Quote :

"no, your last paragraph makes it clear that went over your head "

what substance of his post did i miss then, exactly?

8/26/2014 10:15:19 PM

Quote :

"That IS the point... you don't see how it can have long-term cascading effects for 1 population to gain wealth, while another is practically prevented from doing so by the government? "

Long term cascading effects? The hell? There is nothing about an inheritance windfall that guarantees future success anymore than the lack of it guarantees future struggles. By the statistic presented in your on link there are millions of white kids getting spit out that will inherit little to nothing just like the black kids. No doubt the Jim Crow era is probably a huge cause of the difference in absolute numbers but Long Term cascading effects? Get the fuck outta here with that noise.

Quote :

" It's not like the current generation inherits wealth, and nothing happens. They use that wealth to start businesses, buy investments, etc. that they then use to gain more wealth, while transferring it down to their mostly homogenous offspring (although this is changing too). "

Facts not in evidence. It's just as likely they squander the fuck out of it because it wasn't earned and money don't care which color wastes it.

Quote :

" The system isn't what is was then, but the effects of the system, as the inheritance data shows, very much are in effect today, in many ways. "

Facts not in evidence.

Quote :

" Even if blacks had perfect equality in society and law, after slavery ended, there would still be systemic biases against them.""

You have yet to show "systemic" in any of this. It's mildy cliche and but a mere anecdote, but we elected a motherfucking black guy to be the most powerful man in the world. Our whole system did that. Do you get that? The fucking SYSTEM elected a black man President. Are individual people going to continue being racists for centuries to come, yeah. But let's stop just fucking calling it systemic because we see inequality in the numbers and then try to work backwards with experiments on laughably small numbers and extrapolate that out to society.

8/26/2014 10:30:12 PM

^ read literally any study on wealth... Any of them... And you'll realize how ignorant you are, and how utterly wrong your opinions are.

There's links in this very thread you could use to correlate these studies to help provide a better context.

^^^
Seeing the data, what would you suggest?

8/26/2014 10:36:46 PM

Quote :

"^^^Seeing the data, what would you suggest?"

The data only tells us if institutional racism exists, it doesn't say how to fix it.

The most obvious, least invasive solutions involve ending policies that contribute to the problem and represent additional costs to society. There is no policy other than drug prohibition that so conclusively harms minority communities while also costing a fortune and failing to reach its stated goal.

Concerning the problem where DeShawn Jackson is less likely to get hired Chandler Jackson, I don't see an obvious solution. Charles Smith is more likely to get an interview than Cletus Lee, but I don't think we need affirmative action for hillbillies.

8/28/2014 8:23:40 PM

I for one, would automatically assume that anybody named Chandler would be a douche, and hire DeShawn.

8/28/2014 9:43:22 PM

CuntPunter

8/28/2014 9:56:30 PM

Quote :

"^ read literally any study on wealth... Any of them... And you'll realize how ignorant you are, and how utterly wrong your opinions are. There's links in this very thread you could use to correlate these studies to help provide a better context."

Why? It isn't like you bother to read them. You post the huffpost summary which does basically what you do, misinterprets the actual results to suit your agenda. Let's start critiquing the links in this thread one by one. The first one:

Quote :

"http://www.policymic.com/articles/88731/wharton-study-shows-the-shocking-result-when-women-and-minorities-email-their-professors"

Quote :

"We see a 25-percentage-point gap in the response rate to Caucasian males versus women and minorities.""

A SHOCKING result. Twenty five percent? Let's look at the actual study

Quote :

"Through a field experiment set in academia (with a sample of 6,548 professors), we found that decisions about distantfuture events were more likely to generate discrimination against women and minorities (relative to Caucasian males) than were decisions about near-future events."

Interesting...so we want to test if people are more racist when they have time to think about it.

Quote :

"A sample-weighted analysis1 of the behavior of all participants in our study revealed that faculty members in the now condition responded at similar rates to Caucasian males (69%) and to minority and female students (67%),"

So..people aren't instantly racists in this study...but,

Quote :

"however, in the later condition, Caucasian males (48%) were granted significantly more meetings than other students were (38%),"

So yeah, to someone so hell bent on "equality" to the 6th decimal place, I can see how this info might blow your panties up. But just step the fuck back a second.
A full 1/3 of EVERYONE that requested a NOW meeting was blown off. Do you "equality" at-all-cost'ers have an explanation for that or I guess it just isn't something to contemplate, because...privilege?

And what about the future case? The response actually DROPS for everyone, including the whites. And lets get real here, 48% and 38% isn't 'significantly' different. As it relates to this thread, this doesn't even hint at systemic". But, we haven't even examined the real nugget of this study:

Quote :

"In other words, the temporal discrimination effect persisted even in the case of faculty members’ responses to students of their own race,"

HOLE EE FUCK. You mean...our system is so effed, the problems are so ingrained, that even these hallowed liberal professors are oblivious to the fact that even they diss their own race, because...systemic? Bullshit.

These people are drawing on life experiences and make the decisions they do for what in aggregate may be some pretty good reasoning. It isn't like you're showing how their reasoning isn't.

8/28/2014 10:29:15 PM

Quote :

" And lets get real here, 48% and 38% isn't 'significantly' different"

Haha, that's easy for you to say, when you're not the one being marginalized. That is definitely significant. And ironically, you've demonstrated another facet of systemic racisms (i.e.: "it's not THAT big a difference, so it doesn't matter to me, a member of a privileged class").

Quote :

"HOLE EE FUCK. You mean...our system is so effed, the problems are so ingrained, that even these hallowed liberal professors are oblivious to the fact that even they diss their own race, because...systemic? Bullshit. "

LOL, this more clearly demonstrates a systemic bias than any other aspect of this... systemic biases don't rely on the racism of any individual, it's in the "system" (hence the term... you know... "systemic" biases). Of course there may be some confounding aspects of this portion, so it's not obvious that it is even any kind of bias by itself, but in the context of the larger concept, it bolsters the idea of systemic racism being a big problem.

8/28/2014 10:40:57 PM

Quote :

"The data only tells us if institutional racism exists, it doesn't say how to fix it. The most obvious, least invasive solutions involve ending policies that contribute to the problem and represent additional costs to society. There is no policy other than drug prohibition that so conclusively harms minority communities while also costing a fortune and failing to reach its stated goal. Concerning the problem where DeShawn Jackson is less likely to get hired Chandler Jackson, I don't see an obvious solution. Charles Smith is more likely to get an interview than Cletus Lee, but I don't think we need affirmative action for hillbillies. "

This post demonstrates exactly what a large part of this problem is. First, you seem to acknowledge that a problem exists, but don't seem to really care beyond "end the drug war."

You have to imagine it's flabbergasting and frustrating for disenfranchised communities that live their lives on a daily basis under double standards and reduced civil rights to have their problems marginalized by the same people who would risk shutting down the government over perceived, theoretical injustices of gun control, smoking bans, minimum wage increases, unemployment benefits and other issues where they feign oppression, just because they don't view the problems of minorities as affecting them directly. The fact is that it does affect you and everyone, and you should be even more outraged by these injustices than just about anything other civil rights issue.

And then the latter part of your post implies you view this as predominately a problem for the black community to solve for themselves.

The reality is that this is a problem that was created by all Americans, that has been perpetuated by all of us, and is up to ALL of us to try and address. It's funny how you can admit there is a grave injustice, but can't muster any effort, after acknowledging a problem, to think of solutions to that problem. Keep in mind that blacks are about 13% of the population, where as whites are about 70%. Even if 100% of blacks supported something, it only takes 20% of whites to be against it to completely negate their voting power. To put this in perspective, in 2009, 20% of whites still don't support interracial marriage*.

If you acknowledge there is a problem, then you should realize it's a problem that all of us need to solve, that goes beyond "end the war on drugs." That's not even really a solution, it's a cop-out answer.


*http://www.gallup.com/poll/149390/record-high-approve-black-white-marriages.aspx

8/28/2014 10:57:39 PM

Quote :

"This post demonstrates exactly what a large part of this problem is. First, you seem to acknowledge that a problem exists, but don't seem to really care beyond "end the drug war.""

Hell, if a majority of the voting population could agree on this then we'd accomplish a fuckton more measurable progress to racial equal than agreeing that systemic biases exist.

If you could even win this argument, you still will lose the war. Because, again, I return to the point that the majority of the relevant nation remains unconvinced that even the war on drugs is unjust. You fail to recognize an ally when you see one. If political efforts were better focused, then we would start from a broad coalition who agrees to stop the incarceration of up-teen million people convicted on drug charges, which should have plenty of solidarity value to the black community.

But if I'm being honest, I already have an explanation for this. Accepting agreement on broadly appealing issues would lead to progress, and social justice rhetoric has become an industry. Progress is its enemy. It wants to deepen divides, not bridge them.

Quote :

"It's funny how you can admit there is a grave injustice, but can't muster any effort, after acknowledging a problem, to think of solutions to that problem."

Quote :

"That's not even really a solution, it's a cop-out answer."

A solution isn't a solution if it doesn't go as far as what you had planned on?

8/28/2014 11:19:10 PM

Quote :

"Quote : A solution isn't a solution if it doesn't go as far as what you had planned on?"

No, it's not a solution because legalizing drugs is just something he wants anyway, and is not intended to address system racism. It wouldn't even but a dent in that problem... It might reduce some pretext cops use to overly patrol poor black areas, but does nothing for the broader problems of disparate sentences, and the cumulative and cyclical effects this creates. Less people given unfair sentences isn't a solution, if the unfair sentences remain.

And I do need to point out that de5troyer missed the point of the name on resumes. It isn't that black sounding names are bad, it's the perception that a person being black is unwanted. If a black john smith got an interview, the same effect that caused Jamal smiths resume to be rejected now applies to john smith in person. once they realize he's black, he already faces a double standard.

8/28/2014 11:49:10 PM

Quote :

"UP- TEEN MILLION"

[Edited on August 29, 2014 at 12:19 AM. Reason : .]

8/29/2014 12:19:23 AM

Quote :

"It's funny how you can admit there is a grave injustice, but can't muster any effort, after acknowledging a problem, to think of solutions to that problem."

Why do I have to know the answer to everything? When there's a problem, shitting out half-baked government policy is not better than inaction.

8/29/2014 8:10:17 PM

Why discuss it, if you don't feel like thinking about the problem/solutions?

Are you just here to say government is bad, and whatever they're doing is wrong? Because that's pretty counterproductive.

And inaction, in this situation, is the worse decision. When people feel they are being treated unjustly, this tends to fester, not go away (think about the gun nuts' reactions if someone's sneeze even sounds like they said "gun control") . And in certain important aspects of society, blacks are definitely being treated unjustly.

And this thread is not even about a government solution.

There's a growing group of whites who feel that racism against whites is a bigger problem than what minorities face, despite the lack of any evidence indicating systemic racism against whites (of course there's individual racism against whites, just like individual racism against blacks exists).

I think part of this is due to the economy-- as more income inequality grows, and middle class whites become poorer*, they're going to feel, however inaccurately, that minorities have more advantages. But this can't be the whole problem...?

* http://fedorsannikov.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/real-median-household-income-by-race-and-hispanic-origin-of-householder-1967-to-2011-USA.png

8/30/2014 12:45:01 AM

http://ow.ly/AUtf2

This is a really good column in the ny times on the issue.

Quote :

"The gap has worsened in the last decade, and the United States now has a greater wealth gap by race than South Africa did during apartheid. (Whites in America on average own almost 18 times as much as blacks; in South Africa in 1970, the ratio was about 15 times.)"

[Edited on August 31, 2014 at 9:51 AM. Reason : ]

8/31/2014 9:50:15 AM

Quote :

"There's a growing group of whites who feel that racism against whites is a bigger problem than what minorities face, despite the lack of any evidence indicating systemic racism against whites (of course there's individual racism against whites, just like individual racism against blacks exists). I think part of this is due to the economy-- as more income inequality grows, and middle class whites become poorer*, they're going to feel, however inaccurately, that minorities have more advantages. But this can't be the whole problem...? "

racism was an acceptable, even expected way of life for a long time (thus what you would call systemic). this certainly plays a very large role in the statistics mentioned in the article you posted. unfortunately i think everything else just shows the disconnect in race relations today. no one in our generation had anything to do with systemic racism (and i'd venture most wouldn't want to). from our short firsthand view i think it's accurate to say that minorities do in some cases have advantages. some are debatable in their merits and long term value but they exist out of what i do think are good intentions and reasons.

it's a shame that issues of race really are "black and white". you're on one side or the other, there's no conversation - just gnashing of teeth and bigotry and hate spewed by too many involved. the focus is too much on color, and not enough on circumstance. pointing fingers at races and classes won't help anyone. see how a group reacts when you refer to them as "smug/middle class whites" or "poor thug blacks" or "freeloading illegals". you won't get anywhere and everybody will go home with just a little more racism, including you. if people are hurting, poor, struggling, abused, racially mistreated, etc, just help them, push for laws that are fair and helpful to all americans, heck love em. i'm as guilty as the next, realizing that as i'm typing it, so why not just do it?

8/31/2014 2:07:11 PM

Quote :

"The phrase “white privilege” is one that rubs a lot of white people the wrong way..."

http://alittlemoresauce.wordpress.com/2014/08/20/what-my-bike-has-taught-me-about-white-privilege/

9/1/2014 4:07:41 PM

Quote :

"no one in our generation had anything to do with systemic racism "

Umm... Current generations are nearly entirely about systemic racism. It's Jim Crow era direct racism that hasn't existed for a while.

And saying "help all Americans" is a senseless statement in the context of this discussion, it is itself a privileged position. What exactly is your "help all Americans" solution to sentencing disparity problems? Or policing disparity? Or the disparity in the way discipline is handled for black elementary school children vs whites? Should these problems be ignored because they only affect 10-20% of "all Americans"?

You're right that the gov. should help all Americans but this means tailoring help, to cover what's needed, not having a single help policy based on a normative sampling. Black people are Americans, homeless people are Americans, hillbillies are Americans, even billionaires are Americans, that all deserve a government that supports them in specific ways.

9/1/2014 4:46:04 PM

i didn't say to ignore anything

Quote :

"Umm... Current generations are nearly entirely about systemic racism. It's Jim Crow era direct racism that hasn't existed for a while."

what are you even talking about anymore? specifically our generation is easily the most progressive and racially sensitive yet. that in no way means "racism doesn't exist" or whatever other nonsense you try to twist that into.

9/1/2014 7:19:39 PM

Quote :

"if people are hurting, poor, struggling, abused, racially mistreated, etc, just help them, push for laws that are fair and helpful to all americans, heck love em. i'm as guilty as the next, realizing that as i'm typing it, so why not just do it? "

You can't help them in many cases without political will, and you can't gain the political will when primarily the majority racial demographic doesn't sign on to help.

I may be misinterpreting what you're saying, but it sounds like you're saying we should help blacks, but not if the issue they need help with requires pointing out a racially biased process?

Or you as an individual can help, but that doesn't do anything. We need lawyers, judges, teachers, business development planners, and hiring managers en masse, uniformly, to change their way of thinking.

If Pointing out that our country is systemically biased to give the majority group benefits in significant ways in the legal and education systems that are not afforded to minority groups is too confrontational for you, what is the politically correct way to convey this reality? If you're saying we should not try to convey this reality, you are advocating ignoring the problem.

It seems like you:
1) accept rampant systemic biases that have cyclical negative effects on the ability for blacks to gain fair access to the American dream
2) believe something should be done about this problem
But
3) in the process of seeking this help, the priveleges afforded to whites in these same systems shoild not be pointed out, or used as a benchmark to strive for

9/1/2014 11:44:13 PM

Quote :

"accept rampant systemic biases that have cyclical negative effects on the ability for blacks to gain fair access to the American dream"

Quote :

"in the process of seeking this help, the priveleges afforded to whites in these same systems shoild not be pointed out, or used as a benchmark to strive for"

i didn't say any of those things

what privileges are you talking about?

9/2/2014 1:11:53 AM

Quote :

"No, it's not a solution because legalizing drugs is just something he wants anyway, and is not intended to address system racism. It wouldn't even but a dent in that problem... It might reduce some pretext cops use to overly patrol poor black areas, but does nothing for the broader problems of disparate sentences"

It's completely possible to repeal some of our onerous drug laws under the rationale that they pose a systematically larger burden on black communities. One argument I recently read is that mandatory minimums preferentially apply to crimes that blacks are convicted of more often. So if people convicted of crime A are mostly black and people convicted of crime B are mostly white, it's A that has a mandatory minimum.

Police and juries, on the other hand, introduce racial bias due to individual's predispositions. Some person made the decisions of where to patrol, and some person issues a G/NG verdict, not understanding that statistics says this decision is swayed by race. As far as I can tell, I don't see any law we can pass that will fix this. The bias of the individual will remain even if you did, and you can't stop relying on people... unless we submit to control by AI.

As for the hearts and minds? We live in the age of Fox News. We also live in the age of the internet, which perhaps has a more liberal sway. But my estimation is that your side is losing more ground than it's gaining. Money in politics has grown dramatically, but it was preceded by another trend - that is establishing that commodity media can control attitudes in the first place. There's still space for a strongly philosophically robust position to take hold. But them problem with "systemic" arguments is exactly that they're not a home run. They'll only convince intellectuals.

9/2/2014 10:26:11 PM

^^ read the rest of the thread...?

^ it's possible, and should happen, but it's only part of the story. I think a bigger issue is addressing sentencing and policing disparities.

I didn't realize Fox News was pushing the "reverse-racism" angle so hard these days:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/08/27/dear-fox-news-please-stop-using-asian-americans-to-attack-black-people.html

Pretty shocking a large news agency would promote such a discredited idea.

9/3/2014 10:06:39 AM

Quote :

"Generations of Asian Americans did not endure the traumas, legacies, and residual effects of slavery, Jim Crow, and decades of racist housing policy."

True

But find one American that doesn't think Asians can't drive worth a damn.

/stereotyping

I will say that article, specifically the quote above, is disenginuous to many Asians that came to this country earlier on, only to be corralled into Chinatowns across America. The racism wasn't as systemic, and today it is probably almost non-existent, but there was a time when Chinamen had a tough go in this country.

9/3/2014 12:32:03 PM

It's probably more common out west, but now that I think about it, i've never met an asian who descended from one of those early chinese that came to the US.

9/3/2014 12:49:03 PM

There was a segment on NPR about steretyping asians back in the '20s, and how cartoons coming out then depictedthem as shady, pony-tailed, slanty eyed, opium=smoking laundry mat owners. It also talked about the cliche tune (kung fu fighting melody) that came to be associated with the chinese, although it doesn't appear to be chinese.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2014/08/28/338622840/how-the-kung-fu-fighting-melody-came-to-represent-asia

9/3/2014 12:54:17 PM

Nor have I, probably because they have immersed themselves in the culture and gene pool. Just like you probably haven't met many 100% Native Americans, but you've met a bunch of folks with a small portion of those genes.

Lets not forget however, about the forced internment of thousands of Japanese Americans during WWII. Not since slavery has America done one single act as awful and outragious to African Americans. But I guess one single act wouldn't really count in this thread, because one large act of racism isn't classified as systemic.

[Edited on September 3, 2014 at 1:15 PM. Reason : asd]

9/3/2014 1:12:55 PM

Quote :

"It's probably more common out west, but now that I think about it, i've never met an asian who descended from one of those early chinese that came to the US."

This is not surprising. The experience of only meeting first and second generation Asian Americans is statistically well-supported.



In historical terms, the flow of people from Asian nations to the US has exploded within the lifetime of the baby boomers. But this under-sells the severity of the inflection point. As the immigration flow is linear, the total population is quadratic (perhaps cubic, with reproduction). By a rough eyeballing of the trend, this suggests that the Asian presence was 1/4th what it is now in 1975. Only about a generation has passed since a fresh college student from that time anyway.

The original uptick in Chinese immigration which went along with westward expansion is practically ancient history. Most of those people arrived even before China got hooked on Opium! I don't doubt they maintained their communities as relatively separate, but people forget almost everything after a century. What's left are only obfuscated echos of the original culture. More than likely, it wouldn't be possible to identify the ancestors of these people. Some of them probably walk around thinking that they're 100% European American. You wouldn't know if you met them. Perhaps you are one yourself?

[Edited on September 3, 2014 at 1:15 PM. Reason : ]

9/3/2014 1:14:06 PM

My two cents - while Asian Americans have taken a lot of shit as a community here in the United States, I don't think we can compare our experiences to those of African Americans at all. Most African Americans who were brought to the United States were brought involuntarily two centuries ago. Since then, whatever traditional culture they had was destroyed during the period of slavery, leaving a shell of a people who basically had to make it up as they went along from the 1860s on. We're not just talking about simple wealth, we're talking about culture, history, tradition, etc., those things that can drive a people forward. Top it off with government enforced segregation for another 100 years and limitations on the capital they can earn and save, and you have a people dealt a bad hand second only to the Native Americans.

Asian Americans in contrast, while badly treated over the history of the country, did have some advantages. First, you had a more self-selecting group that came over to the US, those who were ambitious and aggressive, ready to carve out a new life. That can make up a lot for the poverty. Many were educated - they didn't work white collar when they got to the US due to language and cultural barriers, but they did have an appreciation for the value of education and passed it on to their children. There are some other theories too about the rather unique socio-economic situation in Asia at that time that may have increased success for those earlier immigrants. Their timing was better too, as they came around the time that much of the formalized government segregation was being dismantled.

To compare Asian American success to the lack of African American success is ignorant at best, cynical at worst, as the two communities had vastly different experiences.

9/3/2014 1:46:29 PM

^ Yeah, thats pretty much been the consensus in the educated world for a while, but Fox News hasn't taken note of this.

9/3/2014 1:47:59 PM

A better comparison for the plight of African Americans would be that of large refugee communities. This is a community that becomes an excluded minority through a process that also destroyed all their social and financial capital.

Otherwise, you border on another form of exceptionalism. Human populations are moving and mixing all over the globe. Many nations that thought of themselves as homogenous are now become multicultural, and will soon look a lot like the US demographically. Our ills will become the world's ills. I certainly hope they're not terminal.

9/3/2014 4:17:02 PM

so fucking terribly sad.... if this is america, what can we expect from the rest of the world? actually, in many countries there is a lot less racism of this kind.

http://mic.com/articles/97860/one-small-change-to-his-resume-and-this-man-s-job-offers-skyrocketed

they key here is that the same exact positions with the same exact companies that he was turned down for before, were calling/emailing him back.

so whether it is live breathing filters or software filters, the system is racist to the core., i.e., SYSTEMIC.

9/4/2014 1:47:06 AM

One anecdote and it's racist to the core.

9/4/2014 9:33:10 AM

everybody is a little racist.

9/4/2014 10:22:35 AM

moron, who do you think you are? runnin round leavin scars

9/4/2014 11:23:46 AM

Quote :

"actually, in many countries there is a lot less racism of this kind."

I wonder how true that is though. To make an apples-to-apples comparison, you'd need to compare with industrialized nations that have large minority populations from poorer nations. Like would Germans react the same way to a resume with a Turkish name? French with an Algerian name? You have countries like Japan which, outside of a small segment of specialized jobs for foreigners, tend strongly to not hire foreigners for "normal" jobs, even foreigners from "peer" countries who speak fluent Japanese and are permanent residents.

This is NOT to say that this isn't a problem in the US, it most definitely is, but I don't think this is somehow unique to the United States either. My personal belief is that the US has serious race issues much like the rest of the industrialized world, but unlike most other countries, we at least are open in admitting it and actively discussing and trying to address it.

9/4/2014 1:51:50 PM

Quote :

"The White House has "looked at polling in four or five states where there aren't large Latino constituencies and said that's the way forward, without thinking of the impact that policy might have in Illinois, in California, in Colorado," Gutierrez said on ABC's "This Week." "Playing it safe might win an election ... but it never leads to fairness, to justice and to good public policy you can be proud of.""

http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/politicsnow/la-pn-obama-immigration-delay-criticism-20140907-story.html

This is an example of systemic racism. If this were a problem that white people more empathized with, it wouldn't get pushed to the back burner.

Few would argue Obama hates hispanics and is trying to push white superiority, but the nature of politics means he has to act in a way that caters to the interests of whites, to the detriment of American minority groups who are more likely to have their issues pushed to the side.

9/8/2014 1:01:53 AM

Well, the unions that make up his special interests certainly hate Hispanics. As such, we should expect him to act as if he hates Hispanics regardless of whether the average voter hates Hispanics or not. After-all, Obama isn't up for election anymore, so what the average voter thinks no longer matters to him, but the push to please his pay-masters never ends.

9/9/2014 9:26:43 AM

Quote :

"It can all sound so draining -- checking your motivations, trying not to offend black people. Isn't it easier to just declare as a white person that you don't see race? DeYoung says that's actually a subtle way of insulting people of color. "It diminishes people to not see their race and their culture," says DeYoung, who wrote a memoir about his racial journey entitled "Homecoming: A White Man's Journey through Harlem to Jerusalem." "The reality is that race affects people's lives, and if you can't see race, you can't see the life they've lived.""

http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/11/us/white-minority/index.htmL

Mildly interesting article making the rounds.

9/12/2014 11:07:09 PM

I don't know which thread is the most appropriate for this, but I think this is the best one

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/09/14/daniele-watts-arrested-black-actress-white-husband_n_5819042.html

GG Murrca

9/15/2014 2:33:10 AM

http://everydayfeminism.com/2014/07/8-things-white-people-race/?utm_content=buffera9cb8&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Quote :

"Now, let me be clear about why this article is directed at White people. First, I am White, and as such, my role in ending racial oppression must be in engaging other White people to join accountable work for racial justice. Plain and simple. Second, because privilege conceals itself from those who have it and because White people benefit most from the current systems of racial oppression, we as White people have a particular tendency to bury our head in the sand on issues of race, but we also have a particular role in acting for racial justice. Are there people of Color who act in ways that reinforce systems of racial oppression? Sure. But it is not my place to address those issues. It is my place to work with White folks. "

11/25/2014 9:39:00 PM

"everydayfeminism.com" - must be an awesome place for objective discourse o_O

they're right about two things:
1. "reverse racism" isn't a thing
2. "reverse sexism" isn't a thing
but they're wrong about why:
1. because it's just racism
2. because it's just sexism

"people of Color" as he(she?) likes to put it, can be (and sometimes are) racist towards white people
women can be (and sometimes are) sexist towards men

it's just true everybody, no matter how hard you try to twist that up. and the converse of each of those statements is also true.

11/26/2014 3:44:01 AM

Quote :

"but they're wrong about why: 1. because it's just racism 2. because it's just sexism "people of Color" as he(she?) likes to put it, can be (and sometimes are) racist towards white people women can be (and sometimes are) sexist towards men "

Did you read a different website? they are pretty clear that racism against white people is a thing, and it's hurtful.

And "reverse racism" is a term that white racists made up. Just mentally replace it with regular old racism if you don't like this term.

11/26/2014 12:25:59 PM

This is a great example of how collectivist thought prevents adequate analysis. The writer is not able to make a distinction between males and males that have power. From their perspective, there are white men that have power, and there are women and minorities that have do not have power; the nuances are not worth investigating, apparently.

11/26/2014 2:19:23 PM

Quote :

"Did you read a different website? they are pretty clear that racism against white people is a thing, and it's hurtful."

in the same sentence they said

Quote :

"Reverse racism is not real because racial prejudice directed at White people doesn’t have the weight of institutional oppression behind it"

"you're white so it's not as big of a deal"

also, ^

11/27/2014 12:59:36 AM

http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/26/us/ferguson-racism-or-racial-bias/index.html?sr=fb112614raceconvos9pVODtopLink

Maybe this can explain it better than the other link then.

11/27/2014 1:18:54 AM

stole from Facebook:

Quote :

"I think the reason white people have a problem with being told they're privileged and that they have advantages that other races don't have is because they don't; it's that they lack disadvantages."

12/4/2014 4:13:22 PM

A tale of two hashtags:
http://m.mic.com/articles/105740/alive-while-black-exposes-ugly-truths-about-everyday-police-racism

12/4/2014 7:10:32 PM

Quote :

"This post is for my white male Facebook friends. Some of the most disturbing, subtle, insidious, racist comments I’ve seen over the past few weeks have been from my white male Facebook friends. I know a lot of my friends are just mass defriending people, but I’m not quite there yet, because I’m (foolishly, naively) hoping I can reach some of you in a way that creates some kind of change. I know, I know, who ever had his mind changed from something he read on the Internet? But here I am, tilting at windmills. First, let me say, I’m not addressing you to put you on the defensive. I don’t want to fight. But I really am hoping to reach your heart. So please start with holding what I’m going to say in love and openness, and see if you can let this reach your heart before you fight it with your brain meats. Next, let me say, this doesn’t apply to all of you. There are some great allies, advocates and freedom fighters among my friends, and I ask you to join this discussion. OK, let’s do this. My white male friend, you might actually believe in your heart that you are not racist. You might actually believe that this country is full of equality and justice, and get offended at the idea that it’s not, so this might be really difficult for you. When people tell us that something we believe to be true is actually not 100 percent true, or maybe not true for everyone, we can experience cognitive dissonance. One way to respond to this is to walk away, or get defensive. Another way to respond is to compassionately lean in to it; lean in to our discomfort, our fear, our panic, our incredulity, our doubt. Open ourselves to the idea that our beliefs are just ideas that we go out and seek support for, and therefore there are other ideas out there that could become our beliefs, very easily, if we were willing to open ourselves up and expand our frame of reference. That is what I’m inviting you to do here — open yourself up, compassionately expand your frame of reference. So, like I said, you may believe you are not racist. You may have never said the N-word. You may have non-white friends. However, there are many different forms of racism, not all of them are active. Many of them are passive, and they might be invisible to you, because you’re a white man. (Pause, breathe, try not to jump to defense at this idea. Stay open. Hang with me.) Because some of these forms of injustice don’t happen to you, and the history you learned in school, and what you hear from a lot of the media, and from other white men, is that these things don’t happen, you might really believe they don’t exist.Because some of these forms of injustice don’t happen to you, and the history you learned in school, and what you hear from a lot of the media, and from other white men, is that these things don’t happen, you might really believe they don’t exist. Being able to turn a blind eye to things that don’t happen to you is the essence of privilege. It’s also an abuse of power. Again, this might not be active. You might not realize that this is what’s happening. You’re not a bad guy. You’ve just been given some incomplete information. (Again, hang on. Breathe. Stay open. Hang with me.) I’d like to invite a thought exercise. Your child comes to you and says, “Dad, I’m being harassed, bullied, threatened and terrorized at school.” And you say, “That is impossible. You go to a good school. All the adults I know say it is a good school, so you must be fine. Go back out there.” And you walk away, convinced that your child must be wrong. You’ve abandoned your child, because you’re not taking his or her report as possibly accurate. Your wife or sister comes to you and says, “I am being harassed, threatened and terrorized out on the street by men. I experience gender inequality on a daily basis. I live in some degree of constant fear for my personal safety, just because I am a woman.” And you say, “That is impossible. Sexism is over. Women now occupy relatively high places of power in this country. You are fine.” And you walk away, convinced that your loved one must be wrong. You have abandoned her, because you are not taking her report as possibly accurate. Your friends, community, neighbors, co-workers of color come to you and say, “I am harassed, threatened, terrorized on the street by police officers. I am experiencing systemic inequality on a daily basis. I live in constant fear that myself, my brother, my son, will be unfairly convicted of a crime, or shot on the street, simply because of what we look like.” And you say, “That is impossible. Racism has been conquered. We have a black president. Everyone lives an equal life here.” And you walk away, convinced that this person is wrong. You have abandoned them, because you are not taking their report as possibly accurate. My question to you is: In any of these cases, have you done your best? In each of these cases, the common thread is that you are being infantilizing. You are not taking someone else’s reporting of their own, lived experience as accurate. As hard as it may be to accept this, you may not take these reports as accurate because other people, who look like you, have told you that these things are not true, and whether or not you want to believe it, you might have been programmed with a bias toward taking things that white men say as more accurate than things anyone else says. You might not know you’re doing this. If you really were to think about it, you’d find the idea appalling. And yet, you are not taking these reports as accurate. Why? Or, perhaps, because these things do not happen to you, you refuse to believe that it could or would happen to others. This is the essence of your privilege. You have the opportunity to denounce someone else’s lived experience, tell them there’s no way they really understand what’s happening in their own life, and walk away, comfortable in your rightness. You get to go back to your life where this does not happen to you, and ignore the plight of others. This is a privilege because the others in this case do not have that option. When they leave the conversation, they are still a child, a woman or a person of color (or any combination of the three), occupying a position of less power than you. Living in a world where these things do happen to them, and what’s worse, they now walk away knowing that you, their father, husband, friend, teacher, community member, do not believe them. Won’t defend them. Aren’t willing to help. Is this your best? Is this your best parentship, partnership, friendship, stewardship? Is this the best you have to offer your fellow man? Do you believe yourself to be a kind person, who takes other people’s feelings into account? Do you believe yourself to be a just person, who is interested in fairness? Do you believe yourself to be the kind of person who champions the little guy? Who stands up for the meek and powerless? Do you want America to be a country where there is equal opportunity? Really? If that’s true, and these are the values you hold in your heart, is it possible that when you hear that these values are not being met in the world, you could jump to curiosity before rebuff? Is there a chance that your refusal to acknowledge is part of the power structure that’s allowing injustice to continue? (I know that thought is sickening. It’s awful. It hurts. It makes us think of ways we have let others down, and that is uncomfortable. But stay with it. Hang with me here. You’re in this because you’re not a bad guy.) You, my white male friend, occupy the highest social, economic and political position in our country. And, let’s be real, that position was begotten unfairly. (Breathe. Stay with me, try not to jump to defensiveness. Keep your heart open. Feel me here.) I know this is hard to swallow. You may not think that this is fair. You may not want this position. You may feel like status should be achieved, and not ascribed — and that’s great that you want that. We all want that. That’s what people are asking for: an opportunity for status to be achieved, and not ascribed. ... ... That’s how change gets rolling. Thanks for hanging with me, fellas. I appreciate your time"

http://www.salon.com/2014/12/09/to_my_white_male_facebook_friends/

[Edited on December 9, 2014 at 7:14 PM. Reason : ]

12/9/2014 7:11:24 PM

Just quit Facebook. It's way easier.


You'll stop hating old high school acquaintances that never amounted to anything and you will instead just completely forget that they ever existed (which is the fate they most likely deserve anyway).


And the cute girl you used to sit next to in intro to psychology or whatever who you Facebook stalked probably got fat and shat out a bunch of bratty kids.


Facebook seriously serves no purpose. It's just a drain on your time.

12/9/2014 10:16:40 PM