*Originally posted by Vash *
**There is only so much that could be blamed on society. Slavery has been abolished for almost 140 years. **
true…but laws persisted that legally mandated racism and political and economic subjugation until 1960, less than 50 years ago. unpunished public beatings and hangings, horribly inadequate schooling systems, lack of civil rights protections, mandates that houses not be sold to blacks except in certain areas - destined to be ghettos. slavery could have ended a thousand years ago, but as long as the laws make it legal to subjugate a race, there’s no way for that race to progress as fast as the rest of the populace.
blacks are essentially on their second generation (only 50 years have passed without the oppressive laws) that has had a real chance in America. a real, legal chance. not having to get around laws to buy houses in decent areas, not having to keep quiet or face beatings by white youth. not having to work only in blue-collar positions or only for black employers or only performing services for black customers.
Originally posted by Vash
**
No one is keeping you in the slums.
**
really? that’s funny…actually black people were pretty much only allowed to live in certain areas… and those areas received little assistance and govt. money compared to nearby white areas. here’s a quote giving you some reason as to why black people currently live in ghettos, from a New York newspaper.
“Indeed, 31 of the 38 real estate brokers interviewed for the audit said they would not sell a home in a white neighborhood to a black family. Such discrimination would not be illegal until 1964, but it wasn’t racism, they said.”
another quote from the ~1960’s.
"No blacks were among the members of the trade unions of carpenters, brick masons, electricians and plumbers "
of course, they weren’t allowed to join these unions. the trade union workers made almost 2x as much money (above $5000 a year, where non-union workers made almost $3000) and provided the basis for sending children to college, owning a home and essentially created the future middle class in the 1960’s and 70’s…but blacks weren’t even allowed to access these jobs.
so…guess what you get when you take a group, only let them live in certain areas and legally prevent access to decent paying jobs…you guessed right! a ghetto and an underclass!
remember, this isn’t a million years back in time…this is the year that my mother finished college!!! and you don’t think that this has affected her generation…and in turn mine?
Originally posted by Vash
**
No one is keeping you from getting a job.
**
i’ve already showed you conclusively that my blacks in the previous generation were at a tremendous disadvantage to whites.
now what about our generation?
i’ll just quote a part of an earlier post, about a study that i did, and received an award for during my undergraduate. this study is now being used as part of a doctoral thesis.
“we sent identical resumes to companies with different racial-sounding names, and seen firsthand that the white sounding names like (John Martin) had almost a 10% percent higher success rate at landing interviews than black sounding names, like (Duane Williams). for positions where a picture had to be attached (certain sales positions), the white candidate had more than a 40% higher success rate at landing interviews. Both candidates were of “equal attractiveness” as decided by a prior study.”
so…no one’s keeping me from getting a job? Vash, i wish we lived in your view of the world. i wish the only difference between a white man and a black man was the color of their skin.
but in reality there are three real differences between white and black Americans.
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we have a different perceived racial appearance, eg: “the color of our skin”
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we are perceived as being more dangerous and less
intelligent than whites, which leads to us being treated very differently in a multitude of situations.
-
we have a legacy of 15 generations of slavery, followed by 5 generations of legally mandated political and economic subjugation, followed by only 2 generations of a having a real chance at making it in this country.
i’m not sure why so many people want to pretend that differences 2 and 3 don’t exist. they are there, and they are very powerful forces.
*Originally posted by Vash *
**
The opportunities are knocking, unfortunately no one wants to answer the door.
**
“no one wants to answer the door?”
back that statement up with some evidence, perhaps?
you won’t be able to. you’ll find that poor blacks go to college, and get educations about as frequently as poor whites and Hispanics, that they are less likely to return to welfare once they’ve left than whites and a multitude of other figures all making your opinion, which seems to be a popular one, totally and completely incorrect.
it’s sad that so many people form opinions on important issues based on nothing more than anecdotal evidence and stereotypes.
vash, the funny thing is that i know you aren’t a “racist” at all, and i know you do want blacks to succeed in this country. your view is shared by most of the nation…“black people are equal, we’ve leveled the playing field, so it’s up to you to get out of poverty.”
you just don’t realize that the playing field has been SO unequal for SO long, that it’s made it SO difficult to just “be equal” immediately.
*Originally posted by Vash *
**
(racism) is present in our very nature. We fear what is different. We are hesitant about what we don’t understand or what is not like ourselves.
**
once again, your statement sounds great…but it’s anecdotal. racism is not a “fear of what’s different”. it is, and has always been used by societies (and if you like, i can get out the facts here), as a tool to subjugate and exploit another society or race. you can’t take slaves and think of them as equal to you…it just won’t sit right in your heart…instead, call them “violent, barbaric and unintelligent”, write books about their inferior intelligence and “primal mating habits”. now you won’t feel so bad about whipping them to death for spilling your wine. it’s just as Hitler did with the Jews: “animals, dirty, lecherous”. gee…they sound so bad that killing them must be a public service.
you and i both know that if you take an indian baby, a black baby and a white baby, and put them on a desert island, they’ll get along fine…until they grow up and two of them think of something that they can gain from the third…then, the fighting will begin, shortly followed by racism to justify that fighting…“those evil light-skins don’t deserve pineapples anyway, so we’ll take the tree from him”. that is how, and was how almost all racism evolved.
racism has nothing to do with fear. it’s simply a way to justify oppressing someone. ignorance of the facts surrounding racism in general, and relating to the black experience in america perpetuates that oppression today.
koodoes
