Rushinbear said:I challenge anyone in this thread to define "systemic" from your own knowledge and not after looking it up in some political tract. And, cite the systems in our country that operate systemically racist. Not did, but do so now. With evidence.movielover said:calumnus said:TomBear said:
READ WHAT I WROTE! I didn't say there is no racism. I said the country is not racist, and it is not. There is racism in some places with some people (some of it coming against whites by the way). So don't give me any crap about blinders or anything else. I expressed an observation, period. And comments on threads constitute a place where people can opine......unless you want to shut down more free speech.
As for the article, I indicated I had not read the article. If what the article claims is true, then it is despicable behavior, and needs to be addressed.
Anyone else want to try some misrepresentation?
Tom, I believe you are referring to only overt, expressed, hostile, racism.
Unfortunately, racism itself, the unscientific belief in the inherent existence of "races" and/or the arbitrary categorizing of human beings based on "race" is at the core of the way this country was organized for 500 years. It's ongoing negative effects are systemic and pernicious. We cannot even have a discussion about it without resorting to racist terms as you did saying "whites are sometimes the victims of racism." It is the ocean we swim in.
Not all racism is hostile. If you say "Asians are good at math," that is a racist statement. The broadway show "Avenue Q" had a great song "Everybody's a Little Racist Sometimes." The idea being that we often have a racist thought pop into our heads. The key is to be able to recognize it in ourselves as well as others and dismiss it or call it out and correct it. Many Americans are unable to. My ex-boss CEO of a large company, once told me "The Blacks should be for Trump, because Mexicans are taking the jobs Black people should be doing." I tried to explain to him the many wrong (racist) assumptions in that statement but he couldn't get it. He also couldn't understand why he kept losing his best employees that did not look like him.
The 500-year "systemic" argument is one theory. As noted by Dr. Thomas Sowell (Stanford) and Dr. Walter Williams (George Mason University), African Americans made strong progress for 100 years after the 13th Amendment was passed. Then after numerous social and welfare policies were passed in the 1960s, economic progress slowed, and the traditional Black family was decimated. Inner city schools, many run by liberals, went downhill. A third contributing factor was increasing union and government requirements on big business, driving many heavy industry jobs overseas. Countless large factories closed, eviscerating the economic base of the communities. A chicken and egg scenario then developed with inner city riots, spurring "white flight" to the suburbs. Drug use also exploded into the mix.
All of the cited actors in these three ugly incidents are under 18. It's well-known that the prefrontal cortex development doesn't fully develop until 25 years of age. I don't generalize the standing of 330 Million people based upon a group of Covid-locked-down 15-year-old jocks. To the ignorant youths who made derogatory sounds or conducted an ugly, reprehensible skit, suspend or ban them, but not the whole team. The ugly online thread is really troubling, and we're handicapped by a lack of information.
It is correct that President Trump's policies and decisions led to the lowest unemployment rate ever recorded for African-, Latino-, Asian-, and female Americans.
This country has been working to eliminate racist practices since at least 1787...further back if you count abolitionism. All in the face of racist backlashes from Reconstruction to the Great Society...practiced by...
What's going on now has nothing to do with the elimination of racist behavior, but rather the leverage of racism accusations to gain and keep political power. It's getting more desperate and, therefore outlandish, because more and more people of all races are recognizing the ploys that these accusations of the radial few represent.
Don't let yourself be guilt-tripped into accepting every name flung your way.
Persistence is when the effects of a force continue in a system even after the force is removed.
JFK used the metaphor of a long distance relay race. Say you randomly handed out green and red shirts to the participants. You now make everyone running the first leg wearing a green shirt wear leg shackles. Then the race starts. Two hours into the race most of the teams wearing red shirts will still be out in front. A few extraordinary green shirts might catch up, but most will lag behind, due to the leg shackles worn by green shirts on the first leg. Some red shirts will point at the lagging green shirts and say "Why are you so far behind? Don't try to mention shackles, you aren't wearing shackles." They might even point to the few green shirts who managed to catch up and say "see those green shirts caught up, if they can do it, anyone and every can." "Oh, and can all of us red shirts pass a law to make it illegal for anyone to mention leg shackles? Especially the idea that it affected the race, because it might hurt the feelings of red shirts who just want to think they are ahead of most of the green shirts only because they are better and try harder."
However there are ongoing issues:
If you are a child arrested for marijuana possession or shoplifting, your chances of being sentenced are 18 times higher if you are black than if you are white.
If you are a child caught fighting at school your chances of being expelled are 10 times higher if you are black or Latino than if you are white.
Schools are still largely funded by local property taxes, so schools in black neighborhoods (reflecting past forced legal segregation) are underfunded and children from those neighborhoods receive inferior educations, which affects future employment opportunities and housing opportunities…
In studies with stand ins for home owners, it has been found that appraisers will value the same house 30% higher if the photos around the house are of a white family vs a black family. This affects economic opportunities.
In one study the exact same resume with a WASPy sounding name got 150% more callbacks for interviews than one with obvious African American sounding names, and the bias increased as the salary increased.
The wealth of America was largely built on native land that was brutally taken and largely developed by brutal forced slave labor. Then biased laws were in effect for another 100 years. The debt owed to African Americans and Native Americans is owed by the country as a whole. Just like if your grandfather bought a U.S. treasury bond and gave it to you. The citizens now owe you the debt that was owed to your grandfather. The same is true of the debt still owed by America to the descendants of those who land and freedom were taken. It is not "guilt" it is just doing what is right as an American. Paying our debts, honoring our obligations. Being the beacon on a hill.
If you are an immigrant to a country, you agree to take on that country's debts and obligations. You don't get to say "that borrowing for WW2 happened before I got here." You pay your taxes like everybody else.
If I move to Australia and become an Australian citizen, I will pay taxes to pay Australia's obligations including Australia's obligations to the Aboriginal people whose lands were taken. Not because me or my ancestors were guilty of anything, but because a debt is owed by the country as a whole and therefore I now take on that debt as a citizen of the country.
