Tell that to minorities born into poverty and violence in destitute regions of inner cities.
The "What Are You Doing This Moment" Thread
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Tell that to minorities born into poverty and violence in destitute regions of inner cities.
Einherjar86
Active Member
This sounds very similar to something along the lines of: "There's nothing wrong with taking something from someone. That's merely how it is."
Which doesn't strike me as something you'd say.
crimsonfloyd
Active Member
Basically. Less access to healthy food, less access to educational resources, lower quality of education, less access to safe parks and recs (and therefore less opportunities for a healthy lifestyle), but yeah, let's ignore all that go with the cliche that anyone can "achieve their goals if they try hard."
Let's ignore the fact that other people are born with a silver spoon in their mouth and don't have to try hard at all and are still basically guaranteed a college education, while others can work their butt off and still miss out. I don't know if Zero is just taking an education class for fun or if he's planning to go into education, but if it's the later it's his professional responsibility to start taking these issues more seriously.
Who ever said they were collectives? Seems like he's fighting a ghost.
Vimana
Member
- Mar 2, 2007
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That was just my guess, because when people talk about the disadvantage of minorities, they treat the situation as if white people are a conspiring collective hell-bent on keeping black people down, rather than past racism creating current problems for a group that was once systematically oppressed.
crimsonfloyd
Active Member
As someone who works around these sorts of issues of inequality and actually reads the research regarding these issues I can honestly say I never hear anyone present these issues in such black and white terms. Perhaps some people talk this way during bar-room banter or on shock-value news shows, but I don't hear that sort of extremism among the scholars, professionals and activists that actually work on these issues.
But it's always easier to attack the rare extremist then it is to confront the well grounded, research-based findings that demonstrate institutional inequality, so I get if people would prefer to pretend that that's where the issue lies.
zerostatic
Damned in Flames
For the last decade I have worked at a low-income middle school in a dangerous/ghetto area of Las Vegas.
I have seen racial fights/riots between Mexicans and Blacks. I have seen students(90% receive a free lunch at my school) go fucking wild and throw the food provided to them by the school at each other and all over the cafeteria.
I have also seen students fresh off the boat from Cuba enter the school speaking no English and by the end of the year they are out performing their classmates. I've even had a student from Korea translate all of her assignments into Korean, complete them, and then translate it back to English so she could turn it in for a grade.
I understand that opportunities aren't equal or fair. Life isn't fair. I still have high expectations and standards for all the students. I guess I don't get it.
Fuck it, I need to make sure my bed sheets are clean for the next cross burning.
I have seen racial fights/riots between Mexicans and Blacks. I have seen students(90% receive a free lunch at my school) go fucking wild and throw the food provided to them by the school at each other and all over the cafeteria.
I have also seen students fresh off the boat from Cuba enter the school speaking no English and by the end of the year they are out performing their classmates. I've even had a student from Korea translate all of her assignments into Korean, complete them, and then translate it back to English so she could turn it in for a grade.
I understand that opportunities aren't equal or fair. Life isn't fair. I still have high expectations and standards for all the students. I guess I don't get it.
Fuck it, I need to make sure my bed sheets are clean for the next cross burning.
Krigloch the Furious
Pants full of poo
Vimana
Member
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I saw something somewhat similar in high school. There were Korean students, most of them immigrants, who lived in the less nice areas of my town. I didn't exactly interview them, but it seemed like their parents were working all the time since they seemed to have a lot more freedom than anyone else outside of their schoolwork, and because affording an apartment in my area and raising children requires working an insane amount. The point is, they weren't living easy. Their parents put tons of pressure on them, probably because they worked their asses off to live in this country they (in most cases) don't even speak the language of, and because hard work, a good education, and ending up in a good profession are big in Korean culture. In my freshman English class, one girl even cried because she was stressed from midterms.
Then there were some African American students who were from the same conditions or better who just fucked around. It wasn't all of them, but there were a sizable crowd the school could identify. My friends and I called them the "oil spill" because between every single class they'd stand in a particular formation in the middle of a three-way intersection between the main areas of the school and they'd always be there before anyone else. In the classes I had with them, they were loud, disruptive, obnoxious, didn't do any work, and got shitty grades. Often times they were on an IEP, which is supposed to make everything easier.
I definitely think shit like "why can't they just make their lives better?" when talking about people in horrible social conditions shows a huge misunderstanding of how exactly a person develops. People can't just will away being socialized in a hostile environment with little education when they have little to no understanding of any other type of life. But people do have some degree of control, and damage to a group can't be repaired without the damaged group making an effort, too. (Seriously, what are we supposed to do, blast them with beams that erase the trauma of living in a violent, impoverished environment and inject them with an education and the values of a different society?) Just look at people like Frederick Douglass and other civil rights activists who seized whatever opportunity they took to get educated and better themselves and ran with it, almost as a "fuck you" to a system that tried to oppress them. I guess I have a lot more respect for those people than the African Americans I went to high school with, because those people went through a lot to grant the right to an education to their people, and then I see the people they were fighting for calling the teacher racist for calling them out for disrupting a class for months on end.
TL;DR: People are not completely controlled by their environments, but they're also not 100% able to defy them, either. It's understandable when people from a shitty environment act shitty, but it's a problem when they still act shitty when people are putting forth effort to help them create better lives for themselves. I don't think everyone can work themselves out of everything, but I think they should try.
Dak
mentat
Exactly. The bottom line is that the system is in fact bent over backwards at this point to help any disadvantaged non-white-male who gives the least little bit of a damn - and yet this hasn't seemed to help the problem much(which is not surprising to me at all - a mostly economic prediction).
Zephyrus
Tyrants and Slaves
Back in Maine for the Thanksgiving vacation week. Writing a term paper in the library of my undergrad alma mater.
Funerary_Doom
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
My moms job title got eliminated. She works for chase and chase is in a huge debt (a couple billion dollars) and so that decided to cut her job title and lay a bunch of people off. She got an offer to stay under a different title, but hopefully that offer still stands when shit hits the fan.
In other words I got the job at AHRC and go in on Tuesday to give in my documents and to get finger printed. Yay to health benefits
In other words I got the job at AHRC and go in on Tuesday to give in my documents and to get finger printed. Yay to health benefits
Krigloch the Furious
Pants full of poo
Krow
Garbage Connoisseur
Not sure if its this way in other states but today is the first day of deer season and in wv, if you want that day off, you get it. There's like four of us at work today. It was 14 degress this morning. Fuck hunting in that.
damnromulans
Klingons do not faint
My moms job title got eliminated. She works for chase and chase is in a huge debt (a couple billion dollars) and so that decided to cut her job title and lay a bunch of people off. She got an offer to stay under a different title, but hopefully that offer still stands when shit hits the fan.
In other words I got the job at AHRC and go in on Tuesday to give in my documents and to get finger printed. Yay to health benefits
Woot woot for you. Hope things work out for your mom too. Meanwhile I'm sure all the higherups are getting raises!
Master_Yoda77
Juggalo
Funerary_Doom
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Thanks Laura! Am super excited! I hope so too, she's kinda old and should retire but she has a hard time staying home. And of course the ones responsible for the poor financial choices are the ones getting the raises! 'Murica.
Eligos
Problem Yet to be Solved
Applied for some jobs and unemployment. My sister has the 3DS today, so instead of playing Pokemon Y I'm heading over to the new girl's house to watch Game of Thrones and hammer out our new rating system for the nudies.
Then going to see the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Special in 3D with a gaggle of mates. It's gonna be a good day, Tater.
Then going to see the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Special in 3D with a gaggle of mates. It's gonna be a good day, Tater.
