OK, but we cannot change what has happened so I guess what we do now still is the most important. Yet this begs the question: just what you mean by being actively anti-racist?So even if police brutality statistics can be squarely traced back to the socio-economic circumstances of black people and higher crime rates today then they are there because the system did not and never did anything to make black people equal. That's, in my view, still a form of systemic racism as I consider any social organisation that disregards how we got here as not taking into account history and such things as inheritance inequality. In other words, it's not enough for a system not be racist, you need to be actively anti-racist. This is why I have likened systemic racism as an emergent property before in this and the other thread. — Benkei
I don't think people who never partook in slavery owe anything to people who were never slaves. Notions that such would be the case have no place in a free society. — Tzeentch
In fact, putting people in historical categories based on nothing other than their skin color is, ironically, quite racist. — Tzeentch
Not to mention, the US government has already tried this through various programs and they have all had adverse effects, mostly benefiting those who didn't really need it and destroying the chances of those that did. — Tzeentch
OK, but we cannot change what has happened so I guess what we do now still is the most important. Yet this begs the question: just what you mean by being actively anti-racist? — ssu
These people don't know what it's like to be discriminated against for being black, female or LGBQT, poor, (a)religious or uneducated. — Benkei
Nobody partook in a crime either except for the criminal and his victim, yet we go out of our way to pay for police, find the culprit, — Benkei
Previous bad policy is no excuse to not pass good policy now. Totally irrelevant. — Benkei
Dealing with crime benefits the whole of society, and crime takes place, for the most part, in the present.
Making Americans pay reparations for slavery would be no different from forcing someone's grandson to pay compensation for a crime their grandfather committed. Unthinkable! And sadly, indicative of the totalitarian mindset that plagues much of the left nowadays. — Tzeentch
How does helping orphans benefit society as a whole? — Benkei
Second, since when does alleviating poverty not help society as a whole? — Benkei
Third, since when is that a criterium to begin with? — Benkei
Roads only benefits people who drive cars. — Benkei
Courts only benefit crooks, lawyers and victims. — Benkei
Healthcare only benefits the sick. — Benkei
In other words "what benefits society" is a totally arbitrary measure you pulled out of your ass to avoid actually having to think about how to solve systemic racism. — Benkei
And then to top it off we get the "totalitarianism" faux shock cum straw man. — Benkei
Every child can become an orphan. — Tzeentch
Reparations do not alleviate poverty, because it does nothing to address the root causes of poverty. — Tzeentch
The vast, vast majority of people will drive a car in some point in their life, and good infrastructure is an important factor in economic prosperity. For example, roads also make sure your grocery store can be stocked with food every day. — Tzeentch
I don't think I need to explain the benefit to a society for having a working justice system. Besides, everyone can become a crook or a victim, so again there is no exclusion. — Tzeentch
As you know, I don't believe the existence of systemic racism follows from whatever data has been presented. — Tzeentch
Now we are talking about reparations which you brought up. I'll gladly talk about why I believe it is a terrible idea.
Your mindset is totalitarian, even if you don't realize it. Being in favor of forcing people to pay for a crime they didn't commit, because of some misplaced sense of justice. You believe justice for some is more important than justice for others. You discriminate, based on personal preference, and think it would be good government policy. — Tzeentch
Following this same line of thinking, we should be holding the descendants of illegal immigrants responsible for the illegal actions of their ancestors coming into a country and taking jobs away from blacks, and the mostly left-wing policies that allow that to happen.This totally misses the point. Systemic racism is not about "intent" or people "purposefully" doing things now to disadvantage blacks. Let's say yesterday it was legal to take all your shit and today we're like "oh, let's be buddies and be equal" but you still can't have your shit back. Are we really equal? Or did I get a nice headstart thanks to your old shit? — Benkei
Then we call that “residual effects of those policies”, not “systemic racism”. — DingoJones
Calling it systemic racism drastically alters the problem and shifts the response to, perhaps coincidently perhaps not, unjustified social/political control. — DingoJones
Race doesnt really matter to anyone except the minorities of racists and people who think everyone is a racist. — DingoJones
Everyone else gets it, race is mostly irrelevant. — DingoJones
Which effects of which policies? — NOS4A2
None of those policies explicitly discriminate between races (as far as I’m aware). As such, any racism that results is the effort of individual racists, — NOS4A2
Atwater: As to the whole Southern strategy that Harry S. Dent, Sr. and others put together in 1968, opposition to the Voting Rights Act would have been a central part of keeping the South. Now you don't have to do that. All that you need to do to keep the South is for Reagan to run in place on the issues that he's campaigned on since 1964, and that's fiscal conservatism, balancing the budget, cut taxes, you know, the whole cluster.
Questioner: But the fact is, isn't it, that Reagan does get to the Wallace voter and to the racist side of the Wallace voter by doing away with legal services, by cutting down on food stamps?
Atwater: 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 is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me—because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this", is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger". So, any way you look at it, race is coming on the backbone.
None of those policies explicitly discriminate between races (as far as I’m aware). — NOS4A2
Of course you can’t such is the life of the privileged and the ignorant. Normally I’d post articles and studies but considering I’ve heard that type of rhetoric before and have wasted my time I am not going to start again
None of those policies explicitly discriminate between races (as far as I’m aware). As such, any racism that results is the effort of individual racists, — NOS4A2
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 is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. — Lee Atwater
You understood it enough to try and reframe the discussion away from it.
If you want to afford me privilege because of my skin color be my guest. But I reject it. — NOS4A2
No. Not affording anything except that the rhetoric that you espoused and your self admission of unawareness is apparent that your privilege, which is such that you do not experience that I, and other 45 million (plus or minus) blacks experience and have experienced are unaware or try not to be aware or reject the notion that such exists.
I still cannot see the connection between what I was talking about and what Lee Atwater was talking about, however. — NOS4A2
None of those policies explicitly discriminate between races (as far as I’m aware). — NOS4A2
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 is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. — Lee Atwater
No. Because these “residual effects” are embedded in different facets of society such as racism in healthcare, economics, policing etc. — Anaxagoras
No it does not. If I’m identifying a problem how am I altering the response? — Anaxagoras
This is simply ridiculous. — Anaxagoras
No, everyone doesn’t get it. But I’m sure indirectly you’re saying in effect everyone perhaps white who thinks like you get it. Not to presume YOUR ethnicity per se but again, this is a typical talking point. — Anaxagoras
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