Trayvon Martin all over again.

[amrnuke]

Poverty is not a high an indicator of confrontations with police. Poverty in certain areas, but not poverty in general.

That's not entirely true. Poverty correlates with crime, and the paper you cite below specifically correlates violent crime with police encounters/shootings.
1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4097310/
2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3767568/

Also, other minority groups that were just as racially impugned in this country at the same time and at the same poverty levels have never had the same problems with crime in their communities. Asians, Hispanics (until recently), Native Americans, and others. Many said minorities had the same "starting line" of poverty problems at the same time at the start of the Civil Rights Movement.

You'll need to expand on that. Was there systematic institutionalized slave ownership of Asians and Hispanics in the US? Was the slave ownership of Native Americans as widespread as slave ownership of blacks as a percentage of total Native vs total black population?

There was systemic racism inherent in the system at that point. Direct laws that were racist at the time. Name me one law today in America that is racist at its root?

We aren't really talking about that. We are talking about latent racism, such as "judges give substantially longer prison sentences to black offenders versus observably similar non-black offenders" (http://www.nber.org/papers/w24615) and the findings of the Marshall project (https://www.themarshallproject.org/...s-are-far-more-likely-to-be-ruled-justifiable), and police bias in starting encounters (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5856523/). These are all factors that lead to more black encounters with officers.

Also, other minority communities like Hispanics DO see bias from cops as well. Justin Nix's research found that 6% of whites were unarmed when killed by police, but 15% of blacks were unarmed. Additionally, 32% of non-white non-blacks were killed despite not attacking officers, but only 17% of whites. There is very clearly bias when you dig into the numbers, but the amount is hard to find for any number of reasons.

So how is it that other minority group communities, and many black communities didn't run into the issues of broken homes and crime like other black communities starting from the 80s? Claiming systemic racism is reaching for an easy answer. Need to look for why some black communities flourished and others didn't.

That's an extremely complex question, but blacks are the lowest-wealth group in the nation. Broken homes are tied to single-parent homes, or even entry into the foster system, so it becomes very important that blacks are sentenced harsher than whites for the same crimes, and blacks are arrested at 3x the rate of whites for similar marijuana possession rates. That leads to broken homes, and poverty, and crime. The systematic reasons for communities being torn apart can be attributed to a lot of things, and racism is very obviously one of them. Rates of incarceration for Hispanics is also higher for similar crimes.

I am not saying there isn't spots of government today where people in the legal system aren't racist. There certainly are and they come to light on occasion.

As above, yes. Police, judges, prosecutors, etc. And politicians who continue to push for mandatory minimums for no-victim crimes like marijuana possession.

Great, they have articles you disagree with so logic fallacy of attack the messenger. I just pointed to one article among many on this subject since it was a concise starting point. There are others. The one below deals with fatal police shootings and racial make up of the officers and the race of the person that died.

It's not that they have articles I disagree with. They are by and large opinion pieces which are biased, which makes the point they make in their article concerning, because they had a point to make, rather than examining all the data and criticizing (from a critical thinking standpoint) it equally.

The truth behind racial disparities in fatal police shootings

New research from MSU reveals findings that contradict what many people think about racial disparities in fatal police shootings.

msutoday.msu.edu

Officer characteristics and racial disparities in fatal officer-involved shootings

There is widespread concern about racial disparities in fatal officer-involved shootings and that these disparities reflect discrimination by White officers. Existing databases of fatal shootings lack information about officers, and past analytic approaches have made it difficult to assess the...

www.pnas.org

There are critiques and counter critiques of the critiques of that study. The critique to the above study is that it isn't normalized to police encounters as raw data. The counter to that is there isn't info on that, but even then it would have to be associated not just with encounters, but the nature of those encounters of criminal vs no criminal report and crime rates for the area of the encounter. There is a lot to breakdown, but there are also crime rates to look at as well. The one conclusion that everyone agrees based on the study above is that police tend to shoot their same race more often than outside. Meaning white officers shoot white civilians, black officers shoot black civilians, and hispanic shoot hispanic more. Most police forces tend to be drawn from their communities, but not all. Where racial biases tend to occur more often in policing is when the police force isn't drawn from their local communities. This isn't as common though. Trying to paint all officers or departments as racist across the country, or even portions of the country is very wrong. Large portions of the country have very little reported crime at all. The vast majority of criminal reports happen in large urban area. Which means outside those urban areas, there isn't much police contact with civilians for criminal investigations. Especially is you remove traffic stops from the equation that result in nothing more than a ticket at most.

This has been looked at, and it's been found that blacks and hispanics who are not posing a threat to police (not attacking police) are twice as likely to be shot and killed than whites in similar circumstances. It's also been found that unarmed black men are almost 3 times more likely to be shot and killed when unarmed than whites. The study has a lot of faults, just like all the crime/race studies, and just like the studies you posted. The reality is that we have data all over the place when it comes to the specific topic of police killings of people, but the brunt of the research seems to reveal that there are differences in encounter rates, killings of unarmed suspects, killings of suspects not posing threats to officers, arrest rates, duration of sentences, and so on when comparing whites to Hispanics and blacks, which leads to the overwhelming sense that there is a systemic bias against blacks and Hispanics.

The study, also, done by Cesario, conveniently doesn't account for encounter rate and doesn't consider the idea that blacks can be biased against blacks as well.

There are interesting opinion articles like this as well:

A Police Officer’s View of Race - American Renaissance

Race is part of practically everything an officer does.

www.amren.com

Written by an officer about their time on the job they had for decades. There are plenty of these stories out there where officers tell their side of the story. Take from it what you will or don't. There are also tons of articles on many left wing news sites that state the opposite and based their articles on a couple small sample studies from early 00s. Those studies have far more critiques on them.

I can't access that site because it has a bad security certificate. I'll take your word for it. An interesting opinion piece. I'd like to know what the opinion of the dead unarmed Hispanics and blacks are on the topic as well, if we're going to hear both sides. The problem is that dead people, like Trayvon Martin, don't get to tell their side of the story.

Again, most rational people aren't saying that there isn't still racism. People are saying that it is blown way out of proportion. Labeling all police as racist for example. There are more than a few headlines out there like that. As for my personal opinion, I stand by the statement that the US is the least racist country on the planet at this time and for any time in human history. We still have problems to work out, but we don't need bad faith actors trying to push narratives of fear.

There is racism, yes, agree. There is absolutely bias among police, judges, politicians, and the general population, even among blacks and Hispanics themselves.

All police aren't racist, but a huge number of people in this country exhibit racial bias. And that clearly affects how blacks and Hispanics are treated by everyday people as well as by the judicial system, and many others.

I agree, there is a problem labeling all police racist instead of focusing on racial bias in all of us.

As for the US being the least racist country, I understand that's your opinion, would be curious what data you have on it, or if it's just your experience.

But when we still have minorities being killed at high rates, there is a reasonable justification for narratives of fear with respect to minorities, who should be more fearful of longer sentences, harsher punishments, higher likelihood of being killed by police while unarmed, and so on.

 

[HumblePie]

Are you saying that someone who marries outside their race cannot be racist?

No. If they were forced into the marriage and arranged marriages still happen, then they certainly could be. You do know what the definition of racism is right? The belief that your race is superior to all others. That other races are inferior. If you chose to love someone of a different race to the point of raising a family with them, that doesn't fit the definition of racism.

 

[Paratus]

You guys need to understand what’s going on with @HumblePie here. He’s exhibiting a well known psychological attribute of the majority when it comes to identifying racism.

It’s not that he can’t identify blatant racism when it occurs. He knows what that looks like and knows it’s wrong. It’s why when everyone in this thread tells him he’s being the next thing to racist he can easily (and truthfully in his mind) tell us he’s not and we are full of shit. His marriage to a minority reinforces this belief as does his choice in news sources.

Right in this thread he’s discounted sources that follow rules for journalistic integrity like The NY Times for being hopelessly left wing while simultaneously touting opinion pieces from rightwing think tanks as being “decent”.

But back to the psychological attribute. As this study shows members of the majority ARE cognitively impacted after being exposed to blatant racism.

http://www.psychologicalscience.org/onlyhuman/2007/09/racisms-cognitive-toll.cfm

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01984.x

Spoiler: Study Summary

processing.

Princeton psychologists Jessica Salvatore and J. Nicole Shelton decided to explore this idea in the laboratory. They ran an experiment in which volunteers witnessed a company’s hiring decisions from the inside. They saw the competing resumes of the candidates and the interviewer’s comments and recommendations. This wasn’t a real company, and there were no real people involved, but the volunteers believed it was all real.

The experiment left no doubt about which candidate was best qualified, and sometimes that candidate was chosen, sometimes not. Sometimes the company passed over the best candidate for blatantly racist reasons; the reviewer might comment that the candidate belonged to “too many minority organizations,” for example. Other times the best candidate was simply passed over for no good reason. The psychologists ran the experiment many times, in every combination, so that both black and white volunteers saw black candidates reviewed by whites and by blacks, and the same for white candidates.

After witnessing these fair and unfair hiring decisions, the study volunteers took the so-called Stroop test. This may be familiar because it circulates on the Internet a lot, but it’s a highly regarded cognitive test. The names of colors flash on the screen for an instant, but in the “wrong” colors (the word “red” in green letters, for example), and the idea is to quickly identify the color of the letters. It’s hard, because to answer correctly you have to mentally override the impulse to read the word. It tests capacity for mental effort, and the idea in this study was to see if experiencing subtle racism interfered with that mental capacity.

It did, at least for blacks, and more than the overt racism did. As reported in the September issue of Psychological Science, black volunteers who had witnessed unfair but ambiguous hiring decisions did much less well on the Stroop test, suggesting that they were using all their mental resources to make sense of the unfairness. Interestingly, white volunteers were more impaired by overt racism than by the more ambiguous discrimination. Salvatore and Shelton figure this is because whites rarely experience any racism; they don’t even notice the subtle forms of racism, and are thrown off balance when they are hit over the head by overt acts. Many blacks, by contrast, have developed coping strategies for the most hateful kinds of racism; it’s the constant, vague, just-below-the-surface acts of racism that impair performance, day in and day out.

Life is not a Stroop test, but it is made up of things like SATs and job interviews that demand mental focus. Contemporary forms of racism may be more ambiguous than red-lining and academic tracking, but the accumulative effect could well add up to the same kind of de factoexclusion.

Minorities on the other hand showed less cognitive deficit after being exposed to the same blatant racism. What is interesting was what happened when the majority and minority participants in the study were subjected to subtle or ambiguous racism.

Majority members showed virtually no cognitive impairments while minority participants showed impairments similar to the majority when exposed to blatant racism. The researchers determined that minorities have good coping methods for blatant racism but still have to spend cognitive cycles dealing with subtle racism.

The majority (like HumblePie) are not regularly exposed to blatant racism and therefore do not have good coping skills. For subtle racism they weren’t even able to identify it was happening .

HumblePie will not acknowledge state of racism in America today because the most blatant government backed forms are for the most part no longer legal while he will never be able to identify the impacts of the subtle (or maybe less than blatant) forms of racism still exist

 

[interchange]

No. If they were forced into the marriage and arranged marriages still happen, then they certainly could be. You do know what the definition of racism is right? The belief that your race is superior to all others. That other races are inferior. If you chose to love someone of a different race to the point of raising a family with them, that doesn't fit the definition of racism.

I don't agree with that definition. It excludes a whole host of racially based dynamics which are clearly important to understand in this case and society. If you want to offer different words for those things, fine. But what you suggest is far from the commonly accepted definition of what constitutes racism. My advise is to try and seek clarity on definition first if someone is stating a thing is racist and go from there. FYI, this is a common problem in our discussions here. I'm responding to you particularly because you specifically offered a definition, and one that to me appears different from the operational definition most people are using in their discussion.

 

[HumblePie]

That's not entirely true. Poverty correlates with crime, and the paper you cite below specifically correlates violent crime with police encounters/shootings.
1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4097310/
2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3767568/

I never said it doesn't correlate, I said it isn't a high indicator. It isn't. Poverty in some areas in the country (actually around the world) has a higher indicator for criminal behavior than other areas. That is why it is a weak correlation/indicator and not as strong as say broken homes.

You'll need to expand on that. Was there systematic institutionalized slave ownership of Asians and Hispanics in the US? Was the slave ownership of Native Americans as widespread as slave ownership of blacks as a percentage of total Native vs total black population?

There was slavery of whites, blacks, asians, native americans, and hispanics in America. Slavery for all ended at the same time. Prejudice for all minorities persisted after slavery ended. No minority was really as a whole prosperous in America. The Civil Rights movement happened and that changed. Some minorities became prosperous, and some in certain areas didn't.

We aren't really talking about that. We are talking about latent racism, such as "judges give substantially longer prison sentences to black offenders versus observably similar non-black offenders" (http://www.nber.org/papers/w24615) and the findings of the Marshall project (https://www.themarshallproject.org/...s-are-far-more-likely-to-be-ruled-justifiable), and police bias in starting encounters (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5856523/). These are all factors that lead to more black encounters with officers.

Judge and Prosecutors unfortunately haven't had the same amount of effort and programs aimed at rooting out bias in their career fields as police in this country have. There isn't many studies on bias for them, but the few studies tend to lend that there is inordinate amount there. Those studies aren't without flaws either. Still, the courtroom doesn't interact with all of society at large either. Police do, but courtrooms do not.

The marshal project study doesn't go into reasons about justified homicides, just looks at the raw numbers and draws conclusions from that. Even in that link there is this statement:

“If, for instance, white-on-black homicides were mainly defensive shootings in a residence or business, and black-on-white shootings mainly occurred during the commission of a street crime, then the [racial] disparity would be warranted,” wrote researcher John Roman in a 2013 Urban Institute study of justifiable homicides.

So that study doesn't really find anything worth noting. It just finds that white on black shootings result in 8 times more likelyhood the shooting is ruled as justified versus not. Which means nothing with looking into the cases themselves.

As for police bias and stereotyping, that is a large ball of yarn to unravel these days. Police these days are far more aware of the microscope being placed on their profession when it comes to bias. in fact, several studies, like the ones I linked above, show cops in major cities like Houston are far more likely to let a black suspect go without arrest than white counter parts these days. Using newer reports versus older ones shows a dramatic change in policing when it comes to bias.

Also, other minority communities like Hispanics DO see bias from cops as well. Justin Nix's research found that 6% of whites were unarmed when killed by police, but 15% of blacks were unarmed. Additionally, 32% of non-white non-blacks were killed despite not attacking officers, but only 17% of whites. There is very clearly bias when you dig into the numbers, but the amount is hard to find for any number of reasons.

Even Justin Nix didn't come to the conclusion of racial bias in his study. (https://jnix.netlify.app/post/post3-that-new-pnas-paper/) He lists the flaws with it and the limitations of the data set used. The sample size is too small, and it isn't standardized in reporting. It is a study that has enough results to warrant more investigation that is more comprehensive if it can be done, but drawing conclusions of racism isn't a good idea so far using that study.

That's an extremely complex question, but blacks are the lowest-wealth group in the nation. Broken homes are tied to single-parent homes, or even entry into the foster system, so it becomes very important that blacks are sentenced harsher than whites for the same crimes, and blacks are arrested at 3x the rate of whites for similar marijuana possession rates. That leads to broken homes, and poverty, and crime. The systematic reasons for communities being torn apart can be attributed to a lot of things, and racism is very obviously one of them. Rates of incarceration for Hispanics is also higher for similar crimes.

The problem with the argument is that blacks aren't the only minority group in the US the Asians, Native Americans, and Pacific islanders don't face the same problems. Hispanics in some communities face similar problems, but in other areas of the country do not. Sure there validity to the argument that tough on crime legal system off the past made things more difficult for minorities. That judge sentencing is still not racially "fair" in the legal system against minorities. But that doesn't at all explain why some flourished despite that and some communities didn't. Why blacks in some communities are dominated by households without marriage. Judges don't prevent black couples from getting married. Nor do the police.

I can't access that site because it has a bad security certificate. I'll take your word for it. An interesting opinion piece. I'd like to know what the opinion of the dead unarmed Hispanics and blacks are on the topic as well, if we're going to hear both sides. The problem is that dead people, like Trayvon Martin, don't get to tell their side of the story.

Using the Trayvon case where there was enough evidence to speak for itself shows an indication of your bias here. If anything, this case shows the opposite of a legal system persuaded by social racism to charge an innocent man with a crime to get him convicted. The Trayvon case is a very poor example to ever use for an argument of racism against blacks. Same with Michael Brown. Those cases show the exact opposite instead. There are better cases to use for anecdotal evidence of racism of the justice system against blacks.

As for the US being the least racist country, I understand that's your opinion, would be curious what data you have on it, or if it's just your experience.

All other countries are extremely homogeneous and come no where close to the diversity of demographic makeup that the US does. Don't be mislead by the Pew study about perception of diversity. Uganda isn't the most diverse country on the planet. It is still 99% black population there. If we are going by major categories of "races" such as what is tracked in the US census, the US is the most diverse country on the planet. More people here immigrate to this country than any other. https://www.aantlaw.com/top-5-countries-highest-immigration-rates/

We allow more people opportunities to be successful in life than any other country on the planet regardless of their starting point. We have a high rate of economic mobility and more freedoms allowed to all citizens as well as immigrants than any other country still.

 

[Moonbeam]

My perspective: there are a lot of issues with @HumblePie 's contributions in this thread which lead down a danger of invalidating real racism. I'm not sure what he feels or what's motivating his posting. It's absolutely right to point out those issues and A-Ok to disagree and say what is wrong with his position.

But he's being bullied here. That isn't right. That isn't a platform to actually make progress in our racial divisions. The only way that works is if we all push ourselves to be at least a little bit more uncomfortable with what we're bringing to the table and respect each other for doing that even when we detest the positions they take.

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Maybe we libruhls are tired of lying down and catering to the yahoos and the racists, along the lines of " A liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel."

That sort of accommodation is one-sided and certainly hasn't worked well so far.

Have you noted who's President these days?
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What do my comments have to do with liberalism?

More broadly, bullying is wrong but I'm not really judging anyone who does it. You've got good reason to have that impulse. We all do. It's more than Trump and leads into @Moonbeam philosophical territory. However, understanding the behavior, sometimes participating in it myself, having great immediate context for its presence right now -- none of it makes it the right thing to do. Or at least that's my position. You can disagree. Up to you. I couldn't stop you from doing it even if I thought it was right to try. But I can point it out so that perhaps you yourself might choose to act differently. And by "you" in these statements, I don't mean you specifically.

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What it has to do with liberals, here, in this context and in my opinion, is that you are stating your belief that bullying isn't right as a general principle but here in particular to where liberals are the ones doing it. Thus any self defensiveness that being told something is wrong with what is happening from one side is going to manifest particularly on that side, I should think.

Personally, I don't think that is your intention. What I heard in your first post above is what I would call a therapeutic technique I would call "GOING IN THE DIRECTION OF YOUR FEARS" where a person, specifically undertakes as an adjunct to therapy, to do just as you suggest, go where the discomfort is. I fully support your suggestion and see it as that, a suggestion, but a very wise one and rather abnormally advanced, that is to say, not a really very common suggestion much less practice. But it can, when done properly lead to greater familiarity and thus less fear and the concomitant contempt. Naturally that will also reduce the need to bully.

Beware of those you try to help. A saying Why do I believe this is a wise precept? Because people hate themselves and think anybody that would help them to be a fool or up to something treacherous. They will misread your motive and project their self hate onto you. If you do not know this going in to trying to help people who actually do not want it, (we seek therapy to become better at being sick, for example), our will to help can easily turn to cynicism and contempt. We have mountains of evidence what conservatives do with liberal kindness. We create what we fear and if we fear that liberals are dangerous and evil we will make them so. This is a law of sleep and one for which all us sleepers are guilty.

This, I believe, is why it leads into my territory. There is no crime in being mentally ill, but it is a crime to act out and those who do so must be stopped by the least aggressive means possible, but stopped none the less if one has the means.

I hope this is the territory you had in mind. I see two great evils then. One is not to oppose evil and the other is to assume you know what evil is. What to do then?

 

[HumblePie]

You guys need to understand what’s going on with @HumblePie here. He’s exhibiting a well known psychological attribute of the majority when it comes to identifying racism.

It’s not that he can’t identify blatant racism when it occurs. He knows what that looks like and knows it’s wrong. It’s why when everyone in this thread tells him he’s being the next thing to racist he can easily (and truthfully in his mind) tell us he’s not and we are full of shit. His marriage to a minority reinforces this belief as does his choice in news sources.

Right in this thread he’s discounted sources that follow rules for journalistic integrity like The NY Times for being hopelessly left wing while simultaneously touting opinion pieces from rightwing think tanks as being “decent”.

But back to the psychological attribute. As this study shows members of the majority ARE cognitively impacted after being exposed to blatant racism.

http://www.psychologicalscience.org/onlyhuman/2007/09/racisms-cognitive-toll.cfm

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01984.x

The majority (like HumblePie) are not regularly exposed to blatant racism and therefore do not have good coping skills. For subtle racism they weren’t even able to identify it was happening .

HumblePie will not acknowledge state of racism in America today because the most blatant government backed forms are for the most part no longer legal while he will never be able to identify the impacts of the subtle (or maybe less than blatant) forms of racism still exist

You are the one making racist assumptions about me and know nothing about me. I am from a military family and not raised in America. I lived in places where racism against white people was common and even worse against English speaking Americans. Places I did live in America growing up was places like Hawaii, as I have said earlier, which is dominated by non-whites as a population as a whole. I have also been in schools where I was one of the less than 1% white population of the school. Military bases don't exist in major white population areas. As I have explained, I have been called every racial slur that has ever been hurled at white people. I have been jumped, stabbed, thrown acid at and shot at for just being white by non-whites in these places. I have had to testify in several courtrooms growing up when I was the victim of these attacks. More often than not, when the other party was questioned why they attacked me randomly they responded it was because I was white.

My chosen profession these days is a software developer. Was as well in the time I spent in the military too. I've seen a dramatic difference in demographics due to globalization of my career field. Companies hire out h1b1 visas for everything. We all know the reason why. Cheaper labor. I have a neighbor and a friend from Nicaragua who got a job with me at a previous work place for which I was the only white guy in the IT department. After I left he told me the guy that hired him, a Pakastani guy, that he was happy to find an American he could hire that looked like him. That he was tired of interviewing fat white pigs for developers from America as he didn't want to hire white people but was forced to maintain a quota of locally hired developers. There are more stories I can relate, especially what I know these days about hiring practices when it comes to software developers and racial discrimination. I also know I have the skills to pay the bills and if one company is like that they all aren't.

But wow on your assumption that I can't identify racism because I am white! Guess what that makes you... Or am i being to subtle here?

 

[amrnuke]

No. If they were forced into the marriage and arranged marriages still happen, then they certainly could be. You do know what the definition of racism is right? The belief that your race is superior to all others. That other races are inferior. If you chose to love someone of a different race to the point of raising a family with them, that doesn't fit the definition of racism.

One can absolutely marry and raise a family with a black person, while still holding the belief that as a whole, whites are superior to blacks.

Hell, 29% of blacks and 42% of black-white biracial people prefer whites over blacks on an implicit racial bias test.

Racial bias is ingrained in our culture in America. Period.

Since racism is defined as a belief that one's own race is superior, what this seems to suggest is that 48% of white people subconsciously view white people as preferential to blacks, 27% have no preference.

That explains so much of what the issue is, IMO, when you tack that onto decades (centuries) of systematic repression and prevention of wealth accumulation, and tying school funding to property values, and gerrymandering black votes away, and so on.

I'm not saying the problem is confined to whites, because 45% of black people view blacks as superior subconsciously.

But since whites hold almost all of the power in this country, we have to recognize our biases and work hard to change them.

 

[HomerJS]

One can absolutely marry and raise a family with a black person, while still holding the belief that as a whole, whites are superior to blacks.

Anyone ever heard the phrase "they are one of the good ones"? Guys especially can bury their racist tendencies for one exception. Happens all the time. I can easily see a white guy willing to marry Halle Berry while still holding animus against black people in general.

Same for an anti-Semite marrying a Jewish woman

Hot can overcome racism

 

[Paratus]

You are the one making racist assumptions about me and know nothing about me. I am from a military family and not raised in America. I lived in places where racism against white people was common and even worse against English speaking Americans. Places I did live in America growing up was Hawaii, as I have said earlier, which is dominated by non-whites as a population as a whole. I have also been in schools where I was one of the less than 1% white population of the school. Military bases don't exist in major white population areas. As I have explained, I have been called every racial slur that has ever been hurled at white people. I have been jumped, stabbed, thrown acid at and shot at for just being white by non-whites in these places. I have had to testify in several courtrooms growing up when I was the victim of these attacks. More often than not, when the other party was questioned why they attacked me randomly they responded it was because I was white.

My chosen profession these days is a software developer. Was as well in the time I spent in the military too. I've seen a dramatic difference in demographics due to globalization of my career field. Companies hire out h1b1 visas for everything. We all know the reason why. Cheaper labor. I have a neighbor and a friend from Nicaragua who got a job with me at a previous work place for which I was the only white guy in the IT department. After I left he told me the guy that hired him, a Pakastani guy, that he was happy to find an American he could hire that looked like him. That he was tired of interviewing fat white pigs for developers from America as he didn't want to hire white people but was forced to maintain a quota of locally hired developers. There are more stories I can relate, especially what I know these days about hiring practices when it comes to software developers and racial discrimination. I also know I have the skills to pay the bills and if one company is like that they all aren't.

But wow on your assumption that I can't identify racism because I white! Guess what that makes you...

Never said you couldn’t identify racism. I specifically said you could identify blatant racism. Your experiences in Hawaii are examples of that. Never said you couldn’t because you’re white. I said you were showing the same attributes shown in that study by the majority.

The blindness to ambiguous or subtle racism attributed in the study would apply to any majority /minority population not just black and white.

The fact that you thought I was being blatantly racist towards you and then misunderstanding the points I was making illustrates the cognitive deficit from blatant racism on the majority finding in the study I linked.

 

[HomerJS]

Never said you couldn’t identify racism. I specifically said you could identify blatant racism.

Example: I've made accusations many times Republicans are changing voting rules for a large part based on racial animus. I'm sure he would say "there he goes again blaming racism on everything."

Meanwhile there have been court cases where is was judged Republicans were doing this very thing. GOP has learned they have to be more subtle in their racism. Hell, they even taught classes in how to do that proctored by the late Lee Atwater.

 

[HumblePie]

One can absolutely marry and raise a family with a black person, while still holding the belief that as a whole, whites are superior to blacks.

Hell, 29% of blacks and 42% of black-white biracial people prefer whites over blacks on an implicit racial bias test.

Racial bias is ingrained in our culture in America. Period.

Since racism is defined as a belief that one's own race is superior, what this seems to suggest is that 48% of white people subconsciously view white people as preferential to blacks, 27% have no preference.

That explains so much of what the issue is, IMO, when you tack that onto decades (centuries) of systematic repression and prevention of wealth accumulation, and tying school funding to property values, and gerrymandering black votes away, and so on.

I'm not saying the problem is confined to whites, because 45% of black people view blacks as superior subconsciously.

But since whites hold almost all of the power in this country, we have to recognize our biases and work hard to change them.

Wow, sexual preferences now are racist? How about the fact that white people have dominated the media when it comes to display what an "attractive" person should be tends to overly influence the cultural definition of attractiveness. That various societies around the world today and in the past have had large differences for what is considered attractive and that those have also changed over the years in dramatic changes sometimes. While it could be argued that sexual preferences are racist, it is a poor argument with an easy slap on label answer.

Again, the wealth accumulation argument. Median income for minority households were all lower than whites in 1960 and before. Since then some minorities did much better as a whole than others (like Asians) and others did well in certain areas of the country and piss poor in other areas. There are various reasons for it and some of them are racist in nature. Claiming it to be a problem as a whole of systemic racism as to why the average of black american households are still lower in income today with lower growth is just not right. East Asians, Central Asians, Black immigrants from other countries that moved here after 1960, and others which had similar low income starting points while dealing with the same systems were able to prosper just fine. Large waves of Irish and Italian immigrants who came to America during the early to mid 1900's also faced large problems with prejudice, discrimination, and poverty. As a whole their communities changed after the 1960s for the better too.

 

[HumblePie]

Never said you couldn’t identify racism. I specifically said you could identify blatant racism. Your experiences in Hawaii are examples of that. Never said you couldn’t because your white. I said you were showing the same attributes shown in that study by the majority.

The blindness to ambiguous or subtle racism attributed in the study would apply to any majority /minority population not just black and white.

The fact that you thought I was being blatantly racist towards you and then misunderstanding the points I was making illustrates the cognitive deficit from blatant racism on the majority finding in the study I linked.

No, your assertion that I can't see subtle racism because I am white is racism.

Let me put this out there for you. I am walking down the street and I see a group of overly exuberant teens coming my way that seem like they are being way too rowdy. I decide to cross the street to avoid them. If they were black and I was white, someone on the outside watching that exchange may come to the conclusion I was being subtly racist. But if they don't know I do that regardless of race because I know teens can be pranksters that I rather not deal with pranks regardless of the race, the outside observer would be coming to the wrong conclusions. That is the problem with determining actions as subtle racism. It is very hard to make that assertion without actually knowing the people involved in a more intimate relationship. I believe that media and society has unfairly conditioned minority groups to always be on the look out for "subtle racism" even when it doesn't exist. So they see it everywhere and process everything through the lens of racism. As demonstrated already admirably in this thread numerous times. Which is why I am advocating that people stop making assumptions based on perceptions. Because that is also another form of subtle racism. Something I can see even you don't seem to recognize.

 

[amrnuke]

I never said it doesn't correlate, I said it isn't a high indicator. It isn't. Poverty in some areas in the country (actually around the world) has a higher indicator for criminal behavior than other areas. That is why it is a weak correlation/indicator and not as strong as say broken homes.

I don't think there has been a preponderance of evidence to support a ranking of which factors are more important; we can bother agree that SES, family structure, local educational achievement, peer and parental alcohol/tobacco/drug use are all correlated, but there is little data to suggest that one factor is more important than others. Broken homes are also associated with poverty, however, so it would be next to impossible to disentangle all this.

There was slavery of whites, blacks, asians, native americans, and hispanics in America. Slavery for all ended at the same time. Prejudice for all minorities persisted after slavery ended. No minority was really as a whole prosperous in America. The Civil Rights movement happened and that changed. Some minorities became prosperous, and some in certain areas didn't.

The systemic racism against blacks in the postbellum and pre-Civil Rights era exceeds that which was directed towards other minorities. Relative to total population in the US at the time, fewer Asians, whites, Native Americans, and Hispanics in America were slaves; some were here endemically before Europeans arrived/colonized the continent, some came later willingly, some by force. This contrasts heavily with African Americans who almost entirely were brought against their will, the entire population subjugated. The ease with which Asians and Native Americans and Hispanics pulled themselves out of the limited slavery they experienced with respect to blacks was heavily influenced by the presence of minorities who were NOT slaves, and the communities that existed and already were flourishing. I think comparing these racial groups against each other, and saying, essentially, "oh, slavery was permitted for all, and ended for all at the same time, therefore they all experienced the same hardship and enduring consequences" is entirely too simple.

Judge and Prosecutors unfortunately haven't had the same amount of effort and programs aimed at rooting out bias in their career fields as police in this country have. There isn't many studies on bias for them, but the few studies tend to lend that there is inordinate amount there. Those studies aren't without flaws either. Still, the courtroom doesn't interact with all of society at large either. Police do, but courtrooms do not.

The marshal project study doesn't go into reasons about justified homicides, just looks at the raw numbers and draws conclusions from that. Even in that link there is this statement:

“If, for instance, white-on-black homicides were mainly defensive shootings in a residence or business, and black-on-white shootings mainly occurred during the commission of a street crime, then the [racial] disparity would be warranted,” wrote researcher John Roman in a 2013 Urban Institute study of justifiable homicides.

So that study doesn't really find anything worth noting. It just finds that white on black shootings result in 8 times more likelyhood the shooting is ruled as justified versus not. Which means nothing with looking into the cases themselves.

As for police bias and stereotyping, that is a large ball of yarn to unravel these days. Police these days are far more aware of the microscope being placed on their profession when it comes to bias. in fact, several studies, like the ones I linked above, show cops in major cities like Houston are far more likely to let a black suspect go without arrest than white counter parts these days. Using newer reports versus older ones shows a dramatic change in policing when it comes to bias.

Even Justin Nix didn't come to the conclusion of racial bias in his study. (https://jnix.netlify.app/post/post3-that-new-pnas-paper/) He lists the flaws with it and the limitations of the data set used. The sample size is too small, and it isn't standardized in reporting. It is a study that has enough results to warrant more investigation that is more comprehensive if it can be done, but drawing conclusions of racism isn't a good idea so far using that study.

I think we can both agree that the current literature on race with respect to police interactions is entirely incomplete, and we cannot draw significant conclusions from it.

The problem with the argument is that blacks aren't the only minority group in the US the Asians, Native Americans, and Pacific islanders don't face the same problems. Hispanics in some communities face similar problems, but in other areas of the country do not. Sure there validity to the argument that tough on crime legal system off the past made things more difficult for minorities. That judge sentencing is still not racially "fair" in the legal system against minorities. But that doesn't at all explain why some flourished despite that and some communities didn't. Why blacks in some communities are dominated by households without marriage. Judges don't prevent black couples from getting married. Nor do the police.

I think the reason blacks in some communities are dominated by households without marriage could be explained in a lot of ways. Surely, blacks aren't prevented from marrying each other by law. But the incarceration rate of blacks (5% of their population is in jail in the US) is a huge factor in determining whether a two-parent household is even possible. And the reason so many blacks are in jail is directly tied to the systemic racism, racial bias, etc.

There is so much entanglement of all these factors, that the only thing we can really say (and I emphasize this heavily) is that there is a lot of racial bias in the US, and it's causing harm to blacks and Hispanics disproportionately compared to whites.

Using the Trayvon case where there was enough evidence to speak for itself shows an indication of your bias here. If anything, this case shows the opposite of a legal system persuaded by social racism to charge an innocent man with a crime to get him convicted. The Trayvon case is a very poor example to ever use for an argument of racism against blacks. Same with Michael Brown. Those cases show the exact opposite instead. There are better cases to use for anecdotal evidence of racism of the justice system against blacks.

This is a huge misinterpretation of what I said.

First, I agree GZ is not guilty and I agree with the legal verdict. You say "there was enough evidence to speak for itself" but that's false - there was almost no good evidence at all, hence he is presumed innocent. He was NOT proven innocent. He was just found not guilty. There is a huge difference there.

Second, you call GZ an "innocent man" with no evidence to prove it. I know you have no evidence to prove it, and yet you say it as a fact, which proves your prejudice in the case. The simple fact is that we only have GZ's side of the story, and the other side of the story will never be told because Martin is fucking dead.

Third, I agree, the Trayvon case is a poor example to use for racism, and I'm not sure if you missed this, but I used Trayvon not for his race, but to make a point that dead people can't tell their side of the story.

All other countries are extremely homogeneous and come no where close to the diversity of demographic makeup that the US does. Don't be mislead by the Pew study about perception of diversity. Uganda isn't the most diverse country on the planet. It is still 99% black population there. If we are going by major categories of "races" such as what is tracked in the US census, the US is the most diverse country on the planet. More people here immigrate to this country than any other. https://www.aantlaw.com/top-5-countries-highest-immigration-rates/

We allow more people opportunities to be successful in life than any other country on the planet regardless of their starting point. We have a high rate of economic mobility and more freedoms allowed to all citizens as well as immigrants than any other country still.

"All other countries are extremely homogeneous"
Just completely false. I mean, just look at our southern neighbor. Mexico is 47% white, 21% indigenous, sizeable 6 to 7-figure populations of Asians, Middle-Easterers, Jews, Muslims, expats, etc. -- and perhaps most importantly -- 30% of citizens being mestizo, varying mixes of African, European, Amerindian, and Asian stock.

I don't disagree that we are the most (or at least one of the most) diverse countries on earth. But just because we are more diverse does NOT mean we do not have a racism / racial bias problem here.


I am curious. If you do not think racism / racial bias in America is a primary reason for broken homes, black poverty, black crime, more blacks being killed by police, more blacks being in jail -- then what is? You alluded to something in your comment about black homes having heads of household who are not married. I'd like you to explain what you're thinking there, with respect to whether you believe that black people are at fault for their own situations in places like Chicago's South Side, or other hotbeds of black crime.

 

[amrnuke]

Wow, sexual preferences now are racist?

Where the fuck did you get that implication? I just said that it's possible that someone could marry a black person and still think whites are superior overall. The article I linked to - did you even read it? None of it was about partner selection, it was about implicit racial bias, not attractiveness.

How about the fact that white people have dominated the media when it comes to display what an "attractive" person should be tends to overly influence the cultural definition of attractiveness. That various societies around the world today and in the past have had large differences for what is considered attractive and that those have also changed over the years in dramatic changes sometimes. While it could be argued that sexual preferences are racist, it is a poor argument with an easy slap on label answer.

Well, good thing I didn't argue that.

Again, the wealth accumulation argument. Median income for minority households were all lower than whites in 1960 and before. Since then some minorities did much better as a whole than others (like Asians) and others did well in certain areas of the country and piss poor in other areas. There are various reasons for it and some of them are racist in nature. Claiming it to be a problem as a whole of systemic racism as to why the average of black american households are still lower in income today with lower growth is just not right. East Asians, Central Asians, Black immigrants from other countries that moved here after 1960, and others which had similar low income starting points while dealing with the same systems were able to prosper just fine. Large waves of Irish and Italian immigrants who came to America during the early to mid 1900's also faced large problems with prejudice, discrimination, and poverty. As a whole their communities changed after the 1960s for the better too.

1) There are huge disparities between recent black African immigrants, recent black Caribbean immigrants, and US born blacks who are descendants of slaves. By and large, African immigrants are older, more educated, and are on average wealthier than US born blacks, and are coming here because they want to, not because they were forced to. Huge selection bias. Don't confuse the two groups, they have similar skin tone, but culturally, educationally, and socioeconomically, they are very different. And they are treated very differently. Read up on the higher education fiasco - there is some concern that recent African immigrants are exploiting race and are displacing US born blacks from medical schools and universities.

2) Regarding Asian immigration, did you not even bother to do the research before speaking? Their population is vastly different historically from African Americans. The vast majority of the Asian immigration has been willing, and the vast majority occurred after 1965. As of 1900 there were fewer than 100,000 Chinese and Japanese in the US. In 1960 there were fewer than 700,000 Chinese and Japanese (over half of those lived in Hawaii). Largely, this was limited by federal and state exclusionary policies prohibiting family immigration from Asia. However, by 1965 the exclusionary policies for Asians were by and large retracted (around the same time Jim Crow laws were finally abolished). As of 2000, there were over 10,000,000 Asians according to the census, and today they are estimated to make up over 20,000,000 (including Filipinos, Koreans, Thai, etc.). So the reason they have been able to "pull themselves out of poverty" is because... a large percentage of them weren't ever in abject poverty. The majority immigrated here willingly, most of the time with their families, rather than having their families torn apart and shoved onto boats, and then enslaved for generations, and then systematically repressed. The vast majority of Asian Americans read about WW2 internment camps as a historical lesson, not one of personal heritage. Slavery is a personal familial heritage for almost all blacks in the US. That slavery affected how each black person's great great grandparents view the world and raise their children, and that heritage is passed on. It is the result of racism and slavery and its effects absolutely still exist in America.

3) Irish and Italian immigrants have the great fortune of being white in the US. So once a generation or two went by and their kids lost the accent, it is pretty easy to integrate and avoid that discrimination. Was there discrimination against Italians and Irish? Yes (of the Irish, primarily by British immigrants and not native Americans, and of the Italians, much of it was religious, at least in the early 1900s). Is it comparable to that experienced by blacks? Not really. Also, you'd be hard pressed to identify the child of a white American male and a white Italian female without asking their heritage. You can easily identify the child of a white American male and a black American female.

 

[hal2kilo]

Anyone ever heard the phrase "they are one of the good ones"? Guys especially can bury their racist tendencies for one exception. Happens all the time. I can easily see a white guy willing to marry Halle Berry while still holding animus against black people in general.

Same for an anti-Semite marrying a Jewish woman

Hot can overcome racism

Last 2 lines struck a nerve, and reminded me of something prophetic.

 

[Moonbeam]

Why would questions of ‘racism not racism’.like is happening here take up so much mental energy in the US?

I think it is the civil war which, similarly, was or wasn’t about slavery.

In the civil war a bunch of scum sucking slave holders in a bunch of scum sucking states got their asses badly whipped and were forced, as a result, to eat the scum sucking bigotry they used to pretend their scum sucking culture was something high class. They were en masse culturally outcast as the hideous scum balls they are.

So what happens to folk protected by geography and numbers who are made to feel like dirt, who suddenly find themselves handed the end of the stick they used to hand Black people, who, in a nation on its way to becoming the greatest, are its greatest embarrassment and national shame.

My guess is a new culture where all of that old bigotry and hatred gets repressed and denied while freshly resurrected behind a new form of Southern pride. We gotta put them Black people right back on the bottom again but deny it’s because of racism. We ain’t bigots no more.

The one thing people who hate themselves will never get close to is feeling disrespected and humiliated. They should have realized however that black is just one of a number of skin tones people come in. We are all the same in a capacity for false pride, self hate, and mystical transformation or ego transformation.

 

[JEDIYoda]

Who the fuck said it was one sided. Creep.

I think the word “idiot” is more descriptive!

 

[HumblePie]

Since I don't want to just re-quote everything again. About the wealth issue factor for criminology and how strong a correlation it is:

(https://www.policeone.com/correctio...t-lead-to-criminal-behavior-QKg2lpUaZbdKL1ot/)
(https://www.duo.uio.no/bitstream/handle/10852/39844/dravhandling-abrahamsen.pdf?sequence=1)

There are in fact several studies ranking the risk factors for criminal behavior and what leads to it. Poverty isn't in the top 5. You can argue that early life experiences are impacted by poverty, and they can be, but there is many a person that has bad early life experiences from all economic levels as well as good life experiences too. That is why poverty isn't as high of a risk factor as what tends to be ranked.

1) Biological (people being born as psychopaths for instance)
2) Broken homes
3) Substance abuse
4) Criminal peers

Those typically are the top statistical correlations that tend to lead a person to be a criminal. These have always been labeled as the BIG FOUR for determining criminal behavior and recommitting criminal offenses in criminology. It's easy to look up. Notice poverty is not there. It plays a factor, but hasn't ever been considered a strong factor for determining if someone intends to become a criminal as a way of life.


As for the minorities comparison, like it or not, it is the only comparison that can be made. There were many a black immigrant that came over to America after the civil war but before the Civil Rights movement. They were not any more educated or less impoverished than the recently freed slaves. They were also treated with racism. Their progenitors however, don't suffer the same issues that many black communities that were here during slavery times do in terms of social mobility and opportunity. The issue is that only black communities in certain areas of the country face issues with high crime and potential legal prejudices more than minority groups elsewhere in this country. Each of the minority groups faced hardships that gave them all a low bar starting line when the Civil Rights Movement of the 60s made progress finally in America on going about removing legal racism and systemic issues. As more systemic issues were removed, some minorities groups flourished and others didn't. They may not have all faced the exact same hardships which made them all start in a bad situation, but what they did from there was dramatically different. That is the point I was making.

As for the US, I didn't say we don't have racism here still. I said we are one of the least racist countries on the planet. What we do have though is groups that are racist that other countries due to their homogeneity don't usually have a need for to be racist. Like China for example. As for your example of Mexico, they don't actually publish their census numbers correctly. 47% light skinned Mexicans may or may not be actual white people. That category is for people that either identify as white or mostly white, which the later is left up to interpretation. There is certainly no large portion of black communities, pacific islanders, pure europeans such as Germans or French, Asians, or middle easterners. It just isn't as diverse in racial demographics as the US at all. That isn't to say it doesn't have diversity, and is far more diverse than many other countries like China again. Racism in Mexico is far worse than the US though.

 

[Atreus21]

My perspective: there are a lot of issues with @HumblePie 's contributions in this thread which lead down a danger of invalidating real racism. I'm not sure what he feels or what's motivating his posting. It's absolutely right to point out those issues and A-Ok to disagree and say what is wrong with his position.

But he's being bullied here. That isn't right. That isn't a platform to actually make progress in our racial divisions. The only way that works is if we all push ourselves to be at least a little bit more uncomfortable with what we're bringing to the table and respect each other for doing that even when we detest the positions they take.

Tolerance is reserved for the easily tolerated.

 

[JEDIYoda]

Since I don't want to just re-quote everything again. About the wealth issue factor for criminology and how strong a correlation it is:

(https://www.policeone.com/correctio...t-lead-to-criminal-behavior-QKg2lpUaZbdKL1ot/)
(https://www.duo.uio.no/bitstream/handle/10852/39844/dravhandling-abrahamsen.pdf?sequence=1)

There are in fact several studies ranking the risk factors for criminal behavior and what leads to it. Poverty isn't in the top 5. You can argue that early life experiences are impacted by poverty, and they can be, but there is many a person that has bad early life experiences from all economic levels as well as good life experiences too. That is why poverty isn't as high of a risk factor as what tends to be ranked.

1) Biological (people being born as psychopaths for instance)
2) Broken homes
3) Substance abuse
4) Criminal peers

Those typically are the top statistical correlations that tend to lead a person to be a criminal. These have always been labeled as the BIG FOUR for determining criminal behavior and recommitting criminal offenses in criminology. It's easy to look up. Notice poverty is not there. It plays a factor, but hasn't ever been considered a strong factor for determining if someone intends to become a criminal as a way of life.


As for the minorities comparison, like it or not, it is the only comparison that can be made. There were many a black immigrant that came over to America after the civil war but before the Civil Rights movement. They were not any more educated or less impoverished than the recently freed slaves. They were also treated with racism. Their progenitors however, don't suffer the same issues that many black communities that were here during slavery times do in terms of social mobility and opportunity. The issue is that only black communities in certain areas of the country face issues with high crime and potential legal prejudices more than minority groups elsewhere in this country. Each of the minority groups faced hardships that gave them all a low bar starting line when the Civil Rights Movement of the 60s made progress finally in America on going about removing legal racism and systemic issues. As more systemic issues were removed, some minorities groups flourished and others didn't. They may not have all faced the exact same hardships which made them all start in a bad situation, but what they did from there was dramatically different. That is the point I was making.

As for the US, I didn't say we don't have racism here still. I said we are one of the least racist countries on the planet. What we do have though is groups that are racist that other countries due to their homogeneity don't usually have a need for to be racist. Like China for example. As for your example of Mexico, they don't actually publish their census numbers correctly. 47% light skinned Mexicans may or may not be actual white people. That category is for people that either identify as white or mostly white, which the later is left up to interpretation. There is certainly no large portion of black communities, pacific islanders, pure europeans such as Germans or French, Asians, or middle easterners. It just isn't as diverse in racial demographics as the US at all. That isn't to say it doesn't have diversity, and is far more diverse than many other countries like China again. Racism in Mexico is far worse than the US though.

Downplaying racism in America? Umm

 

[nickqt]

Since I don't want to just re-quote everything again. About the wealth issue factor for criminology and how strong a correlation it is:

(https://www.policeone.com/correctio...t-lead-to-criminal-behavior-QKg2lpUaZbdKL1ot/)
(https://www.duo.uio.no/bitstream/handle/10852/39844/dravhandling-abrahamsen.pdf?sequence=1)

There are in fact several studies ranking the risk factors for criminal behavior and what leads to it. Poverty isn't in the top 5. You can argue that early life experiences are impacted by poverty, and they can be, but there is many a person that has bad early life experiences from all economic levels as well as good life experiences too. That is why poverty isn't as high of a risk factor as what tends to be ranked.

1) Biological (people being born as psychopaths for instance)
2) Broken homes
3) Substance abuse
4) Criminal peers

Those typically are the top statistical correlations that tend to lead a person to be a criminal. These have always been labeled as the BIG FOUR for determining criminal behavior and recommitting criminal offenses in criminology. It's easy to look up. Notice poverty is not there. It plays a factor, but hasn't ever been considered a strong factor for determining if someone intends to become a criminal as a way of life.


As for the minorities comparison, like it or not, it is the only comparison that can be made. There were many a black immigrant that came over to America after the civil war but before the Civil Rights movement. They were not any more educated or less impoverished than the recently freed slaves. They were also treated with racism. Their progenitors however, don't suffer the same issues that many black communities that were here during slavery times do in terms of social mobility and opportunity. The issue is that only black communities in certain areas of the country face issues with high crime and potential legal prejudices more than minority groups elsewhere in this country. Each of the minority groups faced hardships that gave them all a low bar starting line when the Civil Rights Movement of the 60s made progress finally in America on going about removing legal racism and systemic issues. As more systemic issues were removed, some minorities groups flourished and others didn't. They may not have all faced the exact same hardships which made them all start in a bad situation, but what they did from there was dramatically different. That is the point I was making.

As for the US, I didn't say we don't have racism here still. I said we are one of the least racist countries on the planet. What we do have though is groups that are racist that other countries due to their homogeneity don't usually have a need for to be racist. Like China for example. As for your example of Mexico, they don't actually publish their census numbers correctly. 47% light skinned Mexicans may or may not be actual white people. That category is for people that either identify as white or mostly white, which the later is left up to interpretation. There is certainly no large portion of black communities, pacific islanders, pure europeans such as Germans or French, Asians, or middle easterners. It just isn't as diverse in racial demographics as the US at all. That isn't to say it doesn't have diversity, and is far more diverse than many other countries like China again. Racism in Mexico is far worse than the US though.

Wow.
1. You don't think poverty affects the mother and baby the first 9 months of baby's development, i.e. the biology of the person? Nutrition, stress hormones, essential supplements, maternal medications...
2. You don't think poverty is the driving factor in broken homes? Just find general info on marriage/divorce rates and income level...
3. You don't think poverty affects mother's/father's substance abuse before and during baby's development and environment growing up...and that poverty doesn't affect adolescent and adult's likelihood of substance abuse...
4. You don't think poverty affects the people that an adolescent and adult grows up with/peerage they choose to socially develop with...

You're trying to find any reason why it couldn't possibly be racism, and now poverty...both of which are some of the most important and systemic attributes surrounding the development before and after birth of a person, is also just hand-waved away because the word "poverty" isn't preceded by a bullet point?

Forest for the trees much?

Of course, I could have just stopped at my first four words, but alas I figured I'd at least point out an, uh, possible flaw in your analysis.

 

[Paratus]

No, your assertion that I can't see subtle racism because I am white is racism.

Let me put this out there for you. I am walking down the street and I see a group of overly exuberant teens coming my way that seem like they are being way too rowdy. I decide to cross the street to avoid them. If they were black and I was white, someone on the outside watching that exchange may come to the conclusion I was being subtly racist. But if they don't know I do that regardless of race because I know teens can be pranksters that I rather not deal with pranks regardless of the race, the outside observer would be coming to the wrong conclusions. That is the problem with determining actions as subtle racism. It is very hard to make that assertion without actually knowing the people involved in a more intimate relationship. I believe that media and society has unfairly conditioned minority groups to always be on the look out for "subtle racism" even when it doesn't exist. So they see it everywhere and process everything through the lens of racism. As demonstrated already admirably in this thread numerous times. Which is why I am advocating that people stop making assumptions based on perceptions. Because that is also another form of subtle racism. Something I can see even you don't seem to recognize.

So if I understand you correctly despite my providing you with a peer reviewed study specifically designed to unambiguously show the measurable impacts of both blatant and subtle racism you “believe” it is a figment of the media. A figment you believe that countless minorities have fallen for. But you with your experience as a member of the majority know the “truth” and want those minorities to accept your “truth” over their own experiences and peer reviewed scientific research.

How humble of you. Has it ever occurred to you that other people have different experiences and those experiences are valid for them?

 

[JEDIYoda]

Wow.
1. You don't think poverty affects the mother and baby the first 9 months of baby's development, i.e. the biology of the person? Nutrition, stress hormones, essential supplements, maternal medications...
2. You don't think poverty is the driving factor in broken homes? Just find general info on marriage/divorce rates and income level...
3. You don't think poverty affects mother's/father's substance abuse before and during baby's development and environment growing up...and that poverty doesn't affect adolescent and adult's likelihood of substance abuse...
4. You don't think poverty affects the people that an adolescent and adult grows up with/peerage they choose to socially develop with...

You're trying to find any reason why it couldn't possibly be racism, and now poverty...both of which are some of the most important and systemic attributes surrounding the development before and after birth of a person, is also just hand-waved away because the word "poverty" isn't preceded by a bullet point?

Forest for the trees much?

Of course, I could have just stopped at my first four words, but alas I figured I'd at least point out an, uh, possible flaw in your analysis.

I am sure if you asked him he would tell you that everyone is born with the same opportunities as anyone else!! It doesn’t matter the circumstances you were born into! That is what our local arachnid who doesn’t post here anymore would claim!

 

[Meghan54]

Amazing the contortions one must go through to find "both sides do it" concerning racism.

But I shouldn't be amazed, esp. considering the HP source...and I see HP played the "I got a black friend" card...predictable and sad, simultaneously.

The dumbfounding part is that whites seem to be the only ones who can dictate and define racism for blacks, or for any other non-white group for that matter.

Of course, HP never sees any of that because he is blind to it, and that makes him part of the problem. I'm willing to bet HP's never been stopped for, let's say speeding, and had his vehicle tossed/searched as part of his speeding ticket. For blacks in the south, it's rote and routine.

And trying to equate Hispanic and Asian racism with that endured by blacks is stupefying.

And trying to put the onus of racism on the ones suffering from what is dealt them by whites is so damned typical of white racists...and yet they deny they are doing that to people of color.

I know, it's all the black race's fault, right? They're just not doing it right. Who cares if there's been a concerted effort over centuries to deny blacks any shred of equality...and when they approach any semblance of equality, whites scream bloody murder (Civil Rights Act, 1964....whites in south go apeshit insane; Voting Rights Act...southern whites go insane and then figure out ways to get around this.)

One could go on...generation upon generation upon generation being told they were thieves, shiftless, lazy, killers, stupid, less than human, and it's all the fault of the blacks that they haven't achieved to white society's liking...or should I say white society's impossible goals given every time blacks almost clutch those proverbial bootstraps, whites wrap those bootstraps around their throats and essentially say "how dare you!"