The problem with Black Lives Matter

[Valka D'Ur]

I mean you could just look at Arwon's post and figure this one out.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_crime_in_the_United_States#Homicide

Black people make up 13% of the population, but commit 50% of the homicides. That's the highest rate out of any racial group. Don't shoot the messenger.

You are assuming that because a set of statistics exists pertaining to the U.S., that you can say the whole world is like that.

 

[Lexicus]

The institutional-type wrongs I believe are more a product of implicit bias than overt racism, or protection of privilege. Surely protection of privilege is part of it as well, but if people were cured of ignorance, they would realize what kind of company you have to keep when you make protecting whiteness your cause.

Yeah, see, I just don't think this is accurate. The 2016 election made it obvious what kind of company you have to keep...and a substantial majority of white voters decided they liked that company or didn't care about it. I think it makes more sense to ascribe this pattern to the obvious material interest of white people in maintaining white supremacy.

Go away troll, this is just pathetic

Just ignore him.

 

[Hygro]

Akka's working with Duplo telling us the Lego don't fit.

 

[Akka]

Go away troll, this is just pathetic

Ah, you managed to get a glimpse of self-clarity it seems. Well, SJW do seem to be a very self-hating lot, that's true.

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

I don't think the problem is ignorance. The problem is white people jealously guarding their privilege... they know full well what they're doing.

Looks like little racist coming out of the closet...
Btw jealousy is ignorance...

 

[Lexicus]

Akka's working with Duplo telling us the Lego don't fit.

Legos do fit on Duplos though! a 2x2 lego block fits on 1 duplo stud.

 

[Hygro]

That's why he's confident. However a 1x1x1 and the specialty pieces that make it fun are already outside the paradigm of the Duplo. The reasoning must come for the Lego understanding of how to fit the Duplo, and not the other way around.

 

[metalhead]

Yeah, see, I just don't think this is accurate. The 2016 election made it obvious what kind of company you have to keep...and a substantial majority of white voters decided they liked that company or didn't care about it. I think it makes more sense to ascribe this pattern to the obvious material interest of white people in maintaining white supremacy.

I think it is more of an indifference to it, or a lack of understanding about it. Which isn't good, mind you, but I think that a significant portion of people either innocently or wilfully blinded themselves to that when they voted.

Just ignore him.

You gotta admit, though, that getting the classic conservative misinterpretation of the "I Have a Dream" speech and King's legacy as an apparent serious response was kinda priceless.

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

If we could simply cure people of ignorance, then yes, we could make the whole problem disappear without any messy policymaking. That would be wonderful; it also strikes me as very unrealistic.

As I've said many times to usually be ignored, I don't care to try to eliminate racism, because as a policy goal that makes no sense. However, I do care to mitigate the negative effects of prejudice. Perhaps that would be a more effective framing of the problem, but I've also made it clear that I don't view sparing people's feelings by avoiding loaded terms as worthwhile, either.

Its the same process just reversed. I dont see why it shouldnt work. First you indoctrinate people with ideological racism. Now to destroy that idea you have to only promote findings of modern science and other fields of human knowledge that there are no such things as different races based on human phenotype. No brainer...

 

[Lexicus]

I think it is more of an indifference to it, or a lack of understanding about it. Which isn't good, mind you, but I think that a significant portion of people either innocently or wilfully blinded themselves to that when they voted.

Well, indifference would be covered by 'decided they didn't care.' You may be right, I guess I'm just sick of hearing about how I have to try to understand all the horribly racist white people, and how they aren't really horribly racist, they just don't know what they're doing, and all this other stuff I regard as defense mechanisms to avoid staring the truth in the face: that white people in the US have actually become a threat to the continued existence of human civilization. White people in the US would evidently vote to starve themselves to death, if it meant they could watch a black family starve along with them.

You gotta admit, though, that getting the classic conservative misinterpretation of the "I Have a Dream" speech and King's legacy as an apparent serious response was kinda priceless.

Yeah, I find it funny until I remember he has the right to vote in France.

 

[Hygro]

It's prettt simple: if history is such that people's current relationships in society echo past beliefs in race, evidenced by wealth, pedigree, manners, geography, etc., even if we know better, we still have to contend with race as a socially constructed concept because its existence as an institution still affects us.

To Akka, not being a will-it-away hippy makes you part of the problem, and maybe he's right, we could all just believe. While we are at it, maybe we can all just believe away oppressive governments and economic relations.

It seems more pragmatic to say "hey, past racists caused a problem that still has legs, can we mitigate it by tracing the steps?"

 

[Akka]

You gotta admit, though, that getting the classic conservative misinterpretation of the "I Have a Dream" speech and King's legacy as an apparent serious response was kinda priceless.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character doesn't leave a lot to misinterpretation.
But I guess your ability to twist everything into anything can allow you to misinterpret that any way you want. Atta boy, I believe you can !

Akka's working with Duplo telling us the Lego don't fit.

You might mock or laugh or put your head in the sand.
In the end, the FACTS still are simple :

"Treating people according to their race is stupid and harmful ! And to fix it, we're going to treat people according to their race !"

Yes, society is complex, and solutions even more so. But when something is CONCEPTUALLY self-contradicting, no amount of complexity matters to realize it's just garbage. It's like "pollution is bad, let's pollute more to fix the problem" or "I'll kill you so you won't die".
And when someone who put himself on the pedestal of anti-racism says a pearl like this one :

I don't think the problem is ignorance. The problem is white people jealously guarding their privilege... they know full well what they're doing.

I think it says it all and there is little to add.
"I'm not racist, racism is bad, but people of race X are really bastards"

Oh well, I got it out of my chest for today, you can go back to the circlejerks blissfully ignoring your own hypocrisy. Again.

 

[Narz]

King and Mandela are actually the exact opposite of you SJW. They didn't fight for a society which was race-focused, they fought for a society which was race-blind. MLK's "I had a dream" explicitely said it, in fact. Funny, isn't it ?

This is true actually

Also, Hygro, diplo, lego??

 

[Lexicus]

In the end, the FACTS still are simple :

Hey, here are some actual FACTS for you:

Poor African Americans are 3 times as likely and poor Latinos twice as likely as Whites to live in deep poverty, below half the poverty line.

Unemployment and underemployment were the most important causes of poverty; African American unemployment [continues] to be twice as high as White employment in each of the 4 decades since 1968.

A recent Brookings Institution study on mobility found that 68 percent of White children from middle income families grew up to surpass their parents’ income in real terms. But that share was only 31 percent for middle income African American children – demonstrating downward mobility.

Among full-time workers, Whites earn over 22 percent more than equivalent African American workers and almost 34 percent more than equivalent Latino workers.

There is continuing evidence from distinguished scholars that some employers “steer” People of Color applicants into the worst jobs regardless of their qualifications.

Among high school drop-outs aged 19, 38 % of African Americans are employed, compared to 67% of Whites.

The likelihood for the death sentence is greater for People of Color than Whites. People of Color receive longer sentences than Whites for the same crimes. Sentences for crack cocaine, used disproportionately by People of Color, have been much longer than sentences for powder cocaine, used disproportionately by Whites

African-Americans make up 12 percent of the U.S. population but account for about 40 percent of all arrests, 50 percent of the prison population, and 50 percent of the inmates on death row.7

African American infants in the United States are more than twice as likely as white infants to die in the first year of life. The racial disparities in neonatal deaths, or deaths that occur within 28 days after delivery, are similar.

http://www.crossroadsantiracism.org...ties in the US based on Kerner Commission.pdf

So what should we do about these disparities? Just ignore them and hope they go away?

 

[Lexicus]

This is true actually

For anyone wondering, it isn't even remotely true.

 

[Hygro]

An existing power relationship because a past party put it into place means that power relationship exists even if the founding justification for it is fabricated.

The treating people differently already happened, the results are felt today. To make things better for today and for tomorrow, we have to engineer a solution that fits the problem.

You can treat infections with infections, and fire with fire. In the end, a solution is better than saying "if the problem is fire then more fire is insane. You firefighters are hypocrites and are the real arsonists!"

 

[Akka]

So what should we do about these disparities? Just ignore them and hope they go away?

The answer is half in what you posted, half in what I already said in this thread :

37 million Americans live in poverty, the richest country in history. Poverty has deepened for those who have remained poor. The proportion of poor below half the poverty line was about 30 % in 1975 and 43 % in 2006.

The top 1% of the population (300,000 Americans) now receives as much income as the lower one-half of the population (150 million Americans).

And so on.
Which brings us to =>

Actually, that's the opposite. I'm favouring addressing the wrong - but the wrong itself, not fixating on race and as such just trying to kill fire by burning it.
I trust in fixing societal problems (like poverty and lack of education and so on), and that reducing such societal problems is the best way to reduce the social stigma that is attached to poor minorities, and thus reducing effective racism.

Notice that I don't claim it's a magical solution (it's pretty hard in itself to begin with). But it's a solution which I'm pretty sure has the best bang-for-buck, which can unite everyone and the one that is the most moral (because it applies to everyone, doesn't favour anyone, and as such is fair to anyone).

Also :

Yeah, I find it funny until I remember he has the right to vote in France.

Considering the respective results of the elections between US and France, and how you have the right to vote in the US, I'd be wary to tread this road if I were you

An existing power relationship because a past party put it into place means that power relationship exists even if the founding justification for it is fabricated.

The treating people differently already happened, the results are felt today. To make things better for today and for tomorrow, we have to engineer a solution that fits the problem.

You can treat infections with infections, and fire with fire. In the end, a solution is better than saying "if the problem is fire then more fire is insane. You firefighters are hypocrites and are the real arsonists!"

Yeah yeah. I can also kill someone to prevent him to be dead, promise, it works !
Good luck explaining to people that racism is bad and should be avoided when you're applying it. I'm sure the lesson will be learned and accepted. Nothing is as convincing as giving a lesson while doing the opposite.

 

[Narz]

For anyone wondering, it isn't even remotely true.

Your mom.

Hey, here are some actual FACTS for you:

http://www.crossroadsantiracism.org/wp-content/themes/crossroads/PDFs/Racial Disparities in the US based on Kerner Commission.pdf

So what should we do about these disparities? Just ignore them and hope they go away?

Fix income inequality. All those are problems because of poverty and lack of opportunity. Rich black people can get away with murder and rape just like rich whities. Ask OJ and Bill.

Does black lives matter have an agenda to tackle those problems? Do college whiteys disrupting traffic have an impact on thone issues besides lowering sympathy for them?

Systemic problems exist, but doesn't mean that your worldview is correct

 

[civver_764]

So what should we do about these disparities? Just ignore them and hope they go away?

End the drug war and stop incentivizing single motherhood. Just those two things would solve so many problems in the black community.

 

[Lexicus]

Considering the respective results of the elections between US and France, and how you have the right to vote in the US, I'd be wary to tread this road if I were you

I mean, you elected a racist right-wing jerk, and we did too, I'll admit ours is less polished though.

Actually, that's the opposite. I'm favouring addressing the wrong - but the wrong itself, not fixating on race and as such just trying to kill fire by burning it.
I trust in fixing societal problems (like poverty and lack of education and so on), and that reducing such societal problems is the best way to reduce the social stigma that is attached to poor minorities, and thus reducing effective racism.

And as I already pointed out upthread, we have tried this, with 'race neutral' policies meant to address class disparities, and somehow the racial disparities are still there. So we are back to "you wish to pretend the problem does not exist in the hope that this will solve it." One of the most obvious and clear examples is in admissions to universities. Class-based, race-neutral admissions policies were tried, under the theory that this would help non-whites because they are disproportionately poor. The result was that non-whites continued to be largely ignored by college admissions boards. I repeat, racial disparity in college admissions was not addressed, at all, by a race-neutral admissions policy that helped poor people without regard to race. So I ask again, what solution do you offer for these problems?