Give me a break here, Monty. I don't have all night to guess what you're trying to say.
2016 U.S. Presidential Elections: The Circus Is In Full Swing
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Flin Flon
Extensive Data Shows Punishing Reach of Racism for Black Boys (Published 2018)
A study of 20 million children shows the fragility of the American Dream.
www.nytimes.com
The differences between black men and women is interesting. Turns out racism is much less related to skin colour than to gender and skin colour.
That lines up very well with criminal data, showing black men doing more crime than others. So the discrimination reflects reality.
If those crime rates among black men could be brought down, it might (almost surely based on these findings) reduce discrimination towards them.
(Along with other factors of course. Things like marriage and father figures etc.)
The current lootings that have followed the protests have only amplified the stereotype.
That lines up very well with criminal data, showing black men doing more crime than others. So the discrimination reflects reality.
If those crime rates among black men could be brought down, it might (almost surely based on these findings) reduce discrimination towards them.
(Along with other factors of course. Things like marriage and father figures etc.)
The current lootings that have followed the protests have only amplified the stereotype.
The most extreme acts of racist violence in the USA have been against black communities where there was little to no excess crime. Lynch mobs even came up with the idea of inventing crimes to punish innocent black people for and then murder them. Saying "all black people need to do is stop committing crime and discrimination will drop!!" is a dangerous road to go down because it places the responsibility for racism in the hands of its victims.
I mean no offense, Jacob, because what you say is correct but that's old news, taken from decades ago, for the most part. Lynch mobs are a thing from the 60s and 70s and was especially true in rural areas. Can we agree that these are the same areas that support Donald Trump today and see where that leads?
Flin Flon
I think part of what he's explaining (correct me if I'm wrong) is the implication of placing a higher burden on a disadvantaged class. For example: ''Sure, black people face adversities, but the best they can do is just be better'' is tacitly accepting discrimination as a fact of society. The precedent you set is that you are responsible to overcome systemic disadvantages to your class. The advantaged in a way decide the playing field and set the obstacles the disadvantaged must overcome. The disadvantaged must always play keep-up relative to the advantaged, and when they can't, they're scrutinized for it.
No one chooses a life of crime, which is evident from statistics. It's a systemic issue that is a task for society as a whole, especially its politicians.
I'm not suggesting individuals should just stop being criminals. Then crime would have been solved a long time ago, because it's a terrible life to lead.
By fighting crime you could have a higher success rate in bringing down racism. Attack the problem from two sides, so to speak.
I'm not suggesting individuals should just stop being criminals. Then crime would have been solved a long time ago, because it's a terrible life to lead.
By fighting crime you could have a higher success rate in bringing down racism. Attack the problem from two sides, so to speak.
The issue is that what happened in the past has a very real consequence on the conditions of black people today. Lynching was only the most evident form of aggression, there were more subtle ways of discriminating that kept going for much longer, and are in part still around.
Here is a long, but in my opinion very interesting, read on the topic that I was sent recently by a friend.
www.theatlantic.com
The way I see it, the USA as a whole has not yet accepted responsibility for slave trafficking and the events that followed through.
Here is a long, but in my opinion very interesting, read on the topic that I was sent recently by a friend.
The Case for Reparations
Two hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal. Thirty-five years of racist housing policy. Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole.
www.theatlantic.com
The way I see it, the USA as a whole has not yet accepted responsibility for slave trafficking and the events that followed through.
Major exaggeration. American ships did not bring slaves to the New World, Spanish and Portuguese ships did. I refuse to take responsibility for something a small minority of Americans did hundreds of years ago. Hell, I'm originally from New Jersey which never had slaves.
Did you actually read the article that I linked? Give it a try. I am saying this genuinely, no sarcasm here. There's a lot in there that I had no idea about, and I suspect that most people are in the same boat. However we might feel about the issue, there's nothing to lose in learning new things.
I probably am aware of most of what is in there. Are you aware that the center of slave trade in the Americas was Havana, Cuba, under Spanish rule? Maybe we should bill Spain for reparations?
The fact that you keep saying things like that makes me think that you are not as aware as you might think 
. I am sorry but you are missing the point.
. I am sorry but you are missing the point.
Neither me nor any member of my family, as far back as you want to go, had anything to do with slavery. Maybe it's you who are missing the point.
"as far back as you want to go", you have no way of knowing that for sure, but that is irrelevant. It's not about your individual responsibility, or mine. Too much time has passed now, and it is impossible to trace down responsibility of individuals and families (at least in most cases. One thing that I learned from that article is that Lehman Brothers was founded with slave money, which I found interesting given what happened in recent years).
What I am saying is that there is more to it than the ships who brought slaves to America, or even the initial period of slavery. The US society built much of its prosperity of the blood of black slaves. After that, white people continued to make money by exploiting black communities through other means. A quote from that Atlantic article:
and this is just one of the many examples that are cited there. Note that this did not happen in a rural town in Mississippi, but in Chicago.
This kind of thing is still happening these days. It does not necessarily target black people specifically anymore (at least not as much, and the anti discrimination laws have helped with that I believe), but it is a fact that very rich people (corporations, if you prefer, but corporations are made by people) make money from exploiting poor people. And it is a fact that a disproportionate percentage of these poor people are black. And this condition is the result of past history, for which we all, as a collective society, need to learn to take responsibility for.
I am not sure why you are this closed on your position, to the point where you won't even read sources of information that are being shared. Whenever an article is shared when I am engaged in a conversation of this kind I always make a point to read it, no matter if I agree with its contents or not.
What I am saying is that there is more to it than the ships who brought slaves to America, or even the initial period of slavery. The US society built much of its prosperity of the blood of black slaves. After that, white people continued to make money by exploiting black communities through other means. A quote from that Atlantic article:
and this is just one of the many examples that are cited there. Note that this did not happen in a rural town in Mississippi, but in Chicago.
This kind of thing is still happening these days. It does not necessarily target black people specifically anymore (at least not as much, and the anti discrimination laws have helped with that I believe), but it is a fact that very rich people (corporations, if you prefer, but corporations are made by people) make money from exploiting poor people. And it is a fact that a disproportionate percentage of these poor people are black. And this condition is the result of past history, for which we all, as a collective society, need to learn to take responsibility for.
I am not sure why you are this closed on your position, to the point where you won't even read sources of information that are being shared. Whenever an article is shared when I am engaged in a conversation of this kind I always make a point to read it, no matter if I agree with its contents or not.
The oldest ancestor that I know by name was Theunis Ryerson von Westbroeck. He lived in Utrecht Province, Netherlands and never left. His son Jan Theunissen von Westbroeck arrived in New Amsterdam in 1638 in the employ of the Dutch West India Co. He and his descendants lived in NY or NJ until the 20th Century. Neither NY or NJ ever approved of slavery. Whatever responsibility you feel is yours alone.
You don't have to feel a personal responsibility to acknowledge that there have been systemic injustices and that your personal experience might not tell the whole story.
I agree, there have been systemic injustices and some continue to this day. All I can do at this point is keep racism out of my heart and mind. I can tell the personal story about that too.
He says that anybody who has more than one complaint in 12 months, founded or unfounded, must be terminated or else federal funding is cut. It literally gives anyone who has the time to write a couple of emails the power to federally defund or even disband entire PDs.
I'll do you one better. I am a former cop. My stack of privileges is sky-high
Yeah, I know first-hand that the job has a tendency to attract people who are by definition unfit for it, because yes the powers cops have make room for power trips if one seeks them. I certainly don't think anyone who has a problem with something cops did or habitually do is automatically oversensitive........but
I continue to be amazed at, specifically in the US, how many people have quite an attitude when dealing with the police, whether it's an arrest or just a parking ticket. It ranges from just being rude through deliberately uncooperative to actively resisting arrest. But it's still so, so much more common than in Czechia. I don't know if it's our historical experience with an actual police state or if we are just genetically docile or something else, but the contrast is massive. And it's especially weird when I see it, quite commonly, from black or brown people, who otherwise claim to be mortally afraid of being randomly killed by the police for no reason. Obviously being rude, belligerent or antagonizing towards the police doesn't justify being choked to death or shot, and I am not talking about legal or moral desert, just about the psychology of it.
Well, as you said yourself - America has unique level of police violence, among non-totalitarian, developed countries. But it also has unique level of civilian violence. Those two are almost certainly connected.
I think America is just generally fond of violence, or well fond-er than Europe. It's not the gun laws, some Euro countries have very benevolent gun laws and high gun ownership too, yet have much lower rates of gun crime. Maybe it's their lack of experience with industrial warfare an destruction on their own territory. Maybe they're just a younger culture and their hormones are still flowing. I don't know. It's not just literal physical violence, they also have a general air of forcefulness around them and that kind of a cult of action and being busy. Part of it could be that Americans constantly have obscene wealth hanged in front of their faces, whether in the media or in real life and are told that at least upper middle class lifestyle is in their reach, if they dare take it. While we Euros tend to more like, uhm, know our station in life Yes, these are quite some generalizations and I don't really have a chiseled point here, so I'm just going to power through it and keep typing.
Yes, these are quite some generalizations and I don't really have a chiseled point here, so I'm just going to power through it and keep typing.A cop deals with the worst parts of the society. Nobody calls 911 to tell the cops to come look how everything is cool and they're having a bbq with friends and family. If you are a cop in a small upscale suburb, it will probably be more boring than anything else, but if you work one of those low-income, high density neighborhoods you mentioned, you are going to see and hear ****ed up **** for hours a day. Your brain will be constantly spammed by images and testimonies of violence and misery. And it will be different from the people who tell you about it. Because each individually will "only" get stabbed or raped or beaten up, at worst, a couple of times in their lives and then maybe a couple more times they will witness it. But quantitatively, most of their life will be relatively normal, banal experiences. You on the other hand will look at or hear about violence, or OD'ed children or material destruction all the ****ing time and it will be a sizeabe pressure on your brain to perceive the world as an incredibly violent, chaotic and malevolent place. I mean, even more so than it is
People say that well actually "only" a couple dozen cops are killed every year, while hundreds are killed by the police. But I wouldn't say that it necessarily means American cops are just violent for lols. It can be that the very "being shot is always right around the corner" mindset makes you more careful and prepared (at the cost of making you suspicious, jumpy, or cynical or any combination).Cops also tend to have pretty high rates of alcoholism, suicide and domestic violence. I don't think it's so much it attracts this type of people, it creates them. It does attract, to some extent, legitimate psychopaths, and a psychopath may be a wife-beater, but they are very rarely self-destructive, they don't drink like they hate themselves for years and then kill themselves.
Now, none of that is to say that it's ok to kneel on someone's neck for 10 minutes. But just like things in "low income, high density neighborhoods" don't happen in a vacuum, neither does police behavior and - controversially - cops are people too and suspect to the same weaknesses as anyone else. It is unironically a hard job. And it's incredibly hard if you want to do it right, it requires a lot of mental strength and hygiene and introspection and knowing how to work people - both civilians and your colleagues, because there will be dirty cops or just lazy ones who will be threatened by you doing it the right way. And at the same time it is a relatively low paying job with pretty lax requirements. In a society that has a sort of fascination with violence and residual frontier mentality. There's only so much you can expect from a combination like that. Blaming it all on racism is too easy a resolution.
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in reply to the jacob/adorno discussion, the whole "but that black on black crime!!!" pearl clutching thing is usually just a deflection based on poorly understood statistics stripped of context.
