Time to END racism

[Eric the Green]

(02-15-2022, 03:11 PM)JasonBlack Wrote:

(02-15-2022, 01:54 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(02-11-2022, 12:16 AM)JasonBlack Wrote:

Quote:3)One little stat: black children of African-American GI's and white German mothers out of wedlock are indistinguishable in IQ from white Germans. Maybe this reflects the German education which is no lark but is the only reliable entry to the Good Life in Germany.

that was the other statistic I was looking for. thank you

Quote:Trump claimed that he did more in four years for black people than in the four years of any other prior President (which is itself specious because he established no policies promoting such) but forgets to tell us that black people did much of that themselves, like commuting from black communities with few jobs to white communities where jobs go begging)

Giving credit where credit is due is important, I'm not debating that, but it's hardly suspicious that a policy not specifically designed for a certain race may in fact do a lot to help them anyway. the policy you're looking for is Opportunity Zones, in which businesses are offered tax breaks for opening up shop in inner city areas that are struggling with employment.

As a whole, most people don't have trouble acknowledging that racism exists. What gets them is
1) a tendency toward guilty-until-proven-innocent type thinking
2) a "sins of the father" approach to dealing with things
3) specific attributions to racism that make zero sense (ex: Star Wars and Dungeons and Dragons....what?)
4) attempts to cancel any kind of historical work that doesn't fit modern sensibilities of ethics
5) focus on symbolic gestures (ex: taking down statues, putting more black people on bills) at the expense of more tangible courses of action. personally, I don't have super strong opinions on either, I'm mostly saying that it's not the best place to be focusing our attention on.
6) relying on threats, accusations, getting people fired, etc and then wondering why their goal of "spreading tolerance and love" isn't going well.

I could go on. I'm not necessarily accusing you of any of this, but I think one needs to be cognizant of when worthwhile ideas aren't being implemented in practice in a manner that serves their ends effectively.

I'm not sure I understand all your points, but let's look at some of them as I see them. And I am not sure who the "them" is ("most people") refers to.

1) what is certain is that police are presumed innocent, and even if proven guilty are usually exonerated for their crimes of overstepping their authority and hurting or killing people unfairly, often people of color. Also what is certain is that many blacks and even others today are unfairly put in prison for crimes they didn't commit, or are afflicted with punishments too severe for their crimes. Our jury system seems to me an anachronism, and many times they get it wrong. The innocence project and equal justice intitative by Mr Bryan Stephenson is an ultra-heroic service in our times. I feel that those who venerate Kyle Rittenhouse are promoting vigilante justice, an abhorrent crime.
2) Although I support reparations, I understand why some are likely to reject the calls for reparations for the crimes committed by those who might be their great grandfathers or their contemporaries. However, when given for specific remedies of more-recent injustice I think they are great and fair and more likely to be approved.
3) no opinion
4) what is abundantly clear is the abhorrent attempt these days in the name of stopping "critical race theory" and making white people "comfortable with their country" to denude our education and suppress our history of repression and abuse of people of color, and other grave injustices and errors in our past. Even George W Bush spoke out well against this whitewashing, saying a strong and confident people can afford to look squarely at their past and what still needs correction now.
5) I agree the focus needs to be mostly on real concerns like the wealth gap and racial profiling/police brutality etc.. Obsession with symbolism and correct speech sometimes goes too far and is irritating to people. But it depends on the case. African-Americans having to look so often at statues to those traitors who enslaved their ancestors is degrading, and celebrates their tyranny and ignorance which can perpetuate it today.
6) well said, even if I disagree, depending on the case.

1) I have little argument here. I've been wary of police brutality since long before the George Floyd riots. How much police brutality is motivated by racism, I'm not really sure, but one reason why I think this is a better focus is that it helps everyone regardless if the cause is racism or more generalized sadism/lack of accountability.
2) In some sense, I'd argue that the welfare state is already designed as a kind of "reparations" for people who were screwed over by the system. Racial injustice is just one such way one can be screwed over (indeed, you do see a disproportionate number of welfare. that's likely a big reason why), but not the only one, and the black people who have made it to the middle class and rich have typically been helped in other ways in order to get there.
4) Speaking for myself, I'd much rather just go back to the source and read older historical accounts myself. It is important to look at the dark side of your own country's history (I started doing this at like age 9), and I realize not every child is going to do what I did, but the current ideological interest group in charge of this issue is one which has a checkered track record of some egregious actions and claims, and is not one which has done a lot to show they're trustworthy to give unbiased accounts ("getting rid of the bias" is supposed to be the main goal in all this, but I'm not confident they will be able to do that. They will just reverse that bias).
5) My biggest issue is....don't destroy historical artifacts. I'd have less objection to, say, putting them in a museum or selling them to a university.


At the end of the day, my argument is still that the best thing you can do to stop racism is facilitate greater black financial literacy and providing better means of starting businesses where they will not be beholden to whites. We can argue about the how to reign in the excesses of corporatism, but small businesses are pretty much the grass roots foundation of the entire economy, and should be supported whenever possible.

I think facilitating "greater black financial literacy and providing better means of starting businesses" is part of the solution, although I think the restoration of greater class equality by ending neoliberalism would go a long way toward helping African-Americans and almost everyone else in the bargain. I view the welfare state as simply an advance and progress over the previous eras, and that it should be fully restored from the Reaganomics neoliberal diversion from history, even if some Clinton-era neoliberal reforms should be kept to a more minor degree. I don't know what you mean by the "current ideological interest group in charge" of the issue of history and their "untrustworthiness"; I don't know how untrustworthy they are. History is written by many voices. Yes, by all means put historical artifacts in museums.