1) Slavery ended 144 years ago 2) Blacks blame "white America" for pretty much everything that goes wrong. Personal responsibility is absent in many black communities. 3) Stop blaming "social problems". The problem is FAMILY VALUES. It's very acceptable for black men to father multiple children with multiple partners and not be around to take care of their offspring. 4) The liberal media is one of the biggest problems in easing race relations. Why is it that black on white crime happens at many times the rate of white on black crime, but a white on black crime will make front page news anytime it happens? 5) Racism Double standards- It's completely acceptable to have Black entertainment television, Black colleges, Black fraternities, Black award shows, black history month, etc, etc, etc. Could you imagine anyone starting a "white only" award or club? They would immediately be classified as racists and Klan members.
I will agree that it is a cultural problem. I believe the words cultural problem and social problem are interchangeable here. You can replace "social" with "cultural" in my previous post, but the point does not change. Either way, you have to look at what social structures and outside social interactions have caused a group of people, with equal intelligence, to develop a culture like the one you are complaining about. You can't expect a group of people who were treated as second class citizens until just a few years ago to turn their entire social and cultural structure around on a dime and act like good little white, middle class, citizens. I am not for any monetary reparations, but the complete lack of understanding and awareness of how these cultures developed is just lazy and ignorant. I'm sure it's really easy for someone like Paris Hilton to point figures too but not all of us got to grow up in a billionaire's household. The answer isn't to hatefully blame and point figures at these cultures anymore then the answer is to enable them with government funded lifestyles. They are both not solving the problem. Liberals are wrong by enabling the problem through a government funded lifestyle and conservatives are wrong by standing aside and preaching hate and judging while offering no solutions at all except "stop being lazy". These cultures will change when all Americans take a collective, serious, and concentrated effort to change the under lying problems which are fueling them.
This is not a liberal problem anymore then it is a conservative problem, it is an American problem. Both parties have done a horrible job at addressing it. Liberals enable it and conservatives criticize and blame. Liberals expect to little and conservatives expect to much. We need to come together as Americans, not whites or blacks, and want to solve the problem. And you're right, slavery did end over a hundred years ago but equal rights didn't show up until much later, late sixties maybe. This is to say nothing of the fact that most black people have been looked down on since almost our entire history. I'm not saying this is an excuse for any special treatment, but to deny it's very significant impact on African American cultural development is just utterly blind. And yes, I agree, there are many black people just like there are many white people who are racist and who ignorantly blame the other race. African Americans have to do their part and European Americans have to do their part, so that one day maybe we can just be Americans.
A few years ago? 50 years is a few years ago to you? As for complete lack of caring, how about the forgotten areas of America most of them are WHITE and very much impoverished! And no, the words cultural and social are certainly NOT interchangble. One implies a deep rooted collective heritage, the other a network that an individual may or my not belong depending on fate, etc. (some white people even strive to join in, as we all know).
Ok fine, so if you are saying a culture reflects a "deep rooted collective heritage" and you really mean that it is "deep rooted" then this would imply multiple generations of black families. We are one maybe two generations out from equal rights (which came in the late sixties, not 1959 like you stated. What do you think MLK was doing?) And "deep rooted" to me means way more then 1.5 generations. Your definition of culture has basically just agreed with what I have been saying all along, that the greater part of their culture has developed and evolved during a time of extreme racism and a lack of equal rights, to say nothing of slavery. So to expect their culture to "turn on a dime" and act like your families, isn't going to happen. And I am not saying that you have to care, I'm saying to have understanding, another words understand why their culture is the way it is. If you understand why they and their culture is the way that it is then you might be able to replace hateful criticism with a little compassion. As far as poor white areas, the same applies. If you are born into a poor white area with a bad culture then that also is a reinforcing cycle. I am not singling out just black areas and black people, the people in this thread did.
Are blacks, en masse, any better behaved in the U.K., the Caribbean or in Africa than here in the States? Not a bit. To blame segregationist policies from decades ago is a ridiculously disingenuous alibi. From a thread I started last year: http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=129480 A few random thoughts. The U.S. fought deadly wars against various Asian nations in four consecutive decades. We've killed millions and millions of âyellow menâ from Japan to Cambodia, Korea to Laos, Vietnam to the Philippines. All combined we've lost 200,000 troops, spent hundreds of billions, interned American citizens of Japanese descent and Hollywood has cast thousands in the role of maniacal, evil ânipsâ, âJapsâ and âslant eyes.â Until my adult lifetime the official sports nickname of Pekin Il. High School was the Chinks. America has only used nuclear weapons in warfare once. Of course we killed Asians. Yet if one were to poll American whites on their personal impressions of Asians, I'm guessing the vast, vast majority would respond that Asians are pretty cool. I don't recall ever meeting an Asian I've disliked. Perhaps those out West who live near Asian gangs have a different take but I see Asians in America as extreme scholastic achievers, businessmen who often prosper in dangerous inner city neighborhoods and good family people. Unlike many other white guys I harbor no particular sexual desire for Asian women, I've never visited Asia nor do I really desire to. I enjoy Asian food but in no way am I pre-disposed to like Asians. I just do. My feelings are based on the way they treat me, my community and each other. I would never pretend people are color blind. However I don't think people dislike someone of another race based on color. Instead color merely becomes a dominant identification. Just like gender, religion or sexual orientation. We'd be naive to believe folks of differing faiths don't possess traits unique to their own dogma. Individuality is usually just a subset of our cultural upbringing. One can't help but contrast the good will felt toward Asians to the animosity between Blacks and Whites. Is it because yellow is closer to white in the color wheel? Or could it be something more tangible? Could it be that whites (substitute humans) make a statistical inference based on identifiable markers? After all the language men use to describe women is pretty illustrative of those generalized divides. How many of you have heard, âwomen are tough to work for, it's like they have something to prove.â Or âgood looking chicks have attitudes.â While those remarks are considered sexist or even cruel they may contain a grain of statistical truth. The history of race relations in the U.S. perhaps precludes any dialog that won't be viewed as hostile and prejudicial. Too many old wounds. What about those who come here devoid of that bad history. A fresh set of eyes so to speak. Then how do immigrants view American blacks? To be blunt, not favorably. By and large immigrants see blacks as spoiled. Put yourself in the shoes of a Mexican in L.A., an Arab in Detroit or a Polish person in Chicago. Chances are you came to America without speaking English. You enter a strange land amid a small network of friends and family. Because of financial hardship or immigration laws your parents or children might have been left behind. Talk about the trauma of your first day in school! So now you're in your first day in the City of Obama. While you're working some menial back breaking job, trying to learn conversational English and putting off any luxury beyond a few cervezas so you can send money back home-you're robbed at gunpoint by guys who own cars and expensive shoes. You see these thieves as people who had the benefit of free schools. Schools that fielded sports teams, held plays, gave out free lunch and had just 20-25 students in a class. These are people who if unemployed or poor receive food stamps, subsidized housing, welfare and aid to dependent children. They have fire and police protection, nice parks, recreational facilities, affirmitive hiring, helpful quotas in government jobs and contracts and best of all they're full fledged U.S. Citizens. Yet with all those advantages-perks you and your people would die for, perhaps your people have died for, yet these American blacks drop out of school, join gangs, rob, murder, abuse drugs and live in squaller. Even the taxi driver from Nigeria refuses to pick up American black fares. He quickly learns the statistical risk. Obviously he makes a decision based on race. Are we to imply the Nigerian is prejudiced?
A better solution would be to scrap the trailers and set these people loose in the streets? Thank God we don't have dimwits like you in charge anymore.
How do those asian gangs act? You generally see them wearing baggy pants, bandanas and speaking like black people. Same way with white people in gangs. Most of the worst people in America love rap music, dress "gangsta" and have the manerisms of typical ghetto black people. If you take on the persona of a specific group, you raise or lower yourself to that position in life. For instance...if you put a white man in a suit, give him a high paying corporate job, but he has a black ghetto persona, he will eventually lose that job and find himself living the black ghetto life. If you have a black man who lives in the ghetto but speaks intelligently without speaking any black slang(ebonics) and speaks like a corporate executive, and has manerisms as an executive even if he isnt one...he will eventually lift himself up to a position like that.
With all due respect I think we will end by agreeing to disagree. By your statement it seems that you are trying to prove, if I'm reading them correctly, that black individuals are intellectually inferior to whites, and other races, not because of their culture or lack of a good family and education, but because of the color of their skin or genetics. So if that is your stance then I'm sure you know you are a racist, even by your own admission. My response would simplistically be that each race has been treated differently in America and I'm sure you would agree that African American's have had the worst go of it, all starting from slavery. I am not going to debate each race's cultural evolution, because we could never know all the variables involved. This is too say nothing of the fact that I believe you are not alone in your views on black people, and so the collective of you and other people with your views will undeniably have an effect on how you interact with black people at large, which just impacts and adds to the negative cycle that their culture is already in. To your first point, I will wholey disagree. Blacks do act differently, just like any race would, when raised in a different area. It has been shown time and time again that if a black baby is raised in a white middle class family he/she will act like a white middle class individual. The profiling of a few cab drivers doesn't really do much except show that he thinks black people will be less likely to pay or maybe rob him. Also, I live in Michigan and I interact with black people every day and it is no different than any other race, some are nice and responsible and some are assholes, just like whites, asians, etc. I actually prefer the diversity. I'm guessing maybe you don't interact with many blacks on a daily basis, I could be wrong, but it just seems that way. So in conclusion, unless I am misinterpreting your points, my opinion is that the behaviors and social patterns of African Americans is totally culturally based which has been shaped by many variables through out American history, from slavery to civil rights on down, and you believe that their skin color and genetics alone makes them culturally and intellectually inferior? If I'm wrong please correct me. If this is correct then we might as well just end the discussion right here because I have nothing else to add.
"When the missionaries came to Africa They had the Bible and we had the land. They said "Let us pray." We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land." Bishop Desmond Tutu.