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PeterZ wrote:

gcomeau wrote:
LOTS OF THEM.

You think all that wealth accrued in the hands of white slaveowners... all that privilege and power they built up in the social order by means of controlling all positions of authority not just during slavery but during the decades upon decades of systematic discrimination that followed it... you think that all just magically disappeared? Or they took it to the grave with them when they passed away and then their children all started with some kind of clean slate?

If you think ANYONE born as a white American is not still enjoying systematic advantages over other racial minorities that are a direct result of that history that level of obliviousness is something afforded to you by the privileges you enjoy and don't even register.

Eff off sh**head!

And we're done... You made no attempt to refute any of my points, just launched on a rant.

And I didn't take a damn thing you said "out of context". This is a forum discussion, your entire statement is on display 6 inches above my reply to it. I'm not required to quote your entire post so that it appears twice on the same page to maintain its context and nothing I omitted from the quote altered either the meaning of what I was quoting or in any way impacted the validity of my response to it anyway.

gcomeau wrote:
And we're done... You made no attempt to refute any of my points, just launched on a rant.

And I didn't take a damn thing you said "out of context". This is a forum discussion, your entire statement is on display 6 inches above my reply to it. I'm not required to quote your entire post so that it appears twice on the same page to maintain its context and nothing I omitted from the quote altered either the meaning of what I was quoting or in any way impacted the validity of my response to it anyway.

What is there to refute? You asserted I had privilege that I do not in fact have. Your post required I understood the privilege you accused me of having for me to even begin to reply.

You prior post did not attempt to discuss my points, but instead deflect with a charge of privilege. An insulting one at that.

I would have no issues with selective quoting if you did not respond as if what you cut and pasted was ALL I posted.

PeterZ wrote:

gcomeau wrote:
And we're done... You made no attempt to refute any of my points, just launched on a rant.

And I didn't take a damn thing you said "out of context". This is a forum discussion, your entire statement is on display 6 inches above my reply to it. I'm not required to quote your entire post so that it appears twice on the same page to maintain its context and nothing I omitted from the quote altered either the meaning of what I was quoting or in any way impacted the validity of my response to it anyway.

What is there to refute? You asserted I had privilege that I do not in fact have.

My post asserted that the lingering structural effects of racism and racial discrimination didn't magically "poof" and disappear with the passing of the generation that owned slaves.


It then contained the assumption that the reason you could be oblivious to such a stunningly obvious reality of the nation and make the incredibly absurd statement that nobody in America today has benefited from slavery or racism was the usual cause. That it wasn't represents a statistical oddity but does not change the baseline facts that were under dispute.

Nobody pushed a giant RESET button on America after slavery and started all races off on a level playing field from the same starting point.

Nobody pushed that RESET button after Jim Crow and segregation was ended.

Nobody pushed the RESET button after any civil rights advance.

The accumulated advantages those perpetuating those injustices gained from them just carried right the hell over.

gcomeau wrote:
My post asserted that the lingering structural effects of racism and racial discrimination didn't magically "poof" and disappear with the passing of the generation that owned slaves.

It did. It also ignored how using racism to defeat racism will not work. It actually fosters more racism.

gcomeau wrote:It then contained the assumption that the reason you could be oblivious to such a stunningly obvious reality of the nation and make the incredibly absurd statement that nobody in America today has benefited from slavery or racism was the usual cause. That it wasn't represents a statistical oddity but does not change the baseline facts that were under dispute.
.

It also assumed that my response was driven by an inability to see that inequity rather than a belief the left's prescribed solution will only make things worse. This is simply not true and quite insulting.

It is better to treat people with equity than to continue racism. If there are people who need help? Help them because of the need, not because of their skin color. Is the single mother in poverty living in the inner city more or less deserving than the single mother living in poverty out in West Virginia? They are equally deserving. Inserting race into the question is stupid.

Please show me how I benefited from slavery. If not me, my neighbor. I don't mean to be thick, I simply want to avoid further misunderstanding.

gcomeau wrote:Nobody pushed a giant RESET button on America after slavery and started all races off on a level playing field from the same starting point.

Nobody pushed that RESET button after Jim Crow and segregation was ended.
.

No they did not. Continuing to foster policy that justifies different treatment based on race will simply let that festering wound linger on. How is this not obvious?

gcomeau wrote:
Nobody pushed the RESET button after any civil rights advance. The accumulation advantages those perpetuating those injustices gained from them just carried right the hell over.

Again, those advantages can be measured a myriad of ways that do not include race. Forging solutions based on those non race metrics is the best solution. Inserting race into addressing them is continuing racism.

PeterZ wrote:

gcomeau wrote:
My post asserted that the lingering structural effects of racism and racial discrimination didn't magically "poof" and disappear with the passing of the generation that owned slaves.

It did. It also ignored how using racism to defeat racism will not work. It actually fosters more racism.

No I did not ignore it. I already explained previously how there is a significant difference between racism and mitigating the effects of racism. Both must acknowledge racial imbalances but one causes them and one attempt to correct them.

It also assumed that my response was driven by an inability to see that inequity rather than a belief the left's prescribed solution will only make things worse. This is simply not true and quite insulting.

You stated the inequity didn't exist when you flatly declared that the number of people who benefited from that inequity were "None".

So it wasn't an "assumption" you didn't see it. You said you didn't see it.

It is better to treat people with equity...

Which is what AA is enforcing

...than to continue racism.

If there are people who need help? Help them because of the need, not because of their skin color. Is the single mother in poverty living in the inner city more or less deserving than the single mother living in poverty out in West Virginia? They are equally deserving. Inserting race into the question is stupid.

And how do you help the people who need assistance overcoming the lingering institutional racism of the system? The equally qualified minority candidate who never gets a call back from those job interviews when all the white people who applied did? Etc...?

AA is a big hammer approach to that problem, sure. It would be really nice to have a million scalpels instead. But you can't have government auditors running around reviewing every single hiring and promotion and pay and benefits decision everyone makes to make sure they're not racially motivated on an individual freaking basis. But we KNOW those racially motivated decisions were and continue to be made on a wide scale.

So what do you do to provide this "help" you speak of? On a national scale? To combat a problem we know is there?

Ok, I made the statement regarding who benefited from slavery. Please show me who benefits today. Not being snarky. I truly don't understand how you are viewing this.

We can't legislate people to stop being racist. We can only create an environment that foster a belief that race is a characteristic of individuals but not a characteristic suitable to use for discrimination. We can and do prosecute discrimination in many places. That address inequitable treatment. Only time and the consistent refusal to condone it will defeat a set of beliefs.

Affirmative action is more than simply prosecuting discrimination. It stipulates that advantages must be provided. When will this ever stop? If I am correct, it will never stop because racism is fostered. If you are correct, it will never stop because no amount of redress is sufficient to offset even a tithe of the horrors of slavery.

In the end affirmative action won't solve the problem of racism. Only the resolute refusal to treat people differently because of their race will do that.

PeterZ wrote:Ok, I made the statement regarding who benefited from slavery. Please show me who benefits today. Not being snarky. I truly don't understand how you are viewing this.

Alright, let's try this...

Progress of people over time is not a series of disconnected 100 yard dashes where you get born, you line up on the starting line with all the other people of your generation, then you all take off and see who wins.

It is a relay race. You build on what your parents built for you, and their grandparents built for them, and on and on. And It's not just direct relations... you build on what your *community* built for you, and the last generation of that *community* built for them...


For the first century of this country's "race" a bunch of the white runners chained the black runners to the starting line. And then when those chained up runners handed off their batons to their children they got chained there too. While all those white runners raced ahead and their children raced ahead. Some more than others sure. some far ahead, some barely ahead. But whatever progress they made was far more a matter of their individual effort and merit than those chained up folks.




Then for another many decades they took the chains off but encased their feet in concrete shoes...


And then the concrete shoes came off but they attached parachutes to their backs...


Etc...

Now say that after observing all of that going on for generation after generation we come along at this point in that relay and say "hold up. This is bullshit. We're going to give all the runners who had their previous generation partners sabotaged by other runners a boost, because THAT is equalizing the playing field and mitigating the effect of that earlier cheating"

Then have some of those other runners scream that they're losing their lead and it's not fair because THEY didn't chain up those guys at the starting line so they got to where they are in the race with NO BENEFIT OF CHEATING. And also all those runners you're helping happen to be minorities (because that's who got chained up) so you're making a decision to only help minorities so that's RACIST!


Is that or is that not a ridiculous statement that they did not benefit from the cheat? Whether they committed the cheat themselves? Or that acknowledging the people impacted by the cheating were of certain races is "racism"?



Even if we are talking about some white person who has absolutely no descendants who personally practiced slavery or who were even a little racist they all lived and worked in an environment that explicitly biased itself in their favor because they were white. And they enjoyed the benefits of that. They had that advantage. they got that little bit or great deal further ahead than they would have otherwise.

They were allowed to run.

And that is the starting point their children got to kick off from. And on and on.

We can't legislate people to stop being racist. We can only create an environment that foster a belief that race is a characteristic of individuals but not a characteristic suitable to use for discrimination.

Quite right.

We can and do prosecute discrimination in many places. That address inequitable treatment. Only time and the consistent refusal to condone it will defeat a set of beliefs.

Again, quite right. But be realistic, it is almost impossible to track down and prosecute all the individual cases of racial discrimination. Especially by people who know better than to flaunt it. The resources simply do. not. exist.

So how do you keep it in check?

Affirmative action is more than simply prosecuting discrimination. It stipulates that advantages must be provided. When will this ever stop? If I am correct, it will never stop because racism is fostered. If you are correct, it will never stop because no amount of redress is sufficient to offset even a tithe of the horrors of slavery.

In the end affirmative action won't solve the problem of racism. Only the resolute refusal to treat people differently because of their race will do that.

Again, quite right. AA will never stop racism. But no it will not go on forever. Progress has been made and progress continues to be made on gradually reducing the imbalances in society caused by the systematic discrimination practiced by this country for most of it's existence. Eventually we will reach a point where AA is simply unnecessary not because racism has ceased to exist but because it has been sufficiently marginalized that there is no longer a need for the big hammer approach to keeping it in check.

We are just nowhere near that point today. This country practiced slavery for almost 100 years followed by another hundred or so of widespread and deep seated institutional racism and then decades more simmering widespread racism as people resisted the civil rights movement. Thinking we've even approached a level playing field this quickly is ridiculous. And recognizing we are nowhere near that point is not racist.

Thank you. I really mean it. I wholeheartedly disagree with the characterization, but appreciate your effort to share that with me.

I grew up in a nation where my family did not fit. We reminded our neighbors of the nation's colonial past. We moved to a nation where darker skinned peoples were not mainstream. Yes, I faced overt discrimination. I may well have faced covert discrimination. Yet, none of that was beyond my ability to overcome. My new homeland possessed enough people to appreciate me as an individual and not simply as someone different. My wife grew up in Northern Minnesota. There was one Asian in her high school and a handful of blacks and Native Americans. Even so, she accepted me for the individual I am. If that is true for me, is it not true for others like me? Perhaps even others like American blacks, Hispanics and other minorities?

The description of wealth and poverty being passed down is true. This is true for whites and blacks and everyone really. Asserting that the privileges passed down from generation to generation via wealth is a product of race avoids the actual cause.

Teaching people how to gain wealth is a better solution. Helping inner city single moms to avoid passing their circumstance down to their children is better. Education, hard work, the ability to communicate and many small but important characteristics are essential to gaining and maintaining wealth. Yet, gaining these characteristics are not encouraged in much of the black community. Instead a litany of why others caused the poverty of blacks. This includes the description you gave. Because in the end the advantages one generation to the next is not a function of race, but of those valuable characteristics. They have are correlated to race, but are not caused by it.

Treating those generational inequities as if they are caused by race doesn't solve it. It exacerbates it.

Facebook MEME to give our Ausie friend a laugh:



We in Idaho joke "Welcome to Idaho set your watch back a few decades."

Poker

Saw this on Facebook, the perfect MEME for friends with too much politics on their page:



A tad risque' but then you need something to get their minds out of the gutter of political mud slinging and into another gutter mild porn

Enjoy, Poker