The Reason for Poverty Among Blacks is Not Racism

[NewsVine_Mariyam]

Slavery was abolished by the passage of the 13th amendment when it was ratified in December 1865.

My cousin was born July 13th 1888 and died July 30th 1987 at age 99. Her mother was born in 1855 10 years before the end of slavery and was 33 when her daughter was born.

I met her in 1984 when she visited my parent's home in the months shortly after they had all gathered in Charleston for a family reunion, just 3 years before she passed.

I know it sounds unbelievable and such a long time ago but having met her in person bridges that gap. She wrote this at the beginning of the book:

"The Middletons were unusual, because many of them came out of slavery with education"​

​

and on the last page, this regarding the family union in August 1984...

"Eighty people finally came, some from Pennsylvania, where one of the uncles had moved his family years ago, and others from California, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York and Texas. Like many American families, ours had dispersed itself clear across the continent; only the new activism toward reconnection with the past could make the family discover itself and its home. Those who came home ranged from 4 years to past sixty. They spent delightful hours over delicious meals discovering one another attainments. 'Those children chose the theme "Excellence through Education'" Grandmother will tell you and and it really does fit. We were a group of many professions; we had at least four Ph.D.'s; one of our women cousins has a radio program; and we had two lay ministers to lead prayers Friday night. Now, what do you say about that?"​

Well, duh. Yes, starting out with money is easier. But that doesn’t mean racism is why a minority of blacks still live below poverty level. [snipped]

And what did slavery deprive the black people in this country of? Money. So even the poorest white people could still earn money, the slaves couldn't.

What else did slavery deprive black people of? Education, even learning to read was punishable by whipping.

All of the things that you keep harping on that black people need to do and do better about are things that they were deprived of initially. There has never been a chance to catch up because ever effort to progress was met with legislation to hold black people back as a race. They passed laws that only applied to black people and they were all meant to control their lives and movement and to diminish their rights and freedoms.

We're running a race, we're starting 100 yards behind the starting line while you all are starting 100 yards ahead of the starting line. If you can't understand this simple concept then you're either being disingenuous or you're just evil and don't follow your faith if you continue to intentionally lie about other people knowing the history of black people in the U.S. and the history of racism in this country.

 

[NewsVine_Mariyam]

A white kid and a black kid start out at the same place on the starting line but the black kid has to carry a 50 lb weight


It's called racism

They don't both start from the same place. Remember, the laws passed when this country was founded were crafted to give white people every advantage possible and oftentimes at the expense of black people while simultaneously relegating black people to 2nd class citizen status via a series of laws and court cases (Jim Crow, Black Codes, etc.)

The Black Codes, sometimes called Black Laws, were laws governing the conduct of African Americans (free and freed blacks). In 1832, James Kent wrote that "in most of the United States, there is a distinction in respect to political privileges, between free white persons and free colored persons of African blood; and in no part of the country do the latter, in point of fact, participate equally with the whites, in the exercise of civil and political rights."[1] Although Black Codes existed before the Civil War and many Northern states had them, it was the Southern U.S. states that codified such laws in everyday practice. The best known of them were passed in 1865 and 1866 by Southern states, after the American Civil War, in order to restrict African Americans' freedom, and to compel them to work for low wages.
Black Codes (United States) - Wikipedia​

​

Jim Crow laws were a collection of state and local statutes that legalized racial segregation. Named after a Black minstrel show character, the laws—which existed for about 100 years, from the post-Civil War era until 1968—were meant to marginalize African Americans by denying them the right to vote, hold jobs, get an education or other opportunities. Those who attempted to defy Jim Crow laws often faced arrest, fines, jail sentences, violence and death.
​

The roots of Jim Crow laws began as early as 1865, immediately following the ratification of the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery in the United States.​

​

Black codes were strict local and state laws that detailed when, where and how formerly enslaved people could work, and for how much compensation. The codes appeared throughout the South as a legal way to put Black citizens into indentured servitude, to take voting rights away, to control where they lived and how they traveled and to seize children for labor purposes.​

​

The legal system was stacked against Black citizens, with former Confederate soldiers working as police and judges, making it difficult for African Americans to win court cases and ensuring they were subject to Black codes.​

​

These codes worked in conjunction with labor camps for the incarcerated, where prisoners were treated as enslaved people. Black offenders typically received longer sentences than their white equals, and because of the grueling work, often did not live out their entire sentence.
Jim Crow Laws​

 

[NewsVine_Mariyam]

I didn't know who he was so I looked it up. As I stated earlier, the officer was held responsible, charged, but found not guilty by a jury of his peers. One juror gave this statement to the media:

What we were looking at was some pretty obscure things to a lot of people, like culpable negligence. You think you might know what it means: It's negligent, but maybe pretty bad negligence. Well, it's gross negligence with an element of recklessness ... We had the law in front of us so we could break it down.

It just came down to us not being able to see what was going on in the car. Some of us were saying that there was some recklessness there, but that didn't stick because we didn't know what escalated the situation: was he really seeing a gun? We felt [Yanez] was an honest guy ... and in the end, we had to go on his word, and that's what it came down to.[89]

I find it very difficult to believe a police officer would shoot a motorist for no reason at all; jeopardizing his career, violence, and of course his job which he was fired from regardless of the verdict. In our system of justice an accused is innocent until proven guilty, not the other way around the way liberals would like to see in this country. If you know a police officer feels threatened by your actions, the best thing you can do is simply freeze which apparently this guy didn't do.

And here is something else for you to know:

In fact, as of July 9, whites were 54 percent of the 440 police shooting victims this year whose race was known, blacks were 28 percent and Hispanics were 18 percent, according to The Washington Post’s ongoing database of fatal police shootings. Those ratios are similar to last year’s tally, in which whites made up 50 percent of the 987 fatal police shootings, and blacks, 26 percent. (The vast majority of those police homicide victims were armed or otherwise threatening the officer.) But Butterfield could be forgiven his error, given the virtually exclusive media focus on black victims of police officers.

Police Shootings and Race

Does the distribution of police victims confirm the Black Lives Matter allegation that policing is biased? That depends on the assessing of police actions.

www.manhattan-institute.org

The officers were always found to have been justified in their shooting/killings. UNTIL just a couple of years ago and that's only because of the phones everyone carries on them that captured video of the officers in the act of wrong doing.

The police ALWAYS got away with this crap.

 

[NewsVine_Mariyam]

I never worked in an environment where there were no black people. I always worked either in DC, or a few miles out of the city. We have lots of black people here. No idea what you’re trying to imply.

Why are you so defensive all of a sudden?

 

[NewsVine_Mariyam]

Merit for a difficult educational program is decided by proven ability to succeed in academic programs, and that is by past performance - as measured by grades and test scores. This isn’t rocket science.

A difficult educational program? Why difficult?

Did you read what I wrote? I said it didn’t originally specify by Race, but that social justice warriors - otherwise known as the liberals - ended up eventually focusing on blacks and favoring them over any other minorities. I’m not going to retype the whole thing - and have you not read it again.

You keep going back to the original EO as evidence. The problem is that the libs have deviated from that, and are now giving advantage to one specific race. Thus, they are in violation of the EO, and of the equal protection clause, and I expect the SCOTUS to rule what is now happening as racist and unconstitutional. The ones being discriminated against more than whites are the Asians.

No I didn't read what you wrote, that's what the [snipped] means. And I didn't read it because your very first sentence was a mega untruth that has been repeated over and over again in spite of the fact that I've shown you all the text itself.

 

[NewsVine_Mariyam]

This topic always ends up being a circular argument. Bleeding heart libs work tirelessly to lower standards across the board: in education, business, and government.

And they, And BLM whiners twist themselves into pretzels as they concoct endless nonsensical excuses for the lowered standards.

The simple and obvious truth is that blacks could NEVER compete, on a level field, with either whites or asians. Affirmative Action is a way of holding back other races in order to move blacks to the front of the line. All because, honestly, they could NEVER make it there on MERIT.

One truly negative result of this misguided favoritism is that black don't have an incentive to improve their intellectual skills and abilities. Having black skin is all they need.

Meanwhile our schools and businesses are going to shit because of the lowered standards. America as a whole loses, as a result of this ridiculous scheme

My grandfather was a fighter pilot during WWII. Your opinion that "the simple and obvious truth is that blacks could NEVER compete on a level field with either whites or Asians" is nothing more than wishful thinking on your part. The exact same thing was said about the Tuskegee Airmen when they had to sue the government in order to get admitted into flight training.

Once admitted they went on to make a name for themselves, 20 years prior to affirmative action, the "Red Tails" and many of the bomber pilots would request them as their escort for their bombing runs.

Listening to you blather on about people whom you are so far underneath, in every way imaginable was be laughable if it weren't so pathetic.

Do you all not believe that either? More importantly why do you think I have any reason at all to lie to a bunch of racists?

 

[JoeB131]

Ok Joe, you've gone too far. Whites couldn't tolerate the results of a legal election. So spare me. Whites would not say good riddance for police killing a man over an alleged counterfeit 20. Funny how the more whites do things argument is used when it suits whites. More whites commit crimes, are arrested for crimes and resist arrest. But when that is bought up, we get per capita. So what is it going to be? We are 3 times more likely to be shot and are killed by police at 3 times the rate of our population. So either whites get shot more because they commit more crimes, or we recognize that blacks are disproportionately murdered by police.

Actually, I gave TWO examples yesterday of white people who were killed by police, and you don't see white people getting worked up about them.

One was Daniel Shaver, shot on his knees in a hotel hallway while he begged for his life, the other was Tony Timpa, a schizophrenic who died pretty much the same way that Floyd did. In neither case did the officers involved go to prison. And neither of these guys had extensive criminal records like Floyd had.

Floyd was not a career criminal. Floyd did not resist arrest and what he was accused of was something a ticket to appear could have been written for. Whites elect career criminals to make laws, so lets stop talking crazy.

Actually, no. He was operating a vehicle under the influence, they usually take you into custody for that. He spent considerable amounts of his life in prison or probation, including aggrevated home invasion and armed robbery in 2009. .

There are black people who have been killed by police who truly were innocent. Tamir Rice, Breonna Taylor, etc. They weren't committing crimes or at least not serious crimes. Floyd wasn't innocent. He's not Emmet Till. The only reason why he was a big deal was his death was documented on video during a time period when the whole country was on edge because of Covid.

Now in an ideal world, Floyd would have gotten treatment for his addiction, vocational training while he was in prison, etc. so that he wouldn't sink back into old habits when he got out of prison in 2013.

So let me end with this, whites have pissed off, blacks, hispanics, indigenous nations and asians. So you can talk that shit about electing a trump or DeSantis all you want, but unless whites can keep us divided, you would be wise to start listening.

I wouldn't be so sure about that.... I recently had a discussion with an associate of mine- a Gay Hispanic Woman, who voted for Trump. Right now, in Illinois, we have a black guy running for governor on a pro-police, pro-law and order platform. People of all races are a little fed up with crime. They are fed up with little Timmy coming home from school and not knowing how to do math, but he's been told he's an oppressor.

I personally wouldn't vote for DeSantis, but he knows how to take the same shit Trump was selling and put it in much nicer packaging.

I try to avoid sounding like a whiny Mac1958, but this is a case where the left HAS gone too far. Police reform. Yeah, everyone can go along with that. We need to fix our police departments. Talk about defunding the police and making a character like Floyd into a saint... that's when you start losing people.

Even though Biden has avoided the more toxic rhetoric, part of the reason why his approval ratings are where they are at is because of this nonsense.

 

[Lisa558]

Not that this is true but 4 decades out of 24+ is what you're bitching about? That makes you a snowflake.

Not sure what you’re talking about with 24 years, but the point is that blacks have had TWO full generations to move out of poverty via anti-white racist admissions policies - and most have - but for those who remain mired in the underclass, it’s in THEM to get out with responsible choices. It’s not whitey’s fault that they keep having babies they can’t afford and then don’t complete their education.

Once again, for the people in the back, do the following and you will move out of poverty:

1. Do not have baby you can’t afford while you’re young and unmarried
2. Finish high school

….and 3, stop blaming “racism” for your failure to do the above

 

[JoeB131]

This topic always ends up being a circular argument. Bleeding heart libs work tirelessly to lower standards across the board: in education, business, and government.

And they, And BLM whiners twist themselves into pretzels as they concoct endless nonsensical excuses for the lowered standards.

The simple and obvious truth is that blacks could NEVER compete, on a level field, with either whites or asians. Affirmative Action is a way of holding back other races in order to move blacks to the front of the line. All because, honestly, they could NEVER make it there on MERIT.

One truly negative result of this misguided favoritism is that black don't have an incentive to improve their intellectual skills and abilities. Having black skin is all they need.

Meanwhile our schools and businesses are going to shit because of the lowered standards. America as a whole loses, as a result of this ridiculous scheme

Oh, bullshit. Check your privilege.

I promise you, if I talked to everyone you ever worked with, I could find at least one person who thinks you are kind of useless. And that works on the assumption you have a job.

I've seen black people put into positions they didn't merit because of AA. I've also seen white people put into positions they didn't merit because of nepotism or favoritism.

A couple of years ago, I was in a Temp position where they selected a black woman for a full time position and kept me as a contractor. Part of that was AA, part of that was office politics. It became very annoying to me when this woman kept asking me how to do her job, but I'm a nice guy and I help people like that.

You know what, though... eventually I got a better job because someone else I was nice to put in a good word for me.

I know going into any job hunt, I am favored for being a white male, with an added bonus of being a veteran. My downside is that I'm at an age where people are less likely to hire me because I'm older. (Which is why I took to dying my hair).

 

[Lisa558]

A difficult educational program? Why difficult?

No I didn't read what you wrote, that's what the [snipped] means. And I didn't read it because your very first sentence was a mega untruth that has been repeated over and over again in spite of the fact that I've shown you all the text itself.

If you didn’t read what I wrote, and then argue back showing a complete lack of understanding as to how the EO went from its original text to WHAT IS HAPPENING NOW, then there’s no point in continuing this debate. You choose to remain ignorant, defiant, and arrogant.

Hoe many years have YOU worked in admissions? Like zero?

 

[JoeB131]

Not sure what you’re talking about with 24 years, but the point is that blacks have had TWO full generations to move out of poverty via racist admissions policies - and most have - but for those who remain mired in the underclass, it’s in THEM to get out with responsible choices. It’s not whitey’s fault that they keep having babies they can’t afford and then don’t complete their education.

Once again, for the people in the back, do the following and you will move out of poverty:

1. Do not have baby you can’t afford while you’re young and unmarried
2. Finish high school

….and 3, stop blaming “racism” for your failure to do the above

Except - one more time- if they do all those things and STILL score slightly less than a white person, you'd deny them admission into a school.

Here's a crazy idea. How about if someone exhibits all the positive things you've said, you cut them a break?

 

[JoeB131]

If you didn’t read what I wrote, and then argue back showing a complete lack of understanding as to how the EO went from its original text to WHAT IS HAPPENING NOW, then there’s no point in continuing this debate. You choose to remain ignorant, defiant, and arrogant.

Hoe many years have YOU worked in admissions? Like zero?

Here's the problem... the black kids you want to deny got qualifying scores, just not as good of scores as the white kids. You can't say, "Work hard, stay in school, don't do drugs, don't get pregnant", and then say, "Ha-ha, little Timmy Whitebread got 50 more points on his SAT, he should go first even though he's kind of a slacker who got a tutor."

If they give black kids a leg up in admissions, it's because to get to that point, they've ALREADY overcome a lot of obstacles to get there. And little Timmy can go to state, he'll be just fine.

 

[Lisa558]

Well that just goes to show how blindingly ignorant you all are.

We've nothing to be embarrassed about, because we're not losers. And not just because we say we're not losers but because others say so as well, including some mega corporations like HP, Microsoft, UW, many professional organizations & government agencies, and a slew of colleges and universities. When you accomplish certain things in life, there are people there to recognize and applaud your accomplishments, especially when they're obtained when the odds are against you or there were obstacles in your way.

There are lots of different ways to measure success and you all seem for the most part to be most proud of having been born into the White race. You all pat yourself on the back a lot for that one but being born white is not an accomplishment, nor is being born Jewish (yes I'm talking about you Lisa). That's merely the circumstances of your birth. You did nothing to earn or win that particular set of circumstances.

So if you all are "all that!" then tell us what's so special about each of you and how have you managed to navigate life without it being discovered what rabid racists you all are.

We're not here because we're losers, we're here to rub your noses in your own shit just like some people do to puppies when they're trying to potty train them but don't take that the wrong way. You all are beyond redemption in my opinion and I would wager my last dollar that when you take your last breath and exit this world you will still be just as racist as you are today, so I personally just do this sometimes for fun.

That's how bright I am.

Oh, that’s how bright you are?! You are demonstrating the danger when arrogance meets ignorance.

As far as being born Jewish not being an accomplishment - wow, is your resentment showing - I never said it was. It’s actually an obstacle given how much antisemitism abounds, What IS an accomplishment is being born to poor, uneducated parents who immigrated here without a penny to escape Jewish persecution, and then live through half your family being killed back in Europe, and despite this, graduating from college along with every single one of your siblings.

And it’s not just my family. All my parents‘ friends were in the same boat - poor immigrant Jewish parents - and yet ALL managed to move into the middle class. How so? Because Jews value the two things that move one from poverty:

1) You don’t have babies until you are married,
2) You finish school.

Instead of screaming racism at everyone who points out this obvious truth, leaders in the black community should set Jews up as an example of how to move from poverty to middle class, IN ONE GENERATION, and under the weight of horrific antisemitism.

 

[gipper]

Blacks have been given preferential treatment in college admissions for decades. I believe this issue has been settled for a long time. No need to debate it.

 

[Lisa558]

And what did slavery deprive the black people in this country of? Money. So even the poorest white people could still earn money, the slaves couldn't.

What else did slavery deprive black people of? Education, even learning to read was punishable by whipping.

All of the things that you keep harping on that black people need to do and do better about are things that they were deprived of initially. There has never been a chance to catch up because ever effort to progress was met with legislation to hold black people back as a race. They passed laws that only applied to black people and they were all meant to control their lives and movement and to diminish their rights and freedoms.

We're running a race, we're starting 100 yards behind the starting line while you all are starting 100 yards ahead of the starting line. If you can't understand this simple concept then you're either being disingenuous or you're just evil and don't follow your faith if you continue to intentionally lie about other people knowing the history of black people in the U.S. and the history of racism in this country.

Blah, blah, blah. None of that matters when you see how poor people can move here and become middle class in ONE generation. They also started well behind the starting line. You’re perpetrating the myth - the excuse - that whites are ahead of blacks because had all these generations to make money.

And slavery deprived blacks of an education? Well, the impoverished Jews moving here two generations AFTER slavery weren't educated, either. All it took was one generation in this country to make uo the lost ground, and move into the middle class.

You are hurting your own people by refusing to acknowledge that the oath from poverty to the middle class is within themselves, through the own choices, and instead instilling s sense of victimhood.

And shame on you for calling me evil. You libs sure do resort to the nastiest accusations when your argument keeps getting refuted.

1. No babies before marriage
2. Stay in school

 

[Lisa558]

They don't both start from the same place. Remember, the laws passed when this country was founded were crafted to give white people every advantage possible and oftentimes at the expense of black people while simultaneously relegating black people to 2nd class citizen status via a series of laws and court cases (Jim Crow, Black Codes, etc.)

The Black Codes, sometimes called Black Laws, were laws governing the conduct of African Americans (free and freed blacks). In 1832, James Kent wrote that "in most of the United States, there is a distinction in respect to political privileges, between free white persons and free colored persons of African blood; and in no part of the country do the latter, in point of fact, participate equally with the whites, in the exercise of civil and political rights."[1] Although Black Codes existed before the Civil War and many Northern states had them, it was the Southern U.S. states that codified such laws in everyday practice. The best known of them were passed in 1865 and 1866 by Southern states, after the American Civil War, in order to restrict African Americans' freedom, and to compel them to work for low wages.​

Black Codes (United States) - Wikipedia​

​

Jim Crow laws were a collection of state and local statutes that legalized racial segregation. Named after a Black minstrel show character, the laws—which existed for about 100 years, from the post-Civil War era until 1968—were meant to marginalize African Americans by denying them the right to vote, hold jobs, get an education or other opportunities. Those who attempted to defy Jim Crow laws often faced arrest, fines, jail sentences, violence and death.​

​

The roots of Jim Crow laws began as early as 1865, immediately following the ratification of the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery in the United States.​

​

Black codes were strict local and state laws that detailed when, where and how formerly enslaved people could work, and for how much compensation. The codes appeared throughout the South as a legal way to put Black citizens into indentured servitude, to take voting rights away, to control where they lived and how they traveled and to seize children for labor purposes.​

​

The legal system was stacked against Black citizens, with former Confederate soldiers working as police and judges, making it difficult for African Americans to win court cases and ensuring they were subject to Black codes.​

​

These codes worked in conjunction with labor camps for the incarcerated, where prisoners were treated as enslaved people. Black offenders typically received longer sentences than their white equals, and because of the grueling work, often did not live out their entire sentence.​

Jim Crow Laws​

Blah, blah, blah. You’re still going back to distant generations. Blacks have been favored since the 1970s, via admissions preferences.

You still don’t get it. You have to resort to talking about how blacks had such a bad start generations ago and that explains their high poverty rate NOW, decades later. Your argument falls apart when other persecuted minorities, also with a bad start, moved ahead in ONE generation.

You keep ignoring my question: If historic racism explains why some blacks are still poor, then how do you explain that the majority are not? I’m pretty sure that the black kids I went to college with 40 years ago are part of the upper-middle class by now. I’m sure their children are as well.

 

[Lisa558]

Blacks have been given preferential treatment in college admissions for decades. I believe this issue has been settled for a long time. No need to debate it.

You don’t think it should be debated whether to continue the preferential treatment - and devising ridiculous personality tests (Harvard) and whatnot as a justification for admitting significantly less qualified blacks over much more qualified whites? There’s a case pending before the SCOTUS, and we may finally have come to a point where we can abolish these racist policies.

 

[Lisa558]

Why are you so defensive all of a sudden?

Are you kidding? People get defensive when they are unfairly called racist and other nasty things. I believe your latest was to call me evil.

Why are you getting so nasty all of a sudden? Could it be because all your points are proving false?

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Blacks have been given preferential treatment in college admissions for decades. I believe this issue has been settled for a long time. No need to debate it.

Correct, it has been used for a long time which means it's not needed now and hasn't been for a while

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

The officers were always found to have been justified in their shooting/killings. UNTIL just a couple of years ago and that's only because of the phones everyone carries on them that captured video of the officers in the act of wrong doing.

The police ALWAYS got away with this crap.

That's not what it said in the Wiki link. What it said is they had to review the case repeatedly to see if charges were even appropriate. Again, innocent until proven guilty. What the video showed was the officer screaming at the subject repeatedly not to go near his gun. After several warnings, the officer fired in self-defense.

As a CCW holder in our state, we have strict instructions to keep your hands on top of the steering wheel until instructed otherwise when carrying a firearm so things like this don't happen. Nearly every single one of these police shootings have one thing in common: the black subject didn't listen to the orders of the police officers. A problem that has such a simple solution an 8 year old could solve.