The Ghetto is Public Policy

[Jenksismyhero]

Here's that other article/post by TNC I mentionedt, Other People's Pathologies. It starts off with several links to a back-and-forth conversation he had been having with Jonathan Chait via blog posts.

 

I haven't read the back and forths yet, but it is interesting how he starts off trying to differentiate between black culture and a culture of poverty, and then spends 5000 words arguing that any white person that attempts to say that things have gotten better for blacks is just spewing "sophomoric feel-good rendering of his country's past."

 

I can appreciate this guys position and he makes some good points here or there, but i'm not sure what he wants at the end of the day. People already realize slavery was awful. People realize that the Jim Crow era was awful. People realize that the current situation for many blacks is a result of the policies that have been practiced by people (and at times, our governments) over the last couple hundred years.

 

But other than actual, skin head racists, who in 2014 supports those policies/beliefs? The answer is no one, but reading his articles it's like he wants you to believe that everyone is still racist and everyone wants a white supremacy today. Which is ludicrous. We bend over backwards these days for minorities. We've constitutionally determined that everyone needs to be treated equally...unless you're non-white, then it's cool.

 

 

[StrangeSox]

But other than actual, skin head racists, who in 2014 supports those policies/beliefs? The answer is no one, but reading his articles it's like he wants you to believe that everyone is still racist and everyone wants a white supremacy today. Which is ludicrous. We bend over backwards these days for minorities. We've constitutionally determined that everyone needs to be treated equally...unless you're non-white, then it's cool.

 

How do to reconcile that claim with the reality that black unemployment is higher across all levels of education? That black income is lower across all levels? That sending a resume with a "black" name like Yolanda gets zero callbacks but changing the name to Jennifer but otherwise leaving the resume identical results in callbacks? That there are still landlords like Donald Sterling who conspire to keep certain groups of people out of affordable housing based on race, that two of the biggest banks in the country have relatively recently paid 9-figure fines for ongoing discriminatory lending practices? We have sitting Supreme Court justices who call voting rights protections "racial entitlements" and vote to gut them.

 

Sotomayor did a good job of responding to the idea that the only truly equal path forward is "color-blind" policies in her dissent in the recent affirmative action case:

 

Race matters. Race matters in part because of the long history of racial minorities’ being denied access to the political process. See Part I, supra; see also South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U. S. 301, 309 (1966) (describingracial discrimination in voting as “an insidious and pervasive evil which had been perpetuated in certain parts of our country through unremitting and ingenious defiance of the Constitution”). And although we have made great strides, “voting discrimination still exists; no one doubts that.” Shelby County, 570 U. S., at __ (slip op., at 2).

 

Race also matters because of persistent racial inequality in society—inequality that cannot be ignored and that has produced stark socioeconomic disparities. See Gratz, 539 U. S., at 298–300 (Ginsburg, J., dissenting) (cataloging the many ways in which “the effects of centuries of law-sanctioned inequality remain painfully evident in our communities and schools,” in areas like employment, poverty, access to health care, housing, consumer transactions, and education); Adarand, 515 U. S., at 273 (Ginsburg, J., dissenting) (recognizing that the “lingering effects” of discrimination, “reflective of a system of racial caste only recently ended, are evident in our workplaces, markets, and neighborhoods”).

 

And race matters for reasons that really are only skin deep, that cannot be discussed any other way, and that cannot be wished away. Race matters to a young man’s view of society when he spends his teenage years watching others tense up as he passes, no matter the neighborhood where he grew up. Race matters to a young woman’s sense of self when she states her hometown, and then is pressed, “No, where are you really from?”, regardless of how many generations her family has been in the country. Race matters to a young person addressed by a stranger in a foreign language, which he does not understand because only English was spoken at home. Race matters because of the slights, the snickers, the silent judgments that reinforce that most crippling of thoughts: “I do not belong here.”

 

In my colleagues’ view, examining the racial impact of legislation only perpetuates racial discrimination. This refusal to accept the stark reality that race matters is regrettable. The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to speak openly and candidly on the subject of race, and to apply the Constitution with eyes open to the unfortunate effects of centuries of racial discrimination. As members of the judiciary tasked with intervening to carry out the guarantee of equal protection, we ought not sit back and wish away, rather than confront, the racial inequality that exists in our society. It is this view that works harm, by perpetuating the facile notion that what makes race matter is acknowledging the simple truth that race does matter.

 

edit: I will once again go to the well of TNC for his post a few weeks ago, "This Town Needs a Better Class of Racist", a commentary how society may be quick to condemn something as blatant as Sterling saying "don't bring blacks to my games!" but never really cared much about the much more damaging housing discrimination he engaged in. Someone else had posted this Bomani Jones interview in the NBA thread back at the time which addresses the same issue, "about how exasperating it is for those of us who see the everyday effects of race to have to deal with the performative sanctimony of those who deny race's continuing impact in all but the most obvious, largely inconsequential situations[...]"

 

The false idea that we "bend over backwards these days for minorities" contrasted with the reality that shows the complete opposite is exactly why people like TNC advocate for something like HR40. This country is still very much in denial about its past, present and future sins.

Edited May 28, 2014 by StrangeSox

[Soxbadger]

How do to reconcile that claim with the reality that black unemployment is higher across all levels of education? That black income is lower across all levels? That sending a resume with a "black" name like Yolanda gets zero callbacks but changing the name to Jennifer but otherwise leaving the resume identical results in callbacks? That there are still landlords like Donald Sterling who conspire to keep certain groups of people out of affordable housing based on race, that two of the biggest banks in the country have relatively recently paid 9-figure fines for ongoing discriminatory lending practices? We have sitting Supreme Court justices who call voting rights protections "racial entitlements" and vote to gut them.

 

Sotomayor did a good job of responding to the idea that the only truly equal path forward is "color-blind" policies in her dissent in the recent affirmative action case:

 

Yolanda is spanish/greek origin so that would be really odd if someone assumed they were black. Why not just change it to "send a resume with a non-protestant name" because thats really what we are talking about. Not just black people.

 

Thats my problem here, that there are millions of americans who have suffered "unfair" treatment. In fact the reason why most Americans came to this country was to escape some sort of "unfairness."

 

Sometimes its about individual responsibility. I have no problem helping people who need help today. I would raise taxes, whatever to help the unfortunate.

 

But I am not going to pay them for the bad actions of others. That makes no sense and will do nothing to help any of this.

 

[StrangeSox]

Re: white supremacy, let me frame it like this:

 

We had a society built on explicit white supremacy for centuries. It resulted in the impoverization of blacks and the enrichment of whites. If we suddenly and immediately change to 100% colorblind, race-neutral policies with zero reparations or restoration, how are you not just locking in the 300 or so years of white supremacy?

 

To use an analogy, you can't run a race with one runner loaded with an extra hundred pounds of weight, remove that weight half way and then pretend it's all equal from that point on.

[Jenksismyhero]

How do to reconcile that claim with the reality that black unemployment is higher across all levels of education? That black income is lower across all levels? That sending a resume with a "black" name like Yolanda gets zero callbacks but changing the name to Jennifer but otherwise leaving the resume identical results in callbacks? That there are still landlords like Donald Sterling who conspire to keep certain groups of people out of affordable housing based on race, that two of the biggest banks in the country have relatively recently paid 9-figure fines for ongoing discriminatory lending practices? We have sitting Supreme Court justices who call voting rights protections "racial entitlements" and vote to gut them.

 

Sotomayor did a good job of responding to the idea that the only truly equal path forward is "color-blind" policies in her dissent in the recent affirmative action case:

 

 

 

edit: I will once again go to the well of TNC for his post a few weeks ago, "This Town Needs a Better Class of Racist", a commentary how society may be quick to condemn something as blatant as Sterling saying "don't bring blacks to my games!" but never really cared much about the much more damaging housing discrimination he engaged in. Someone else had posted this Bomani Jones interview in the NBA thread back at the time which addresses the same issue, "about how exasperating it is for those of us who see the everyday effects of race to have to deal with the performative sanctimony of those who deny race's continuing impact in all but the most obvious, largely inconsequential situations[...]"

 

The false idea that we "bend over backwards these days for minorities" contrasted with the reality that shows the complete opposite is exactly why people like TNC advocate for something like HR40. This country is still very much in denial about its past, present and future sins.

 

Not sure, but I don't think white people in 2014 look at blacks and say "i'm not going to hire them because they're dark skinned." I think it most likely comes back to a culture issue and the human nature to stereotype. You and Coates and others want the government to change that, but I dunno how you do it.

Edited May 28, 2014 by Jenksismybitch

[Jenksismyhero]

Re: white supremacy, let me frame it like this:

 

We had a society built on explicit white supremacy for centuries. It resulted in the impoverization of blacks and the enrichment of whites. If we suddenly and immediately change to 100% colorblind, race-neutral policies with zero reparations or restoration, how are you not just locking in the 300 or so years of white supremacy?

 

To use an analogy, you can't run a race with one runner loaded with an extra hundred pounds of weight, remove that weight half way and then pretend it's all equal from that point on.

 

This is a fallacy too. Tons of whites were "kept down" at the start of our country.

[StrangeSox]

Yolanda is spanish/greek origin so that would be really odd if someone assumed they were black. Why not just change it to "send a resume with a non-protestant name" because thats really what we are talking about. Not just black people.

 

Yolanda is a common black name in this country. Regardless, I had a specific example in mind of Yolanda Spivey/Bianca White.

 

http://brandredresume.com/meet-yolanda-spi...use-of-her-race

 

Thats my problem here, that there are millions of americans who have suffered "unfair" treatment. In fact the reason why most Americans came to this country was to escape some sort of "unfairness."

 

Sometimes its about individual responsibility. I have no problem helping people who need help today. I would raise taxes, whatever to help the unfortunate.

 

But I am not going to pay them for the bad actions of others. That makes no sense and will do nothing to help any of this.

 

Have you read the article? The article isn't actually really about any particular reparations scheme. And though he focuses on black americans, I really doubt TNC wouldn't be supportive of broader programs to help all sorts of people. But as far as systematic mistreatment by both private and especially public actors and institutions, only American Indians have a similar claim to African Americans in this country.

[StrangeSox]

This is a fallacy too. Tons of whites were "kept down" at the start of our country.

 

But white was still supreme to black.

 

“The two great divisions of society are not the rich and poor, but white and black,” John C. Calhoun, South Carolina’s senior senator, declared on the Senate floor in 1848. “And all the former, the poor as well as the rich, belong to the upper class, and are respected and treated as equals.”

 

It's not a fallacy to say that a country that was built on slave labor, had all sorts of black codes, at one point denied that any black person could ever be considered a US citizen, had Jim Crow and voter suppression and white terrorism for decades is a country that was built on white supremacy. It was very explicitly white supremacist for quite a while.

[Soxbadger]

Re: white supremacy, let me frame it like this:

 

We had a society built on explicit white supremacy for centuries. It resulted in the impoverization of blacks and the enrichment of whites. If we suddenly and immediately change to 100% colorblind, race-neutral policies with zero reparations or restoration, how are you not just locking in the 300 or so years of white supremacy?

 

To use an analogy, you can't run a race with one runner loaded with an extra hundred pounds of weight, remove that weight half way and then pretend it's all equal from that point on.

 

Its not the same race. Not one person who was alive 300 years ago is alive today. You just seemingly have this strange view that no one can overcome bad things. That no one has ever had their life ripped away from them, that no one has had their property taken by a govt, that no one has been enslaved etc etc.

 

Its as if you are ignoring the vast truth, most people in the world have suffered this fate. If anything it is the rare few who can honestly say that at no point in history did they get a bad shake.

 

The race analogy makes no sense. You are picking arbitrary beginnings, why not go back 5,000-10,000 years? Or does that not fit into the "look at how bad this one select group had it" while completely ignoring that many other groups had it as bad (if not worse) and do not suffer the same societal problems.

 

[StrangeSox]

Not sure, but I don't think white people in 2014 look at blacks and say "i'm not going to hire them because they're dark skinned." I think it most likely comes back to a culture issue and the human nature to stereotype.

 

Right. Modern racism is much more subtle than it was in past generations, but it still very much a pervasive and powerful force.

 

You and Coates and others want the government to change that, but I dunno how you do it.

 

Government is one particular tool that can be used to change it. Works programs, better education, more equal resources, police forces that don't immediately view every black person as a likely criminal who should be stopped and frisked are all important components. But the first step is getting people to recognize the reality of our history and our present, which is what I've taken away from this article. Coates didn't set out to make sweeping policy proposals with this piece, just as every diagnosis doesn't necessarily need to come with a prescription.

[StrangeSox]

Its not the same race. Not one person who was alive 300 years ago is alive today. You just seemingly have this strange view that no one can overcome bad things. That no one has ever had their life ripped away from them, that no one has had their property taken by a govt, that no one has been enslaved etc etc.

 

Consider it a relay race, then, where the first 3 runners for one team all have 100 pound weights. Each generation that gets oppressed leaves the next one that much farther behind at the start of the next leg.

 

People can and have overcome bad things. The history of abolition is a story of blacks and whites working to overcome slavery. The history of the civil rights movement is the same. That does not mean we, as a society, should not work to undue the bad things we have done and to prevent more bad things from happening in the future.

 

Its as if you are ignoring the vast truth, most people in the world have suffered this fate. If anything it is the rare few who can honestly say that at no point in history did they get a bad shake.

 

The race analogy makes no sense. You are picking arbitrary beginnings, why not go back 5,000-10,000 years? Or does that not fit into the "look at how bad this one select group had it" while completely ignoring that many other groups had it as bad (if not worse) and do not suffer the same societal problems.

 

The US government and various state governments which perpetrated white supremacy and black oppression still exists. Most people in the US do not have direct ancestry that suffered the same sort of fate that black America has at the hands of the US government and its various state governments. It's not arbitrary to pick as a starting point the starting point of the country and political entity in which we live.

Edited May 28, 2014 by StrangeSox

[Soxbadger]

Government is one particular tool that can be used to change it. Works programs, better education, more equal resources, police forces that don't immediately view every black person as a likely criminal who should be stopped and frisked are all important components. But the first step is getting people to recognize the reality of our history and our present, which is what I've taken away from this article. Coates didn't set out to make sweeping policy proposals with this piece, just as every diagnosis doesn't necessarily need to come with a prescription.

 

The real first step is to man up and take responsibility for your own actions. Slavery was bad, minorities in America have gotten a bad shake. But you cant forcefully change peoples opinions.

 

If you want to change peoples opinions, you need to do something to change it. Writing unnecessarily long articles about how minorities have had it bad (while you completely focus on blacks while ignoring everyone else) doesnt help your cause. It alienates the people who may have helped you.

 

 

[Jenksismyhero]

Right. Modern racism is much more subtle than it was in past generations, but it still very much a pervasive and powerful force.

 

See, this is where we have a disagreement. I don't think that's racist. Maybe a stereotype, maybe a prejudice, but not racist. Racist is literally i'm white, you're back so you're inferior. Prejudice is I've watched the news in Chicago and have seen reports of what black teens in groups repeatedly do when they're away from school and the weather is warm, so i'm going to cross the street just in case. That's not racist, that's a prejudice. Can that be dangerous? Sure. But it's also human nature to be like that. And you're a lying sack if you say that you don't think the same way.

 

That's why i'm not sure what you expect people to do. We've created laws in this country guaranteeing equality and guaranteeing rights. I think that's the best we can do. I think it takes time to get over those prejudices, if it ever happens.

 

Government is one particular tool that can be used to change it. Works programs, better education, more equal resources, police forces that don't immediately view every black person as a likely criminal who should be stopped and frisked are all important components. But the first step is getting people to recognize the reality of our history and our present, which is what I've taken away from this article. Coates didn't set out to make sweeping policy proposals with this piece, just as every diagnosis doesn't necessarily need to come with a prescription.

 

We've done this for 40-50 years. Throw money at the problem. It's still not changing, so as I said to Shack pages ago, why would it change this time around? In Chicago (and most parts of the country), you have special schools for inner city kids. You have minority-only contract bids for work from the city. You have job programs. You have housing programs. I don't know the statistics, but i'm sure the vast majority of those programs are used by blacks and not whites (I know the CHA for example is 90% black occupants). And we're not really seeing any appreciable change, right?

 

 

[Jenksismyhero]

The real first step is to man up and take responsibility for your own actions. Slavery was bad, minorities in America have gotten a bad shake. But you cant forcefully change peoples opinions.

 

If you want to change peoples opinions, you need to do something to change it. Writing unnecessarily long articles about how minorities have had it bad (while you completely focus on blacks while ignoring everyone else) doesnt help your cause. It alienates the people who may have helped you.

 

Agreed. Telling white people that they don't appreciate how much they've f***ed up black people's lives and how f***ed up their notions of American history are is not going to help.

[Soxbadger]

Consider it a relay race, then, where the first 3 runners for one team all have 100 pound weights. Each generation that gets oppressed leaves the next one that much farther behind at the start of the next leg.

 

People can and have overcome bad things. The history of abolition is a story of blacks and whites working to overcome slavery. The history of the civil rights movement is the same. That does not mean we, as a society, should not work to undue the bad things we have done and to prevent more bad things from happening in the future.

 

 

 

The US government and various state governments which perpetrated white supremacy and black oppression still exists. Most people in the US do not have direct ancestry that suffered the same sort of fate that black America has at the hands of the US government and its various state governments. It's not arbitrary to pick as a starting point the starting point of the country and political entity in which we live.

 

So how do you explain Jews? Jews were oppressed by blacks to start. They have been oppressed for thousands of years. Yet Jews in America ( http://www.jewishfederations.org/page.aspx?id=46193 ) are doing as well or better than most other groups. They had no relay race advantage. Its just they are used to having their lives destroyed over and over again. So what is the excuse?

 

And its the definition of arbitrary. You are picking the US, completely ignoring that there were thousands of "relay races" before you even got a chance in this country.

 

Fairness isnt about punishing people who had nothing to do with a crime. If that was fairness, then we should give the US back to the Native Americans.

Edited May 28, 2014 by Soxbadger

[cabiness42]

So how do you explain Jews? Jews were oppressed by blacks to start. They have been oppressed for thousands of years. Yet Jews in America ( http://www.jewishfederations.org/page.aspx?id=46193 ) are doing as well or better than most other groups. They had no relay race advantage. Its just they are used to having their lives destroyed over and over again. So what is the excuse?

 

And its the definition of arbitrary. You are picking the US, completely ignoring that there were thousands of "relay races" before you even got a chance in this country.

 

Fairness isnt about punishing people who had nothing to do with a crime. If that was fairness, then we should give the US back to the Native Americans.

 

Jews in America were never forced into slavery or denied the right to vote, but other than that I agree with you that we can't just single out blacks and hand them cash to "make up" for slavery.

 

The single best way to improve the lives of those living below the poverty level is improving education. I'm talking about billions and billions of dollars worth of investment in infrastructure and people. But nobody wants to do that because for some bizarre reason, we've tied school funding directly to property taxes, whereas money for just about everything else comes out of general income/sales taxes so people don't notice the increases as sharply.

 

[Jenksismyhero]

Jews in America were never forced into slavery or denied the right to vote, but other than that I agree with you that we can't just single out blacks and hand them cash to "make up" for slavery.

 

The single best way to improve the lives of those living below the poverty level is improving education. I'm talking about billions and billions of dollars worth of investment in infrastructure and people. But nobody wants to do that because for some bizarre reason, we've tied school funding directly to property taxes, whereas money for just about everything else comes out of general income/sales taxes so people don't notice the increases as sharply.

 

I agree education is the key, but plopping a new building with state of the art tech in the middle of the ghetto isn't going to change anything. Kids have to want to be in school. They have to escape the streets. More money may help some, but it's not going to change a lot of what is going on in the poorest areas of the city.

[iamshack]

Badger and Jenks...do you guys really believe what you're typing, or do you just have your lawyer hats on in here?

 

I get that a solution isn't particularly easy to come by, but you both are pretending as if the teams are now fair and square, when they clearly are not.

 

To use a sports analogy, this is akin to comparing the Yankees to the smallest revenue team in the league, and expecting them to both win the same number of titles.

 

The deck is stacked, and you, me, SS and Badger have benefited and will continue to benefit from it. I'm not saying you should give up all those benefits and go live in the projects or anything, but you could at least have the decency to recognize that you have indeed benefited.

[Soxbadger]

Badger and Jenks...do you guys really believe what you're typing, or do you just have your lawyer hats on in here?

 

I get that a solution isn't particularly easy to come by, but you both are pretending as if the teams are now fair and square, when they clearly are not.

 

To use a sports analogy, this is akin to comparing the Yankees to the smallest revenue team in the league, and expecting them to both win the same number of titles.

 

The deck is stacked, and you, me, SS and Badger have benefited and will continue to benefit from it. I'm not saying you should give up all those benefits and go live in the projects or anything, but you could at least have the decency to recognize that you have indeed benefited.

 

I have never said the teams are fair, the teams are anything but fair. The problem is that the article doesnt really understand the teams. The teams are rich and poor, not black and white. White people dont have some sort of communal "lets screw black people", neither do black people. All poor people, black, white, whatever, deserve a better chance in this country. Not because of what happened in the past, but because bad things are happening today. Because the system is rigged today so that rich people get better advantages than poor people.

 

So the deck is stacked, but the stacking is based on wealth. You cant compare Obama's child to a kid on the south side, it does not matter if they both came from slave families, if they both suffered racism, whatever. Those decks have been reshuffled a million times.

 

But no one wants to actually really shuffle the deck. So I absolutely believe what I wrote. I think that all of this is completely missing the point and just creates the fallacy that allows the deck to continue to be stacked.

[iamshack]

I have never said the teams are fair, the teams are anything but fair. The problem is that the article doesnt really understand the teams. The teams are rich and poor, not black and white. White people dont have some sort of communal "lets screw black people", neither do black people. All poor people, black, white, whatever, deserve a better chance in this country. Not because of what happened in the past, but because bad things are happening today. Because the system is rigged today so that rich people get better advantages than poor people.

 

So the deck is stacked, but the stacking is based on wealth. You cant compare Obama's child to a kid on the south side, it does not matter if they both came from slave families, if they both suffered racism, whatever. Those decks have been reshuffled a million times.

 

But no one wants to actually really shuffle the deck. So I absolutely believe what I wrote. I think that all of this is completely missing the point and just creates the fallacy that allows the deck to continue to be stacked.

Ok...I guess I will just agree to disagree.

[Jenksismyhero]

Badger and Jenks...do you guys really believe what you're typing, or do you just have your lawyer hats on in here?

 

I get that a solution isn't particularly easy to come by, but you both are pretending as if the teams are now fair and square, when they clearly are not.

 

To use a sports analogy, this is akin to comparing the Yankees to the smallest revenue team in the league, and expecting them to both win the same number of titles.

 

The deck is stacked, and you, me, SS and Badger have benefited and will continue to benefit from it. I'm not saying you should give up all those benefits and go live in the projects or anything, but you could at least have the decency to recognize that you have indeed benefited.

 

I've been benefited sure, by being male, by being white, by being born in the US, by being born in 1982 and not 1682, by being healthy, by having two loving parents, etc. So what? That doesn't diminish what i've done to get where i'm at, or what my parents and grandparents did to get me where i'm at. My family was a bunch of poor to middle class farmers from the midwest. They grew up in tiny ass towns of several hundred people. They didn't contribute to this existing problem just like I haven't.

[Soxbadger]

Ok...I guess I will just agree to disagree.

 

I dont expect people to agree. Agreeing with me means that most of us would have to give up significant advantages in life. Not race/gender, things like leaving money to your children, primary education based on merit, not on location etc.

 

No one that had a stacked deck really wants those things. Most really want the advantage, they just want to pretend that they care about others so they can sleep at night.

 

 

[southsider2k5]

How do to reconcile that claim with the reality that black unemployment is higher across all levels of education? That black income is lower across all levels? That sending a resume with a "black" name like Yolanda gets zero callbacks but changing the name to Jennifer but otherwise leaving the resume identical results in callbacks? That there are still landlords like Donald Sterling who conspire to keep certain groups of people out of affordable housing based on race, that two of the biggest banks in the country have relatively recently paid 9-figure fines for ongoing discriminatory lending practices? We have sitting Supreme Court justices who call voting rights protections "racial entitlements" and vote to gut them.

 

Sotomayor did a good job of responding to the idea that the only truly equal path forward is "color-blind" policies in her dissent in the recent affirmative action case:

 

 

 

edit: I will once again go to the well of TNC for his post a few weeks ago, "This Town Needs a Better Class of Racist", a commentary how society may be quick to condemn something as blatant as Sterling saying "don't bring blacks to my games!" but never really cared much about the much more damaging housing discrimination he engaged in. Someone else had posted this Bomani Jones interview in the NBA thread back at the time which addresses the same issue, "about how exasperating it is for those of us who see the everyday effects of race to have to deal with the performative sanctimony of those who deny race's continuing impact in all but the most obvious, largely inconsequential situations[...]"

 

The false idea that we "bend over backwards these days for minorities" contrasted with the reality that shows the complete opposite is exactly why people like TNC advocate for something like HR40. This country is still very much in denial about its past, present and future sins.

 

How does reparations fix any of that going forward?

 

[southsider2k5]

Jews in America were never forced into slavery or denied the right to vote, but other than that I agree with you that we can't just single out blacks and hand them cash to "make up" for slavery.

 

The single best way to improve the lives of those living below the poverty level is improving education. I'm talking about billions and billions of dollars worth of investment in infrastructure and people. But nobody wants to do that because for some bizarre reason, we've tied school funding directly to property taxes, whereas money for just about everything else comes out of general income/sales taxes so people don't notice the increases as sharply.

 

Almost more important is the change in cultural value towards education. Being involved in a school system with a majority poverty rate the biggest problem is that the parents don't value education, so the kids don't. I see Kindergarteners who aren't in school every day, and when they are there, they aren't doing their homework. There are kids in those classes who get to school and have never used a book. I don't mean can't read, I mean they have no idea how to open it, which way the pages go, etc.

 

That is the problem you have to solve first, before you can solve any poverty related issues in this country. When you have a culture (and I am not just talking about a black culture here, I am talking just as much about the poor white population in this country) that devalues intelligence, there is no program that is going to change their lives. You must have a culture where being as smart as possible, is as desirable as possible, at all socioeconomic levels.

[iamshack]

I've been benefited sure, by being male, by being white, by being born in the US, by being born in 1982 and not 1682, by being healthy, by having two loving parents, etc. So what? That doesn't diminish what i've done to get where i'm at, or what my parents and grandparents did to get me where i'm at. My family was a bunch of poor to middle class farmers from the midwest. They grew up in tiny ass towns of several hundred people. They didn't contribute to this existing problem just like I haven't.

Come on now...how can you say this after you just listed all the advantages you have

 

I'm not saying you're a bad guy or anything, and I have had the same benefits as you...but it certainly allowed for a greater margin of error to accomplish what you did compared to someone without those same advantages.