by nlbmsportin » Fri Aug 12, 2016 8:28 am
As Bob and others have pointed out repeatedly, statistics within themselves don't tell you anything. You need context as in history:
Slavery
Federally endorsed segregation
Discretionary policing
Discriminatory laws
Housing discrimination/Redlining
Mass incarceration (From the Black Codes to the War on Drugs)
Employment discrimination
Credit discrimination
Voting discrimination
Discrimination in jury selection
Discrimination in legal representation
You also need to be aware that the way these racial categories have been laid out have historically been to support black inferiority, white superiority, and even “intra-white” hierarchy (English vs Germans vs Italians vs Irish vs Eastern Europeans vs Jewish people). There’s this illusion that we’ve somehow “arrived” at an era of racial neutrality. In reality we just have laws that don’t explicitly disadvantage black and brown people. This is where these policies find their ability to resist real reform. You have to prove that there is explicit intent to discriminate based on race in a time when the majority of people don’t claim to be racist.
The percentage of white people willing to explicitly keep black people out of their neighborhood is at an all-time low. People go their whole lives without saying/hearing the word n***er used in a derogatory way or without encountering a lynching. We have a black family in the White House. I was able to go to UT instead of Prairie View A&M like my grandfather had to due solely because his race. This is progress that cannot be denied and is a testament to the people -- white, black, brown, or pink that strove for reducing the terrorizing of racial minorities. This also is what makes the conversation so hard to have in some respects. The threshold for what is now considered racism basically starts with a noose or a white hood. Everything else is just people playing the “race card”. Instead of using violence to silence minorities, the general public resorts to statistics without giving any context or solutions besides “we have to be tough on crime”. We can just ignore the post-Civil Rights era propaganda birthed by Goldwater/Nixon, made popular by Reagan, and made nearly bulletproof by Clinton. Welfare queens, crack babies, crack vs powder cocaine, Super Predators, etc. etc.
Now this does NOT say that there’s no component of personal responsibility involved. Individuals of all races, cultures, and creeds can squander their opportunities and the opportunities of their children. What it does say is that these statistics almost never accompany this historical context. However , they do accompany judgments and proposed courses of action in response to the statistics. The responses are usually posited as “neutral”, “just the facts”, or "objective":
“Black culture”
“Black on Black Crime”
“Blacks more inclined to violence”
“Blacks more inclined to promiscuity”
“Blacks less intelligent”
“Blacks less capable of assimilation” (Why can’t you be more like Asians, the model minority?)
“Blacks less willing to work”
“Blacks more likely to use and sale drugs”
Not only are all these “just the facts”, but since it’s a “color blind” society now:
“If you fail you probably just earned it”
“Don’t expect society to right generational wrongs”
“Slavery is over”
“My grandfather was an immigrant and made it so stop being a victim”
“I’m an immigrant so stop being a victim”
“Pick up your pants”
“Just comply”
“He had a weapon” (2nd Amendment though, right?)
“I feared for my life”
“Police have a hard job”
“I have black friends and they agree with me”
”Reverse racism”
“Stop being so PC”
I can go on and on, but this conversation is much better had over a beverage of each participant’s choice over a few hours. I don’t have all the right answers and don’t claim to be smarter than any of you I disagree with. All I ask is that you recognize that the core arguments behind BLM are rooted in centuries of grievances and pain that society has always found some way to invalidate. Statistics without context and sarcastically referring to the “Age of Obama” are just the latest forms.
Last edited by
nlbmsportin on Fri Aug 12, 2016 8:46 am, edited 5 times in total.
