Reparations???

[Damaged Eagle]

Have you answered the question presented in the OP?

*****SMILE*****

 

[Lesh]

Have been there and done that.

I have no idea what you think that means but there are almost no low interest loans or grants available to ANY kinds of start up businesses...no less black ones

That was often true in the Obama Administration. And a whole bunch of businesses, including many headed by African Americans, closed and/or scaled back including a lot of layoffs and busting of full time positions to part time ones.

All that is now in the process of being reversed. And I imagine if you qualify for a low interest loan now, you'll find there are plenty of them available. People who don't qualify and/or who have bad credit will have a much more difficult time getting one. As it should be.

And once more, this thread is about reparations. Could we please focus on that and discuss business regulation and opportunity on a thread more appropriate for that? What you are talking about has NOTHING to do with reparations.

There have been little to no low interest loans or grants available to anyone since the Reagan Administration

 

[Foxfyre]

Have been there and done that.

I have no idea what you think that means but there are almost no low interest loans or grants available to ANY kinds of start up businesses...no less black ones

That was often true in the Obama Administration. And a whole bunch of businesses, including many headed by African Americans, closed and/or scaled back including a lot of layoffs and busting of full time positions to part time ones.

All that is now in the process of being reversed. And I imagine if you qualify for a low interest loan now, you'll find there are plenty of them available. People who don't qualify and/or who have bad credit will have a much more difficult time getting one. As it should be.

And once more, this thread is about reparations. Could we please focus on that and discuss business regulation and opportunity on a thread more appropriate for that? What you are talking about has NOTHING to do with reparations.

There have been little to no low interest loans or grants available to anyone since the Reagan Administration

Well enjoy discussing that preferably on an appropriate thread for it somewhere. I'll wish you a pleasant evening and choose not to derail this thread any further.

 

[task0778]

Are we responsible for the sins of our fathers? NO. Is today's society responsible for the sins of societies from long ago? NO. Why should anyone receive compensation for wrongs done to a prior generation or someone else? If any minority group or person can show cause for a claim of damages against another individual or group, company, corporation, or organization then by all means go for it. Which is not to say that America has arrived at the point where absolute equal opportunities exist and we are equally treated under the law, sadly that is not yet the case and likely never will be. Some people have a better head start, some get more help along the way, some just get lucky; for whatever reasons some are more successful than others, but blaming what happened to past generations is a poor excuse to my way of thinking.

 

[Markle]

And yet we just gave away a trillion and a half to billionaires and corporations

Oh...

Please show us your reliable source and working link demonstrating confirming your statement that revenue to the IRS dropped by $1.5 TRILLION.

 

[Mac1958]

Now that the Dem candidates have opened the door, the GOP would be smart to keep this front and center.

The Democratic Party has lost its fuckin' marbles.

 

[toomuchtime_]

Now that the Dem candidates have opened the door, the GOP would be smart to keep this front and center.

The Democratic Party has lost its fuckin' marbles.

Oh, they lost their marbles back in the 1970's and they've been faking it every since. Today's Democratic Party is about identity politics and nothing else. The only Democrats who seem to have a real agenda beyond just winning elections are self proclaimed socialists like Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Well for the sake of argument, who should get the reparations?

For arguments sake (and honesty and accuracy)...what would "reparations" look like?

Since no candidates are talking about cash payments...please tell us what you think we're talking about?

Reparations do not have to be in the form of cash. Any benefit given to somebody to correct an injustice or wrong doing could be considered reparations.

What do YOU consider to be reparations? And how does the form of them in any way matter to the points in my post?

So if those "reparations" were low interest loans or even grants to aspiring or new start up businesses..you're against that?

I for one am against any government favoritism to any group of people; especially Democrat ones.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

So you don't think promoting businesses for low income folks is a good idea?

Not long ago government promoted home ownership for low income folks. How did that turn out for us?

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Tax cuts add to the debt too my friend. Trump's did so MASSIVELY

Not as much as cash 4 clunkers and it doesn't take affordable cars away from people.

Cash for Clunkers cost a TRILLION and a half?

Are you stupidly claiming that?

Really?

Taking less in taxes is different than government writing a check.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Nobody is holding anybody back but themselves. What happened in generations before you has little to no effect on you today.

My father grew up poor, and not by today's definition. He lived in a house the size of a three car garage with his six siblings. They had no indoor plumbing. When they had to use the bathroom, it was outside in the backyard.

They were on welfare which back then meant one of the kids would pull the red wagon five miles to the fire station where they loaded it up with fruits and vegetables. My father had to quit school in 9th grade to help support the family.

Yet my father nor uncles and aunts ever spent a day in jail. Most of the men fought in wars, and eventually learned trades and raised families. Nothing was passed down to them like most white families during that time, and if we get anything, we will be the first generation to do so.

People come here from other countries, particularly the middle-east where they grew up in real poverty, and within a couple of years, they own their own businesses. They find the American dream. Some even become wealthy.

So I don't buy this stuff of generations before. Your life starts the day you were born, not when your grandfather was born. You didn't live his life, you live yours and make the best of it.

You completely ignored my last statement and went on a rant about your family who was poor but not because of government suppression. Want to try again to address my post and stay on topic?

I believe I addressed your post point for point. If you wish to put the palms of your hands against your ears and sing aloud, I can't help you with that.

I pointed out that many whites didn't have opportunities just like many blacks did not. I also pointed out that anybody from my generation and beyond experienced none of this discrimination or oppression. I pointed out that my white family were all poor, and because of hard work, they achieved the American dream.

What else do you want?

If you were trying to make the point that poor whites didn’t have opportunities like poor blacks then you are missing the enormous factor of systemic oppression by law from our government. Oppressions that limited their earning potential and education potential for generations. Can you recognize the repercussions of that?

No I can not. Because your life starts when you were born and many blacks have found success since then. It doesn't matter to me what my father or grandfather went through in life. I was born in a country where even foreigners come here with no money and with hard work, become successful.

If I'm a failure today, it has nothing to do with my father or mother being a failure......or my grandparents. We have a political party that constantly gives people excuses for their failures, and blame it on other entities. Eventually people believe them; a party that promoted single-parent families which are directly related to poverty and crime.

You don't have to believe me. Take it from a black man that grew up during that time and became a huge success, Dr Walter E Williams.

If we put ourselves into the shoes of racists who seek to sabotage black upward mobility, we couldn't develop a more effective agenda than that followed by civil rights organizations, black politicians, academics, liberals and the news media. Let's look at it.

First, weaken the black family, but don't blame it on individual choices. You have to preach that today's weak black family is a legacy of slavery, Jim Crow and racism. The truth is that black female-headed households were just 18 percent of households in 1950, as opposed to about 68 percent today. In fact, from 1890 to 1940, the black marriage rate was slightly higher than that of whites. Even during slavery, when marriage was forbidden for blacks, most black children lived in biological two-parent families. In New York City, in 1925, 85 percent of black households were two-parent households. A study of 1880 family structure in Philadelphia shows that three-quarters of black families were two-parent households.

During the 1960s, devastating nonsense emerged, exemplified by a Johns Hopkins University sociology professor who argued, "It has yet to be shown that the absence of a father was directly responsible for any of the supposed deficiencies of broken homes." The real issue, he went on to say, "is not the lack of male presence but the lack of male income." That suggests marriage and fatherhood can be replaced by a welfare check.

Walter Williams: Black Self-Sabotage

It's a short read with a lot of information. I suggest you spend a minute or two and read it for yourself.

Individual choice and opportunity are exactly what we should promote I agree with you there. I’m not arguing against that. I’m trying to get you to recognize that which is right in front of your face. You’ve already admitted that poor children have a tougher battle than wealthy children and by the numbers will not achieve the same levels of education and wealth. You’ve dodged answering but I think you know as we all do that systemic discrimination through law in this country has caused tremendous damage to the black community as it restricted generations from accumulating property, wealth, and education. It’s 2+2, just put it together. Recognition goes a long way. When you avoid acknowledging that reality and pretend that history didn’t happen then your audience goes deaf to the rest of the things you say.

Get on the same page and then we can talk about solutions. I actually agree that welfare is broken and causing damage and dependency in the impoverished communities. I also think the idea of entitlements has had damaging effects. So as we discuss solutions I think you will find we have more in common than you think. But these people got screwed by our country. We all know it. We should all acknowledge it and stop pretending like nothing happened and it’s all good now.

The point of the article is that slavery and Jim Crow are cheap excuses for failures of today. As I pointed out in the story of my father, he got handed nothing but more challenges from his parents. You will find that most white people are the same way. And again, if anything is handed down, our generation will probably be the first for most whites.

Black are not getting less of an education, however blacks take much less advantage of it, and that's not our fault. If you took a middle-class white student body, and put them in these same low-income schools, they will continue to do fine. The black student body that got their school? They will continue to fail.

The school is not the failure, the parent is. When people shove their children on the school bus and that ends their educational involvement, of course you're going to get poorer results.

I've told this story before on USMB before, so if you read it already, skip over.

My former next door neighbor bought a portable basketball hoop. Before you knew it, kids were coming here from everywhere. They played from the time they came home from school until well past dark; sometimes to 10:00 pm. They tried to play later, but I told them to cut it out or called the police.

This didn't happen in the white neighborhood I grew up in. We were in the house well before dark. Our parents made sure our homework was done, we had a shower, and in bed at a reasonable enough time for ample sleep for the next school day. They knew where we were every minute, and it wasn't several streets away.

In other words, place the blame where it rightly belongs.

 

[Markle]

Cash for Clunkers cost a TRILLION and a half?

Are you stupidly claiming that?

Really?

Yes, Cash for Clunkers easily cost $1.5 TRILLION.

You had to trade a usable used car and buy a NEW CAR. That took millions of quality used cars off the market which were ideal for people who could not afford, or WANT a new car. Prices for used cars skyrocketed, costing people millions and billions of additional dollars.

I am not cheap, but, unless the car is something special, I don't buy a car simply to have a new car. I'm retired, own two cars and a late model Harley custom Fat Boy. I take care of my cars and I can't recall a car I have sold or given to a charity that had less than 200,000 miles.

I mention that because my old car, with 147,000 miles and I were recently in a small fender bender. The passenger side headlight assembly is damaged and the bumper. It could use a paint job. The interior is in mint condition, everything works. Two months later, I have not been able to get it repaired because the parts do not exist at any reasonable price. It was a very popular trade for the Cash for Clunkers program. Parts that comparably would cost less than $200.00 I can buy for about $800.00. They're not parts from another 88 Delta Olds but from a 98 Olds. They're the same parts.

General Motors and Chrysler should NEVER have been bailed out. Period.

 

[Markle]

That's the second time you "informed" us of that . We got it the first time.

What you didn't do was answer my question even though you quoted it.

Here...let me help you

So you don't think promoting businesses for low income folks is a good idea?

Elaborate, please.

 

[Slade3200]

You completely ignored my last statement and went on a rant about your family who was poor but not because of government suppression. Want to try again to address my post and stay on topic?

I believe I addressed your post point for point. If you wish to put the palms of your hands against your ears and sing aloud, I can't help you with that.

I pointed out that many whites didn't have opportunities just like many blacks did not. I also pointed out that anybody from my generation and beyond experienced none of this discrimination or oppression. I pointed out that my white family were all poor, and because of hard work, they achieved the American dream.

What else do you want?

If you were trying to make the point that poor whites didn’t have opportunities like poor blacks then you are missing the enormous factor of systemic oppression by law from our government. Oppressions that limited their earning potential and education potential for generations. Can you recognize the repercussions of that?

No I can not. Because your life starts when you were born and many blacks have found success since then. It doesn't matter to me what my father or grandfather went through in life. I was born in a country where even foreigners come here with no money and with hard work, become successful.

If I'm a failure today, it has nothing to do with my father or mother being a failure......or my grandparents. We have a political party that constantly gives people excuses for their failures, and blame it on other entities. Eventually people believe them; a party that promoted single-parent families which are directly related to poverty and crime.

You don't have to believe me. Take it from a black man that grew up during that time and became a huge success, Dr Walter E Williams.

If we put ourselves into the shoes of racists who seek to sabotage black upward mobility, we couldn't develop a more effective agenda than that followed by civil rights organizations, black politicians, academics, liberals and the news media. Let's look at it.

First, weaken the black family, but don't blame it on individual choices. You have to preach that today's weak black family is a legacy of slavery, Jim Crow and racism. The truth is that black female-headed households were just 18 percent of households in 1950, as opposed to about 68 percent today. In fact, from 1890 to 1940, the black marriage rate was slightly higher than that of whites. Even during slavery, when marriage was forbidden for blacks, most black children lived in biological two-parent families. In New York City, in 1925, 85 percent of black households were two-parent households. A study of 1880 family structure in Philadelphia shows that three-quarters of black families were two-parent households.

During the 1960s, devastating nonsense emerged, exemplified by a Johns Hopkins University sociology professor who argued, "It has yet to be shown that the absence of a father was directly responsible for any of the supposed deficiencies of broken homes." The real issue, he went on to say, "is not the lack of male presence but the lack of male income." That suggests marriage and fatherhood can be replaced by a welfare check.

Walter Williams: Black Self-Sabotage

It's a short read with a lot of information. I suggest you spend a minute or two and read it for yourself.

Individual choice and opportunity are exactly what we should promote I agree with you there. I’m not arguing against that. I’m trying to get you to recognize that which is right in front of your face. You’ve already admitted that poor children have a tougher battle than wealthy children and by the numbers will not achieve the same levels of education and wealth. You’ve dodged answering but I think you know as we all do that systemic discrimination through law in this country has caused tremendous damage to the black community as it restricted generations from accumulating property, wealth, and education. It’s 2+2, just put it together. Recognition goes a long way. When you avoid acknowledging that reality and pretend that history didn’t happen then your audience goes deaf to the rest of the things you say.

Get on the same page and then we can talk about solutions. I actually agree that welfare is broken and causing damage and dependency in the impoverished communities. I also think the idea of entitlements has had damaging effects. So as we discuss solutions I think you will find we have more in common than you think. But these people got screwed by our country. We all know it. We should all acknowledge it and stop pretending like nothing happened and it’s all good now.

The point of the article is that slavery and Jim Crow are cheap excuses for failures of today. As I pointed out in the story of my father, he got handed nothing but more challenges from his parents. You will find that most white people are the same way. And again, if anything is handed down, our generation will probably be the first for most whites.

Black are not getting less of an education, however blacks take much less advantage of it, and that's not our fault. If you took a middle-class white student body, and put them in these same low-income schools, they will continue to do fine. The black student body that got their school? They will continue to fail.

The school is not the failure, the parent is. When people shove their children on the school bus and that ends their educational involvement, of course you're going to get poorer results.

I've told this story before on USMB before, so if you read it already, skip over.

My former next door neighbor bought a portable basketball hoop. Before you knew it, kids were coming here from everywhere. They played from the time they came home from school until well past dark; sometimes to 10:00 pm. They tried to play later, but I told them to cut it out or called the police.

This didn't happen in the white neighborhood I grew up in. We were in the house well before dark. Our parents made sure our homework was done, we had a shower, and in bed at a reasonable enough time for ample sleep for the next school day. They knew where we were every minute, and it wasn't several streets away.

In other words, place the blame where it rightly belongs.

What you aren’t understanding is the difference between your parents and grandparents and their challenges vs those of generation old blacks who’s challenges were a direct result of our laws and government. Generations of discrimination by our system that resulted in poverty, low education, broken families, high crime and many other factors that impact the black population today. How can you gloss over all that as insignificant?

You admitted earlier that a child from an uneducated low income family has worse odds of achieving success than a child from a high income family. Well millions of blacks were stuffed into that low income bracket because of generations of racist laws made by our country. Take a second to think about that before reacting.

 

[Foxfyre]

Are we responsible for the sins of our fathers? NO. Is today's society responsible for the sins of societies from long ago? NO. Why should anyone receive compensation for wrongs done to a prior generation or someone else? If any minority group or person can show cause for a claim of damages against another individual or group, company, corporation, or organization then by all means go for it. Which is not to say that America has arrived at the point where absolute equal opportunities exist and we are equally treated under the law, sadly that is not yet the case and likely never will be. Some people have a better head start, some get more help along the way, some just get lucky; for whatever reasons some are more successful than others, but blaming what happened to past generations is a poor excuse to my way of thinking.

Agreed. We may endure the consequences of the 'sins of the fathers' and that can make it more difficult for the succeeding generation(s), but we are not to blame for those sins. And it is every generation's and every individual's responsibility to learn from the past generations, embrace the good and reject the bad as much as possible.

My husband and I were $21 overdrawn at the bank on our wedding day. Our parents were barely getting by themselves and not in a position to give give us any financial support. We both had low paying jobs, no savings, and, when I soon became pregnant with our first child, by today's standards, we had few prospects. Many of our friends had significantly more financial security and automatic prospects for their future. The playing field was definitely not level in that regard. And in those days there were pretty much zero public services available to help.

The difference between us back then and today's youth starting out, is nobody told us how unfair it was or how disadvantaged we were. It never occurred to us that it was anybody's responsibility but our own to deal with our situation, support ourselves, and get ahead. And we both believed that to be possible in a country as free and ripe with opportunity as the United States of America. So we did.

It was tough at times. There was an awful lot we didn't have that most people consider their right to have these days, but gradually we kept improving our circumstances until we worked our way solidly into the middle class, have enjoyed a reasonable amount of professional success, and though we are not rich, we feel blessed with sufficient prosperity and have enjoyed life to the fullest.

Nobody owes us any reparations, nor do we owe any to atone for previous generations.

The footnote to our story is that we did what we could to give our children every opportunity to explore their worlds through scouting, music, sports, and travel as much as we could afford. They didn't have as much as some of their friends, but we were able to give them a leg up much more than our parents were able to give us. And because of their initiative, work ethic, and taking advantage of the opportunity we were able to provide them, they have enjoyed professional success and enjoy a good deal of prosperity. And while they are right to appreciate the blessings they have enjoyed, they need not apologize to anybody that they had some advantages other kids don't have. We worked damn hard to give them those advantages and it was right that we did so.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

I believe I addressed your post point for point. If you wish to put the palms of your hands against your ears and sing aloud, I can't help you with that.

I pointed out that many whites didn't have opportunities just like many blacks did not. I also pointed out that anybody from my generation and beyond experienced none of this discrimination or oppression. I pointed out that my white family were all poor, and because of hard work, they achieved the American dream.

What else do you want?

If you were trying to make the point that poor whites didn’t have opportunities like poor blacks then you are missing the enormous factor of systemic oppression by law from our government. Oppressions that limited their earning potential and education potential for generations. Can you recognize the repercussions of that?

No I can not. Because your life starts when you were born and many blacks have found success since then. It doesn't matter to me what my father or grandfather went through in life. I was born in a country where even foreigners come here with no money and with hard work, become successful.

If I'm a failure today, it has nothing to do with my father or mother being a failure......or my grandparents. We have a political party that constantly gives people excuses for their failures, and blame it on other entities. Eventually people believe them; a party that promoted single-parent families which are directly related to poverty and crime.

You don't have to believe me. Take it from a black man that grew up during that time and became a huge success, Dr Walter E Williams.

If we put ourselves into the shoes of racists who seek to sabotage black upward mobility, we couldn't develop a more effective agenda than that followed by civil rights organizations, black politicians, academics, liberals and the news media. Let's look at it.

First, weaken the black family, but don't blame it on individual choices. You have to preach that today's weak black family is a legacy of slavery, Jim Crow and racism. The truth is that black female-headed households were just 18 percent of households in 1950, as opposed to about 68 percent today. In fact, from 1890 to 1940, the black marriage rate was slightly higher than that of whites. Even during slavery, when marriage was forbidden for blacks, most black children lived in biological two-parent families. In New York City, in 1925, 85 percent of black households were two-parent households. A study of 1880 family structure in Philadelphia shows that three-quarters of black families were two-parent households.

During the 1960s, devastating nonsense emerged, exemplified by a Johns Hopkins University sociology professor who argued, "It has yet to be shown that the absence of a father was directly responsible for any of the supposed deficiencies of broken homes." The real issue, he went on to say, "is not the lack of male presence but the lack of male income." That suggests marriage and fatherhood can be replaced by a welfare check.

Walter Williams: Black Self-Sabotage

It's a short read with a lot of information. I suggest you spend a minute or two and read it for yourself.

Individual choice and opportunity are exactly what we should promote I agree with you there. I’m not arguing against that. I’m trying to get you to recognize that which is right in front of your face. You’ve already admitted that poor children have a tougher battle than wealthy children and by the numbers will not achieve the same levels of education and wealth. You’ve dodged answering but I think you know as we all do that systemic discrimination through law in this country has caused tremendous damage to the black community as it restricted generations from accumulating property, wealth, and education. It’s 2+2, just put it together. Recognition goes a long way. When you avoid acknowledging that reality and pretend that history didn’t happen then your audience goes deaf to the rest of the things you say.

Get on the same page and then we can talk about solutions. I actually agree that welfare is broken and causing damage and dependency in the impoverished communities. I also think the idea of entitlements has had damaging effects. So as we discuss solutions I think you will find we have more in common than you think. But these people got screwed by our country. We all know it. We should all acknowledge it and stop pretending like nothing happened and it’s all good now.

The point of the article is that slavery and Jim Crow are cheap excuses for failures of today. As I pointed out in the story of my father, he got handed nothing but more challenges from his parents. You will find that most white people are the same way. And again, if anything is handed down, our generation will probably be the first for most whites.

Black are not getting less of an education, however blacks take much less advantage of it, and that's not our fault. If you took a middle-class white student body, and put them in these same low-income schools, they will continue to do fine. The black student body that got their school? They will continue to fail.

The school is not the failure, the parent is. When people shove their children on the school bus and that ends their educational involvement, of course you're going to get poorer results.

I've told this story before on USMB before, so if you read it already, skip over.

My former next door neighbor bought a portable basketball hoop. Before you knew it, kids were coming here from everywhere. They played from the time they came home from school until well past dark; sometimes to 10:00 pm. They tried to play later, but I told them to cut it out or called the police.

This didn't happen in the white neighborhood I grew up in. We were in the house well before dark. Our parents made sure our homework was done, we had a shower, and in bed at a reasonable enough time for ample sleep for the next school day. They knew where we were every minute, and it wasn't several streets away.

In other words, place the blame where it rightly belongs.

What you aren’t understanding is the difference between your parents and grandparents and their challenges vs those of generation old blacks who’s challenges were a direct result of our laws and government. Generations of discrimination by our system that resulted in poverty, low education, broken families, high crime and many other factors that impact the black population today. How can you gloss over all that as insignificant?

You admitted earlier that a child from an uneducated low income family has worse odds of achieving success than a child from a high income family. Well millions of blacks were stuffed into that low income bracket because of generations of racist laws made by our country. Take a second to think about that before reacting.

I've thought about it over and over again because the left keeps regurgitating this topic and has been for years.

If my parents (for whatever reason) were restricted in income, unable to provide us with the extras, kept us in low income housing, that's mostly the responsibility of my parents. Nobody should be having children they can't afford, or bringing them into the world of poverty or low income areas. That's personal responsibility.

But even if that was the case, it's up to me as an adult to overcome and do better than my parents. It's up to me to learn from their mistakes.

Can you explain to me how some foreigners come here, first generation, barely speaking the language, and do better than our blacks in America today? Who is more disadvantaged in your opinion, those foreigners who came here with twenty bucks in their pockets or our African Americans who's parents or grandparents were held back?

The beverage store I patron is owned by an Indian guy. He came here, worked night and day, opened up his own beverage store, and provided service no other competitor could. I never have to worry about him being out of the products I purchase. His personality, his attentiveness to customers needs, his hours all beat out his competition.

After he started doing well, he took on buying rental property which he still manages. On top of that, he purchased a small hotel outside of town about 40 miles, and it's doing fantastic as well. He and his wife seldom see each other because she quit working the beverage store to run the hotel.

If he can do this, why can't any other American including a black one?

 

[Slade3200]

If you were trying to make the point that poor whites didn’t have opportunities like poor blacks then you are missing the enormous factor of systemic oppression by law from our government. Oppressions that limited their earning potential and education potential for generations. Can you recognize the repercussions of that?

No I can not. Because your life starts when you were born and many blacks have found success since then. It doesn't matter to me what my father or grandfather went through in life. I was born in a country where even foreigners come here with no money and with hard work, become successful.

If I'm a failure today, it has nothing to do with my father or mother being a failure......or my grandparents. We have a political party that constantly gives people excuses for their failures, and blame it on other entities. Eventually people believe them; a party that promoted single-parent families which are directly related to poverty and crime.

You don't have to believe me. Take it from a black man that grew up during that time and became a huge success, Dr Walter E Williams.

If we put ourselves into the shoes of racists who seek to sabotage black upward mobility, we couldn't develop a more effective agenda than that followed by civil rights organizations, black politicians, academics, liberals and the news media. Let's look at it.

First, weaken the black family, but don't blame it on individual choices. You have to preach that today's weak black family is a legacy of slavery, Jim Crow and racism. The truth is that black female-headed households were just 18 percent of households in 1950, as opposed to about 68 percent today. In fact, from 1890 to 1940, the black marriage rate was slightly higher than that of whites. Even during slavery, when marriage was forbidden for blacks, most black children lived in biological two-parent families. In New York City, in 1925, 85 percent of black households were two-parent households. A study of 1880 family structure in Philadelphia shows that three-quarters of black families were two-parent households.

During the 1960s, devastating nonsense emerged, exemplified by a Johns Hopkins University sociology professor who argued, "It has yet to be shown that the absence of a father was directly responsible for any of the supposed deficiencies of broken homes." The real issue, he went on to say, "is not the lack of male presence but the lack of male income." That suggests marriage and fatherhood can be replaced by a welfare check.

Walter Williams: Black Self-Sabotage

It's a short read with a lot of information. I suggest you spend a minute or two and read it for yourself.

Individual choice and opportunity are exactly what we should promote I agree with you there. I’m not arguing against that. I’m trying to get you to recognize that which is right in front of your face. You’ve already admitted that poor children have a tougher battle than wealthy children and by the numbers will not achieve the same levels of education and wealth. You’ve dodged answering but I think you know as we all do that systemic discrimination through law in this country has caused tremendous damage to the black community as it restricted generations from accumulating property, wealth, and education. It’s 2+2, just put it together. Recognition goes a long way. When you avoid acknowledging that reality and pretend that history didn’t happen then your audience goes deaf to the rest of the things you say.

Get on the same page and then we can talk about solutions. I actually agree that welfare is broken and causing damage and dependency in the impoverished communities. I also think the idea of entitlements has had damaging effects. So as we discuss solutions I think you will find we have more in common than you think. But these people got screwed by our country. We all know it. We should all acknowledge it and stop pretending like nothing happened and it’s all good now.

The point of the article is that slavery and Jim Crow are cheap excuses for failures of today. As I pointed out in the story of my father, he got handed nothing but more challenges from his parents. You will find that most white people are the same way. And again, if anything is handed down, our generation will probably be the first for most whites.

Black are not getting less of an education, however blacks take much less advantage of it, and that's not our fault. If you took a middle-class white student body, and put them in these same low-income schools, they will continue to do fine. The black student body that got their school? They will continue to fail.

The school is not the failure, the parent is. When people shove their children on the school bus and that ends their educational involvement, of course you're going to get poorer results.

I've told this story before on USMB before, so if you read it already, skip over.

My former next door neighbor bought a portable basketball hoop. Before you knew it, kids were coming here from everywhere. They played from the time they came home from school until well past dark; sometimes to 10:00 pm. They tried to play later, but I told them to cut it out or called the police.

This didn't happen in the white neighborhood I grew up in. We were in the house well before dark. Our parents made sure our homework was done, we had a shower, and in bed at a reasonable enough time for ample sleep for the next school day. They knew where we were every minute, and it wasn't several streets away.

In other words, place the blame where it rightly belongs.

What you aren’t understanding is the difference between your parents and grandparents and their challenges vs those of generation old blacks who’s challenges were a direct result of our laws and government. Generations of discrimination by our system that resulted in poverty, low education, broken families, high crime and many other factors that impact the black population today. How can you gloss over all that as insignificant?

You admitted earlier that a child from an uneducated low income family has worse odds of achieving success than a child from a high income family. Well millions of blacks were stuffed into that low income bracket because of generations of racist laws made by our country. Take a second to think about that before reacting.

I've thought about it over and over again because the left keeps regurgitating this topic and has been for years.

If my parents (for whatever reason) were restricted in income, unable to provide us with the extras, kept us in low income housing, that's mostly the responsibility of my parents. Nobody should be having children they can't afford, or bringing them into the world of poverty or low income areas. That's personal responsibility.

But even if that was the case, it's up to me as an adult to overcome and do better than my parents. It's up to me to learn from their mistakes.

Can you explain to me how some foreigners come here, first generation, barely speaking the language, and do better than our blacks in America today? Who is more disadvantaged in your opinion, those foreigners who came here with twenty bucks in their pockets or our African Americans who's parents or grandparents were held back?

The beverage store I patron is owned by an Indian guy. He came here, worked night and day, opened up his own beverage store, and provided service no other competitor could. I never have to worry about him being out of the products I purchase. His personality, his attentiveness to customers needs, his hours all beat out his competition.

After he started doing well, he took on buying rental property which he still manages. On top of that, he purchased a small hotel outside of town about 40 miles, and it's doing fantastic as well. He and his wife seldom see each other because she quit working the beverage store to run the hotel.

If he can do this, why can't any other American including a black one?

The difference between your poor parents, the foreigners with 20 bucks in their pockets and the disadvanged Blacks is the fact that only one of those groups was oppressed for generations by our government which resulted in their challenging position. Do you understand that?

 

[NewsVine_Mariyam]

View attachment 247558

Perhaps it's time to rid ourselves of a few government funded programs. Programs such as Affirmative Action and other things meant to supposedly make reparations to specific minority groups are pretty vague in my humble opinion. The blacks site that it's reparations for slavery and things that happened to violate their civil rights since that time. However today is not then and since then there have been a large number of new immigrants who have no justification to claim such reparations just because they happen to be from Africa and elsewhere.

In what way do the American people owe "reparations" or Affirmative Action to people who immigrated here after the Civil War, much less after the Civil Rights Acts of the 50's and 60's, just because a person has dark skin?

If these programs are meant as reparations and such then the person applying for said programs should have to prove that their families were citizens of the United States during those times.

Additionally if there are immigrants who have used these programs then they should be required to return said money to the United States with interest.

*****SMILE*****

What is with this obsession with the political affiliation of others, particularly Democrats? One's political affiliation is not something a person is born with and cannot change, in fact a person can change party with little or minimal effort required. Hell your president has done so 5 different times

Trump registered as a Republican in Manhattan in 1987 and since that time has changed his party affiliation five times. In 1999, Trump changed his party affiliation to the Independence Party of New York. In August 2001, Trump changed his party affiliation to Democratic. In September 2009, Trump changed his party affiliation back to the Republican Party. In December 2011, Trump changed to "no party affiliation" (independent). In April 2012, Trump again returned to the Republican Party
Political positions of Donald Trump - Wikipedia​

 

[Foxfyre]

If you were trying to make the point that poor whites didn’t have opportunities like poor blacks then you are missing the enormous factor of systemic oppression by law from our government. Oppressions that limited their earning potential and education potential for generations. Can you recognize the repercussions of that?

No I can not. Because your life starts when you were born and many blacks have found success since then. It doesn't matter to me what my father or grandfather went through in life. I was born in a country where even foreigners come here with no money and with hard work, become successful.

If I'm a failure today, it has nothing to do with my father or mother being a failure......or my grandparents. We have a political party that constantly gives people excuses for their failures, and blame it on other entities. Eventually people believe them; a party that promoted single-parent families which are directly related to poverty and crime.

You don't have to believe me. Take it from a black man that grew up during that time and became a huge success, Dr Walter E Williams.

If we put ourselves into the shoes of racists who seek to sabotage black upward mobility, we couldn't develop a more effective agenda than that followed by civil rights organizations, black politicians, academics, liberals and the news media. Let's look at it.

First, weaken the black family, but don't blame it on individual choices. You have to preach that today's weak black family is a legacy of slavery, Jim Crow and racism. The truth is that black female-headed households were just 18 percent of households in 1950, as opposed to about 68 percent today. In fact, from 1890 to 1940, the black marriage rate was slightly higher than that of whites. Even during slavery, when marriage was forbidden for blacks, most black children lived in biological two-parent families. In New York City, in 1925, 85 percent of black households were two-parent households. A study of 1880 family structure in Philadelphia shows that three-quarters of black families were two-parent households.

During the 1960s, devastating nonsense emerged, exemplified by a Johns Hopkins University sociology professor who argued, "It has yet to be shown that the absence of a father was directly responsible for any of the supposed deficiencies of broken homes." The real issue, he went on to say, "is not the lack of male presence but the lack of male income." That suggests marriage and fatherhood can be replaced by a welfare check.

Walter Williams: Black Self-Sabotage

It's a short read with a lot of information. I suggest you spend a minute or two and read it for yourself.

Individual choice and opportunity are exactly what we should promote I agree with you there. I’m not arguing against that. I’m trying to get you to recognize that which is right in front of your face. You’ve already admitted that poor children have a tougher battle than wealthy children and by the numbers will not achieve the same levels of education and wealth. You’ve dodged answering but I think you know as we all do that systemic discrimination through law in this country has caused tremendous damage to the black community as it restricted generations from accumulating property, wealth, and education. It’s 2+2, just put it together. Recognition goes a long way. When you avoid acknowledging that reality and pretend that history didn’t happen then your audience goes deaf to the rest of the things you say.

Get on the same page and then we can talk about solutions. I actually agree that welfare is broken and causing damage and dependency in the impoverished communities. I also think the idea of entitlements has had damaging effects. So as we discuss solutions I think you will find we have more in common than you think. But these people got screwed by our country. We all know it. We should all acknowledge it and stop pretending like nothing happened and it’s all good now.

The point of the article is that slavery and Jim Crow are cheap excuses for failures of today. As I pointed out in the story of my father, he got handed nothing but more challenges from his parents. You will find that most white people are the same way. And again, if anything is handed down, our generation will probably be the first for most whites.

Black are not getting less of an education, however blacks take much less advantage of it, and that's not our fault. If you took a middle-class white student body, and put them in these same low-income schools, they will continue to do fine. The black student body that got their school? They will continue to fail.

The school is not the failure, the parent is. When people shove their children on the school bus and that ends their educational involvement, of course you're going to get poorer results.

I've told this story before on USMB before, so if you read it already, skip over.

My former next door neighbor bought a portable basketball hoop. Before you knew it, kids were coming here from everywhere. They played from the time they came home from school until well past dark; sometimes to 10:00 pm. They tried to play later, but I told them to cut it out or called the police.

This didn't happen in the white neighborhood I grew up in. We were in the house well before dark. Our parents made sure our homework was done, we had a shower, and in bed at a reasonable enough time for ample sleep for the next school day. They knew where we were every minute, and it wasn't several streets away.

In other words, place the blame where it rightly belongs.

What you aren’t understanding is the difference between your parents and grandparents and their challenges vs those of generation old blacks who’s challenges were a direct result of our laws and government. Generations of discrimination by our system that resulted in poverty, low education, broken families, high crime and many other factors that impact the black population today. How can you gloss over all that as insignificant?

You admitted earlier that a child from an uneducated low income family has worse odds of achieving success than a child from a high income family. Well millions of blacks were stuffed into that low income bracket because of generations of racist laws made by our country. Take a second to think about that before reacting.

I've thought about it over and over again because the left keeps regurgitating this topic and has been for years.

If my parents (for whatever reason) were restricted in income, unable to provide us with the extras, kept us in low income housing, that's mostly the responsibility of my parents. Nobody should be having children they can't afford, or bringing them into the world of poverty or low income areas. That's personal responsibility.

But even if that was the case, it's up to me as an adult to overcome and do better than my parents. It's up to me to learn from their mistakes.

Can you explain to me how some foreigners come here, first generation, barely speaking the language, and do better than our blacks in America today? Who is more disadvantaged in your opinion, those foreigners who came here with twenty bucks in their pockets or our African Americans who's parents or grandparents were held back?

The beverage store I patron is owned by an Indian guy. He came here, worked night and day, opened up his own beverage store, and provided service no other competitor could. I never have to worry about him being out of the products I purchase. His personality, his attentiveness to customers needs, his hours all beat out his competition.

After he started doing well, he took on buying rental property which he still manages. On top of that, he purchased a small hotel outside of town about 40 miles, and it's doing fantastic as well. He and his wife seldom see each other because she quit working the beverage store to run the hotel.

If he can do this, why can't any other American including a black one?

If you are told by those in the media, those in government, those in education, those in entertainment again and again and again how much you are disadvantaged, how much you are oppressed, how much you are mistreated disrespected, being held back, being denied opportunity, are started out on so unlevel a playing field that you are victimized on every side, and you should be angry, resentful, and retaliatory because of it, a whole bunch of people will believe it and won't even try. And they will look to the powers to be to rescue them which of course isn[t going to happen because those powers need them to believe they are victims to keep those powers in power and increasing their own prestige, influence, and personal wealth.

 

[Markle]

View attachment 247558

Perhaps it's time to rid ourselves of a few government funded programs. Programs such as Affirmative Action and other things meant to supposedly make reparations to specific minority groups are pretty vague in my humble opinion. The blacks site that it's reparations for slavery and things that happened to violate their civil rights since that time. However today is not then and since then there have been a large number of new immigrants who have no justification to claim such reparations just because they happen to be from Africa and elsewhere.

In what way do the American people owe "reparations" or Affirmative Action to people who immigrated here after the Civil War, much less after the Civil Rights Acts of the 50's and 60's, just because a person has dark skin?

If these programs are meant as reparations and such then the person applying for said programs should have to prove that their families were citizens of the United States during those times.

Additionally if there are immigrants who have used these programs then they should be required to return said money to the United States with interest.

*****SMILE*****

What is with this obsession with the political affiliation of others, particularly Democrats? One's political affiliation is not something a person is born with and cannot change, in fact a person can change party with little or minimal effort required. Hell your president has done so 5 different times

Trump registered as a Republican in Manhattan in 1987 and since that time has changed his party affiliation five times. In 1999, Trump changed his party affiliation to the Independence Party of New York. In August 2001, Trump changed his party affiliation to Democratic. In September 2009, Trump changed his party affiliation back to the Republican Party. In December 2011, Trump changed to "no party affiliation" (independent). In April 2012, Trump again returned to the Republican Party
Political positions of Donald Trump - Wikipedia​