Thomas Sowell has a good take on the cause. Not much for a solution, though. <a class="postlink" href="http://www.theburningplatform.com/?p=57660" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.theburningplatform.com/?p=57660</a>
Yeah, but then some white yuppies bought the basement, removed the mold, hired an overpaid French woman to make questionable interior design choices and started shopping at the local bodega.
I thought back in the 70s or 80s they came in to put the renovation up for bid and couldn't decide whether to go firm-fixed price or T&M. They choose T&M and the contractor has been dragging the job out for far too long, to the point where to some it appears they are starting to suffer from scope creep in addition to budget and schedule overruns. Might be time for new management on the project.
You forgot the part where a good amount of the people upstairs are also trying to drain the water and scrub the floor boards to help, but at the same time there's also an equal number of people living in the basement who keep bringing in more buckets of water for reasons the people upstairs don't understand.
You guys get that Nom put together a pretty good analogy of the issue, and in turn you just mocked it right? You can say its just the way the board works all you want, yet this is what happens any time race is discussed. To be fair any time some one in the minority oppinion speaks up this happens as well. Seriously, why the fuck should lurkers post? Why should any thread other than the drunk thread get replies? The general tone seems that we don't want discourse as much as we want a bunch of self congragulatory group think.
Consider a few things. - This story is by no means an anomaly. Whenever the media discusses race they tend to skirt away from the real issues. It's a case where race had no bearing. It's a joke some celebrity made. A republican said the word black in a sentence. Blacks aren't getting enough scholarships because we're racist. And so on. When I lived up north, the media, with their never ending bullshit, had me fully convinced race was but all a moot issue in this country. Sure, I thought, there's a few idiots out there, but they're digging to racially profile any and every issue. Then I moved to Florida. Enough said. - Wait, why are we talking about racism so much in this thread? We're just as bad as the media. - Changing the opinion of a racist over 30 is next to impossible. I've tried. It's like talking to a brick wall. If you're black you don't know what that conversation is like because they don't want to talk about it with you. Most racists will even be polite to black people. They just want to be part of an exclusive club, the white club, and have someone they can blame the economy, or their self inflicted problems on. It's like trying to tell a creationist the world isn't 6,000 years old. Facts are not important to them. - Why not invite some KKK members, or Neo nazis onto a show? Too offensive? Does arguing with them appear to be legitimizing their beliefs? They're going to lose. Publicly exposing the depth of inanity in their culture might not hurt. Cutting off their exposure isn't a solution because there's already too many racist people in this country. - Gangster rap and the entire black culture that glorifies being a thug isn't helping.
Nom put together a FANTASTIC analogy. The only thing I was pointing out is that there's a certain amount of people within certain cultures (not saying black, hispanic, etc. culture specifically, just in general) who embrace a negative stereotype and actively seek to perpetuate it, despite of and in spite of everyone else within their culture wanting to shed that stereotype. Best recent analogy I can think of is with a lot of NBA players, NBA stars even, back in 90s and early 2000's embracing a certain culture of "street life" and producing rap albums on the side. Arenas brandishing a gun in the locker room. Meanwhile, the NBA as a whole is trying to transition to a "family game" that you can take your children to. I live in a city wherein I (who am white) am a minority; the majority in our city is hispanic. And yet I cringe when I see a 16 year old walking around trying to "act like a cholo" in an upper class neighborhood. I'm just saying.... Nom's analogy was pretty much damn. fucking. perfect. But the difference between "pretty much" and "accurate" is what imo is largely creating to that proverbial "water" he writes about: it's the acknowledgement that it's not exclusively the people on the top floor's fault that you're drowning. (Some of us actually wanna help.) Rather, a lot of the reason the water is so high has to do with the fact that the people in the basement keep bringing in water.
Before I say anything else, let me just echo what ROTN said and state that Nom's analogy was beautiful and insightful. I would love for the discussion on this subject to continue, because overall it is relevant, however: Exactly. Instead of talking about the media's roll in perpetuating a false assumption, we are falling victim to that assumption. Asserting the same lie over and over and over doesn't make it true. No one in authority is thinking clearly about this at all and it's actually kind of frightening. We now have the congressional black caucus, a body representing members of the U.S. Government, actively trying to, pardon the pun, lynch a citizen tried by a jury of his peers because they don't like the result. They are claiming civil rights violations, but in the end who's civil rights are going to be violated? Not for one minute do I think Zimmerman was right in his actions. Both of them acted like idiots, but it was NOT motivated by race. It's all based on a a lie started by NBC news with the tape they doctored trying to slant it. Instead of calling for calm and trying to examine the real reasons this happened, they are making matters worse. With the huge weight of political pressure put on the Florida State attorney to bring this case to trial, can anyone honestly believe they didn't do everything the could to get a guilty verdict?
I'm probably in the minority (/maybe the only one) here, but just because I'd be mad at myself if I didn't suggest this: Can we please turn this thread into something like "Let's have an honest discussion about racism in America?" I know where I was born, I know how I was bred. I know that, simply because of where I live now and what I am exposed to on a daily basis, both in the local media and in the local and state politics, there is going to be this whispering, ever-present authoritative-sounding voice saying "be subtly racists yet don't let them know you are." I'm "the guy" in my family who supports gay rights. (There, I said it, Family, fuck you all.) I've been called all kinds of names for it and my car has been keyed multiple times by (I think) multiple family members (I conjecture) because of those spoken beliefs. My wife supports me in my stance, but no one else, on my side of the family or hers'. I imagine that my stance on gay rights, where I live, is about comparable to someone where I live saying "I support Trayvon Martin!" .... This is, in my opinion, a conversation that NEEDS to be had. We may be the "Idiot Board." But what keeps us Idiots around is the Intelligent Discourse.... Let's have some.
On the flip side, remember the photo Time had on their cover of OJ? They darkened his skin tone to make him blacker and presumably, more dangerous and scary. The media is constantly fucking with us and some people still accept as gospel truth any article slanted towards their leanings, instead of investigating for themselves to find the truth.
Dude not everyone can afford Internet and/or cable tv. Some have to rely on local channels and the Sunday paper. (Joke aside: these people are largely the minority groups, who the media feeds to anyway. Anyone interested in more, read "Rigging the Game," by Michael Schwalbe)
Honestly, the race situation in this country is obviously a work in progress. But what many people, myself included, sometimes forget is that we are less than a generation removed from Jim Crow and seprate but equal. Looking at it that way it is actually rather remarkable the strides we have made as a country in race relations. In less than 100 years we have moved from a place where it was illegal for blacks and whites to marry to having a two term president of color. Across the board, being black is better now than even when my father was born. However, it is easy to forget that when being confronted with the signs of racial disparity. You get thrown in the back of a cop car often enough for walking around your own neighborhood enough and its hard not to be a little annoyed with cops. You look around a college class room of 50 plus people and realize you are the only black person in the room and its a bit disconcerting. Even the way Revengeofthenerds spoke about people embracing stereotypes being a detriment to race relations is telling. Every black "thug" walking the streets doing stupid shit is an indictment against the entire race. If I want to be taken seriously I have to make a conscious effort to divorce myself from that basically ubiquitous image. In my sociology class a buddy of mine made a joking comment once that it was a little funny that the one person to get 100 percent on a test we just took was "the black guy." (Me) This comment was pretty ironic considering I had spent the hours leading up to that test tutoring him up to a B. Now his joke wasn't meant to be offensive and a didn't take it that way, but it is telling that it even occurred to him to make it.
Random question: Do you think that if cameras weren't allowed in the courtroom for the Zimmerman trial, that we'd still be discussing it?
I'm not sure the "thug" look is exclusively black, though. I'll admit that my stereotypes make me a little more nervous when I see someone dressed like that, but to me that's not race. I'm wary of white dudes dressed up like "thugs" walking down the street, and not wary at all of black guys dressed up in suits going to work. Those perceptions are my own form of "profiling" I suppose, but it's true. Probably because the black guy in a suit is more like me. We dress similarly, we live in similar places, and do similar jobs. Does that mean I'm racist against whites? No. But I suppose that means I'm a little prejudice towards anyone dressed up like a "thug". Is it fair? Not really. That "thug" looking guy might be rich, give to charities, volunteer at soup kitchens, and habitually rescue kittens from trees. Yet here I am watching him out of the corner of my eye because, to me, he looks like someone who's more likely to mug me than the guy in a suit. So what do I do about that? Do I stop being wary? Do I just exercise my rights as a human being and go where ever I want, however I want, with the expectation that no harm will come to me and that there aren't any bad guys...until that's proven otherwise, and then write it up to "oh, bad guys will be bad, no way you can tell" and then continue just as I had before? Maybe... I'm not sure. Speaking of "what should I do"...this isn't directed at McSmallStuff, but to everyone. I've been called a racist when I've disagreed with someone. I've been told about my white privilege and how that influences what I think, say, and do. Most importantly it influences how others treat me, which is why I'll never know or understand "true racism" and there's just nothing I can do about it. So I've been told. And I'm a guy, so I also have a heavy dose of male privilege on top of my white privilege, therefore I'll never truly know how women feel in public, and the work place, and in life in general. I mean, I'm one privileged motherfucker. Evidently. I was born with this sweet shit and the world is my fucking oyster. Apparently. So, okay. Now what? Although I'm sometimes skeptical of some of the people telling me this, it's not all together untrue. There IS white privilege, and I DO get it...whether I want it or not. I've heard idiots ask "why isn't there a White History Month?" to which I reply "There IS...it's called Every Month, and they even have a class in schools for it; it's called History". There is a certain amount of privilege that comes with being the majority race. I know that. So what do we do about it? How do we change it? Instead of complaining about it all the time, or using it as an excuse, how do we move beyond it? I think those are some of the questions that need answers, if we're going to discuss this for real. Racism exists. All races have their racists. That will never go away. So how do the rest of us who don't believe ourselves to be racist move forward? What will truly improve race relations in this country at this point?
I think one of the first steps is that culturally, we (Americans, in this case) need to move past the intellectually lazy & dishonest binary lens through which we categorize and preceive race relations. It's like there are two categories, both of which are practically caracatures - If you're "not racist" you're an enlightened being who always treats everyone of any color with the utmost fairness and good will. If you're "racist" you're a hate-filled neaderthal that despises people of (insert your race of choice), treats them unfairly, always things the worst of them, and wants them gone or silenced or controlled. There pretty much no room in the common narrative for a person in the middle, someone who might want to admit, "I bear no conscious ill-will toward people of X race, but the culture I was raised in causes me to sometimes take views or act in ways which are demaning or unjust to those people without immediately realizing it" - A.k.a. admiting privilege. Or, as Chris Rock puts it:
<a class="postlink" href="http://www.upworthy.com/know-anyone-that-thinks-racial-profiling-is-exaggerated-watch-this-and-tell-me-when-your-jaw-drops-2" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.upworthy.com/know-anyone-tha ... aw-drops-2</a>
I'm a cantankerous old curmudgeon. I prejudge everyone as a dumbass until they prove otherwise. Now get off my fucking lawn!
White and/or male privilege is something that inescapably exists in a world where white and male people get advantageous treatment, and the unfortunate fact is that realistically, one person cannot change that circumstance. Any individual person is a drop in the ocean here, and you can't de-privilege yourself. All an individual can do is (1) try to do the opposite in their personal life, (2) consider your own implicit biases and situations where. I'll assume you don't personally discriminate against women and or racial minorities as a matter of habit. The next extension of that would be becoming involved in eradicating the social structures that create such things. For example, one form of white privilege is that the areas where black children live (largely, inner cities) have worse schools on average than the areas where white children live (suburbs). Since this effectively gives the average white person an educational leg up, any work done to improve the quality of inner city schools would decrease the net amount of white privilege. Or advocate against racially unfair legislation. There's innumerably many such things to combat, but no magic bullet. You say "don't consider ourselves racists." I understand what you mean, but that itself is a kind of wishy-washy statement, because very few people consider themselves racist. It's not the kind of label people consciously apply to themselves, because racists are Bad People who do Bad Things. No one really thinks of themselves in such terms, so it's not a very helpful framework for thinking about these sorts of issues. A more helpful way of thinking about it is realizing that it's virtually impossible to grow up and live in the Western world without implicitly absorbing some of these harmful biases, i.e. the fact that "black names" have been found less likely to get call-backs on job applications. No one thinks "Fuck no I'm not interviewing that guy, his name is Jamal." These biases are more insidious and sneaky, and as such require a sort of constant vigilance. Realistically, we are all racist to some degree because somewhere, at some point, a racist idea has unconsciously worked its way into our skulls. That doesn't mean we're all George Wallace, but it means it is unlikely that any of us really have a clean record. There's no need to go around in a state of Opus-Dei style self-flagellation. It's just a matter of subtly taking into account its effects and realizing that it makes the world a messier to interpret and requires occasionally applying a little skeptical introspection to our own actions. For example, when evaluating how smart a particular person is, keep in mind that educational attainment is heavily impacted by things like race. So evaluating, say, someone's intelligence based on where they attended school is a bit more difficult than it would be in a world absent racial dynamics. Perhaps be a little less quick about making that sort of judgment. It's easy for this line of thinking to veer into ridiculous relativism, but just keep such concerns in mind in your daily decision-making.