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Internet Responds To Racist Article, Gets Author Fired
In the wake of the Trayvon Martin tragedy in February, many publications posted articles about "the talk" — a phrase denoting the conversation many black parents have at some point with their children to explain the realities of racism. Last Thursday, writer John Derbyshire penned an article titled "The Talk: Nonblack Version," which codified a similar set of lessons he had given to his children over the years. Unfortunately, those lessons turned out to be horribly racist themselves. "The remarkably long list of how to teach children to stay safe by avoiding black people goes on for two pages and Derbyshire contends is a true lifesaver. There is no irony or clarification that, perhaps, this is a joke, no matter how much you may want to find a disclaimer after you’re done reading." Reader concealment writes to point out that the internet and the media vocalized their disgust quickly and at length, and now Derbyshire has been fired from his position at the conservative National Review magazine (the offending article appeared in a different publication called Taki's Magazine).
When I was a kid, I had a liberal stepdad and a conservative dad. I always thought my dad was just a racist who didn't know what he was talking about. At one point we had it out and so I left my lilly-white hometown to to live with my mom and stepdad in what happened to be a predominantly black school district (which my liberal stepdad considered a great opportunity for me to learn a valuable cultural lesson). After I got a harsh lesson in anti-white racism by getting my ass kicked for about the 10th time at said school, I realized that dad may not be so stupid after all and moved back with in him. It was one of those hard lessons in life about the difference between how things *should* be and how they actually *are*. It's not that my dad wanted to teach me to be some racist cross-burner or something, he just wanted to teach me that racism cuts BOTH ways--and that walking into the wrong school/neighborhood/bar with white skin can be just as dangerous as the vice versa. And it's a lot easier to learn that lesson the easy way than the hard way, believe me.
I like to think that maybe things have changed since I was a kid. I'm not sure, as I learned to avoid these situations altogether by keeping my dumb ass out of where I wasn't wanted.
Of course, no one is ever going to say any of that publicly. You're more likely in the modern world to encounter the Loch Ness monster than any truly honest dialogue on race.
It happens on both sides. Some black parents tell their kids to segregate themselves and establish identity. One question though: If a black scholar wrote an article on how to keep the white man's hands out of your pockets, would they also get fired?
When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
Why is one list racist and not the other? Is it because the color of skin each list is warning you about? Isn't that really messed up? I mean, making those kinds of judgments based on skin color is really messed up in the first place. That's a given. But isn't really weird for it to be somehow OK to warn against one skin color but not the other?
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
I wasn't aware of "The Talk" before reading about it in the summary.
As a (white) father of two young boys, I can't imagine a harder conversation. "Remember all that talk about how you have unlimited potential? Yeah, it's all bullshit. Fight the power (but dont' get killed)."
I can't imagine how it looks to have the hope in their eyes die in front of you.
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Discovering that John Derbyshire is a racist is somewhat akin to discovering that the sun rises in the east. The man's been quite candid about his views for years.
Kudos to National Review for finally discovering this fact and taking the blindingly obvious course of action, though.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
Like a lot of these types of things, it's really a CLASS issue, not a race issue. There's plenty of predominantly white if not totally white neighborhoods that other white people don't go into because either the neighborhood is a lot more poor than "you," and you're in danger, or the neighborhood is too rich for you, and you'll get the cops called on you. You don't have to have a different color skin if you drive the wrong kind of car, or aren't dressed appropriately. Humans are tribal, and trival societies aren't known for their inclusive nature.
How is it "censorship" to not have someone you don't like use your business/property to broadcast their message? He's still free to get his message out using his own stuff.
I dunno, could be you're just an asshole.
I'm white, but went to a predominantly black High School in a major metro. I had a few altercations, but I never had my ass kicked.
As one of my (black) friends so eloquently put it to me: "You know when they're talking about the N*****s up at G******d, they're talking 'bout you, too."
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intolerance of intolerance is not the same thing as intolerance itself
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Here's a quote:
"There is nothing more painful to me at this stage of my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery, then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved".
Who said that? Oh yeah...Jesse Jackson. It's not like white people are the only ones who don't want to walk by a 6'3" black teenager in a hoodie at night. Black people don't want to walk by them as well.
Internet Anthropomorphized, Is Mildly Amused
This guy gets fired, Tyler Perry gets a pass for describing how his mother always taught him how to act if he got held up by white cops and then suing for discrimination basically because 2 white cops didn't know he was famous. All in the same week, and with no incredulity about the double standard. I love our media. And by love, i mean despise.
"Unfortunately, those lessons turned out to be horribly racist themselves."
Be that as it may. It would be worthwhile to provide an item-by-item refutation to the article, than simply scream "racism" and leave it at that.
Humans are as tribal as they want to be. In Ireland there has been a HUGE influx of immigrants from places like Eastern Europe and sub Saharan Africa, something like one in six people were born outside the country according to the most recent census. And this is just in the last ten or so years. Backlash? None. Rise of right wing groups? None. Race riots such as have graced the streets of most European countries and the UK? Zero. And if there's one thing guaranteed to bring out any latent xenophobia its a sudden massive influx of foreigners.
Its a very open and inclusive society. So much for the stereotypes.
... (and I suppose everyone has these kinds of stories) but when I was a teenager I used to live in this really dumpy run-down apartment block. We had befriended a black family that lived downstairs and I used to play basketball frequently with the two boys. They were quite a bit younger than me - I was 16-17 at the time and they were 10-12. Anyway, one day we're playing basketball at the elementary school playground across the street and I said, just joking around, "blah blah blah, my brother" and the youngest kid said to me, almost angrily, "you AIN'T my brother." That really threw me. Here was just a little black kid hanging around with this older white boy from the neighborhood and it was all fun and games up to a point but when I referred to him as "my brother" it was like everything hateful he'd been indoctrinated in - and, yes, it was clear he'd been carefully indoctrinated - about whites came up. I learned reverse-racism was alive and while and I must say it shocked me. One can think everything is hunky-dory and that one is being all culturally enlightened by regularly hanging out with black people, but there is a whole separate side to the culture that is never revealed to you and certainly nothing about how they really tend to feel about whites (which, admittedly, is often justified by narrow-minded and racist whites which an average white kid doesn't ever experience). The racial divide still has a very, very long way to go.
...that PEOPLE (irregardless of whether they're black, white, red, yellow, green or purple) are the problem.
Among your fellow citizens are forty million who identify as black, and whom I shall refer to as black. The cumbersome (and MLK-noncompliant) term “African-American” seems to be in decline, thank goodness. “Colored” and “Negro” are archaisms. What you must call “the ‘N’ word” is used freely among blacks but is taboo to nonblacks.
While it's dangerous to make generalizations across an entire section of the population, especially one that is only defined by a superficial characteristic (I imagine that there are quite a few black people who are seriously offended by the use of the word "nigger" even if it is uttered by another black person), it seems to be largely the social norm that the word is OK to use if you're black, and offensive if you're not. That's a bullshit standard, and it bothers me. Either it's OK for everyone, or it's OK for no one.
Also, he's absolutely right about "African-American" being a stupid term that needs to die. Not only does it fail to recognize that many people feel no particular connection to their ancestry, African or otherwise, but it assumes that every person with dark skin is of African descent. I went to college with a (black) dude who was from Jamaica. Should he have been called "African-American", even though he was neither African, nor American? Stupid.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
Picture the following situation: a black neighborhood watch volunteer kills an unarmed white kid. Two white preachers jump into the fray and make loud declarations about the racial nature of the killing.
They would be roasted by the media and the mainstream public as racist nutbags, true?
So, why don't the reverends Sharpton and Jackson get the same treatment?
Not to defend Derbyshire, but, what he said (albeit, in much greater obnoxious detail) isn't all that different from what The Rev. Jesse has noted:
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/opinion/articles/960318/archive_010008.htm
geek. lawyer.
He got fired because apparently enough people were upset with his views that it threatened to hit the companies bottom line. There is a subtle difference.
We are animals of extinct. If certain people treat us bad, we try to avoid them, and those who treat us nice, we stay around them. It's fear that motivates our judgement.
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
I have to second that. There were a lot of problems with gang violence at my highshool. I treated everyone with dignity and respect, and they did the same to me. Only assholes got jumped.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Only if you believe that their representation in prison is proportional to their criminality. And if you do believe that, you have some reading to do about the justice system.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
So would you say...around blacks, never relax?
You probably deserved it. I was white kid #20/34 at a predominately black and hispanic high school and I never heard of anyone catching a beatdown for being white/black/hispanic/whatever. If you caught an asswhupping it was mostly for talking shit, or some retarded beef outside of school. I never got real shit for being white outside of some jokes.
Anecdotes are anecdotes.
NPR is "government funded" like oil companies are "government funded". NPR is no BBC.
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I was right there with him until I sensed the twist in the logic right at the end of paragraph 5. Then paragraph 6 took the left turn at Albuquerque and it all when horribly wrong culminating in paragraph 15 identifying "desirable" black people as trophies for powerful/rich white people. At that point I was left open mouthed, not so much at what he said as at the fact he seemed to genuinely believe this was not a racist viewpoint because it was backed up by "facts" of some sort and qualified by "personal experience." Glenn Beck, you've met your match!
Actually, if you want to make broad judgements, there's a much more significant group that makes up nearly all of the prison population. This group is so ill-adjusted, they are over represented in criminal activity by a factor of nearly 20:1. This group, of course, is men.
If you want to keep it real, you ought be a lot more concerned about why men are such fuck-ups before you worry about what color the men are.
Heh, you know what? I'm sat here now thinking "I shouldn't have posted that because now I'm going to get labeled as a racist..."
Funny eh?
The way I look at it, everyone is a minority. It's just a matter of picking some aspect of your heritage which isn't common amongst the population, and boom, you're special.
Except that everyone is special.
So no one is.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Government-funded NPR.... yeah, no. It's member-station funded for the large majority, and the member stations are funded to 60% (depending on the station) by listener contributions. Unless you have an axe to grind or are willing to delve into the details of their funding, NPR is listener-funded. As for why he was fired: I'd say he was fired for being a moronic news analyst. Not sure that him being black had anything to do with it, but Fox News definitely got some marketing and PR miles out of it.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
1. NPR receives very little funding from the government. A high estimate would be about 16% for any individual station. By contrast, Catholic Charities USA claims 67% of its funding is through the government.
2. Juan Williams didn't just say something "NPR did not like," he said something incredibly and unapologetically racist. If he had instead said "the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are helping the world and the US in particular because it's stabilizing oil production for US consumption and the count of US soldiers injured and killed is a totally acceptable cost" he probably wouldn't have been fired despite the fact that NPR doesn't usually have people say stuff like that on the air.
3. Juan Williams wasn't just some one-time-guest on Fox, he was consistently an analyst for Fox for three years prior to joining NPR.
Now, if you were to say his conservative views and appearances on Fox News were a factor in his firing, that may hold some merit, but the implication that NPR disagreeing with him was a raw cause is rather inflammatory and not quite accurate.
There is two levels of warnings that parents can give. One is "Don't go to the poor (=black) neighborhoods alone at night" which might be at times unjust generalization but I wouldn't try to crucify anyone for giving that kind of advice. The other level is what this guy wrote... None of the quotes are taken out of context here:
Those aren't necessarily even the most outrageous instructions but there were just so many to choose from...
I recall the government-funded NPR recently fired a black reporter after he made a guest appearance on FOX and said some things NPR did not like. So to answer your question: Yes.
You're referring to Juan Williams, and the remarks he made on Fox had nothing to do with blacks vs. whites. Williams made remarks to the effect that he feared for his safety when he saw someone who looked (to him) like a Muslim board an airplane, and that anyone who wears "Muslim garb" obviously identifies themselves as a Muslim first and an American second (if they are American at all). He was fired because these espoused beliefs were in conflict with his role as an NPR news analyst, where he was regularly called upon to comment on the Middle East conflict, terrorism, immigration, and other issues that concern Muslims and Muslim Americans.
Breakfast served all day!
What's 'G******d'? You've completely lost me there :)
Where do you live, Namibia?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Except it was one line:
"Just keep in mind that while most whites think people are racist, blacks know people are racist."
He (white guy) grew up in a black neighborhood in Detroit during the 1960s.
If the influx has only been happening for the past 10 years, then it's far too early to make those sorts of claims. Unemployment in Ireland has been steadily rising and they're just now starting to implement the types of austerity measures that have tipped Greece into chaos. When economic times get tough and people start losing their jobs, they start to look for people to blame. Foreign immigrants are an easy target.
You may be right that Ireland will be able to escape the rampant racism and ethnic conflicts that usually occur in situations like that when the economy goes south, but I think it's too early to tell how it will pan out.
I recall the government-funded NPR recently fired a black reporter after he made a guest appearance on FOX and said some things NPR did not like. So to answer your question: Yes.
The ideal would be no censorship but of course that doesn't apply to private organizations. They censor things all the time.
Honestly, SHUT UP about "government-funded" already. Combined federal, state and local gov't contributions make up about 5.8% according to their latest figures. The vast majority of their funding comes from individuals, businesses, and universities (amongst others). Your phrasing seems to suggest you think that gov't funding is holding the purse strings... puh-leeze. Would you also say Dunkin' Donuts gov't funded? Or would that be a deliberate misrepresentation of the complete body of facts?
I only post comments when someone on the internet is wrong.
I went to the Trayvon Martin March held in the city closest to us. As a white woman, I walked up to the City Hall thinking I'd be on the outside looking in. When I made my leave, I realized that one day, I would have to give my blond-haired, blue-eyed son The Talk--not because he'd be a target for discrimination, but he will no doubt witness acts of racism and discrimination. He will have friends of all races as our once White Bread Town, USA has become much more diverse. I want him to know that I got 'The Talk' from my racist grandmother, someone too stuck in the 30's to understand where the world was going in present-time, and how that was wrong. We talk about the curse we give our kids with religious indoctrination, and that should apply to any views: political, racial, etc.
And if I may add, if given the choice to walk down a dark street with a group of black guys on the left, white boys on the right, I'm hanging a louie. Especially if the white guys are of the frat-boy variety. I've dealt with this first-hand. Walking around on the dangerous North Side of the city I marched in is seen as an incredible risk, but I've never been harassed in doing so. I go there all the time, just for a Puerto Rican bakery, ffs. Walking by a fraternity on a prestigious college campus? They were yards and yards away, and I walked away feeling dirty. From everything I've dealt with in life, 'The Talk' given to black men seems to include more lessons about respect than what the white 'n rich boys get.
You want to know how to help your kids? LEAVE THEM THE F*&K ALONE. --George Carlin
Ron Paul gave a speech last year about his very subject (prisons are mostly filled with blacks). He also argued that the Drug Prohibition is mostly targeted against blacks, and therefore it's a racist policy that needs to be ended.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Is this the same John Derbyshire that wrote Prime Obsession? I really liked that book (it's about the Riemann Hypothesis). It would be a shame if the author turns out to be a moron.
Concentrated poverty produces high crime rates. News at 11.
You're doing your statistics wrong. You need to look at proportions of race in the criminal population verses the general popularion, or at the criminal rate per capita for different racial groups.
It's really more complicated than even that. If you just look at the stats alone, they paint a really unflattering picture of blacks - it's only when you control for socioeconomic factors that things get muddier. Black parents have black children, poor (financially) parents have poor children - even some time after the end of segregation, it continues to have lingering demographic effects.
It ends at him expressing beliefs not directly associated with, or contrary to the business paying him. I thought that was pretty clear? Take for example a pro-athlete, who is paid by a professional sports organization, and who has become rich and famous using the brand of that organization. They acquire millions of devoted followers (think twitter) who are almost obsessed with everything that athlete tweets, hundreds of times per week. Now let's say that athlete tweets something extremely offensive to thousands of people. Is that sports organization not supposed to punish the athlete for his/her comments? Should brands continue endorsing? Otherwise wouldn't it show that by continuing to support this athlete, it somehow aligns with the intentions of the company? Never mind if it wasn't published through an official medium such as a team press release. The association is implied.
None of us know everything. Therefore we're all naïve.
I found this true also. Many of the schools I went to were in the poor neighborhoods. I found that even if I got into a fight it usually ended up with me getting a new friend. Humans being tribal, school is the same, a clique will test you because you are white to see how far, how much you will take, or if you have backbone just like anywhere else. In those schools if you were weak you were a target, didn't matter if you were white black or orange. If you didn't fight back you were picked on, if you did fight back even if you got your ass handed to you by more than 1 person you were usually shown some respect for "stepping up".
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
by Frederick Douglass, a freed slave and prominent statesmen before, during, and after the War Between the States.
"What shall we do with the Negro?" I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us!
Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us. Do nothing with us!
If the apples will not remain on the tree of their own strength, if they are wormeaten at the core, if they are early ripe and disposed to fall, let them fall! I am not for tying or fastening them on the tree in any way, except by nature's plan, and if they will not stay there, let them fall.
And if the Negro cannot stand on his own legs, let him fall also. All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone!
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
As to the reason for the termination of Williams' contract, NPR’s President and CEO Vivian Schiller offered the following comment: "News analysts may not take personal public positions on controversial issues; doing so undermines their credibility as analysts..."
Williams was terminated for the same reason your post should not be modded Informative; he was acting as a pundit and spouting his opinion (which just so happened to be a prime example of xenophobic hysteria) while misrepresenting himself to be a credible news analyst.
While hyperbole might make for good TV and Slashdot posts, it's not really appropriate for someone whose job is to report factual information.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Segregation also perpetuates these myths. A black child not exposed to white children will not know how to act when exposed, vice versa for while children not exposed to black children. When you realize a man is a man regardless the color of his skin and deserves to be treated like a human with respect, you will go a lot further.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
Derb pointed out that a lot of "scientists" think there is such a thing as some inherent (unchangeable through education), one-dimensional quantity intelligence, that intelligence can be well-measured by a written test which shows differences between populations that can only be explained by racial group membership (even though most black people have numerous white ancestors, and many white people have some black ancestors). These "scientists" also think the effects of being completely dispossessed, cut off from your history and forced into uncompensated labor with no legal rights for hundreds of years should be gone by now, since the parents of today's black youth could vote as adults, and their parents and grandparents were not literally slaves (even though they lived under a constant threat of terrorist violence and were denied permission to attempt to join high status jobs to bring themselves out of poverty and couldn't live outside the black neighborhood, where much of the property was nonetheless owned by white people).
Yeah, the truth is racist. Derb wants to perpetuate the status quo; some of us think it's shitty and want to change it.
In the interest of completeness it should be pointed out that one of the kids instructed his buddies to "take him [the victim] down," at which point the victim told them to "Remember Trayvon." It was after that they the beating started and one of the kids reportedly said "this is for Trayvon." The article at the Daily Mail states that the police don't know if the attack was racially motivated or if they interpreted "Remember Trayvon" as a racist remark. So to suggest that this was some kind of reverse lynch mob is a bit of a stretch, which of course does not prevent the Daily Mail from labeling it a 'twisted racial revenge' attack.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2126003/Trayvon-Martin-case-6-youths-beat-man-78-twisted-racial-revenge-attack.html
We are animals of extinct.
That may be the most appropriate typo ever.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
Bingo. When talking heads prattle on about "post-racial America," they unwittingly raise the specter of classism in America, and therefore come perilously close to talking about class struggle. Class struggle is far more taboo than racism. Far, far more. We pretend it doesn't exist because if it does then all sorts of left wing contentions are automatically validated. In America, that is implicitly forbidden. That would be tantamount to validating Marxism.
And white men make up the vast, vast majority of serial killers and pedophiles. I guess we shouldn't let them be teachers, etc, right? It's just 'fact-based statistics', right?
Right about the serial killers but wrong about the paedophiles.
My thought on things like this and all the people who love to quote things likes prison statistics and IQ scores is that there are always some pretty huge leaps being made from correlation to causation. The important thing to do whenever you see a correlation is to check for other close, related correlations that might provide additional insight into the statistics you are examining.
With the black population, the big blinking correlation that racists like to ignore is to poverty. Blacks are overwhelmingly poor, and given the power of generational wealth in this country, there is every reason to believe that hundreds of years of slavery and racism have contributed a great deal to their poverty. They, like other poor people, score lower on IQ tests and commit more violent crimes. Practically any other remarkable statistic about the black population can be explained by historical racism leading to current poverty.
I submit that most practical benefit people think they are getting from their racism is purely accidental. They are inadvertently using skin color to screen people by economic status. How sure are you that you wouldn't have also your ass kicked if you had instead transplanted into an impoverished, rural, predominantly white school for being the rich, suburban white kid? Think back on all of your past experiences that you believe vindicate your racism. Do you believe that poor white people wouldn't have been capable of the same?
Oh! I thought you were talking about Obama/Sarkozy's assisting Al-queda take over Libya.
Citation or it didn't happen.
I was certain he was referring to Reagan/Bush selling missiles to Iran, funding the Contras, paying terrorists to hold Marines hostage, setting up the original Al Qaeda training camps, and so on, and so forth.
What's that? You were just looking for an opportunity to blatantly bash 'liberals,' as if neocons aren't guilty of the same (or worse) crimes?
Well, color me "surprised."
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
NPR gets about 15% of its funding from Government (directly AND through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which is 100% federal funds).
Add to this another 14% from universities (which are mostly disguised federal and state pass-thru money).
The bulk of their funding is from individuals and businesses, and foundations. Foundations and Businesses amount to another 28%, all of
which is a write for the foundation or business, so more money out of the federal pocket.
The individual category is 34% and there is no real way to tell how much of that is a tax write off as well.
So roughly 58% of NPRs budget is from the Government, either directly, or by tax write off which has the same effect on government.
(Totally disregarding the fact that NPR is tax exempt which eliminates corporate taxes which amount to about 34% of income according to Wikipedia).
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
If a black scholar wrote an article on how to keep the white man's hands out of your pockets, would they also get fired?
I don't know if they'd get fired, but I'd be interested in reading the article. Between the bailouts and the wars, white men have quite a few hands in my pockets.
Your false situation is total garbage, though because it would NEVER happen. There would never have been the need for public outcry because the black neighborhood watch guy would have undoubtedly been arrested and an actual investigation, arrest would have been made and charges would have been filed.
We are animals of extinct.
Gotta love it when the typo is far more profound than the actual thought a person is attempting to express.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
You may be right that Ireland will be able to escape the rampant racism and ethnic conflicts that usually occur in situations like that when the economy goes south
My money says he's about as wrong as one could possibly be.....
You don't know much about the South if you think Central Florida is part of it.
This is pretty much Citzenship 101 -- you are free to say whatever the hell crazy bullshit you want. The government will not arrest you or hold you hostage for your views.
I, however, as an individual citizen can hate you for what you say. I can exile you from my home, my office and my life. That is my freedom, I can choose not to associate with you, and I can choose not to allow your crazy into the places I control. I cannot, however, call a cop and have you thrown out of the public park where your ranting is bothering me.
See the difference?
-GiH
The white preachers wouldn't need to jump into the fray because the black volunteer would have been arrested.
I explicitly release the above into the public domain.
You know you're attacking the victim, right? And making generalizations about him? And notice how he didn't agree with his father and moved out over it, and yet you're claiming he towed the line? Nice.
Fact: Racism cuts both ways.
You're again missing the problem entirely. Everyone is aware that there a nutjobs out there who will shoot someone if they thing someone is looking at them funny. The real problem is that in the real-world, the police didn't bother to do anything but to take the shooter at his word that it was self-defense. You can bet your sorry ass that if a black watch volunteer would have killed a white kid, he would have been in prison post-haste.
That's the difference, and that's why all your attempts at moral equivocation are absolutely laughable: in the words of Token Black, "You just don't get it."
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Yehp. And the entire concept of modding down is to say "this message isn't worth the space on my screen."
Possibly not. In Bristol, UK, there was a City Councillor (herself of African descent, and oddly, spending most of her time in Florida) who accused another councillor of being a "coconut", which is a racist slur meaning someone who is "black/brown on the outside, and white on the inside". This happened in session (on the official public record). After having several firings of caucasians over implicit racist slurs, this one was practically ignored. It took a big backlash in the public to get the politicians to even begin an investigation. The councillor herself stated "I can't be racist, because I'm black.".
In the end, she got a slap on the wrist.
Yes, racism does cut both ways. However, by and large, you don't get to claim racism unless your skin is non-white.
Studies confirm that there is a general racial bias in everyone (succinctly put in Avenue Q's "Everyone's a little bit Racist"). However, being adults, we should pretty much be trying to accept that we're flawed individuals, and get on with making everyone's life a bit better as long as they live up to society's expectations (if you're arrogant, violent and antisocial, don't expect people to like you whatever the colour of your skin).
In the article, there are some actual truths. Basically, in any given social segment of any size, you'll meet all kinds of people. Nice and nasty and everything in between. Treat people as people, because that's who they are.
NPR claims to get a tiny amount of money from the government. But every time Congress talks about cutting their budget NPR claims it would put them out of business.
Which is it? Well, it depends on how you define "government funded". Basically, NPR plays a shell game to launder most of the money they get (indirectly) from the government.The donations from listeners go back to NPR to make it look like they're funded from that source, then the local stations and producers of NPR content get government funding to replace it, which NPR keeps off their books. It's a Byzantine accounting system that obfuscates where money is really being used.
Having grown up in Detroit, I know very well the perils of being the wrong race in the wrong area. I have been the victim, and know many people who were also victims of simply being white in the wrong neighborhood (car broke down, made a wrong turn down the wrong block, etc...). A real problem is, that you can't talk about that problem (racism against whites) without being declared a racist. Minorities that have been the victims of legal racism seem to want retribution much more than equality?
Now with that said, I read through the article. Some statements match the way things are, street wise, for a guy that grew up in a city that is largely anti-white. Other statements seem to be something from a Klan rally. I can see why he was canned and why there was backlash.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Not really. They get quite a lot of subsidies for all sorts of crazy things. This produces some pretty crazy behaviors, but that is a subject for another article.
It's still stupid to be racist.
Absolutely everything is racist. Even people who don't actually hate [INSERT RACE HERE] are racist. Their thoughts are not their own, you see.
The world != the United States.
If we are collecting personal anecdotes, I would like to talk about my experience in Benin, West African country between Nigeria and Togo. Benin used to be one of the most important sources of black slaves, so I guess (I'm not an expert) that many African Americans have roots there.
I was there for a month doing volunteer work and travelling, part of it on my own. Often I would look in every direction and I would be the only white person in sight. And everyone could recognize that I was a foreigner from a mile away. Never had any problem or was harassed by anyone (besides a guy trying to sell me sunglasses), and I received a lot of kindness and honest interest from locals. Well, once a woman started shouting at me because I took a picture in her direction (I did not realize she was there), which I know well it is very offensive in their culture.
So don't talk about how blacks hate whites and viceversa. The racial conflict in the US is the product of US history.
I believe the quote from Juan Williams you're looking for is the following:
Look, Bill, I'm not a bigot. You know the kind of books I've written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.
It may be a bit pedantic, but that statement is definitely not racist. You can argue it's bigoted, but I wouldn't say it's racist at all. Muslim is not a race, and if you take his statement at face value, it's not even Muslims that make him nervous. Only Muslims that choose to wear Muslim garb on a plane. Not to mention that saying he gets worried and nervous doesn't seem to me as if it should be very controversial at all. Even the claim about identifying primarily as Muslims is still just presented as what's going through his mind when he sees them.
I'll admit to not having the whole context around the statement, but from what I see he never claimed any of those thoughts were fair to the person in question. It speaks of an instinctive response that could speak as much of the culture of country and the nature of what our mass media exposes us to that it would have become an instinctive reaction. Nor is such a statement without merit in discussion.
If that sort of reaction is normal, perhaps we need to rethink how the topic is presented in the media. Or maybe that information would actually be appreciated by Muslims who might not even have considered how their choice of clothing could influence people's first impression of them. They would still have the right to choose to wear that garb, but perhaps for some of them, it isn't important and they want to avoid it. Regardless, I think discussion of this level should be encouraged rather than squelched.
Having some sort of talk about the realities of racism is a sad necessity for many parts of the US, but that is a separate thing entirely from this guy's List. This is simply an example of a sheltered man who does not know enough to realize he is projecting his personal frustrations onto an entire race, and instead thinks they are somehow rational or justified. Some gems are:
(10g) Before voting for a black politician, scrutinize his/her character much more carefully than you would a white.
(11) The mean intelligence of blacks is much lower than for whites. The least intelligent ten percent of whites have IQs below 81; forty percent of blacks have IQs that low. Only one black in six is more intelligent than the average white; five whites out of six are more intelligent than the average black. These differences show in every test of general cognitive ability that anyone, of any race or nationality, has yet been able to devise. They are reflected in countless everyday situations. “Life is an IQ test.”
(13) In that pool of forty million, there are nonetheless many intelligent and well-socialized blacks. (I’ll use IWSB as an ad hoc abbreviation.) You should consciously seek opportunities to make friends with IWSBs. In addition to the ordinary pleasures of friendship, you will gain an amulet against potentially career-destroying accusations of prejudice.
(15) Unfortunately the demand is greater than the supply, so IWSBs are something of a luxury good, like antique furniture or corporate jets: boasted of by upper-class whites and wealthy organizations, coveted by the less prosperous. To be an IWSB in present-day US society is a height of felicity rarely before attained by any group of human beings in history. Try to curb your envy: it will be taken as prejudice (see paragraph 13).
Common Sense isn't as Common as people think...
I don't know which is sadder, that you're so ashamed of your own heritage or that there is so little memory of actual Irish culture amongst Irish Americans. The national motto is céad míle fáilte, a hundred thousand welcomes, and it holds as true today as ever, despite history, or perhaps because of it. Much has been lost. Northern Ireland is a completely different story mind you, it really is a different culture completely, for reasons I won't go into here.
Whites are not the minority.
Blacks are a minority and there is a long history or racism against them, especially in the south.
Racism is just as bad -- and inexcusable -- when a minority does it.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
That's a good point, and actually the clothes are probably more important than the color of the skin, just think about meeting a black guy dressed with a Hugo Boss suit somewhere in downtown and meeting in a bad part of town a white dude with tattoos and pants that hangs down... yes, don't deny it, you are probably going to pre-judge them, but which one are you going to be afraid of?
"It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." -- Prof. Dumbledore
As reported in National Review
"Anyone who has read Derb in our pages knows he’s a deeply literate, funny, and incisive writer. I direct anyone who doubts his talents to his delightful first novel, “Seeing Calvin Coolidge in a Dream,” or any one of his “Straggler” columns in the books section of NR. Derb is also maddening, outrageous, cranky, and provocative. His latest provocation, in a webzine, lurches from the politically incorrect to the nasty and indefensible. We never would have published it, but the main reason that people noticed it is that it is by a National Review writer. Derb is effectively using our name to get more oxygen for views with which we’d never associate ourselves otherwise. So there has to be a parting of the ways. Derb has long danced around the line on these issues, but this column is so outlandish it constitutes a kind of letter of resignation. It’s a free country, and Derb can write whatever he wants, wherever he wants. Just not in the pages of NR or NRO, or as someone associated with NR any longer."
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/295514/parting-ways-rich-lowry
>>>NPR is "government funded" like oil companies are "government funded".
Really? The oil companies get billions-of-dollars in U.S. Treasury checks like NPR and PBS do? Hmmmm. I. Did not. Know that. (Probably because your statement is false.)
Neither receive billions in U.S. Treasury checks. In "total compensation", including tax breaks and indirect funding, NPR receives a greater percentage of its revenue from the Government than the oil industry, but much, much less in total dollars. NPR's total budget last year was about $200M, so it's really an apple-and-oranges comparison, though.
Of course, you're probably thinking NPR includes PBS, PRI, APT, APM, and PRX, or even CPB which it doesn't. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which is actually where the Government money goes directly to be redistributed to the other entities, had a budget of around $420M.
So I'm sure they'd very much welcome a Treasury check of billions, but it's not going to happen anytime soon.
E pluribus unum
or by tax write off which has the same effect on government.
This is such a specious argument. I get a standardized deduction for being alive and a citizen. Therefore the Federal Government is sponsoring everything I buy. After all, the U.S. Gov't could have elected to take that money from me. Ergo, every purchase I make is gov't spending. Apparently, the U.S. Gov't has a penchant for fine cheese, cigars, and port. I knew it! Those guys spend our money on the most wasteful things.
-GiH
Actually...no.
Those exact types of talks are a large part of the seminars they hold annually down here in New Orleans for the Essence Festival they have here every summer.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
that blacks have lower median IQ than whites (true),
By about 4 points, with 90% of the black and white populations being in the same range.
higher rates of criminality than whites (true),
Or, at least, higher prison sentencing rates in the USA. Whether that correlates to committing more crimes is debatable.
and that you shouldn't go into black neighbourhoods (duh).
You don't go into poor neighbourhoods in a lot of cities. There is quite a significant overlap between poor and black in much of the USA.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Instances of black on white crime are obviously common as is the reverse. But as far as severe racist reactions we do not have a history of black folks taking over the town and lynching whites. those dramatic instances of white racism impose a certain penalty upon whites as well it should. However this latest killing may have nothing to do with race at all. The shooter probably would have shot a white youth just as quickly as he did the black youngster. I will say that while watching riots in California a few years ago I thought that far too little defensive gunfire took place. We all saw the Korean merchants go to the roofs of their businesses letting everyone know that if looting or burning was attempted they would open fire. Often in a riot situation the faster there is a violent response the less violence will take place. Too many uninvolved parties were injured and the police did the worst thing possible. The police should have a legal compulsion to use as much violence on the spot as it takes to put down real riots. Anyone remember the young white truck driver being beaten with bricks and concrete? That never should have happened.
At least it does for me. Look, I grew up in a small isolated town of 3000 or so. All white population. Very little overt prejudice against anyone of another race. It just didn't come up. OK, I grow up, go to college, then move to a large (1 million +) city. Since I'm fresh out of college, I live in a poor black neighborhood where I'm threatened at bus stops, had my car torched, had bottles thrown at me and been mugged. 7 incidents of that nature in 7 years there. 6 out of those 7 incidents involved a black person.
So, I wasn't raised to hate anyone. Before I got to the city, I wasn't scared on anyone based on race. After 7 years, however, I had developed a finely tuned paranoia regarding young black men. I avoided them on the subway, bus and especially bus stops. I would cross the street to avoid crowds of them. Each incident (other than the white panhandler who tried to beat me with an umbrella and caused me to start avoiding street people) made that fear a little worse.
Is that fair or rational? No. There were plenty of exceptions, and plenty of decent, friendly black people too, but the little reptile in the back of my brain doesn't work that way. He's all about survival and he frightens easily. He's got nothing else to go on but appearance, and black skin with "African" facial features in a bad neighborhood is a "be scared" signal. And this little reptile in my head, he's got a great memory, but he's not under my conscious control.
As long as there's no fear, I have no problem when I go to lunch with black male co-workers, but then, we're not in a bad neighborhood, my co-workers are all smart, well educated and funny, and while at least one of them could take me apart with one arm, he is as about as threatening as the average teddy bear.
Some people on both sides need "the talk" to be scared. Others of us come by it quite by accident. Sad, but true.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
You're using the wrong statistic. You should be giving the odds of someone being arrested given that they're male (1,352 per 100,000) vs. them being arrested given that they're female (126 per 100,000).
Also of note, white male arrest rate (1,775 per 100,000) vs. black male arrest rate (4,347 per 100,000).
Well... looks like the difference is still much greater between men and women, than it is between white and black. As a half-black man, I still wouldn't want to live there, though.
Source
I explicitly release the above into the public domain.
> So to answer your question: Yes.
You do capture the reality correctly. But should it be? An opinion writer fired for expressing an opinion.... at a completely different forum that the one doing the firing? Juan Williams fired from NPR for saying something on FNS or Derb fired from NR for writing something at Taki. I can totally understand when NR fired Ann Coulter for her 9/12 column since it was published on NR. But really, this fire at the first politically incorrect thought has to stop. Of course it only works one way. Lefties get away with saying the most vile things and if the stink is really bad they issue an apology and move on.
Funny thing, every few months some lefty (like the POTUS or AG Holder, etc) issues a call for a 'frank discussion of race' or some such, or calls white people 'cowards' for refusing to have a 'dialog on race' yet the second somebody actually takes them serious and issues a response to some of their race baiting (as Derb was doing btw.) the trap is sprung; they are branded a 'racist' and expunged from polite society. Meanwhile Rev. Sharpton incites riots that actually KILL PEOPLE, launches race baiting hoaxes and is using his perch as an MSNBC host to attempt to incite mass riots and nobody is saying a damned word... and if he succeeds will almost certainly go unprosecuted. It is the imbalance that is objectionable. Were Rev. Al as unwelcome in polite society as David Duke we would be making progress toward a color blind society.
But now lemme add a few notes here. Defending Derb's (or Juan Williams) right to say what he said doesn't imply I agree with it. On the other had I do agree with everything Ann Coulter wrote on 9/12, especially in light of her personally losing a close friend the day before. And on the gripping hand agree NR had to sack her, that wasn't the sort of thing that NR does. Such is life. Especially didn't like Derb's bits about IQ since that is underdetermined at best.
Intelligence testing was at about the level of phrenelogy when all serious inquiry was halted by political correctness from the 'rational, scientific progressives' as CrimeThink of the first order. So we can't say anything of value on the subject because it is forbidden to even ask those sort of questions. I believe it is obvious that progressives believe blacks are inferior, both when they were mostly overt racists themselves (look it up people, it IS) and now when they design policies based on an assumption black people are incapable of making it without the constant assistance of white limousine liberals. But that is more likely a defect on the progressives part than anythng connected to reality. At any rate the whole American experiment depends upon "All men are created equal..." so any system that requires treating people differently based on things like race, color, gender, etc. should be avoided to the maximum extent possible. (Can't be entirely because some corner cases simply can't be handwaved away, especially gender. But for most practical purposes it can be abstracted away and should.)
Democrat delenda est
Because women aren't held responsible for their actions most of the time.
I'd venture to guess, that MANY people that are non-muslims feel that same tinge of fear or apprehension when they see someone get on a plane with "muslim garb".
I know I do....just natural these days, especially when this statement was made by Juan not that long after 9/11. I think it was just a few years after 2011 wasn't it?
But on a larger scale...call it racist or what...but there are stereotypes for reasons. They weren't just made out out of the clear blue sky.
Me? Sure, if I'm walking a street alone (especially in New Orleans) and I see some black teen males walking behind me or coming near me...I keep a very wary eye out on them, and often will cross to the other side of the road and keep an eye out for my options to get to safety in case of a mugging.
Why?
Well,young black teens commit an overwhelming amount of muggings down here. They are often caught on the cameras wearing gang-banger clothes. If I see that, I naturally am apprehensive.
If said young black men, were wearing suits, or dressed in a more normal, non-threatening middle class manner, no...I'd not likely be worried for my safety.
Racist? I dunno....I think it is more like knowing the dangers that can occur around you and being aware of the situation.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I have lived all over the US and in parts of Asia, in varying class-dominated areas. In some areas, regardless of what race is the majority, yes there is a danger. But in some areas you are in danger of being robbed, arrested, or even beat up... in the poor black areas, you are in danger of being shot. Yes I know that isn't PC, that it's stereotypical, and it's based on my anecdotal experiences (of having several people I know shot, most fatally, and seeing several strangers shot) etc. but, oh well. I'm going to teach my children whatever I think they need to know to stay safe.
Geez...too bad we don't have the white equivalent of Al Sharpton to get to out on TV and stir up people against this instance of a hate crime....
Heck, why haven't members of the New Black Panthers been arrested yet, for putting a bounty on the head of the man who was involved with the Trayvon killing? Do we allow lynch mobs now, if they lynchers are black?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Like a lot of these types of things, it's really a CLASS issue, not a race issue.
Actually, I disagree. The problem isn't class OR race, but rather culture. "Tribal" can be cultural as well as racial or geographic, and sometimes more so.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Have you thought of getting an Atlas? Maybe just browsing google maps?
Here's a helpful starting point: http://maps.google.com/?q=Ireland
Now find Tottenham and Paris and be surprised that they aren't in the bit of the map we know as Ireland.
A) This article is about a conservative "news" zine/website, not NPR.
B) No. Government contributions don't convert a private enterprise into a publicly organized entity.
C) Even if he worked for the federal government, the government could fire him -- if his public speech interfered with his public employment. You cannot take employment with the U.S. government without submitting to greater control by the Federal government. You can, however, quit.
-GiH
While I'm glad he got his comeuppance,
You're glad he got fired for writing an article you disagree with?
Let's talk more about the decline of our human civilization and its overwhelming hatred of our fellow man.
I went to a 100% minority school (I'm white. Even while there, it was 100% minority, as a desegregation plan had me attending classes there while not enrolled there, since so many incorrectly point out the contradiction/inconsistency of a white person talking about their experiences at a 100% minority school). I walked home with a friend one day. Children (up to about age 14) in the neighborhood ran back into their homes and shouted loud enough for everyone to hear "there's a white person walking down the street." If anyone had wanted to do anything bad to me, I'm sure nobody would have seen a thing, despite the fact that almost everyone there at that time walked out of their homes or peeked out the window at me. For most, their school teachers, welfare workers, and the police are the only white people they see. There was no animosity. I'm sure most were just making sure I wasn't a government employee wanting to do them harm.
You are right that there is a difference between "should be" and "is" but that doesn't mean "is" should be taught as if it's somehow "right." The rules are the same everywhere. Blend in or stand out, and standing out can get you in trouble. Doesn't matter if you are in Israel, Texas, Iraq, California, or either of the two unnamed areas you reference in your story.
. I'm not sure, as I learned to avoid these situations altogether by keeping my dumb ass out of where I wasn't wanted.
You found the racism. It isn't "stay away from blacks". It's "stay aware of your surroundings." Racializing it by your dad was wrong. It's incorrect (though generally good enough), even if easier to express. I felt safer as the one unusual white person in a black neighborhood than in many of the hick white areas I've been.
Learn to love Alaska
The term reverse racism is itself a racist term. I know that white people don't mean it that way, but the term implies that racism is only supposed to go in one direction.
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
No, the particular bunch of kids he was around were violent because of class; they were lower-class people, not taught to avoid violence. A well-dressed middle-class black kid going to school with a bunch of trailer trash white kids with parents on the Jerry Springer show would have the exact same experience.
The unfortunate reality is that in this country, black kids are much more likely to grow up in poverty and live in lower-class neighborhoods, not have fathers around, etc.
You mean the "race riots" where black and white people came together to loot and steal from local shops, regardless of the ethnicities of the owners of those shops? Where the race of the offenders to a large degree matched the local communities (e.g. in Manchester 94% of the rioters were white).
If you really want to generalise: 90% of the rioters were Men. Being male was a much more important factor than being black or white.
The majority of NPR funding is not actually from government sources, but private underwriting and donations.
I got here through a series of tubes
The oil companies get free oil, free land leases, and other non-cash concessions of direct discernible value.
Learn to love Alaska
Buddy, in school in the 70's, in a small rural town, I got my ass kicked because I was smaller and skinnier than other students. People get their asses kicked all the time for no good reason at all.
The real problem is that in the real-world, the police didn't bother to do anything but to take the shooter at his word that it was self-defense.
Except that the police did not just "take the shooter at his word", they spent seven hours at the scene talking to the various witnesses. Then they took the shooter down to the station. However, at the end of all of that, there was no evidence which contradicted the shooter's story and quite a bit of evidence which supported his story. I see no reason to think that a black neighborhood watch volunteer in the same situation would have been treated any different by the police.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
And if you do believe that, you have some reading to do about the justice system.
Let's call it a legal system. The phrase justice system may be guilty of misleading advertising.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
You do realise that exactly the same problems occur in poor areas with ethnically homogenous populations? Teenage males are prone to commit violence, moreso if they grow up badly educated in overpopulated poor slums. Look at any city in the world which has a large population and poor underclass - do you think that children in the schools of these cities are free from violence because they all share an ethnicity? Do you think that gang violence anywhere in the world is stopped for this reason? Of course it isn't. The gangs of Mexico kill fellow hispanics. For decades, the gangs of Northern Ireland killed fellow whites - thousands and thousands dead, many more crippled. The Russian mafia had no qualms about killing other whites. The Italian mafia frequently went to war against other Italians.
As a white person, you should try walking around the rough area of an ethnically white poor city some day... you will quickly learn that these teenage gangs don't care that you share the same race, they will beat you and take all of your stuff just the same.
The racial divide in America is perpetuated on both sides. Blacks self-segregate through language, residence, attire, and a culture that is (justifiably or not) distrustful of, and often openly flaunting, the law, and non-blacks use this as a baseline for stereotyping, which creates a vicious cycle. I get that blacks are more likely to be viewed as criminals, but the way to get past that isn't say "well as long as I'm being treated like a criminal..." A victim mentality is the opposite of empowering -- you cannot be empowered when you view your condition as the product of someone else's decisions. And it's way easier to affect one's own behavior and attitudes than others, especially those outside of your social group. Speaking out about injustice can and should continue, but it can't be used as an excuse, or as a way to define oneself or one's social group. Telling your kids to "watch out because they're valued less than another group/class of people," may well be true, but teaching anyone to view themselves as inferior is only perpetuating the problem. While things are far from ideal, and it is undoubtedly a harder road than for some other social and ethnic groups, black Americans as a whole have never had better opportunities to improve their condition than they do today. I don't think any less of black people than any other people, but two things are clear: 1) Playing the victim isn't working, and 2) no one has ever bettered themselves by waiting for someone else to do it for them. Something has to change. I think the black community would be better served by promoting and focusing on more Martin Luther King figures and fewer Al Sharpton figures. Al Sharpton reminds people where they are. MLK reminds people where they can go.
I agree with all those statements....so, am I a racist?
If you think that white parents should instruct their children to avoid events that might attract a lot of black people and, when choosing a point of time to visit amusement parks, avoid days when there are a lot of blacks visiting... Yes, I think that pretty much makes you a racist and/or very xenophobic. Even if there is statistical correlation with blacks and crime rates, I don't think that you can make a reasonable argument that "Avoid blacks whenever possible" is a proper and rational response.
Also, I can't help but notice this
I am fiercely independent ... I'm not going to apologize however for wanting to be comfortably surrounded by people who think and act like me ...
Ah, the attempt to put a new meaning to the word racist, and derail the conversation into a discussion on semantics. Cute. You're behind the times though, and even the Stormfront people have settled on just coining a new term, after their attempts to redefine the word failed pretty miserably.
The question is: am I right in my assertion? Based on conviction rates alone of specific sets of crimes that ought to be colorblind (crack convictions, for example), I am. I am interested to hear your counter argument. What you've presented so far is not one.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
No. 10% is NOT "pretty much government funded". Perhaps maybe you should try arguing with FACTS sometime.
There's a name for that...
"...history."
1). NPR doesn't get "billions of dollars" from the government.
2). The oil companies enjoy special tax breaks which definitely amount to being "government funded". You cannot argue that these tax breaks don't make them government funded.
When someone starts a statement with:
"I'm not a bigot." it means you are
It's just like "I don't want to offend, but.." to which the person goes to say something offensive, or when someone says "It's not about the money" when it's actually all about the money. People do this all the time and once you spot it, it's pretty difficult to ignore.
--
BMO
and that anyone who wears "Muslim garb" obviously identifies themselves as a Muslim first and an American second (if they are American at all).
This statement makes no sense. So does that mean anyone wearing a cross identifies themselves as a Christian first and an American second? How do you identify yourself as an American anyways (whether first or not) I thought America was supposed to be the great melting pot, and were proud of its diversity.
That is just a stupid, bigotted statement.
No, I think it has to do with system prejudice and ignorance in America.
I live in a village that has 9000 white residents and around 40 black, asian or Chinese ones. I've never seen any abuse to those 40, they're working in a variety of professions (from pizza delivery to dispensing chemist) and there's no friction. The Turkish looking lady that bought the chipshop seems to be popular amongst the locals too, and her son's on the local dance team.
20 miles away there's a major British city where a quarter of the population are of Indian background alone, let alone the people from Pakistan, Bangladesh and other countries. Whole suburbs there are 90+% Asian. I've been out there at night: They're all friendly. I get invited into peoples homes, I can go into the restaurants and be treated as 'just another customer' even when I'm the only white person out of 300 in the building, I can walk down the street and go shopping.
Couple of weeks ago in Manchester I went shopping late at night. Found myself in a major supermarket in a very poor part of the town, queuing amongst people wearing gang colours, 80% of them black, none of the white people had good teeth, the store staff were entirely non-white. Several people smiled in greeting at me, and one gay guy flirted with me, and then I paid for my shopping and went home.
Is there racism? Sure. Just because I'm not seeing it, not suffering from it, doesn't mean that it isn't there. But it's not systemic, it's not a generalised thing, and frankly the existence of a minority isn't the issue, it's other factors at play in the US.
Does that mean that the government "owns" churches, since their contributions are tax exempt?
It isn't a matter of fairness, but of effectiveness. If you want to make a word harmless, you have two choices:
1) Stop using it, and pressure everyone to stop using it. Eliminate it from people's vocabularies. Over a few generations, the word will stop being spoken, and it'll start to sound old fashion. It'll be the kind of thing less and less people even know, and those that do will see it as an anachronism, the kind of thing you only hear in old movies. You will have then succeeded. An example would be the term "Nip" to derogatorily refer to Japanese people. It comes form the shortening of Nipponese which comes from Nippon, the romanticized version of the native name of Japan. In WWII, it was a popular slur, particularly with troops. Now most people don't know what it means (hence my need to explain it) and those that do find it sounds antiquated, and don't use it in normal speech. It is a dead word and thus not used to hurt people.
2) Make the word a term of endearment and your own. Make it something that everyone says as a compliment for a certain set of characteristics/action/whatever. Make it the kind of thing that is ok for everyone to say, everyone to be called, and then the venom has been drained out. It is very ineffective at an insult because it is used so often as the opposite. Geek (and nerd) would be an example. It used to mean a fool or freak, later particularly circus freaks. Then it was used as an insult to overly intellectual/bookish individuals... Who decided to own it. We are now proudly geeks, we are happy about it, it is a good thing to be. People want to be geeks, they like geeks and so on. It doesn't work as an insult because it has become praise. Everyone is free to use it.
Those are the only two effective options. If you have a word and say "Only certain people can use it, it's ok for them and is a good thing, if others use it it is racist/mean/harmful/whatever," then you are being ineffective. You insure it doesn't die out, yet retains its negative connotations and can be used as a slur. So if you want it dealt with you have to pick one, doesn't matter which they'll both work equally well (so the choice should be based on other merits) and go with it.
If you think that sounds ridiculous, maybe you should reexamine your own stereotypes.
It does sound ridiculous, because you're standing up a straw man- Why not take a minute and respond directly to his argument instead:
Me? Sure, if I'm walking a street alone (especially in New Orleans) and I see some black teen males walking behind me or coming near me...I keep a very wary eye out on them, and often will cross to the other side of the road and keep an eye out for my options to get to safety in case of a mugging. Why? Well,young black teens commit an overwhelming amount of muggings down here. They are often caught on the cameras wearing gang-banger clothes. If I see that, I naturally am apprehensive. If said young black men were wearing suits, or dressed in a more normal, non-threatening middle class manner, no...I'd not likely be worried for my safety.
While stereotyping is more often misused than not, it is not ridiculous to be apprehensive if approached while walking alone down Rampart in New Orleans by a group of black teenage teen males dressed in clothing typically worn by gang members.
It is also not ridiculous to be apprehensive if approached by a group of rough-looking rednecks while walking alone in a small East Texas town.
I've been in both situations, and would have been foolish had I not been apprehensive in each. By the same token, had the teenagers been dressed in clothing not similar to that worn by violent gangs, and if the rednecks had been dressed differently and had hidden a couple of (big) tattoos I usually associate with prison life (and had later not idled slowly past me in a pickup truck, sporting a confederate flag decal and plastered with bumper stickers that advocated some pretty rotten stuff for "liberals" and "yankees"), I would have been less concerned about my well-being.
Granted, not all black teenagers on Rampart that walk in groups and wear gang-affiliated clothing are a threat to lone individuals walking nearby, and the same may be said for groups of scruffy-looking rednecks in east Texas that drive beat-up pickup trucks with offensive bumper stickers, but based upon the crime rates in specific areas and in specific situations, there is an elevated risk. In some situations, it is not unreasonable or bigoted to be apprehensive based upon a stereotype.
Quite literally, yes. The oil companies got over $4 billion in tax breaks last year, and unlike NPR and PBS, these are for-profit companies already make quite a handsome profit.
Because obviously someone trying to smuggle an explosive device onboard will dress so as to stick out and draw suspicion.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Ethnically, compared to the US, you're still homogenous. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_groups_in_the_United_Kingdom
vs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_ethnicity_in_the_United_States
vs Canada (because its a bragging point for Canadians) http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2006/dp-pd/hlt/97-562/pages/page.cfm?Lang=E&Geo=PR&Code=01&Table=1&Data=Count&StartRec=1&Sort=2&Display=Page
In the US, this is difficult to measure, because many "hispanics" consider themselves white, and answer censuses accordingly. Additionally, many mixed race folks will tick off multiple boxes, so totals don't come out to a nice neat 100%. So, skin color is really not the best answer, and ethnicity starts getting smeared in only one generation, so even though Mr Gomez may be proud of being Latino, he may not speak Spanish, cook/eat traditional Hispanic foods, and is married to Mrs Koloski, who's father was Polish and mother was half German-half English. It gets complicated. By Eurpean standards, the US is a vast mixing pot, the number 1 "ethnicity" is German, at 17%. Everything else trails down from there. And pretty much everything in the world is represented.
Basically:
US is about 70-75% "white", 25-30% "non-white"
UK is about 92% white, 8% non-white
Canada is about 83-84% white, 16-17% non-white
US has a broader mix of European heritage as well, and the white/non-white has a very grey edge to it. As far as immigration, the US has an estimated 10 million undocumented workers from Mexico alone. By definition, they are all immigrants (born in the US == automatic citizenship). Per captia, that would be like the UK having 1.5-2 million Polish plumbers, rather than the 500K that actually were in country at one time (if the Polish plumbers were in the country illegally - if you count legal immigrants, it would be more like 6 million, and you'd drop to 85% white or so).
Black seems to work in every situation except American politics. Black is used colloquially here, "African-American" tends to denote a formal situation that is possibly racially charged (so someone being careful or playing a race card).
Depends on if I have enough money to pay for the ho he's pimping.
After all, isn't NPR pretty much government funded?
Only as far as morons who listen to FOX news are concerned. To the world based in reality, no.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPR
In 2009, member stations derived 6% of their revenue from federal, state and local government funding, 10% of their revenue from CPB grants, and 14% of their revenue from universities.[18][23] While NPR does not receive any direct federal funding, it does receive a small number of competitive grants from CPB and federal agencies like the Department of Education and the Department of Commerce. This funding amounts to approximately 2% of NPRâ(TM)s overall revenues.
You mean Dan Rather's 100% faked report dropped days before a Presidential election and clearly intended to swing the election? The one that was debunked in epic fashion (the infamous throbing GIF) by the Internet so fast it actually boomeranged and likely helped reelect Bush? And still it took CBS months and a special Blue Ribbon Commission of all stars to decide that yes, this was so obvious (and equally likely that it FAILED and helped reelect Bush) that the honor of the network required his producer be sacked... then when that didn't go over Rather went under the bus.
Yes, that one. The one that proves your lies false. That's the one. And it only takes one to disprove an insane rant of generalizations.
Learn to love Alaska
It's a shame Goldberg couldn't have written it with nearly as much understanding (and a tenth as much hard evidence) as you have (which by the way is 1/10 of 0).
But if you read those bullet points, and think about them for a minute in light of the past 30 years of politics in the US, you'll see that with guys like Goldberg, it's always projection. It's part of the intellectual legacy of Newt Gingrich, that whatever your greatest disgrace, the answer is always to accuse the other side of it and then run away. Recently, this approach has been seen in Paul Ryan's accusation that President Obama is trying to destroy Medicare. It requires a level of shamelessness that is seldom found in the wild, but it seems that brass is something never in short supply in the world of the Right. Remember, "Obama is a racist" and "Obama wants to kill your grandma". Those were the greatest hits of 2010, and delivered with absolutely serious faces, which is itself something of an achievement.
Further,
That's nothing like the current calls for Republicans to ignore the fact that a big government moderate is running as their party's nominee, and vote for Romney is absolutely critical if you're "on the team". In other words, ignore you own personal beliefs, because it's more important that "we" win.
And this doozy,
And of course, not like trivial things like the right-wing corporatization of politics and privatization of the military and law enforcement, as well as militarization of the police. When I see the American Left (as named in Goldberg's subtitle), the first thing that comes to mind is "Eugenics". In fact, hasn't Eugenics been a platform of the Democratic Party for the past 60 years? Sadly, No.
But this one is the winner and champeen:
You are welcome on my lawn.
You appear to be claiming that "liberals" always get away with murder and "conversavtives" don't. The problem here is the "always" part. Rather is a counter-example as is Limbaugh and his slut-tirade. So what if Roland Martin got a slap on the wrist? NPR fired their head of fund-raising for privately saying he thought the tea party were a bunch of kooks, and then they went on to fire their CEO in the fall-out. Meanwhile Ann Coulter non-ironically says things like "camel jockey" and "raghead" and doesn't even get a slap on the wrist.
What you've got is a case of confirmation bias. Some people get fired, some don't on all sides.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
The problem with refuting stuff like this is that it feels much like arguing against Hitler's rants... and, no matter how much time you spend, you will never convince the supporters that they are wrong to judge people through the prism of race.
1) "What you must call “the ‘N’ word” is used freely among blacks but is taboo to nonblacks."
An absolute claim requires only a single instance to disprove. Do you really believe that Barack Obama, Neil deGrasse Tysone etc. "freely use the N word". Do you really believe that the N word is taboo to Eminem? If not, claim 1 is disproven.
2) Here the author claims that American blacks are mostly decended from West African populations; the linked paper states 22% of the ancestry of their sample is European, and ~10% have >50% European ancestors. The paper goes on to say that, although interbreeding did happen (Malcolm X’s grandfather was white), most of it was recent. These offspring would be referred to as mixed race elsewhere but are classed as "black" in U.S. due to the white Southern paradigm of hypodescent".
I have no idea why the author included this point. It actually invalidates his entire thesis. Since the rest of his points are arguing that black people are somehow "different", this point - that the "black" population is to a large extent of white / mixed race / European descent goes against his main hypothesis. And it's not exactly a surprise that some "black" people are mixed race - Barack Obama's mixed race parentage is common knowledge.
3) "Your own ancestry is mixed north-European and northeast-Asian, but blacks will take you to be white."
If someone looks white, then yes, people will take you to be white. But why single out blacks as being guilty of not recognising visual genetic diversity? He is already guilty of exactly the same "crime" - in point 2 he notes the wide genetic diversity of the black population, but then lumps them all together as "blacks" in the very following paragraph.
4) "any individual black is entitled to the same courtesies you would extend to a nonblack citizen... In some unusual circumstances, however—e.g., paragraph (10h) below—this default principle should be overridden by considerations of personal safety."
Why bother dividing this by race? Why not just say "be couteous to everyone"? And, regarding personal safety, it is ridiculous to suggest that you should be afraid of black people but not white. There are white muggers and rapists - why isn't he mentioning the dangers of associating with white people? In fact, the vast majority (>90%) of violent offenders, rapists etc. are men - obviously, being male is a much better indicator of a potential criminal, if he is going to speak in such generalisations, then why isn't he lecturing his children to beware of men?
5) "There are black geniuses... Only at the far, far extremes of certain traits are there absences. There are, for example, no black Fields Medal winners."
WTF? The author states that there are black geniuses, but then goes on to imply that blacks can't be exceptional at maths. And let's not forget point 2 - where he has already pointed out that many "blacks" are of equal European descent! So people that are 80% European can't be good at maths? How European do you have to be, exactly, to qualify? For over 200 years, there was no black President of the U.S. - clearly, by this logic, black people are not clever enough to be President. Oh, wait... could there possibly be any other relevant factors?
6) "You will observe that the means—the averages—of many traits are very different for black and white Americans, as has been confirmed by methodical inquiries in the human sciences."
"methodical inquiries in the human sciences" - you might think that the author is going to link to an exhaustive analysis of peer-reviewed literature. But no - instead, he links to the personal web site o
But if every business pushes an agenda that is a lie, when does it officially become newspeak? Lets be honest folks...how many here think that the average white person, just minding their own business, would walk through say Harlem or Watts or any other major big city all black neighborhood unscathed? Now what if it were the other way? in most places the worst that would happen to the black man would be a cop asking him what he was doing which is a far cry from ending up beaten or dead. Can't blame it on poverty either because WV is the poorest state in the nation and also has one of the lowest crimes rates as well.
AG Holder has the balls to call us cowards for not talking about race, even after crap like this? Then lets talk about race and the real problems we are seeing in America. there is a good reason why places like Harlem were once considered jewels and are now hellholes, its because 50 years of welfare rewarding destructive behavior like having multiple children by multiple partners combined with a black culture that glorifies violence, drugs, weapons, and the treatment of women as nothing more than sperm receptacles and punching bags has destroyed the black community!
How sad that nobody can speak anything but PC Newspeak anymore, no matter how many facts and figures you can provide to back it up. How many know that the AP refuses to publish the race if the attacker is black and the victim white? How many here even heard about the white kid that was doused in gas and set on fire by black kids shouting "Kill whitey for Trayvon"? How sad is it that Klan has nothing on "thug life!" culture when it comes to killing black people?
Until more are willing to point out that the combination of "thug life!" culture and welfare teaching a complete lack of values is creating the very situations that the racists used to use as propaganda I expect we will see nothing more than PC newspeak while those same elites that publish their PC mags quietly go back to their all white gated communities with armed guards, ignoring the mass slaughters, rapes, and robberies happening thanks to the rise of the violent urban ghettos.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
how many here think that the average white person, just minding their own business, would walk through say Harlem or Watts or any other major big city all black neighborhood unscathed?
When I worked for political campaigns in LA I did this all the time. I was never harassed (except by the occassional guard dog behind a fence). There were a few skeevy looking guys that made me nervous (net tattoos and obvious drugs/money exchange), but they never actually bothered or threatened me.
In Beverly Hills on the other hand? I had people track my plates and leave harrassing messages on my home phone number (a number they could only have gotten by looking up the car's registration). I was chased down the street by one crazy asshole with a broom. I had things thrown at me. Lost track of the number of times I talked to the cops.
I'll let you figure out where I felt more safe. (Just to clarify, I'm as white as the driven snow). Maybe you just face up to the fact that you're a raving racist if you really think a white person can't walk safely through the neighborhoods south of the 10.
As usual, let's throw the entire responsibility for the situation back onto the shoulders of the black community. 350 years of institutionalized, vicious racist policies had nothing to do with the place they find themselves today. Yep, it's just welfare and "thug life!"
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
You are right, it does have nothing at all to do with the place they find themselves today.
Japanese-Americans were exploited for cheap labor in the 19th and early 20th centuries, so badly discriminated against in the 20th century that their property was effectively confiscated and they were imprisoned for years, yet within a few decades of WWII ending they had exceeded whites in household income even though they continued to be widely discriminated against.
Blacks like Bill Cosby, Walter Williams, and Thomas Sowell are right when they point out that it is the black community and black culture that is holding back blacks today.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKgHc6bWqZ4 How Much Can Discrimination Explain? | Walter Williams
When blacks from former Apartheid South Africa immigrate to the US and kick the crud out of US blacks economically, that should tell you that the problem is not racism from whites, as racists don't really differentiate between an African black and an American black.
I've met plenty of successful blacks, the one distinguishing feature among them is that all of them reject affirmative action and what passes for mainstream black culture. Getting called "Uncle Tom" doesn't bother them, they're laughing all the way to the bank as they are the ones with well paying full-time jobs, aren't living in the ghetto or jail, and the only shooting they do is at the range.
500 years from now, given the results is has produced, historians will believe that Affirmative Action was devised by the Klan.
Because your hyperbole isn't reality.
Thanks. And NOW do you see why I said AG Holder was full of shit? what we have is a classic case of Newspeak where holder says "We should talk about race' but what he meant was 'You should just agree with everything i say and if you don't why you are a Nazi!" because it was less than 2 posts before i got called a racist, which is this year's pedo apparently, just for pointing out that 50 years of welfare have frankly been worse than an atomic bomb on the black community.
As you pointed out those straight off the boat from Africa, in fact many in my oldest boy's med classes are from Ethiopia and they aren't having a problem at all getting excellent grades. Why isn't "whitey keeping them down" because as you so rightly pointed out REAL racists don't care where they are from, just the color of their skin. Can't say its poverty, look up the stats for WV which is the poorest state in the nation and also has one of the lowest crime rates.
How sad that liberal used to be a good word, it meant "doing something new when the old things didn't work' yet now it means "turn a blind eye to failure as long as they vote democrat" which has enough irony you could choke since it was the dems in the 50s that were ANTI equal rights, going so far as to have a split in their own party.
In the end i could post the numbers, but what is the point? I'd just be accused of somehow manipulating the data (even though the FBI and DoJ already manipulate it by listing Hispanics as white and even with TWO races VS the American black culture the blacks still come out worse across the board for incarceration, rape, murder, and more than 30% against whites compared to less than 6% the other way around) or that it was poverty or they would just play the race card as we saw right here.
But in the end Newspeak can't erase the truth, only twist it. And the truth is 50 years of welfare combined with the combination of a culture that glorifies criminal behavior while condemning those that try to learn and rise above as "Uncle Toms" is frankly doing a better job of destroying blacks than the Klan ever could. And as long as "community leaders" like Sharpton and Jackson can profit from white guilt and pushing that it is "all whitey's fault" then this destruction by their own race will sadly continue.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
No sir. The leader of our military (assuming you're an American) is a civilian. The military leaders who became president from Washington to Eisenhower took off the uniform when they became president and never put it back on. If you're going to try to argue that there were no fascist overtones in a sitting president donning an unearned uniform, being flown in a fighter jet to the deck of an aircraft carrier and then sashaying down the runway like a cross between Top Gun and a Victoria's Secret model, you're not being very honest.
I don't know if FDR cooked up the Blue Eagle himself, or if he had one of the Kansas Goering's do it for him, but nobody but George W. Bush did the Benito stroll between the airplanes. You can't pin it on some bureaucrat, some advisor, some underling. That was the leader of the American Bundt, I mean Right who was doing the Travolta for the flyboys.
Now, don't take it from me. I'm not a professional at this political tater-tate like you, there are guys who slice Goldberg's baloney much more effectively. You know who they are (and they're not at The Nation as you know very well).
The Doughboy has been pushing how "Liberals are the real Hitlers" for years before he finally decided to show those fancy-pants intellectuals how to write a REAL book. You know that. He continues in this vein even today, It's one of his favorite themes, besides his all-time favorite, how "blacks are stoopid". You don't believe me? See his March 28 NRO whine entitled (I swear to God this is true) "Me and Black America".
Now I'm sorry, I just can't compose myself enough to type any more. I lose what little self-control I have every time I think about Jonah Goldberg having so little self-awareness that he could title a post, "Me and Black America".
You are welcome on my lawn.
Lets be honest folks...how many here think that the average white person, just minding their own business, would walk through say Harlem or Watts or any other major big city all black neighborhood unscathed?
The bar I go to most often is a redneck bar smack in the middle of the blackest ghetto in town, I stagger home from there often. The worst that happens walking home is some black guy trying to sell me dope, or a bum begging for spare hope and change. Almost every shooting in the last year has been within six blocks of the place, but it's always either black on black or white on white.
Now what if it were the other way? in most places the worst that would happen to the black man would be a cop asking him what he was doing
Tell that to Travon Martin's mother. And had it been Martin who was a neighborhood watch guy and shot Zimmerman while Zimmerman was unarmed, you can bet your ass he'd have been in jail that very night, probably held without bail.
And it isn't just blacks who fear the police. All poor people fear the police.
Free Martian Whores!
I agree wholeheartedly about the prison culture in the U.S. being completely out of whack. There is an interesting talk by Bryan Stevenson where he describes the need to discuss things like this and not just ignore it. There are a lot of personal anecdotes in his TED talk, but the overall point is very similar to yours. Bryan Stevenson at TED