My city, Minneapolis, On Fire: a story about white nationalism and it's consequences

[Derec]

But sure. I'm racist for white people attempting to burn the houses of black people.

I hope those people get brought to justice. Just like I hope the people who looted and vandalized that Target or torched that Wells Fargo and 3rd precinct get brought to justice.

You are a racist because you defend looting and arson by black people and only condemn looting and arson by white people.
And you still owe me those 7 names you made up!

 

[ruby sparks]

There are still problems, but that doesn't mean that white racism against black people is still a chief problem.
For one, racism has greatly diminished over the last few decades.
Secondly, racism is not a one way street, no matter how much race activists insist that "black people can't be racist". When white county employees are passed over for promotion in majority black counties like DeKalb or Fulton or when the new racist Clayton County sheriff fires all white deputies, that's as surely racism as the reverse.


I don't think so. I acknowledge the problems, but I think the chief cause is misguided racial politics of the last 40 years.

• Racial preferences - very unjust on an individual level, and they breed skepticism of merit possessed by people helped by "affirmative action" policies. Kind of how people are justly suspicious of the owner's nephew being hired, but writ large. '
  • another issue here is hiring black people just to "teach" racial grievances and attack white people under the guise of so-called "critical race theory".
• Double standards on racism. Every single "microaggression" by whites against blacks gets played up like it was really significant transgression, while overt racism by black people against whites (like calling white people "cavemen" or "refrigerators") gets a pass. It culminates in the "academic" claim that only white people can be racist.
  • special case of that are interracial homicides. Twice as many black people kill white people that the reverse, but the media love to play up the latter and downplay the former to the extent that
• Glorification of black violent crime. It started with the liberal set, especially in academia embracing Black Panthers, Black Liberation Army, Nation of Islam etc and continued later into Gangsta Rap. It is notable that the infamous gangsta rapper 2pac had multiple family connections to the murderous black radicals (one could even call them racial terrorists) of the 70s.

Here is for example official account of the "Women's March" wishing happy birthday to a race terrorists and murderer (she murdered a police officer in 1973). Truly deplorable!

All this breeds resentment between the races. We should work to correct this nonsense, but instead we are accelerating ever more in the wrong direction.

You also make yourself part of the problem instead of part of the solution.

I don't think so. I think the activists like those of the "Black Lives Matter" are the part of the problem. You can see the "glorification of black violent crime" I referenced above.

Btw, I have no interest in a protracted discussion with you regarding the clear demonstrations I referred to above, because (a) we’ve done it already, probably more than once, and (b) you’ve never shown the slightest inclination to take it on board. As such, you can just keep your denialism. The only person you’re fooling is yourself and other denialists.

Nonsense. I have never shied away from a discussion.

You also ignore that the sort of colour blind policies you advocate for had quite severe drawbacks in the past, and that this is partly the reason so many progressives lost faith in them.

When have they been really tried?

The non-color blind (aka racist) policies that have dominated the race politics of the US for the last 50 years are what got us into this mess.

Chief among the problems were that the policies were essentially used to conveniently sweep ongoing issues under the carpet, and when you say the issues are only from long ago, you are doing exactly the same thing, and so your advocating the same policies rings very hollow.

I do not think they have ever been tried. Ever since late 60s, late 70s we have had "race conscious" policies. And look at what they have wrought!

Some good points there derec. Thanks.

On the downside, I think your analysis of which policies have failed is arguably flawed. AA is/was merely tinkering around the edges. There is a half decent case for saying that almost all the major policies, the ones that actually had widespread impact, I mean political and economic policies in general, were on the face of it, and sometimes only superficially, race-neutral, and so the case that it is/was much more the failure of THESE policies to address the problems and instead perpetuate the status quo, with all its built-in inequalities and unfairnesses, is pretty strong. So in a way it is colour blindness that stands more accused, of not doing enough over the last 40-50 years, of sweeping legitimate concerns under the carpet. What lesser problem are/were associated with the minor player that is/was AA have been way overstated, especially since the swing to the right during Reagan. On the whole, America needed to do more to address its inherited structural race problems and it didn’t do enough. It dragged its feet, especially after the 80s, in the name of convenient impartiality and ‘fair play’ (and hyper-individualistic capitalism that has arguably been pretty toxic).

Regarding individualistic policies versus identity politics, of course non-minorities are going to advocate for this, because it benefits them and the status quo to do so. Whites, by and large, enjoy the luxury of promoting the importance of the individual, because they benefit from living in a racially stratified society where whiteness is normalized. Think about that. Give it due consideration and let it sink in. It’s no small matter. It’s a generalisation of course and as such says nothing much about specific cases, and it doesn’t just apply to whites, except in general terms. And it applies much less to arguably somewhat politically-neglected poor or disadvantaged whites, of which there are a great number in the USA.

These are just things to set on one side of the matter. I do agree that there has been much progress also, as you say, and you know I already agree that African Americans are also to some extent responsible for some of their own problems.

If you want to read up on this, try ‘Racism without Racists’ by Eduardo Bonna-Silva, as a start. I’m not that inclined to get into it with you in detail again for the hundredth time.

Setting all that aside. I know you are not a racist. Wanna help things though? Show some at least a little bit more solidarity, more of the time, with the average, everyday, struggling person of colour and his or her legitimate complaints, instead of only and incessantly having a go at the radical element, which I agree with you is often problematic.

In other words, find agreement where you can, even if it’s limited, and focus more on that, because that is what helps in these matters. You do not have to become a leftie sympathiser to do that.

 

[George S]

There is no real black privilege, white privilege, male privilege, nor female privilege. No youth privilege nor age privilege.
But there is green privilege.
The actual Golden Rule -- Who has the Gold rules.

 

[ZiprHead]

Virginia man who plowed his truck into Black Lives Matter crowd is the head of the state’s Ku Klux Klan

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The effects, yes, but that does not mean we agree about the causes. I think the racial politics of the last 50 years have been an unmitigated disaster, and unfortunately the present day activists are pushing to expand these failed policies - more racial preferences, more stigma for politically incorrect opinions (for example, for whoever dares point out Floyd's criminal record), more one-sided focus on racism and so on.

Yeah, he was a loser. (Although I think the drugs in his system mean more than his criminal conviction.) People being arrested by the police generally are. That doesn't remotely explain kneeing him to death, though.

 

[Worldtraveller]

Virginia man who plowed his truck into Black Lives Matter crowd is the head of the state’s Ku Klux Klan

Insert shocked face here.

 

[Jarhyn]

Another perspective on this subject from Last Week Tonight:

 

[Loren Pechtel]

This idea that there's lots of families inheriting wealth accumulated hundreds of years ago is idiotic. The parents of the richest man in America were a 17 year-old high school student and a bike shop owner.

Exactly. Inheritance is a minor factor. Most people do not inherit meaningful amounts of money and even those that do generally inherit it late enough in life they've already succeeded or failed by their own efforts. While there are large inherited fortunes it almost always dissipates quickly (even at the average 2 kids per family it would be cut in half every generation) and can't possibly explain differences in the middle class.

At most middle class children get an education without a pile of debt. Student loans are a burden but if you don't take a low-value degree they're rarely crushing.

Where do you get your data from?

I have read studies which say that American parents effectively transfer approximately 50% of their wealth to their next generation, and that this is a much higher percentage than most countries?

But when do they do that transfer??? Life expectancy is about 80. Thus most of those doing the inheriting will be around 50--they've already made their own life by then. Inheritance beyond children is generally small.

I also read that whites are twice as likely to receive an inheritance as blacks?

It wouldn't surprise me. The important point is most people will not receive an inheritance that will change their life substantially.

And to go back to something that was said in the post you replied to, we don’t need to go back hundreds of years to see where inequalities in opportunities to accumulate wealth stem from. Take home ownership for example. We could go back to the New Deal, and even just back to the much more recent subprime lending (some of it predatory) where data shows that blacks were sold worse and more expensive loans than whites earning the same.

It's not just how much they earn. Credit rating matters, down payment matters. Also, from the local data it appears the bankers care about expected appreciation--but things like that are hard to measure and go against the tide, they don't get studied much at all.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Where do you get your data from?

I have read studies which say that American parents effectively transfer approximately 50% of their wealth to their next generation, and that this is a higher percentage than most countries?

I also read that whites are twice as likely to receive an inheritance as blacks?

You’re aware the many, probably most, American elderly are on a fixed income? So bequeathing 50% of “wealth” is not what you think. And, again, most people die with such modest estates that there’s no need to open probate.

Yup--in most cases that "wealth" is their house--which often isn't worth all that much, especially as there is often neglected maintenance.

 

[Deepak]

So while everyone is wrapped around the axle on the exact apportionment and distribution of inheritances, is there any evidence that these are the exclusive or primary means by which someone's ability to access resources from family or friends in your network?

Things like having a place to crash if you're in a pinch? Someone to help get a first job? Recommendation letters? Collateral for loans? Friends and family who can patronize a startup business? Small loans from one's parents?

You know, all of the things that putatively self-made people overlook.

Here's Rehnquist on Brown v Board as a law clerk:

https://www.clearinghouse.net/detailDocument.php?id=29325

In these cases now before the Court, the Court is, as Davis suggested, being asked to read its own sociological views into the Constitution. Urging a view palpably at variance with precedent and probably with legislative history, appellants seek to convince the Court of the moral wrongness of the treatment they are receiving. I would suggest that this is a question the Court need never reach; for regardless of the Justice's individual views on the merits of segregation, it quite clearly is not one of those extreme cases which commands intervention from one of any conviction. If this Court, because its members individually are "liberal" and dislike segregation, now chooses to strike it down, it differs from the McReynolds court only in the kinds of litigants it favors and the kinds of special claims it protects. To those who would argue that "personal" rights are more sacrosanct than "property" rights, the short answer is that the Constitution makes no such distinction. To the argument made by Thurgood Marshall that a majority may not deprive a minority of its constitutional right, the answer must be made that while this is sound in theory, in the long run it is the majority who will determine what the constitutional rights of the minority are. One hundred and fifty years of attempts on the part of this Court to protect minority rights of any kind -- whether those of business, slaveholders, or Jehovah's Witnesses--have been sloughed off, and crept silently to rest. If the present Court is unable to profit by this example it must be prepared to see its work fade in time, too, as embodying only the sentiments of a transient majority of nine men.
I realize that it is an unpopular and unhumanitarian position, for which I have been excoriated by "liberal" colleagues, but I think Plessy v. Ferguson was right and should be re-affirmed. If the fourteenth Amendment did not enact Spencer's Social Statios, it just as surely did not enact Myrddahl's American Dilemna.

We get bullshit like 'three generations' when three generations ago racism was literally encoded in the laws. In some minds apparently racists are immediately raptured after any sort of legislation is passed, never mind the multiple attempts to retrench inequality through through policies like the war on drugs.

Excepting real property, what manner of things are inherited?

When whites are in the minority, can we quote this plucky clerk's analysis?

 

[ruby sparks]

I've avoided getting into the gender spat, mainly because it's a wee bit away from the OP topic.

All I'll say is that to me it did seem slightly odd to initially specify white males benefitting rather than white persons. Males may still have some advantages, but I'm not clear how sons inheriting more wealth from parents than daughters is one of them, unless there are current, unequal practices (on the part of parents) that I am not aware of, but it could be that I am not aware of them.

One general point about inheriting wealth that I would like to make is that receiving monetary or property inheritances after death is only one part of it, in the broader sense. In the broad sense white (speaking generally) have benefitted from wealth that accumulated partly from practices which were unfair to African Americans and the legacy of this still exists today. No question, imo. Nor does wealth have to mean 'lots of wealth'. The amounts can be relatively modest, and they probably are in many, possibly most cases.

 

[ruby sparks]

But when do they do that transfer??? Life expectancy is about 80. Thus most of those doing the inheriting will be around 50--they've already made their own life by then. Inheritance beyond children is generally small.

Sorry, but just for starters, are you only considering wealth transfers that are made after death? If so, why?

Loren, I'm sick of your fucking unsourced anecdotes, your flawed analyses and your pathetic quibbling. US whites generally benefit today from accumulated wealth that blacks generally don't to anything like the same degree, partly because of restrictive and unfair practices that were applied to blacks, including in the not very distant past (eg 20th Century). It's not something that's up for grabs. It's just an objective fact. Either you acknowledge it, or you fart out runny brown nonsense on the internet instead. You decide.

 

[ruby sparks]

I also read that whites are twice as likely to receive an inheritance as blacks?

It wouldn't surprise me. The important point is most people will not receive an inheritance that will change their life substantially.

Hm. Maybe. Have you actually looked into that?

“inheritance, bequests, and in-vivo transfers account for more of the racial wealth gap than any other behavioral, demographic or socioeconomic indicator.”

Receiving an inheritance helps white families more than black families
https://www.epi.org/publication/rec...elps-white-families-more-than-black-families/

Obviously, the EPI is left-leaning, so I would take that into account. That said, sources for similar conclusions are readily found.

 

[George S]

Interesting derail.
The thread was about a city on fire. About what the OP claimed was an instance of white nationalism. Wandering, as threads do, into white privilege.
There is green privilege. Money brings privilege. Children of the rich of any race send their children to private schools. Nigerian princes send their children to universities in the USA.
The opportunity to go from poor to rich must be available to everyone. Not everyone will succeed.
Today a job applicant has black privilege and/or female privilege. A qualified black woman would be chosen over both a competent black and a competent white man. 'Oh, boy,' the hiring manager reasons, 'I can help my workplace stats.'

 

[ruby sparks]

A qualified black woman would be chosen over both a competent black and a competent white man. 'Oh, boy,' the hiring manager reasons, 'I can help my workplace stats.'

Please provide supporting evidence. Ideally not anecdotes.

 

[Deepak]

A qualified black woman would be chosen over both a competent black and a competent white man. 'Oh, boy,' the hiring manager reasons, 'I can help my workplace stats.'

Please provide supporting evidence. Ideally not anecdotes.

It's not even an anecdote.

 

[Jarhyn]

I also read that whites are twice as likely to receive an inheritance as blacks?

It wouldn't surprise me. The important point is most people will not receive an inheritance that will change their life substantially.

Hm. Maybe. Have you actually looked into that?

“inheritance, bequests, and in-vivo transfers account for more of the racial wealth gap than any other behavioral, demographic or socioeconomic indicator.”

Receiving an inheritance helps white families more than black families
https://www.epi.org/publication/rec...elps-white-families-more-than-black-families/

Obviously, the EPI is left-leaning, so I would take that into account. That said, sources for similar conclusions are readily found.

So, my own personal experience heavily confirms this.

I have been saved three times now from going into the debt drain by family. My hernia surgery and roof repairs? Yeah, none of that would have happened without help from family. And don't get me started on how much my husband's taxes are costing us (he lapsed on filing for a few years, and now there's a bigass lump of debt he has to chew through). Without direct support from parents and in his case, grandparents, we would have gone flush right down the drain, goodbye house, goodby job, goodbye credit.

We're getting better at managing things around here but by bit, but I can absolutely imagine how much worse it is when you don't have a grandfather who was the VP of a major oil corporation or parents who both worked upper-middle class jobs through the 80's and 90's and 00's each making more in adjusted dollars than I do with a software engineering job.

Some day, I'm really going to miss my parents. Losing my husband's grandparents will devastate us both. But I am honest enough to recognize when that happens, it will be yet another generation passing a torch of privilege. I'm already formulating some plans on how to make sure that someone who wasn't lucky enough to win a "genetic lottery" also becomes the beneficiary of that legacy.

 

[ruby sparks]

Hm. Maybe. Have you actually looked into that?

“inheritance, bequests, and in-vivo transfers account for more of the racial wealth gap than any other behavioral, demographic or socioeconomic indicator.”

Receiving an inheritance helps white families more than black families
https://www.epi.org/publication/rec...elps-white-families-more-than-black-families/

Obviously, the EPI is left-leaning, so I would take that into account. That said, sources for similar conclusions are readily found.

So, my own personal experience heavily confirms this.

I have been saved three times now from going into the debt drain by family. My hernia surgery and roof repairs? Yeah, none of that would have happened without help from family. And don't get me started on how much my husband's taxes are costing us (he lapsed on filing for a few years, and now there's a bigass lump of debt he has to chew through). Without direct support from parents and in his case, grandparents, we would have gone flush right down the drain, goodbye house, goodby job, goodbye credit.

We're getting better at managing things around here but by bit, but I can absolutely imagine how much worse it is when you don't have a grandfather who was the VP of a major oil corporation or parents who both worked upper-middle class jobs through the 80's and 90's and 00's each making more in adjusted dollars than I do with a software engineering job.

Some day, I'm really going to miss my parents. Losing my husband's grandparents will devastate us both. But I am honest enough to recognize when that happens, it will be yet another generation passing a torch of privilege. I'm already formulating some plans on how to make sure that someone who wasn't lucky enough to win a "genetic lottery" also becomes the beneficiary of that legacy.

I think the word 'wealth' is confusing some people. It doesn't mean 'lots of wealth'.

In my own personal case, my parents died in 2011 when I was 51. They left me some money, but not a great deal. They were not even middle class. It was £30,000.00, from the sale of their retirement bungalow after they died. It was great. I paid it into my £250,000.00 mortgage debt and it made a welcome small dent.

But, because when I was growing up, my uneducated, illiterate dad had a small farm and could borrow money against it, they were able to pay me through both a good secondary school (expensive because it was a boarding school) and 6 years at university. Not with money they had, with money they were able to borrow. In fact, when I was in 2nd year at uni, the farm went bust and the bank took it. They could not, in fact, actually afford to pay me through education (and support my two siblings in similar ways). They just were able to make the sacrifices, because they had property assets on paper. That 13-year education set me up, big time. I have not made loads of money, but I have always been able to make enough, either by getting a job (my professional qualifications made me employable) or, since 2013, working for myself.

 

[ruby sparks]

A qualified black woman would be chosen over both a competent black and a competent white man. 'Oh, boy,' the hiring manager reasons, 'I can help my workplace stats.'

Please provide supporting evidence. Ideally not anecdotes.

It's not even an anecdote.

I didn't want to say. I'm giving him a chance to back it up. It does go against at least some material I have read not long ago regarding how and why non-white US job applicants are still apparently 'whitening' their resumes, as recently as 2016 at least, and what the outcomes are (resume 'whitening' doubles callbacks, apparently, according to some studies). I even read that in some cases, less 'whitening' is done when they apply to employers with overtly stated diversity policies, because the applicants feel less need to 'whiten' their resumes, but that this can backfire, because some employers are not in fact adhering to what they say in their diversity statements. Talk is cheap, apparently, in some cases.

I don't have my sources to hand but I can go back and dig them out if requested.

 

[George S]

It's not even an anecdote.

I didn't want to say. I'm giving him a chance to back it up. It does go against at least some material I have read not long ago regarding how and why non-white US job applicants are still apparently 'whitening' their resumes, as recently as 2016 at least, and what the outcomes are (resume 'whitening' doubles callbacks, apparently, according to some studies). I even read that in some cases, less 'whitening' is done when they apply to employers with overtly stated diversity policies, because the applicants feel less need to 'whiten' their resumes, but that this can backfire, because some employers are not in fact adhering to what they say in their diversity statements. Talk is cheap, apparently, in some cases.

I don't have my sources to hand but I can go back and dig them out if requested.

My source is/was an internet blog where the case was argued. One of their number was, in fact, a hiring manager. So the best I have is second hand report that at least one hiring manager said that his management felt company image improved on being more diverse. The motive was company image; it takes very little to destroy a company's name.