DebateGate
General Category => 3DHS => Topic started by: Xavier_Onassis on January 28, 2015, 02:33:13 PM
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When Whites Just Don’t Get It
After Ferguson, Race Deserves More Attention, Not Less
AUG. 30, 2014
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[Nicholas Kristof]
Nicholas Kristof
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MANY white Americans say they are fed up with the coverage of the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. A plurality of whites in a recent Pew survey said that the issue of race is getting more attention than it deserves.
Bill O’Reilly of Fox News reflected that weariness, saying: “All you hear is grievance, grievance, grievance, money, money, money.”
Indeed, a 2011 study by scholars at Harvard and Tufts found that whites, on average, believed that anti-white racism was a bigger problem than anti-black racism.
Yes, you read that right!
So let me push back at what I see as smug white delusion. Here are a few reasons race relations deserve more attention, not less:
Nicholas Kristof
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• The net worth of the average black household in the United States is $6,314, compared with $110,500 for the average white household, according to 2011 census data. The gap has worsened in the last decade, and the United States now has a greater wealth gap by race than South Africa did during apartheid. (Whites in America on average own almost 18 times as much as blacks; in South Africa in 1970, the ratio was about 15 times.)
• The black-white income gap is roughly 40 percent greater today than it was in 1967.
• A black boy born today in the United States has a life expectancy five years shorter than that of a white boy.
• Black students are significantly less likely to attend schools offering advanced math and science courses than white students. They are three times as likely to be suspended and expelled, setting them up for educational failure.
• Because of the catastrophic experiment in mass incarceration, black men in their 20s without a high school diploma are more likely to be incarcerated today than employed, according to a study from the National Bureau of Economic Research. Nearly 70 percent of middle-aged black men who never graduated from high school have been imprisoned.
All these constitute not a black problem or a white problem, but an American problem. When so much talent is underemployed and overincarcerated, the entire country suffers.
Some straight people have gradually changed their attitudes toward gays after realizing that their friends — or children — were gay. Researchers have found that male judges are more sympathetic to women’s rights when they have daughters. Yet because of the de facto segregation of America, whites are unlikely to have many black friends: A study from the Public Religion Research Institute suggests that in a network of 100 friends, a white person, on average, has one black friend.
That’s unfortunate, because friends open our eyes. I was shaken after a well-known black woman told me about looking out her front window and seeing that police officers had her teenage son down on the ground after he had stepped out of their upscale house because they thought he was a prowler. “Thank God he didn’t run,” she said.
One black friend tells me that he freaked out when his white fiancée purchased an item in a store and promptly threw the receipt away. “What are you doing?” he protested to her. He is a highly successful and well-educated professional but would never dream of tossing a receipt for fear of being accused of shoplifting.
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Some readers will protest that the stereotype is rooted in reality: Young black men are disproportionately likely to be criminals.
That’s true — and complicated. “There’s nothing more painful to me,” the Rev. Jesse Jackson once said, “than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery — then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved.”
All this should be part of the national conversation on race, as well, and prompt a drive to help young black men end up in jobs and stable families rather than in crime or jail. We have policies with a robust record of creating opportunity: home visitation programs like Nurse-Family Partnership; early education initiatives like Educare and Head Start; programs for troubled adolescents like Youth Villages; anti-gang and anti-crime initiatives like Becoming a Man; efforts to prevent teen pregnancies like the Carrera curriculum; job training like Career Academies; and job incentives like the earned-income tax credit.
The best escalator to opportunity may be education, but that escalator is broken for black boys growing up in neighborhoods with broken schools. We fail those boys before they fail us.
So a starting point is for those of us in white America to wipe away any self-satisfaction about racial progress. Yes, the progress is real, but so are the challenges. The gaps demand a wrenching, soul-searching excavation of our national soul, and the first step is to acknowledge that the central race challenge in America today is not the suffering of whites.
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For those who truly don't get it...what happened between Wilson & Brown had NOTHING TO DO WITH RACE ::) What happened afterwards was directly related to race....the racial tension stoked by folks that would have MLK cringing in how his message has been mutated
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It is horrible what reverse racism has done to you. Just horrible. I don't know how you can bear it.
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Yea, it is pretty hard to swallow. MLK's notion that we should be treated as equals, and judged soley by the content of our character is completely lost to the new generation of race baiting "civil rights leaders"
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And addressing the original article......MUCH of the reason that poverty has hit Blacks more than other races, is proportional to the amount of "Government assistance" that's provided. In other words, the latter facilitates the former. Numerous economic studies have been chronicled poiting directly to minimum wage as a job killer, for precisely the jobs that any race, including Blacks would take. Let's not forget how Government literally prevents parents of minorities to choose to send their children to better schools, perptuating a worsening public school system. A system that prioritizes job security of teachers, especially the bad ones, over that of the child's education, and welfare
Add on top of that the enabling of women to have multiple children, while in poverty, and out of wedlock, and its a recipe for Black children to firmly remain entrenched in poverty, beholden to more "Government assistance". This leads more Black youths to engage in more criminal activity, which explains their higher prison population. They're not being targeted for increased prosecution, because they're black. They're arrested more, because they engage in more crime. This isn't rocket science
Add to that this mantra that the Blacks are "owed" something because of what happened generations ago, feeding them the notion that they are above law enforcement's instructions. That compliance is now optional, and you get what happened in Ferguson and NY.
Its those liberal whites with completely guilt ridden vendettas, and Blacks who've been spoon fed how they're a victim of anything and everything negative that happens to them, and the hands of those whities, who truly don't get it. When people, of any color, grasp that their actions are theirs, and theirs alone....that they are responsible for their actions, not the police, not the politician, not the corporation, not the teacher, not even their parents, only then will some of these folks truly start to get it
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MLK was a Socialist and wanted the country to get out of Vietnam. He bore no resemblance whatever to the weird construct that exists in your mind.
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MLK was nothing of the sort. Nor was he a conservative. He was simply a man who had a phenomenal vision of seeing that everyone was treated equally......period......a colorless society, where people are judged by their character and those individual actions that highlight that character. As I said, he'd be rolling in his grave at how that message has been mutated
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MLK made a large number of speeches about income equality. But of course those who wash your brain have not pointed this out to you.
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With all those speeches then, you should have no problem showing us ANYWHERE, in ANY of his speeches that he pushed for Government to redistribute money from "the rich" to the poor.
Ball in your court
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MLK was a Socialist .......................
What?
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I know :o Still waiting for the copious examples of pushing for Government redistribution tactics, that's at the conerstone of Socialist doctrine. We should be see many such examples, since we've been told it was in a large number of his speeches
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Poor People's Campaign, 1968
Main article: Poor People's Campaign
In 1968, King and the SCLC organized the "Poor People's Campaign" to address issues of economic justice. King traveled the country to assemble "a multiracial army of the poor" that would march on Washington to engage in nonviolent civil disobedience at the Capitol until Congress created an "economic bill of rights" for poor Americans.[174][175]
The campaign was preceded by King's final book, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, which laid out his view of how to address social issues and poverty. King quoted from Henry George and George's book, Progress and Poverty, particularly in support of a guaranteed basic income.[176][177][178] The campaign culminated in a march on Washington, D.C., demanding economic aid to the poorest communities of the United States.
King and the SCLC called on the government to invest in rebuilding America's cities. He felt that Congress had shown "hostility to the poor" by spending "military funds with alacrity and generosity". He contrasted this with the situation faced by poor Americans, claiming that Congress had merely provided "poverty funds with miserliness".[175] His vision was for change that was more revolutionary than mere reform: he cited systematic flaws of "racism, poverty, militarism and materialism", and argued that "reconstruction of society itself is the real issue to be faced".[179]
The Poor People's Campaign was controversial even within the civil rights movement. Rustin resigned from the march, stating that the goals of the campaign were too broad, that its demands were unrealizable, and that he thought that these campaigns would accelerate the backlash and repression on the poor and the black.[180]
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So basically less spending on military and more on infrastructure. Hardly redistributing wealth. The idea of MLK, per YOUR CHOSEN EXAMPLE, is for Government to facilitate a better environment for folks living in poverty to have potentially more opportunities to succeed.......based of course on their own individual actions of taking advantage of those opportunities
Thanks you Professor for helping to make my point
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Guaranteed basic income are the three operative words here.
GUARANTEED. BASIC. INCOME.
If that is not Socialist, what is?
You appear to rival red dwarfs in density.
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Socialist would be pushing for the Government to take from the "rich"....not $$$ being used for defense. Where is that?? What YOU have provided is an MLK reference to a goal that poorer COMMUNITIES, NOT PEOPLE, be provided improved opportunity to better themselves. He wasn't into redistribution, in any way. He simply wanted to prioritize where the Government was spending tax payer monies. Less on defense and more on infrastructure, particularly those with a poorer population. Try reading for context, vs finding 1 word, and trying to rationalize your personal ideological agenda around it
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Who do you suppose MLK wanted to GUARANTEE a basic income to the people?
He was a Socialist. He wanted the GOVERNMENT to guarantee a basic income to the people.
There was no other existing agency that could have done this.
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Your own fricken article demonstrated precisely what he wanted......less defense spending, more infrastructure spending. NOTHING there has anything to do with income redistribution, much less socialist doctrine. YOU are the one trying to reinvent his intentions, despite the clear wording your own article provides.
sheeeeesh ::)
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................................................ Rustin resigned from the march, stating that the goals of the campaign were too broad, that its demands were unrealizable, and that he thought that these campaigns would accelerate the backlash and repression on the poor and the black.[180]
Rustin seems to have a valid point there.
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Who, pray tell, could possibly GUARANTEE a BASIC INCOME to all Americans, if not the federal government?
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I don't know how to break this to you, but his own postings, including what you, yourself have provided, demonstrate no desire or support of income redistribution. Simply a call that the Government prioritize its spending, as in less defense, more towards infrastructure. In particular, poverty heavy communities. Now you can claim THAT as some form of redistribution, but hardly the type the current mutation of his message tries to push, in taxing "the rich" higher, and give that to "the poor"
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GUARANTEE means the government assures a basic income for everyone. The Stock market guarantees nothing, ever. The capitalist system has zero guarantees. That is its nature. Capitalism cannot be made to guarantee anything anymore than a wolf can be made to live on zucchini and carrots.
GUARANTEE + BASIC INCOME = government programs, like Social Security. It could not mean anything other than that.
Government at the time of MLK was taxing the rich at a higher rate than it is now, a much higher rate. And pissing away much of it on a senseless, useless war in a place that was pof no importance to us then and still isn't.
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You keep making my point...you keep reinventing what MLK's intentions had to be, based on 1 word. And yet, no where can you find where he proclaimed Government must redistribute money from "the rich" and give to "the poor". It was a desire to spend less on Defense and more on infrastructure....to give the poor more OPPORTUNITY, to better themselves
Did I mention no where?
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Did I also fail to mention, that there are no "guarantees" in life?? ::)
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Okay, perhaps he wanted the government to just print money and give it to the poor.
The government had 10,000 or more troops in Vietnam at the time, and ending that stupid war could have freed up a lot of money. His degree was in theology, not economics. The Civil Rights Movemnet was replete with leftists. The rightwing wanted nothing to do with them. Goldwater was against any law which would have made it mandatory for businesses like lunch counters to serve Negros, as was Rand Paul. There were very few private restaurants that did not have a sign that said "We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone." And that did not mean people lacking neckties or people wearing flipflops. King did not refuse anyone of any political persuasion from joining the SCLC or the marches. The ratbag right called them all Communists and fellow travelers.
If you do not like the word GUARANTEE, take it up with MLK's ghost, He said what he said. Private enterprise and charities cannot guarantee anything.Only the government can do that. And the government's only source of income was taxes, since printing money involved the Federal Reserve, and they did not approve of allowing more money to be printed.
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I tell you what Professor.....I'll focus on what MLK actually said, and you can focus on what he meant to say. Fair enough?
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GUARANTEE means the government assures a basic income for everyone. The Stock market guarantees nothing, ever. The capitalist system has zero guarantees. That is its nature. Capitalism cannot be made to guarantee anything anymore than a wolf can be made to live on zucchini and carrots.
Do you think the government can make a wolf live on zucchinis and carrots?
Neither can the government guarantee a minimum living wage to everyone.
For much the same reasons , King Chanute demonstrated to his court that the tide does not respond to the edicts of the government, neither do digestive systems , neither does math.
Good thing we don't have to perform this experiment here, Spain has just elected a government so leftist that they are proposing putting maximum limits on earning.
Greece is busy electing a government that might repudiate a lot of debt and give everyone a bountiful living just for being Greeks.
When these things fail please do not fail to notice !
Previous failures of socialism seem to escape notice generally.
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GUARANTEE means the government assures a basic income for everyone. The Stock market guarantees nothing, ever. The capitalist system has zero guarantees. That is its nature. Capitalism cannot be made to guarantee anything anymore than a wolf can be made to live on zucchini and carrots.
Do you think the government can make a wolf live on zucchinis and carrots?
Neither can the government guarantee a minimum living wage to everyone.
For much the same reasons , King Chanute demonstrated to his court that the tide does not respond to the edicts of the government, neither do digestive systems , neither does math.
Simple Plane English....and Math for that matter : 8)
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The Scandinavian countries, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Austria all have far more equitable income distribution than the US. They have eleimnated poverty for everyone except a few recent immigrants and some crazy people that insist on not taking their meds. It has been done, and therefore you claiming it is impossible is a bunch of nonsense.
Sirs has no clue what MLK said or wrote. Other than the "I have a dream" speech, which everyone has heard a zillion times, sirs has demonstrated that he knows diddly squat.
The problem in Greece is that income distribution is even worse than in the US and the rich do not pay their taxes. Only government employees pay, because they have automatic deductions. Greece has two very disparate social classes, who even speak different languages. The problem in Greece is not one of Socialism, it is of dysfunctional government that has been made apparent because Greece has no control over its money.
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Sirs has no clue what MLK said or wrote. Other than the "I have a dream" speech, which everyone has heard a zillion times
Actually, having taken English at a young age, and able to read the language, I know perfectly well what he said & wrote. What you fail to acknowledge, is that even his own words defy the notion he was some sort of socialist, advocating that Government redistribute wealth. Your own example provided precisely what he said. Your beef apparently is with MLK's own words.
But like I said, I'll focus on what he actually said and advocated, in particular a colorless society, where decisions and policy isn't based on skin color, and you can focus on what he really meant to say
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Yeah, sure, continue to bask in your ignorant view that MLK hated the idea of a minimum wage, favored the "flat tax" and wanted to abolish the welfare system. Actually his real name was not Martin LUTHER King, it was Martin LIBERTARIAN King.
You do not know the truth, you will never know the truth, you will remain in ignorance until the last of your days.
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[url]https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/01/martin-luther-king-socialist//url]
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Never said he hated the idea of a minimum wage, Dr Deflection. By all means, show the quote of his, where he pushes for it. And we can dispense with the abolishing of the welfare state, when we already have him supporting increased infrastructure spending. Of course that's not the same, but neither is it me proclaiming how he would have wanted it abolished. Just a convenient point no one has made to try and argue. SOP. Try something for a change...a point that is actually being made....such as the idea that we should all be treated equally, and that decisions & policy NOT be made based on the color of one's skin
Or....just keep focusing on what he meant to say. Should at least make you feel better
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There will always be people who are unemployable. As more and more menial jobs are done by machines and robots, the percentage of such jobs will multiply. The solution is to train and retrain people to do jobs that are more mental and less manual. This is what our President has said we should do. And the Party of No only blathers on and on about "tax and spend", which is as stupid a comment now as it was when some fool invented it.
All any government of any political persuasion anywhere has ever done is tax and spend. It is a definition of government.
Juniorbush was more into the "borrow and squander" on his unnecessary, useless and incompetently fought wars. But that was just a less wise form of tax and spend.
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As that has prescious little to do with anything related to the topic of MLK, you really best not even try to compare debt to anything Bush, compared to our current master Deficit and Chief
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I can and will dump on Juniorbush at each and every opportunity. He was a fucking disaster. He left our current President with the biggest mess since James Buchanan left office. Do not tell me what I has best not do, you knucklewalking fascist moron.
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No one said you couldn't spew your normal garbage. Just demonstrates how meritiless it is, when you use it to try and misdirect from the point of the thread, that YOU started, and have in the past given other people grief for daring to not stick to the point of the thread. Whatever "disaster" you want to claim Bush behind, our current Disaster and Chief makes him look like George Washington
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That is bullshit, but you lack the acumen to know it.
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lol....brilliant retort ;D