Affirmative Action

[Reilly]

Originally posted by mattskramer
"Blacks in the sixties, seventies and perhaps to this day, live in the poorest neighborhoods with the worst school systems and highest crime rates."

Why is that? Is it due to the parents' of the Blacks being poor because their parents were poor because their parents were slaves, or could it be due to conditioning. When they hear comments that they can't make it on effort...that the "man" keeps them down, they may have lost hope.

My grandparents were dirt poor farmers in south Texas. They lost over half their land in the "Great Depression". Then their house was robbed twice. Yet, they managed to work very hard and penny-pinch. They taught my dad the value of hard work, thrift, and self-reliance while they lived in one of the poorest, dirtiest, crime-ridden areas of Texas. My dad, their only son, left home after high school with only $1000 in his pocket. He worked for a while, served in the military, went to school on the GI bill (and on income he made working after school), graduated, got a job, was promoted several times, and retired wealthy. Blacks can do the same if we expect as much from them instead of conditioning them to accept handouts.

You act as if affirmative action and the notion that one can make it with effort are mutually exclusive. Blacks already hear comments that they can't make it on effort from people like Big D (and lesser variations thereof). Nobody ever says to black kids "don't bother doing any work because affirmative action is going to take care of you." I think Blacks are already aware that affirmative action is no panacea that is going to take care of them.

Further, recognizing years of oppression doesn't (and shouldn't) indicate to anyone that they need the handout because they are biologically inferior. Blacks are fully aware that they have been royally screwed. If they think they can't get anywhere, it is because evidence has demonstrated this to them. They have looked in there neighborhoods where the only people with money are drug dealers and white people passing through (an exaggeration - there are plenty of poor white people). This isn't just a black problem. One of the poorest parts of the United States is Appalachia. To my knowledge most of them are white (poverty is the real problem, affirmative action being only one way to tackle it), but they are facing the same problems as millions of african-americans. No money. No schools. No education. No jobs. No future. They have been facing this same problem for a couple of generations, but the government taking a hands off approach (no affirmative action for most of them) so that they can learn the meaning of hard work and achievement hasn't done a whole hell of a lot for them.

As for handouts, we are not talking about weekly welfare benefits. We are talking about giving individuals special consideration at a couple of important and influential moments in their lives. This isn't conditioning them to accept handouts. It is just lending a hand to someone we screwed over to begin with.

As for your grandparents, that is great, but let's not resort to anecdotal evidence. For any number of reasons (usually a mixture of many), some people in the poorest conditions thrive beyond what anyone anticipates. They are wonderful examples, but their individual success does not affect the systemic problems of poor (and in this particular discussion) black families.

 

[Reilly]

By the way. I am not tied to affirmative action based on race. I would much rather have investment in poverty stricken areas. That to my mind is a more efficient and useful way to tackle the problem. Another idea I have heard thrown about that sounds less promising than direct investment but fairer than racial affirmative action is affirmative action (educational) for the poor. That helps all poor people, and doesn't help minorities who already have money and the means to an education. I haven't thought enough about that idea to come to a conclusion but it seems intriguing.

 

[Big D]

The difference is a plain as black,

The Republic of Haiti, the only completely Black republic in the Western Hemisphere also happens to be the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. It also has the lowest life expectancy, highest illiteracy, lowest per capita consumption of newsprint, lowest per capita GNP, and the lowest level of political stability.

and white:

Iceland, the only all-White nation in the world, has the world's highest literacy rate. 100%. It is an island of cooled volcanic magma, located Just south of the Arctic Circle. It has no coal, no fuel, no timber, no mineral wealth or natural resources, and no navigable rivers. 75% of the interior is uninhabitable and only about 1% of the land is arable. It is the youngest nation in Europe and one of the most isolated countries in the world. Nonetheless, Iceland is #2 in the world in life expectancy and has one of the world's highest standards of living, in terms of per capita income. It has tremendous medical facilities and a thriving publishing business. Virtually every family has a telephone. Upon graduation from high school, each Icelandic student has learned five languages.

 

[Reilly]

Big D, there are only five families in Iceland. I think that skews the statistics.


Mattskramer,
One other thing occurred to me, which I will quickly jot down before bed time. In the 30's, 40's, 50's and even 60's, it was much easier for someone to raise themselves up out of poverty than it is today. While America is a land of opportunity, the opportunities have changed. In prior decades, all you needed was the desire to work and maybe a high school diploma and you could get a good job at the steel mill or Ford factory, or if you saved a bit, perhaps you could open a furniture or General store or anything else that you wanted. By doing any of these things, you could propel yourself into middle class and possibly higher, and maybe make enough to put your children through college.
Times are different now. The steel mills have closed. Ford can now make many more cars with fewer workers, and Ikea and Walmart have killed most of the chances one had to open up a small business.

Today, if you want to succeed, you really need a good education. Even many factory jobs now require a college education and the ones that don't also don't generally pay anything. With college being more important now than it ever has been before, it is hard for poor families (a large percentage of them whom are black) in bad neighborhoods to ever get out of the rut of poverty they are in. Colleges rely on grades, essays and SAT scores. Even kids who have received a decent education have to compete with kids from better schools who are taking SAT prep classes that poor kids can't afford. Then, even if they can get into a college, the family still has to find a way to pay for it. Undergraduate loans only go so far.

I am not saying that there is no way for these kids to succeed. Obviously some do despite the odds, but the odds can be long, and I would like to give them ever advantage I can because they need it. Otherwise, they and their families will be stuck in their bad neighborhoods and bad school districts until the next generation has their shot.

That is why I favor affirmative action, although I think it is a far inferior method of dealing with the situation that just paying and doing what it takes to get the kids a good education and safe neighborhood to begin with - but nobody is going to do that.

 

[Reilly]

Good night. I wil be here through the rest of the week, and then at the Paladium starting Monday. I hope to see you there. Thank you.

 

[rtwngAvngr]

Originally posted by Reilly
Big D, there are only five families in Iceland. I think that skews the statistics.


Mattskramer,
One other thing occurred to me, which I will quickly jot down before bed time. In the 30's, 40's, 50's and even 60's, it was much easier for someone to raise themselves up out of poverty than it is today. While America is a land of opportunity, the opportunities have changed. In prior decades, all you needed was the desire to work and maybe a high school diploma and you could get a good job at the steel mill or Ford factory, or if you saved a bit, perhaps you could open a furniture or General store or anything else that you wanted. By doing any of these things, you could propel yourself into middle class and possibly higher, and maybe make enough to put your children through college.
Times are different now. The steel mills have closed. Ford can now make many more cars with fewer workers, and Ikea and Walmart have killed most of the chances one had to open up a small business.

Today, if you want to succeed, you really need a good education. Even many factory jobs now require a college education and the ones that don't also don't generally pay anything. With college being more important now than it ever has been before, it is hard for poor families (a large percentage of them whom are black) in bad neighborhoods to ever get out of the rut of poverty they are in. Colleges rely on grades, essays and SAT scores. Even kids who have received a decent education have to compete with kids from better schools who are taking SAT prep classes that poor kids can't afford. Then, even if they can get into a college, the family still has to find a way to pay for it. Undergraduate loans only go so far.

I am not saying that there is no way for these kids to succeed. Obviously some do despite the odds, but the odds can be long, and I would like to give them ever advantage I can because they need it. Otherwise, they and their families will be stuck in their bad neighborhoods and bad school districts until the next generation has their shot.

That is why I favor affirmative action, although I think it is a far inferior method of dealing with the situation that just paying and doing what it takes to get the kids a good education and safe neighborhood to begin with - but nobody is going to do that.

All the tough condtions you mention are equally the same for poor white kids. Your institutionalized racial discrimination is evil, is a denial of the principles america was founded upon and is, in essence, a racialist attitude. It sews racial division instead of healing the divide, but that's what libs do. Divide and conquer.

 

[rtwngAvngr]

All you aa supporters, please quit espousing the institutionalization of white guilt.

 

[Cousin Vinnie]

Originally posted by Big D
Any area in the world where whites are the majority, is where blacks live the best lives, with the highest standard of living.

Any area in the world where blacks are the majority, is where blacks live the worst lives, with the lowest standards of living.

Out of nowhere, but very true.

 

[Cousin Vinnie]

There's obviously a lot of talk about discrimination and how it supposedly is still a big problem today. Now I will stick with my view that it's not. Here's why. Blacks, like I said, can be separated into two groups. There's the hard-working, honest, law-abiding blacks, and then there's the lazy, stupid, arrogant, rude, and in most cases "not" law abiding blacks. I hate to talk about groups again, but it's necessary in proving this point. The "inferior" blacks are the ones that usually complain about racism because they know that they can get whatever they want by doing so. Whenever they encounter any problem with a white person, they call it discrimination. If a white store owner, let's say, would deny them a job, they'd think it was discrimination when it was only because they may have been rude, dressed inappropriately, etc. This person would've done the same thing if it was a white person who acted in the same way.

 

[nycflasher]

Originally posted by Cousin Vinnie
Out of nowhere, but very true.

Hey, Vinnie, get your nose out of D's ass.
One token racist is enough.
We don't need a Big D wanna-be further cluttering up the board with this hogwash.

 

[Cousin Vinnie]

Disprove his comment.

 

[nycflasher]

Originally posted by Cousin Vinnie
Blacks, like I said, can be separated into two groups. There's the hard-working, honest, law-abiding blacks, and then there's the lazy, stupid, arrogant, rude, and in most cases "not" law abiding blacks.

You're a fucking genius.
You could have just said, "People...can be seperated into two groups.."

 

[Cousin Vinnie]

Originally posted by nycflasher
You're a fucking genius.
You could have just said, "People...can be seperated into two groups.."

That's true, people are. But like I said, I was talking about "black" people complaining about discrimination from whites (which white people themselves obviously don't complain about) so that's why I said "Blacks can be..."

 

[OCA]

Originally posted by nycflasher
Hey, Vinnie, get your nose out of D's ass.
One token racist is enough.
We don't need a Big D wanna-be further cluttering up the board with this hogwash.

I just wanna now why these two never talk about white trash, have they never been to a Wal-Mart? I get a kick out of Vinnie's posts though, after he bashes Blacks he always says "but I don't hate them all" and he claims to speak for all white people in that they just hate Blacks for the way they dress, speak etc. etc. etc. but they don't hate them all. Like he's the national spokesperson or something. I think he's got some serious self esteem issues.

 

[rtwngAvngr]

iginally posted by OCA [/i]
I just wanna now why these two never talk about white trash, have they never been to a Wal-Mart? I get a kick out of Vinnie's posts though, after he bashes Blacks he always says "but I don't hate them all" and he claims to speak for all white people in that they just hate Blacks for the way they dress, speak etc. etc. etc. but they don't hate them all. Like he's the national spokesperson or something. I think he's got some serious self esteem issues.

Are you gonna starting wilding out with your personal attacks?

AA is evil. It's not racist to be AGAINST discrimination.

You haven't a leg to stand on. And your arms are too weak to support your body weight! Tina.

 

[Cousin Vinnie]

OCA,

I think I make it very clear "what kind" of black people I talk about, and I don't hate all black people. I don't know what's so hard for you to understand. Anything negative I say about blacks is directed towards the thugs, criminals, lazy ones, and just the plain rude ones.

We can talk about white trash. What do you want to talk about?

 

[rtwngAvngr]

 

[OCA]

Originally posted by rtwngAvngr
Are you gonna starting wilding out with your personal attacks?

AA is evil. It's not racist to be AGAINST discrimination.

You haven't a leg to stand on. And your arms are too weak to support your body weight! Tina.

Have you even read one of this guys fucking posts? Or have I been right about you all along? Go ahead support him, just beware of what category this is taking you towards.

 

[nycflasher]

Originally posted by Cousin Vinnie
OCA,

I think I make it very clear "what kind" of black people I talk about, and I don't hate all black people. I don't know what's so hard for you to understand. Anything negative I say about blacks is directed towards the thugs, criminals, lazy ones, and just the plain rude ones.

We can talk about white trash. What do you want to talk about?

You sure know alot about black people.
But since you offered, let's talk about ignorance. Do you want to start the thread or should I?

 

[rtwngAvngr]

Originally posted by OCA
Have you even read one of this guys fucking posts? Or have I been right about you all along? Go ahead support him, just beware of what category this is taking you towards.

Get a grip. You're the biggest troll here. Everyone thinks so.