"What is your political orientation" Poll

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What is your political orientation?

Extreme left
0
No votes
Left
1
3%
Moderate Left
6
15%
Independent
7
18%
Moderate Right
1
3%
Right
2
5%
Extreme Right
1
3%
Libertarian
13
33%
Technovelist's
5
13%
Other
4
10%
 
Total votes: 40
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Ad Orientem
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Re: "What is your political orientation" Poll

Post by Ad Orientem » Mon Jul 27, 2020 7:31 pm

geaux saints wrote:
Mon Jul 27, 2020 6:54 pm
Libertarian666 wrote:
Mon Jul 27, 2020 6:33 pm
geaux saints wrote:
Mon Jul 27, 2020 5:35 pm
I voted left; I consider myself to be a pretty garden variety Democrat.
How do you feel about the riots?
I support the protests but oppose the riots.

+1

This country has some serious and unresolved issues. A lot of them revolve around race. This needs to be faced and dealt with in a rational manner. That said, anarchy is not democracy and mob violence is not social justice. Acknowledging the long shadow of slavery would be a good thing. Military bases named after people who waged war on the United States in the defense of slavery should never have been allowed. But demanding that an entire group of people go out and collectively spit on the graves of their ancestors is as unreasonable as it is unrealistic. Such demands will only fuel division.
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Re: "What is your political orientation" Poll

Post by vnatale » Mon Jul 27, 2020 9:52 pm

Ad Orientem wrote:
Mon Jul 27, 2020 5:32 pm
FTR... an earlier poll and thread on the same topic.

https://gyroscopicinvesting.com/forum/v ... f=9&t=4708
For that one I just chose Libertarian because none of the others came close to fitting.

Vinny
Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
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Re: "What is your political orientation" Poll

Post by WiseOne » Tue Jul 28, 2020 12:44 pm

Ad Orientem wrote:
Mon Jul 27, 2020 7:31 pm
geaux saints wrote:
Mon Jul 27, 2020 6:54 pm
Libertarian666 wrote:
Mon Jul 27, 2020 6:33 pm
geaux saints wrote:
Mon Jul 27, 2020 5:35 pm
I voted left; I consider myself to be a pretty garden variety Democrat.
How do you feel about the riots?
I support the protests but oppose the riots.

+1

This country has some serious and unresolved issues. A lot of them revolve around race.
You know, if you asked me this from the outset of the BLM protests I'd have responded the same way: yes we have racism issues that need to be addressed. But when you start picking apart the details, where is the racism exactly? What institutions, laws, practices etc are racist?

We elected a black president in 2008, and re-elected him in 2012. What other first-world country has done that? At the time, there was a huge reaction around the world that this could only have happened in the US. I still agree with that.

Affirmative action is widespread. Blacks are favored over applicants of other races for admisson to competitive schools & hiring, plus financial bonuses for minority owned businesses.

Black people who immigrate to the US from Africa or the Caribbean end up melding seamlessly into US society and do quite well at their chosen profession or business. This has been studied too, and there is no evidence of any disadvantage compared to non-black immigrants. How is that possible, if this is such a racist country?

Yes, slavery happened. A LONG time ago. And yes, there was institutionalized racism especially in the South up through the 1960s. That's also long gone. When is the last time a black person was denied a seat on public transportation because of his/her race? At what point do you stop blaming your current problems on ancient history? Also, I have yet to see a convincing narrative linking the current problems to these historical events.

Yes, there are a lot of black men in jail. It's in proportion to the rate at which black men commit crimes. There is nothing racist about the criminal justice system; what comes out of that system reflects what goes into it. i.e. this is a symptom of a problem, not the cause.

You could argue that drug possession laws provide a stick for law enforcement to selectively go after certain populations. I suspect though that they are not applied with such discriminatory zeal - they're used to put criminally active people behind bars BEFORE they get a chance to commit more serious crimes. I'm willing to concede that point and agree that drug possession laws should be abolished.

Other than that...where is the racism? Seriously. I would like to know.
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Re: "What is your political orientation" Poll

Post by vnatale » Tue Jul 28, 2020 1:08 pm

WiseOne wrote:
Tue Jul 28, 2020 12:44 pm
Ad Orientem wrote:
Mon Jul 27, 2020 7:31 pm
geaux saints wrote:
Mon Jul 27, 2020 6:54 pm
Libertarian666 wrote:
Mon Jul 27, 2020 6:33 pm
geaux saints wrote:
Mon Jul 27, 2020 5:35 pm
I voted left; I consider myself to be a pretty garden variety Democrat.
How do you feel about the riots?
I support the protests but oppose the riots.

+1

This country has some serious and unresolved issues. A lot of them revolve around race.
You know, if you asked me this from the outset of the BLM protests I'd have responded the same way: yes we have racism issues that need to be addressed. But when you start picking apart the details, where is the racism exactly? What institutions, laws, practices etc are racist?

We elected a black president in 2008, and re-elected him in 2012. What other first-world country has done that? At the time, there was a huge reaction around the world that this could only have happened in the US. I still agree with that.

Affirmative action is widespread. Blacks are favored over applicants of other races for admisson to competitive schools & hiring, plus financial bonuses for minority owned businesses.

Black people who immigrate to the US from Africa or the Caribbean end up melding seamlessly into US society and do quite well at their chosen profession or business. This has been studied too, and there is no evidence of any disadvantage compared to non-black immigrants. How is that possible, if this is such a racist country?

Yes, slavery happened. A LONG time ago. And yes, there was institutionalized racism especially in the South up through the 1960s. That's also long gone. When is the last time a black person was denied a seat on public transportation because of his/her race? At what point do you stop blaming your current problems on ancient history? Also, I have yet to see a convincing narrative linking the current problems to these historical events.

Yes, there are a lot of black men in jail. It's in proportion to the rate at which black men commit crimes. There is nothing racist about the criminal justice system; what comes out of that system reflects what goes into it. i.e. this is a symptom of a problem, not the cause.

You could argue that drug possession laws provide a stick for law enforcement to selectively go after certain populations. I suspect though that they are not applied with such discriminatory zeal - they're used to put criminally active people behind bars BEFORE they get a chance to commit more serious crimes. I'm willing to concede that point and agree that drug possession laws should be abolished.

Other than that...where is the racism? Seriously. I would like to know.
My father came from Italy at the age of 13 in 1927. There had been virulent anti-Italian sentiments in the country, especially in the South, in decades prior to then. I have no idea what he encountered.

By the time I was born he was working for the local electric company as a turbine operator (read meters to make sure all was within tolerances).

My 2,000 person high school had one black girl who I never saw my three years there. Right next door to us was South Providence (RI) which was fairly much 100% black.

I think I can confidently say that no black would have been offered that job that my father, an Italian immigrant, was able to get.

My father was a hard worker, working as much overtime as he could get, sometimes making the equivalent of $75,000 today. Due to that and our family's super frugal life style father was able to give me the same equivalent to today $75,000 when I bought my house in 1982. Using that plus an equivalent amount I had, I bought my house with no mortgage (it helped I bought one of the cheapest houses around).

My father and myself (growing up in the 50s and 60s) had advantages and opportunities that those black in South Providence did not have.

If I had had children those advantages I have had would have been perpetuated.

Due to what was going on as recently as the 1950s and 1960s I have prospered over blacks in my age group as would my theoretical children and grandchildren over the blacks in their age groups.

Vinny
Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
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Re: "What is your political orientation" Poll

Post by Xan » Tue Jul 28, 2020 1:35 pm

Give it another generation and I bet that goes away too, Vinny. And, what do you propose to do about it? Are you going to find a black person and give him your house?
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Re: "What is your political orientation" Poll

Post by vnatale » Tue Jul 28, 2020 1:53 pm

Xan wrote:
Tue Jul 28, 2020 1:35 pm
Give it another generation and I bet that goes away too, Vinny. And, what do you propose to do about it? Are you going to find a black person and give him your house?
I'm simply responding to what I saw as an assertion that slavery is long gone and that any residual affects of racism are long gone.

I'd say from my example they continue to have affect through today and may well continue beyond another generation.

Vinny
Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
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Re: "What is your political orientation" Poll

Post by Xan » Tue Jul 28, 2020 1:58 pm

vnatale wrote:
Tue Jul 28, 2020 1:53 pm
Xan wrote:
Tue Jul 28, 2020 1:35 pm
Give it another generation and I bet that goes away too, Vinny. And, what do you propose to do about it? Are you going to find a black person and give him your house?
I'm simply responding to what I saw as an assertion that slavery is long gone and that any residual affects of racism are long gone.

I'd say from my example they continue to have affect through today and may well continue beyond another generation.

Vinny
WiseOne said there wasn't anything convincing linking "the current problems" to those long-ago situations. So I guess the question is what are the current problems?
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Re: "What is your political orientation" Poll

Post by stuper1 » Tue Jul 28, 2020 2:48 pm

The founding fathers and stock of this country were white. People automatically favor other people who look like themselves, starting first with their own family members and then radiating outward from there. So yes white people treat each other better than they treat darker people. If you go to Africa, I'm sure it works the same way in reverse. That doesn't mean that our legal system has racism built into it. The only way for darker people to get ahead is by practicing personal responsibility, just like when Irish, Italians, and whatever first started coming here.

The word "racism" today is used as a "magic word" like "abracadabra" to try to avoid personal responsibility. That's not going to solve the problems.
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Re: "What is your political orientation" Poll

Post by glennds » Tue Jul 28, 2020 4:26 pm

WiseOne wrote:
Tue Jul 28, 2020 12:44 pm
Ad Orientem wrote:
Mon Jul 27, 2020 7:31 pm
geaux saints wrote:
Mon Jul 27, 2020 6:54 pm
Libertarian666 wrote:
Mon Jul 27, 2020 6:33 pm
geaux saints wrote:
Mon Jul 27, 2020 5:35 pm
I voted left; I consider myself to be a pretty garden variety Democrat.
How do you feel about the riots?
I support the protests but oppose the riots.

+1

This country has some serious and unresolved issues. A lot of them revolve around race.
You know, if you asked me this from the outset of the BLM protests I'd have responded the same way: yes we have racism issues that need to be addressed. But when you start picking apart the details, where is the racism exactly? .....

Other than that...where is the racism? Seriously. I would like to know.
Maybe the example put forth by African American Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) could be illustrative. He has been mostly quiet on the subject of his personal experiences with race, but recently after the George Floyd killing, he shared on the Senate floor that in his lifetime he has been routinely stopped by police, most of the time for driving a new car in the wrong neighborhood, or something similarly trivial. The frequency of such incidences were as high as seven times in one year.
Even on Capitol Hill he reports having been stopped by police and asked to produce ID, despite wearing his Senate pin on his suit lapel, and having served in the Senate for five years by this time. He asked for a show among his white fellow Senators for anyone who had experienced the same interrogation, and got none.

My (white, South Dakota native) co-worker told me a story about her cousin's black husband. Nicest guy, whom they see at least 3-4 times/year at family gatherings and holidays. She thought he was a non-drinker because he always politely passes on alcohol. Then last Thanksgiving she asked him about it and he told her he only drinks at home because odds are he'll be stopped by a police officer on the drive home and can't even take the chance of having any alcohol on his breath, legal limit or no legal limit.
It's my observation that the vast majority of people in the US (consciously or unconsciously) attribute reflexive stereotypes to blacks, from a distance. These stereotypes include criminality, laziness, substance abuse, lack of intelligence, mostly negative descriptors. I stop short of saying this is happens with malicious intent. Rather, the human brain seeks patterns and will attribute generalizations to groups naturally. Tribalism is part of our evolutionary biology going back to when we were hunter-gatherer cavemen and cavewomen.

I do happen to think the vast majority of white people will override these generalizations as they get to know a given black person personally and conclude for themselves that the generalizations don't apply, at least in this case.
The problem is that it can be a serious handicap for a person to have to perpetually overcome the levy of a negative stereotype right out of the gate, especially if the stereotype causes their disqualification from opportunities before they've had a chance to disqualify themselves (or not) on merit alone. What I describe here as unconscious bias, might be what others would call a form of racism, or racial discrimination.
I happen to think that racism is a very broad and abused term that covers a continuum ranging from obviously overt and kinetic events like torch bearing white supremacist marches, to less obvious more passive forms of bias like Tim Scott's story. IMO, the passive forms are the more pervasive ones, but mostly only visible to those on the receiving end.

As an experiment, a black journalism student took a walk through a very upscale white neighborhood in Houston to see if his presence there would raise any questions. It took about 15 minutes before two of the homeowners called the police to report a suspicious black man in their neighborhood. A cruiser pulled up and questioned him, requiring him to produce ID, and ran a background check on him, before letting him go. These kinds of incidents are remarkably common, but also remarkably invisible to most non-blacks who don't experience them firsthand. I sometimes wonder what long term self-esteem effects it must have on a young black person to be in a constant guilty-until-proven-innocent situation.
So long story short, I happen to believe there are widespread cultural pre-dispositions in our society that are not particularly favorable toward black people and must be overcome on a case by case basis for individual black people to advance. Add to this the long history of cruelty in the South and the open racism of Presidents such as Woodrow Wilson who called black people "an ignorant and inferior race" and pushed for re-segregation, though he admitted that if you look hard enough you can find the occasional "good one".

If you want more specifics, we can talk about heir title and the property dispossession laws currently on the books of many southern states that were uniquely crafted to legally take property away from multi-generation black farming families once random lynching and terror tactics were no longer acceptable after the 60s.

Anyway, you asked an honest "where is the racism" question, and I'm giving you one person's honest answer.
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Re: "What is your political orientation" Poll

Post by Mark Leavy » Tue Jul 28, 2020 5:39 pm

glennds wrote:
Tue Jul 28, 2020 4:26 pm
As an experiment, a black journalism student took a walk through a very upscale white neighborhood in Houston to see if his presence there would raise any questions. It took about 15 minutes before two of the homeowners called the police to report a suspicious black man in their neighborhood. A cruiser pulled up and questioned him, requiring him to produce ID, and ran a background check on him, before letting him go. These kinds of incidents are remarkably common, but also remarkably invisible to most non-blacks who don't experience them firsthand. I sometimes wonder what long term self-esteem effects it must have on a young black person to be in a constant guilty-until-proven-innocent situation.

...

Anyway, you asked an honest "where is the racism" question, and I'm giving you one person's honest answer.
That all sounds pretty plausible. And expected.

You're fooling yourself if you think there is any homogeneous domain in the world that won't call you out for "not being from around here".

Tea room in Kyoto.
Jazz club in Harlem.
Street corner near the stadium in Baltimore.
Popeye's in Jersey

Pick a random spot and see how it works out for you.

Edit: fixed a spelling error.
Last edited by Mark Leavy on Tue Jul 28, 2020 6:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: "What is your political orientation" Poll

Post by Libertarian666 » Tue Jul 28, 2020 6:13 pm

vnatale wrote:
Tue Jul 28, 2020 1:53 pm
Xan wrote:
Tue Jul 28, 2020 1:35 pm
Give it another generation and I bet that goes away too, Vinny. And, what do you propose to do about it? Are you going to find a black person and give him your house?
I'm simply responding to what I saw as an assertion that slavery is long gone and that any residual affects of racism are long gone.

I'd say from my example they continue to have affect through today and may well continue beyond another generation.

Vinny
In fact the residual problems left over from the days of slavery were going away very rapidly until the 1960's, when the Democrat Party figured out that they could benefit from making sure that didn't continue.

Bob Woodson of the Woodson Center (https://woodsoncenter.org/team_members/ ... oodson-sr/) has all the facts and figures to back up this assertion.
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Re: "What is your political orientation" Poll

Post by Libertarian666 » Tue Jul 28, 2020 6:24 pm

glennds wrote:
Tue Jul 28, 2020 4:26 pm

Maybe the example put forth by African American Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) could be illustrative. He has been mostly quiet on the subject of his personal experiences with race, but recently after the George Floyd killing, he shared on the Senate floor that in his lifetime he has been routinely stopped by police, most of the time for driving a new car in the wrong neighborhood, or something similarly trivial. The frequency of such incidences were as high as seven times in one year.
Even on Capitol Hill he reports having been stopped by police and asked to produce ID, despite wearing his Senate pin on his suit lapel, and having served in the Senate for five years by this time. He asked for a show among his white fellow Senators for anyone who had experienced the same interrogation, and got none.

My (white, South Dakota native) co-worker told me a story about her cousin's black husband. Nicest guy, whom they see at least 3-4 times/year at family gatherings and holidays. She thought he was a non-drinker because he always politely passes on alcohol. Then last Thanksgiving she asked him about it and he told her he only drinks at home because odds are he'll be stopped by a police officer on the drive home and can't even take the chance of having any alcohol on his breath, legal limit or no legal limit.
It's my observation that the vast majority of people in the US (consciously or unconsciously) attribute reflexive stereotypes to blacks, from a distance. These stereotypes include criminality, laziness, substance abuse, lack of intelligence, mostly negative descriptors. I stop short of saying this is happens with malicious intent. Rather, the human brain seeks patterns and will attribute generalizations to groups naturally. Tribalism is part of our evolutionary biology going back to when we were hunter-gatherer cavemen and cavewomen.

I do happen to think the vast majority of white people will override these generalizations as they get to know a given black person personally and conclude for themselves that the generalizations don't apply, at least in this case.
The problem is that it can be a serious handicap for a person to have to perpetually overcome the levy of a negative stereotype right out of the gate, especially if the stereotype causes their disqualification from opportunities before they've had a chance to disqualify themselves (or not) on merit alone. What I describe here as unconscious bias, might be what others would call a form of racism, or racial discrimination.
I happen to think that racism is a very broad and abused term that covers a continuum ranging from obviously overt and kinetic events like torch bearing white supremacist marches, to less obvious more passive forms of bias like Tim Scott's story. IMO, the passive forms are the more pervasive ones, but mostly only visible to those on the receiving end.

As an experiment, a black journalism student took a walk through a very upscale white neighborhood in Houston to see if his presence there would raise any questions. It took about 15 minutes before two of the homeowners called the police to report a suspicious black man in their neighborhood. A cruiser pulled up and questioned him, requiring him to produce ID, and ran a background check on him, before letting him go. These kinds of incidents are remarkably common, but also remarkably invisible to most non-blacks who don't experience them firsthand. I sometimes wonder what long term self-esteem effects it must have on a young black person to be in a constant guilty-until-proven-innocent situation.
So long story short, I happen to believe there are widespread cultural pre-dispositions in our society that are not particularly favorable toward black people and must be overcome on a case by case basis for individual black people to advance. Add to this the long history of cruelty in the South and the open racism of Presidents such as Woodrow Wilson who called black people "an ignorant and inferior race" and pushed for re-segregation, though he admitted that if you look hard enough you can find the occasional "good one".

If you want more specifics, we can talk about heir title and the property dispossession laws currently on the books of many southern states that were uniquely crafted to legally take property away from multi-generation black farming families once random lynching and terror tactics were no longer acceptable after the 60s.

Anyway, you asked an honest "where is the racism" question, and I'm giving you one person's honest answer.
“There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps... then turn around and see somebody white and feel relieved.” -- Jesse Jackson (https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/5978-t ... this-stage)

The reason people, including other blacks, are suspicious of blacks whom they don't know personally, is that blacks commit violence at a rate far disproportionate to their numbers. They are 13% of the population yet account for 36% of all violent crime, most of it against other blacks but also against whites. See https://whiteprivilegeisntreal.org/blac ... tatistics/.
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Re: "What is your political orientation" Poll

Post by vnatale » Tue Jul 28, 2020 10:10 pm

Xan wrote:
Tue Jul 28, 2020 1:58 pm
vnatale wrote:
Tue Jul 28, 2020 1:53 pm
Xan wrote:
Tue Jul 28, 2020 1:35 pm
Give it another generation and I bet that goes away too, Vinny. And, what do you propose to do about it? Are you going to find a black person and give him your house?
I'm simply responding to what I saw as an assertion that slavery is long gone and that any residual affects of racism are long gone.

I'd say from my example they continue to have affect through today and may well continue beyond another generation.

Vinny
WiseOne said there wasn't anything convincing linking "the current problems" to those long-ago situations. So I guess the question is what are the current problems?
I'm sorry if my personal example has not been clear enough. I personally have had advantages / opportunities (including financial) that my peer black group has not. Therefore it is going to be more of a problem for them, their children, their grand children than for me and my theoretical children and grand children to achieve that I have achieved.

Vinny
Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
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Re: "What is your political orientation" Poll

Post by vnatale » Tue Jul 28, 2020 10:18 pm

glennds wrote:
Tue Jul 28, 2020 4:26 pm
WiseOne wrote:
Tue Jul 28, 2020 12:44 pm
Ad Orientem wrote:
Mon Jul 27, 2020 7:31 pm
geaux saints wrote:
Mon Jul 27, 2020 6:54 pm
Libertarian666 wrote:
Mon Jul 27, 2020 6:33 pm
geaux saints wrote:
Mon Jul 27, 2020 5:35 pm
I voted left; I consider myself to be a pretty garden variety Democrat.
How do you feel about the riots?
I support the protests but oppose the riots.

+1

This country has some serious and unresolved issues. A lot of them revolve around race.
You know, if you asked me this from the outset of the BLM protests I'd have responded the same way: yes we have racism issues that need to be addressed. But when you start picking apart the details, where is the racism exactly? .....

Other than that...where is the racism? Seriously. I would like to know.
Maybe the example put forth by African American Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) could be illustrative. He has been mostly quiet on the subject of his personal experiences with race, but recently after the George Floyd killing, he shared on the Senate floor that in his lifetime he has been routinely stopped by police, most of the time for driving a new car in the wrong neighborhood, or something similarly trivial. The frequency of such incidences were as high as seven times in one year.
Even on Capitol Hill he reports having been stopped by police and asked to produce ID, despite wearing his Senate pin on his suit lapel, and having served in the Senate for five years by this time. He asked for a show among his white fellow Senators for anyone who had experienced the same interrogation, and got none.

My (white, South Dakota native) co-worker told me a story about her cousin's black husband. Nicest guy, whom they see at least 3-4 times/year at family gatherings and holidays. She thought he was a non-drinker because he always politely passes on alcohol. Then last Thanksgiving she asked him about it and he told her he only drinks at home because odds are he'll be stopped by a police officer on the drive home and can't even take the chance of having any alcohol on his breath, legal limit or no legal limit.
It's my observation that the vast majority of people in the US (consciously or unconsciously) attribute reflexive stereotypes to blacks, from a distance. These stereotypes include criminality, laziness, substance abuse, lack of intelligence, mostly negative descriptors. I stop short of saying this is happens with malicious intent. Rather, the human brain seeks patterns and will attribute generalizations to groups naturally. Tribalism is part of our evolutionary biology going back to when we were hunter-gatherer cavemen and cavewomen.

I do happen to think the vast majority of white people will override these generalizations as they get to know a given black person personally and conclude for themselves that the generalizations don't apply, at least in this case.
The problem is that it can be a serious handicap for a person to have to perpetually overcome the levy of a negative stereotype right out of the gate, especially if the stereotype causes their disqualification from opportunities before they've had a chance to disqualify themselves (or not) on merit alone. What I describe here as unconscious bias, might be what others would call a form of racism, or racial discrimination.
I happen to think that racism is a very broad and abused term that covers a continuum ranging from obviously overt and kinetic events like torch bearing white supremacist marches, to less obvious more passive forms of bias like Tim Scott's story. IMO, the passive forms are the more pervasive ones, but mostly only visible to those on the receiving end.

As an experiment, a black journalism student took a walk through a very upscale white neighborhood in Houston to see if his presence there would raise any questions. It took about 15 minutes before two of the homeowners called the police to report a suspicious black man in their neighborhood. A cruiser pulled up and questioned him, requiring him to produce ID, and ran a background check on him, before letting him go. These kinds of incidents are remarkably common, but also remarkably invisible to most non-blacks who don't experience them firsthand. I sometimes wonder what long term self-esteem effects it must have on a young black person to be in a constant guilty-until-proven-innocent situation.
So long story short, I happen to believe there are widespread cultural pre-dispositions in our society that are not particularly favorable toward black people and must be overcome on a case by case basis for individual black people to advance. Add to this the long history of cruelty in the South and the open racism of Presidents such as Woodrow Wilson who called black people "an ignorant and inferior race" and pushed for re-segregation, though he admitted that if you look hard enough you can find the occasional "good one".

If you want more specifics, we can talk about heir title and the property dispossession laws currently on the books of many southern states that were uniquely crafted to legally take property away from multi-generation black farming families once random lynching and terror tactics were no longer acceptable after the 60s.

Anyway, you asked an honest "where is the racism" question, and I'm giving you one person's honest answer.
I assume some of you know who Giancarlo Stanton is, a player for the New York Yankees?

Here is how much he has earned (and will be earning).
Capture.JPG
Capture.JPG (58.75 KiB) Viewed 4477 times
I might further assume that you'd think that as an Afro-American getting paid that much money he's got it made, not a care in the world.

In the post game interview the other night, when he was responding to being asked about his decision (along with another Yankee player) to take knee during the National Anthem, you could clearly see the hurt in his face from the indignities he'd experienced as a black man in America, something I have not and never will experience.

Vinny

Vinny
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Re: "What is your political orientation" Poll

Post by vnatale » Tue Jul 28, 2020 10:20 pm

Mark Leavy wrote:
Tue Jul 28, 2020 5:39 pm
glennds wrote:
Tue Jul 28, 2020 4:26 pm
As an experiment, a black journalism student took a walk through a very upscale white neighborhood in Houston to see if his presence there would raise any questions. It took about 15 minutes before two of the homeowners called the police to report a suspicious black man in their neighborhood. A cruiser pulled up and questioned him, requiring him to produce ID, and ran a background check on him, before letting him go. These kinds of incidents are remarkably common, but also remarkably invisible to most non-blacks who don't experience them firsthand. I sometimes wonder what long term self-esteem effects it must have on a young black person to be in a constant guilty-until-proven-innocent situation.

...

Anyway, you asked an honest "where is the racism" question, and I'm giving you one person's honest answer.
That all sounds pretty plausible. And expected.

You're fooling yourself if you think there is any homogeneous domain in the world that won't call you out for "not being from around here".

Tea room in Kyoto.
Jazz club in Harlem.
Street corner near the stadium in Baltimore.
Popeye's in Jersey

Pick a random spot and see how it works out for you.

Edit: fixed a spelling error.
You did give this similar response directed to me not that long ago. But how is a black person (a race that is been in America for 400 years) "not being from around her"?

Vinny
Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
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Re: "What is your political orientation" Poll

Post by Xan » Tue Jul 28, 2020 10:26 pm

vnatale wrote:
Tue Jul 28, 2020 10:18 pm
I assume some of you know who Giancarlo Stanton is, a player for the New York Yankees?

Here is how much he has earned (and will be earning).

Capture.JPG

I might further assume that you'd think that as an Afro-American getting paid that much money he's got it made, not a care in the world.

In the post game interview the other night, when he was responding to being asked about his decision (along with another Yankee player) to take knee during the National Anthem, you could clearly see the hurt in his face from the indignities he'd experienced as a black man in America, something I have not and never will experience.

Vinny

Vinny
Two things:

a) I thought (just based on the name) he was Italian!

b) I thought the pressing concern which caused people to spit on the flag during the national anthem was black people being killed by the police. That having been disproven as a serious problem, have the goalposts now been moved to "feeling hurt"?
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Re: "What is your political orientation" Poll

Post by stuper1 » Tue Jul 28, 2020 10:58 pm

The guy's making $25M a year, and he wants us poor schmucks to feel sorry for him? Does he feel sorry for me that I will never be able to afford a yacht?

At some point, people just have to grow up and decide that they don't care what anyone thinks about them and that they are going to work hard and prove the haters wrong. Lacking that, they will continue to lag behind the people who are willing to work hard and the offspring of those people.
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Re: "What is your political orientation" Poll

Post by glennds » Tue Jul 28, 2020 11:25 pm

Xan wrote:
Tue Jul 28, 2020 10:26 pm

b) I thought the pressing concern which caused people to spit on the flag during the national anthem was black people being killed by the police. That having been disproven as a serious problem, have the goalposts now been moved to "feeling hurt"?
I was aware of some athletes taking a knee during the national anthem, Colin Kapernick being one. I did not know any were spitting on the flag. Who were they? I tried Googling it, and the only thing that came up was Roseanne Barr's escapade in 1990.
To what are you referencing?
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Re: "What is your political orientation" Poll

Post by Libertarian666 » Wed Jul 29, 2020 6:51 am

vnatale wrote:
Tue Jul 28, 2020 10:18 pm

I assume some of you know who Giancarlo Stanton is, a player for the New York Yankees?

Here is how much he has earned (and will be earning).

Capture.JPG

I might further assume that you'd think that as an Afro-American getting paid that much money he's got it made, not a care in the world.

In the post game interview the other night, when he was responding to being asked about his decision (along with another Yankee player) to take knee during the National Anthem, you could clearly see the hurt in his face from the indignities he'd experienced as a black man in America, something I have not and never will experience.

Vinny

Vinny
I would assume that anyone in that circumstance with two unbrainwashed brain cells to rub together would be thanking America for his tremendous good fortune.

But the victim mentality that the Democrats has fostered is so powerful that even a man who gets paid millions of dollars to play a child's game considers himself a victim.
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Re: "What is your political orientation" Poll

Post by Libertarian666 » Wed Jul 29, 2020 6:53 am

Xan wrote:
Tue Jul 28, 2020 10:26 pm
vnatale wrote:
Tue Jul 28, 2020 10:18 pm
I assume some of you know who Giancarlo Stanton is, a player for the New York Yankees?

Here is how much he has earned (and will be earning).

Capture.JPG

I might further assume that you'd think that as an Afro-American getting paid that much money he's got it made, not a care in the world.

In the post game interview the other night, when he was responding to being asked about his decision (along with another Yankee player) to take knee during the National Anthem, you could clearly see the hurt in his face from the indignities he'd experienced as a black man in America, something I have not and never will experience.

Vinny

Vinny
Two things:

a) I thought (just based on the name) he was Italian!

b) I thought the pressing concern which caused people to spit on the flag during the national anthem was black people being killed by the police. That having been disproven as a serious problem, have the goalposts now been moved to "feeling hurt"?
Of course. No one can ever prove that someone else's feelings aren't hurt, and in fact no one can prevent someone else's feelings from being hurt. So "hurt feelings" is the best possible type of complaint, assuming you don't care about actual injustice.
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Re: "What is your political orientation" Poll

Post by Libertarian666 » Wed Jul 29, 2020 7:02 am

vnatale wrote:
Tue Jul 28, 2020 10:10 pm
Xan wrote:
Tue Jul 28, 2020 1:58 pm
vnatale wrote:
Tue Jul 28, 2020 1:53 pm
Xan wrote:
Tue Jul 28, 2020 1:35 pm
Give it another generation and I bet that goes away too, Vinny. And, what do you propose to do about it? Are you going to find a black person and give him your house?
I'm simply responding to what I saw as an assertion that slavery is long gone and that any residual affects of racism are long gone.

I'd say from my example they continue to have affect through today and may well continue beyond another generation.

Vinny
WiseOne said there wasn't anything convincing linking "the current problems" to those long-ago situations. So I guess the question is what are the current problems?
I'm sorry if my personal example has not been clear enough. I personally have had advantages / opportunities (including financial) that my peer black group has not. Therefore it is going to be more of a problem for them, their children, their grand children than for me and my theoretical children and grand children to achieve that I have achieved.

Vinny
I'm fairly successful in monetary terms and am happily married. I'm probably better off than most people in this country.

Is that because of privilege or advantages that others don't have?

I grew up in a family that had no money, but I had the inestimable advantage of a fiercely protective mother who wouldn't let me be abused by the school system. I also had the advantage of a 160 IQ (which was partly responsible for the school system abuse, of course).

Not everyone has the first of those advantages, and almost no one has the second.

How would we level the playing field so that everyone has the same advantages that I had?

Unless you can answer that question, you aren't serious about leveling the playing field.
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Re: "What is your political orientation" Poll

Post by Mark Leavy » Wed Jul 29, 2020 7:12 am

vnatale wrote:
Tue Jul 28, 2020 10:20 pm
You did give this similar response directed to me not that long ago. But how is a black person (a race that is been in America for 400 years) "not being from around her"?

Vinny
I'm using "not from around here" in the sense that we/they aren't part of some particular 'members only' club. I'm definitely not saying that there isn't discrimination. I am saying that there is discriminatory bias and suspicion everywhere, in every walk of life, by every race, class and culture. It is the norm of the human condition.
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Re: "What is your political orientation" Poll

Post by Xan » Wed Jul 29, 2020 8:24 am

glennds wrote:
Tue Jul 28, 2020 11:25 pm
Xan wrote:
Tue Jul 28, 2020 10:26 pm

b) I thought the pressing concern which caused people to spit on the flag during the national anthem was black people being killed by the police. That having been disproven as a serious problem, have the goalposts now been moved to "feeling hurt"?
I was aware of some athletes taking a knee during the national anthem, Colin Kapernick being one. I did not know any were spitting on the flag. Who were they? I tried Googling it, and the only thing that came up was Roseanne Barr's escapade in 1990.
To what are you referencing?
Thankfully the physical stadium flag is typically out of reach. I meant that metaphorically.
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Re: "What is your political orientation" Poll

Post by glennds » Wed Jul 29, 2020 8:56 am

Xan wrote:
Wed Jul 29, 2020 8:24 am
glennds wrote:
Tue Jul 28, 2020 11:25 pm
Xan wrote:
Tue Jul 28, 2020 10:26 pm

b) I thought the pressing concern which caused people to spit on the flag during the national anthem was black people being killed by the police. That having been disproven as a serious problem, have the goalposts now been moved to "feeling hurt"?
I was aware of some athletes taking a knee during the national anthem, Colin Kapernick being one. I did not know any were spitting on the flag. Who were they? I tried Googling it, and the only thing that came up was Roseanne Barr's escapade in 1990.
To what are you referencing?
Thankfully the physical stadium flag is typically out of reach. I meant that metaphorically.
Oh okay, got it.
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Re: "What is your political orientation" Poll

Post by WiseOne » Wed Jul 29, 2020 9:55 am

So let me sum up what I've heard so far.

Vinny noticed that a specific African-American family wasn't economically successful, and asserted without rationale or proof that this is due to the existence of slavery prior to 150 years ago. This is what most of the country is doing, so it's an understandable error. As a scientist though, it takes more than an assertion like that to convince me.

I completely agree that non-black people tend to be afraid of some black people - particularly black men dressed a certain way. However, I think it's completely understandable. That same neighborhood that called the police on an unknown black man wandering down the street has probably been victimized by burglars who, in all likelihood, were black. They also see local news stories with photos of arrested criminals. In other words, the people who called the police weren't thinking that they were at risk because the person in question might have been descended from a slave. They were thinking about the statistical likelihood that a given black person intends to commit a crime. "Casing out" a neighborhood is in fact a well-known precursor to a burglary.

So ok, those examples tell me that some black people may feel uncomfortable venturing into white society. And that you might reasonably call this racism. Probably not too different from how I feel venturing into a heavily Hispanic neighborhood, or a heavily black one like Harlem. Basically what Mark said, except with one big difference: No one in Harlem is ever going to look at me and worry that I might be there in order to commit a crime.

So I keep coming back to the same explanation: it's about the black crime problem, not the legacy of slavery. Since the increase in black crime didn't start until a hundred years after slavery was abolished, I definitely don't buy that as an explanation. You can stick on a label of racism if you like, but that will accomplish nothing since you can't legislate away the power of humans to make inferences & generalizations based on prior experience.

Too bad the black community doesn't realize that controlling their crime problem would be the best way to "defund the police".
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