happyhoix
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Post by happyhoix on Jul 14, 2015 8:15:00 GMT -5
Of course it is. You can cater to whatever community you want, as long as you don't denigrate or exclude someone from participating if they don't happen to be in that particular community. Think about why Trump is getting so much flack right now. If he had simply appealed to his base - white male voters - he would have been no different than lots of other GOP candidates. However, he slammed the latinos and while that galvanized some of his white base, it alienated a lot of other voters. Savannah GA has an Irish bar, a Scottish bar, and a British bar (I've been to all of them - often). They cater to mostly a white beer drinking crowd. However, they are glad to serve anyone who comes inside. There are latino and black customers who go there, too - maybe they like the big beer selection, maybe they like the scotch eggs, I don't know. As long as these bars serve them the same food in the same manner, at the same tables as the white customers, they are fine. It's the same with businesses that cater to other racial groups. There is a great BBQ joint on MLK BLVD in our city, and it's always mostly black customers there when I go. But they are always happy to sell me BBQ too. Money is universally green. Yes, that makes sense. But the author is complaining about institutional racism, businesses not catering enough to black people, particularly the entertainment industry. It appears he doesn't just want to be able to equally patronize businesses that cater to whites, he wants more businesses, institutions, and government agencies to cater to black people.
According to him, having the ability to equally patronize and spend your money isn't enough.
We must have read different articles, that's not what I got from his article at all. What I got was that, even though we have a black president and on the surface there is less obvious racism, our society is still racist, but it's hard to discuss this because blacks end up looking like angry black people and liberal whites end up getting their feelings hurt, because they think our society is so much better than it used to be, and they themselves aren't racist. His point about the entertainment industry was that Hollywood cast a very white actor to play the role of someone who was supposed to be Indian. Why not cast an actual brown actor in that role? Or do you consider that 'catering' to Indian people? Do you remember when the movie the Hunger Games came out? If you read that book, there was a very spunky young girl who participated in the games. She was about 10, and was described in the book has having dark skin and kinky hair. Her fate in the book was very tragic and sad. When the book was made into a movie, this part was played by a black actress (which it seemed clear, from the book, the author intended). There was a nasty backlash on social media from people outraged that the movie had cast a black girl in this role, stating that they no longer cared about this character since she was played by a black, and claiming that they felt like they'd been lied to all along (thinking the character in the book was white). Why wouldn't this character be played by a black actress, since the book was fairly clear that this was a black girl? Why wouldn't you care about this character, once you found out she was black? Her story is still sad and tragic. I think this is what the author of the article was talking about. Not that movies have to cater to blacks, but why can't black characters at least be played by black actors?
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grumpyhermit
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Post by grumpyhermit on Jul 14, 2015 9:09:58 GMT -5
Yes, that makes sense. But the author is complaining about institutional racism, businesses not catering enough to black people, particularly the entertainment industry. It appears he doesn't just want to be able to equally patronize businesses that cater to whites, he wants more businesses, institutions, and government agencies to cater to black people.
According to him, having the ability to equally patronize and spend your money isn't enough.
We must have read different articles, that's not what I got from his article at all. What I got was that, even though we have a black president and on the surface there is less obvious racism, our society is still racist, but it's hard to discuss this because blacks end up looking like angry black people and liberal whites end up getting their feelings hurt, because they think our society is so much better than it used to be, and they themselves aren't racist. His point about the entertainment industry was that Hollywood cast a very white actor to play the role of someone who was supposed to be Indian. Why not cast an actual brown actor in that role? Or do you consider that 'catering' to Indian people? Do you remember when the movie the Hunger Games came out? If you read that book, there was a very spunky young girl who participated in the games. She was about 10, and was described in the book has having dark skin and kinky hair. Her fate in the book was very tragic and sad. When the book was made into a movie, this part was played by a black actress (which it seemed clear, from the book, the author intended). There was a nasty backlash on social media from people outraged that the movie had cast a black girl in this role, stating that they no longer cared about this character since she was played by a black, and claiming that they felt like they'd been lied to all along (thinking the character in the book was white). Why wouldn't this character be played by a black actress, since the book was fairly clear that this was a black girl? Why wouldn't you care about this character, once you found out she was black? Her story is still sad and tragic. I think this is what the author of the article was talking about. Not that movies have to cater to blacks, but why can't black characters at least be played by black actors? I do remember that, and it was disgusting. Why does it matter one iota what color the actor is? How do you suddenly lose empathy for a dead child, fictional or not, simply because they are black? One issue I have with the article, is that he seems to imply that all white liberals reject the notion of racism, because they take it as an attack on them. That may be true for the white liberals he interacts with, though he only really cites his aunt, but it is not true of my circle. I really don't understand how you can look at the country and NOT see that we still have a race issue. Right around the time of the demonstrations in Ferguson, a black co-worker was commenting about how no one wanted to seem to have the discussion about race; for context I am in New England, and workplace is fairly white. I work with a lot of liberal people, I am fairly certain that, if there had been a discussion, the consensus would have been that there is still a race problem in this country. I personally said that to her, and I believe it. I also tried to explain to her why, at least for myself, it is an awkward conversation. It's not that I don't see and recognize it, but at the same time, I have just been conditioned NOT to talk about race. I feel that people that point out the fact that "well we elected a black president" or "well slavery has been abolished for over 150 years" are truly missing the point. My brother is one of the ones that insists that "black people" need to stop using slavery as an "excuse", that everyone has a level playing field. They don't. This notion that we all start from zero, and have equally opportunity in this country, is fundamentally flawed. We are in large part a function of our past, both individually and culturally. Anyone that has born witness to the cycle of generational poverty, be it white or black, can attest to that. That's not to say that people can't overcome their initial circumstance, but to insist that failure to do so is simply due to a weakness on their part, doesn't seem entirely truthful. To the problem of institutional racism, and white complicity, I don't know how you overcome that. The author states that talking about it is a start, but at the same time he states that white liberals are the stumbling block. White liberals are the ONLY white people that I have ever talked with that acknowledge that race is still an issue in this country. I am not sure why there is that disconnect between my experience, and his. I am also not sure how white people are supposed to "opt out" of the privilege. He holds up his aunt as an example; moving to a better neighborhood, getting her kids into better schools. He further implies that it is because the neighborhood was getting blacker, and she moved to the white suburbs to escape. If the schools were declining, what else was she supposed to do? Don't most people want to get their kids into the best schools they can? Should she instead stay in a poorer school district, just to prove that she is not a racist? I really didn't get the point he was trying to make with that example. The fact that white neighborhoods, and white schools, have "better" outcomes, is surely something to look at, but I am not sure that the solution to the problem is for people that can afford to move to better neighborhoods to instead stay where they are. That doesn't combat racism. Is the black family that moves to that same "white" neighborhood for the same reasons also now racist?
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Virgil Showlion
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Jul 14, 2015 9:16:12 GMT -5
Latinos are white? News to me. The more accurate statement would be "Latinos are caucasoid." On most surveys, studies, etc., they're grouped into a separate demographic from "whites".
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Virgil Showlion
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Jul 14, 2015 9:27:10 GMT -5
... There was a nasty backlash on social media from people outraged that the movie had cast a black girl in this role, stating that they no longer cared about this character since she was played by a black, and claiming that they felt like they'd been lied to all along (thinking the character in the book was white). Describe "nasty backlash on social media". Just this past weekend, we had an army of twits tweeting their misgivings about Paula Dean's son darkening his skin to impersonate the Latino character from "I Love Lucy" for a 2012 Halloween party. You could fart too loudly and create a "nasty backlash on social media". It doesn't permit us to draw conclusions about whether an appreciable number of whites can't handle black actors.
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Jul 14, 2015 9:44:00 GMT -5
DD was a fanatic about this stupid movie. She didn't hear any hoopla about the color of the actress. Some people just like to stir/make up shit
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mmhmm
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Post by mmhmm on Jul 14, 2015 10:01:45 GMT -5
Latinos are considered Caucasian/Caucasoid, as opposed to Negroid, or Mongolian/Mongoloid by older standards. Many people still go by these older standards as that is what they learned and know. In more recent times, Australoid was added, but the trend is toward throwing all of that out. This is what results in the misunderstandings that permeate our discussions of races amongst homo sapiens. To me, we're all just homo sapiens.
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Virgil Showlion
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Jul 14, 2015 10:30:30 GMT -5
Latinos are considered Caucasian/Caucasoid, as opposed to Negroid, or Mongolian/Mongoloid by older standards. Many people still go by these older standards as that is what they learned and know. In more recent times, Australoid was added, but the trend is toward throwing all of that out. This is what results in the misunderstandings that permeate our discussions of races amongst homo sapiens. To me, we're all just homo sapiens. They're neutral scientific terms, and they do have uses. A forensic anthropologist specializing in reconstruction is eminently aware of the differences, for example. Ironically, your "To me, we're all just homo sapiens." colour-blindness, which I also consider an ideal, is part of the problem as far as Mr. Metta is concerned. His claim is that our ability to think and judge people as individuals is cultural, and a product of our privileged upbringing as whites. As a minority demographic, black Americans have no choice but to see themselves as an ethnic bloc. For this reason, a white police officer assaulting a black teenager isn't "one white" on "one black", it's "whites on blacks". This is what white Americans, high on privilege, don't understand, he claims. It's why we don't understand Ferguson or the George Zimmerman trial. In short, as far as Mr. Metta is concerned, "To me, we're all just homo sapiens." is northern Americans' excuse for ignoring systemic racism. His letter is more addressed to you or I than to, say, the angry twits that happyhoix is talking about.
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djAdvocate
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Post by djAdvocate on Jul 14, 2015 11:02:54 GMT -5
Latinos are white? News to me. The more accurate statement would be "Latinos are caucasoid." On most surveys, studies, etc., they're grouped into a separate demographic from "whites". i didn't mean to say all. i meant to say some. more than half, to the point: As of 2010, 50.5 million or 16.3% of Americans identified as Hispanic or Latino.[1] Of those, 26.7 million, or 53%, also identified as White. i believe that my category is "non hispanic white", but i honestly can't remember. 2010 seems like a long time ago..,....
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djAdvocate
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Post by djAdvocate on Jul 14, 2015 11:03:40 GMT -5
Latinos are considered Caucasian/Caucasoid, as opposed to Negroid, or Mongolian/Mongoloid by older standards. Many people still go by these older standards as that is what they learned and know. In more recent times, Australoid was added, but the trend is toward throwing all of that out. This is what results in the misunderstandings that permeate our discussions of races amongst homo sapiens. To me, we're all just homo sapiens. races are an artifice. we should really stop treating them as significant.
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djAdvocate
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Post by djAdvocate on Jul 14, 2015 11:05:02 GMT -5
There are lot of brown skinned Latinos. Would you call them white?
are they caucasoid?
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Virgil Showlion
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Jul 14, 2015 11:14:09 GMT -5
Latinos are considered Caucasian/Caucasoid, as opposed to Negroid, or Mongolian/Mongoloid by older standards. Many people still go by these older standards as that is what they learned and know. In more recent times, Australoid was added, but the trend is toward throwing all of that out. This is what results in the misunderstandings that permeate our discussions of races amongst homo sapiens. To me, we're all just homo sapiens. races are an artifice. we should really stop treating them as significant. That's the "melting pot" theory they taught in the 1970's and 1980's. I caught the tail end of it while I was in grade school. It's considered unenlightened and anachronistic today. You're getting old, "bro".
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djAdvocate
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Post by djAdvocate on Jul 14, 2015 11:21:57 GMT -5
races are an artifice. we should really stop treating them as significant. That's the "melting pot" theory they taught in the 1970's and 1980's. I caught the tail end of it while I was in grade school. It's considered unenlightened and anachronistic today. You're getting old, "bro". actually, i am basing it on what i learned from genetics in the 90's. there is paltry little to separate us. edit: if i relied on what i learned in high school, i probably would not even post on this board, bra.
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Waffle
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Post by Waffle on Jul 14, 2015 11:24:11 GMT -5
There are lot of brown skinned Latinos. Would you call them white?
are they caucasoid? I don't know. I really don't understand where certain people would fit in the Caucasoid, Negroid Mongoloid categories.
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mmhmm
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Post by mmhmm on Jul 14, 2015 12:00:42 GMT -5
Latinos are considered Caucasian/Caucasoid, as opposed to Negroid, or Mongolian/Mongoloid by older standards. Many people still go by these older standards as that is what they learned and know. In more recent times, Australoid was added, but the trend is toward throwing all of that out. This is what results in the misunderstandings that permeate our discussions of races amongst homo sapiens. To me, we're all just homo sapiens. They're neutral scientific terms, and they do have uses. A forensic anthropologist specializing in reconstruction is eminently aware of the differences, for example. Ironically, your "To me, we're all just homo sapiens." colour-blindness, which I also consider an ideal, is part of the problem as far as Mr. Metta is concerned. His claim is that our ability to think and judge people as individuals is cultural, and a product of our privileged upbringing as whites. As a minority demographic, black Americans have no choice but to see themselves as an ethnic bloc. For this reason, a white police officer assaulting a black teenager isn't "one white" on "one black", it's "whites on blacks". This is what white Americans, high on privilege, don't understand, he claims. It's why we don't understand Ferguson or the George Zimmerman trial. In short, as far as Mr. Metta is concerned, "To me, we're all just homo sapiens." is northern Americans' excuse for ignoring systemic racism. His letter is more addressed to you or I than to, say, the angry twits that happyhoix is talking about. I'd certainly agree. While I do understand the black point of view from an intellectual standpoint, I could never understand it from inside their cultural perspective, any more than they could understand my view from my cultural perspective. The best I believe we can give it is a real effort toward intellectual understanding. I disagree with Mr. Metta in that I don't believe looking upon human beings as simply human beings is any excuse to ignore systemic racism completely. That, I believe, we can do on both "sides", if we make the effort to do so. I firmly believe many of us do. There are many people (I am one) who have intellectualized colour differences amongst peoples out of their world view, for the most part. My vision tells me the colour of a person's skin. My heart and mind have learned to simply record it and forget it.
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happyhoix
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Post by happyhoix on Jul 14, 2015 12:27:19 GMT -5
... There was a nasty backlash on social media from people outraged that the movie had cast a black girl in this role, stating that they no longer cared about this character since she was played by a black, and claiming that they felt like they'd been lied to all along (thinking the character in the book was white). Describe "nasty backlash on social media". Just this past weekend, we had an army of twits tweeting their misgivings about Paula Dean's son darkening his skin to impersonate the Latino character from "I Love Lucy" for a 2012 Halloween party. You could fart too loudly and create a "nasty backlash on social media". It doesn't permit us to draw conclusions about whether an appreciable number of whites can't handle black actors. www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/white-until-proven-black-imagining-race-in-hunger-games Alana’s tweet was not the most offensive or nakedly racist of the bunch (that award could go to Cliff Kigar, who dropped the N-bomb, or to @gagasalexander, who complained of “some ugly little girl with nappy…hair.”) “Kk call me racist but when I found out rue was black her death wasn’t as sad,”
“I was pumped about the Hunger Games. Until I learned that a black girl was playing Rue,” wrote @johnnyknoxiv
It wasn't that white people couldn't handle black actors. It's that they had read the book and in their minds thought of Rue as a little white girl, and were disturbed by the fact that they used a little black girl (which was how the author described Rue in the book). “Awkward moment when Rue is some black girl and not the little blonde innocent girl you pictureNotice how the author of that last one thought Rue was a 'little blonde innocent girl' and was dissappointed she was played by 'some black girl.' Kind of like how the author in the initial post talks about white men who mass murder people being described as mentally ill, while black men who mass murder people are called thugs. I'm not saying all white people are like this, I'm pointing out that the author of the article is not wrong in claiming that their continues to be an underlying racism in this country.
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Phoenix84
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Post by Phoenix84 on Jul 14, 2015 12:30:37 GMT -5
I thought Hispanic was a "ethnicity" not a "race." I'm not totally sure what the difference is. I thought Hispanic meant identifying with Spanish, Mexican, or maybe South American culture.
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Phoenix84
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Post by Phoenix84 on Jul 14, 2015 12:32:48 GMT -5
That's the "melting pot" theory they taught in the 1970's and 1980's. I caught the tail end of it while I was in grade school. It's considered unenlightened and anachronistic today. You're getting old, "bro". actually, i am basing it on what i learned from genetics in the 90's. there is paltry little to separate us. edit: if i relied on what i learned in high school, i probably would not even post on this board, bra. From what I remember from high school biology, all humans are 99.8% (or something like that) the same from a DNA standpoint. There's only a very small difference to account for all the genetic variability in humans.
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mmhmm
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Post by mmhmm on Jul 14, 2015 12:33:27 GMT -5
I certainly don't deny there is an underlying racism in this country, happyhoix. I just don't believe it to be as pervasive as the sensationalist press would like us to believe it to be. Even here in the south, I don't find the vicious racism that once dominated to be near as common as it was even twenty years ago. People are learning. People are growing. People are changing in their views and their attitudes. The anachronisms notwithstanding, the "old south" is dying and its inherent racism is going with it.
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Politically_Incorrect12
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Post by Politically_Incorrect12 on Jul 14, 2015 14:05:42 GMT -5
Describe "nasty backlash on social media". Just this past weekend, we had an army of twits tweeting their misgivings about Paula Dean's son darkening his skin to impersonate the Latino character from "I Love Lucy" for a 2012 Halloween party. You could fart too loudly and create a "nasty backlash on social media". It doesn't permit us to draw conclusions about whether an appreciable number of whites can't handle black actors. www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/white-until-proven-black-imagining-race-in-hunger-games Alana’s tweet was not the most offensive or nakedly racist of the bunch (that award could go to Cliff Kigar, who dropped the N-bomb, or to @gagasalexander, who complained of “some ugly little girl with nappy…hair.”) “Kk call me racist but when I found out rue was black her death wasn’t as sad,”
“I was pumped about the Hunger Games. Until I learned that a black girl was playing Rue,” wrote @johnnyknoxiv
It wasn't that white people couldn't handle black actors. It's that they had read the book and in their minds thought of Rue as a little white girl, and were disturbed by the fact that they used a little black girl (which was how the author described Rue in the book). “Awkward moment when Rue is some black girl and not the little blonde innocent girl you pictureNotice how the author of that last one thought Rue was a 'little blonde innocent girl' and was dissappointed she was played by 'some black girl.' Kind of like how the author in the initial post talks about white men who mass murder people being described as mentally ill, while black men who mass murder people are called thugs. I'm not saying all white people are like this, I'm pointing out that the author of the article is not wrong in claiming that their continues to be an underlying racism in this country. What's interesting is your grouping of "white people" when something negative like this happens...which seems to be the issue that people complain about when grouping non-white people in as a group when a non-white person does something negative. So it does seem that people group "white people" together when it suits their need to portray them in a negative light. Another poster commented when a white cop and black teen have a confrontation it's whites vs blacks and not just those individuals. Maybe the first step is to stop feelings like a person represents a whole group or to stop lumping people in as a group when something negative happens. Also from a theoretical standpoint, when is racism an issue? Is it only when a majority or a large minority of people are guilty of it or is it that it's an issue whenever anybody has racist feelings? In which case it's an issue as long as anybody is racist at all?
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Politically_Incorrect12
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Post by Politically_Incorrect12 on Jul 14, 2015 14:18:27 GMT -5
We must have read different articles, that's not what I got from his article at all. What I got was that, even though we have a black president and on the surface there is less obvious racism, our society is still racist, but it's hard to discuss this because blacks end up looking like angry black people and liberal whites end up getting their feelings hurt, because they think our society is so much better than it used to be, and they themselves aren't racist. His point about the entertainment industry was that Hollywood cast a very white actor to play the role of someone who was supposed to be Indian. Why not cast an actual brown actor in that role? Or do you consider that 'catering' to Indian people? Do you remember when the movie the Hunger Games came out? If you read that book, there was a very spunky young girl who participated in the games. She was about 10, and was described in the book has having dark skin and kinky hair. Her fate in the book was very tragic and sad. When the book was made into a movie, this part was played by a black actress (which it seemed clear, from the book, the author intended). There was a nasty backlash on social media from people outraged that the movie had cast a black girl in this role, stating that they no longer cared about this character since she was played by a black, and claiming that they felt like they'd been lied to all along (thinking the character in the book was white). Why wouldn't this character be played by a black actress, since the book was fairly clear that this was a black girl? Why wouldn't you care about this character, once you found out she was black? Her story is still sad and tragic. I think this is what the author of the article was talking about. Not that movies have to cater to blacks, but why can't black characters at least be played by black actors? I do remember that, and it was disgusting. Why does it matter one iota what color the actor is? How do you suddenly lose empathy for a dead child, fictional or not, simply because they are black? One issue I have with the article, is that he seems to imply that all white liberals reject the notion of racism, because they take it as an attack on them. That may be true for the white liberals he interacts with, though he only really cites his aunt, but it is not true of my circle. I really don't understand how you can look at the country and NOT see that we still have a race issue. Right around the time of the demonstrations in Ferguson, a black co-worker was commenting about how no one wanted to seem to have the discussion about race; for context I am in New England, and workplace is fairly white. I work with a lot of liberal people, I am fairly certain that, if there had been a discussion, the consensus would have been that there is still a race problem in this country. I personally said that to her, and I believe it. I also tried to explain to her why, at least for myself, it is an awkward conversation. It's not that I don't see and recognize it, but at the same time, I have just been conditioned NOT to talk about race. I feel that people that point out the fact that "well we elected a black president" or "well slavery has been abolished for over 150 years" are truly missing the point. My brother is one of the ones that insists that "black people" need to stop using slavery as an "excuse", that everyone has a level playing field. They don't. This notion that we all start from zero, and have equally opportunity in this country, is fundamentally flawed. We are in large part a function of our past, both individually and culturally. Anyone that has born witness to the cycle of generational poverty, be it white or black, can attest to that. That's not to say that people can't overcome their initial circumstance, but to insist that failure to do so is simply due to a weakness on their part, doesn't seem entirely truthful. To the problem of institutional racism, and white complicity, I don't know how you overcome that. The author states that talking about it is a start, but at the same time he states that white liberals are the stumbling block. White liberals are the ONLY white people that I have ever talked with that acknowledge that race is still an issue in this country. I am not sure why there is that disconnect between my experience, and his. I am also not sure how white people are supposed to "opt out" of the privilege. He holds up his aunt as an example; moving to a better neighborhood, getting her kids into better schools. He further implies that it is because the neighborhood was getting blacker, and she moved to the white suburbs to escape. If the schools were declining, what else was she supposed to do? Don't most people want to get their kids into the best schools they can? Should she instead stay in a poorer school district, just to prove that she is not a racist? I really didn't get the point he was trying to make with that example. The fact that white neighborhoods, and white schools, have "better" outcomes, is surely something to look at, but I am not sure that the solution to the problem is for people that can afford to move to better neighborhoods to instead stay where they are. That doesn't combat racism. Is the black family that moves to that same "white" neighborhood for the same reasons also now racist? Sometimes the problem with generational poverty isn't a lack of opportunity, it's a lack of people wanting others to succeed...white or non-white, it really don't matter. While that may seem like nonsense, I have to ask have you ever been around people who don't really want others to succeed because it takes away their excuse for not succeeding? It's not saying there aren't barriers, or that those in poverty don't have more barriers to success than those not-in-poverty...it's simply that sometimes the issue is if enough people try to hold people back..it's harder to break away from that anchor or to not get pulled back in. The whole idea of people leaving because of racism is non-sense...people with the means will try to give their kids more opportunities and shouldn't let those who don't think they should get those opportunities hold them back from doing it. As far as a discussion about race, it's hard to have one when one side automatically thinks the other is racists if they don't agree or have a different perception. As far as your comment that white liberals are the ONLY white people who acknowledge there is a race issue in this country, are you implying that white conservatives don't think there is a race issue in this country? Also what are you classifying as a race issue? Is it all racism or are you only concerned with racism of white people toward non-white people?
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djAdvocate
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Post by djAdvocate on Jul 14, 2015 14:29:19 GMT -5
actually, i am basing it on what i learned from genetics in the 90's. there is paltry little to separate us. edit: if i relied on what i learned in high school, i probably would not even post on this board, bra. From what I remember from high school biology, all humans are 99.8% (or something like that) the same from a DNA standpoint. There's only a very small difference to account for all the genetic variability in humans. it might be even higher than that, but that is close enough for me. if you and i had that much OPINION in common, there would be nothing to discuss.
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grumpyhermit
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Post by grumpyhermit on Jul 14, 2015 14:36:38 GMT -5
I did qualify that with "that I have met." I was only speaking from my personal experience, which is all I can really do. And no, none of the white conservatives I know have ever acknowledged there is still a problem with race in this country. They tend to drag out examples similar to my brothers.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 14, 2015 14:59:56 GMT -5
I did qualify that with "that I have met." I was only speaking from my personal experience, which is all I can really do. And no, none of the white conservatives I know have ever acknowledged there is still a problem with race in this country. They tend to drag out examples similar to my brothers. Liberals will say there is a race problem in America, but most of them will not admit to being part of the problem. The banking thing I mentioned earlier where blacks and whites were given the same back story and the blacks were treated poorly, but not blatantly bad, I bet all those people would have said they were not racists or prejudiced. What I asked LB about when Virgil was talking about default rates differences between blacks and whites, everyone can pretty much guess which race defaults more. Many liberals have many of the same prejudices as those who are more open about their prejudices. I think it is liberals shouting down anyone who wants to be honest about their views by calling them racists is a big part of why racism still is still so prevalent.
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Virgil Showlion
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Jul 14, 2015 15:03:32 GMT -5
Describe "nasty backlash on social media". Just this past weekend, we had an army of twits tweeting their misgivings about Paula Dean's son darkening his skin to impersonate the Latino character from "I Love Lucy" for a 2012 Halloween party. You could fart too loudly and create a "nasty backlash on social media". It doesn't permit us to draw conclusions about whether an appreciable number of whites can't handle black actors. www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/white-until-proven-black-imagining-race-in-hunger-games Alana’s tweet was not the most offensive or nakedly racist of the bunch (that award could go to Cliff Kigar, who dropped the N-bomb, or to @gagasalexander, who complained of “some ugly little girl with nappy…hair.”) “Kk call me racist but when I found out rue was black her death wasn’t as sad,”
“I was pumped about the Hunger Games. Until I learned that a black girl was playing Rue,” wrote @johnnyknoxiv
It wasn't that white people couldn't handle black actors. It's that they had read the book and in their minds thought of Rue as a little white girl, and were disturbed by the fact that they used a little black girl (which was how the author described Rue in the book). “Awkward moment when Rue is some black girl and not the little blonde innocent girl you pictureNotice how the author of that last one thought Rue was a 'little blonde innocent girl' and was dissappointed she was played by 'some black girl.' Kind of like how the author in the initial post talks about white men who mass murder people being described as mentally ill, while black men who mass murder people are called thugs. I'm not saying all white people are like this, I'm pointing out that the author of the article is not wrong in claiming that their continues to be an underlying racism in this country. Who the heck are "@gagasalexander" and "@johnnyknoxiv"? They're tweeting twits among the hundred million tweeting twitters plugging up the Internet with whatever detritus crosses their minds. I slogged through that entire article and found not one attempt to quantify what fraction of tweeters (let alone citizens) the comments represent. The "Hunger Games Tweets" site it references is a disaster. If you can find anything remotely resembling analysis there, point it out to me. I see the same phenomenon on YouTube comments. They're totally uncensored. Any video where ethnicity is even remotely a factor is chock full of anti-black, anti-white, anti-racism, anti-anti-racism flamefests between ten-year-old kids. The only difference here is that some Torontonian suddenly clued into the fact that more than x% of the English-speaking world has strong misgivings about black people, and that x > 0.00001, which is the sum of what can be concluded based on a few hundred or even a few thousand tweets since 2011. Personally I'm guessing that x is a lot bigger than 0.0001, and that still doesn't prove it's a significant problem. If the news sites (CNN, the New Yorker, "Buzzfeed", "Jezebel", et al.) carrying the story aren't bothering to quantify the extent of the problem--and I'm willing to bet diamonds to dollars they aren't--then screw what they have to say. They're mongering a contentious issue they know will drive traffic to their sites, not caring whether it's even halfway significant, and citing "tweets" because they can't be bothered to do any actual research.
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NomoreDramaQ1015
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Post by NomoreDramaQ1015 on Jul 14, 2015 15:09:23 GMT -5
It's easy to end things like segreated bathrooms or schools b/c those are easily visible.
It's a lot harder to change how people think and how they view the world. it's the same thing with gender. Two resumes will be given that are EXACTLY the same, the sole difference is one name is female and the other is male.
The female job applicant consistently gets offered a lower salary and words that were praised on the male's resume are a negative on a woman's.
Yet every time the people taking the survey swore they were not sexist.
How do you regulate and change how people think/view the world? Unless told you don't know you aren't getting the job b/c of some predetermined bias against race/gender/sexuality.
That is the hard part. It's easy to eliminate blatant racism.
I think that is where the article writer is partially coming from. It's easy to point to the fact we no longer have separate drinking fountains and pat ourselves the back. The unconcious biases a lot of people hold are much much harder to detect and combat. Unless I am the person on the recieving end I am not going to get it.
I wish I had an answer on how to change those things. I think over time as more generations pass away we'll get to a point where unconcious biases matter less and less, but that doesn't address how to handle things today.
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Virgil Showlion
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Jul 14, 2015 15:14:26 GMT -5
I'd certainly agree. While I do understand the black point of view from an intellectual standpoint, I could never understand it from inside their cultural perspective, any more than they could understand my view from my cultural perspective. The best I believe we can give it is a real effort toward intellectual understanding. I disagree with Mr. Metta in that I don't believe looking upon human beings as simply human beings is any excuse to ignore systemic racism completely. That, I believe, we can do on both "sides", if we make the effort to do so. I firmly believe many of us do. There are many people (I am one) who have intellectualized colour differences amongst peoples out of their world view, for the most part. My vision tells me the colour of a person's skin. My heart and mind have learned to simply record it and forget it. If I may boldly paraphrase Mr. Metta's message, it's that "simply record it and forget it" is insufficient. Black Americans are suffering and dying. Do something now or don't be surprised when your city burns down around you. He doesn't really put it so brashly until the very end, but that's the crux of his message.
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grumpyhermit
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Post by grumpyhermit on Jul 14, 2015 15:17:22 GMT -5
I did qualify that with "that I have met." I was only speaking from my personal experience, which is all I can really do. And no, none of the white conservatives I know have ever acknowledged there is still a problem with race in this country. They tend to drag out examples similar to my brothers. Liberals will say there is a race problem in America, but most of them will not admit to being part of the problem. The banking thing I mentioned earlier where blacks and whites were given the same back story and the blacks were treated poorly, but not blatantly bad, I bet all those people would have said they were not racists or prejudiced. What I asked LB about when Virgil was talking about default rates differences between blacks and whites, everyone can pretty much guess which race defaults more. Many liberals have many of the same prejudices as those who are more open about their prejudices. I think it is liberals shouting down anyone who wants to be honest about their views by calling them racists is a big part of why racism still is still so prevalent.Yes, I'm sure that must be it.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 14, 2015 15:20:21 GMT -5
Liberals will say there is a race problem in America, but most of them will not admit to being part of the problem. The banking thing I mentioned earlier where blacks and whites were given the same back story and the blacks were treated poorly, but not blatantly bad, I bet all those people would have said they were not racists or prejudiced. What I asked LB about when Virgil was talking about default rates differences between blacks and whites, everyone can pretty much guess which race defaults more. Many liberals have many of the same prejudices as those who are more open about their prejudices. I think it is liberals shouting down anyone who wants to be honest about their views by calling them racists is a big part of why racism still is still so prevalent.Yes, I'm sure that must be it. I think you are being sarcastic. Not letting people you disagree with talk without insulting them often shuts down the conversation. I realize many liberals think the solution is just more and better laws. I do not think force is.
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mmhmm
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Post by mmhmm on Jul 14, 2015 15:22:18 GMT -5
I'd certainly agree. While I do understand the black point of view from an intellectual standpoint, I could never understand it from inside their cultural perspective, any more than they could understand my view from my cultural perspective. The best I believe we can give it is a real effort toward intellectual understanding. I disagree with Mr. Metta in that I don't believe looking upon human beings as simply human beings is any excuse to ignore systemic racism completely. That, I believe, we can do on both "sides", if we make the effort to do so. I firmly believe many of us do. There are many people (I am one) who have intellectualized colour differences amongst peoples out of their world view, for the most part. My vision tells me the colour of a person's skin. My heart and mind have learned to simply record it and forget it. If I may boldly paraphrase Mr. Metta's message, it's that "simply record it and forget it" is insufficient. Black Americans are suffering and dying. Do something now or don't be surprised when your city burns down around you. He doesn't really put it so brashly until the very end, but that's the crux of his message. I'm very capable of discerning the crux of Mr. Metta's message, Virgil. I'm reasonably skilled at deciphering the English language all by myself. I do not agree with Mr. Metta's message. Just because one doesn't delineate people according to the colour of their skin does not mean one cannot realize people are suffering and dying. People of all colours suffer and die. If anyone knows that, I do. I care about each and every one, no matter their colour. They're human beings.
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Phoenix84
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Post by Phoenix84 on Jul 14, 2015 15:27:51 GMT -5
I think the bottom line is most whites are conditioned from a very young age not to talk about race. It's just not polite, ranking up there with religion and politics as something you don't talk about openly.
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