You know another reality? Other countries didn't continue to terrorize their black populations with Jim Crow laws.
So you're saying black immigrants and their children show a greater rate of success in America vs. native black people because Jim Crow laws existed 61 years ago and Jim Crow laws never existed in other countries where black people might immigrate from?
As far as I'm concerned, you could put a white person and black person next to each, and both of them could put in equal effort toward success, yet social conditions are statistically more likely to prohibit the black person from achieving success than the white person. This has nothing to do with viewing blacks as not trying as hard or anything like that. I think many of them try just as hard, if not harder.
Why is it due to social conditions and not say, coming from a single mother household? I agree that there is a higher rate of failure with the black person, no matter how equal the effort, because cultures are not equal.
'Black teen from fatherless home, welfare reliant family history and told by all those around him/her that they can't succeed because "the man" has the game rigged against them vs. white teen from a traditional family structure, taught how to earn and manage money before they've even entered into a career' is most definitely a very unequal comparison.
However, as you can obviously tell from what I'm saying, I view the issue very differently. I repeat; it's an issue of culture, not an issue of systemic racism and a history of slavery/Jim Crow.
That's not to say that those two historical facts don't play some role, but where you're much more comfortable in ghostbusting, I'm interested in what can be proven.
The idea that slavery and Jim Crow is responsible for black people being unable to retrieve a free I.D. because it's too far away/they don't own a car is quite laughable and since no substantive argument or evidence has been provided to that end, I laugh rather comfortably.
Calling for more attention to structural issues handed down since slavery and Reconstruction-era, and disciplining blacks that happen to break the law, aren't mutually exclusive policies.
In other words, I do think that we should properly punish those who break the law, including blacks. But I also think we can maintain attention on what I perceive to be large-scale, complex issues that plague the criminal justice and legislative systems
Structural issues such as?
A level playing field is a fantasy, but it's a fantasy perpetrated by whites. It's the American Dream, the ideology of Horatio Alger narratives - that anyone, regardless of race or skin color or religion, can achieve anything in America if they work hard enough. I'm saying that when you make an argument suggesting that blacks have as fair a chance now because slavery doesn't exist anymore, that's a bullshit claim.
And if they don't have as fair a chance... then what are we arguing about?
It's ironic that you intellectualise and thoroughly dissect concepts like basic human rights, yet you're fine with equally contentious and flimsy concepts like fairness. What is fairness in this context? If fairness for you is equality of outcome among the various demographics, then I'm quite sure this feels like a pointless tangent to you.
When I say fairness, I'm not saying that since there are no more Jim Crow laws and you're no longer slaves, it's now easy. Go and be successful. I'm saying you now have equality of opportunity and you are fir all intents and purposes the architect of your own destiny, that doesn't mean it's easy.
But people only improve their lot in any long-lasting way that can then be passed down culturally to their children by doing it themselves. The rate of literacy in the black American community post-emancipation is just proof of this.
Now, I agree, a level playing field is a fantasy perpetrated by whites. Whites like yourself to be specific.
There is no such thing, some players are taller, stronger, highly intelligent, brave, physically more attractive. This is why I prefer to promote hard work over artificially leveling the playing field to benefit one group. Equality under the law = equality of opportunity.
The way I define fairness in this context is opportunity, black people have more opportunity today than they ever had in America, yet and I repeat, the further you go back, the less opportunity there was, yet the culture was much better off in many ways.
That's not to say that I think black people should return to any era and start imitating oppression, but rather that this debate is going entirely in the wrong direction and should instead dissect the culture of today and yesterday.
Black men lost work, while black women were able to transition into the early-20thc workplace. For black men, this was an emasculation, and they took out their frustration on their wives/families - hence you have the beginning of the disintegration of the black family structure.
This seems like a stretch, you're saying an unknown increase in domestic violence marks the beginning of the disintegration of the black family structure? Not a combination of The Great Society's 'man in the house' policies and no-fault divorce laws?
Why didn't that same economic phenomenon also mark the disintegration of the white family structure?
Sure you do - ethical action doesn't need to appeal to the fantasy of individual rights.
And yes, rights are political constructs. They don't magically exist inside people, they emerge historically as a part of social bonding and participation. A human has no rights in the wilderness.
Again, you can't ask for proof - unless I can ask you to prove to me that rights exist.
Happy to take that task on. Nice attempt at delegitimatising my comment with the use of the word "magic" by the way.
If you truly stand by your view that fundamental human rights are not innate and a human has no rights in the wilderness, by what justification does a human retaliate against thievery?
You hunt, you catch a fish, I come to you and take it, by what reasoning do you justify attacking me and retrieving your catch? Nobody has constructed property rights for you or rights to food, so I guess you would just let me take what you worked hard to obtain?
How can it hurt to consider the impact of complex, deep-seated historical structures that are less than one hundred years old? It's irresponsible to think they no longer have any consequences.
I don't think anybody would say that history has no lasting impact on the present, it obviously does. The problem for your "side" is, beyond acknowledging this and marking it down, what is the point? Are you saying that, because America has a rather recent history of oppression, black people can never be held to a standard that everybody else is held to?
I mean really, what is the actual point? If I were a black American I would be rather insulted if someone excused me from having an I.D. because my country's history is shitty.
If black people never have to improve their position in life (for their own benefit mind you rather than to be an example of feel-good black progress that we can all clap for, nothing wrong with self-interest/greed) because there are people like yourself who are happy to hold them to a lower standard, nothing will ever get better.
Oh, it's racist to require an I.D. to vote because black people are still experiencing the negative effects of slavery and Jim Crow, lower the standard, that will help them in the long run. Honestly it's the same old racism of low expectations that I see here in Australia with us indigenous people.
You're obsessed with diagnosing a problem but when it comes to treating it, you have nothing.
