Racism

[slim 1,525]

Black Americans have very little in common with Black Africans.

Except their race.

Many folks confuse the meanings of the terms culture and race.

See above.

[Pinocchio Liberal 268]

We rightly condemn a history of gross racial discrimination in American education, for example, but when we make that the causal explanation of educational differences, we go beyond what the facts will support. Everyone is aware of times and places when the amount of money spent educating a black child was a fraction of what was spent educating a white child, when the two groups were educated in separate systems, hermetically sealed off from one another, and when worn-out textbooks from the white schools were then sent over to the black schools to be used, while new and more up-to-date textbooks were bought for the white children. The number of days in a school year sometimes differed so much that a black child with 9 years of schooling would have been in class the same number of days as a white child with only 6 years of schooling. It seems so obvious that such things would account for disparities in test scores, for example.

But is it true?

There are other groups to whom none of these factors apply-- and who still have had test score differences as great as those between black and white children in the Jim Crow South. Japanese and Mexican immigrants began arriving in California at about the same time and initially worked in very similar occupations as agricultural laborers. Yet a study of a school district in which their children attended the same schools and sat side-by-side in the same classrooms found IQ differences as great as those between blacks and whites attending schools on opposite sides of town in the Jim Crow South. International studies have found different groups of illiterates-- people with no educational differences because they had no education-- with mental test differences larger than those between blacks and whites in the United States.

What is "the" reason? There may not be any such thing as "the" reason. There are so many cultural, social, economic, and other factors interacting that there was never any reason to expect equal results in the first place. That is why plausible simplicities must be subjected to factual scrutiny.

Back in 1899, when the schools of Washington, D.C. were racially segregated and discrimination was rampant, there were four academic high schools in the city-- three white and one black. When standardized tests were given that year, the black academic high school scored higher than two of the three white academic high schools.6 Today, exactly a century later, even setting such a goal would be considered hopelessly utopian. Nor was this a fluke. That same high school was scoring at or above the national average on IQ tests during the 1930s and 1940s.7 Yet its physical plant was inadequate and its average class size was higher than that in the city's white high schools.

Today, that same school has a much better physical plant and per-pupil expenditures in the District of Columbia are among the highest in the nation. But the students' test scores are among the lowest. Nor was this school unique in having had higher academic achievements during a period when it seemingly lacked the prerequisites of achievement and yet fell far behind in a later period when these supposed prerequisites were more plentiful.

http://www.tsowell.com/spracecu.html

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Is it because only white militants would form such a club or is it because anyone who tried to form such a group would be labeled as such?

Because only extremists would form such a group. Whites generally don't view themselves in racial terms, the only ones who do are Nazi types.

[Fandango 1,439]

I had a man come into my workplace only a few days ago and he started off a conversation with the famous words:

"Now, I'm not a racist man but..."

And then proceeded to waffle on about how he thought black people were segregating themselves by calling things "Black Expo".

I explained it was a celebration of the culture. He didn't care. It didn't fit into his blinkered little world.

We can't win. The world is full of ignorant idiots. Most of them white, it would seem, who label themselves as "Not racist but..."

I see many of those "men" here on VJ.

I think it's also possible that it could be that everything has to be prefaced or else you're labeled a racist.

I personally was very vocal against Obama's campaign. Know what I heard more often than not? 'You don't like him cos he's black' erm, no obviously you weren't listening to my diatribe hehheehhe.

Anyhow, Let's face it though...a 'white expo' would NEVER be acceptable. And there are also many cultures within the black community more specific than just labeling it 'black'....'African' 'jamaican' etc. Is there one 'homogenous' black culture? I don't know. What's that mean anyways?

I now feel the need to say 'now I'm no racist but'

[justashooter 430]

Because only extremists would form such a group. Whites generally don't view themselves in racial terms, the only ones who do are Nazi types.

and those that have lived in non-white societies as a minority.

[Craneman 2]

ARGUE WITH NO TRUE BELIEVER

[HAL 9000 96]

Hal

Thanks same to you.

Madhouse good discussion today.

Its nice, for a change. Maybe you ought to teach that to some around here, although with the near mental level of stubborness of some around here, its quite the uphill lesson.

Oh, it's not that it doesn't happen, but that the proportion of black fathers doing this is significantly higher than their white counterparts but MORE IMPORTANTLY indicative of some cultural failure in black society, not any historical legacy of social inequality or anything librul like that.

And certainly nothing genetic (racial) as some would suggest.

[HAL 9000 96]

Is it because only white militants would form such a club or is it because anyone who tried to form such a group would be labeled as such?

Nothing is holding back any non-racist white organization from being formed.

Are there not such organizations already in existence?

e.g., European ancestry clubs, etc? If the matter is economical, state your cause and create the group.

[Sgt. McGee 27]

Anyhow, Let's face it though...a 'white expo' would NEVER be acceptable. And there are also many cultures within the black community more specific than just labeling it 'black'....'African' 'jamaican' etc. Is there one 'homogenous' black culture? I don't know. What's that mean anyways?

I have a black friend from Jamaica, and another from England, and they both HATE it when people call them "African American". They're not. They're, in their own words, "black".

Then again, I also have another friend, born in Kenya, who is white. She's truly "African American". Think she can check that box on standardized tests?

Edited July 21, 2010 by Sgt. McGee

[KaiserD 12]

Sure I find some of the opinions of VJ questionable at best but it's not unfair for some of the people in this thread to want racism against white people acknowledged.

My son is half black but I will be doing aaallllll I can to move out of this school district by the time he is school age because he will be one of the only, if not the only white looking person there and he will get bullied for looking/being white. The schools in this immediate area are horrible.

My husband is clearly black but light skinned and both him and his friend (who was half black half white) received a lot of problems for not being black "enough".

There is a difference between celebrating (or more generally) acknowledging culture and then actively dividing "us" and "them". Both of these things go on and continues animosity on both sides. Let's take the famous "n" word, a black person can mean this several kinds of ways, towards a friend, against someone they dislike, or a particular kind of backstabbing person. Well everyone knows that, I mean watch 5 minuets of Boondocks.

Anyway being a white person, you can't say this word any kind of way. Despite being only white person in my family and having no other American connections I cannot say this word. I am me and they are them and I cannot permeate this culture, so I'm kind of stuck from mixing in (not just from this of course! It's just one small example). By nature, I am the kind of person that subconciously takes in other peoples ways and habits and adopt them myself without even trying. My English accent is totally gone unless I speak it conciously, I would like to NOT do this (Cornish people are very proud of their way of talking) and the other day at my MILs house I called my son "boo", I did not even mean to.

I have never seen a room full of talking people go quiet so fast.

Anyway to tie in to the original topic, you can't argue with the facts that there are more black people in poverty than white people. It is just history that today's landscape is shaped by yesterdays actions and opinions. Black equality is not there yet just like gender but it has made improvements. Continued improvements must come from everyone and by looking forward, the world from the bottom of the ladder is nasty and unfair, but blaming other people/cultures for our bad situations is only giving up and absolving our responsibility to make efforts in improving our life.

Also I've said this before, while black culture may take a few different manifestations in poverty, the mindset between them and impoverished white people is generally the same. I've found many, many similarities in peoples mindsets here in Decatur with Runcorn, UK. Maybe the rap culture has taken its own influence into the poorer chav populace, I don't know. That any culture with a lack of responsibility, chronic single parenthood, teen pregnancy, poor education and entitlement issues is a scourge for all of society.

Lastly I would like to highlight that 1)not all white people are racist, not all black people are racist, not all black people use the n word as they please and not all poor people have said mentality. We can make statements about observations of swaths of the population but applying them to all of any group of people is what gives us these headaches in the first place. I restate my claim, racial profiling = stupid.

Edited July 21, 2010 by KaiserD

[Sofiyya 1,687]

(Moderator hat off)

And thus illustrating beautifully the serious disservice and damage caused by 'stereotyping'.

Thank you, Kathryn. You are the only person who even acknowledged my post, and, then the stereotyping continued, as if nothing was to be considered. Sadly, a couple of generations have been raised with the fallacy that Whites are advantaged and Blacks are disadvantaged in the US, so the only dialect available to them is the dicotomy between the oppressed and the oppressor and class warfare. There is so much more to it than that.