I'm going to take one stab at this and be done with it.
Mathiäs;8442709 said:
I do not believe, though, that this situation was racially motivated; therefore, your point is irrelevant in this instance, regardless of how right you are.
My point has nothing to do with "this instance" except for the fact that it's one trivial example, and not even a good one at that, so obviously it's "irrelevant in this instance," but which is more important? This Gates shit shouldn't have even been news.
That's weird, I could have swore we were talking about some chick who called the cops because she thought some Mexican was breaking into a house only to have some black guy go ballistic on some cops just doing their job. Boy do I ever feel like an idiot. Thanks for clarifying.
Why do you bother responding to threads like these when you never have anything to add? Stick to sports threads.
so its ok for a black man to lose control in front of authority figures because of our country's history? regaurdless of the situation?
I'm afraid to ask how you got this out of what I said, so I won't, but it's utterly ridiculous.
his culture? he is a well paid professor. i imagine he lives a pretty comfy lifestyle.
That's such a disingenuous way to approach such a complex issue. There is a general African American culture to which many adhere (in fact, probably most, especially in older generations) in which there is an underlying suspicion of white people stemming from a long standing history of prejudice that still continues today. This is not about one's individual environment. And Gates wasn't born in Harvard, you know.
atleast you admit they encourage this victim lifestyle. young black kids are often raised to think they arent going to make it, largely by their parents. in this day and age, how is that whitey's fault? its the parents fault.
I never even remotely began to imply that everything is "whitey's fault," so your assumption that I was is telling. Yes, there is a certain "victim culture," but you're painting with far too broad a stroke here. It is a minority that actually takes advantage of the "race card" in an intentional way. For the majority, they would much prefer that they did not feel compelled to view themselves as more susceptible to victimization, but their feeling of necessity persists because they continue to see racism and racial discrimination. The cultural issue is extremely complex and multifaceted and in no way can be simplified. In order to change the culture, the circumstances must be changed from both within and without, because both continue to perpetuate one another. Black victimization perpetuates the feeling in blacks that they are unfair targets of victimization, and this feeling helps to perpetuate their victimization, so both sides of the issue need to be attacked at the same time.
these feelings certainly arent justified though. the victim culture is easy to cling to, how bout they try and turn their life around. obviously gates did. the fact is, americans (not just blacks) are lazy. they dont want to try to rise above poverty and do something with their life.
They're not justified? You mean minorities don't get disproportionately discriminated against? You mean blacks in the same situation as whites don't have a higher hill to climb because of their race more often than not? Racial prejudice persists, unfair treatment persists, so it's not all in their heads. Of course not everything they do is justified, but their heightened caution and suspicion is understandable.
Obviously taking advantage of the "victim" ideology is not justified, and I never implied that it was, so it would be better if you didn't try to make that argument, because you're not disagreeing with me. The only thing on that issue that we disagree with is the fact that you talk about it like every black person in America does it, which is ridiculous. But regardless, we agree that it's part of the problem that needs to be addressed.
The things you say are mostly true, but those are merely reasons/excuses for irrational behavior, not justification. Using those things for justification only perpetuates the situation. Sadly too many people don't understand this.
You have to be careful with your wording here. Taking the Gates example, assuming that he
genuinely felt that he was being racially profiled (REGARDLESS of whether or not he actually was), how justified or unjustified were his ensuing actions? Certainly not entirely so, but I think that it's reasonable to allow for a heightened sense of outrage and passion for one who feels he's being wrongly targeted by an authority figure, especially if one feels that one is being wrongly targeted because of his race, given its historical pedigree.
You are in large part right, though. What my previous post was doing was explaining the reasons for why some blacks feel the way that they do. I wasn't directly justifying irrational behavior and I wasn't trying to. I've already addressed above the need to tackle the issue both from without and within. I was merely making the argument for the reasonable suspicion that many blacks have. I was not saying that it's justifiable for them to use that to their advantage in any way or that they can act out against it in any way or in any situation.
This arguement has been done multiple times, and neither side is going to agree. Of course there is prejudice, of course a lower income person has it harder, etc. etc. These are not excuses for doing nothing though. And making excuses for people who have decided that it's easier to play the victim than to do something about it is NOT helping them, it is only insuring that they stay "victims".
To be more blunt, people with your attitude DODENS, are making the situation worse, not better.
Allow me to be blunt as well by saying that you're completely misattributing to me arguments that I never made, relying on basic assumptions about my beliefs that are not true. I don't believe that capitalizing on victimhood is any more justifiable than you do, and frankly, I would guess that most black people feel that way too. Whether or not they work toward "making something of themselves," however, is not the ultimate barometer for determining whether or not they're taking advantage of victimhood, however, which I hope is not what you're implying. How many blacks do you really feel "do nothing," and how many of these "do nothing" blacks do you think are actually prospering from victimhood? They're still living in poverty and a poisonous culture. If I may blunt again, and also admit that this is an assumption, it seems to me that, from my perspective, your priorities are backward. You seem to be more concerned with a small minority taking advantage of the "victim culture" than you are with the small minority who victimize. I think the larger, more significant, more important, more problematic issue here is that there are people being victimized, not that there are people taking advantage of a culture of victimization. This goes back to welfare programs. You're more concerned with people taking advantage of the system than you are with helping the majority who actually need and don't radically abuse the system. I would rather have less victimization and more people receiving welfare programs that they need and more people taking advantage of victim culture and welfare programs than simply ignoring the issues of unfair victimization and economic disparity, and that's evidently where we differ. It would be nice if we could argue about this in a more civil manner, however, and not demonize the opposition, from now on.
