• Does systemic racism exist in the US?


    The African Pygmies are black so they must be great basketball players. That's my essentialist logic and I'm sticking to it...
  • Honor Ethics


    :strong: :cheer:
  • Honor Ethics


    He constantly does that to me too. Let's beat the shit out of him. Hold me back!
  • Does systemic racism exist in the US?


    Looking into it, turns out he eventually did disavow and was fired anyway. So, maybe it was unfair. But my capacity for caring about some millionaire footballer and his pathologically racist wife is kind of limited.
  • The Road to 2020 - American Elections


    It would be awful if he accidentally got pushed out of his helicopter while surveying one his golf courses or something. I don't think I'd be able to stand the injustice. :snicker:
  • Honor Ethics


    There are ways to maintain an honour culture while short-circuiting its negative effects. For example, on certain islands off the west coast of Ireland, the men (probably @Hanover's distant relatives) must threaten physical violence if insulted (which apparently happens quite often). However, they short-circuit the threat by calling for their friends and relatives to "hold them back". So, there's a sort of a dance of push and pull as they take their jacket off and run for whoever has insulted their honour while they shout the magic words and are dragged away from any physical contact with their adversary just quickly enough. Eventually, they are subdued and all is well again.

    So, it can work... With a bit of fiddling.
  • Does systemic racism exist in the US?


    I don't know if he was given a chance to disavow or not. I agree he should have been.
  • Does systemic racism exist in the US?
    (So maybe something unfair happened but "tyrannical" is hyperbole. Let's save "tyrannical" for a President who wants to literally kill people's families to punish them.)
  • Does systemic racism exist in the US?


    I don't know the ins and outs so it depends. But if you say nothing that sounds like tacit approval. The way I would deal with it would be to contact the guy and tell him he better disavow and give him a chance to do so before getting fired. That would seem the fairest way to approach it to me.
  • Does systemic racism exist in the US?


    You're not very good at this, are you? Sometimes, I wonder if your real job is just to make Trump and his supporters look bad. If that's it, I commend you. Onward and upward...
  • Bannings


    Human nature. :scream:
  • Does systemic racism exist in the US?


    Your position as a Trump supporter appears to be that censoring someone for what their family did is tyrannical, but murdering them is OK. My position is that some blowback (e.g. someone loses their job) is not necessarily tyrannical, but execution would be. That's the difference between a perfectly reasonable and consistent position (mine) and an utterly ridiculous one (yours). The only way out for you to be consistent is to condemn Trump as tyrannical. So, go ahead.
  • Does systemic racism exist in the US?


    There are probably hundreds of ways to expose your ridiculous levels of hypocrisy. Quoting Trump is just one.
  • Does systemic racism exist in the US?


    Take out their families — Donald Trump

    This guy must really be a scumbag then. But we can make the US less tyrannical by dumping him in November.
  • Does systemic racism exist in the US?


    Yes, but at least one of his examples isn't remotely accurate.

    What actually happened was:

    "Tea Katai made the posts on her Instagram story earlier this week, and the Galaxy angrily condemned them as "racist and violent" on Wednesday. The posts included a photo with a caption written in Serbian urging police to "kill" protesters, another referring to protesters as "disgusting cattle," and a third sharing a racist meme."
    Baden

    If your wife is an out-of-control racist calling for people to be killed, you better disavow that shit quickly or you can expect some blowback.
  • Bannings


    People not getting what they want and not being able to handle it. A self-destructive streak maybe? I'm not going to psychologize it more than that. Powers of self-restraint vary.
  • Systemic racism in the US: Why is it happening and what can be done?


    Feel free to start your own thread about corporate censorship. I'm going to keep this strictly on topic as there is some interesting stuff being posted.
  • Systemic racism in the US: Why is it happening and what can be done?


    As usual @NOS4A2 is just propagandising. Don't swallow the bait. Here's just one lie.

    Alexander Katai was dropped from the LA Galaxy because his wife commented “Black Nikes Matter” on an Instagram video of looting.NOS4A2

    What actually happened was:

    "Tea Katai made the posts on her Instagram story earlier this week, and the Galaxy angrily condemned them as "racist and violent" on Wednesday. The posts included a photo with a caption written in Serbian urging police to "kill" protesters, another referring to protesters as "disgusting cattle," and a third sharing a racist meme."

    By the way @NOS4A2 your random misleading complaints about leftists are off-topic. Go do it on the other systemic racism thread where that kind of thing is more tolerated.
  • Bannings
    Hardly a quicker route to exit than refusing moderation. I imagine he knew that and was engaged in a last hurrah.
  • Systemic racism in the US: Why is it happening and what can be done?
    Another useful explanatory link that helps explain why systemic racism is endemic in the US and how it's related to neoliberal economics.

    "As Lee Atwater, who became chairman of the Republican National Committee after helping elect Presidents Reagan and George H. W. Bush, explained in a 1981 interview,

    Y’all don’t quote me on this. You start out in 1954 by saying, 'Nigger, nigger, nigger.' By 1968 you can't say 'nigger' - that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously, maybe that’s part of it."

    The leftist "fantasy" straight from the mouth of a right-winger.

    https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/06/09/neoliberal-capitalism-depends-white-supremacy?fbclid=IwAR0uElUsxC2TwUfSk6hRls3dg6GIWwxZMIH_yQVMv7lCMq5WOBf2vAFUMyI
  • Systemic racism in the US: Why is it happening and what can be done?
    According to the Kaiser Foundation, roughly a half million blacks are born each year in the United States.

    https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/births-by-raceethnicity/?currentTimeframe=0&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22Location%22,%22sort%22:%22asc%22%7D

    So, just as a place to start, let's say each new black person born gets a one million dollar life time voucher they can use for any educational experience which could boost their ability to earn. If I've done the math right (have I?) that comes to 500 billion dollars a year for the maximum cost of the program. Most people won't need that much, and many won't access the benefit, so the real price would probably be considerably less. How much less, I can't say.

    This is the kind of nuts and bolts analysis I'm seeking help with.

    The goal here is that we put our heads together and try to zero in on the cost of the benefit to the degree possible on a philosophy forum. It's not serious to throw out some lofty sounding idea if we don't have any idea what it would cost, and thus don't know how realistic it is.

    A key aspect of this proposal is that the richest 1% pay for it. Thus, when anyone complains about the cost of the plan 99% of the time we can respond with, "this doesn't affect you".

    But before we can claim the 1% can pay for this plan we need to know roughly how much it would cost, and roughly how much money the 1% have.
    Nuke
  • Systemic racism in the US: Why is it happening and what can be done?
    The following seems relevant enough to what to do about systemic racism to merit reposting here: (Any replies address to @Nuke)

    There's been a LOT of discussion of race relations in recent weeks, and as usual the vast majority of the discussion focuses on emotion and vague calls for various kinds of largely unspecified change. We are told we are supposed to take race relations very very seriously, which is good, but apparently not seriously enough to actually do anything big and specific about race relations problems.

    So, this thread will attempt to replace a pattern of vague emotional statements with a policy proposal which is both ambitious and specific.

    In the spirit of getting serious, let's try to do more than just fire off some opinions and on the spot analysis provided as fast as we can type. Read that sentence again please.

    Instead, I'm hoping you can help me nail down the price tag for the following proposal.

    PROPOSAL: Every black American and American Indian should be provided totally free education (tuition, books, living expenses, everything) for any educational experience which can boost their income earning potential. This plan should continue until such time as the vast wealth gap between these groups and whites is erased. The plan should be funded by the richest 1%, that is, those who have most of the money and who have benefited most from America's rigged system.

    Here are the kind of questions I hope we will address:

    1) How much would such a plan cost? How many people are we trying to serve and approximately how much money is required to serve them as defined above?

    2) What would the impact of such a plan be on the 1%? Would they barely notice? Would their economic position be crushed? How much money do they have, and how much of that would such a plan take from them?

    If you don't like this plan and would prefer another one, ok, no problem. In that case, please start your own thread outlining your own plan. Thank you.
    Nuke
  • @Baden
    Here's what I can do though, I've moved your original OP to the "What to do about systemic racism?" thread, which is more productive, and left the low-quality responses and insults behind in the other thread. If any of that is repeated in this thread, I'll delete it.

    (Please PM me (or @fdrake) with any further on this. Thanks.)
  • @Baden


    It's not against the rules to be disruptive and negative to a certain degree. Price we pay for open debate. It's also difficult to assess intention. Anyone who comes to a thread to deliberately disrupt it will be removed. But figuring out what's deliberate is the issue and if we're not careful on that we'll (understandably) be accused of heavy-handedness, bias etc.
  • @fdrake


    Your thread was being and would further have been colonised by the same disruptive and negative element that has colonised the other race threads and that sees all talk of race as a threat to be stamped out. Plus, these types of threads have been proliferating wildly over the past few days and we've had to do something about it. So, fair effort but unfortunately circumstances make this a fair mod decision too.
  • Systemic racism in the US: Why is it happening and what can be done?


    You shouldn't. You should probably take a break. Buy a new cat. Relax.
  • Systemic racism in the US: Why is it happening and what can be done?
    'Black Lives Matter' ... now is a national terrorist organizationernestm

    Ah, I see, well at least the cherry picking, flawed reasoning, unjustified speculations and invented stories of persecution had a purpose. Maybe we can get back on topic now.
  • Does systemic racism exist in the US?


    No, systemic racism refers directly to systems not people. For example, being a prison officer in a systemically racist justice system doesn't make you a racist.
  • Joe Biden (+General Biden/Harris Administration)


    Biden needs independents. So, it doesn't matter how nuanced his position is, the GOP attack line will be "Crazy leftie Biden wants to defund the police!" And his campaign knows that, so not going to happen.
  • Systemic racism in the US: Why is it happening and what can be done?
    Have you any suggestions?ernestm

    I suggest you stop talking about how victimized you are because I don't believe your stories. As for the graph, if you go about reforming the police, it has to be done in the right way. You don't leave a vacuum there or criminals will take advantage of it. On the other hand, if the police do not have the trust of the communities they are supposed to protect and serve, there will be so little cooperation that, again, criminality will prosper. The idea of creating an acceptable police force is so they can be an effective police force.
  • Does systemic racism exist in the US?
    I am an over privieleged white animal with a useless education from oxford who is too shallow to understand anything, thats allernestm

    As interesting as your story of graduating from Oxford, then moving to a poor black neighbourhood and being victimized there before turning into a white animal is, it's not really relevant to the question of whether systemic racism exists (nor is it in any way verifiable), so, at the risk of being accused of totalitarianism, I would ask you to save your personal stories for your personal story thread in the lounge rather than post the same thing in every discussion regarding race.
  • Systemic racism in the US: Why is it happening and what can be done?


    All good ideas. Thanks. My only point was that for practical reasons most of us are going to be implicated in some way, whether it's our phones or whatever. But yes, there is a lack of awareness and/or will to take direct action of the sort you mention.
  • Systemic racism in the US: Why is it happening and what can be done?
    When I see people tearing down a statue of a notorious slaver and then refusing to buy any products from companies who benefitted from slavery, now or then, I'll be more content.

    As it is, I see people turning up to tear the statue down in the very fucking clothing that's being made by actual slaves right now. Taking photos of it on phones whose minerals are mined by actual slaves, right now. Telling all their friends about it on social media platforms hosted by companies supporting actual slavery right now.
    Isaac

    Right, I get that. But let's temper our expectations a little. I presume you have a phone like everyone else. That doesn't mean we should sit at home and do nothing about anything, does it?
  • Does systemic racism exist in the US?


    Systemic racism isn't prohibited. That's a large part of the problem. E.g.

    Blockbusting and contract buying were just two of several discriminatory wealth-stripping practices that lawmakers permitted in the U.S. housing systemBaden
  • Systemic racism in the US: Why is it happening and what can be done?


    You're allowed to care about more than one thing you know. For example, if there were a statue of Nazi up in a neighbourhood with a lot of Jews in it and it got pulled down, why on earth would we criticize that?