Actually Whites hold almost all the power in the country therefore it's basically impossible for them to be discriminated against. While Irish, Jewish and other people in this country have been discriminated against, they haven't been enslaved based on race. Even in Europe and Moorish slave cultures, they didn't routinely seperate families. In the U.S. they did that. No other slave culture has been as cruel as the U.S. slave culture. Even after slavery ended except for a brief period during the reconstruction Blacks were denied the right to equal schooling, law, housing, jobs, voting(meaning representation of common problems), promotions, and just about everything else. Now that stuff has been illegal for a matter of mere decades now. Whites in the 400 years of oppression based on race against have been able to entrench themselves in govt. jobs etc. Very few CEO's of major corporations are black. Those jobs are often based on previously having wealth, and having connections. Not always, but nepotism, and cronyism is responsible for a great deal of those jobs today. How is the playing field leveled after such a short time. Not every white person has access to this, but they have had the opportunity to learn from parents who were allowed to go to the best schools, their family tradition could have been one of the highest education levels which any study shows has a huge effect on the children. While in many cases one generation and certainly two generations of black families didn't have the same opportunities. Childrens learning comes at least as much from the home as it does from school. Plus home environment has a huge effect on how children perform in school. Then there's the assumption that discrimination doesn't still go on. The fact is discrimination still goes on to large extent. I've worked for an organization that deals with equal housing. I would basically pretend to be a white buyer/renter with the same job, and money as a minority buyer/renter. I would go to the same realty agent and see if they offered to show me the same places as they showed the minority. Trust me there is huge amounts of racism out there. There have been definite improvements made in the area of more black ownership of business etc. But there is no way that thirty plus years of supposed equality will make up for 400 years of slavery and denial.
I guess you are right it is terrible to hope for a place in the world where skin color doesn't matter, we should all just remain racist, is that what you are saying? Timing, I will try to say this without getting into a pissing match with you. Too often you fly off the handle and call names and lose track of the points being made. Racism exists everywhere, and you will not be able to get rid of it by legislating it out of existance. All you do by attemping this is to tick off people and this helps perpetuate the problem. The only way RACISM will die is a natural death. I said this in another thread, so I will say it again here: FOR EXAMPLE ONLY... Say you have a white business owner and he/she will not hire any blacks. Also, you have a black business owner who will not hire any whites. Both of them lose out on a whole section of business based on their racist edicts. Now you have a smart business person who only hires the best person for the job white or black....eventually this person is going to win out and all the racist shops will be out of business. This is the only way it will die out, it has to be naturally. I know this is simplistic, but it is the ONLY way to address this problem effectivly. IMHO of course. Now if you want to persist in name calling, then I can do that too, but I would prefer not to. DD
Why? You didn't do anything wrong. Why? Why can't people get over it. Why let it persist and continue to create bad feelings and bad attitudes. For my part, I think anybody who wants to pay reparations can do so. I know I don't want to. And I wouldn't want my tax money to pay them either.
Mrs JB, While I appreciate your discourse, I am far from angry about this matter. My only point is that I want a fair shake for everyone. I personally think that eveyrone in the USA has the same opportunity to succeed, and it bugs me that so many people in our country have their hands out rather then putting their nose to the grindstone and pulling THEMSELVES up. I personally like to debate the topic, it does not cause me misery or problems at all, I just like to hear others opinions on the matter. My life is fine, and I think everyone has the opportunity to succeed, you just have to be willing to take a risk and to fail again and again..before you succeed. DD
Nomar, That's EXACTLY why you're my favorite poster named after a baseball player who wears the number 5.
Not to mention that a lot of our families where not even in the USA when slavery was going on. Of course being 1/4 American Indian, part of my family has been here for more then a millenia. DD
I don't think the enslavement of Chinese in this country can really be compared to the enslavement of blacks. I'm pretty sure the scale of black enslavement, where they were stripped almost completely of their language, culture, etc. pretty much dwarfs Chinese enslavement.
DaDa I have not called you any names so spare me the woe is me victim act. Your "plan" is incredibly naive and simplistic and does nothing to deal with the issues in the black community right now. To seriously ask that minorities just continue on a certain path when it's clearly demonstrated they're not gaining equality in terms of wealth and income is simply not acceptable. They shouldn't stay quiet, they shouldn't stop bringing it up, and they won't no matter how many times you stamp your feet and try to seriously compare two hundred years of oppression to a black man talking about slapping a white person. Your complaint makes good copy for the Bill O'Reilly show but it's not going to make the realities of racism against minorities in this country any less true.
We purple people love you too Dallas. I have read this thread and all I see are the same arguments that have been made over and over.
Timing, You are missing my whole point, what does skin color have anything to do with anything? Why must we always equate things to the color of someone's skin. What relevance does it really have.....NONE !! My point is simplistic and I said as much, however it is a basis for the only real way that racism will go away. It has to be a natural evolution not shoved down anyones throat because it is pollitically correct to do so. FranchiseBlade, Power is perceived it is not something that can be quantified by simply saying someone has power. If you are talking about money, that is quantifyable, but where do we draw the line concerning race? Are Jewish people considered white? What about Sicilian? Are Puerto Rican's considered white? You see, the line can be put anywhere you want to put it to make your charts and arguments look good. The bottom line is that making charts about skin color is a waste of time and does nothing to help solve the problem. Educate people equally, and teach them that color does not matter and in a few generations it won't. DD
DD, I agree with you that we should spread the money evenly in regards of education, and that it will go along way to even the playing field. I also agree that teaching not discriminate based on race will help too, but we shouldn't ignore the history of discrimination that has existed. That should be part of the education. They should actually teach more truth. For instance that the first American shot during the revolutionary war was an African American. That the phone was actually invented by a slave, and he won a court case against Alexander Graham Bell to prove it, but only later after his death was the patent handed to Bell. The two were working on it together and in court the judge asked them both to draw detailed plans of how the phone worked and Bell lost. What Edison received credit for as far as filiment light bulbs was actually done by an black inventor working for Edison. But everyone who worked for Edison signed an agreement saying that Edison had rights to all the inventions. Things like this, would perhaps some of the people that are racist, see things in a different light, in addition to the fact that learning the truth is always better anyway. Admitting that past education was wrong and slanted toward whites might help speed up the process. I'm currently undecided about reparations, so I'm not arguing that they are what's needed, though I do support affirmative action for a while longer still.
Da, man, I give you points for sticking to your guns. But you just don't get it. And you probably never will. And that's not a fault, or an insult. Its just a simple fact. It's easy to say 'look past it', 'get over it', or move on....when it isn't you. You just wont' know. Not until you walk into a room, or a building, or a meeting, and feel automatically out of place. Not until you are acutely aware...that they are acutely aware...that you are different. And imagine it happening every day. Imagine it happening at a job opportunity. Or at a school, where you have to feel comfortable and learn to focus on your studies. Not until you understand that minorities actually feel a bond with their ethnicity...a real bond. That it means something. That it identifies them. That, when they go into that classroom or that office and everyone else is not them....they have something they can fall back on. Somewhere they can feel like home. It's sooo easy to say what does skin color have to do with it....when your skin color doesn't come into play. So you say....stop making your ethnicity an issue. Easy for you to say. Because if that happens, then who is it that's giving something up?
Mrs JB, My primary source of angst is that I think giving anyone a LEG UP simply because of the color of their skin is wrong, and not only that but I feel doing that will do nothing but serve to perpetuate racism. Skin color should not be a dertermining factor in any legislation. DD
In my industry this happens all the time. You are missing the point, what do all of the inventions above have to do with skin color? Nothing. What you have is a simple case of stealing credit, or signing an agreement with someone to where the owner of the company gets the credit. Skin color should NOT matter, that is my point.....if these guys were the true inventors then herald their name, not the color of their skin. DD
Good points Rokkit, I certainly concede that racism exists and that some people feel a sense of community based upon skin tone. Heck, some day we will all realize that their is only one race that really matters. The Human race. DaDakota
Yes that happens with Disney drawings and plenty of industries. I know it still goes on, and I wasn't trying to make a comment on the practice, just that it looks like African-Americans didn't have much of a part in the building of this country or contributions to modern living, until MLK Jr. comes along, if you read current HS textbooks. The reason to teach this stuff is because it would be destroying stereo-types that some people have. Their name should be heralded, and while you wouldn't have to herald the skin color showing a picture would be a good thing.
After several hundred years of oppression of blacks you now want to ask me what skin color has to do with anything? It's a little too late for that buddy. You seem to think everyone walks around in a color blind utopian fog. Come back to reality. I can show you a mountain of stats that show a heck of a lot of relevance in this country. You can pretend that everyone is seen the same or even think it should be that way but it isn't and to believe otherwise is dishonest. Humankind is what a few million years old and we still have racism so you'll have to forgive me if I believe your "natural evolution" plan is pretty damn weak. Hey you might be right though. In a couple million years maybe we won't have racism, of course that doesn't do anything for anyone currently living but hey not every plan is perfect. LOL
All the racists should just stop being meanies and all the people being discriminated against get no help because we wouldn't ever want legislation to help someone based on their skin color even if they're being discriminated against by that same skin color. So basically you have no plan to stop anything or help anyone. Well that's great.
DaDakota, I agree with you that skin color shouldn't matter. And I look forward to the day it doesn't. But today it does. And to argue that the best thing we can do to end it is to ignore it is really horribly insulting to all the people who've worked and continue to work so hard for civil rights. The work is not done, we do not have a level playing field and this has been demonstrated for you in detail, in various posts by various posters. But you choose to ignore it, in line with your strategy of eliminating racism by pretending it doesn't exist. I'm not accusing you of anything but idealistic naivite, but I am absolutely accusing you of that. And it's poor form for blacks to complain about slavery, because it happened a 'long' time ago? Oh, my poor, simple friend. I refer you to the late, great Bill Hicks: "Then don't bring up Jesus to me. I mean, as long as we're talking shelf life... 'But Bill, Jesus died for your sins...' Hey, it was a long time ago. Let it go..."
