What is your answer to "The Race Problem"?

glassjester

Well-known member
If you look at the numbers there's a massive racial disparity in a variety of outcomes and areas of society.

Hello Alate One. Traditio is asking you a very fair question, it seems. How are you making the jump from "disparity" to "discrimination" ?
Seems like a leap of faith.


Racial disparities are not inherently racist.

There are racial differences in height. Are tape measures racist?

Does the NBA discriminate against white people?

Do police, juries, and judges unfairly favor Asians?
 

kmoney

New member
Hall of Fame
I don't think we're to the point of solutions, honestly. I think we're still trying to establish that there is a problem to be solved.

Pretend for a moment that we've all agreed there is a problem. What is your solution, given the current laws?
 

rexlunae

New member
Pretend for a moment that we've all agreed there is a problem. What is your solution, given the current laws?

I think maybe the most important thing is awareness and bias training. There's good research showing that as a culture, the black people are perceived as more threatening and less sympathetic by default, that their expressions of pain are often interpreted as a threat, and that includes when the perceiver is black themselves. So, I think that awareness of that bias is important. And of course, accountability, in the form of body camera, dash cameras, that sort of thing, and less presumption that the police are acting reasonably. And there are some laws that need to change. It's too easy for people, especially cops, but others as well to claim self-defense in many states.
 

kmoney

New member
Hall of Fame
Hello Alate One. Traditio is asking you a very fair question, it seems. How are you making the jump from "disparity" to "discrimination" ?
Seems like a leap of faith.


Racial disparities are not inherently racist.

There are racial differences in height. Are tape measures racist?

Does the NBA discriminate against white people?

Do police, juries, and judges unfairly favor Asians?

I work in the lending industry and there is a similar concept in there. Disparate Impact. Even if a lender isn't explicitly discriminating, even if there is no proof, if a bank's lending policies are seen to have a worse impact on a certain class then they can be in violation. Doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me, on the surface at least.

Part of the equation is how all this comes about. What practices lead more black people to be incarcerated. And it can be difficult when implicit biases are involved.
 

Alate_One

Well-known member
Otherwise, the discussion is going to be utterly fruitless and question-begging. If you and I disagree about isosceles triangles, we should start with a discussion of, e.g., triangles of general, and then proceed to the particular point about which we disagree.
We started here on the OP. which I stated there's a problem and you can't even agree to that.

As it stands, what you've said is just social liberal soap box talk.

I'll simply respond: "I still see no evidence that there is a racial problem worth discussing, much less that I, or any person, white or otherwise, bears any responsibility for it."

So being reported to police for sleeping in a car is justice?

Again, I still see no evidence for a problem. You can't just presuppose when you talk to me, or any other social conservative, that there's a problem. You have to explain what the problem is and offer objective reasons to support the assertion that there is, in fact, such a problems to which the social conservative can assent.
I don't see how you can look at the data and NOT see a problem.

Black people have tremendous disparities in income, employment, wealth, incarceration etc. If you read the book I linked, interviews with black people they almost laughed at the "is there a race problem" question as they saw it as self-evident.

All you've talked about is criminals deserve to be in prison, period. Everything else is irrelevant to you.

As Chair said, where is your concern for your fellow human beings?

Why are so many more Americans incarcerated per capita than any other country?
Spoiler

imrs.php



Are Americans inherently more lawless than any other country?

Racism = racial disparity?

1. That's not how most people use the word.
2. That's not the connotations that are clearly implied even by the people who do use the word.
You confuse Racism with Racialized. They're two different things.

Doesn't follow.
Why not? If the races have the same level of potential and have equal opportunity, their outcomes, on average, should be similar wouldn't you say?

1. I wish to note, first, your utter hubris. In your post, you outright admit that I should be in a much better position than you to make a determination about these things, given my education. You then proceed to tell me what determination I should be making, given that education, which you lack.
Really, Trad I think you have a serious underestimation of your own hubris.
I have taken an ethics course or two and a course I teach now, environmental science includes a concept called "Environmental Justice". This refers to the pattern where communities of color often suffer from higher rates of pollution near their homes, and that such a pattern is unjust.

So what you're saying is everyone that's come up with this concept is wrong and it's actually fair that Black people get to live next to more toxic waste dumps and suffer more from air pollution.

It's all fair! Says Traditio, therefore it is. :dizzy:


1. What's the failure rate of rehab centers?
2. Crime has an objective merit for punishment.

You realize that this argument, if it holds any water (in the absense of empirical data, I'm not convinced either way), just as easily could used to support the death penalty for drug dealing, yes?
No, it doesn't. You remove someone from a community you create a hole in it be it prison or death.

The problem is that you are appealing to these general problems (e.g., recitivism rates), to which any number of solutions could be applied, and acting as though your solution were the only acceptable one.
I haven't said that at all. But your solution, locking them up and not worrying about them (status quo) is not effective.

The problem is that your solution is unjust/unfair. Criminals deserve punishment. The average citizen deserves to be protected from criminals. Period.
These are non-violent criminals. By and large they do not harm many members of society. Does it harm society more having them locked away than having them around and receiving treatment outpatient with perhaps a leg band instead?


1. I fully agree that every citizen is a potential criminal.
2. However, not every citizen is in a proximate potency to crime.
3. Nor are all crimes equally dangerous and offensive.

You're going to have difficulty arguing to me, Alate One, that drug dealers and drug addicts are not dangerous, do not need to be locked up, and, in the former case, do not need to be severely punished, etc.
Why then does the rest of the world seem to be able to get away with not imprisoning so many people? Do you think they don't have drug dealers?

Again, an additional problem is that you are arguing like a consequentialist. That's inconsistent with Christianity.
And you are arguing in absolutes without mercy which is inconsistent with Christianity. Christ wasn't concerned with punishing every lawbreaker, but showing them mercy and bringing them to repentance. We're dealing with human beings here, not categories of objects to place on a shelf.

How do you suppose he financed his little addiction? Hm? C'mon. I'm sure that you have an idea.
How did the tax collectors of Jesus' day finance their lives? Same answer. But who did Jesus accept as disciples?

You sound like one of the pharisees, telling everyone how you are not like those tax collectors.

That's literally my answer to what you just said. I scoff at you, at the supposed problem that you are raising, and all of the presuppositions and states of character which are necessary for this problem even to arise. :nono:
In real life people have a desparate need to be with others, often of the opposite sex. You create a warped society where the sexes are not present in equal numbers and all kinds of bad things happen. Ask India and China who have a deficit in girls right now.

Perhaps you missed this part of Mulan, depicting competition for males.

You'll bring Honor to us all


I'm not sure if policy makers have such an expectation, but I do agree with your general assessment, at least, in this respect: not everyone belongs in college. Most people don't. Technical training most certainly should be promoted much more than it is.

There's nothing wrong with being a plumber.
Wow we agree on something!

Utterly irrelevent if the discourse is on politics. Jesus didn't write the U.S. criminal code. He didn't even offer any suggestions. Just saying.
I disagree. Christians should have their politics informed by Biblical principles to some degree.
 

The Berean

Well-known member
I think maybe the most important thing is awareness and bias training. There's good research showing that as a culture, the black people are perceived as more threatening and less sympathetic by default, that their expressions of pain are often interpreted as a threat, and that includes when the perceiver is black themselves. So, I think that awareness of that bias is important. And of course, accountability, in the form of body camera, dash cameras, that sort of thing, and less presumption that the police are acting reasonably. And there are some laws that need to change. It's too easy for people, especially cops, but others as well to claim self-defense in many states.

How much is this driven by the constant barage of negative stereotypes of black people in the media, TV, films, and music? These negative sterotypical images are perpetrated today by white people and black people. During the Jim Crow era Hollywood usally portayed black people in the most extreme negative sterotypes going back to films like A Birth of a Nation. Black characters weren't even played by black actors but white actors in blackface. The few black performances that were allowed exposure to maintream American culture were usually carcitures of ignorant and servile baffoons like Amos 'n' Andy and Stepin Fetchit.

Today BET and Tyler Perry films do the same thing. Spike Lee refers to this "coonery baffoonery".

.
 

rexlunae

New member
How much is this driven by the constant barage of negative stereotypes of black people in the media, TV, films, and music? These negative sterotypical images are perpetrated today by white people and black people.

I think it's impossible to tell for sure. But, in a culture dominated by white people and their priorities and beliefs, does it matter? The source of the bias is ultimately the same, derived from the centuries-old narrative about black people as sub-humans only suited for hard labor, largely deprived of their own culture and self-definition. That narrative doesn't go away just because the laws demand equality.
 

ok doser

lifeguard at the cement pond
I think it's impossible to tell for sure. But, in a culture dominated by white people and their priorities and beliefs, does it matter? The source of the bias is ultimately the same, derived from the centuries-old narrative about black people as sub-humans only suited for hard labor, largely deprived of their own culture and self-definition. That narrative doesn't go away just because the laws demand equality.

as a point of comparison, how are all them black countries over in africa doing?

you know, the ones with wholly black populations and wholly black leadership and no history of that mean old narrative (that wasn't universally held in the white world, even centuries ago)


they must be doing oh so much better in providing a safe stable environment for their citizens to thrive in, yes?
 

rexlunae

New member
as a point of comparison, how are all them black countries over in africa doing?

you know, the ones with wholly black populations and wholly black leadership and no history of that mean old narrative (that wasn't universally held in the white world, even centuries ago)

Ethiopia (Abyssinia), you mean? I know you aren't talking about the other African countries, all of which were colonized by European countries at some point not too long ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scramble_for_Africa

Of course, even Ethiopia was occupied by Italian fascists, and it became a pawn during the Cold War. So it's not as if Europe has left it alone.

they must be doing oh so much better in providing a safe stable environment for their citizens to thrive in, yes?

Your response is certainly telling.
 

The Berean

Well-known member
I think it's impossible to tell for sure. But, in a culture dominated by white people and their priorities and beliefs, does it matter?
Yes, it does matter. If certain black people and oranganizations of cultural influence (like rappers and B.E.T. for example) are perpetuating negative sterotypes of black people then these black people are also part of the problem.

The source of the bias is ultimately the same, derived from the centuries-old narrative about black people as sub-humans only suited for hard labor, largely deprived of their own culture and self-definition. That narrative doesn't go away just because the laws demand equality.
Part of that will NEVER go away. For many people, they prefer to only associate with, live with, and work with people like themselves.

A man named Greg Johnson wrote this essay about why he is a "relecutant hater". Johnson is a educated man with a Ph.D yet he holds white nationalist views.

Confessions of a Reluctant Hater
 
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ok doser

lifeguard at the cement pond
Ethiopia (Abyssinia), you mean? I know you aren't talking about the other African countries, all of which were colonized by European countries at some point not too long ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scramble_for_Africa

Of course, even Ethiopia was occupied by Italian fascists, and it became a pawn during the Cold War. So it's not as if Europe has left it alone.


then you're suggesting that those countries with virtually no hite populations or whites in government are perpetuating a paradigm imposed on them by whites?

why would they do that?


while you're at it, tell us about the magnificent cultures they had developed before the colonial period

no fair using egypt :p
 

rexlunae

New member
then you're suggesting that those countries with virtually no hite populations or whites in government are perpetuating a paradigm imposed on them by whites?

No, I'm suggesting that when one civilization comes along and annexes the resources and labor of another, leaving it significantly impoverished and struggling for its own survival, it's a little bit obnoxious to look back at the smoldering husk a few generations later and say "there but by the grace of God".

why would they do that?

Because political progress is hard. Why do you feel so smug about it?

while you're at it, tell us about the magnificent cultures they had developed before the colonial period

no fair using egypt :p

Or you could just read about it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Africa
 
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