Five Race Issues in the US That Need to be Acknowledged.

[Jimmy Higgins]

Image used to refute the myth of Point #5:

Counterpoint: 1992 Los Angeles riots.

Property damages: $1 billion dollars (200-fold)
Injuries: 2000+ (14-fold)
Deaths: 53 (Stanley Cup Riot = 0)
Arrests: 11,000 (Stanley Cup Riot = 101, or 109-fold)

The pot is calling the big fat fucking kettle a big fat fucking kettle.

Umm... I think they may have been comparing it to the burning down of Ferguson, not the LA Riots, which were the result of white officers getting acquitted for a crime that they couldn't possibly have been proven to be more guilty of.

 

[Underseer]

No. We can't acknowledge any racial problems of any kind. If we do, we are persecuting white people with "racialism" and "reverse racism" and "playing the race card."

All accusations of racism are automatically false unless a conservative or libertarian (who are completely different things despite having the same positions on many issues, using the same arguments on many issues, and voting for the same political candidates) is accusing a liberal of being racist.

 

[Emily Lake]

It always seems like everyone wants to go way too far one way or another. Either it's the Wizard of Oz syndrome with "No, there's no race problem at all, don't look at the man behind the curtain" or it's "The evil white men are all at fault and black folks are all innocent victims". Sorry folks, I don't have a clever turn of phrase for that.

Reality is not binary. Neither of those views is true. There IS a problem. There exists both individual and systemic racism in the US. The current social problems are not solely the fault of white people. They are exacerbated by many factors, including poverty and cultural in-group forces. The per-capita rates of violence among black people, particularly men, are higher than among other races, which creates a vicious cycle.

But if we can't acknowledge these things, if we continue to insist that one extreme view or the other is the only "true" view, we won't make any progress at all.

 

[ksen]

How many of those "other factors" can't be eventually linked back to white oppression of black people?

 

[Emily Lake]

How many of those "other factors" can't be eventually linked back to white oppression of black people?

Some probably can. Others can be linked to poverty. Others may have other causes. Not having a definitive and exhaustive list, and not being an expert in this field, I can't give you a perfect answer.

 

[NobleSavage]

This is usually how those decisions are made in the board room:

Engineer: if we add xyz safety feature it will save 50 lives.

Lawyer: if we add a new safety feature we will have 50 new lawsuits.

Accountant: adding xyz safety feature will cost $10,000,000.

Marketing Director: if we add zyz safety feature we can sell 1,000,000 new units

Actuary: if we increase the cost. 500,000 people will buy our competitors product which will lead to 600 deaths.

Accountant: the cost of the lawsuits will be the same as the profit from new feature xyz.

Lawyer: if we don’t add the safety feature we won’t be sued

Accountant: we might be able to get a tax credit if we add xyz safety feature.

CEO: lets just add xyz safety feature to our high end line and see how it goes.


Headline: ABC Corp gives safety feature to the rich not the poor to make a profit off the government. Estimated 600 people will die.

That is not how the car manufacturers added safety features.

Ralph Nader wrote a book and spoke before Congress.

Then laws were passed to force car manufacturers to include safety features and make the cars less deadly.

The car manufacturers denied there was a problem and dragged their feet as hard as possible.

Did you intentionally ignore the word usually? My example had noting to do with a specific time in auto history. It wasn't even thinking of cars, but I guess you were. You've missed the point and If you have read Nader's book I guess you also know of the legitimate criticisms?

 

[Derec]

How many of those "other factors" can't be eventually linked back to white oppression of black people?

Obviously it's all whitey's fault.

 

[ApostateAbe]

Image used to refute the myth of Point #5:



Counterpoint: 1992 Los Angeles riots.

Property damages: $1 billion dollars (200-fold)
Injuries: 2000+ (14-fold)
Deaths: 53 (Stanley Cup Riot = 0)
Arrests: 11,000 (Stanley Cup Riot = 101, or 109-fold)

The pot is calling the big fat fucking kettle a big fat fucking kettle.

Umm... I think they may have been comparing it to the burning down of Ferguson, not the LA Riots, which were the result of white officers getting acquitted for a crime that they couldn't possibly have been proven to be more guilty of.

The image was posted to disprove the "ignorant myth" that "'only' Black Americans riot."

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I took a closer look at claim #1.

"White Americans use drugs five times more than black Americans, yet black Americans receive prison sentences for drug offences at ten times the rate of white Americans."

Regardless of whether you find a cite for this, I don't actually doubt the veracity of this claim, at least not in more general terms. I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that white people use more drugs than black people. But it's a very unqualified claim. In particular, what kind of drugs are being used, and in what circumstances, is fairly important.

I don't think there's any doubt that there are far more black people in jail for drug-related charges, on a per-capita basis, than there are white people. And I don't think there's any doubt that it is far disproportionate to the rates of actual illegal drug use that occurs. What I think is missing is the types of drugs being used, and where/how those drugs are being used... as well as the complicating factors of racism in the justice system.

Even if all else was equal, I think that a black person is more likely to get pulled over or stopped by the police. That in turn allows the police more opportunity to discover the illegal drugs.

When you add that to the fact that the sentences for different substances vary, and that the rates of usage for those substances differ by income level, and that income is correlated with race... Is it any wonder that black people are getting the short end of the justice stick?

There are two big factors I see:

1) The drug use by the well-off causes far less harm than drug use by the poor. This is because the primary harm from drug use is the crime to get the money to buy the drugs rather than from the drugs themselves. If we are going to have this idiotic drug war at least focus on where the harm is the greatest.

2) It's much easier to bust the people dealing to the poor. Cops go where the easy pickings are.

 

[BH]

2) It's much easier to bust the people dealing to the poor. Cops go where the easy pickings are.

And rich people have the knoweldge and connections to deliver payback to the cop(s) that go after them in ways that appear legal and disguised as being something other than what it is.

Case in point. Rich guy gets busted for a drug crime and goes to jail that night. It's a medium sized town where everyone still kinda knows who is kin to who and what not. Rich guy's relative runs a plant who employs cop's brother. Plant manager goes through his policy books and finds way to run off cop's relative in revenge in a way that looks all fine and legal. It happens.

 

[untermensche]

That is not how the car manufacturers added safety features.

Ralph Nader wrote a book and spoke before Congress.

Then laws were passed to force car manufacturers to include safety features and make the cars less deadly.

The car manufacturers denied there was a problem and dragged their feet as hard as possible.

Did you intentionally ignore the word usually? My example had noting to do with a specific time in auto history. It wasn't even thinking of cars, but I guess you were. You've missed the point and If you have read Nader's book I guess you also know of the legitimate criticisms?

I think my point is accurate.

The car manufacturers were building very dangerous cars and didn't give a shit if people were dying or being seriously hurt.

Then Ralph Nader steps in and things move in another direction.

The key was federal safety standards. The key is never to expect corporations to behave morally unless they can seriously boast about it.

 

[NobleSavage]

Did you intentionally ignore the word usually? My example had noting to do with a specific time in auto history. It wasn't even thinking of cars, but I guess you were. You've missed the point and If you have read Nader's book I guess you also know of the legitimate criticisms?

I think my point is accurate.

The car manufacturers were building very dangerous cars and didn't give a shit if people were dying or being seriously hurt.

Then Ralph Nader steps in and things move in another direction.

The key was federal safety standards. The key is never to expect corporations to behave morally unless they can seriously boast about it.

Cars were are have been getting safer and Nader didn't make fuck of a difference. He did make a name for himself though. However, the auto industry did retaliate in a very bad manner.

 

[Emily Lake]

2) It's much easier to bust the people dealing to the poor. Cops go where the easy pickings are.

And rich people have the knoweldge and connections to deliver payback to the cop(s) that go after them in ways that appear legal and disguised as being something other than what it is.

Case in point. Rich guy gets busted for a drug crime and goes to jail that night. It's a medium sized town where everyone still kinda knows who is kin to who and what not. Rich guy's relative runs a plant who employs cop's brother. Plant manager goes through his policy books and finds way to run off cop's relative in revenge in a way that looks all fine and legal. It happens.

Sure, I suppose. More realistically however, rich guy hires a good lawyer who is really good at arguing technicalities and gets him off with a warning. Poor guy uses the public defender who is overworked, underpaid, and just doesn't really give a crap.