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Re: Empowering the "Victim" classes. Double standards?
You know, in the late 1800s when Finnish immigrants to the US began to be regarded as on par with the Irish - that is, dumb and prone to crime, alcoholism and violence but at least White if nothing else - that was a clear improvement in their status...
Sociologists speak of "the opening up of the White Male Franchise" around those times.
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Re: Empowering the "Victim" classes. Double standards?
Most of these rants are about how Irish, or whatever other ethnic group was discriminated against, hasn't recieved any sort of reparations for such...
-Poor working standards
-Negative bias due to their religion and culture
While St.Patricks day is great, why haven't we gotten any sort of reparations?
Because no-one is there to pay for it.
The African-American society has an identifiable source of all their problems, and that has been exploited. No white man could ever claim injustice in America because it's so out of the stereotype, and you can't identify "Bob of New York who exploited my great-grandfather."
African-Americans can identify through some dubious but just as scholarly slave records who forced their ancestors to work. However, why haven't they pursued it to Portugal, Spain, Britain, France, Senegal, Ghana, Congo, etc. etc.? That is what I ask, why have they stopped in America. There has to be some records of the slave trade. Why are the plantation owners more responsible for this and not the slave traders who profited from this trade?
Like has been said before, why are Asians valued and respected people in society. Why are they thought of as intelligent, responsible people when we fought the Japanese in 1940's, and the Chinese are taking our jobs, both in the 1800's and in the modern era? :dizzy2:
Its a double standard for the African-Americans. Its because of deep-rooted racial discrimination, but no-one can identify why. Is there a widespread Aryan movement in Georgia? No. Its because of the depiction of African-Americans in society. Many rappers who speak of gang violence, movies that depict a gangster man. Not all movies depict black people as gangsters, but coming from an American, as much as I try, its prevalent, especially at my high school. Wearing baggy black pants, big dollar bills on their shirts, athletic. Its social pressures that are forcing African-Americans to fit this stereotype.
Don't think that it's the 'white man' thats forcing all these social pressures. Like the football coach said a couple years ago, it went something like 'African Americans can run.' This sparked outrage at the implication. I just want to ask, how many American Football running backs are white? How many recievers? In basketball, who are the highest scorers? For the football players, what percent of players are African-American.
Do African-Americans have any good role models?
They have MLK, W.E.B.Dubois, and a slew of people. Whites have everything from Adams to Washington. It's not their fault, but then it kinda is.
Some are willing to break out of the caste of the ghetto, and I admire them. Others fall into the stereotype. Some middle their way through, and that's okay.
So why haven't the African-Americans played up Barack Obama, Colin Powell, Condi Rice? These are the people you can be!
:wall: :wall: :wall:
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Re: Empowering the "Victim" classes. Double standards?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marshal Murat
Like has been said before, why are Asians valued and respected people in society. Why are they thought of as intelligent, responsible people when we fought the Japanese in 1940's, and the Chinese are taking our jobs, both in the 1800's and in the modern era? :dizzy2:
The bit about centuries of chattel slavery being quasi-legitimized with some pretty ugly racial dogmas might of have something to do with it.
Whatever else they may have been regarded as, the Asians weren't property and little short of subhuman helots.
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Re: Empowering the "Victim" classes. Double standards?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Crazed Rabbit
There's the black Republican Senator candidate in Maryland who was pelted with oreos, presumably for being a republican.
Crazed Rabbit
As stated before, note the word credible. Some buffoons pelting a black republican with oreos is supposed to represent the entire left. Right. Golly, JC Watts lives right down the street from me, and he's a grade-A douchbag, I guess all this time I should have been burning crosses in his front yard.
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Re: Empowering the "Victim" classes. Double standards?
How long have governments been empowering a "victim" class? Did not the romans hold games to appease the masses, to focus them on other things then their own existance.
"Give them Cake"
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Re: Empowering the "Victim" classes. Double standards?
Gentlemen,
This thread is beginning to heat up and skirt close to what is permitted when expressing concerns about racial groups.
Please be more temperate in your characterisations and rhetoric or the Four Horsemen of Moderation* may have to ride out.
:beam:
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Re: Empowering the "Victim" classes. Double standards?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Redleg
How long have governments been empowering a "victim" class? Did not the romans hold games to appease the masses, to focus them on other things then their own existance.
"Give them Cake"
You've got your parallels screwed up here. The Romans kind of had to do the whole panem et circenses thing in Rome at least to A) keep the staggering number of idle hands away from excessive mischief B) prevent food riots. (The latter, as an aside, remained a very pressing concern of cities in general and the Mediterranean ones in particular due to the inherent unpredictability of harvest and other matters of food production until well after the Middle Ages.)
The connection to the topic of discussion evades my perception, all the more so as the common Roman by that point had extremely little say in anything except through the implicit threat of civil disturbance.
"Let them eat cake", attributed to Marie Antoinette on the eve of the French Revolution, is most likely an anecdote of how totally the French royalty and courtiers were insulated from the very acute worries of the common folk - namely in this case, soaring bread prices due to assorted unsolved issues of which the feudal privileges of the aristocracy weren't the least.
The relevance is again difficult to decipher, unless one wishes to refer to the specific lack of empowerement among the lower orders of late 1700s French society...
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Re: Empowering the "Victim" classes. Double standards?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Watchman
The relevance is again difficult to decipher, unless one wishes to refer to the specific lack of empowerement among the lower orders of late 1700s French society...
Your getting close.
Think about the political games that governments play to appease the masses to remain in power. Empowering a "victim" class is just another way of doing so. What does this empowering of a "victim" class do? Does affirmative action programs really empower the group that has suffered social injustices, or is it something that the government does to appease specific groups? Does affirmative action programs ease the burdern or does it create a burdern? Does it provide any real correction or is it just a system that allows some to believe that the government is actually doing something? Does affirmative action really correct the injustice of social ills, especially given that it does not educate the society on the root cause of that social injustice?
Now ponder upon that and your statement of The Romans kind of had to do the whole panem et circenses thing in Rome at least to A) keep the staggering number of idle hands away from excessive mischief B) prevent food riots
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Re: Empowering the "Victim" classes. Double standards?
I think the reparations deal is a little crazy, since your forcing everyone after the slave trade ended to pay for your grand-parents mistakes. Talk about repercussions.
I don't know if anyone really owes African-Americans anything for their previous history. Like I said before, why aren't I targeting the Romans for enslaving my great-great-great-great-great-great grandparents. Are the British paying for the Irish plantations?
Anyway...
The empowering of the victim class is a standard political play, even if they aren't the minority.
Hitler did it with the Germans and the Jewish bankers, making them out to be evil burghers who cast poor Aryan Germans into the street. Poor victims of Jewish money pinching.
If you think your a victim, you feel entitled to something, and this sort of petty revenge is just silly. While slavery was a bad thing, does that mean we should be allowing your children to have opportunities that allow them to get a leg up on the competition?
1)If this sounds fair, then why shouldn't we consider race for promotion, if your African American, then why not promote you over your white counterparts! Sounds fair!
2)If it doesn't then your capitalistic and racist, and hate people of other races.
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Re: Empowering the "Victim" classes. Double standards?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Redleg
Your getting close.
Think about the political games that governments play to appease the masses to remain in power. Empowering a "victim" class is just another way of doing so. What does this empowering of a "victim" class do? Does affirmative action programs really empower the group that has suffered social injustices, or is it something that the government does to appease specific groups? Does affirmative action programs ease the burdern or does it create a burdern? Does it provide any real correction or is it just a system that allows some to believe that the government is actually doing something? Does affirmative action really correct the injustice of social ills, especially given that it does not educate the society on the root cause of that social injustice?
Now ponder upon that and your statement of The Romans kind of had to do the whole panem et circenses thing in Rome at least to A) keep the staggering number of idle hands away from excessive mischief B) prevent food riots
The Roman citizenry weren't exactly a minority discriminated against by the majority. Neither did they have big-ass historical baggage dragging them down.
Find a better angle, please. The around only things Rome has in common with modern societies are the main structural parts that allow both to be identified as societies in the exact meaning.
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Re: Empowering the "Victim" classes. Double standards?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Watchman
The Roman citizenry weren't exactly a minority discriminated against by the majority. Neither did they have big-ass historical baggage dragging them down.
What of the large subset of people in Rome who where not citizens of the Republic? It seems to me that the Christians were once victims of the Romans and then became the leaders of the Romans. Did not large groups of people were captured to feed the requirement for slaves for the Roman Republic, were these slaves not part of the society? Were these individuals not "victims" of the majority?
Is it because you wish to believe the use of people to prop up the government is not an age old institution of government?
Quote:
Find a better angle, please. The around only things Rome has in common with modern societies are the main structural parts that allow both to be identified as societies in the exact meaning.
Ah its not a perfect angle, but it is a valid one in my opinion. There was a whole subset of people who were abused by the Romans because of their difference of being. Various "victims" have been used to justify numerous types of actions by the government. The latest being to empower them over others, but what function does it really serve? Is a social injustice truely being addressed by the government, or is the government using the "victim" to continue its existance.
The point is that different forms of governments have been using a "victim" class in one form or another for about as long as history has been recorded.
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Re: Empowering the "Victim" classes. Double standards?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vuk
Quote:
Originally Posted by Goofball
First of all, I don't buy into the fact that all blacks get special treatment over whites. Second, you are missing the point. Measures we are taking (such as affirmative action, which I admit is a very imperfect policy) now are not meant as "payback" for past offenses against blacks. They are meant to offer more equal opportunity in an environment that still discriminates against minorities.
No, giving equal opportunities is giving equal opportunities - giving special treatment or elevated status isn't. And don't tell me that women and minorities don't get both. I've lived long enough to see that. I think it is horrible that they shouldn't get equal opportunities, but I think it is equally horrible to see them getting special treatment. If you say it is horrible that one sect of society or culture got special treament, but not that it is horrible that another sect got equal treatment, you are saying that one is better than the other, and that is the essence of the negativity given to the word: discrimination. Saying women are better than men is JUST as sexist as saying men are better than women. Saying blacks are better than whites is JUST as racist as saying whites are better than blacks. You guys are being just as sexist and racist as the guys we just worked so hard to get rid of!!
When equal treatment began to be legislated or forced by the courts, it was a time when you could be not hired for a job, or not allowed to attend a school, or not permitted to play golf, or not allowed to drink out of a water fountain because of the color of your skin.
Legislating the abandonment of these practices was not "giving elevated status," it was giving equality.
You can certainly argue that legislation is no longer needed to enforce these things, but the legislation was necessary when it took place.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vuk
Quote:
Originally Posted by Goofball
You can argue that that is not what the measures are actually achieving, but that was their intent.
I beg to differ.
Simply because it has the virtue of at least being succinct, that is probably the best argument you have made in this thread.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vuk
Quote:
Originally Posted by Goofball
They were not treated "extremely well." You need a serious dose of reality. The simple fact that they were considered to be property precludes the use of the phrase "extremely well" when describing how slaves were treated in America.
You really need to read posts before responding to them. I said COMPARED to other slaves.
What you said, and what I was responding to was this:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vuk
FACT: 99% of slave traders were black and well before whites bought slaves from them they had been enslaving other blacks. That is, blacks held more black slaves than whites, and for longer than whites. Also, blacks starved, tortured, mutilated, and even ate their slaves - in the south where slaves were a valuable commodity, they were treated extremely well for the most part. (Which isn't to say there wasn't a lot of abuse - there was. That is where the "for the most part" comes in...)
Read your own posts before you accuse others of not having done so.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vuk
FACT: A white slave trade was going on at the same time and there were more white slaves in America than black slaves. Also, the black slaves were treated fairly well for slaves, while the white slaves were worked to death and put into brothels.
Ok, Common sense threw out its facts, now let's see it argument.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vuk
Quote:
Originally Posted by Goofball
You're going to have to provide some sources that don't come from white sepremist websites before I can buy any of that.
Once again, we have a reading related problem. Before you respond to a post like this, may I suggest you read up on the subject.
P.S. I am afraid I don't know of any white supremist sites, perhaps I'll check one out after I check your GBBS website out...
That's not how it works. If you present a piece of information as fact, you must be prepared to back it up with reliable sources. Otherwise people have no way of knowing whether is is really a fact, or something you invented. You don't just tell the other person to "read up." You are the one who claimed to be presenting a fact. Cite your own research, I'm not going to do it for you.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vuk
Quote:
Originally Posted by Goofball
1) The Irish Americans were in no way treated worse than the slaves.
2) You're still missing the point. Current measures aimed at equalization are not meant as punishments for whites or gifts for blacks because of the past. They are meant as levellers for the present.
MAN! You have to read more!! The Irish Americans were not given jobs and nearly all initial settlers died! They were persecuted, starved, beaten, put in brothels, etc.
The few boys who did get jobs got jobs in factories operating poor machinery, that should never have been put into use, or became chimney sweeper. Meanwhile rich WHITE women would sit in their parlors with their warm fire thinking of how to free the poor black slaves...while a little white boy was on the roof suffocating from their fires that they refused to extinguish while the chimney was swept.
Most whites considered the Irish worse than animals and thought nothing of their pain, misery, or lives. They thought less of the Irish than dirt under their feet, but at the same time deluded themselves with notions of their humanity by thinking of way to free the poor blacks.
There were sign that said things like: "Dogs, Jews, and Irish stay of grass", and "Such and such job, Irishmen need not apply."
Okay. Now take everything you just said was done to the Irish, and add to it:
Were bought, sold, owned, lived and died as property.
That's what happened to the slaves (I could have made it more graphic, but it's not really necessary).
Nobody is saying bad things weren't done to the Irish.
But it doesn't hold a candle to what was done to the slaves.
Add to that the fact that discrimination against the Irish largely ended on its own (mainly due to the fact that they are white, and most bigots are too stupid to even realize whom they are "supposed" to be bigoted against unless they have a very visible clue to work from) in the mid to latter part of the 1900s, while discrimination against blacks was still going strong.
Edit: spelling
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Re: Empowering the "Victim" classes. Double standards?
On a related note to this issue
Quote:
Associated Press
RICHMOND, Va. – Angry black leaders called Thursday for a legislator to be censured for saying blacks should "get over" slavery.
"I think we ought to just kick up some hell," the Rev. J. Rayfield Vines Jr. said during a news conference organized by the Virginia National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
In a newspaper interview published Tuesday, Del. Frank D. Hargrove said slavery ended nearly 140 years ago with the Civil War and added that "our black citizens should get over it."
The 79-year-old Republican lawmaker also rhetorically asked whether Jews should also apologize for the crucifixion of Christ. He was opposing a pending House resolution expressing Virginia's apology for slavery.
The Rev. J. Rayfield Vines Jr. (right) of the NAACP confronts GOP lawmaker Del. Frank Hargrove in his Richmond, Va., Capitol office about his statement that black people "should get over" slavery.
In seething comments Thursday, state NAACP director King Salim Khalfani and four black religious leaders said nothing short of an apology by the Republican Party and a formal rebuke of Hargrove would satisfy them.
After the news conference, the group confronted Hargrove in his office. "We think that's very insensitive for you to say blacks should just get over it when you haven't walked in our shoes," Khalfani told Hargrove.
Khalfani said he will await lawmakers' action before deciding whether civil protests are warranted. But neither Republicans nor Democrats were ready to commit to censure on Thursday.
Even the black delegate who is sponsoring the House slavery apology measure was noncommittal.
"A censure is for someone who knows they've done something wrong. I'm not sure Delegate Hargrove appreciates how wrong what he said was," Del. A. Donald McEachin said.
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Re: Empowering the "Victim" classes. Double standards?
I believe Mr. Hargrove has committed the crime of being politically incorrect.
As far as reparations for discrimination against my Irish descendents go, I'll settle for a free beer and some good natured banter at the local club.~:cheers:
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Re: Empowering the "Victim" classes. Double standards?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hosakawa Tito
I believe Mr. Hargrove has committed the crime of being politically incorrect.
As far as reparations for discrimination against my Irish descendents go, I'll settle for a free beer and some good natured banter at the local club.~:cheers:
That implies that an Irishman actually does pay for a beer every now and then...
(Sorry, it's impossible for me to buy you a beer over the internet, so I had to limit myself to supplying the good natured banter...)
~;p
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Re: Empowering the "Victim" classes. Double standards?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Watchman
You know, in the late 1800s when Finnish immigrants to the US began to be regarded as on par with the Irish - that is, dumb and prone to crime, alcoholism and violence but at least White if nothing else - that was a clear improvement in their status...
Sociologists speak of "the opening up of the White Male Franchise" around those times.
The Irish were violent because people were violent to them. They were no dumber than anyone else of their class. Unless you are saying that Irish people are dumb because they are Irish - that would be downright bigotted.
Now, may I make a point in this thread? GOOD!
1st: I have heard historical baggage being mentioned in this thread. There is no such thing. If people think of you as an individual in an equal way as everyine else then you are on par with everyone else and have no "baggage". If you are not treated equally, then you have a problem and it isn't baggage. Your problem isn't what people a hundred years ago thought about your great grandparents, but what people think of you know.
Please! Let's just cut the BS! Any problems currently affecting minorities are current problems affecting minorities and not problems affecting their ancestors.
2nd: Let's talk law. Laws were inforced to give minorities equal status, and that's ok. Now laws are being established that give them elevated status - that is not giving them equality! That is discrimination. People call it counter discrimination, it isn't. Just because other people are being discriminated against, doesn't make it not discrimination all of a sudden. Many sects of society have gone threw periods of abuse, it is ALL discrimination.
Let's call it what it is, eh?
3rd: Now let's talk reperations. It is best to approach this in an anological way as that is the only way to free ourselves of our many predjudices. If a guy kills a woman, should that guy be punished? Yes. Should his children be forced to pay her children "reperations" for all eternity? No. His children did not commit the crime and shouldn't feel in anyway guilty about. Now, let's apply this here. Should we feel in anyway guilty about what our ancestors did? No. We can think what we want of it, but it was not US doing it and we should not feel guilty. No, think of this. Do they deserve reperations? Maybe their ancestors did, but they are dead. Modern minorities have not been abused, enslaves, or anything else that would make them deserve reperations.
Now this thread is getting tiresome and I'm getting tired of repeating myself and defending my statement from people who like to twist them around. Facts are facts and discrimination is discrimination. No matter which way it goes.
Beating a cat without reason is animal abuse. So is beating a hamster.
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Re: Empowering the "Victim" classes. Double standards?
Sure slavery might have ended over a 100years ago but that doesn't mean they've had equal rights for the last 100 or so years now does it.
So, a 79y old republican from Virginia, how long has he been politically active ? I wonder what his stance was on that annoying civil rights business back in the day...
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Re: Empowering the "Victim" classes. Double standards?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Goofball
That implies that an Irishman actually does pay for a beer every now and then...
(Sorry, it's impossible for me to buy you a beer over the internet, so I had to limit myself to supplying the good natured banter...)
~;p
It's just that free beer tastes better for some reason, but the good natured banter is always welcome.:laugh4:
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Re: Empowering the "Victim" classes. Double standards?
Redleg: Some questions myself, if you don't mind. I'll give my answers first hopefully to contributing something to the discussion itself.
What exactly was meant of the resolution in question to achieve?
My instinctive assumption (of a traitorous, libelous, liberal, evil, conspiratorial, and blasphemous mind according to some around here) is that it either has to be a random meaningless another-day-at-work thing for Martin Luther King's Day or a statement intended to bring some sort of formal closure to a possible issue in Virginia. Either way no harm is done.
Also, what do you think of the comment of the legislator in question?
Again, my instinctive assumption is that he was out of line. Not the blacks should abandon their pasts behind part (now I've sugar-coated his statement for him - -") but the "it ended nearly 140 years ago!" part which, while technically correct, displays a certain insensitiveness and ignorance to the history of the United States after it. Then again, he could've been just quipping out of his mouth, like many of us do all the time.
And, lastly, do you think it befits the act of censure?
Personally, I don't think so.
Edit:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vuk
The Irish were violent because people were violent to them. They were no dumber than anyone else of their class. Unless you are saying that Irish people are dumb because they are Irish - that would be downright bigotted.
Just a note: Watchman was saying that the People (aka the natives, the "superiors," in other words those who came before) back then viewed the Irish that way. He was not saying the Irish were that way. The distinction is crucial to his point.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vuk
Beating a cat without reason is animal abuse. So is beating a hamster.
I wholly agree with the former, but the latter...
I beg to differ. :devil:
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Re: Empowering the "Victim" classes. Double standards?
I have conflicting views.
1st-Its true, slavery has been gone for 200 years or so! I'm not seeing any war reperations from Germany or Japan because of their war with us!? Why do you think that slavery has given you the right to call in reparations on ancestors, or to oppress people with what their 'parents did' while many of us probably didn't own slaves.
2nd-He should be more careful about how he says it. Its suicidal to attempt to put down the African-American Civil Rights, especially someone from Virginia!
P.S. Robert E. Lee birthday today.
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Re: Empowering the "Victim" classes. Double standards?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marshal Murat
1st-Its true, slavery has been gone for 200 years or so! I'm not seeing any war reperations from Germany or Japan because of their war with us!? Why do you think that slavery has given you the right to call in reparations on ancestors, or to oppress people with what their 'parents did' while many of us probably didn't own slaves.
200 years? It's not even 150. Regardless, the whole issue is that the "get-over-it" phrase is pretty rude once you consider how the Civil Rights Movement was as late as the 60's. Sure, they weren't slaves back then, but they were nonetheless second-class citizens greatly limited in their rights, opportunities, privileges, and were pretty badly treated all round. Even at the movement's height of success there was still much injustice in society still. "Get over it" is a little too early for that.
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Re: Empowering the "Victim" classes. Double standards?
Quote:
Originally Posted by AntiochusIII
Redleg: Some questions myself, if you don't mind. I'll give my answers first hopefully to contributing something to the discussion itself.
What exactly was meant of the resolution in question to achieve?
My instinctive assumption (of a traitorous, libelous, liberal, evil, conspiratorial, and blasphemous mind according to some around here) is that it either has to be a random meaningless another-day-at-work thing for Martin Luther King's Day or a statement intended to bring some sort of formal closure to a possible issue in Virginia. Either way no harm is done.
Does it serve any real purpose? That is a good question, and since I do not live in Virginia I don't know. I would suspect that you are however on the right track about the measure.
Quote:
Also, what do you think of the comment of the legislator in question?
Again, my instinctive assumption is that he was out of line. Not the blacks should abandon their pasts behind part (now I've sugar-coated his statement for him - -") but the "it ended nearly 140 years ago!" part which, while technically correct, displays a certain insensitiveness and ignorance to the history of the United States after it. Then again, he could've been just quipping out of his mouth, like many of us do all the time.
Well I actually think he was being a knucklehead. It's really never a good idea to forget events in history, doing so normally condemns one to repeat the past.
Quote:
And, lastly, do you think it befits the act of censure?
Personally, I don't think so.
Again I would have to agree, foot in mouth disease should not be censured, the voters can cure the disease in the next election very easily. I would have to ask the advocates of the censure exactly what benefit does the censure serve. Because unless there is a formal reprecussion of the censure, I don't see a purpose in it. The man's words will most likely come back to haunt him during the next election cycle, but then maybe not.
Edit: By the way I don't believe the government can remove bigoted views from society. Only the society can remove the bigotary from itself through education, communition and interaction. While affirmative action was an decent attempt at creating equality because of past events, it does not address the primary cause of that inequality.
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Re: Empowering the "Victim" classes. Double standards?
Quote:
Originally Posted by AntiochusIII
200 years? It's not even 150. Regardless, the whole issue is that the "get-over-it" phrase is pretty rude once you consider how the Civil Rights Movement was as late as the 60's. Sure, they weren't slaves back then, but they were nonetheless second-class citizens greatly limited in their rights, opportunities, privileges, and were pretty badly treated all round. Even at the movement's height of success there was still much injustice in society still. "Get over it" is a little too early for that.
WERE. That is the keyword here ;)
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Re: Empowering the "Victim" classes. Double standards?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vuk
WERE. That is the keyword here ;)
Quite frankly, in many places, they still are. The Los Angeles riot was in the 1990's, for example.
Moreover, the hostility has in fact taken a different turn, and even become convoluted with different attitudes from different reasons -- there are a lot of reasons to hate the gangstas stereotype, many of which valid and not racist in nature, but there are also quite a few people who hide their racism behind that protective gate.
Related to that, is my view of those who oppose the AA policy. In my opinion, there are three kinds: those by principle, those by pragmatic concerns, and those from racism.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Redleg
By the way I don't believe the government can remove bigoted views from society. Only the society can remove the bigotary from itself through education, communition and interaction. While affirmative action was an decent attempt at creating equality because of past events, it does not address the primary cause of that inequality.
I am actually quite interested in hearing what you think is (are?) the primary cause of that inequality.
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Re: Empowering the "Victim" classes. Double standards?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vuk
1st: I have heard historical baggage being mentioned in this thread. There is no such thing. If people think of you as an individual in an equal way as everyine else then you are on par with everyone else and have no "baggage". If you are not treated equally, then you have a problem and it isn't baggage. Your problem isn't what people a hundred years ago thought about your great grandparents, but what people think of you know.
Please! Let's just cut the BS! Any problems currently affecting minorities are current problems affecting minorities and not problems affecting their ancestors.
Oh yes they are. Whatever the principles might say things like social class and and education level are surprisingly hereditary, since they greatly affect what kinds of "starting points" parents can provide their children. Especially if sufficient economic redistribution schemes - ie. true welfare state structures, which at least by Nordic standards the US never really had - are not present to give the poor kids a leg up in getting decent education and suchlike.
And those principles did not and do not apply equally to everyone regardless of skin colour, ethnic origin, sex or whatever either. Take the US Blacks (I dislike "African-American" as clumsy, so you'll have to excuse me here); only released from rank slavery some 150 years ago; vast majority then had to make do from total economical and social rock bottom; still didn't have full and equal rights in all States a hundred years later; and to this day subjected to considerable negative bias in altogether too many perfectly everyday circumstances (and no, by what I know of it the law doesn't quite treat them fairly either as far as punishements go), not a little of which can doubtless be traced right back to the racial propaganda used to justify treating human beings as property before the abolition of slavery.
Now you tell me where that isn't a lot of negative historical baggage getting in the way (atop everything else) of young Blacks trying to make something out of themselves ?
Social structures and dynamics do not exist in a void. They have and are the product of their histories.
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Re: Empowering the "Victim" classes. Double standards?
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Originally Posted by AntiochusIII
Quite frankly, in many places, they still are. The Los Angeles riot was in the 1990's, for example.
Moreover, the hostility has in fact taken a different turn, and even become convoluted with different attitudes from different reasons -- there are a lot of reasons to hate the gangstas stereotype, many of which valid and not racist in nature, but there are also quite a few people who hide their racism behind that protective gate.
Related to that, is my view of those who oppose the AA policy. In my opinion, there are three kinds: those by principle, those by pragmatic concerns, and those from racism.
Those are current problems, not past.
You cannot change peoples opinions with laws. You can only ensure that people are treated equally. Time and good role models will change peoples opinions.
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Re: Empowering the "Victim" classes. Double standards?
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Originally Posted by Watchman
Oh yes they are. Whatever the principles might say things like social class and and education level are surprisingly hereditary, since they greatly affect what kinds of "starting points" parents can provide their children. Especially if sufficient economic redistribution schemes - ie. true welfare state structures, which at least by Nordic standards the US never really had - are not present to give the poor kids a leg up in getting decent education and suchlike.
And those principles did not and do not apply equally to everyone regardless of skin colour, ethnic origin, sex or whatever either. Take the US Blacks (I dislike "African-American" as clumsy, so you'll have to excuse me here); only released from rank slavery some 150 years ago; vast majority then had to make do from total economical and social rock bottom; still didn't have full and equal rights in all States a hundred years later; and to this day subjected to considerable negative bias in altogether too many perfectly everyday circumstances (and no, by what I know of it the law doesn't quite treat them fairly either as far as punishements go), not a little of which can doubtless be traced right back to the racial propaganda used to justify treating human beings as property before the abolition of slavery.
Now you tell me where that isn't a lot of negative historical baggage getting in the way (atop everything else) of young Blacks trying to make something out of themselves ?
Social structures and dynamics do not exist in a void. They have and are the product of their histories.
Again, all you are saying is that they were treated badly in the past. Just as many or more whites were on the same or lowers economic rungs when blacks got full rights and had to fend fore themselves. Blacks have more than equal opportunities and if they want can do just about anything. My older brother and I grew up without a father, working for everything we got. He is now a successful teacher. I have went through 4 years of college and am going back for more. I guess I chose a proffession that wasn't for me. We came from the very bottom, or darn near the very bottom of the economic ladder, but worked and are going to give our children a good life. Blacks are given more opportunities and when they choose can really make something out of themselves. There are a lot of succsessfull blacks that worked for what they have, and then there are the ones (just as there are whites like so), who don't work and try to improve themselves. There are very few who are actually stuck where they are, and by no means more than there are white people. That is a question of helping the poor, not helping minorities.
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Re: Empowering the "Victim" classes. Double standards?
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Re: Empowering the "Victim" classes. Double standards?
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Originally Posted by AntiochusIII
I am actually quite interested in hearing what you think is (are?) the primary cause of that inequality.
Well its more complex then the simple statement I am going to state. But most of it comes from the idiocy of people and the inability of society as a whole to to evaluate others based upon their individual behavior versus some other trait.
Once it starts it takes several generations to remove the idiocy from both groups. From the end of the civil war how many generations did it take for some to realize for all to be equal, all must be treated equal? Then one must look at how many generations since the Civil Rights movement took hold?
My guess is that the effects of slavery will be felt in the United States for at least two to three more generations before the issue can be discussed in a purely historical manner. Where blacks might begin to feel that they are indeed equal in all things to any other grouping of people in the nation. And even then there will be hold-outs that believe race makes a determination about an individuals potential and worth.
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Re: Empowering the "Victim" classes. Double standards?
I have an interesting idea.
We stop teaching about the slave trade, especially in America
Many of you will have already hit the Reply button by now, but I will continue.
I'm just as versed in the idea of 'history repeats itself', but here is the basis for my argument.
1.You teach students that disciminating on the basis of race is a bad thing, that all men are created equal. If you see someone attacking (physically or verbally) due to skin color, confront the person.
2.Don't teach about slavery in the South. This associates a stigma with being white, or that blacks were at one point slaves. Talk about how they came to America to work hard and earn their keep. Everyone is equal.
Why wouldn't this work?