So when is this "Honest" discussion regarding race relations goint to occur?

All it took was three guys and a truck to bring down a whole building...they were not racially motivated.

You really have no problem with people preaching and inciting violence?

How does that not matter?

The billions that will be lost in the economy if another watts sized riot happens is not nothing. Yes there are jobs rebuilding (if some areas are ever rebuilt) but that is broken window economics. far better all that insurance company money makes the insurance company and their shareholders rich enough to by some bulldozers and start a mine.

I just cannot get around to your point of view and I don't think that is because of my melanin deficiency. My home (such as it is at the moment) and my redneck neighbors are not going to be affected by riots. The black community will be.

Three guys and a truck falls under isolated incident.

I have a problem with people inciting violence. . .sorta. I dont' know what else we're supposed to do when even winning the presidency has ammounted to the right screaming louder than normal "SIT DOWN AND KNOW YOUR ROLE!"

Riots like wars cost money, produce nothing, ruin lives and in rare occasions change the world in some positive way. It's supposed to be the option of last resort.

Exactly, you can ignore it. That's my point.
 
Today this trend continues with record numbers of suspensions as a result of “zero-tolerance” school policies and the increasing presence of campus police officers who arrest students for insubordination, fights and other types of behavior that might be considered normal “acting out” in school-aged children. In fact, black youth are far more likely to be suspended from school than any other race. They also face disproportionate expulsion and arrest rates, and once children enter the juvenile justice system they are far more likely to be incarcerated as adults.

But it turns out that negative disciplinary actions affect African-American children starting as early as age 3. The U.S. Department of Education just released a comprehensive study of public schools, revealing in a report that black children face discrimination even in preschool. (That preschool-aged children are suspended at all is hugely disturbing.) Data from the 2011-2012 year show that although black children make up only 18 percent of preschoolers, 42 percent of them were suspended at least once and 48 percent were suspended multiple times.
 
Three guys and a truck falls under isolated incident.

I have a problem with people inciting violence. . .sorta. I dont' know what else we're supposed to do when even winning the presidency has ammounted to the right screaming louder than normal "SIT DOWN AND KNOW YOUR ROLE!"

Riots like wars cost money, produce nothing, ruin lives and in rare occasions change the world in some positive way. It's supposed to be the option of last resort.

Exactly, you can ignore it. That's my point.

The fact that even if his followers take him literally and do something nothing much changes is a quite valid point I have to concede.

It is a bit of a false demand I have to admit I fall into..."hey sean, hes a BLACK DUDE and he is talking crazy...denounce him!" is not really fair.

He chooses inflammatory rhetoric to get a message out that otherwise will not be heard. I guess I can understand that.

I'll ponder on this a while. I have no doubt the community (never safe to assume monolitically) is pretty united in feeling that this event was something that I cannot logically see as an appropriate trigger. But it is. Feelings are valid and they do motivate behavior even if the impetus for those feelings might be a perspective thing.

I said something the other day that I am not sure was received. I said (sort of) you are definitely NOT in my view a thin-skinned person, so I take serious note of your reaction to these events. I think when I said that you thought I meant you are USUALLY not thin skinned (but are now.)

That is not at all what I meant. I meant it is not in your character to assume offense where none is intended. So is you are feeling offense, I tend to want to respect that because of who you have demonstrated yourself to be from day one interaction with you here.
 
The fact that even if his followers take him literally and do something nothing much changes is a quite valid point I have to concede.

It is a bit of a false demand I have to admit I fall into..."hey sean, hes a BLACK DUDE and he is talking crazy...denounce him!" is not really fair.

He chooses inflammatory rhetoric to get a message out that otherwise will not be heard. I guess I can understand that.

I'll ponder on this a while. I have no doubt the community (never safe to assume monolitically) is pretty united in feeling that this event was something that I cannot logically see as an appropriate trigger. But it is. Feelings are valid and they do motivate behavior even if the impetus for those feelings might be a perspective thing.

I said something the other day that I am not sure was received. I said (sort of) you are definitely NOT in my view a thin-skinned person, so I take serious note of your reaction to these events. I think when I said that you thought I meant you are USUALLY not thin skinned (but are now.)

That is not at all what I meant. I meant it is not in your character to assume offense where none is intended. So is you are feeling offense, I tend to want to respect that because of who you have demonstrated yourself to be from day one interaction with you here.

You specifically asked at the beginning of this particular exchange if I (well not me but i answered) would react the same to a KKK meeting saying the same thing and I said yes I would. That it doesn't matter in small numbers. I'm sure if I wanted I could find someone saying that, probably someone wellish known. Hell I'd bet that country dude who said if OBama was re-elected he'd be dead or in jail by now has said someting similar especially if we followed him around with cameras long enough. I don't care, I don't go looking for stuff to offend me. I ignore a good chunk of what comes across my desk that aught. There's no point in focusing on every little thing. Especially the small shit that doesn't matter.

This incident is just the the match that set it off, the feelings have been there for much, much longer. This is just an excuse when all is said and done. I'd be willing to bet you that MOST historical movements ultimately started on an excuse.

Thank you. I'm really not. And while there's no point in my saying it because it comes across as contradictory but I get why a lot of you are frustrated with the scenario. I think there are lot of conservatives who honestly believe in the pick yourself up by your boot straps blacks have had their chance why haven't they? They are just whining about shit that's their fault. Some are racist and some just honestly buy into that. I've recently done a lot of research on the Post Civil War South and then looked at the modern south both economically and socially and those people don't view themselves as victims. But they most definitely are. They are still impoverished by a war that their great grandparents lost. If you want to argue they lost, tough shit. That's at least a "valid" point to make, but not that if you just believe hard enough you'll unfuck a bad scenario.

As much as I violently hate the south I can say with complete honesty that WE FAILED THEM following the Civil War. If we were going to leave them to rot we should have left them to rot, but you don't bring them back into the fold and then leave them for a century and a half broken. You don't get frustrated because terrorists like Jesse James make shit difficult. They are family and if they aren't whole, you aren't whole.
 
What you say there reminds me of my comment comparing the put them on a reservation and give them just enough not to complain or leave treatment of our Natives the other day.

I don't think we at all disagree with the fact that large populations of failure to thrive lets call it be they southerners, inner city blacks, Hispanics in the barrio or natives is a bad thing for not just them but society.

Our disagreement is, I think, on how best might they be helped. Beleive me or not, but one can pretty easily show statistically that what he have tried (money) has not worked at all. I can also demonstrate why there is no realistic level of more money to fix it...long back and forth there...some successes here and ther...like that..

Quick thread jack, but there was a good read in the good read thread about those children powered playground water pumps. the tech is Ok, they raised the money but put them in the wrong places or where they drew people to the wrong area, like that. short version is good idea. the foundation is out of business, but the idea lives on in small batches in places it does make sense like the original mod 1 project.

The problem is I can basically prove (to my own satisfaction at least) that projects and programs lose efficiency as you scale, become more and more inefficient and cannot work to the point that one can justify most of them.

The problem is what is the alternatives.

Part of the tension you see in the community is, what about 8 years of no jobs? Obama didn't cause it, his policies were not targeted to hit the black communities, or even any community. He and his type believe what they meddle with helps but it actually hurts. It is a TOUGH sell to advocate "do nothing" or at least "do less."

COmmunity projects like low income houseing and conversion to section 8 is a recipie for slums. I dunno how about the same money in vouchers to let people move to better places?

How about vouchers and free bus passes for better schools?

How about bringing back vocational training and reversing the nonsense that college betters everyone. It betters some, indebts all...

there is a lot wrong and detangling it all is a rats nest.

What about micro loans from philanthropic organizations instead of dumping more money into failing schools and the NEA? Micro loans to buy a sewing machine to start an upholstery business, or a set of mechanics tools?

I don't have great answers. I do know what we have done has made things noticebly worse.
 
I think you and I define money differently and for different reasons at different times. My issue with vouchers and buses is primarily that I don't believe that can work. I don't think there is enough bussing in the world to get the kids to the good schools and without it your back at square one. I think it would be worlds easier to improve the bad schools.

As for vocational schools, schools for what? While that's another conversation you know my opinion on robotics and automization and I don't think there anything a vocational school can teach that won't be off the market in the next ten to twenty years. So it's an okay stop gap.

Either way I would think both of those are and would qualify as money being given.

However I disagree with Indian Reservations especially until relatively recently. They weren't put there and given money not to complain with the expectation that they would thrive. It was the act of people who didn't have the stomach for genocide but didn't want to deal with those people either. It wasn't an honest attempt to make them whole.
 
I think you and I define money differently and for different reasons at different times. My issue with vouchers and buses is primarily that I don't believe that can work. I don't think there is enough bussing in the world to get the kids to the good schools and without it your back at square one. I think it would be worlds easier to improve the bad schools.

As for vocational schools, schools for what? While that's another conversation you know my opinion on robotics and automization and I don't think there anything a vocational school can teach that won't be off the market in the next ten to twenty years. So it's an okay stop gap.

Either way I would think both of those are and would qualify as money being given.

However I disagree with Indian Reservations especially until relatively recently. They weren't put there and given money not to complain with the expectation that they would thrive. It was the act of people who didn't have the stomach for genocide but didn't want to deal with those people either. It wasn't an honest attempt to make them whole.


Even more than what (I think you say) about the lack of resources that have been available to the black communities, the natives were much worse. We herded them away from where their skillsets and adaptations were developed, gave them no real introduction to modern, western living and and basically warehoused them. Might as well be guantanamo, they cant "swim' free. In cases I know something about from visiting and living adjacent to, the desert means you stay where you are put and where wells were placed for you.

As late as the 80's you should see what was the papago reservation. (T'hono otahm (sp?) now) Right up against wealthy scottdale. When I was a kid you had to pick an american indian tribe and do a report on history and culture, like that. I made a diarama from old photographs. It was no different in 1980. Because of the price of power and AC units it was more comfortable for them to dwell in their traditional houses then the modulars trucked in. Those became barns for animals on the Apache reservations at times. We are talking culture shock.

Sure slaves went through a similar period of assimilation from africa to here. but for 400 years blacks have seen western living. first alongside the owners, then with tentative steps, out on their own. Lots went north to the rust belt, industrialization provided "living wages" and even better...for a while some blacks prospered. Exploitation of all workers of all colors by union bosses that got rich promising ever more unsustainable wages and benefits until the golden goose was dead.

The word unsustainable is only used on the left when it suits. There are economic realities that must be faced. You cannot wish prosperity into existence.

I lost track of where this ramble was headed, other than to say that for a period Natives lagged far behind and blacks had reached damned near parity with whites in terms of upward mobility prospects if both start at poverty. Now blacks are clustered in failed cities. Either those cities need to find a way to use all of that human capital or all that human capital has got to move.
 
Edit I just re-read your post you said it WASNT and honest attempt to make them whole. I completely agree. I somehow read WAS an honest attempt.

Like whats her name on SNL...

NEver minddddd.....
 
-snip-​
Sure slaves went through a similar period of assimilation from africa to here. but for 400 years blacks have seen western living. first alongside the owners, then with tentative steps, out on their own. Lots went north to the rust belt, industrialization provided "living wages" and even better...for a while some blacks prospered. Exploitation of all workers of all colors by union bosses that got rich promising ever more unsustainable wages and benefits until the golden goose was dead.

The word unsustainable is only used on the left when it suits. There are economic realities that must be faced. You cannot wish prosperity into existence.
-snip-​

Since you already pointed out that we are in agreement here. Since it's you and we more often than not see eye to eye even if we dont' get along I find that this happens a lot that people don't read what's written they just want to argue.

Anyway on track. I would agree with you, I would even make the point that depending on how you want to twist it that the African American came out "better" than the American Indian. Though that's when you have to start getting into some really gritty and sometimes ugly realities. Economically. . .probably? Culturally? Well the damage was done but even if I could track my lineage back to whatever tribes I want to claim (I'm going to assume that via marriages over the however many years since my earliest ancestor was brought here I've probably got a bunch and picking out one would be great. . .if I wanted to write a story and become famous but otherwise utterly pointless. I do think that a lack of true culture is something that hurts blacks and that we dont' even really have words to express it. Black history month for all it's controversy is not the same as St. Patrick's Day or being able to claim (Even if you don't really care) about how your great grand father came over on the boat from Poland.

The wars on drugs and poverty (mostly the parts that forced families to break up because you couldn't have men and get welfare) just didn't work out. I get it, you don't want able bodied men getting money instead of working, culture of dependency. Yadda yadda. What you created instead was fathers who's best option was to leave their familes so their families could get the help they needed and the men couldn't provide. It sure as fuck wasn't about not having to work and that being a reason not to spend time with your kids.

Unsustainable is only used by anybody when it suits. It's like Unconstitutional. However I mostly agree with you that you cannot wish prosperity into being but I also think in our current sort of world unless we're gonna kill off large swaths of people we dont' have a choice but to start making an effort.

The reality is that prosperity both for individuals and for civilzations as a whole has a lot to do with luck. That's not to say you can't fuck up a good deal. There is little excuse for Mexico being such a fuck up at least Geographically speaking. As much as I talk New York and California for the moment I'm gonna include Texas and Florida. Then ask you what they ALL have in common (Geographically) that say Arizona, New Mexico, Arkansas, Kansas and Montana lack. Because I think an argument can be made that that feature is very important prosperity and lacking it. . .well you can make it work. Nevada kinda does. . .but you're already one step behind the game.
 
Since you already pointed out that we are in agreement here. Since it's you and we more often than not see eye to eye even if we dont' get along I find that this happens a lot that people don't read what's written they just want to argue.

Anyway on track. I would agree with you, I would even make the point that depending on how you want to twist it that the African American came out "better" than the American Indian. Though that's when you have to start getting into some really gritty and sometimes ugly realities. Economically. . .probably? Culturally? Well the damage was done but even if I could track my lineage back to whatever tribes I want to claim (I'm going to assume that via marriages over the however many years since my earliest ancestor was brought here I've probably got a bunch and picking out one would be great. . .if I wanted to write a story and become famous but otherwise utterly pointless. I do think that a lack of true culture is something that hurts blacks and that we dont' even really have words to express it. Black history month for all it's controversy is not the same as St. Patrick's Day or being able to claim (Even if you don't really care) about how your great grand father came over on the boat from Poland.

The wars on drugs and poverty (mostly the parts that forced families to break up because you couldn't have men and get welfare) just didn't work out. I get it, you don't want able bodied men getting money instead of working, culture of dependency. Yadda yadda. What you created instead was fathers who's best option was to leave their familes so their families could get the help they needed and the men couldn't provide. It sure as fuck wasn't about not having to work and that being a reason not to spend time with your kids.

Unsustainable is only used by anybody when it suits. It's like Unconstitutional. However I mostly agree with you that you cannot wish prosperity into being but I also think in our current sort of world unless we're gonna kill off large swaths of people we dont' have a choice but to start making an effort.

The reality is that prosperity both for individuals and for civilzations as a whole has a lot to do with luck. That's not to say you can't fuck up a good deal. There is little excuse for Mexico being such a fuck up at least Geographically speaking. As much as I talk New York and California for the moment I'm gonna include Texas and Florida. Then ask you what they ALL have in common (Geographically) that say Arizona, New Mexico, Arkansas, Kansas and Montana lack. Because I think an argument can be made that that feature is very important prosperity and lacking it. . .well you can make it work. Nevada kinda does. . .but you're already one step behind the game.


Im not quite following the geography. I am thinking real estate values as it relates to the ocean but that tends to be something that a society just imbues it with cause its pretty. Mabe access to shipping but these days thats a wash... Some oil in all those places but new york.. new york is a financial powerhouse with no peer.

Those higher property values tends to mean that tradesmen and so on make more for same labor than elsewhere, but cost of living is higher too.
 
I get the cultural part and the grounding that is missing. I have only slightly less of an idea who I am descended from than JBJ does, and similar bloodlines.

Lets say a perfect world, a time machine, we make all of that whole, I suspect, that just as I have rejected (at the moment) some of the traditions of my forbears, at least I have that choice to do so, am I on track here?

On the other hand, the hypothetical bringing to modern times your forbears culture would likely be dismissed out of hand by you, but you do not have that option, right?

To me it is kind of like (and no less valid than) the angst that an adopted child in a loving home feels. Who am I a part of?

I get that a sense of identity does connect the strength of one generation to the next.

I'm not religious these days but I am well versed (pun) in the theology. Theres a passage in Isaiah talking about our times says "in the last days I will send the spirit of Elijah amongst you and turn the hearts of the fathers to the sons and the sons to the fathers" or some such.

Point being about tradition and continuity. One can start a series of traditions now, like christmas time. Maybe a person is estranged from extended family but starts whatever ritual on christmas eve for their kids that they pass on...these little bonding things from one family unit to the near kin to the neighbors are the sort of thing that shapes a community, builds this "wise elder" sort of mystique that gives the young and impetuous (as we all were) the idea that maybe there is some guidance worth availing yourself of.

I think you got to start with what is, pick the part of the culture you find yourself in and embrace that which you feel affinity towards and reject the rest.

I live in the southwest...if I was a little closer to Mexico I would involve my kids in the dia de los muetre festivities to help them understand tradition even if it isn't my tradition. Like that.
 
Im not quite following the geography. I am thinking real estate values as it relates to the ocean but that tends to be something that a society just imbues it with cause its pretty. Mabe access to shipping but these days thats a wash... Some oil in all those places but new york.. new york is a financial powerhouse with no peer.

Those higher property values tends to mean that tradesmen and so on make more for same labor than elsewhere, but cost of living is higher too.

You're correct, they've all got access to the ocean and that's not because a society imbues it as something pretty. (well it is for Florida) In the case of the other three access to the ocean is access to ports and international trade. Most trade is still by ship not by plane even today. All the will power in the world won't Kansas a port to bring in good from China like California has. Or from Europe (I want to say the East but I don't mean asia) or to ship out like Texas has.

The pretty is a nice bonus but you can only put a port where there's an ocean. Period. The Middle East is rich because of oil (and they aren't "rich societies" they fuck over their poor worse than we do) but again all the hard work in the world won't go back in time and kill dinosaurs under your house.

Having fertile soil is real nice too and yes to some extent knowing what you got and how best to use it is great. And yes the wealth does start to concentrate. New York and California respectively being the media powerhouses has to do with money already being here more than anything else and while we're both losing to other countries and locations we're still pretty damn good powerhouses. But sometimes the world DOES change.

And yes policy matters. I don't think it's a coincidence that California used to have the cheapest colleges in the country and nationally reknown with USC, UCLA and few others and that we also have Silicon Valley. Honestly if taxes were the big deal the right makes them out to be Silicon Valley would move to. . .ANYWHERE else. literally. Hell the prices in Silicon Valley are so fucking outrageous you could live in in a shitty middle country state and fly out the LA once a month and still come out on top financially. So I'm not pretending that policy doesn't matter civilization wise.

Nor am I claiming that it doesn't make a difference on the individual level. You can be born with a silver spoon in your mouth and. . .depending on how big the spoon fuck it up pretty bad. Like I honestly don't have shit against Paris Hilton, she had every advantage and she took advantage and her family will be greater when she dies than (from her contributions) than when she died. But even if she'd sat on her ass she'd have had to make a conscious effort to go broke. Like bad investments tried, not just spending and calling it a day. And you can work your way up from the bottom. . .sorta. There is a reason you've never heard of that computer programmer from Etheopia who worked hard, bought a computer, taught himself to program and got himself a job paying 30k writing code. (I can actually see you grinning at how rediculous that sounds) Because luck matters and it's a much bigger factor than we like to admit because we like to think we make our own fate.
 
True but "we started from the bottom now we are here." Regardless of where the bottom was and where "here" is. there is always if not a rung higher to reach for a monkey bar over. Some changes aren't going to happen in a generation but can easily over longer time spans.

Its tough to drag yourself up a notch, but it really is pretty doable to push your children up a notch.
 
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Honest discussion is NOT possible

Michael Eric Dyson: It’s Racist To Call The 6-Foot-4-Inch, 292-Pound Michael Brown Big…


dyson

Rich Lowry notes Dyson’s claim Wilson referred to Michael Brown as “it” grossly misleading.

Via NY Times:


WHEN Ferguson flared up this week after a grand jury failed to indict the white police officer Darren Wilson for killing the unarmed black youth Michael Brown, two realities were illuminated: Black and white people rarely view race in the same way or agree about how to resolve racial conflicts, and black people have furious moral debates among ourselves out of white earshot. […]

From the start, most African-Americans were convinced that Michael Brown’s death wouldn’t be fairly considered by Ferguson’s criminal justice system. There were doubts that the prosecution and defense were really on different teams. The prosecutor, Robert McCulloch, looked as if he were coaching an intramural scrimmage with the goal of keeping Officer Wilson from being tackled by indictment.

The trove of documents released after the grand jury’s decision included Officer Wilson’s four-hour testimony, in which the 6-foot-4-inch, 210-pound cop said that his encounter with the 6-foot-4-inch, 292-pound teenager left him feeling like “a 5-year-old holding on to Hulk Hogan.” He used the impersonal pronoun “it” when he said that Michael Brown looked like a “demon” rushing him. To the police officer and to many whites, Michael Brown was the black menace writ large, the terrorizing phantom that stalks the white imagination.

These clashing perceptions underscore the physics of race, in which an observer effect operates: The instrument through which one perceives race — one’s culture, one’s experiences, one’s fears and fantasies — alters in crucial ways what it measures.
 
HONEST DISCUSSION NOT POSSIBLE

CUNY Professor: Darren Wilson Represents “Racist, Repressive Capitalist State”…


CUNY-Professor

CUNY-Professor-2

Another moonbat freak show who lives in the academia bubble.

Via Pundit Press:


Deirdre Cooper Owens, a “Queens College, CUNY” professor of History, has taken to twitter to voice her opinions on the decision of a grand jury not to indict officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown.

Dr. Owens states that Darren Wilson represents “racist, repressive capitalism” and that it is impossible for African Americans to receive justice in the United States.
 
HONEST DISCUSSION NOT POSSIBLE

Bob “Suspenders” Beckel Slams Charles Barkley’s Ferguson Comments: ‘Hasn’t Seen A Poor Neighborhood In 20 Years!’


Unlike Al and Jesse that still live in the poor neighborhoods.



Via NRO


Fox News host Bob Beckel went after former NBA star Charles Barkley for criticizing the Ferguson protesters, questioning the wealthy sports broadcaster’s qualifications for “talking black” — before admitting he though Barkley was right.

Following the decision not to indict Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson last week for the killing of Michael Brown, the NBA legend defended Wilson’s actions, argued for more respect from blacks toward police, and called the violent protesters in the St. Louis area “scumbags.”

“Let me say something about Charles Barkley: He has not seen a poor neighborhood in 20 years!” Beckel said Monday. “He’s running as a Republican for the Senate. He’s putting in nose he knows nothing about what he’s talking about.”

Co-host Greg Gutfeld noted that Barkley — who briefly considered a run for governor of Alabama as a Republican in 1995 – has been a vocal supporter of President Obama. “He’s all over the place politically, which is why you’ve got to trust him,” he said
 
HONEST DISCUSSION NOT POSSIBLE

(is there any doubt if a WHITE said this about blacks, or someone said this about gaze or Muslims that they would be OUT THE DOOR)

http://redstatements.co/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/anthea-butler.jpg

Race Baiting Professor Strikes Again: “The god of white supremacy in America demands that anything that does not conform to a white body must be evil”




anthea-butler

Anthea Butler, racist professor at the University of Pennsylvania, has gone on her second racist rant of the year. The first one was after George Zimmerman was found not guilty. I wrote a column about her at the time and included this quote from her:


“The not guilty verdict in the George Zimmerman case has me thinking a lot about a book I first encountered in seminary, Is God a White Racist?, by the Rev. Dr. Bill Jones. As a budding seminary student, it took me by surprise. Now, as a wiser, older professor looking at the needless death of Trayvon Martin, I have to say: I get it.”

“God ain’t good all of the time. In fact, sometimes, God is not for us. As a black woman in an nation that has taken too many pains to remind me that I am not a white man, and am not capable of taking care of my reproductive rights, or my voting rights, I know that this American god ain’t my god. As a matter of fact, I think he’s a white racist god with a problem. More importantly, he is carrying a gun and stalking young black men.”

She claims that God is a white racist God and He demands the blood of black men to atone for the sins of white men. So, now we are told that Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown were killed for the sins of whites, rather than for being the thugs that they were. In case you are wondering what it is she teaches, it’s Religious Studies. Talk about your basic oxymoron.

Butler had tweeted her racist rantings but decided to take them down before they cost her job. Those are not available but here are a couple she wrote afterward. And if you have a student taking her class, you should be aware that her rantings carry over into her classroom by her own admission:


“Kids, I’ve been around enough to know the game. I’m not going to lose my job over something I teach in classes everyday.”

Image source: Twitter

Her latest foray, revealing what kind of vile and disgusting creature she is, on the failure to indict Officer Darren Wilson for the self-defense shooting of Michael Brown. Here is part of that column:

For the parents of Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Jordan Davis, Renisha McBride, and countless others, the pain of their children’s sacrifice at the hands of the agents of the god of white supremacy in America cannot be healed. We who look upon this madness however, must begin to comprehend the full scope of the underlying issue at hand: America has never simply been land of the free and home of the brave. It is also the home of many who are craven and weak, who cheat the justice system established by their predecessors in order to maintain their power. Blood is the atonement for their sins, and it must be drawn regularly to appease this peculiar but powerful god that is, they believe, the foundation of America.

As an historian of American Religion and African American Religion, I’m often reminded that for those in power, the bodies of the people they fear and subjugate are always deemed dangerous, evil, or demonic. Darren Wilson’s statement that Michael Brown looked “like a demon” is one more layer of that history. The god of white supremacy in America demands that anything that does not conform to a white body must be evil; it must be denigrated or destroyed. Only when white bodies perform “blackness” is blackness deemed to be safe. (See Iggy Azalea, Macklemore and Miley Cyrus for recent examples.) Even when the brown and black body performs “respectability” in this reality of a white supremacist nation, it is valued less than whiteness.

My suggestion to this woman with a PHD (Piling it higher and deeper) is that if you don’t want black children get shot, quit teaching them to be thugs.
 
God is perfect.

Blacks have a hard time accepting that God made all creatures, great and low, black and white.
 
Today this trend continues with record numbers of suspensions as a result of “zero-tolerance” school policies and the increasing presence of campus police officers who arrest students for insubordination, fights and other types of behavior that might be considered normal “acting out” in school-aged children. In fact, black youth are far more likely to be suspended from school than any other race. They also face disproportionate expulsion and arrest rates, and once children enter the juvenile justice system they are far more likely to be incarcerated as adults.

But it turns out that negative disciplinary actions affect African-American children starting as early as age 3. The U.S. Department of Education just released a comprehensive study of public schools, revealing in a report that black children face discrimination even in preschool. (That preschool-aged children are suspended at all is hugely disturbing.) Data from the 2011-2012 year show that although black children make up only 18 percent of preschoolers, 42 percent of them were suspended at least once and 48 percent were suspended multiple times.

"There are three kinds of lies. Lies, damned lies, and statistics." unknown but attributed to B. Disreali.

Those number looking damning on the surface but become meaningless unless it can be proven whether (1) the rules are applied equally to other races AND/OR (2) the rules have been purposely written to discriminate against blacks. Without answers to those questions we are left with numbers that really have no value in that there is more than one way of interpreting the statistics.

As far as the 'zero tolerance' policies in place in many schools, the number of cases where the application defies common sense are legion.

Ishmael
 
I get the cultural part and the grounding that is missing. I have only slightly less of an idea who I am descended from than JBJ does, and similar bloodlines.

Lets say a perfect world, a time machine, we make all of that whole, I suspect, that just as I have rejected (at the moment) some of the traditions of my forbears, at least I have that choice to do so, am I on track here?

On the other hand, the hypothetical bringing to modern times your forbears culture would likely be dismissed out of hand by you, but you do not have that option, right?

To me it is kind of like (and no less valid than) the angst that an adopted child in a loving home feels. Who am I a part of?

I get that a sense of identity does connect the strength of one generation to the next.

I'm not religious these days but I am well versed (pun) in the theology. Theres a passage in Isaiah talking about our times says "in the last days I will send the spirit of Elijah amongst you and turn the hearts of the fathers to the sons and the sons to the fathers" or some such.

Point being about tradition and continuity. One can start a series of traditions now, like christmas time. Maybe a person is estranged from extended family but starts whatever ritual on christmas eve for their kids that they pass on...these little bonding things from one family unit to the near kin to the neighbors are the sort of thing that shapes a community, builds this "wise elder" sort of mystique that gives the young and impetuous (as we all were) the idea that maybe there is some guidance worth availing yourself of.

I think you got to start with what is, pick the part of the culture you find yourself in and embrace that which you feel affinity towards and reject the rest.

I live in the southwest...if I was a little closer to Mexico I would involve my kids in the dia de los muetre festivities to help them understand tradition even if it isn't my tradition. Like that.


Sorry, I was typing when you wrote this and then I went to sleep.

Your right pretty much as far as the culture, and how much of my culture would I reject out of hand? I mean if you're talking about going out and hunting a bufallo with my bear hands to prove I'm a bad ass, yes I would reject that out of hand. I would no more reject a feast holiday out of hand than I do Christmas or Thanksgiving. (Both are fine holidays and while I get annoyed that Christians want to start pushing Jesus is the Reason for the Season, instead of family and togetherness I'm not anti-Christmas. I'm anti-Christian and in modern America the two are sufficiently divorced that there is a concentrated effort amongst Christians to reclaim lost territory.) Would I possibly eat food from there? I don't reject tacos or Chinese. And believe me this pains me to admit but the world doesn't end with me.

Comparing it to an adopted child in a loving home. . .well we dont' feel loved. If anything we feel like Cinderella except without the illusion that we are the pretty one. This PROBABLY would have happened regardless just due to sheer numbers but our standard of beauty aligns not with our culture and race but with white. It's not going to stop me from watching and probably enjoying the movie nor am I pissed so much as aware and sympathetic towards those that are but Christian Bale is Moses? :rolleyes: Don't even get me started on The Last Airbender. If that movie hadn't been done by a man of Indian descent I'd be certain it was on purpose and even then. . .it's easier to think he's a bit brainwashed than that he accidentally flipped all the races.

I agree with you to some extent as far as pick one and run with it. And as I keep saying I think there are a multitude of issues here some unique, some not so that explain why the world is the way that it is.


True but "we started from the bottom now we are here." Regardless of where the bottom was and where "here" is. there is always if not a rung higher to reach for a monkey bar over. Some changes aren't going to happen in a generation but can easily over longer time spans.

Its tough to drag yourself up a notch, but it really is pretty doable to push your children up a notch.

^^^^ This is very, very true. And if you've been listening to the greater picture this generation of Americans is the first one that are likely to feel the effects of our parents pulling us down. Off subject but yes.

Though to some extent it depends on what you're considering higher. Most people will die in the same quintile they were born. But their lives will in general be more prosperous (at least in the US) than their parents were and probably than theirs were at the beginning. Because the country as a whole will be more prosperous. I hear a lot of talk about how the poor have tvs and Playstations and even the rich didn't have them a generation ago. The floor is higher now. I wonder if our grandparents ever sat around and said "You're not poor, you can read and own ten books. When my grandmother was around only the aristocrats could read! And most families only owned one book the Bible! It's simple argument for simple people.
 
"There are three kinds of lies. Lies, damned lies, and statistics." unknown but attributed to B. Disreali.

Those number looking damning on the surface but become meaningless unless it can be proven whether (1) the rules are applied equally to other races AND/OR (2) the rules have been purposely written to discriminate against blacks. Without answers to those questions we are left with numbers that really have no value in that there is more than one way of interpreting the statistics.

As far as the 'zero tolerance' policies in place in many schools, the number of cases where the application defies common sense are legion.

Ishmael

Research has shown that zero tolerance has been disproportionately applied to non-whites.

Google Russel Skiba Color of Discipline.
 
"There are three kinds of lies. Lies, damned lies, and statistics." unknown but attributed to B. Disreali.

Those number looking damning on the surface but become meaningless unless it can be proven whether (1) the rules are applied equally to other races AND/OR (2) the rules have been purposely written to discriminate against blacks. Without answers to those questions we are left with numbers that really have no value in that there is more than one way of interpreting the statistics.

As far as the 'zero tolerance' policies in place in many schools, the number of cases where the application defies common sense are legion.

Ishmael

I agree that statistics can me massaged to demonstrate just about anything.

Let's keep that mind mind when you try to support your point with statistics.
 
I agree that statistics can me massaged to demonstrate just about anything.

Let's keep that mind mind when you try to support your point with statistics.

I do, and if you're speaking of the stats in the OP, there are no alternate interpretations.

Ishmael
 
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