[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

but that's the flag of self-defeat. resentment is toxic and addictive. it leads to self-destruction.

and i'm not after polite conversation, i'm after some kind of "truth," which in order to be pursued requires openness to other points of view. i'm not threatened by "other" ideas and over the years i've changed my position on a lot of issues because i discover and see new things. being open-minded is not being a sellout. and braying in anger only makes one's ideas look ridiculous which is why i laughed the other day. obama explained it better.

It can be, that is true, but if you don't get up in racist peoples' ear, when will they if ever come to the realization of the Truth? Being nice politics are not exactly nice yo!

Long time, we no have no nice time, do you think about that?

so, in short-- your racialized ideology is doomed to fail because it perpetuates self-destructive resentment and the shirking of responsibility by externalizing all blame to an abstract "white man."

That is where you have it wrong. Its not about casting or castigating blame, its about working to build and establish solutions. Again, by working in public education to alleviate the gap, by working in local government to shift the racialization in the opposite direction, and by working with our neighbors in the civic community towards harmonization. Its not about wasting time pointing the finger, but conversely its NOT about pretending there is no problem, when again, its quite apparent there is.

IT'S A WASTE OF TIME. it's better to spend one's time making something useful rather than holding on to ancient grudges.

Who has a grudge? Again, its about building towards the future, not dwelling on the past. In the history we have horrifying racism, today, not as much. However, today we STILL have racism in our economy, in our politics, in education, and in our society. So its not an anachronism to continue to work against this. Its not ancient, its completely contemporary. If you can't see this fact, that all the more simply goes to prove the point doesn't it, that advocacy and awareness are still important, that we need to continue to have this national and local dialogue, and that we can't sweep this mess under the rug. The LA Uprising in 1992 was the result of sweeping the problem under the rug. The eruption of gang violence here in LA was a direct retaliatory response to the racial gaps in the LA economy, politics, and education. The city took brown and black folks kindness for weakness, promising education and community reform, promising to invest in the poor and minority neighborhoods. Instead they CUT school funding even more, imposed gang injunctions in every neighborhood, and carted off more-or-less 200,000 people into prison to temporary resolve the problem. There is still a problem, the question is, will we work to solve it, or continue in the status quo with a shoulder shrug approach..

and yes, i see racism every day, even coming from "nice people", but that's not an excuse to fuck up or stop working or to waste life in anger. or to think that *everything is about race*.

Who stopped working, or is wasting life, or fucking up simply by pointing out and discussing the realities of our society? Further, just because everything isn't about race, doesn't mean we should stop talking about it simply to be nice.

[dead_battery]

rabgor - watch doctor who where they insert black characters into victorian parliaments where - in real life - there were actually, shockingly, no black people

this is not making things better, this is whitewashing history.

also - isn't it fair, in a free and equal society, for people to produce fiction featuring WHATEVER characters they want?

the reason walter white and jesse pinkman are white, and all the friends were white, is not because the writers dont like black people.

the people that write breaking bad happen to be white. their lives were probably filled with people who emotionally resonated the strongest with them, and also happened to be white. this is not racism.

pretending that in ever situation everywhere you can just insert a woman, a gay, a black, a hispanic, a latino, an asian etc. is just stupid.

you can tell whatever story you want, and you shouldnt have to have an obligation to make it conform to a particular racial narrative.

if you said - hey sound man, i dont want your black hands on the equipment cos you'll mess it up - well then you're just crazy. crazy and racist. you should still have a right to express yourself through fiction, but maybe not to hire and fire. if ZERO black actors were ever on american tv, then that's wrong. but its not like that.

[!@#$%!]

it's not "simply to be nice", nowhere i said that the great goal of all debate and discourse is "to be nice" but there you go again all mule-headed!

btw, "shifting the racialization in the opposite direction" leads to segregation. ending the racialization should be the goal rather than deepening the divide.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Notice this map from today's headline in NY Times about "In Climbing the Income Ladder, Location Matters"

 

Hmm.. the predominantly black regions are conspicuously hard to climb the ladder

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/22/bu...ml?ref=us&_r=0

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by SuchFriendsAreDangerous

Notice this map from today's headline in NY Times about "In Climbing the Income Ladder, Location Matters"

 

Hmm.. the predominantly black regions are conspicuously hard to climb the ladder

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/22/bu...ml?ref=us&_r=0

 

Even more interesting, notice how well the maps of the "Great Black Migration" and today's income gaps superimpose over each other

[dead_battery]

everyone should go here for some high quality writing

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by SuchFriendsAreDangerous

Notice this map from today's headline in NY Times about "In Climbing the Income Ladder, Location Matters"

 

Hmm.. the predominantly black regions are conspicuously hard to climb the ladder

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/22/bu...ml?ref=us&_r=0

crabs in a bucket?

nah, i'm just fucking with you and i don't really believe that (though i see a lot of it, i don't think it's the cause of these demographic trends). i see that map and i wonder about it, but correlation is not causation, and contrary to what you believe it's not all a white man conspiracy to keep the black man down. there are many reasons why the poor stay poor. but yes, atrocious schooling can be racialized, etc. but it's not all.

what about white appalachians though? how do you interpret their permanent state of blight? they live in those same areas, by the way.

 

[dead_battery]

actually, the link i was looking for is HERE

The current split between conservatives and liberals on this issue of the government’s size is farcical because it’s so one-sided in light of the failure of large-scale progressivism to offer a sustainable alternative to the default social order. To be sure, the conservative society is execrable from the modern viewpoint, since it dehumanizes us, treating us as animals struggling on our own for survival and power. And to be sure, some conservatives tell noble lies to conceal that this is what they fight for. Thanks to its association with the Nazis, social Darwinism is politically incorrect, but this is the true difference between conservatives and liberals. A small government means a power vacuum in the private sector and thus a brutal natural competition, which corrupts the weakened government and tanks the whole economy in boom and bust cycles. And a large government means the empowering of the vanguard party or of the bureaucracy’s upper echelons, which again corrupts the power center and dooms the society. In a conservative social order, the powerful minority benefit the most, although as in most animal groups, the total population benefits from the stability which is preferable to anarchy. In a progressive, egalitarian society, the naturally weakest members benefit the most since they receive a free lunch, but because this sort of society is miraculous it tends to be short-lived. Thus, only the rich and the powerful now have ardent political defenders in modern states, leaving the poor to fend for themselves. Liberal politicians are much more confused about their social ideals than are conservatives, although the latter may seem confused in public if they keep their postmodern ideals secret.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Again, you demonize me too much with this "white man's burden" nonsense. I never meant to imply that racism is as simple as black man great, white man evil. However and again, just because its not that simple doesn't mean that even in the 21st century its an anachronism. As to you comments about the Appalachians, you realize that even those regions are upwards of 50% black like most of the South? It is a myth in America that Appalachia is predominantly white. Further, of course white people are victim to poverty, including in the Appalachias, shit, including in my own life. However, this somehow doesn't negate the impact of racism on the systemic poverty of black and brown folks across the past 400 or so years, and as shown by that map continuing today as much as ever..

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by SuchFriendsAreDangerous

Again, you demonize me too much with this "white man's burden" nonsense.

white man's burden was kipling's notion that the white man had the duty to civilize the global savages. that has nothing to do with what you've been saying that "the white man is out to fuck us over." which to me only perpetuates resentment and shirks responsibility.

black/brown people can be racist too-- and sexist, and classist, and ageist, and predatory, and abusive, and all kinds of other things.

[floatingslowly]

Not sure if it's been mentioned in this big ol' tl;dr, but I have it on expert authority that those who run the Detroit Institute of Arts aim to sell-off large amounts of near-priceless paintings in order to pay off (some of) the city's debt. It won't be long until the only way to view heritage works will be through grants by Big Corp.

Good times.

[Rob Instigator]

white-washed television is not racism, but it doesn't help. TV and m,ovies create our realtiy,a s stupid as that is, but it is true for a great many people.

what they see on TV and movies, (blacks and hispanics playing roles of criminals, junkies, gays, thugs, homeless, servants, etc. far more often than they play roles which normally go to white actors) is how many people perceive reality to be. I don;t believe the hype.

Most writers for television are white males. they can only write about what they personally have experienced, which is the privileged, white existence they enjoy in the USA. believe me it is true.

as a hispanic who looks white as fuck, I see it all the time, and I see how my fellow 'panics are treated differently from me, just because I am pale and have red hair. prejudice is pervasive, and that is the issue, not racism. racism is prejudice in action. prejudice is taught.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

white man's burden was kipling's notion that the white man had the duty to civilize the global savages. that has nothing to do with what you've been saying that "the white man is out to fuck us over." which to me only perpetuates resentment and shirks responsibility.

black/brown people can be racist too-- and sexist, and classist, and ageist, and predatory, and abusive, and all kinds of other things.

Who said they aren't or can't be? The question is about structural racism, which by every metric demonstrates that black and brown folks are disenfranchised from the economy, politics, and education system disproportionately to white folks. This isn't to imply that white folks have this discrepancy willfully, or spitefully, rather, just that structurally and systematically in the US, racism clearly has an pronounced effect. About your idea of perpetuating resentment and shrinking responsibility, I think the opposite is true. When we vocalize our feelings and insights about racism, we vent ou frustrations and cleanse the wound. When we ignore or minimize its effects, we let the wound fester to erupt later. Further, when we discuss these matters about structural racism, we inherently are also discussing those systematic solutions of community initiative and involvement. Again, its not about empty finger-pointing, but rather identifying where work needs be done, and getting to work. I work in public education where we see huge racial gaps in quality and over-all attainment. That is how I can contribute and work every day towards a solution. Its pragmatic. It works. There are other folks involved in business, in government, and in community involvement that can do their part, share in the work to alleviate the gaps. Its not about the blame game, its about identifying problems and working on everyday solutions.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Rob Instigator

white-washed television is not racism, but it doesn't help. TV and m,ovies create our realtiy,a s stupid as that is, but it is true for a great many people.

what they see on TV and movies, (blacks and hispanics playing roles of criminals, junkies, gays, thugs, homeless, servants, etc. far more often than they play roles which normally go to white actors) is how many people perceive reality to be. I don;t believe the hype.

Most writers for television are white males. they can only write about what they personally have experienced, which is the privileged, white existence they enjoy in the USA. believe me it is true.

as a hispanic who looks white as fuck, I see it all the time, and I see how my fellow 'panics are treated differently from me, just because I am pale and have red hair. prejudice is pervasive, and that is the issue, not racism. racism is prejudice in action. prejudice is taught.

well, the AT&T 4G commercial that's been airing right now shows a bunch of kids of all colors talking about slow vs. fast turtles or infinity plus infinity but if you notice (it's subtle) it's always the white kid who has the "winning" answer while the brown kids serve as acolytes.

but to go from there to say this is why young lakotas are killing each other is too much of a leap.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

True, but it doesn't negate the impact of TV and subconscious racial inferiority. When the TV portrays black and brown folks predominantly as villains, crooks, side-kicks, underlings, extras, or just non-existent, it sends bad message to the white folks who watch these shows, and also the black and brown folks who internalize that message. Countless black folks talk about how pioneering even derogatory or demeaning black characters were on TV in the 1960s and 1970s because simply put, they had never even saw themselves on TV before. It provided radical sense of self-affirmation, and yet conversely, perpetuated subconsciously the idea of white superiority. When all the leading, powerful, and charismatic characters on TV are predominantly white, it sends a very overt yet subtle message, which is what Rob is talking about. Things are changing, albeit slowly, but thankfully in the right direction. My point in all this thread? We still got A LOT of work to do, we ain't even got time for a pit stop to check our progress, got to keep on the move, can't let any grass grow under our feet, nothing comes to a sleeper but a dream..

[demonrail666]

In terms of media misrepresentation, in the UK anyway, the first thing that needs to happen is for TV executives to stop treating the white working class as some kind of grotesque freakshow through programmes like The Jeremy Kyle Show, Shameless, etc. Dead Battery's right, the media is free to represent whatever it wants however it wants but if a single group is being systematically demonised by the media in Britain, it's definitely the white working class.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by demonrail666

In terms of media misrepresentation, in the UK anyway, the first thing that needs to happen is for TV executives to stop treating the white working class as some kind of grotesque freakshow through programmes like The Jeremy Kyle Show, Shameless, etc. Dead Battery's right, the media is free to represent whatever it wants however it wants but if a single group is being systematically demonised by the media in Britain, it's definitely the white working class.

I think we can rightfully concede that in any of its forms, regions, or contexts, TV is bane cesspool of human evil, almost viler than the pornography on the internet.

[demonrail666]

Except that the government here is on a crusade to ban porn on the internet but appears to think portraying the white working class as little more than tracksuit wearing benefit scrounging 'scum' is perfectly fine.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by SuchFriendsAreDangerous

True, but it doesn't negate the impact of TV and subconscious racial inferiority. When the TV portrays black and brown folks predominantly as villains, crooks, side-kicks, underlings, extras, or just non-existent, it sends bad message to the white folks who watch these shows, and also the black and brown folks who internalize that message. Countless black folks talk about how pioneering even derogatory or demeaning black characters were on TV in the 1960s and 1970s because simply put, they had never even saw themselves on TV before. It provided radical sense of self-affirmation, and yet conversely, perpetuated subconsciously the idea of white superiority. When all the leading, powerful, and charismatic characters on TV are predominantly white, it sends a very overt yet subtle message, which is what Rob is talking about. Things are changing, albeit slowly, but thankfully in the right direction. My point in all this thread? We still got A LOT of work to do, we ain't even got time for a pit stop to check our progress, got to keep on the move, can't let any grass grow under our feet, nothing comes to a sleeper but a dream..

the reason why things change slowly is because politicians and preachers and academics and rabble-rousers much rather spend their energy bitching and crying about it than building an alternative.

they profit from saying "look at what ____ is doing to us!"

we all know what's wrong, but too many of our "enlightened leaders" have a vested interest in keeping things exactly as they are.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

the reason why things change slowly is because politicians

You conflate what politicians do with what I am talking about. However that is understandable, from my experience talking with you in the past few years about politics, elections in particular, it seems you put a lot of inevitable faith (I'm not sure this is the best choice in words, but I can't think of a more apt way to phrase what I am thinking) in politicians and the political process. That is not the focus of what I am talking about, merely one side of the equation. Education, community initiative, economic reform, these things are substantive factors which must also be directly and consistently addressed.

we all know what's wrong, .

Unfortunately that is too many degrees not true, so advocacy is just as important as action.