Serious Thread: Race Discussion

"The black community just needs to focus on education and bettering themselves. They just need to do better in school. Then they won't have these problems. They're just lazy and blame their problems on everyone else."
Studies Confirm the Dehumanization of Black Children and the ‘Preschool-to-Prison Pipeline’
What the eff? No. This must be some bullshit blog, the studies probably aren't from anywhere credible.

The U.S. Department of Education? That must be some backwoods, left-wing, race baiting organization putting out some half-assed report. Wait, it's a real organization? That runs America's school systems? Oh...man, I need drink. The data comes from all 97,000 of the nations public schools and its 16,500 school districts that represent forty nine million students.

Well let's see what this guy Arnie Duncan has to say, I bet he's friends with Jesse Jackson, just covering for black people's excuses.

He is the U.S. Secretary of Education. Ruh-roh! Wonder where those gaps are exactly, hm...

Son of a bitch. Are they telling me that if the MONOLITHIC black community, wanted to keep their children in school, there were institutionalized patterns of behavior that kept knocking them out of school? Well some of them have to stay in schools right? Why aren't they doing better?

They're getting less experienced and less financially motivated teachers? Even though those students need the most help? What?!?!

Jesus, these black communities and all their excuses! They need to stop committing crimes! If they're just nice to people and listen to the police they're fine! Speaking of the police.

Jokes aside, I can keep going, but I'm going to close this post with this.

So the kids that do stay in school, not only get less experienced and less financially motivated teachers, a lot of the children get pushed towards "menial or concrete social positions."

Yeah, black people need to take responsibility for themselves. They need to keep pushing against a system that is set against them. They need to understand how fucked they are in America. They also need to understand that they need to keep these topics at the forefront of conversation so change can occur. They also need to vehemently argue with people who just stop and say "I disagree with your points.You guys just need to get your shit together and go to school. Be better people and listen to the police! I disagree with your points, everyone has a hard time everywhere!"

What side of history do people want to be on? Let's keep talking, always keep talking.

 

That screenshot of the police message board made my blood chill.

One of the points made in the first article was very true - people tend to be more empathetic and think less in terms of cardboard stereotypes when they interact intimately with The Other on a regular basis. (the examples of judge with the daughter and the parent whose kid is gay). Intimately is the key word. I grew up in an environment that has taught me to see black people as equal, and I interact with black people every day in my job. But I never have been close enough to a black person for them to share what they deal with from day to day. I've seen more anecdotes on the internet in the past decade than I ever saw before that, except with fictionalized accounts. Hell, I know more now about discrimination at UVA than what I ever witnessed when I was there for 4 years two decades ago.

But even with people opening up about their lives on the internet, you have folks dismissing or discounting it. And the basis is usually "I've never witnessed this myself" or they ascribe some other reason for what they are hearing. Another message board I belong to has a white lesbian with a black partner, and the few times she has shared some discriminatory encounter they had in public either because of their sexuality or her partner's race, other board members would come up with reasons why they must have misinterpreted their experience. There was also the recent thing with girls being hit on in the street and they'd started videotaping it and comments were, "OMG, he was just saying hi!" I've also seen internet arguments about the Matthew Shepard case, where supposedly it was later revealed that he was attacked for reasons other than because he was gay, and people jumped on that like it was proof that violence against gay people doesn't happen.

I forget which of the linked articles it was, but it is so true about people being deluded, and wanting to stay deluded. It is a human trait that we can't deal with reality, partly because we have little control over changing it so it is better to pretend that there isn't such ugliness going on around us. That's why we have to keep having this conversation, because complacency is always a huge hurdle - with a lot of things, not just racial relations.

 

Dcc, I agree that Canada doesn't have nearly the same degree of racism toward black people as experienced in the US. I agree that a lot of Canadians are looking at this as 'pockets of civil unrest.'
Should you as a Canadian, spend huge amounts of time worrying about it? Meh? How about as a human being? We can be compassionate to this issue at the same time as being compassionate to other people suffering civil rights abuse. Do you only have so many fucks to give about people's rights being violated, and they're all used up?

To bring it closer to home, in a broad sense this is something relevant to Canadians. We do have our own massive issues with racism toward our aboriginal people, and I think that makes the American issue worth watching and learning from, and contributing to. I don't know what the eastern part of Canada is like, but as a westerner in an interracial relationship with a feather Indian, I can tell you that our record really isn't much better. It's a slightly different blend of the same issues, with a different racial minority.

 

You know what I love? I love when a rich, white, no-talent sack of anuses thinks she gets to determine what offends people of other races and what doesn't:


This fucking cunt is not even worth the tidal wave of random cum that has no doubt been shot inside her:

 

This American Life did a great show on this topic, complete with astounding anecdotes about the treatment black preschool children receive. If you get the chance, listen to it. If you consistently tell a child they are bad, from an early age, they have a huge chance of living down to expectations and becoming bad people, or at least thinking of themselves as bad people.

 

The Iggy Azalea issue is one that will correct itself, the market will correct it. Thank god. These other issues are much bigger ones. Also, Australians are the most racist people on the planet. I don't even say that as a bad thing. They hate everyone equally. They call redheads orangutans. Asian women from Indonesia and those south western Asian countries are LBFMs = Little Brown Fucking Machines. They have a racist joke for every single race. It's rather perfect. Yet, I don't think they are preventing redheads as a whole from obtaining higher social/educational/financial status. If Iggy wasn't racist, I'd be slightly disappointed.

re: Canadians - I just think you guys should be aware, but its not your country, you don't need to do anything. I'm posting about Americans. What you CAN do is if you meet a black person from America explain to them how to layer clothing properly in your tundra, it's cold as fuck up there. Other than that, just nod your head and smile when a black person says there is some racist shit going on. And guilt racist people in America for being racist, when you get the chance. That's all, no other work required. It'll go a long way.

Now, there is harsh shit going on across the world genocides in Africa, the shit going on in the Middle East, whatever oppression you want to discuss with China and Russia. Yes, I know that, people know that. What also seems to be the issue is that America is involved with all of this stuff, or people WANT America to be involved in all of this stuff. The problem is that America goes "Hey Syria, stop treating your people like shit." Syria goes "Hey America, fuck you. Glass houses, how is your black/hispanic community doing?" I've been to the meetings, its how the conversation goes every time. Gotta fix home before leaving it.

 

Yeah I thought for a second too (as recent as the last page) it was going in a shitty direction; amazing what a few smart posts and a little good humor can do.

 

Cracked had a very timely post today about Canada's history of police brutality.

Like I said before, I don't think this is so much a "cop problem" as it is a problem of people in power exercising that power in a way that shows their own personal bias.

 

So...three out of five of those stories of Canadian police brutality happened to brown people. I'm going to assume 60% of Canada isn't brown people, let me know if I'm wrong. And what you take from that story is that it isn't a cop problem, it is a power problem?

Okay.

 

I wasn't taking the cop problem/power problem thing from the story. I was linking to the story because it was funny timing.

And yes, I think it's a power problem, or more over, an innate human problem.

 

The idea that Canadian, British, and Australian cultures are so wildly different from American cultures that similar issues are not present is pretty laughable. Especially given that they, like America, were in part built on the subjugation, exploitation, enslavement, and outright theft of property from various sorts of brown folk.

Does it directly affect Canadians? Nah, not really. Do similar things occur in Canada? Assuredly.

Saying something is an innate human problem and calling it a day is true but not nearly enough. Theft is innately human. Murder is innately human. Rape is innately human. And yet we don't just shrug and say we're out of ideas when it comes to preventing those things. We agree that they are an impulse we need rise above, and make it very costly to do such things by punishing those who do and educating those who might in the future. And we do our best not to institutionalize structures that encourage them.

 

Here is the next line of the issue. Now, I talk to one of my many white friends about this and one of them points out that you have to be careful when talking about race because people just get defensive. Now, this conversation isn't saying "HEY, YOU ARE A RACIST! FEEL BAD. EVERY TIME YOU SEE A BLACK PERSON GIVE THEM A DOLLAR BECAUSE YOU FEEL BAD." Which I think a lot of you are just like "I'm not racist, stop trying to make me feel like shit, you're telling me I'm racist, but I haven't done anything to a black person. You're telling me I'm racist and don't know it, that's fucked up." It's fucked up because its scary and out of control. No one like's scary things out of control.

And I'd like to quote Part 5 of "When Whites Just Don't Get It" [I'm telling you, that shit is good shit.]

I've been looking for that study, but I'd bet a large majority of that 59 research subjects wouldn't identify as racists, KKK or have done anything racist either. I'm pretty sure if time could rewind and ask them if they thought they'd get it wrong later, what would they say? Them remembering the black guy was holding the knife isn't a coincidence.

Now there are TONS of data/research like that. I read a study in college where they sent white people into a staged grocery store, had black employees be really helpful and white employees not act like outwards jerks, but flippant/unhelpful. Then were asked to fill out employee surveys. TThen the actors changed sides. And another round of surveys. When the white employees were flippant/unhelpful, they were considered to be unhelpful, uncaring. When the black employees were flippant/unhelpful, they were rude, insulting, disrespectful, and mean-spirited. The good employee/bad employee script was the same, the tone and acting direction they were given was the same as well.

Now those people might not commit hate crimes, running out being all KKK, but you know what they might do? They might not give the benefit of the doubt to a person because they're a minority, even though they would for a white person. This could affect work, education, financial matters and even the law. For example a team presentation goes wrong with a black person on the team, it's someone else's fault, but when job evaluations come along, guess who's holding the knife?

With all of that said, am I going to sit here and determine for a fact that all white people are racist and don't know it? Of course not. But what I am going to say is, in cases where shit goes down like recent stories, it'd be much better to err on the side of "most likely racially motivated" as opposed to "Man, it's hard to tell, we really don't want to start witch hunts even though there are thousands of stories of black people getting fucked up/killed by the police even though they're like 16% of the population." That's all I'm saying.

If this was reversed, what are the chances that any black cop would be chilling at home WITH PAY, with a dead white person, then get the indictment tossed out? It would AT LEAST go to trial. My mind can not even put together the concept in my brain.

 

I will be upfront and acknowledge that I am pretty pro law enforcement. From old school family members who were on in the 40's-70's and more recently friends who are on currently, I've heard their side of work over the years. My question for Parker is, how many current or former LEO do you know/are friends with that you discuss race relations with?

I ask because I think there is a side of the story that gets lost. In Chris Rock's "How not to get your ass beat by the Police" one of the skits is to not be playing Fuck the Police while getting pulled over BY the police, funny? yes, true? yes. If a majority of your interactions with a certain group are met with an attitude of "fuck off pig", I would assume that at some point you would start to resent that group or maybe anticipate a problem before one exists. Just a quick google search of "rap songs about hating cops" turns up multiple instances of songs encouraging the hatred or killing of cops. I had one story related to me that coming out of the academy one officer had had Black friends growing up, never thought of them as anything but equals and gets told "I should have just ran, your slow mother fucking fat white ass would never catch me" (the cause of the stop was just a simple stranded car on the side of the road, stopping to help, and turning into a marijuana smell which turned into a bag, expired tags, no license). What did him being white have to do with the stop? I'm sure that gets old. As a culture, glorifying breaking the law in music doesn't seem to help the cause. While I understand that this is a circular cause and effect, but at what point does someone take responsibility and figure out that for 99.9% of the cops out there, they are really just doing their jobs, enforcing rules that they see get broken.

 

So you can't do anything because as a Canadian you cannot vote in America? Or because as a Canadian you can't do anything because your ruled by a queen in England? Never mind those questions kind of answer themselves.

Racial equality has come a very long way in America; 150 years after slavery we have a black president. I hear this as a statement of fact from a lot of white people as some kind of justification, like ‘hey it’s great now because look how shitty it used to be.’ As a white person I remind myself that black people do not want to hear this argument because ‘Hey, this shits still fucked up.’

 

(1) Why do you think anyone should care, morally? Whether police officers think they have good reasons for being racist seems beside the point. The onus to stop doing racist things is on the racist, not his or her victims (or people who happen to look like them). Even if your point were to be true pragmatically, it is morally repugnant.
(2) Have you considered why there are such songs? Why such an attitude exists?
(3) How "good" and "respectable" does a culture have to be before its members are now longer allowed to be abused? Should they wear a shirt saying "I'm not with them tho"?