Obama's views on Race

[River]

There's a difference between trying to get people to stop being violent in response to an outcome of a trial that had NOTHING TO DO WITH RACE... and telling everyone else that that violence is understandable and essentially justifiable.

Please highlight the parts of Obama's speech that support your claims.

[JewelSong]

...if there IS a problem with race relations in the US (which I personally don't believe)

I also find it quite hard to get past this statement.

I would like to ask you - do you think there was EVER a problem with race relations in the US?

And, assuming the answer to that question is "yes" I would like to know at what point you believe race relations STOPPED being a problem.

I am sincerely interested in your response.

[kzer_za]

Obama said nothing to incite violence. In fact, he said just the opposite:

I think it’s understandable that there have been demonstrations and vigils and protests, and some of that stuff is just going to have to work its way through, as long as it remains nonviolent. If I see any violence, then I will remind folks that that dishonors what happened to Trayvon Martin and his family.

You seem to be saying that a prominent black person saying that blacks are victims of injustice in this country is automatically going to incite black people to violence. Don't you see how that's offensive? When a conservative figure attacks the IRS for the recent scandals about tea party bias, nobody worries about "tea party riots." And the tea party (and various progressive groups, to be fair) often uses much more inflammatory language than anything in Obama's speech.

As for the verdict, I think that from the standpoint of Florida's lenient self-defense laws, it is probably the correct one. I also think "stand your ground" is a bad law, but the courts have to work with the laws as they exist. But just because he's legally acquitted does not give Zimmerman off the hook morally - he had no business following Trayvon Martin and did a lot to create that situation. The prosecution should have argued for voluntary manslaughter instead of second-degree murder, and he probably would have been convicted.

[halplm]

There was already violence going on in response to the verdict. Ignoring it and saying "If I see any violence..." is absurdity at its highest level.

Prim, I don't know how you could pinpoint a time when it stopped being a problem in the way I meant. A lot of it has to do with the change in political climate as the racially motivated democrats lost power in the south and republicans gained a lot of ground.

The problem now is not that whites want to oppress blacks, it's that democrats want to control them. The democrats lost their control when the civil rights movement went against them, so they switched tactics.

River:

And that all contributes I think to a sense that if a white male teen was involved in the same kind of scenario, that, from top to bottom, both the outcome and the aftermath might have been different.

It's all right there in that statement. There was no white person involved in this case at all. The media invented that in the midst of an election to paint Florida as racist. Using such a statement now is turning something that was never about race, into a white people hate black people and the justice system is out to get black people situation.

[JewelSong]

Hal, racism and the problems with race relations in the US is far more complicated than "white people hate black people."

(It was me that asked you about when you think it stopped being a problem, not Prim.)

I have no idea what you mean by saying that the civil rights movement "went against" the democrats. I lived through the civil right movement...of course it was "racially motivated" since it was about blacks being able to do things like sit at lunch counters, ride in the front of the bus and drink from the same water fountains as whites.

Do you disagree with these things? Do you think that the civil rights movement was somehow unnecessary? I honestly do not understand your view or how you have come to the conclusion that race is no longer an issue in the USA

And the fact that Zimmerman is Hispanic does not change the fact (to me) that if Trayvon Martin had been white, he likely would not have been viewed as a suspicious person by Zimmerman in the first place.

It is not about "whites hating blacks." It is about preconceived notions and assumptions we make about other people, or groups of people, based upon their skin color or appearance or gender or sexuality or religion or whatever.

We all do it. We all have our prejudices. "Prejudice" literally means "pre-judge" and everyone does it to one degree or another. The only way to combat prejudice is to be aware of it. Not to pretend it doesn't exist.

[halplm]

Sorry, JS, I was still half asleep.

The civil rights movement went against the democrats because they could not longer openly oppress black people any more. The republicans put a stop to that.

Of course it's more complicated that "white people hate black people." That's why the rhetoric Obama and his justice department are spewing forth is so disgusting. Why do they want to MAKE it about white people hating black people?

And the racial issues are not about white people hating black people. They are about black people killing black people and no one doing anything about it. They are about a political party that likes keeping black people in poverty with broken families, no jobs, poor education, and constantly in fear that "white people" hate them and want to enslave them again. They want to maintain the illusion of victimhood (among all of their constituents, not just minorities) so that the government (in particular the democrats) can come in and "save" them.

It's the most corrupt and sickening system I could imagine.

I, personally, don't CARE about race. No one I know CARES about race. The only people that seem to care about race are the once claiming to be victims of racism. Are there racists out there? Sure, of course they are. But they are not a major problem. They are not as big of a problem as so many other things we could be thinking about.

Why is the media, the president, the department of justice all making such a huge deal about ONE death that was an accident and not racially motivated? Because they tried to make it about race. Why don't they care about the daily murders of black people in Chicago? Kids shot down all the time and no one talks about it. What about gang violence in LA, where hispanic gangs fight over drug trafficking turf all the time and kill each other frequently? Why isn't this national news every day? Because they don't get ratings off of blacks killing blacks or hispanics killing hispanics. They don't gain as much politically by FIXING such problems as they do by letting them still exist and playing up on people's fears of the nebulous "racism" that must exist because the government hasn't been able to magically fix all the problems for minorities.

You can't "fix" prejudice, and you can waste a lot of time trying. Frankly, I'm not sure why you would want to try to force people to think certain ways, that's scary. What you can do is fix problems like crime and education and let the people that hurt themselves with prejudice stew in their own tiny inferior world.

And the fact that Zimmerman is Hispanic does not change the fact (to me) that if Trayvon Martin had been white, he likely would not have been viewed as a suspicious person by Zimmerman in the first place.

You cannot possibly know this, and making such an assumption is IMHO perpetuation of racist propaganda in its own right. The idea that a non-black person would suspect a black person more than others is itself a racist opinion.

If you have paid any attention to the actual facts about Zimmerman, he was an idiot hero-wannabe who was clearly suspicious of a lot of people. He never mentioned (despite NBC's altering of the 911 tapes to try to show) Martin's race until asked by 911. That was not the most important thing on his mind. Claiming that it is, is perpetuating the media lies about this case.

[Passdagas the Brown]

I, personally, don't CARE about race. No one I know CARES about race. The only people that seem to care about race are the once claiming to be victims of racism. Are there racists out there? Sure, of course they are. But they are not a major problem. They are not as big of a problem as so many other things we could be thinking about.

I can only assume that you have not spent much time in South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, parts of Virginia, Pennsylvania and Maryland.

I have spent much of my life in the Southeastern United States, and racists are most certainly a problem.

Why is it that white Americans seems perfectly justified in telling black Americans that "racism is not that big a deal" in America?

Have you had to endure being profiled, either in shopping centers or on the road? Have you had to endure the second-nature, part of normal conversation explicit racism in the school systems and job environments of much of the Southeastern US? Have you had to ensure neo-Confederates attacking you verbally and physically on college campuses, such as at Ole Miss?

In short, do you get judged, quietly or overtly, almost every day, because you belong to a group that is deemed more prone to poverty and violence to other groups?

My guess is no, because:

a) You are not black
b) You haven't spent much time in the Southeast (or if you have, you've been living on some remote utopian island off the coast somewhere).

It is beyond absurd to claim that racists are not a problem. They are a problem, and they sit at multiple levels of power. In the Southeast especially, but elsewhere as well.

Frankly, I'm not sure why you would want to try to force people to think certain ways, that's scary.

First of all, there are little to no "enforcement" mechanisms for making people NOT racist.

In that context, do you really find it "scary" that individuals in our society are trying to inform people in such a way so that they abandon racist thinking?

Education aimed at eliminating racism is scary?

I can think of many scarier things - such as nuclear proliferation and climate change. Getting rid of racism sounds great.

[halplm]

education is never scary, hence my desire to educate people on things they should actually care about, rather than things like racism, nuclear proliferation and climate change.

Forcing people to think a certain way (you know by destroying their lives if they don't behave perfectly... see Paula Deen), is very very scary.

As for my personal experiences... I was born in Memphis, TN. Most of my family still lives there. My aunts were public school teachers in the city. I owned a retail business in downtown Long Beach, CA (and lived there), where many of my few customers were black or hispanic. Oh, and I've personally been discriminated against and lost major opportunities because I was white.

So yeah, I know what I'm talking about. Just because I happen to completely disagree with your view of the world doesn't mean I don't know what I'm talking about... although discrimination against minority points of view is often the case on the internet.

[yovargas]

hal - you ignored my previous post about studies such as the one I posted, with resumes from blacks receiving significantly less response than those from whites despite being identical. Do you think studies like that are...what? False? Exaggerated? Maliciously motivated? Harmful? Again, these are just facts, not media invented spin or political manipulation. Why you would ignore those facts is what seems most relevant to me in this discussion.

Also, you still haven't clarified what's incendiary about Obama's speech since he explicitly and strongly said there should be no violence.

[halplm]

I didnt ignore it, I just didn't respond. There are not enough details there to tell me how relevant it might be. I sent out resumes for two years and got one response... so I'm not sure Id trust any data regarding such things.

It also sounds like a highly unethical study IMHO, but thats probably a seperate issue.

[halplm]

I also didn't comment on the comment about the tragedy that is the abortion rate in Black communities. This is ironic on multiple levels... Democrats have elevated single mother status to near sainthood while still demanding the ability to have free abortions for everyone, especially minorities... The primary organization that tries to accomplish this was founded by an admitted racist who spoke at KKK events and was worried people might think she wanted to exterminate black people... which is unclear. Further irony is provided by the fact she was extremely anti-abortion.

In any case, It's one against ten here and my time won't allow me to argue everything all the time, sorry to disapoint, yov

[yovargas]

I didnt ignore it, I just didn't respond. There are not enough details there to tell me how relevant it might be. I sent out resumes for two years and got one response... so I'm not sure Id trust any data regarding such things.

It also sounds like a highly unethical study IMHO, but thats probably a seperate issue.

Here you go, the actual study (I actually think there was more than one of these studies as the one I'd seen earlier showed a difference in the high teens while this one is 50%):
http://public.econ.duke.edu/~hf14/teach ... an2004.pdf

So look over their methods and their data and tell me how you explain this:

In total, we respond to over 1,300 employment ads in the sales, administrative support, clerical, and customer services job categories and send nearly 5,000 resumes. The ads we respond to cover a large spectrum of job quality, from cashier work at retail establishments and clerical work in a mail room, to office and sales management positions. We find large racial differences in callback rates. Applicants with White names need to send about 10 resumes to get one callback whereas applicants with African-American names need to send about 15 resumes.

[yovargas]

The primary organization that tries to accomplish this was founded by an admitted racist who spoke at KKK events and was worried people might think she wanted to exterminate black people... which is unclear.

You have a terrible habit of throwing out things like this without the slightest bit of details or backup or anything. Some unnamed organization that does something that was founded by an unnamed person who said something at some event and who said something at some time that showed them to be racist. How is anybody supposed to respond or react to that random statement of nothing? You already did this at the very start of the thread (Obama said something and it is upsetting for some reason but I won't tell you quite what it was or quite why I'm mad about it but you should be mad about whatever it is I'm talking about) and it's a habit that makes serious discussions with you difficult and frustrating.

[JewelSong]

Democrats have elevated single mother status to near sainthood

We HAVE? Really? Who knew?

I would think that having the stigma removed from single mothers would be a GOOD thing for people who want less abortions. If single and poor women were better supported during their pregnancies and they knew that their children had better access to healthcare and education as they grew up, the women would be less likely to abort an unwanted/unplanned pregnancy.

Countries that have the LEAST number of abortions per capita also have the BEST access to health care, pre-natal care, birth control and, yes, abortion. They also have comprehensive programs in sex education, starting at a very young age.

It is ironic to me that many people who are extremely anti-abortion are also in favor of somehow "punishing" single mothers and also against birth control and sex ed programs. It would seem (to me) that if you want LESS abortions, you would be in favor of putting policies and programs into place that reduce the possibility of an unplanned pregnancy and make it easier for women to raise an unplanned child, even if she is poor and/or single.

The primary organization that tries to accomplish this was founded by an admitted racist who spoke at KKK events and was worried people might think she wanted to exterminate black people... which is unclear. Further irony is provided by the fact she was extremely anti-abortion.

I believe you are talking about Margaret Sanger and Planned Parenthood. Lots of misinformation in your words above...but I suggest starting a separate thread if you want to discuss it.

[kzer_za]

There's an abortion topic already - could we maybe keep this one focused on Zimmerman/Martin and race?

[Lalaith]

But we are talking about abortion in relation to the African American community. I believe it is an insidious attack on their race, but I also agree with Jewel on some possible solutions to the issue.

However, that's really all I need to say on it, so if others want to move the discussion elsewhere that's fine by me.

[JewelSong]

It does relate to the discussion, but only peripherally, I guess. However, I do think it is an important issue...really multiple inter-related issues.

But I think I will copy and paste the post above into the thread that is discussing abortion...(if I can find the thread.)

ETA: Found it!

Continue this discussion HERE

[yovargas]

If this discussion is, broadly, about whether there is different social treatment of blacks vs whites, I'm not seeing how hal's post is relevant. But as I said, he provided so little info that it's hard to say if that's the case or not.

[JewelSong]

I've personally been discriminated against and lost major opportunities because I was white.

So - you, yourself, have experienced different treatment and even discrimination due to your race.

But you stated above that race relations are no longer a problem in the US. That nobody you know CARES about race at all.

It would seem to me that the fact you feel you were treated differently due to your race indicates that there IS a problem with race in the US.

Wouldn't it?

[halplm]

Planned Parenthood, yov, Margaret Sayer... look it up. And there's no misinformation in what I said, only facts.

If I have time I'll look at the study you presented.

JS, the sainthood comment was one referencing a side-issue that may or may not interest anyone, but it relates to the destruction of a "normal" family unit, which is particularly significant in black communities. It's more about fathers abandoning their children, than access to birth control.

And JS, my experience of discrimination due to my race is NOT something I would consider a racial problem, but rather a problem with government. I do not think the people who did the discrimination were racists. However, I do think the situation is relevant when people say I don't know what I'm talking about, because I have had that feeling.