"Compensatory Opportunites" ??

[Plane]

The boycot of Busses and the sit in of diners and the massive marches required a high degree of courage. What lesser courage is required to merely stay out of the hands of the penal system?

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Bus boycotts and lunch counter demonstrations did require courage, but they also required organization at a determined time and place, and were effective because of the social opposition of the rest of the nation to the Jim Crow sheriffs who beat up the demonstrators . It isn't possible to organize the few people that are attracted to commit a thousand different crimes in a hundred cities over a long period. You are attempting to compare things that cannot be compared.

Don't forget that peacefull protest didn't waste local support either.

But that is beside the point.

You were seeming to say that the humanity was beaten out of these people and thus they must become criminals .

Yet heroism was not rare amoung them back then when opression was more immediate , and criminality was less common.

I am calling into question your explaation for Black crime as being directly related to racism ,there have tobe other factors that mak more diffrence , elese improvements see since the 50s would necessacerily have improved incarceration rates.

White supremeicists used to boldly state that without the repression , Negro people would be dangerous to white people , I really want to say they were wrong . What are you sayng to assert that the opression they had in those days kept them out of prison?

[Michael Tee]

<<White supremeicists used to boldly state that without the repression , Negro people would be dangerous to white people , I really want to say they were wrong . What are you sayng to assert that the opression they had in those days kept them out of prison?>>

Why do you "really want to say they were wrong?"  Do you mean if they were telling the truth, you would try to hide it?

What do you think?  WERE they wrong or weren't they? 

[Xavier_Onassis]

The Black people who dedicate themselves to crime mostly are a threat to other Black people. When all it took was wandering around unemployed would get a Black person arrested for loitering and a place on the chain gang, there were a lot fewer young Black people running about free, and it is always the young (15-30 or so) that commit most crimes in any society. So there is a high probability that there were fewer crimes committed against Whites or Blacks by said criminals.

[Michael Tee]

<<I agree , how was this [the parenting skills of past generations] lost?>>

I believe a lot of it is due to the North American economy.  A continuing decline in real income for the working class adds a lot of stress and leads to more mums working outside the home.  And, I have to admit, the liberalization of the divorce laws that began in the 1960s.  A combination of long work weeks, declining purchasing power, inadequate vacation time, working mums and divorce seems to have really fucked up a lot of kids.

Parenting is one of the most important jobs any human being can do, and it's NOT a part-time job.  Really efficient individuals can manage to balance parenting with career but I think the majority of parents just aren't up to it.

[Plane]

<<White supremeicists used to boldly state that without the repression , Negro people would be dangerous to white people , I really want to say they were wrong . What are you sayng to assert that the opression they had in those days kept them out of prison?>>

Why do you "really want to say they were wrong?"  Do you mean if they were telling the truth, you would try to hide it?

What do you think?  WERE they wrong or weren't they? 

You are telling me thay were right.

I don't think so , I don't think that repression is nessacery to safety , nor even really good for it.

Good will is good for safety , violence can draw reprecussion for more than a generation.

[Michael Tee]

<<You are telling me thay were right.>>

No, you just made that up.  I never said that Jim Crow was justified.  That is 100% you, trying to twist my words.

<<I don't think so , I don't think that repression is nessacery to safety , nor even really good for it.>>

I'm going to disagree with you.  I believe repression will increase public safety but at an unacceptable cost to our social fabric.  Our society has vital interests in many areas, public safety being only one of them (but admittedly a very important one.)

<<Good will is good for safety , violence can draw reprecussion for more than a generation.>>

And now I'm going to agree with you.

[Plane]

<<You are telling me thay were right.>>

No, you just made that up.  I never said that Jim Crow was justified.  That is 100% you, trying to twist my words.

<<I don't think so , I don't think that repression is nessacery to safety , nor even really good for it.>>

I'm going to disagree with you.  I believe repression will increase public safety but at an unacceptable cost to our social fabric.  Our society has vital interests in many areas, public safety being only one of them (but admittedly a very important one.)

<<Good will is good for safety , violence can draw reprecussion for more than a generation.>>

And now I'm going to agree with you.

They say that repressing the Black citizen is good for safety , then

" believe repression will increase public safety but at an unacceptable cost "

so do you.

No you didn't say it was just , I don't suspect you of meaning anything like that.

 Looking back thru the generations , I understnd Denmark Vessy and Nat Turner , but their effort was a complete boomerang. I get the argument for repression too , but I think of it as a long term looser , because as you and I agree , it is not just.

[Michael Tee]

plane, the way you phrased it was: "You are telling me they were right."

They were not right.  I never told you they were right.  Increasing public safety at an unacceptable cost in injustice and sacrificed freedoms cannot be right.

I think maybe you were confused between two separate issues:  (a) whether repression does or does not increase public safety and (b) whether it's right to increase public safety by unjust oppression of minorities and sacrifice of basic freedoms.  You took my affirmative on issue (a) as an affirmative on (b) as well.

[Plane]

plane, the way you phrased it was: "You are telling me they were right."

They were not right.  I never told you they were right.  Increasing public safety at an unacceptable cost in injustice and sacrificed freedoms cannot be right.

I think maybe you were confused between two separate issues:  (a) whether repression does or does not increase public safety and (b) whether it's right to increase public safety by unjust oppression of minorities and sacrifice of basic freedoms.  You took my affirmative on issue (a) as an affirmative on (b) as well.

Opression both works and doesn't I guess.
Does this depend on the timescale?

Thomas Jefferson discussed the situation he was facing as he gained power in a society that was struggleing for survival.

He opined that te removal of Indian from proximity of White settlement was necessacery , not that it was just, but that it increased safety.

He compared the situation of Negro slavery to holding a wolf by the ears  , you don't like doing it but you can't stop without being bit.
He actually argued that the situaion was so unjust that the offended people couldn't forgive and couldn't make peace , the system was too unjust to end.

Thomas was one of the best of us that there has ever been , an American of such insight that he formed the mold of our ideals , but this stuff had him stuck in dissonance  , equivocateing to himself even as he knew he was.

Was he right really? Did these injustaces need to continue untill five more generations had grown out of the situation?

[Michael Tee]

<<Thomas [Jefferson]was one of the best of us that there has ever been , an American of such insight that he formed the mold of our ideals , but this stuff had him stuck in dissonance  , equivocateing to himself even as he knew he was.>>

IMHO, it's best to think of Jefferson as a great man with some very great flaws.  In the end, you just can't reconcile them.  It isn't as if he was totally ignorant of the problem.  There was already an anti-slavery movement in Britain, very active and committed, but then its leaders never came up with anything like the preamble to the Declaration of Independence, which has probably inspired more idealistic political action than any other document in history.

But those anonymous English Quakers put him to shame on actual human rights and the slavery issue, which directly contradicted "all men are created equal."

Jefferson was what he was.  Instead of idolizing him unconditionally, I think we should honour what was good in him and condemn what was bad.

[Plane]

<<Thomas [Jefferson]was one of the best of us that there has ever been , an American of such insight that he formed the mold of our ideals , but this stuff had him stuck in dissonance  , equivocateing to himself even as he knew he was.>>

IMHO, it's best to think of Jefferson as a great man with some very great flaws.  In the end, you just can't reconcile them.  It isn't as if he was totally ignorant of the problem.  There was already an anti-slavery movement in Britain, very active and committed, but then its leaders never came up with anything like the preamble to the Declaration of Independence, which has probably inspired more idealistic political action than any other document in history.

But those anonymous English Quakers put him to shame on actual human rights and the slavery issue, which directly contradicted "all men are created equal."

Jefferson was what he was.  Instead of idolizing him unconditionally, I think we should honour what was good in him and condemn what was bad.

http://www.brycchancarey.com/abolition/wilberforce.htm


William Wilberforce was not anonymous , but you are right , the abolition movement was a generation earlyer in England and successfull without causeing a civil war.
The Abolitionists in the US wound up fighting in the US , the Abolitionists of England fought all over the Globe.

[Amianthus]

Jefferson was what he was.  Instead of idolizing him unconditionally, I think we should honour what was good in him and condemn what was bad.

Well, he did free all of his slaves.