How Systemic Racism and Implicit Bias Affects African Americans

The green argument isn't true based on the data. A black kid raised in richest household has a much better chance of being poor instead of staying in the same class.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/03/19/upshot/race-class-white-and-black-men.html

 

I wouldn't say the American dream is a lie. Its just that much harder to achieve for anyone, not just one special group. Our system rewards unethical behavior.

As blacks were being treated more fairly starting in the 60's, upward mobility also started to diminish across the board. Entering into the 70's, divorce became much more common (single parent families) and drugs entered into the scene. The suburban sprawl pushed the impoverished minorities into the inner cities and the self loathing whites into the rural areas.

Yes, blacks have been disproportionately affected. However I am not a big fan of blame whitey as the solution to the problem. As a country, we should be marching in a direction to help all those who are at a disadvantage. Its not an easy solution and it wont happen over night.

 

No.

 

No one cares.

 

But you see the problem is the republican’s enabling of such a divisive president. Trump prides himself in dividing the nation. People who defend this is contributing to the problem. The amount of dog whistling this president does is self evident. The sad part is some people don’t care as long they feel like they can “own the libs” which is basically saying **** the country.

 

That troll doesn’t deserve the attention

 

You are right. There is no such thing as homelessness, children who are undernourished, and don't have adequate health care in the US. It just doesn't happen.

https://www.savethechildren.org/us/what-we-do/us-programs/hunger-in-the-us
https://www.air.org/center/national-center-family-homelessness

https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2019/09/uninsured-rate-for-children-in-2018.html

 

One of Yangs plans I liked, that I didn’t hear get much coverage, was large investments into HBCUs.

I think it’s important for white people to listen, but I don’t think apologizing for being white and changing my Facebook profile pic is going to do anything to help the problems in this country.

 

Thank you!

 

There is a difference between apologizing for being white and understanding the historical causes for current predicaments for problem solving reasons and also not to repeat them.

The rational people are referring to the later. I don't really know anyone wanting the former. We don't want modern white people feeling guilty because of slavery or Jim Crow. At least I don't want to. That's unproductive.

 

Well, you are right, it's unfair to say it is a lie. I was just being dramatic. It certainly exists, not as much as it used to, but yeah, it's harder than before. I don't even disagree about single-parents, it makes sense that it's incredibly hard to raise children alone on a full time job and a median income. You add another adult to the mix and it just becomes easier. The divorce rates rising is interesting, and that's not even a black thing IIRC from some study I read some time ago, it's an American thing. I'm not advocating for a traditional family, man-woman, kind of thing, but I don't think there is any data that supports raising children alone is a good thing.

I don't think blame whitey is a solution either and yeah, things are A LOT better, I think that gets lost in the conversation a lot. I Also think the time between the 60s and now gets lost, for better and worst.

For better, we've made A LOT of progress in such a short amount of time. The country went from hanging black people publically and openly denying them anything close to equal rights, to marching together to try and change a system unfair to millions of people in a span of like 40 or so years basically. This is very short.

At the same time, the for worse of it, there's still a lot of lingering issues that are from that racist past that still affects today.

I think people should always remember that we've made a lot of progress but we still have a lot to account for.

 

This is definitely an issue but kind of separate.

American politicians, like most of them, just do what they feel will keep them in office. A lot of the GOP are terrified that if they say anything about Trump that's bad that he'll get them kicked voted out.

Lisa Murkowski was attacked recently for it. If Trump loses this year a lot of them will flip on the spot. On the spot. Especially if that loss concludes in losing the senate as well. You'll see a lot of GOP politicians running on "I'm not like Trump, I'm going to restore the GOP to its former glory," kind of things. Ted Cruz will be leading the way for that. The best way to solve this problem is to vote him out of office and show the GOP that this divisive behavior will not be tolerated.

I sort of believe in that old phrase that the people get the politicians they deserve.

 

I understand that. I understand he is a terrible leader. I also understand Republicans have little interest in helping minorities and those in poverty. However this overall problem has been going on for decades.

I have a problem with Democrats expecting support for the Black community and they do very little in return. This is why I found Biden's 'you're just not black for not voting Democrat' comment offensive. I understand how it is hard to make meaningful change. One change that would really help minorities is the legalization of mar1juana and Biden wants nothing to do with that. I dont support legalization of mar1juana because I think we all should have a right to do what we want with our body. I feel like its a tool to discriminate and harass.

 

I was thinking a lot about George Floyd's life and my life. Two guys about the same age who grew up in Houston and ended up in Minneapolis. If I look back about how he grew up in the Third Ward and went to Yates. His early life was defined by the legacy of segregation. I grew up in Southside Place just outside of West U and went to Lamar places that had been white and much more affluent with much higher academic achievement that what Floyd had. Interesting to note that Yates was named after a former slave and a minister. Lamar was named after a Secessionist.

My family came here as well educated and ambitious immigrants just as Civil Rights was doing away with Segregation. As non-white people in the South we benefited from the dismantling of legal discrimination even while people like George Floyd were still stuck in Third Ward. He left Houston and came to Minneapolis for a new start after getting out of prison. I came here for grad school.

I didn't know him but we spent a good part of our lives only a few miles from each other but one of us ended up a middle class architect while another ended up dying on the street under the knee o flaw enforcement.

I really wonder how much the patterns of our lives were already fixed long ago. If you looked at my high school graduation pic and Floyd's without knowing anything else could already figure out how our lives would end up.

 

Its an interesting thought experiment. I grew up in poverty but I was fortunate enough to be schooled in middle classed suburbia (Clear Lake area). I was raised to be religiously ignorant and extremely judgmental. This judgmental behavior led my mom away from the very bad parts of town and she chose to live in low income areas on the outskirts of middle class neighborhoods, sacrificing any form of luxury. It wasn't until my early twenties did I really realize how poor we were.
That said, I would likely be in a very different life if I was not in the schools that I ended up in. Even with that advantage, I was set back a decade because I did not have a supporting family who encouraged education and didnt put for the effort to put me in positive situations. Being in the right place and at the right time meeting the right people made a massive difference in my late 20's and early 30's. I have 3 brothers, two of us who have done fairly well for ourselves considering our childhood upbringing. My one brother did well because he landed in a good job in the military that translated into a very good job in the private sector.
Poverty is hard to escape. Its a mindset, one that we all have. And its not something on can expect someone to escape from entirely. Its why I am a firm believer this is something we should tackle at an early childhood level instead of throwing so many resources in a reactive manner.

 

With things like these, i'm left wondering who they're trying to persuade?

Political campaigns are a turn out game, you don't want to replicate how they act, their goal is more to turn out their own base with some overlap into the independent category, they couldn't care less how the opposing faction sees them, you're not trying to win votes, you're trying to win hearts.

But if you want change, the goal should be to appeal to the people who don't already agree with you, link your issue to similarities than them (the protracted gay campaign is a good example, it was basically 2 decades of how we're similar).

 

Agree strongly about early childhood development. That's the most important part. Good parents are made from being raised well as children. That's why our resources should be spent on decreasing the damage of childhood poverty such as providing high quality early childhood education.

 

You're right poverty is a very hard thing to escape.

My dad grew up very poor in HK following WWII and before HK really took off economically. He lived in a tiny cramped apartment where he had to share a bed with brothers and was raised by an aunt after his parents died. He was very driven and got out of the slums of HK. Of his three brothers the youngest got to a middle class life in HK but the oldest one died poor in an HK cancer ward and the middle one is an alcoholic and gambler who makes a living as a security guard. My dad doesn't talk much to the rest of his family and I'm estranged from them. Looking at my dad I can see how much iron determination it takes to get out of poverty.

Looking at George Floyd's life it seemed hard too. It certainly seemed like he made a lot of mistakes too. I know at Lamar there were also a lot of kids who came from backgrounds not dissimilar to Floyd's. One of the quirks of how Houston developed is that communities like the Allen Parkway projects are in the same school area as River Oaks. Some of them did take IB and Magnet classes and I know some of those people did succeed in life but in life but it certainly seemed difficult.

 

Personally I don't think there is much politicians can do about this. I think even a Sanders plan of a much larger social safety net or a Yang plan of UBI will make marginal changes. I hope one thing we can all agree on is that there is no easy answer or solution to the problem of systemic racism and endemic poverty.

Doesn't mean we shouldn't try or call out racism when we see it but this is still an ongoing process with no clear direction.

 

I agree with you 100% and can't say in words how much I appreciate you sharing this.

If we invest in mentoring kids as a nation, I believe we can solve most of our problems from racism, to poverty, to criminal justice.