on the mend -- he went to Russia and Serbia a few years ago, right when the Alt Right was anointing him as their intellectual guru, to undergo weird treatments for benzo addictions that are banned in the west...They didn't go so well and he wound up in a coma, but survived. He had to relearn motor functions, a whole bunch of shit... 

 

 

On 5/22/2021 at 11:44 AM, TwiceHorn said:

Yep.

You still have to make the right choices and be lucky.  But the fact is that blacks were foreclosed from making a lot of good choices from jump.  And that's not ancient history as some would like to believe.

It's pretty much beyond cavil that the post-war expansion was a uniquely good time to be an American.  A white American at least.  And a lot of white Americans screwed the pooch.  Probably more than did it right.

But black Americans were pretty systematically, de jure and later de facto, excluded from participating in that boom.

I am fascinated by the street-level history of the US between the world wars...There was a HUGE white underclass at the time -- immigrants in the northeast and not yet Rusty Rust Belt and my own people, the po' white trash all over the South, many of them still illiterate or close to it. Many were very violent and extremely dangerous -- crime rose to historic levels in the 1920s and much of it in Texas was at the hands of dead-end white sharecroppers' kids. By that time they were being rendered obsolete by farm technology, so they were pouring into oil boomtowns like Borger and Kilgore and cities like Houston and Dallas, where they were building shantytowns on the fringes, where you had all the usual vices in plenty. And they were all uprooted from their old support systems and extended families in the fields and piney woods...To make a long story short, Bonnie & Clyde were just the tip of the iceberg and very late to the game. The whole country was crawling with little roving bands of robbers who'd kill you in a heartbeat if you stood in their way. It got so bad the Texas bankers' association put out a $5k bounty on dead bank robbers, the overwhelming majority of whom were white. Not for live ones -- just dead ones. And so of course you had people finding the town drunk or junkie or some convenient minorities, shooting them, and then trying to arrange their bodies in such a way as to make them seem as if caught in the act of robbing a bank. Ranger Frank Hamer loathed the bounty system; he investigated more than a few of these killings.

So along comes the war and the GI Bill and bada bing, bada boom, the vast majority of this huge White underclass were basically welcomed into the American Dream while Blacks were explicitly not invited. And so now we associate Black people and other minorities now with crime, and there are those stats Sack loves to wield, but the fact is, those at or near the bottom of society tend to commit the most crime, and especially so when there is a very justified sense among those people that they have been cheated, swindled, dealt a shitty hand, and all that less by luck than by deliberate policy and historical fact. This is the difference between poor Black culture and immigrant culture of every race -- their are cultural pathologies descended from slavery and Jim Crow that cannot be stamped out in a few short years. Enforced generational poverty does not end within one generation.

LBJ's reforms were a good first step but not as sweeping as the GI Bill had been. I really wonder what America would be like today if the GI Bill had been applied and enforced equally to all Americans after WW2. And if we stuck with true integration of public schools for more than about five or ten years. But that's a whole other deal...

 

 

[wildcat09 29354]

On 5/22/2021 at 7:10 PM, 52-80 said:

Pretty much every immigrant that came to America arrived with 0 land, 0 credit score, 0 inheritance, and nearly 0 dollars. 
 

Whats to stop people today from building their scores and getting a mortgage?  The age-cohort of every other non-white immigrant didn’t get to participate in post war housing boom, so  why does that get to serve as the excuse for just a single group of people?  

...you know shitloads of land was just given away for free to white people, right?

[52-80 19159]

13 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

...you know shitloads of land was just given away for free to white people, right?

none of which was given to Mexicans, Koreans, Indians, Philippinos, Cubans, Chinese, Cubans, Vietnamese, Dominicans, etc, which constitutes the largest immigrant groups post WW2/CRM/MLK

given the only thing we can change (through policy) is the future, whats a current  roadblock for any of these groups achieving equal outcomes going forward, starting with a baseline of 0 today?  or do we keep rolling the timeline further and further back to explain why things are unequal for 2 groups of people today?

[Brisketexan 105145]

3 minutes ago, 52-80 said:

given the only thing we can change (through policy) is the future, whats a current  roadblock for any of these groups achieving equal outcomes going forward, starting with a baseline of 0 today?  or do we keep rolling the timeline further and further back to explain why things are unequal for 2 groups of people today?

Both.  We do both.  Because this analogy is spot-on:

You don't get to spend 400 years cutting off someone's legs, and then declare today "we're gonna have a foot race, and to make it fair, the same rules for everyone!"

When we -- this country and its society -- are the REASON that someone's legs got cut off, then we have an obligation to remedy the fact that their legs are fucking gone, and THEN we have an obligation to make sure that they get to run a race with fair and even rules.  We have to do both, otherwise our argument of "but we're being fair to everyone TODAY" is hollow bullshit.

[52-80 19159]

7 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Both.  We do both.  Because this analogy is spot-on:

You don't get to spend 400 years cutting off someone's legs, and then declare today "we're gonna have a foot race, and to make it fair, the same rules for everyone!"

When we -- this country and its society -- are the REASON that someone's legs got cut off, then we have an obligation to remedy the fact that their legs are fucking gone, and THEN we have an obligation to make sure that they get to run a race with fair and even rules.  We have to do both, otherwise our argument of "but we're being fair to everyone TODAY" is hollow bullshit.

What's more hollow is the cynic persistence of "yeah but shit was fucked in the past", without any tangible proof whats fucked up now, for people living today, and what can or should be done about it  (other than the curt dismissal of "well thats the governments job to answer").

400 years ago, many flavors of Christians were persecuted across Europe.  I know you exaggerate for bombast, but fuck if we're gonna start tracing the state of the world today back since the founding of civilization.  America is at a time and place where, more than any point anywhere ever in history, a huge fraction of people of every color and creed are able to realize upward mobility starting from a point of 0 (i.e. the American dream).  And instead of asking what went right, you're fixated on blaming the rest of society for what went wrong.  Sad.

[Wulaw Horn 19070]

7 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Both.  We do both.  Because this analogy is spot-on:

You don't get to spend 400 years cutting off someone's legs, and then declare today "we're gonna have a foot race, and to make it fair, the same rules for everyone!"

When we -- this country and its society -- are the REASON that someone's legs got cut off, then we have an obligation to remedy the fact that their legs are fucking gone, and THEN we have an obligation to make sure that they get to run a race with fair and even rules.  We have to do both, otherwise our argument of "but we're being fair to everyone TODAY" is hollow bullshit.

True. But I have 2 legs and Usain Bolt has two legs and he's never going to lose to me no matter how hard I train.  And we are ok with that.  So, there's going to be a genetic component to success. There's going to be a familial component to success.  There's going to be an education level to success and we are never going to be able to equalize all that.  So, the only way we can have truly equal outcomes for everyone is to make everyone abjectly miserable, b/c if you allow for unequal outcomes even if you can put everyone on the same starting line then some are obviously going to succeed more than others.  

Put another way- you could reshuffle the deck in society and take away all of my degrees and anything else I have and I have the intelligence, skills, drive and desire where I would rebuild lots of what I have now. In fact- I'm doing it in my business- I walked from my entire pipeline and reserve bank account worth 6 figures, started over from scratch, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to be ok.  Now- you could also drop me in a place I've never been and my building back up would take longer- but instead of 6 weeks I'd be ok in 6 months. B/c of all the stuff I mentioned.  And I'm not unique on this website in that- I'm sure that most here could say some version of the same- b/c the dumbest person on here is smarter than 90% of humanity- which is something everyone should reflect on every now and again when you think- that person is a moron.  Most of the people failing in this society can't say the same- and they can't say the same from the moment of birth.  

How do we equalize for that?  What do we do with those people?  How do we ever make it fair?  B/c it sounds great to say- we are going to to do both- but I just don't know how it can be done.  

Put another way- if there were reparations how many lives would that change?  B/c 70% of lotto winners go broke and 1/3 of them end up in bankruptcy.  We see the same thing in the NFL, NBA, MLB etc.  Life is a bitch and an injection of money doesn't fix shit when you don't have the life skills to make use of it.  

And none of this is an argument for doing nothing!  We should try! There just isn't a magic bullet.  Jesus said it himself- "the poor will always be with you".  Which isn't code for fuck it- lets do nothing- b/c that's referencing a quote from the old testament which then exhorts us to open wide our hands to our brothers and the poor within our land. 

But- it's just an intractable and unfixable problem and we see that as a matter of experience in every country, from all of time, across every race, nationality and creed, and we see it in scripture.  So- we aren't ever making your mythical fair race with nobody's legs chopped off.  That's the starting point I think to redressing past wrongs- there's some stains that won't come up no matter how hard you scrub- so what does it look like to try to redress that shit (recognizing that blacks that are descendants of slaves in America are far and away not the only people who were dealt a shitty hand- and basic fairness and decency recognizes that poverty, regardless of race, is a real motherfucker to anyone to overcome.   

Also- if the rules are more or less fair racially going forward (and I think that they are more or less fair going forward- and to the extent they aren't lets remedy that) then on some level what difference does 400 years of discrimination based upon color look like if you won the lotto as a black child of successful parents?  Is not the child of the Huxtables in much much much better shape going forward than the Coal Miners Daughter?  Again, this isn't an argument saying that there isn't a ton of culpability in past racist actions hurting many in the African American community now, this is a practical question that says- if you are from the lineage of people that pulled themselves up by the bootstraps in situations that were harder than they ought to be- can we consider you to be advantaged compared to the child of the meth cooker in rural Texas?  B/c those guys aren't getting breaks in getting into schools or advantaged hiring situations where people are looking to find them and give them a hand up.  And benefiting the child of Lebron or Obama or the like isn't solving any problems in the impoverished neighborhoods. I mean, it's fair on the same level as Clipper Cooper having daddy donate a building to Harvard to get him in, I on some level I would just shrug and say "that's how life works and I'm not changing it" but how does letting in Bronny James into Stanford help the black community at large (again- not an argument against letting him in- just saying lots of affirmative action doesn't seem efficacious)?

 

[Brisketexan 105145]

1 minute ago, 52-80 said:

What's more hollow is the cynic persistence of "yeah but shit was fucked in the past", without any tangible proof whats fucked up now, for people living today, and what can or should be done about it  (other than the curt dismissal of "well thats the governments job to answer").

400 years ago, many flavors of Christians were persecuted across Europe.  I know you exaggerate for bombast, but fuck if we're gonna start tracing the state of the world today back since the founding of civilization.  America is at a time and place where, more than any point anywhere ever in history, a huge fraction of people of every color and creed are able to realize upward mobility starting from a point of 0 (i.e. the American dream).  And instead of asking what went right, you're fixated on blaming the rest of society for what went wrong.  Sad.

Nope.  I'm not that binary.  Our society is a complex system.  There are LOTS of things that we do "well" or "right" -- or at least, better and righter than many other places.  I'm not fixated on "blame," either.  The truth about what happened over the last 400 years doesn't require blame, per se -- it just "is."  

As much as the "justice" part of me would like SOMEONE to suffer the consequences for the Tulsa Massacre, for example, that can't happen a century later.  But what we CAN do is look at the fact that a large swath of our society suffered from being enslaved, then denied basic rights, then bombed, shot, and lynched, then kept away from the ballot box, then denied the gateway to the middle class that was the GI Bill after the war, then hit with firehoses and dogs.....and those things caused REAL effects.  Is our society to "blame?"  I don't think it much matters.  What we are is RESPONSIBLE.  If we are the heirs to the great things and opportunities America has given many of us, so are we heirs to those things our society did to crush black people.  That just "is."

To go to the metaphor, some of us got the benefit of 400 years of relatively good living, good nutrition, and access to training.  Black people got 400 years of getting their legs cut off.  The fact that we passed laws just a few decades ago that say "no more cutting off black people's legs," and "as of today, all foot races must start from the same spot" doesn't change the fact that some of us are at a big advantage, and others are at a big disadvantage, because of how our society was structured for 400 years.  A am cognizant of the blessings I have because I am an heir to this country.  I am also cognizant of the challenges that black people have for the exact same reason.  I don't know why it's so uncomfortable to accept that truth, and realize that if we are to accept the blessings, we should also accept the responsibility.

[Wulaw Horn 19070]

Paragraph 2 is the opposite of bragging btw for those here that like to read everything in the worst way possible.  Every single gift that I mentioned that I have (absent education) is something that I was born with and a gift from God and my parents that I did nothing to earn.  Intelligence.  2 parents that love me and want me to succeed.  Parents that screwed some stuff up but got the big stuff right (keep your nose clean- do the best you can- get an education- have a plan- here's $25,000 to help you in whatever schooling you want to do for yourself- that's a one time gift for undergrad and grad school- way less than some get but way more than others- and I was appreciative of it- you can live with us with your wife and 3 kids while you switch careers- we've got you and we will take care of you while you build a base of business, etc).  In the same way I was never going to be an NBA player and something like 12% of all American's who are 7 feet tall have played in the NBA, and neither of us at birth had anything to do with making that happen.  It was all just luck of the draw and nothing that can be accounted and assigned individual credit for figuring out why some people succeed.  

[Brisketexan 105145]

7 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

How do we equalize for that?  What do we do with those people?  How do we ever make it fair?  B/c it sounds great to say- we are going to to do both- but I just don't know how it can be done.  

Equalize?  We don't.  We can't.  We can never hit the bullseye of "perfect."

8 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

Put another way- if there were reparations how many lives would that change?  B/c 70% of lotto winners go broke and 1/3 of them end up in bankruptcy.  We see the same thing in the NFL, NBA, MLB etc.  Life is a bitch and an injection of money doesn't fix shit when you don't have the life skills to make use of it.  

I don't think reparations -- at least as a direct payment thing -- are a good idea.  Investment, on the other hand, may be.

8 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

And none of this is an argument for doing nothing!  We should try! There just isn't a magic bullet.  Jesus said it himself- "the poor will always be with you".  Which isn't code for fuck it- lets do nothing- b/c that's referencing a quote from the old testament which then exhorts us to open wide our hands to our brothers and the poor within our land. 

On this, you and I are in agreement....and if you accept that this is all I am talking about, and all that many proponents of racial justice are talking about, then we can get somewhere.

We have choices about how and where we invest our public (and private) dollars and efforts.  We have been REALLY good about doing so to the advantage of mainstream, white America.  Perhaps we should shift some of those efforts to our neighbors who have been getting the shaft for (checks calendar) around 400 years.

[52-80 19159]

2 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Nope.  I'm not that binary.  Our society is a complex system.  There are LOTS of things that we do "well" or "right" -- or at least, better and righter than many other places.  I'm not fixated on "blame," either.  The truth about what happened over the last 400 years doesn't require blame, per se -- it just "is."  

As much as the "justice" part of me would like SOMEONE to suffer the consequences for the Tulsa Massacre, for example, that can't happen a century later.  But what we CAN do is look at the fact that a large swath of our society suffered from being enslaved, then denied basic rights, then bombed, shot, and lynched, then kept away from the ballot box, then denied the gateway to the middle class that was the GI Bill after the war, then hit with firehoses and dogs.....and those things caused REAL effects.  Is our society to "blame?"  I don't think it much matters.  What we are is RESPONSIBLE.  If we are the heirs to the great things and opportunities America has given many of us, so are we heirs to those things our society did to crush black people.  That just "is."

To go to the metaphor, some of us got the benefit of 400 years of relatively good living, good nutrition, and access to training.  Black people got 400 years of getting their legs cut off.  The fact that we passed laws just a few decades ago that say "no more cutting off black people's legs," and "as of today, all foot races must start from the same spot" doesn't change the fact that some of us are at a big advantage, and others are at a big disadvantage, because of how our society was structured for 400 years.  A am cognizant of the blessings I have because I am an heir to this country.  I am also cognizant of the challenges that black people have for the exact same reason.  I don't know why it's so uncomfortable to accept that truth, and realize that if we are to accept the blessings, we should also accept the responsibility.

Many of us weren't and aren't the heirs to shit; and didn't anything to crush anyone.  And that isn't meant to absolve responsibility in advancing communal welfare. 

The point to ask what do you propose is the problem, and what do you want to do about it, besides perpetuating a victim complex.  (I have my thoughts on tax reforms and other legislation, namely drugs).  Yours just seems to be naval gazing and finger pointing.

[Wulaw Horn 19070]

2 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Equalize?  We don't.  We can't.  We can never hit the bullseye of "perfect."

I don't think reparations -- at least as a direct payment thing -- are a good idea.  Investment, on the other hand, may be.

On this, you and I are in agreement....and if you accept that this is all I am talking about, and all that many proponents of racial justice are talking about, then we can get somewhere.

We have choices about how and where we invest our public (and private) dollars and efforts.  We have been REALLY good about doing so to the advantage of mainstream, white America.  Perhaps we should shift some of those efforts to our neighbors who have been getting the shaft for (checks calendar) around 400 years.

I've always been good with that.  What I would suggest is that it's not helpful to tell all white people they are privileged (when many of them have the same or worse shit luck as descendants of slaves to be born into poverty) when it seems clear that we are more or less treating everyone as fair as we can right now going forward, and we should get rid of quotas and affirmative action and other stuff that advantages Bronny James at the expense of the progeny of Cletus the slack jawed yokel.  Instead- what I would suggest we do- is invest in the poor as much as we possibly can b/c those are the people that need the investment the most.  And, as minorities are disproportionately poor they will be disproportionately helped with this investment.  And, you will get less push back. I go see the hole that my wife was dragged out of that is Polk county- or drive into other shitty places not far from where I live out in the middle of the trees and I see people with no hope, no advantage and nobody who ever did shit to them.  And I think of someone Harvard educated black woman lecturing them about white privileged and I get mad for them.  And I understood why they love Trump as a guy willing to stand up and tell those guys to shut the fuck up (even though I know the Trump thing is a con, of course), because it's a gross fucking look for those guys if you are sitting in that situation. It really really is.  And, it's a gross way to make policy as well.  

[52-80 19159]

White man evil.  400 years bad.

OK, got it.  What else?

[TwiceHorn 31482]

12 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Equalize?  We don't.  We can't.  We can never hit the bullseye of "perfect."

I don't think reparations -- at least as a direct payment thing -- are a good idea.  Investment, on the other hand, may be.

On this, you and I are in agreement....and if you accept that this is all I am talking about, and all that many proponents of racial justice are talking about, then we can get somewhere.

We have choices about how and where we invest our public (and private) dollars and efforts.  We have been REALLY good about doing so to the advantage of mainstream, white America.  Perhaps we should shift some of those efforts to our neighbors who have been getting the shaft for (checks calendar) around 400 years.

I have been pimping/pumping the need for acknowledgement of the problem without offering any solution.  I don't mean to be "part of the problem" and not the solution.

But I think it is very important for people to understand and quit denying the absolute beatdown that this country has given to blacks in particular.  Even if it doesn't lead directly to a solution to the problem.

If nothing else, there's a psychological aspect to all of this.  Not only have we treated people like shit, but many of us refuse to acknowledge that fact.  Talk about gaslighting.  How do you think it makes black people feel, when they're struggling, that the majority of white people think they should just "pull themselves up by their bootstraps."  Let alone more tangible indignities and inequities they may have suffered.

Whatever solutions there may be, reparations, investment, laws, I don't know.  It's complicated.

But as long as we have people denying the problem entirely, except for that obstinate minority, it is going to stay in the "problem phase" and never move to the "solution phase."

Edited May 24, 2021 by TwiceHorn

[Dahobbs 17534]

7 minutes ago, 52-80 said:

White man evil.  400 years bad.

OK, got it.  What else?

Read the thread. Stop arguing this strawman bullshit. No one with a brain is buying it. 

[TwiceHorn 31482]

6 minutes ago, 52-80 said:

White man evil.  400 years bad.

OK, got it.  What else?

Actually, you got a bunch of honkies, and a coonass chili-beaner, and no one is saying the first part.

It's human nature, maybe somewhat in extremis due to the unique nature of slavery here.  Something similar may have happened if the roles were reversed.  The blame doesn't really matter.  Moving forward does.

Just like the first step of AA, you got to admit there's a problem before you can make progress to the solution.

[Nicole44 22060]

[Wulaw Horn 19070]

1 minute ago, TwiceHorn said:

Actually, you got a bunch of honkies, and a coonass chili-beaner, and no one is saying the first part.

It's human nature, maybe somewhat in extremis due to the unique nature of slavery here.  Something similar may have happened if the roles were reversed.  The blame doesn't really matter.  Moving forward does.

Just like the first step of AA, you got to admit there's a problem before you can make progress to the solution.

I'm not sure that analogy actually works- b/c it's the alcoholic that needs to admit to the problem in AA, and it's not the person suffering from being born disadvantaged that is admitting to the problem.  
Ultimately at the end of the day there are two truths that work counter to each other- and both are actually true. They are this (as I see it):

1) We've historically stacked the deck against racial minorities in a pretty terrible way, and that's made it harder, in the main, for them to achieve at the same level as white people; and

2) anyone in America, regardless of skin color, has a path to success.  The way to do that is to "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" and nothing is stopping anyone who is exceptional from doing that and succeeding.  

So- the rational actor way for anyone who is born disadvantaged is to say "I got dealt a shitty hand- but I can overcome this if I make good decisions and do actions that lead to success.  If I do that it's highly likely that I will succeed."  So that's the messaging that could and probably should be going to people in that situation- that there's a way out for them.  

That way out is harder for them than it was for me- and more people need to be cognizant of that and we need to put in place stuff to lessen that burden.  So, it's mainstream society that needs to do step 1 of the solution- not the person who actually controls (more or less) their individual destiny.  

That makes messaging and community based solutions a real motherfucker- b/c dwelling on that isn't helpful for the person trying to crawl out of poverty.  

[TwiceHorn 31482]

4 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

I'm not sure that analogy actually works- b/c it's the alcoholic that needs to admit to the problem in AA, and it's not the person suffering from being born disadvantaged that is admitting to the problem.  
Ultimately at the end of the day there are two truths that work counter to each other- and both are actually true. They are this (as I see it):

1) We've historically stacked the deck against racial minorities in a pretty terrible way, and that's made it harder, in the main, for them to achieve at the same level as white people; and

2) anyone in America, regardless of skin color, has a path to success.  The way to do that is to "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" and nothing is stopping anyone who is exceptional from doing that and succeeding.  

So- the rational actor way for anyone who is born disadvantaged is to say "I got dealt a shitty hand- but I can overcome this if I make good decisions and do actions that lead to success.  If I do that it's highly likely that I will succeed."  So that's the messaging that could and probably should be going to people in that situation- that there's a way out for them.  

That way out is harder for them than it was for me- and more people need to be cognizant of that and we need to put in place stuff to lessen that burden.  So, it's mainstream society that needs to do step 1 of the solution- not the person who actually controls (more or less) their individual destiny.  

That makes messaging and community based solutions a real motherfucker- b/c dwelling on that isn't helpful for the person trying to crawl out of poverty.  

Yeah it doesn't work for the disadvantaged, exactly the way it would work for the majority to admit the problem.  I was speaking in terms of the majority.

 

The problem, though, is not the exceptional.  The exceptional are usually going to prevail.

The problem is the morons and the unexceptional.

They can either live lives of quiet desperation, or turn into criminals and general purpose burdens on society.

[Wulaw Horn 19070]

10 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Yeah it doesn't work for the disadvantaged, exactly the way it would work for the majority to admit the problem.  I was speaking in terms of the majority.

 

The problem, though, is not the exceptional.  The exceptional are usually going to prevail.

The problem is the morons and the unexceptional.

They can either live lives of quiet desperation, or turn into criminals and general purpose burdens on society.

You know- I think we will be where we need to be more or less (or what's accomplishable) when the path for the average black person to success mirrors that of the average white person. And I think it might for those born on overall average- the problem is that due to the past legacy of racism there are more black people born into a below average situation than whites.

I don't have any success that we will ever solve for morons and unexceptional.  We don't do that well and I don't see anything changing that.  There's a reason for the saying- "you can't fix stupid".

[Brisketexan 105145]

42 minutes ago, 52-80 said:

(I have my thoughts on tax reforms and other legislation, namely drugs).  Yours just seems to be naval gazing and finger pointing.

Ummm....I've been around this board for a LONG time, discussing things like ending the war on drugs, reforming community policing, investing in education in lower income/minority communities, supporting state-funded higher education (as opposed to gutting it), etc.  Seriously, there's a shitload we can do, much of which has been discussed on this board, including by me, many times.

38 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

If nothing else, there's a psychological aspect to all of this.  Not only have we treated people like shit, but many of us refuse to acknowledge that fact.  Talk about gaslighting.  How do you think it makes black people feel, when they're struggling, that the majority of white people think they should just "pull themselves up by their bootstraps."  Let alone more tangible indignities and inequities they may have suffered.

Whatever solutions there may be, reparations, investment, laws, I don't know.  It's complicated.

But as long as we have people denying the problem entirely, except for that obstinate minority, it is going to stay in the "problem phase" and never move to the "solution phase."

Bingo.  We really can't even get to the point of a general admission of the problem.  

23 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

2) anyone in America, regardless of skin color, has a path to success.  The way to do that is to "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" and nothing is stopping anyone who is exceptional from doing that and succeeding.  

Yes and no.  Sure, the exceptional have a leg up.  But even the average of somewhat above average have different chances of ultimate success based on the available "bootstraps."  A somewhat above-average white guy from a relatively stable family life, with an owned home that they got through even modest inherited wealth and/or due to having college educated parents because his grandparents had the means to send them to college, is ahead of the above-average black guy who has neither of those things.

It's much easier to pull yourself up the mountain when you start higher up than the other guy.  Both have to climb to get there, but we all damned well know the guy starting at the bottom has a much harder slog.

2 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

And I think it might for those born on overall average- the problem is that due to the past legacy of racism there are more black people born into a below average situation than whites.

Bingo.  So, let's invest in some things that can get them CLOSER to parity in terms of starting position.  Two key paths to that are reducing the path to minority incarceration and legal troubles, and increasing and enhancing educational opportunities.  It's not an overnight thing to be sure.  It will take generations to unfuck what took multiple generations to fuck.   Such is the way of things.