Is tolerance intolerant?

[Rev. Rye]

White privilege is when you think the problems black people face are more about lack of income and education than about black people being targets of systemic racism.

This is a bit poorly worded: bear in mind that the low income and education are, in the case of black people, inextricably linked to the systemic racism they faced in the past. After the 13th Amendment freed the slaves, we had to create schools for them, since we figured out that laws that forbade them from learning to read were kind of shitty. White society at large didn't want to deal with them more than necessary, so they more or less ended with the table scraps of the White educational system. And, of course, due to the hostility of the society at large, they were ostracised and discriminated against, which, to say the least, does not bode well for getting a high-paying job. Fortunately, things have started to change, thanks to the Civil Rights movement, and more Black people are coming out of the traps that the white supremacist power structures laid out for them, rising above it all, but, of course, it's not happening fast enough, and because of that, they end up falling prey to the same old shit. For them, surprisingly little has changed. Schools with more black people are still woefully under-equipped and actually getting a good job is a lot harder for black people, even without legally sanctioned racial discrimination, and this leads to the same systems that kept them down getting reinforced. After all, to the untrained eye, "hey, we've got integrated schools, we don't force them to make do with hand-me-down stuff from white schools (at least not by law), and now we've had a black president. What the fuck is wrong with these black people who still can't rise above it all? Why are you hitting yourself, Black America? Stop hitting yourself, Black America! Stop hitting yourself!"

It's not really that much of an either/or, like your wording implied. It would be more accurate to say "White privilege is when you think the lack of income and education that many black people have to live with has nothing to do with black people being targets of systemic racism."

[bennyboy]

Well, it's a clusterfuck, isnt' it? Drug use, incarceration, single parents, low educational achievement, low test scores, bad health care, bad diet, and teachers who are likely to be poor in at least some of those same categories. There's very little light at the end of the tunnel, unless all those problems are aggressively addressed.

And yes, a big part of it is cultural. Black kids have access to jazz, blues, and a lot of the greatest music and art that currently exists. But they're listening to rap, wearing their pants at their knees, and working for street cred like it matters.

This is the essence of the problem-- that culture, statistically speaking, doesn't really ALLOW real change from within, because ignorance is passed on from broken parent to broken child, and shared among peers. Rich white people therefore feel a responsibility to inject their world view into that broken culture. But the problem is that patronizing black people won't give the sense of pride and equality, those attitude changes that will affect behaviors-- it will reinforce the expectation of handouts, and the feeling that handouts are the only way to get ahead. No good comes of that world view.

The solution is as I described in another thread-- you have to give financial incentives for success in all those categories I talked about, and enable REAL success based on positive motivation and real effort: loans programs for entrepreneurs, scholarships for students who achieve results through good work, right from preschool. Make all benefits contingent on a demonstrated willingness to work hard and live productive lives.

[notimportant1234]

For me religion is a cultural cancer. Acting on the outdated source of information called religion will probably lead you to obstruct somebody else's freedom at some point.

I could tolerate believing in a God but following a religious doctrine, from my point of view, it's imoral.

[GrandizerII]

White privilege is when you think the problems black people face are more about lack of income and education than about black people being targets of systemic racism.

This is a bit poorly worded: bear in mind that the low income and education are, in the case of black people, inextricably linked to the systemic racism they faced in the past. After the 13th Amendment freed the slaves, we had to create schools for them, since we figured out that laws that forbade them from learning to read were kind of shitty. White society at large didn't want to deal with them more than necessary, so they more or less ended with the table scraps of the White educational system. And, of course, due to the hostility of the society at large, they were ostracised and discriminated against, which, to say the least, does not bode well for getting a high-paying job. Fortunately, things have started to change, thanks to the Civil Rights movement, and more Black people are coming out of the traps that the white supremacist power structures laid out for them, rising above it all, but, of course, it's not happening fast enough, and because of that, they end up falling prey to the same old shit. For them, surprisingly little has changed. Schools with more black people are still woefully under-equipped and actually getting a good job is a lot harder for black people, even without legally sanctioned racial discrimination, and this leads to the same systems that kept them down getting reinforced. After all, to the untrained eye, "hey, we've got integrated schools, we don't force them to make do with hand-me-down stuff from white schools (at least not by law), and now we've had a black president. What the fuck is wrong with these black people who still can't rise above it all? Why are you hitting yourself, Black America? Stop hitting yourself, Black America! Stop hitting yourself!"

It's not really that much of an either/or, like your wording implied. It would be more accurate to say "White privilege is when you think the lack of income and education that many black people have to live with has nothing to do with black people being targets of systemic racism."

Just look at bennyboy's response to your post, and you will see why I worded it the way I did. He really doesn't think it has anything to do with systemic discrimination, and blames black people for the situation they're in.

Note that while I will admit it wasn't the best wording what I said, I was still careful enough to include the key word "more", thus implying that it wasn't an either/or situation but that systemic racism is something to be emphasized here.

[bennyboy]

Just look at bennyboy's response to your post, and you will see why I worded it the way I did. He really doesn't think it has anything to do with systemic discrimination, and blames black people for the situation they're in.

Note that while I will admit it wasn't the best wording what I said,  I was still careful enough to include the key word "more", thus implying that it wasn't an either/or situation but that systemic racism is something to be emphasized here.

When you're looking at causality, you have to decide what scope to focus on. Obviously, if some dude gets arrested, and his kid has no dad around, this puts the kid at a disadvantage-- that's the dad's fault. However, if you consider that the dad had no clear path to success, because of a lack of education-- then ultimately, it must go toward the bad handling of the abolition of slavery, or to the fact of slavery itself.

But you think the main driver is active racism, and that simply isn't true. Do you think colleges wouldn't be absolutely thrilled if a black Einstein showed up? Of course they would.

Here, look at this: https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.or...-questions

Among those questions, please tell me which ones are intrinsically biased against black people? I'm not seeing a lot of questions about the best way to eat strudel or about how to do the hokie-pokie.

[GrandizerII]

When you're looking at causality, you have to decide what scope to focus on.  Obviously, if some dude gets arrested, and his kid has no dad around, this puts the kid at a disadvantage-- that's the dad's fault.

Depends on why they got arrested.

However, if you consider that the dad had no clear path to success, because of a lack of education-- then ultimately, it must go toward the bad handling of the abolition of slavery, or to the fact of slavery itself.

Or it must be because of indirect and subconscious discrimination that is still happening to this day, and loads of studies show this to be the case.

But you think the main driver is active racism, and that simply isn't true.

That you assert something does not make it true, privileged white dude.

Do you think colleges wouldn't be absolutely thrilled if a black Einstein showed up?  Of course they would.

But black Einstein isn't the problem here. Facepalm.

Here, look at this: https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.or...-questions

Among those questions, please tell me which ones are intrinsically biased against black people?  I'm not seeing a lot of questions about the best way to eat strudel or about how to do the hokie-pokie.

The whole test is culturally biased because when they first put these questions on trial, they always keep in mind how well white students (the norm) do on every question in these tests. Furthermore, it's not only about the questions or items in these items; it's also about external but relevant factors that favor some groups over others when it comes to performance on these tests.

[bennyboy]

The whole test is culturally biased because when they first put these questions on trial, they always keep in mind how well white students (the norm) do on every question in these tests. Furthermore, it's not only about the questions or items in these items; it's also about external but relevant factors that favor some groups over others when it comes to performance on these tests.

Did you look at the questions? They are reading and math questions. Let's be blunt about this-- the reason some students do worse at these questions is they aren't as good at reading and math as other students. There's no special "black math" that is getting under-represented due to cultural bias.

The problem, as I mentioned before, is that this is not a racial screening test-- the kids applying for certain disciplines actually need those math and reading skills in order to succeed. I agree it's unfair that black kids, on average, have grown up in an environment that hasn't fostered either ability or interest in the skills they'll need to get into a good college and get a good career.

But filling up university classes with underskilled students isn't going to help them-- it's just going to increase the alarmingly low graduation rates that black students already experience.

We have to be clear about the goals, here. It seems to me that the pyschology of black people in America is damaged-- there's no expectation of a vehicle for success, few good teachers willing to help, and a sense that even if you work hard, you will not have the opportunity to succeed. The solution for this isn't handouts at the collegiate level-- it's fostering REAL successes at all ages, and providing incentives that matter from the cradle right up to the Harvard application.

[Rev. Rye]

To be fair, the SAT questions are a lot less questionable than they used to be:




The analogy section that contained the biggest offenders was removed from the test in 2003.

That said, the racial gap in the SAT scores remains depressingly high. And it looks like the cycle of inequality is a major factor in how it's remained. And it doesn't even need a vast cycle of active racism in the Jim Crow mold to keep going like Bennyboy thinks a lot of us think. The unconscious racism that we tend to exhibit either way is more than sufficient to keep it going. And that makes it even harder to fix than the older, blatant caste system. It's one thing to strike down laws that allow employers to openly discriminate against people of another race. It's another thing entirely to try and fix our unconscious biases. How the fuck can we fight the unconscious processes of our mind? And how can we properly do it on a societal level? It's the fucking unconscious!

As someone who's lived with mental illness (specifically depression and OCD), a lot of the time, this racism seems a lot like it. For instance, a few months ago, I got worried about the intonation of my guitar. I spent hours working on the exact bridge placement needed for the 12th fret to be in tune with the open string. And then, when I got it done, I'd set it down for a few minutes, and then, something would drive me to come back and try again. I knew I got it right, but try telling the part of my brain that was nagging at me, and at one point, made me wake up in the middle of the night to check that everything was in its right place. And it's kind of the same thing with unconscious racism. On some level, most of us know intellectually that ideas of racial superiority are bullshit, but, on some other, unconscious level, whether it's nature or nurture, there's something that keeps us from really acting like it. And it all ends up with a situation where we say that black people are potentially equal, but, when confronted with the fact that there's still a long way to go, we just deny that anything's wrong. And how an otherwise intelligent person can end up putting their foot in their mouth over racial issues.

And also, the SAT itself is going out of fashion; when I took a standardised test in high school, it was the ACT and we were told the SAT was falling out of favour.

[Amarok]

When you're looking at causality, you have to decide what scope to focus on.  Obviously, if some dude gets arrested, and his kid has no dad around, this puts the kid at a disadvantage-- that's the dad's fault.

Depends on why they got arrested.

However, if you consider that the dad had no clear path to success, because of a lack of education-- then ultimately, it must go toward the bad handling of the abolition of slavery, or to the fact of slavery itself.

Or it must be because of indirect and subconscious discrimination that is still happening to this day, and loads of studies show this to be the case.

But you think the main driver is active racism, and that simply isn't true.

That you assert something does not make it true, privileged white dude.

Do you think colleges wouldn't be absolutely thrilled if a black Einstein showed up?  Of course they would.

But black Einstein isn't the problem here. Facepalm.

Here, look at this: https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.or...-questions

Among those questions, please tell me which ones are intrinsically biased against black people?  I'm not seeing a lot of questions about the best way to eat strudel or about how to do the hokie-pokie.

The whole test is culturally biased because when they first put these questions on trial, they always keep in mind how well white students (the norm) do on every question in these tests. Furthermore, it's not only about the questions or items in these items; it's also about external but relevant factors that favor some groups over others when it comes to performance on these tests.

Also tie in the fact that even black people with no criminal record have a hard time getting a job and that law enforcement in black neighborhoods is higher not because there is more crime and that black people tend to get harsher sentences . One again blaming blacks for their issues while avoiding systematic racism is just silly

[bennyboy]

And also, the SAT itself is going out of fashion; when I took a standardised test in high school, it was the ACT and we were told the SAT was falling out of favour.

The same problem persists-- black people, on the whole, do much worse at the ACT.

---

Also tie in the fact that even black people with no criminal record have a hard time getting a job and that law enforcement in black neighborhoods is higher not because there is more crime and that black people tend to get harsher sentences . One again blaming blacks for their issues while avoiding systematic racism is just silly

It's been shown that white cops are less likely to kill minorities than minority cops are. So if they have a bias, it seems to be toward restraint-- although there are certainly some pure racist monsters out there, and we've seen videos of them.

https://psmag.com/social-justice/black-c...k-suspects

The reason black people are killed more is because they come into contact with police more. Either people call police to investigate them more, or they have more problems with driving (tail lights out), or they are in high-crime areas.

The first one, the interaction between civilians and black people, is probably the biggest contributor-- more phone calls = more interactions = more deaths.

https://psmag.com/social-justice/police-...st-culture