We recently discussed the case of Saida Grundy, an incoming assistant professor of sociology and African-American studies at Boston University who released a series of tweets denounced by many as racist and sexist, including calling white males the main problem on college campuses and admitting how she tries not to buy anything from white people. While many called for Grundy to be fired, some of us defended her racist and sexist comments as an exercise of free speech done outside of her teaching responsibilities. However at the time, I noted “a series of tweets denounced by many as racist and sexist. “White masculinity isn’t a problem for america’s colleges, white masculinity is THE problem for america’s colleges.” Now we have such a case and it does appear to confirm some of our concerns that the same standard is not applied to those with opposing views. Duke University professor Jerry Hough has reportedly been placed on leave after posting comments online that were also denounced as racist. While Grundy was allowed to apologize for “indelicate” comments about whites, Hough is facing calls for termination and has reportedly been put on leave. [UPDATE: there are some stories indicating that Hough may have been on academic leave rather than “put on” academic leave. It is not clear from various reports.]
Hough was commenting on a New York Times editorial titled “How Racism Doomed Baltimore” and included an observation that Asian Americans don’t riot because “they didn’t feel sorry for themselves, but worked doubly hard.” He also wrote that “every black has a strange new name that symbolizes their lack of desire for integration” compared to “every Asian student [who] has a very simple old American first name.” Just as with Grundy’s comments, it is not necessary to debate the merits of such comments. What is at issue is the right to voice such views outside of the classroom and off campus as a matter of free speech. As with Grundy, these views may also be part of Hough’s academic views as political science teacher. His bio states that “his current research centers on the establishment of the state, identity, markets, and democracy in the United States.”
He later defended his comments and said that “Martin Luther King was my hero” and insisting he is “strongly against the toleration of racial discrimination.”
Duke Vice President for Public Affairs and Government Affairs Michael Schoenfeld released a statement quickly that said that “The comments were noxious, offensive, and have no place in civil discourse.” Boston University was right to treat Grundy’s comments as an exercise of free speech. If Hough has been put on leave, Duke has positioned itself on the other side of the free speech divide and has decided that it will now impose disciplinary action for academics who espouse offensive or obnoxious views outside of the class room. The problem is a lack of a standard that explains where this line. It is not simply a question of what speech will be considered permissible outside of the classroom but how the school will limit principles of academic freedom and free expression under such a standard in both academic writings and classrooms. It is a dangerous and slippery slope. The greatest problem is that the uncertain standard creates a chilling effect on academics, particularly untenured academics in what views will be tolerated. In the academic world, such uncertainty can be devastating and strikes at the very heart of the academic mission.
Here are Hough’s full original comments:
“This editorial is what is wrong. The Democrats are an alliance of Westchester and Harlem, of Montgomery County and intercity Baltimore. Westchester and Montgomery get a Citigroup asset stimulus policy that triples the market. The blacks get a decline in wages after inflation.
But the blacks get symbolic recognition in an utterly incompetent mayor who handled this so badly from beginning to end that her resignation would be demanded if she were white. The blacks get awful editorials like this that tell them to feel sorry for themselves.
In 1965 the Asians were discriminated against as least as badly as blacks. That was reflected in the word “colored.” The racism against what even Eleanor Roosevelt called the yellow races was at least as bad.
So where are the editorials that say racism doomed the Asian-Americans. They didn’t feel sorry for themselves, but worked doubly hard.
I am a professor at Duke University. Every Asian student has a very simple old American first name that symbolizes their desire for integration. Virtually every black has a strange new name that symbolizes their lack of desire for integration. The amount of Asian-white dating is enormous and so surely will be the intermarriage. Black-white dating is almost non-existent because of the ostracism by blacks of anyone who dates a white.
It was appropriate that a Chinese design won the competition for the Martin Luther King state. King helped them overcome. The blacks followed Malcolm X.”
Po … impressive list of citations. However, I am puzzled by your obsession (from my viewpoint) with the past. What is more important, recriminations or positive steps to make for a better future? We do know right from wrong and we can, really we can, move forward from there. But it requires we resolve to do so, on all sides. I am saddened by the realization that we are not likely to do so while I am still alive. However some day, when it dawns upon all involved, that we can be far better off when we do. The race hustle of today is political and will never resolve a single issue.
David
Your comment about Malcom X says much about your subjective grasp of history and your bias against blacks…and also your defensive stance.
Malcom spoke of his and his fellow black people’s experience with the police, an experience that is both documented and irrefutable. What does it have to do with you? Why do you feel the need to undermine his experience by making it about race?
Are you saying that Malcom’s claims were wrong?
Also…
Why is it so important for you that white people also have been abused by cops?
Why is it so important to you that his claim be wrong?
Po – you know that Malcolm X was a pimp. They usually do not have good relationships with law enforcement.
Po, my comment was only about the video you posted with the Malcolm X overlay. I do not disrespect his experience. I agree with some of the opinions of Malcolm X.
David
To ask me for that one definitive study that supports that ” Documented studies show a direct causal link between the current social and economic state of the black community with the 400 plus years of enslavement, oppression and discrimination” is akin to my asking you for the one definitive study that disproves it. Whether Coates piece or Rothshield’s, both develop a narrative based on studies and documents that support what they say.
In case you forgot, that is how things work in the intellectual realm, you make your case based on available sources. In other words, you thread lines between events, tying them together to derive a conclusion. Both authors did just that. To frame their articles as mere opinion pieces is to say that Einstein’s theories are mere opinion pieces.
And really, will you refuse a learned article based on clear sources in favor of anecdotal conclusions based on subjective interactions you have had? As if those cases define the whole of the black experience? Are you saying that Jamal is right to think white racists because of the interaction he had with 3 whites who were racists?
Who says that no black men are dumb, and that none is directly responsible for their own ill fates? That’s not the point. Ultimately everyone is responsible for their actions. The difference between most black americans and most white americans is that one group has never felt the weight of their skin, and the legacy of physical,economic and psychological scars. To tell them how to be within their skin and the reduced options attached to it is akin to Lebron James (6′-9″) wondering why Mugsy Boggs (5′-3″) didn’t just dunk the ball over Manute Bol (7′-6″) rather than making a layup.
Are you denying that black americans lost their freedom, their lives, their means of living and properties at the hand of individuals and authorities who abused their power and privilege based on the whiteness of their skin?
What can you tell Clyde Ross that would counter what he lived through? The insecurity of being told from birth that he is less than, and therefore he could not own, and he could not stand up for his rights to hold on to his property? The insecurity of seeing first hand what happens to blacks who stand up for themselves? Who saw the noose and the hanging body? Who could not look the white man in the eyes? Who had to step off the sidewalk lest he be dragged in the streets? The same things we say to raped women, you shoulda fought it off? Again, blaming the victim/ white privilege.
And Rothstein offers this long list of sources for his “opinion piece”.
2. Wright 2000, 39, 128; Wright 2005, 115–117; Wright 2014; Gordon 2008, 146. Suburban Avenue was the blocked-off thoroughfare. The smaller Carson Road remained open. The barricade on Suburban Avenue was removed in April 1968 after a demonstration by Kinloch residents in the wake of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. USCCR 1970, 610. “Sundown towns” were once commonplace across the entire United States. They are described in Loewen 2005, with more detail online at Loewen online web project.
3. Wright 2000; Wright 2014; Loewen 2005, 349.
4. Data, from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, are for zip codes 63101, 63103, 63104, 63108, 63110, and 63112. Whites are now a majority in 63108 and 63110.
5. USCCR 1970, 301–314.
6. USCCR 1970, 306.
7. Apuzzo 2014.
8. New York Times Editorial Board 2014; Vega and Eligon 2014.
9. United States v. City of Black Jack, Missouri, 1186 (#7); Liddell v. Bd. of Ed. of City of St. Louis, Mo., 354 (#12d); Orfield 1981, 3–4, 9, 14.
10. Heathcott 2005, 708.
11. Heathcott 2005, 714–716; Gordon 2008, 70–71; Buchanan v. Warley.
12. Flint 1977, 49–50, 93, 103, 114, 119, 207, 345–347, 352–353, 355; Gordon 2008, 122–124.
13. Flint 1977, 355–357, 394; Gordon 2008, 125–128.
14. Gordon 2008, 134, 137–138, 144–145.
15. Gordon 2008, 146–147.
16. Gordon 2008, 147.
17. Hirsch 1983, 14; Hirsch 2000, 209; Radford 1996, 89–91; Burns 1970, 466; Heathcott 2005, 712.
18. Radford 1996, 93, 97; Heathcott 2011, 87–88. Two of the whites-only limited dividend projects were in New York City (one in the Bronx and the other in Queens). The other four (in addition to Neighborhood Gardens in St. Louis) were in central Virginia (near Roanoke); Euclid, Ohio (near Cleveland); Philadelphia; and Raleigh, North Carolina.
19. Heathcott 2011, 89–90, 94.
20. Heathcott 2008, 222, 224.
21. Heathcott 2011, 89–90; Davis v. St. Louis Housing Authority, 354–355.
22. Davies 1966, 108; Julian and Daniel 1989, 668–669.
23. Heathcott 2011, 89–90; Davis v. St. Louis Housing Authority, 354–355.
24. Heathcott 2011, 99.
25. Davis v. St. Louis Housing Authority, 355.
26. Orfield 1981, 37–38; Gordon 2008, 99.
27. Gordon 2008, 12, 176.
28. Tobin 1982, 20.
29. Gordon 2008, 71, 75, 79; Gordon online web project, Documents, doc1.
30. Flint 1977, 352–353.
31. Bob Jones University v. United States, 586.
32. Coleman 1982, 67, citing Treas. Reg. § 1.501(c)(3)-1(d)(2).
33. In 1968, the U.S. Supreme Court in Jones v. Mayer affirmed that the 1866 Civil Rights Acts had properly enforced the 13th Amendment by prohibiting discrimination in private housing sales. However, the Civil Rights Acts did not provide an enforcement mechanism for this prohibition, so the only recourse for African Americans claiming private discrimination was an individual civil lawsuit. The Fair Housing Act, passed by Congress also in 1968, provided for limited enforcement of a ban on racial discrimination in the private housing market.
34. Shelley v. Kraemer.
35. Cote Brilliante Presbyterian Church n.d.; Gordon 2008, 79; Wright 2002, 77; Long and Johnson 1947, 82. The earlier case (1942) arose from the attempt of African American attorney Scovel Richardson to purchase a home in the neighborhood. Fifteen years later, Richardson was one of the first African Americans appointed to the federal judiciary.
36. FHA 1934.
37. Clark 1938, 111–112; Jackson 1985, 238.
38. Jackson 1985, 207–208, 238; Radford 1996, 193–194; Weiss 1987, 145–147, 152–154, 156.
39. Weiss 1987, 154.
40. FHA 1947.
41. USCCR 1959, 463–465.
42. Tobin 1982, 55–56, 103.
43. Home Builders 1952, 18, 19, 27, 28.
44. Sexauer 2003, 180, 199, 211, 215, 226–228, 232.
45. Home Builders 1952, 39.
46. U.S. Census Bureau Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement.
47. Mishel et al. 2012, Tables 2.5, 6.5.
48. Gordon 2008, 22.
49. Gordon 2008, 86.
50. Sexauer 2003, 220–221.
51. Heathcott 2005, 716.
52. USCCR 1961, 135–136; State ex rel. City of Creve Coeur v. Weinstein; Sexauer 2003, 215–216.
53. Gordon 2008, 213; Gordon 2014.
54. Rosenthal 1971a; Rosenthal 1971b.
55. United States v. City of Black Jack (quotations at 1185 [n. 3], 1186 [#7]).
56. Herbers 1970; Ayres 1971; Gordon 2008, 147–150; Park View Heights Corporation v. City of Black Jack.
57. Orfield 1981, 85.
58. Judd 1997, 235–236; Gordon 2008, 43.
59. Judd 1997, 236.
60. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development increased its requirement to 24 units if the greater number were needed for relocation of former Elmwood Park residents. However, because most residents had moved away to other black communities when their homes were demolished, the additional requirement of 14 units was not implemented. USCCR 1970, 392–393, 564–565.
61. Dubrow 1975, 254–264; USCCR 1970, 384–410.
62. Gordon 2008, 212; USCCR 1970, 569–570.
63. Orfield 1981, 50; Gordon 2008, chapters 4–5.
64. Smith 1995; Sweets 1997.
65. Allen 2011.
66. Orfield 1981, 50; Gordon 2008, 25, 168.
67. Orfield 1981, 63; Gordon 2008, 100.
68. USCCR 1970, 576–579.
69. Glassberg 1972; Hayes 1969, 691. Literature on blockbusting in Chicago contains the most graphic descriptions of these tactics. See, for example, McPherson 1972, Seligman 2001, and especially Satter 2009, 111–116.
70. Gross 1995.
71. Hayes 1969; Jerome L. Howe et al. v. City of St. Louis.
72. Hayes 1969, 687–688, 709, 714.
73. Orfield 1981, 87; Sorkin 2011.
74. McEntire 1960, 244; Gordon 2008, 84; Heathcott 2005, 717.
75. Gordon 2008, 83.
76. Weaver 1948, 1967, 216–217; Sugrue 1993, 112; Gordon 2008, 84.
77. McEntire 1960, 242–243, 246; Mohl 1997, 65; Glassberg 1972, 146 (n.3)
78. Gordon 2008, 86.
79. Gordon 2008, 87.
80. USCCR 1970, 202.
81. Sexauer 2003, 219–220.
82. USCCR 1970, 51–53.
83. USCCR 1970, 203–204.
84. USCCR 1970, 51, 63, 112, 656; Gordon 2008, 87.
85. Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co.
86. Gordon 208, 103. In view of the overcrowded conditions in which African Americans were forced to live as a result of their exclusion from most neighborhoods, blockbusting played the positive function of rapidly expanding the space available for black occupancy. If African Americans were to be segregated into ghettos, they would be better off in larger than in smaller ghettos.
87. Tobin 1982, 58–59; Gordon 2008, 111.
88. The Bank of St. Louis’s settlement agreement with the federal government contains a clause stating that the Bank does not admit that it has violated the law. Sullivan 2010; HUD 2010; Risch 2013.
89. Whelan et al. 1997, 198.
90. Two years later in December 1944, shortly before the war ended, production lines at the plant were integrated. O’Neil 2010.
91. USCCR 1970, 471.
92. USCCR 1970, 33, 78–81.
93. Gordon 2008, 35.
94. See note 9 above, referring to the discussion of the federal judge’s order in the St. Louis school desegregation case.
95. Rothstein 2012.
96. Goldstein 2014.
97. Massey et al. 2013.
References
Note: Colin Gordon’s Mapping Decline: St. Louis and the Fate of the American City (2008) is a comprehensive summary of many of the incidents described in this report. In many cases, the endnotes in this report cite Gordon 2008 as confirmation of evidence provided in other sources. Nonspecialist readers seeking further discussion than this report can provide should consult Gordon 2008 and Gordon’s “Mapping Decline” online web companions to the book, listed below.
Allen, Michael R. 2011. “A Brief History of the Kosciusko Urban Renewal Area.” Preservation Research Office, June 19.
Apuzzo, Matt. 2014. “Federal Inquiry of Ferguson Police Will Include Apparent Racial Profiling.” The New York Times, September 5.
Ayres, R. Drummond, Jr. 1971. “Bulldozers Turn Up Soil and Ill Will in a Suburb of St. Louis.” The New York Times, January 18.
Bob Jones University v. United States. U.S. Supreme Court 461 U.S. 574 (1983).
Buchanan v. Warley, 245 U.S. 60 (1917).
Burns, James MacGregor. 1970. Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom, 1940-1945. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc.
Clark, Charles D. 1938. “Federal Housing Administration Standards for Land Subdivision.” Journal of the American Institute of Planners 4 (5): 109–112.
Coleman, William T., Jr. 1982. Brief of Amicus Curiae in Bob Jones University v. United States, U.S. Supreme Court 461 U.S. 574, August 25.
Cote Brilliante Presbyterian Church. n.d. “Our History.”
Davies, Richard O. 1966. Housing Reform During the Truman Administration. Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press.
Davis v. St. Louis Housing Authority, Civ. No. 8637 (U.S. District Court, E.D., Missouri, 1955). Reported in Race Relations Law Reporter 1 (1956), 353–355.
Dubrow, Illene. 1975. “Municipal Antagonism or Benign Neglect: Racial Motivations in Municipal Annexations in St. Louis County, Missouri.” Journal of Urban Law 53: 245–277.
FHA (Federal Housing Administration). 1934. Underwriting Manual. Underwriting and Valuation Procedure Under Title II of the National Housing Act. (Excerpts in Richard C. Stearns, n.d., “Memorandum. Racial Content of FHA Underwriting Practices, 1934–1962.”)
FHA (Federal Housing Administration). 1947. Underwriting Manual: Underwriting Analysis Under Title II, Section 203 of the National Housing Act. (Excerpts in Richard C. Stearns, n.d., “Memorandum. Racial Content of FHA Underwriting Practices, 1934–1962.”)
Flint, Barbara J. 1977. Zoning and Residential Segregation: A Social and Physical History, 1910–1940. Dissertation, University of Chicago.
Glassberg, Susan Spiegel. 1972. “Legal Control of Blockbusting.” Urban Law Annual, Journal of Urban and Contemporary Law 1972: 145–170.
Goldstein, Matthew. 2014. “Another Shadow in Ferguson as Outside Firms Buy and Rent Out Distressed Homes.” The New York Times, September 3.
Gordon, Colin. 2008. Mapping Decline. St. Louis and the Fate of the American City. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Gordon, Colin. 2014. E-mail correspondence with author, September 22.
Gordon, Colin. n.d. “Mapping Decline. St. Louis and the American City” (online web project).
Gross, Thom. 1995. “Suspicions – No Proof – of ‘Blockbusting’ in Home Sales.” The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 4.
Hayes, Thomas B. 1969. “The Constitutionality of a Municipal Ordinance Prohibiting ‘For Sale,’ ‘Sold,’ or ‘Open’ Signs to Prevent Blockbusting.” Saint Louis University Law Journal 14 (1), Fall: 686–718.
Heathcott, Joseph. 2005. “Black Archipelago: Politics and Civic Life in the Jim Crow City.” Journal of Social History 38 (3), Spring: 705–736.
Heathcott, Joseph. 2008. “The City Quietly Remade: National Programs and Local Agendas in the Movement to Clear the Slums, 1942-1952.” Journal of Urban History 34 (2), January: 221–242.
Heathcott, Joseph. 2011. “‘In the Nature of a Clinic.’ The Design of Early Public Housing in St. Louis.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 70 (1), March: 82–103.
Herbers, John. 1970. “Housing: Challenge To ‘White Power’ In the Suburbs.” The New York Times, November 15.
Hirsch, Arnold R. 1983, 1998. Making the Second Ghetto: Race and Housing in Chicago, 1940-1960. University of Chicago Press.
Hirsch, Arnold R. 2000. “Choosing Segregation. Federal Housing Policy between Shelley and Brown.” In John F. Bauman, Roger Biles, and Kristin M. Szylvian, eds., From Tenements to the Taylor Homes: In Search of an Urban Housing Policy in Twentieth Century America. University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press; 206–225.
Home Builders (Home Builders Association of Greater St. Louis). 1952. The Bildors Book of Homes. ‘All New in 52’. Home Builders Association of Greater St. Louis.
HUD (U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development). 2010. “Conciliation Agreement between Metropolitan St. Louis Equal Housing Opportunity Council (Complainant) and First National Bank of St. Louis and Central Bancompany (Respondents), Approved by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development,” December 17.
Jackson, Kenneth T. 1985. Crabgrass Frontier. New York: Oxford University Press.
Jerome L. Howe et al. v. City of St. Louis. 512 S.W.2d 127 (Supreme Court of Missouri 1974).
Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co. U.S. Supreme Court 392 U.S. 409 (1968).
Judd, Dennis R. 1997. “The Role of Governmental Policies in Promoting Residential Segregation in the St. Louis Metropolitan Area.” The Journal of Negro Education 66 (3), Summer: 214–240.
Julian, Elizabeth K., and Michael M. Daniel. 1989. “Separate and Unequal – The Root and Branch of Public Housing Segregation.” Clearinghouse Review 23: 666–676.
Liddell v. Bd. of Ed. of City of St. Louis, Mo. 491 F. Supp. 351 (U.S. District Court, E.D. Missouri 1980), Supplemental Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law.
Loewen, James W. 2005. Sundown Towns. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Loewen, James W. n.d. “Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism” (online web project).
Long, Herman H., and Charles S. Johnson. 1947. People vs. Property: Race Restrictive Covenants in Housing. Nashville: Fisk University Press.
Massey, Douglas S. et al. (Len Albright, Rebecca Casciano, Elizabeth Derickson, and David N. Kinsey). 2013. Climbing Mount Laurel:The Struggle for Affordable Housing and Social Mobility in an American Suburb. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
McEntire, Davis. 1960. Residence and Race: Final and Comprehensive Report to the Commission on Race and Housing. Berkeley: University of California Press.
McPherson, James Alan. 1972. “‘In My Father’s House There are Many Mansions – And I’m Going to Get Me Some of Them Too’: The Story of the Contract Buyers League.” Atlantic Monthly, April: 52–82.
Mishel, Lawrence, et al. (Josh Bivens, Elise Gould, and Heidi Shierholz). 2012. The State of Working America, 12th Edition.
Mohl, Raymond A. 1997. “The Second Ghetto and the ‘Infiltration Theory’ in Urban Real Estate, 1940-1960.” In June Manning Thomas and Marsha Ritzdorf, eds. Urban Planning and the African American Community: In the Shadows. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications, 58–74.
New York Times Editorial Board. 2014. “The Death of Michael Brown. Racial History Behind the Ferguson Protests.” The New York Times, August 13.
O’Neil, Tim. 2010. “A Look Back – St. Louis Factory Loaded America’s Weapons During World War II.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 27.
Orfield, Gary. 1981. “The Housing Issues in the St. Louis Case. A Report to Judge William L. Hungate, U.S. District Court, St. Louis Missouri,” April 21. Report to Judge in Liddell v. Board of Education, City of St. Louis.
Park View Heights Corporation v. City of Black Jack. 407 F. 2d 1208 (8th Cir. Court of Appeals 1972).
Radford, Gail. 1996. Modern Housing for America: Policy Struggles in the New Deal Era. University of Chicago Press.
Risch, Elisabeth. 2013. Fair Housing Equity Assessment. OneStL (The Metropolitan St. Louis Equal Housing and Opportunity Council). July.
Rosenthal, Jack. 1971a. “President Reaffirms Opposition to Forced Suburban Integration.” The New York Times, February 18.
Rosenthal, Jack. 1971b. “U.S. Sues Suburb on Housing Bias.” The New York Times, June 15.
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The idea that lest I show you the one DEFINITIVE study that proves all the points made, that such points are invalid is deceptive and dishonest.
Both of those authors
http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/blj/vol20/feagin.pdfhttp://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/blj/vol20/feagin.pdf
Po wrote: “To ask me for that one definitive study that supports that ” Documented studies show a direct causal link between the current social and economic state of the black community with the 400 plus years of enslavement, oppression and discrimination” is akin to my asking you for the one definitive study that disproves it.”
That would be easy enough. Read The Bell Curve, 1994, by Herrnstein and Murray.
Scientific racism is actually a modern invention. Most people forget that.
Po wrote: “In other words, you thread lines between events, tying them together to derive a conclusion. Both authors did just that. To frame their articles as mere opinion pieces is to say that Einstein’s theories are mere opinion pieces.”
LOL! This article is hardly at the level of Einstein’s theories in Physics. There is not a single mathematical equation. There are no predictions for testing it.
If you want to say it has a commonality to Einstein’s theories in the sense that it examines a wide range of data and provides a racist theory for understanding these data, fine. But that would contradict what you said originally that your statement was a fact.
Po wrote: “And really, will you refuse a learned article based on clear sources in favor of anecdotal conclusions based on subjective interactions you have had?”
I do not refuse the article. The article was interesting, but the opinion it expresses is weak. You claimed that it had something to do with your statement about a direct causal link over the last 400 years being fact. I couldn’t even find that mentioned at all anywhere in either the article or its sources. Why don’t you just admit that you made that up. Why don’t you just admit that it was your opinion and not fact.
Po wrote: “The difference between most black americans and most white americans is that one group has never felt the weight of their skin, and the legacy of physical,economic and psychological scars. To tell them how to be within their skin and the reduced options attached to it is akin to Lebron James (6′-9″) wondering why Mugsy Boggs (5′-3″) didn’t just dunk the ball over Manute Bol (7′-6″) rather than making a layup.”
I do not deny that there have been disadvantages to being black, especially in the past. I do not deny that many white men have been extremely racist, and that some white men today are very racist. But these kinds of disadvantages happen to everybody and for a wide variety of reasons. People have been discriminated against for religion, culture, physical disabilities, hair color, body odor, low IQ, high IQ, and many other factors. The best response to this is to suck it up and move on and find a way that works. Lots of black men do that. Look at Ben Carson. What a great success story. He would be a much better feature for the article than talking about the misfortunes of sharecropper Clyde because of evil white men.
Po wrote: “Are you denying that black americans lost their freedom, their lives, their means of living and properties at the hand of individuals and authorities who abused their power and privilege based on the whiteness of their skin?”
No, not denying that at all. But blacks are not the only ones who have suffered such disadvantages. The reaction of blacks to this discrimination is the problem. They have become racist by complaining about the white man. Not all white men treat blacks this way. The greatest proof of that is the election of Barack Obama. Sure, there are some white men that are racist and would never vote for Obama because of the color of his skin. But there are enough whites who are not racist, who did vote for him, and so he was elected. Why stereotype all whites as bad? That is the kind of racism that is destroying this country.
Po wrote: “Who saw the noose and the hanging body? Who could not look the white man in the eyes? Who had to step off the sidewalk lest he be dragged in the streets?”
When was the last time you saw this kind of behavior in America? You really think this is the America you live in, where the evil white man is hanging blacks from trees? You think that black men are not allowed to look in my eyes because I am white? You think a black man walking on the sidewalk has to get off the sidewalk if a white man is walking on it too? Really? I don’t think so.
So you post the slew of references again, thinking it proves your point, but it doesn’t. It is just a smokescreen tactic to make the less educated think you answered me. You don’t even weed out the scientific studies from the legal cases or other opinion pieces. Most of the references do not establish the statement that you claimed was fact. I don’t think there is even one that does. You claimed as factual an assertion which is not fact but rather an opinion. You want to substantiate that opinion, fine, but don’t claim that it is fact that is beyond discussion or disagreement.
forgotwhoiam said…
Oh, I’m sorry, Mr. Dog, the “journey” we call the United States of America was hijacked by the despotic, tyrannical dictator, Abraham Lincoln, in his “Reign of Terror.”
Except for your remark above, I’d would have been happy to talk about the points you raised. The remark above is distorted retrospection that I suspect many Americans reject. I certainly do. If you really read what I wrote you should have been able to see that. I admit to a bias based upon my great grand-father fighting in the Union Cavalry as a “terrorist” in your terms. I don’t claim we’ve been perfect or without error since our founding. I do insist we’ve made progress overcoming them, starting with the restriction of slavery expansion in the west and ending with elimination of slavery under what you called Lincoln’s “Reign of Terror.” Slavery was an evil that required exceptions be made to expunge…are you saying slavery was okay based upon your interpretation of the founding, or something that needed to be abolished? I doubt it, but if you can explain that more fully, I might engage on the other points. If not, there’s nothing for us to talk about. You look backwards, I look forward, and paid my price in doing so, both at home and in war. I doubt you got that from what I said; either you chose not to do so, or really don’t believe it, or perhaps only scanned what I wrote. I have no way of knowing.
On one point you were and are definitely correct: The USA was never intended to be a one man one vote democracy…it was intended to be a republic of states. It was in those states that one man one vote was intended, however the states wished to operate that idea. No one man one vote was ever intended on the federal level. Each state represented itself and over time each state has improved their operations, some fast some slow, some forced, based upon the idea of the right to vote in those states. The idea of a “Union” meant that states managed their own affairs so long as they complied with the overall constitutional mandates.
My outlook isn’t anchored to wrongs of the past but on the potential for a brighter future. I acknowledge the wrongs and am pleased when they have been ameliorated. I have almost always lived in a minority community, here and abroad, as an even smaller minority within those communities. Where I live now in my immediate neighborhood I may be inside of 2% of those living here. Frankly, everywhere I’ve gone with a positive outlook and ready smile I have been comfortable, and I still am. When I talk to my refugee neighbors they agree that America is a journey, which is why they came here.
Thank you, at least, for the response. We just disagree on the salient points. The 1st Amendment says it is okay to do so.
I wish you and yours to never find yourselves in their shoes! They are tight, painful…not unlike the boat’s belly crossing the Atlantic.
https://twitter.com/ShaunKing/status/600848746306371584
Speaking of Malcom X, I offer you this…
https://twitter.com/ShaunKing/status/600846907552870400/video/1
Po wrote: “Speaking of Malcom X, I offer you this…”
This is just more racist propaganda by Malcom X. What is stupid about this way of thinking is that it suggests that such police brutality does not happen to the white man. Far more white men have been mistreated in this fashion than black men. Check out the following video for one example where unprovoked, the LEO’s shoot and kill this homeless man:
http://jonathanturley.org/2014/04/02/new-mexico-police-under-fire-after-video-shows-officers-shooting-homeless-man-in-the-back/
David
Did you read the link I offered from Ta Hanesi Coates? Not only does he offer a great summary of the many findings i have been referring to, he also offers links to those aforementioned studies.
Perhaps you ought to read it first before asking for more studies from me.
I will keep an eye out for those studies I have read previously, and will share them as I come across them again. Time is a premium for me too.
Meanwhile, I have made various claims that can be easily substantiated with a little research on you part. Sounds to me that you go out of your way to downplay what blacks went through based on nothing more than your subjective reading of the situation, as exemplified by this quote of yours “My perspective is that if the blacks were not economically depressed in their communities, there would have been no problem including them in the incorporation.”
My point exactly, that there has been a structure of systematic socio-economic oppression that insured blacks would remain excluded.
At least we agree on that part.
Meanwhile, short of us being willing to establish a narrative that starts with 400 years of slavery and treks down to this era, you are creating a timeline that is arbitrary by nature, and therefore flawed, for it is willing to climb up the causal ladder only as far as you must in order to let your case stand.
The black experience did not start with “blacks were economically depressed”, that came much, much later down the line, recent history even. And if you are unable to see that, then the blinders of white privilege are indeed jutting out too far.
Po wrote: “Perhaps you ought to read it first before asking for more studies from me.”
I did NOT ask for more studies from you. I asked for ONE study. You claimed there were many studies that established your perspective as fact. I asked you to pick one, your best study. I am convinced now that there is not one. I spent several hours reading your articles and following up on their references. I think you have not read a single study. You just accept the opinion of the author and assume that he has scientific studies that back him up. Well, these authors have tricked you.
I can’t prove a negative. I did read what you have presented and I examined several of the references in the footnotes. The arguments are weak and the support is nearly non-existent. It kind of looks like a duck but it does not quack like a duck. If a significant sampling of the references are bad, then there is no reason for me to waste my time looking them all up. All I can do is tell people to read the studies for themselves and they will find that what you claimed is false. All I can do is propose that not a single study is supportive of the claim that you made. What you are doing is just creating a smoke screen. Instead of giving me one single study that I could focus my attention on to see if it establishes the facts that you claim, you obfuscate the issue by pretending that I am asking you to give me more studies instead of just pointing to the one study that you already referenced that makes your case. As I proved previously, the legal case you did point to did not establish the fact that you claimed it did.
Po wrote: “Did you read the link I offered from Ta Hanesi [sic] Coates?”
Ta-Nehisi Coates is just another in a long line of racists with hatred for the white man. He grew up in Baltimore. His father and some of his friends were Black Panthers. He went to Howard University in Washington D.C. which is a historically black university but started and funded by predominantly white men. Howard University began right after the Civil War by a white man as a theological seminary to educate African-American clergymen. Howard’s last white president, J. Stanley Durkee, was appointed in 1918. The university has a rich history in the Civil Rights movement. The first man of African descent to win the Nobel Peace Prize came from Howard. The Howard University School of Divinity coined the phrase “Black Power.” It is not hard to understand what shoes Ta-Nehisi Coates is trying to fill. The sad thing is that instead of heralding his own university as an example of White Men helping the black man pull himself up by his own boot straps, he spews hatred for the white man, blaming him for every unfortunate thing that might befall a black man.
In Ta-Nehisi Coates’ article, “The Case for Reparations,” he admits exactly what I mentioned previously, that black men were not the only ones who have suffered the injustices that he highlights. Coates writes:
“One hundred years later, the idea of slaves and poor whites joining forces would shock the senses, but in the early days of the English colonies, the two groups had much in common. English visitors to Virginia found that its masters “abuse their servantes with intollerable oppression and hard usage.” White servants were flogged, tricked into serving beyond their contracts, and traded in much the same manner as slaves.”
For every modern black man you bring up that was taken advantage of like Clyde Ross, I can find you 100 white men in exactly the same situation. I have known hundreds of poor white men that are just plain dumb in their business dealings. Clyde Ross said himself:
“I’d come out of Mississippi where there was one mess, and come up here and got in another mess. So how dumb am I? I didn’t want anyone to know how dumb I was.”
Well you know what? Ross was on the right track in this statement. He simply was dumb in his business arrangements. I would have told Clyde Ross, “you are right Clyde. You keep signing stupid contracts that put you at a disadvantage. Let’s stop making these same mistakes you keep making. Here is what you did wrong. Instead, do it this way.” Instead, we have racists like Coates who want to blame the evil white man and tell Clyde it was because of his ancestry of slavery and continuing racist white men that this happened. That makes no sense whatsoever. That kind of rhetoric breeds more racism and civil unrest.
I work with black and white impoverished people alike. When I see them do stupid things, I tell them that is dumb. They want to go get a payday loan at 300% interest? Bad idea. You don’t need that laptop computer now. Just focus on work and not what you want now. When you have saved your money, then buy what you want. And when you buy, look for the best deal. Search craigslist or ebay for something used. When you are doing better, then you can buy new. Be patient.
I was helping a homeless black man once where I got him an apartment and then a job. He was doing well at his new job, so I bought him a car to get to work. One day I was checking up on him and he told me he lost his car. I couldn’t believe it. What happened? Well, he said he ran out of gas and pulled over. He left the car on the side of the road under an interstate overpass. He left it for days because he “didn’t know what to do.” When he went back, the car was gone. I was a little furious with him. Why didn’t you call me immediately? I could have picked you up and we could have brought some gas and you would have your car back. He says he was so embarrassed after everything I had done for him. He just couldn’t bring himself to call me. I pointed out that the embarrassment is nothing next to losing the car. It turns out the car was towed away, and the towing and impound fees coupled with daily storage charges exceeded what I was able to pay to get the car back. There was no way to get the car back. This is an example of how impoverished people do stupid things that hurt themselves financially. This black man could blame the white owner of the towing company for abusing him, or he can take responsibility that it was his poor decisions that caused his problem.
I had another man I picked up from a public park. He and his brother were homeless. Soon they both were able to get a job bagging groceries. They were taught to be faithful to their minimum wage job and save money, doing without all the things he wanted. Within 5 years, they had paid off the mortgage of their home. The home was deeded to the older brother. I thought they were set for life. Home with no mortgage. The American dream, right? Well, then they had a friend who moved in with them. Unknown to me, the roommate fills his head with foolishness. He learned that they had no mortgage on the house, and he tells him he can mortgage his house and buy a very nice brand new car. How stupid is that? Well, he did it and I found out too late to stop it! I told him to go back to the dealer and give that car back. He didn’t listen. Before the year was out, the bank foreclosed on the home and he was back to being homeless again. How stupid of him. How could anyone be that stupid? Well, there are lots of people out there who are, both white and black.
White men and black men do stupid things like this. Black men seem to do it more often because they spend so much time blaming the white man for their own stupid mistakes. The truth is that racism and the black culture has impoverished them. Just look at all the uncivilized riots in Baltimore and Ferguson, riots actually caused by Coates and his racist rhetoric and legacy. If white men regularly behaved this way, destroying businesses, all the white men would be just as impoverished as the black man. Racism of the white man against the black man in the past has very little to do with it. The primary problem is people not accepting personal responsibility for their own decisions and actions. The secondary problem is the modern day racism of the black man against the white man. Such only fuels black men not accepting personal responsibility for their poor decisions that impoverish them.
5:36pm – Notes On A Thread
A freed slave and its progeny refer to Americans as “white privilege.” Was that a “thank you?” Oh, and that $22 trillion since 1965 spent on the war on poverty (poverty won); that was a nice touch.
“;;;white men are behind all the ills of the world!”
African tribal chiefs sold tribe members to Arab slave traders.
Affirmative action is bias in the neutral “land of the free.”
Neighborhood percentages compel relocation – Americans vote with their feet. What’s in your ‘hood?
Conclusive evidence of the various and axiomatic intelligence by race.
(BTW, Native Americans are from Asia via Alaskan Land Bridge; they are nomads without a country; if they claim America, they can also claim Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, Patagonia, etc. Like Mexicans, Native Americans are actually illegal aliens by American law).
If an American goes to China, will he be Chinese?
_____
Abraham Lincoln, the religious zealot heard Moses whisper in his ear:
“If all earthly power were given me,” said Lincoln in a speech delivered in Peoria, Illinois, on October 16, 1854, “I should not know what to do, as to the existing institution [of slavery]. My first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia, to their own native land.” …he asked whether freed blacks should be made “politically and socially our equals?” “My own feelings will not admit of this,” he said, “and [even] if mine would, we well know that those of the great mass of white people will not … We can not, then, make them equals.”
Lincoln preceded his unconstitutional “Reign of Terror” with a brilliant concept of “compassionate repatriation.” “400 plus years of enslavement” would have been concluded and definitively resolved as a sense of nationhood, “belonging,” and self-esteem were restored.
Moses knew what Lincoln contemplated.
Abraham Lincoln –
“If all earthly power were given me,” said Lincoln in a speech delivered in Peoria, Illinois, on October 16, 1854, “I should not know what to do, as to the existing institution [of slavery]. My first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia, to their own native land.” …he asked whether freed blacks should be made “politically and socially our equals?” “My own feelings will not admit of this,” he said, “and [even] if mine would, we well know that those of the great mass of white people will not … We can not, then, make them equals.”
Freedom of Speech, Thought (natural, before govt. established), Press, Assembly with the right to private property and to freedom and free enterprise as the “blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity,” not to government, as the “pursuit of happiness” with government limited to Justice, Tranquility, Common Defence and Promote General Welfare.
The Founders spoke and wrote clearly. Clearly many people don’t understand those speeches and writings with great and stubborn deliberation.
Duke can do whatever it wants, Presumably, it wants to create wealth and otherwise succeed. Duke has the right to commit enterprise suicide.
America lives with the consequences of freedom. Freedom is the absence of dictatorship. Americans are free to succeed, to fail and to adapt to either result.
The right to private property means the owners of the organization direct the organization including, in the case of a university, curricula, hiring and firing. The government has no constitutional control of the organization, its hiring/firing polices and unconstitutional compulsory affirmative action matriculation of private free enterprise. Free enterprise has its success measured in dollars. The university is run to create wealth. The university’s success depends entirely on the university itself. The government does not operate or otherwise assure the success or failure of the university. The function of government is to assure an environment of freedom and free enterprise.
________________________
“W”-WORD?
You used the “W”-word again. Exactly when did Americans become “white.” If insulting Americans is acceptable, is it again acceptable for people to use the n-word? One man’s ceiling is another man’s floor. One man’s insult is another man’s compliment? Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. Americans are precisely that, Americans. Those who aren’t Americans may use a hyphen and modifier.
Mr. Dog,
Oh, I’m sorry, Mr. Dog, the “journey” we call the United States of America was hijacked by the despotic, tyrannical dictator, Abraham Lincoln, in his “Reign of Terror.” Abraham Lincoln, after suspending Habeas Corpus, was told by Chief Justice Taney that he, Lincoln, had no authority to suspend or otherwise nullify the Constitution. His “civil war” was unconstitutional as were his “amendments,” which were proposed and ratified without a quorum, through coercion, under duress and by corrupted vote counts.
The nation of the United States of America was established as a restricted-vote republic with representatives elected by a “group entitled to vote.” That nation secured freedom and free enterprise without interference by government, for its citizens. Never did the Founders intend a one-man one-vote democracy. Those who founded the U.S.A. feared a vote of the working masses; rightly so as the greed of those who covet is brutal and wanton.
Never did the Founders intend for immigration to be conducted by mass “invasion” of those of vastly different cultural and ideological background and for huge segments of the population of foreign countries, especially contiguous countries where there’s no need, to be transferred hastily. Immigration was intended to be more of a methodical process involving manageable numbers of congruent, assimilable and familiar people. Never did the Founders intend for “guest workers” to be instantly transformed into “voters” as an election tactic and election fraud, and awarded citizenship, particularly after commission of the crime of illegal entry.
In the United States of America the Preamble was binding. Those who say it wasn’t never took the Boy Scout oath or recited the Pledge of Allegiance. The Preamble is the essential American context, without which the nation disintegrates. The Constitution provides for governance within the parameters of the Preamble. The American government was limited by the very binding Preamble, and the distinctly separate collectivist principles, delineated in the Communist Manifesto, primarily central planning with control of the means of production and redistribution of wealth, were unspeakable anathema – their introduction was evidence of their absence (res ipsa loquitur).
Oh yeah, Mr. Dog. This is absolutely not the United States of America. Would you believe, the Union of the American Socialist Republics, the UASR under the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx? In the USA, the people were the new king and the government was the subject of that king. In the USAR, the government is the king and the people are its subject.
All hail the UASR, comrade Dog.
David, pogo, that”opinion piece” you mention, quotes some real studies and statistics.
Sure, I could do the leg work and find you all of those, but why not just refer to the ones mentioned in the article?
Also, can you show the “opinion” as false? Can you undermine it in some way? Can you prove it erroneous?
Is this wrong?
“In 1974, a three-judge panel of the federal Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that “segregated housing in the St. Louis metropolitan area was … in large measure the result of deliberate racial discrimination in the housing market by the real estate industry and by agencies of the federal, state, and local governments.”
I could not do better than this:
http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/05/the-case-for-reparations/361631/
And just to make it clear, it’s NOT about the reparations, so let;’s not get hung up on that word.
“Then, when Ross was 10 years old, a group of white men demanded his only childhood possession—the horse with the red coat. “You can’t have this horse. We want it,” one of the white men said. They gave Ross’s father $17.
“I did everything for that horse,” Ross told me. “Everything. And they took him. Put him on the racetrack. I never did know what happened to him after that, but I know they didn’t bring him back. So that’s just one of my losses.”
The losses mounted. As sharecroppers, the Ross family saw their wages treated as the landlord’s slush fund. Landowners were supposed to split the profits from the cotton fields with sharecroppers. But bales would often disappear during the count, or the split might be altered on a whim. If cotton was selling for 50 cents a pound, the Ross family might get 15 cents, or only five. One year Ross’s mother promised to buy him a $7 suit for a summer program at their church. She ordered the suit by mail. But that year Ross’s family was paid only five cents a pound for cotton. The mailman arrived with the suit. The Rosses could not pay. The suit was sent back. Clyde Ross did not go to the church program.
It was in these early years that Ross began to understand himself as an American—he did not live under the blind decree of justice, but under the heel of a regime that elevated armed robbery to a governing principle. He thought about fighting. “Just be quiet,” his father told him. “Because they’ll come and kill us all.”
Clyde Ross grew. He was drafted into the Army. The draft officials offered him an exemption if he stayed home and worked. He preferred to take his chances with war. He was stationed in California. He found that he could go into stores without being bothered. He could walk the streets without being harassed. He could go into a restaurant and receive service.
Ross was shipped off to Guam. He fought in World War II to save the world from tyranny. But when he returned to Clarksdale, he found that tyranny had followed him home. This was 1947, eight years before Mississippi lynched Emmett Till and tossed his broken body into the Tallahatchie River. The Great Migration, a mass exodus of 6 million African Americans that spanned most of the 20th century, was now in its second wave. The black pilgrims did not journey north simply seeking better wages and work, or bright lights and big adventures. They were fleeing the acquisitive warlords of the South. They were seeking the protection of the law.
Clyde Ross was among them. He came to Chicago in 1947 and took a job as a taster at Campbell’s Soup. He made a stable wage. He married. He had children. His paycheck was his own. No Klansmen stripped him of the vote. When he walked down the street, he did not have to move because a white man was walking past. He did not have to take off his hat or avert his gaze. His journey from peonage to full citizenship seemed near-complete. Only one item was missing—a home, that final badge of entry into the sacred order of the American middle class of the Eisenhower years.
In 1961, Ross and his wife bought a house in North Lawndale, a bustling community on Chicago’s West Side. North Lawndale had long been a predominantly Jewish neighborhood, but a handful of middle-class African Americans had lived there starting in the ’40s. The community was anchored by the sprawling Sears, Roebuck headquarters. North Lawndale’s Jewish People’s Institute actively encouraged blacks to move into the neighborhood, seeking to make it a “pilot community for interracial living.” In the battle for integration then being fought around the country, North Lawndale seemed to offer promising terrain. But out in the tall grass, highwaymen, nefarious as any Clarksdale kleptocrat, were lying in wait.
From the 1930s through the 1960s, black people across the country were largely cut out of the legitimate home-mortgage market.
Three months after Clyde Ross moved into his house, the boiler blew out. This would normally be a homeowner’s responsibility, but in fact, Ross was not really a homeowner. His payments were made to the seller, not the bank. And Ross had not signed a normal mortgage. He’d bought “on contract”: a predatory agreement that combined all the responsibilities of homeownership with all the disadvantages of renting—while offering the benefits of neither. Ross had bought his house for $27,500. The seller, not the previous homeowner but a new kind of middleman, had bought it for only $12,000 six months before selling it to Ross. In a contract sale, the seller kept the deed until the contract was paid in full—and, unlike with a normal mortgage, Ross would acquire no equity in the meantime. If he missed a single payment, he would immediately forfeit his $1,000 down payment, all his monthly payments, and the property itself.
Po wrote: “Sure, I could do the leg work and find you all of those, but why not just refer to the ones mentioned in the article? Also, can you show the “opinion” as false? Can you undermine it in some way? Can you prove it erroneous?”
I don’t have time to check out every single reference. I was asking you to give me your most convincing study that established as fact what you claimed. I am now fairly confident you have not looked up any of the references. You just believe the opinion piece as written.
Notably, now you give an anecdote for which there is not a scientific study, but rather a reference to a legal appeal. Following is my critique of that reference:
Po wrote: “In 1974, a three-judge panel of the federal Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that “segregated housing in the St. Louis metropolitan area was … in large measure the result of deliberate racial discrimination in the housing market by the real estate industry and by agencies of the federal, state, and local governments.”
Here is a link to the actual case:
http://www.leagle.com/decision/1974691372FSupp319_1643.xml/UNITED%20STATES%20v.%20CITY%20OF%20BLACK%20JACK,%20MISSOURI
And here is the appeal:
http://openjurist.org/508/f2d/1179
I only need to reference Dred Scott to illustrate how winning a court decision does not establish fact. A court decision certainly should cause us to look and say what kind of racial discrimination is going on, but the decision itself is not proof of fact.
Nevertheless, here is how I read this situation. This case is very old: 1974. The federal law combatting racial discrimination was passed in 1968, only 6 years earlier. People had not yet become accustomed on how they will now be judged for race. So there is a real question of whether this continues to be a problem 40 years later.
But here is in a thumbnail what the case was all about. St. Louis city, like most cities, have a lot of black folk living in the center. They typically create an economically depressed area. The white folk are moving out of the city and into the suburbs. The area away from the city center called Black Jack sought to incorporate itself as the city of Black Jack. They excluded the inner city area for the stated purpose of economic depression. Some testified that there were racial motivations too. The statistics showed that people and jobs were moving out of the city, but it was mostly whites that were moving and the whites wanted their own city (the city of Black Jack) to manage and control their own zoning issues without dealing with the economically depressed area of the inner city. The success of the whites incorporating led to further racial segregation and further economic depression of the black community while the white community flourished with jobs, higher incomes, and less crowded housing.
I think it is impossible to separate the economic factors from race. My perspective is that if the blacks were not economically depressed in their communities, there would have been no problem including them in the incorporation. If memory serves me correctly, there were blacks on the county commission who approved this incorporation. But the truth is that we cannot really separate the two. Even so, none of this directly connects the plight of blacks to 400 years of enslavement. Truth is that Native Americans also suffered this same kind of “competitive exclusion,” but their plight was far worse than blacks and they for the most part never suffered 400 years of enslavement. Competitive exclusion is a biological term regarding population studies of animals and how certain races or species succeed while other races or species lose and are excluded from the population.
In regards to Clyde Ross, such sad anecdotes of losses are not just something blacks experience. Many whites experience the same thing. The difference is that blacks blame the “white” man. Whites simply blame a greedy boss or business owner or overlord. And sometimes that greedy overlord happens to be black. So anecdotes like this simply do not build a case for racism. It only builds a case in the mind of those who are already prejudicial against the white man.
david – basically this is a redlining issue. Redlining affected everyone who lived in the redlined area. They did not care what your color was. I lived in a redlined area and when I bought my house I took over two quit claims from former owners. I had three notes I was paying on, which eventually all got paid off. Still, no bank would give me a mortgage because the area was redlined. So the people carried the note and quit claimed the deed to the next owners. It was all very civil. 🙂
Fascinating thread discussion, with several on the mark remarks on all sides. I can relate to a few of them and one of the most noticeable, to me with my experiences, is Issac’s comment: … whether you live in an idealistic world of supposed to be or the real world, makes a big difference. I am not being critical of the remark, I get it, but truth be told, I’d rather live in and work for an equitable world, an idealistic world, than spend my time in retrospection for offenses long ago acknowledged as evil and essentially suppressed.. That outlook is not denial, it is progress. I’ve tried to live that way, a way of idealism, in every country I been in for any period of time, including my own, the USA. Besides, Issac also said French cheese is stinky… which is undeniable truth, and why French cheese is sooooo good.
Between 1960 and today I’ve seen many changes, positive and negative…this latter-day resurrection of color identity politics is grotesque. In my 1960’s college days, those of us who had to work full time & go to school at night would congregate about 10:00 PM in a local near campus saloon to discuss politics and the day’s classes & topics…a mixture without notice of white, black, Asian, etc. We even dated each other, and one of my favorites was a black lesbian who had an attachment to Jazz just like mine…we made every gig we could find outside of school hours. She saw nothing odd about our unusual relationship, nor did I, and we became fast friends…especially, when I once again blew up my Irish temper when she was denigrated in one venue. Others wanted to cling to old disadvantages while we sought the future and its advantages. Some of those dust ups are why it took the US Army 60 days to decide if I could have a “moral waiver” due to a police record…in 1968 when someone seeking to enlist instead of drafted was not common. If anyone recalls those days, it was about 500 or so per week KIA….and many more maimed permanently.
Later, in the 70’s, I married an Asian woman, and our child of course was a mixture of white/Asian. She (and we) had our challenges in the 1980’s with overt racism, and some of it ended violently. Today, that’s in the past….and oddly my daughter has an American sounding first name…which, not coincidently, is her mother’s surname…e.g., we intended it. Her mother was a refugee in two wars and developed a self-sufficiency that is hard to imagine, and I credit her mother for that influence….it is a long way from pulling weeds for food and teeth from corpses for a pittance, but she managed to relate the drive to survive in our daughter. Not because our kid’s smarter than others, but because she worked her butt off for years, she now holds down a middle 6 figure job and still works her butt off. Long gone are the days where anyone would dare call her “Chink,” “Gook”, “Slope,” but they did exist in her/our past and as I said, sometimes ended with violence, usually by me….but one time by her mother (all 5′ & 100 lbs of her) who beat one idiot to a pulp on their own front lawn for invading our house to tell our kid to “go back to China you filthy “chink.” When the police arrived, and took the time to hear both sides, they determined not to charge my wife.
Suffice it to say, I am disappointed that we still have this “race thing” in our heads. Those of us who are well read know the truth in our history, and we seek to ameliorate it. I’ve friends who, as a family, moved to Africa as American Ex-Pats, to start two businesses, and stay in very frequent (daily) touch about all things “Africa.” I’ve never been there so I hang on every word and find that cultural norms there are a little lax and may be a historic part of the black experience in America, albeit quite less distinct…made worse by historic oppression here. I get it that some can’t escape their resentment…only thing is if they, too, moved to Africa they’d find a different world than they imagine. When one of the ex-pats writes about some odd occurrence, it often ends with: “…because, Africa”…yet they are determined to remain and thrive, and are buying a house as I write this, and they are thriving as a very obvious minority, no less. Their acceptance is founded on what they do, not what someone “thinks” they might think.
I am old now, a bit disappointed I suppose, but one day we will not be color focused or color-blind, but one people of multiple hues. If I could find good in those who once shot at me and tried hard to kill me, I’d expect we can at least achieve the same thing. I’m not special, I’m just me. When I notice a cultural or color or ethic difference, I am curious and try to learn by listening. The listening is the most important part. I make no distinctions among those different than me, I just try to join them on this “journey” we call the United States of America.
2:22 Comment,
Lincoln preceded his unconstitutional “Reign of Terror” with a brilliant concept of “compassionate repatriation.” “400 plus years of enslavement” would have been concluded and definitively resolved as a sense of nationhood, “belonging,” and self-esteem were restored.
Moses knew what Lincoln contemplated.
Abraham Lincoln –
“If all earthly power were given me,” said Lincoln in a speech delivered in Peoria, Illinois, on October 16, 1854, “I should not know what to do, as to the existing institution [of slavery]. My first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia, to their own native land.” …he asked whether freed blacks should be made “politically and socially our equals?” “My own feelings will not admit of this,” he said, “and [even] if mine would, we well know that those of the great mass of white people will not … We can not, then, make them equals.”
Men like Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln knew something the modern man does not know. While we can legislate equal opportunity and equal standing before the law, we cannot legislate equality. Equality legislation is not based in reality, so it always will lead to civil unrest.
po, your assertions were backed up not by facts but by a link to an opinion article itself devoid of facts.
You’ve proven nothing.
Repeating yourself doesn’t improve their veracity.
Pogo Hears a Who
1, May 19, 2015 at 11:42 am
Po, like other SJWs blatantly lies.
(“1- Yeah, but others went through that, which is false.”)
Not one race escaped being enslaved at some point in history.
Islamists are enslaving people even now.
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Pogo
This is what I said: Documented studies show a direct causal link between the current social and economic state of the black community with the 400 plus years of enslavement, oppression and discriminationThat is a fact!
Slavery is only one of the components, it did not just end, it was continued under various other forms. And you are right, islamist slavery is bad too, thanks for making my case.
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Pogo says:
(“2- Yeah but that was a long time ago, oblivious they are to the current continuation of the same policies in some form or another”)
The **same** policies? No, slavery does not exist, neither do Jim Crow laws.
That’s a flat-out lie.
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Can you read, friend? If so, can you comprehend what you read? Noticed you forgot the “some form of another”. How do you explain the federal government’s policies of racial discrimination in housing that forced blacks into the ghettos?
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Pogo says:
(“3- Its no longer happening, which is false because to herd blacks and the poor into ghettos with governmental help and policies”)
Prove that someone is ‘herding’ blacks, that they are required to live where they do, that ghettos are not simply decrepit because that;’s how they live.
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This is getting tiring! I keep posting a link that you don’t bother reading yet keep arguing against.
http://www.epi.org/publication/making-ferguson/
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Pogo says:
“allow industry to step up shop into those same communities”
This makes no sense.
What did you think it meant?
“rob them of the good schools”
Their own behavior makes their schools horrible.
“bring in the police as an occupying force”
Well, the cops have left Boston.
See how that’s turning out?
Alarming Surge In Murders And Shootings In Baltimore
“introduce drugs into the community”
Lie. Previously proven false, repeatedly.
“use the drug war excuse to lock up blacks at much higher rates than whites for THE SAME crimes”
Lie. Previously proven false, repeatedly.
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Look, friend, yelling lies, lies and damn lies is not gonna turn truth into lies. being ignorant of something is not gonna make it not exist.
Are heavy industries and manufacturers allowed to set up shop into your community? Would zoning allow that?
Are 4 to 10 years old able to make their school good or bad? Do they have a say in their school’s funding? Their school safety? The teachers they get? The policies implemented? In the tendency for cops to over-criminalize their behavior? have you heard of the school to prison pipeline?
Oh Pogo, so ignorant, yet to proud of it.
You did not know about CIA, Contras, Crack and Compton?
You did not know that blacks are locked up in greater rates than whites based on the same offenses?
Thanks, BK.
David
This is the third time I am posting the link. Hope it is the charm 🙂
And if that one doesn’t do it, I have another one to offer.
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From http://www.epi.org/publication/making-ferguson/
“Many of these explicitly segregationist governmental actions ended in the late 20th century but continue to determine today’s racial segregation patterns. In St. Louis these governmental policies included zoning rules that classified white neighborhoods as residential and black neighborhoods as commercial or industrial; segregated public housing projects that replaced integrated low-income areas; federal subsidies for suburban development conditioned on African American exclusion; federal and local requirements for, and enforcement of, property deeds and neighborhood agreements that prohibited resale of white-owned property to, or occupancy by, African Americans; tax favoritism for private institutions that practiced segregation; municipal boundary lines designed to separate black neighborhoods from white ones and to deny necessary services to the former; real estate, insurance, and banking regulators who tolerated and sometimes required racial segregation; and urban renewal plans whose purpose was to shift black populations from central cities like St. Louis to inner-ring suburbs like Ferguson.
Governmental actions in support of a segregated labor market supplemented these racial housing policies and prevented most African Americans from acquiring the economic strength to move to middle-class communities, even if they had been permitted to do so.
White flight certainly existed, and racial prejudice was certainly behind it, but not racial prejudice alone. Government policies turned black neighborhoods into overcrowded slums and white families came to associate African Americans with slum characteristics. White homeowners then fled when African Americans moved nearby, fearing their new neighbors would bring slum conditions with them.
That government, not mere private prejudice, was responsible for segregating greater St. Louis was once conventional informed opinion. A federal appeals court declared 40 years ago that “segregated housing in the St. Louis metropolitan area was … in large measure the result of deliberate racial discrimination in the housing market by the real estate industry and by agencies of the federal, state, and local governments.” Similar observations accurately describe every other large metropolitan area. This history, however, has now largely been forgotten.
When we blame private prejudice, suburban snobbishness, and black poverty for contemporary segregation, we not only whitewash our own history but avoid considering whether new policies might instead promote an integrated community. The federal government’s response to the Ferguson “Troubles” has been to treat the town as an isolated embarrassment, not a reflection of the nation in which it is embedded. The Department of Justice is investigating the killing of teenager Michael Brown and the practices of the Ferguson police department, but aside from the president’s concern that perhaps we have militarized all police forces too much, no broader inferences from the events of August 2014 are being drawn by policymakers.
The conditions that created Ferguson cannot be addressed without remedying a century of public policies that segregated our metropolitan landscape. Remedies are unlikely if we fail to recognize these policies and how their effects have endured.
Po, I saw that link previously. I thought you had something new. You had written, “Documented studies show a direct causal link between the current social and economic state of the black community with the 400 plus years of enslavement, oppression and discrimination. That is a fact!”
Where is even one study that shows this causal link. The article you link to is an opinion piece. There are some studies referenced, but is there any study at all that shows what you claim here, a direct causal link between the current social and economic state of the black community with 400 plus years of enslavement, oppression, and discrimination? I don’t see even one. I don’t think it exists. Please show me otherwise. Show me the study that convinced you. Or is it the opinion piece that convinced you?
PO, Well said
Let’s tackle the problems without putting labels on people themselves.
Said by the same people who won’t stop putting labels on people.
Palladin, I call BS on your story!
The bottom line is this:
Documented studies show a direct causal link between the current social and economic state of the black community with the 400 plus years of enslavement, oppression and discrimination. That is a fact!
But, some of you are adamant in saying:
1- Yeah, but others went through that, which is false.
2- Yeah but that was a long time ago, oblivious they are to the current continuation of the same policies in some form or another
3- Its no longer happening, which is false because to herd blacks and the poor into ghettos with governmental help and policies, allow industry to step up shop into those same communities, rob them of the good schools, bring in the police as an occupying force, introduce drugs into the community in order to support foreign wars, then use the drug war excuse to lock up blacks at much higher rates than whites for THE SAME crimes…
Once we acknowledge the crime of the nation against its black citizens, then we can acknowledge the responsibility of the black community to uplift itself. Otherwise, all you do is blame the victim, another bully tactic to go with white privilege.
Po wrote: “Documented studies show a direct causal link between the current social and economic state of the black community with the 400 plus years of enslavement, oppression and discrimination. That is a fact!”
Provide us with your best study for this claim. I think you are confused about correlation analysis. Many people mistakenly think that a correlation proves causation. It does no such thing. It is only suggestive that there might be a causal link. So give us your best study. I have not seen one yet. If you want to prove your case to us, here is your chance. Make it good.
I agree with David. It’s free speech. Leave him alone.
but the professor is wrong about Malcolm X. Malcolm X had an awakening after his trip to Mecca, a complete turnaround. HE and MLK were on the same page in what they were working for, just taking slightly different paths.