Mad Max RW
Mildly Dipped
Sander said:
Then why does any of this matter to you?
(Not) going to the USA
- Thread starter Mad Max RW
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Mildly Dipped
Then why does any of this matter to you?
Because black American people are human beings, this has far wider implications for societies in general and it has large historical roots, and I find the issue fascinating.
Mad Max RW
Mildly Dipped
If you really find it fascinating come to the US and travel around for a few years. See what's going on with your own two eyes. You speak English and you're not an idiot. Getting a student visa wouldn't be too difficult.
For one, I can't afford to do that. For two, I don't believe that personal observation gives you good insight in large scale insights. Quite the opposite, in fact: personal, small-scale observation tends to lead to and reinforce biases. For three, this is far from the only topic that fascinates me.
Mad Max RW
Mildly Dipped
A guy from UC Davis isn't biased? Don't let other people and websites with a false agenda form your opinion. Everything you know is based on things filtered through other sources. Honestly, you have a very warped view of America and I think you're afraid of changing it. I'm inviting you to come here and see what it's really like. If you come to Yale I will personally show you around. We have a ton of kids from all over the world living here cheaply on student visas.
A scholar who presents his research and reasoning clearly, with sources. Far from the only scholar I've read on the topic, and I can critique his reasoning myself. There's plenty of stuff in that book that I have issues with, but the overall picture is convincing and based on very solid data.Mad Max RW said:
Also, you're thinking about political bias. I'm talking about cognitive biases. Representativeness bias, confirmation bias, the affect heuristic etc.
There's just not much value in going to a classroom and seeing black kids misbehave, or talking to a teacher who says the same thing. It doesn't tell you much about the problem at large. Or rather, it doesn't nearly tell you as much about the larger problems as actual, large-scale, scholarly studies do.
I've changed my views of America several times. As I said, I like data-driven approaches, and I like thorough studies. Those would be worthless if I couldn't absorb them and their data and see how they should affect my worldview. My views now are not the same as my views ten years ago on many subjects, discrimination being a prominent one.Mad Max RW said:
Also, as I said, I can't afford it. And getting into Yale on a student visa isn't easy, nor do I wish to spend another two years as a student.
UniversalWolf
eaten by a grue.
I could see Sander living in Texas.
Mad Max RW
Mildly Dipped
I'd love to bring him to one of the soup kitchens we sponsor downtown and watch as he lectures the sad drug addicts, mental cases, and homeless. Every holiday season we get freshmen with similar opinions who volunteer and are laughed at by the very same poor blacks they claim to sympathize with. They never return and decide it's easier to stay on campus to discuss problems rather than face them. Where do you think statistics come from?
Our foreign students are no different. Most come here with the same views as Sander. Europeans, Australians, Chinese, all very similar. After ONE semester they have to admit what they heard about America at home all their lives and what they experienced first-hand are entirely different. There is no better city than New Haven to see how fucked things are, but not in the ways you think.
Our foreign students are no different. Most come here with the same views as Sander. Europeans, Australians, Chinese, all very similar. After ONE semester they have to admit what they heard about America at home all their lives and what they experienced first-hand are entirely different. There is no better city than New Haven to see how fucked things are, but not in the ways you think.
what do you mean "face" them? Sanders not some kind of holy entity you know. I have the feeling you guys attack him a wee little bit to much.
After all its not Sanders task to find either solutions or to face anything. Thats why we have professionals, politicans and alll that stuff. At least in theory.
After all its not Sanders task to find either solutions or to face anything. Thats why we have professionals, politicans and alll that stuff. At least in theory.
Mad Max RW
Mildly Dipped
I'm not attacking him. Politicians say a lot of the same stuff and things don't change because they are afraid to get their hands dirty and see reality. That's human nature. You might have good intentions. You're not going to help until you throw out what was filtered down to you and go and find what's happening for yourself.
On the flip side many of the "professionals" and politicians only have a job because of their claims of racial injustice. They aren't making things better for a reason. They only look for one sided reports to re-enforce a bias they always had. It's not about help.
On the flip side many of the "professionals" and politicians only have a job because of their claims of racial injustice. They aren't making things better for a reason. They only look for one sided reports to re-enforce a bias they always had. It's not about help.
Maybe Max (and me) find it hard to hilter Sander in anyway. He says the decent things I guess, but he still denies that their is a loss of upbringing that cultural distorts their fates. There is drug problems that claim prisoners and lives every year, as do whites and latinos, but the Black community seems to have a higher percentage. Black woman single bear the most demographic. Sander seems to assume that historical review on this subject is one of those problems that be solves by reviewing past situations.
But it isn't dude. This is a sad situation of poor social mobility which hosts multiple hostile variables that eat any way at that community. Criminal past and aggressive police, substance abuse, parents (single/nuclear), cultural steering toward rap, drugs, objectifying women, "balling" out (which attracts robberies, retaliation) and alienates millions of youthful black every year under the impression that White man is at fault.
I'm merely trying to shed light on a problem that boasts itself with pedestrians walking by.
But it isn't dude. This is a sad situation of poor social mobility which hosts multiple hostile variables that eat any way at that community. Criminal past and aggressive police, substance abuse, parents (single/nuclear), cultural steering toward rap, drugs, objectifying women, "balling" out (which attracts robberies, retaliation) and alienates millions of youthful black every year under the impression that White man is at fault.
I'm merely trying to shed light on a problem that boasts itself with pedestrians walking by.
No I don't. I've stated multiple times that the culture of the poor is part of the problem, too. And that could be related to race, too. What I've also said is that I've seen very little evidence that suggests that race is the key factor, there. And what I've also repeatedly said is that most cultural differences are probably a result of centuries of oppression.Syphon said:
They don't have a bigger drug problem, actually: http://healthland.time.com/2011/11/07/study-whites-more-likely-to-abuse-drugs-than-blacks/Syphon said:
What they do have is a bigger justice system problem.
Also, as I keep repeating, more evidence as to why I don't think very highly of arguments based on personal observation.
What I require is evidence. You guys present almost no evidence. Also, I have acknowledged and brought up most of these things, but I have also repeatedly noted that a lot of these issues have to do with poverty in general and not with current cultural problems within the black community.Syphon said:
Like your statements there that there's a cultural steering toward rap, drugs, objectifying women, "balling out" and blaming the white man. These are unsubstantiated statements, can be quickly debunked in several cases, and their connection to the continuing problems facing the black community is tenuous at best. As with rap. As if a large portion of white people don't listen to rap, assuming that this is a problem in the first problem. Is that a race thing or a class thing?
The same with misogyny. You make the unspoken assumption that misogyny is a bigger problem in the (poor) black community than outside. But is it really? Or is that just your prejudice speaking? Because misogyny among poor whites is pretty rampant, too.
Those unspoken assumptions turn into and reflect prejudices, and they need to be made explicit and then supported by evidence to become a serious part of the conversation. And yet you, nor Mad Max RW, nor DarkCorp have substantiated anything -- all you've done is repeated simplistic narratives that have crept into your worldview. You haven't examined them critically, tried to find the data to figure out which way the wind blows. And that is exactly how prejudices are born and perpetuated.
No, what you've done is listed causes you think are there, but you haven't examined those causes critically. As I've just shown you: drug use isn't the issue there.
Cimmerian Nights
So Old I'm Losing Radiation Signs
I don't think anyone's advocating against informed decision making, it's the Ivory Towerism. Distance can help with objectivity and remove emotion from the equation, but willfully distancing oneself from the practical and the real world is not doing justice to any subject. Not everything is tangible and can be quantified, and not everything that can be quantified matters. I can read tons of books on tennis, beer brewing and warfare, it probably won't help me to play tennis, brew beer or conduct war as much as practical, real world experience.
I don't think there's such a clean, clear, unbroken line of causality here either. This deterministic line of thinking diminishes people as impotent, hapless pawns, to borrow a Curleyism "victims of coicumstance".
Also, there is no monolithic Fraternal Order of White Guys that immediately wraps it's benevolent arms around every white guy that steps off the boat, and lifts the velvet rope to the secret red carpet to success. "White" people harbor prejudice against each other, they bring their old world baggage and prejudices with them. White people don't magically get along for the greater good of white interests. Old money and bluebloods represent a small portion of whites and, only look out for their own interests, and often actively shut out other whites (see experience of Jews, Irish, Italian immigrants). This is not a melanin thing, it's self-interest and tribalism, and holding on to your piece of the cheese so you can pass it on to your pasty, inbred Ivy League kids. White people can't agree on anything, least of all slavery and Jim Crow (see Secession and Civil Rights mvmt). More Americans died in the Secession that every other war combined up to Nam. That doesn't sound to me like a nation with any kind of consensus on the issue.
We're painting with some real broad brush strokes about whites and blacks here. There are other demographics at play here.
I don't think there's such a clean, clear, unbroken line of causality here either. This deterministic line of thinking diminishes people as impotent, hapless pawns, to borrow a Curleyism "victims of coicumstance".
Also, there is no monolithic Fraternal Order of White Guys that immediately wraps it's benevolent arms around every white guy that steps off the boat, and lifts the velvet rope to the secret red carpet to success. "White" people harbor prejudice against each other, they bring their old world baggage and prejudices with them. White people don't magically get along for the greater good of white interests. Old money and bluebloods represent a small portion of whites and, only look out for their own interests, and often actively shut out other whites (see experience of Jews, Irish, Italian immigrants). This is not a melanin thing, it's self-interest and tribalism, and holding on to your piece of the cheese so you can pass it on to your pasty, inbred Ivy League kids. White people can't agree on anything, least of all slavery and Jim Crow (see Secession and Civil Rights mvmt). More Americans died in the Secession that every other war combined up to Nam. That doesn't sound to me like a nation with any kind of consensus on the issue.
We're painting with some real broad brush strokes about whites and blacks here. There are other demographics at play here.
When you look at large groups of people, that's exactly what happens, yes. And that's entirely logical: when you have one large group of people in the same situation, there has to be a structural reason for why they are in that situation. That structural reason could be that they all made the same choices -- but then you have to ask yourself why they made those choices.Cimmerian Nights said:
Yes. I think we all agree with you there. But then, no one said there was a monolithic order of white guys, nor did they say that there wasn't exclusion there, nor did anyone claim that white people are united in everything. Those claims would be ludicrous.Cimmerian Nights said:
There's a reason why I keep bringing up the issue of poverty and poor whites, after all.
I liked Cimmerians post. He's right, whites are not some unified race. Either is any other regional population.
what about poor white people, Sander? Are you trying to point to the fact that they and latinos share the same obstacles and mindsets that hinder there success? Absolutely being "poor" plays a part, but not every poor person is out for blood or failing in school. For me, its solely about how hard someone wants to escape the hard life (unfortunately that also includes desperate degenerates), and whether they remain there, white , black, brown, Asian.
what about poor white people, Sander? Are you trying to point to the fact that they and latinos share the same obstacles and mindsets that hinder there success? Absolutely being "poor" plays a part, but not every poor person is out for blood or failing in school. For me, its solely about how hard someone wants to escape the hard life (unfortunately that also includes desperate degenerates), and whether they remain there, white , black, brown, Asian.
I am saying that poverty is an obstacle, and that it is a bigger obstacle in the United States than it is in many other developed societies. That yes, a big part of the problem has nothing to do with race but with poverty. I've made this point over, and over and over again and I'm slightly surprised that you haven't grasped it yet.Syphon said:
The attitude that if you just work hard you'll stop being poor soon enough is a nice story, but it's nothing more than a story. Sure, you'll find people who succeeded at that. And you'll find plenty of other hard-working people who didn't.
Dude, I get it. Being poor has more weight on your situation than race. Yes. But that neither has identified / analyzed "specific" reasons why being poor is harder in America than anywhere else.
Because our currency was devalued? Because inflation onset coupled with the average American's median value decreasing? The price of everything increases year after year to inflation and we're still making $7.50 an hour. I know EUro enjoys a hefty conversion rate.
Because our currency was devalued? Because inflation onset coupled with the average American's median value decreasing? The price of everything increases year after year to inflation and we're still making $7.50 an hour. I know EUro enjoys a hefty conversion rate.
Go read the entire 12-page thread again. I've named plenty.Syphon said:
What? No. None of this has anything to do whatsoever with the issue. Things like social transfers (12% vs 30% of GDP), minimum wage, protection of labor, quality of education, barriers to entry in higher education and jobs -- those are the big differences.Syphon said: