Brown v. Black

This is a content of character issue.

"As you sow, so shall you reap."

This is histerically funny to me. The Liberal Rights movement that Blacks have hung their hats on is smacking that hat off of their heads. What did the think Liberalism would do?

Latinos bring some problems to America without doubt, mostly this crap about machismo and gang/criminal lifestyles. But, when the vast majority of hispanics come to America, they want to prosper and they want their children to prosper. THEIR CHILDREN. Not their baby mommas children.

When will the Black Community FINALLY take some responsibility for their own immorality and dishonesty coming home to roost. White and latino people have nothing to do with the way that Black Communities look and act and vote. From Detroit to Oakland to South Chicago, to Saint Louis . . . to Kenya and Sierra Leone, Black communities are violent and unsafe for Blacks and anyone else. THAT IS THE FAULT OF BLACK COMMUNITIES AND NOTHING ELSE.

Blacks have not one moral and ethical leg to stand on to decry immigrant successes. The Civil Rights bandwagon that they invented is being used better by a better group of people. (I think Jesses Jackson has the making of a great man, but his pandering and greed (liberalism) has taken him off the path God and decency intended for him.)

The answer of course is to embrace conservative values and politics, and to jettison the unjusitified bigotry for white people and others that permeates the Black Community and Culture from music to libido.

When a new family moves into our little village neighborhood, NO ONE cares if they are Black, Hispanic, Asian or whatever . . ., especially the kids on both sides of the new people on the block issue. What they care about is that they are decent and moral families moving into the neighborhood. That would mean that the father and mother of the children are MARRIED (and/or committed for a lifetime) to each other and desire to raise good kids.

(Thank you Mexican immigrants for driving prices in the housing market down. I mean that in all sincerity. One thing about immigrants is that they do not scream about entitlements as loud as "AFRICAN" Americans do. They take what is offered to them. There is nothing wrong about that.)

When will Black Communities be like that? We've been waiting since the 1960's?????????

It's 2008 by the way.

End of chapter.

The Donny entity is such a beautiful, textbook Quod Erat Demonstrandum of every negative assumption that a liberal could ever make about what conservatives really think, in the dark of the night while barricaded in their closets hugging the shotgun. It's like a walking episode of Cognitive What Not To Wear. Perhaps that's why Rod keeps it around.

What a surprise--the white power structure will pounce with glee on the possibility of setting two disadvantaged groups at odds with each other, exploiting both and blaming both while accepting no responsibility for its own privilege and doing nothing to improve the situation.

Rod, contrary to what a commenter posted on another thread, I don't dislike you, and I assume that you do not personally approve the attitudes that Donny makes so evident. But I am often astonished by what I see as your naivete. I had no idea the division ran so deep. Whaaaa . . .?? Come on, I've seen this problem coming for at least 15 years, and I'm a random nobody, not a reporter and columnist with his finger on the pulse of current events. Yeah, duh, if you allocate a certain portion of scraps for the poor, and then import more poor people, they're going to fight over the scraps. And then we can piously blame them for their lack of character. Looking at the root causes of poverty and demoralization would be entirely too much work, however.

Pardon my crankiness, but the juxtaposition of topics here has just boggled my mind. It is possible, apparently, to recognize that what is being done to animals is evil. Why is it so hard to see that what we're doing to our fellow human beings is wrong?

Sigaliris: "What a surprise--the white power structure will pounce with glee on the possibility of setting two disadvantaged groups at odds with each other ..."

It already has pounced. Mayor Daley has been using this divide-and-conquer strategy for over a decade in Chicago to shut out the old Harold Washington (African-American) coalition, and the some in the press have taken note of this for at least as long.

BTW, Rod, I love your blog. Thanks for letting people like Donny speak their minds.

The Donny entity is such a beautiful, textbook Quod Erat Demonstrandum of every negative assumption that a liberal could ever make about what conservatives really think..

You know what's funnier, though, sig. Most white liberals think exactly like he does, but they don't have the yarbles to admit it. I mean, it's interesting how all those white Obamatons always seem to live in 80-90% white communities. They'll tell you it's the schools or the crime, but we all know what they really mean.

True story: A young black man was about to be sentenced for a crime. Between the time he was convicted (but not jailed), and the time he came back to be sentenced, he slept around and impregnated six women. The judge was shocked: "You have six children coming and you're about to go to jail?" The man responded, "I be concubinin'."

That, sig, is not my fault, and not the fault of the white establishment. The vast majority of white people would be happy for this young man not to have committed a crime, not to have gone to jail, not to have impregnated six women who will now be single mothers (even if he were not in jail), not to have brought forth six children who will never know their daddy, and not to be behaving like a complete and utter moron. Most white people truly want the best for African-Americans, but it gets kind of frustrating when we are blamed for their own dysfunctions. Slavery and Jim Crow have been over for a very long time. So if another minority comes here and contributes to society, and black people are angry about that, I don't have much sympathy. I don't want blacks and Hispanics to have animosity towards each other. I would rather black people learn from Hispanics (and Asians, and white immigrants, etc.) about what it means to work hard, raise a family, and act like a decent human being.

If the white community were a monolith as you suppose, I think the message to the black community would be, "Okay, your life has been hard, and we contributed to it. Sorry, but we've tried many ways to make up for it, and your situation has only gotten worse. So it's time now for you to learn on your own, and grow up."

Good morning to all my friends. ; ) Cool, now this thread is all about MOI. Who'd have imagined!

I believe it's debatable whether Donny "plays by the rules." I rather think that if I had said the equivalent of some of the things he's said, but about conservatives, I'd have been kicked off by now. They are your rules, of course. Now, Derek, for instance, is equally hostile to my point of view, and can sometimes be abrasive, but to the best of my recollection, he does play by the rules, and I respect that. Donny is one of the few commenters here for whom I can no longer feel any respect. So sue me.

Just FYI, Rod, I don't think there's much you could tell me about conservatives and conservatism that would come as a surprise. Contrary to your apparent impression, I pay and have paid a great deal of attention to conservatism--possibly more than you, since I am considerably older than you, and up till the last couple of years, was a lifelong conservative. There's nothing like deep and intimate knowledge to bring on deep and intimate outrage.

I don't believe I've articulated a comprehensive, workable immigration policy--which places me about equal with the presidential candidates so far. However, if you want my opinion, here it is: control the border as much as possible. That means no multi-billion dollar Wall of America, which is unlikely to worrk anyway. Let employers who hire illegal immigrants know that the law will be enforced, and mean it. Everyone knows that the reason things have gone this far is that employers are eager to hire cheap labor. Do the employers have moral agency? Do the politicians who enable them have moral agency? Yeah, I think they do. Enter into serious talks with the Mexican government about dealing with poverty and corruption in Mexico. No mass amnesty. But no mass deportations, either. So what's your solution? Do you have one?

It is my position that, when dealing with large-scale social problems with deep historical roots, it is pointless to try to shift the emphasis to individual moral choices. It is the business of society to make it easier for individuals to make good choices. Whenever a society is structured in a way that hampers and penalizes good choices, there will be more bad choices. And when it gets bad enough, the individual is doomed even if he tries to make the right choices. You clearly believe this yourself, since you are constantly agitating for social changes in areas that are of concern to you. If you were asserting, as you appear to be, that poverty is purely a matter of personal moral choice, and that people are poor because they are morally degenerate, I would have to say that THAT was cant. (By the way, do I get to call other commenters' opinions "cant" now? Or is this a case of quod licit Jovi non licit bovi?)

Derek, you are so right. Nobody wants to live in a crime-ridden, rundown, rat-infested neighborhood without decent schools, reliable trash pickup or fresh food. Including those who do live there. Your implication that all white people are covert racists is, I hope, mistaken.

Hispanics also carry a heavy dose of anti-Black prejudice from their own homelands. What you have going on in places like L.A. is ethnic cleansing.

Reminds me of this, which I ran across a few months ago.

www.blackamericaweb.com/site.aspx/bawnews/stateof/hutchinson105

also here:

www.alternet.org/story/46855/?page=entire

God help us.

Derek, you are so right. Nobody wants to live in a crime-ridden, rundown, rat-infested neighborhood without decent schools, reliable trash pickup or fresh food.

If this is what comes to mind when you think of black neighborhoods, sig, then you're not all that different from Donny, after all. In fact, he's a bit more charitable in that he gives blacks credit having some autonomy.

Your implication that all white people are covert racists is, I hope, mistaken.

White people, like everyone else on this planet, prefer to live with their own ethnicities. The only difference is that stating this plain truth will get them execrated by hypocrites.

You drop just about any white, house-hunting couple--liberal to conservative--into a black neighborhood--even a nice middle-class one--and they'll promptly head for the exit. If you think it works any other way, then, quite frankly, you're just lying to yourself.

Richard Dawkins would call it the selfish gene at work.

Someone has written that the history of the world is the history of tribes.

If so, how deeply ingrained is the survival/protection & perpetuation of one's own/tribal instinct?

You appear to have a great deal of knowledge about this, Derek. I wonder where you go it--are you a real estate agent? A city planner? Whence comes your expertise?

I think you are right that people like to live with those with whom they feel some kinship. My assumption was that you were referring to neighborhoods that had something objectively bad about them. If you're going to talk about places where all is equal other than ethnicity . . . well, first of all I guess I'd ask you to point out some of these places. There are a few. Not so many that it would be easy to find an attractive assortment in any city, however.

But let's grant that they exist. In that case, I would indeed like to live with people with whom I felt kinship. As neighbors, I would be very happy to choose Nalo Hopkinson, Steve Barnes and Octavia Butler over, say, you and Donny.

Now, obviously, if ALL these people united as one and made only moral choices from now on, simultaneously, things would change significantly in their neighborhoods.

This isn't about "ALL" of them. This is about a simple majority. Time and again in places like Detroit and Washington D.C., blacks have elected and re-elected people with corrupt and even criminal records. Al Sharpton, who got his name libeling people and inciting riots, is, like it or not, a well-respected figure among blacks.

What, pray tell, can you do in the face of these kinds of pathologies? Any attempt to help, no matter how well-intentioned will be seen as patronizing. Any attempt to enforce basic law will be seen as racist tyranny. Any problem they suffer will--as happens all too often--be blamed on whites.

This, of course, is not true of all blacks. It may not even be true of a majority of blacks, but it is true of a significant number, a number significant enough to determine how blacks choose to govern themselves.

Derek brings up Al Sharpton, who I think is a classic example as well.

I remember a parade in New York City, when a bunch of drunk people started abusing some minority girls. There were police nearby who did very little to stop it (but it was over in seconds and they might not have seen it). It was videotaped so it became a scandal.

And there was Al Sharpton, castigating the police for not doing anything because they didn't really care about minorities. It was evidence of racism. I remember him there shaking his head when someone described the abuse.

But if the police had done something, if they had gone after the abusers, guess who would have been up at the podium, castigating the police for brutality, shouting about "no justice no peace"? The abusers included some minorities. So of course this would also have been evidence of racism.

What exactly are the police supposed to do? There's no way to win with people who share Sharpton's mentality.

And sig, of course those people in Detroit didn't want to grow up in poverty. But there would be less poverty in Detroit if there had been less violent crime and rioting, causing both white and black to flee away.

Hey, Derek--when you say "some gringa," am I to infer from this that you think Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton will be the next President of the United States? : D

I meant you, but I would vote for HRC over the McCainiac.

Seriously, Derek (I'm not snarking this time), what do you suggest should happen in "places like Detroit and Washington, D.C."? It sounds as if you--and Rod, and numerous others--are throwing up your hands. It sounds as if you are saying that nothing can be done for "these people."

It seems to me there are only two alternatives. Either we have to continue trying to construct a social policy that can remedy some of these problems, or we as a society must be prepared to simply pull out of large segments of our cities. Robert Heinlein gloomily predicted this outcome with the "Abandoned Areas" he envisioned in "I Will Fear No Evil," possibly his darkest book. (And really terrible in so many other ways that there's reason to hope he was wrong about that as well.)

You'll get no argument from me that the amount of corruption in black city administrations is horrendous and deeply frustrating. However, I would gently point out that similar problems have occurred in white-run city administrations from time immemorial, and this didn't prompt the conclusion that white people are hopelessly immoral.

Donny's a tool who feeds into the noxious notion that a black man with a phd is still a ni**er so why bother. Way to go, bro!

I hate to even say this, because it's such a simplistic thing, but much of this is driven by media images. Years ago, I was talking with a mexican immigrant (illegal) at a restaraunt I was working at. He informed me that "we (meaning mexicans) don't like black people. They're dirty and lazy and violent." I asked him if he actually knew any black people to which he replied, "not really. But you see it in all the movies and on TV. Everyone knows it."

On the other side, african american children watch exponentially more television than any other ethnicity. Because these kids often view themselves as shut out of the mainstream (see donny's attitude above), they assume that their lives are somehow not representative of how people really live and see television and movies as a a window into the mainstream. My husband told me that he used to think that all white people were happy and all black people were sad because that's what he saw on tv.

There's more to it than that on both sides, of course. However, if we really wanted to make the world a better place, we would have firebombed hollywood studios out of existence about 40 years ago.

Ahh, the media. Everyone's favored whipping boy, left or right. If there's a social problem, blame it on the media.

I don't think TV programs and movies can explain away what's going on in LA and other areas. Both groups see each other up close and personal, and they've both made it fairly plain that they don't like what they see.

"And those cities suffered until they cleaned up their act. I see no reason to treat black-run cities any differently."

But cities which have had problems with corruption--Detroit, Newark, DC--have elected African American leaders with successful reform agendas. Admittedly, Detroit has a lot of current problems with its Mayor. But DC has had a signficant turn-around with African American mayors and Newark is seeing the same thing.

No one blames white people with Alaska politics are corrupt. No one blames Tom DeLay's lily-white district when he kept getting re-elected. No one blames white Lousianans for decades of corrupt, white Louisiana politicians. No one blames white Republicans in Ohio for their corruption problems. No one blamed white Arizonans for electing a series of white, corrupt governors that ended up in prison.

Corruption exists and arguably occurs more often with white politicians who represent overwhelmingly white constituents. Yet no one says, "Those people bring the problems on themselves." It's an ugly double-standard.

T

"On the other side, african american children watch exponentially more television than any other ethnicity."

And why would that be, rebeccat? Is it because there are no parents around to turn off the G-damn TV? Or is it because the parents don't care if their kids watch TV instead of learn how to read?

And you say this is because they feel shut out of the mainstream because of people like Donny? How ridiculous!

Here's advice for young African-Americans: If you wear gold in your teeth, slink around talking rap-speak, and insult women loudly calling them ho's and bitches, it's your fault if you feel shut out of mainstream society.

A week ago I was walking in my city's downtown area. A young African-American boy was there waiting for the bus, talking nonsense to a friend. He had a T-shirt on, which said this: "Of course I love you. My dick is hard, isn't it?" Where is his mother, or his father, or someone to slap him in the face and say, "You don't wear crap like that, and you don't treat women that way"? That's not Donny's fault. That's not white society's fault. The kid is separating himself from the mainstream by his obnoxious in-your-face attitude.

""My husband told me that he used to think that all white people were happy and all black people were sad because that's what he saw on tv."

What TV shows did your husband watch? TV is a wasteland filled with lots of dysfunctional white people as much as black people.

I seem to recall that Bill Cosby was chastised by "black leaders" because he had a happy upper-middle class TV family, and that wasn't keeping it real.

I don't buy it. Black people have dug their own hole, and keep acting like it's everyone else's responsibility to help them out. Anyone who reaches out is called a racist. No thanks. I think the "black community" needs to learn to stop blaming the rest of the world. If you want to enter the mainstream, then just enter in. No one is keeping you out except yourself.

"DC's recovery has been pushed along by a Congressional take-over and gentrification. Newark is still too early, and I think a bit overstated."

Actually, the Congressional take-over was almost a decade ago and now Congress rarely gets involved in DC affairs. The city is largely run by the city without receivership. And gentrification just doesn't happen by accident. An improved economy, safer streets, better government services have all helped DC's turn-around. And this with African American mayors and a majority-African American city council.

The dirty little secret of Mayor Barry was that he was the white, establshment's guy and was fairly unpopular among African Americans when he was first elected. Barry was propped up by the Business community, wealthy whites, and the gay community when he was mayor the first time. That he was elected again and then elected to the City Council is harder to explain.

But that was over a decade ago.

"That's because whites aren't asking for anyone to come in and subsidize the results of that corruption based on a racial guilt trip. No one's being asked to ignore it for the sake of racial guilt."

I haven't the foggiest idea what you are talking about.

Actually, the Congressional take-over was almost a decade ago and now Congress rarely gets involved in DC affairs. The city is largely run by the city without receivership. And gentrification just doesn't happen by accident.

Gentrification started going about ten years ago, so, yeah, Daniel, it didn't just happen by accident. An outside authority, embarassed by what happened to the nation's capitol, muscled the local corruptos out and the demographic balance shifted.

That he was elected again and then elected to the City Council is harder to explain.

Only if you blind yourself to the uncomfortable reality that black voters at the time were more interested in waving their middle finger than solving their problems.

I haven't the foggiest idea what you are talking about.

We're not agonizing over the historic tragedy of whites in Alaska, Arizona or even Louisiana for that matter.

Think about that fact, and maybe the fog will clear.

For the sake of bd_rucker's sensitivities, I will amend my previous statement, "Black people have dug their own hole, and keep acting like it's everyone else's responsibility to help them out."

Many black people, lots of them, not all of them, but a whole bunch of them, maybe even most of them, certainly thousands upon thousands of them, maybe even millions of them, but certainly not every single one of them, have dug their own hole, and keep acting like it's everyone else's responsibility to help them out. This is factual, and is not meant to be prejudicial, because we all know the worst thing in the world is to be prejudicial. Why, being prejudicial is worse than being a perpetual victim who blames the rest of the world for one's own predicament.

How's that, bd?

>>>>
Robert Heinlein gloomily predicted this outcome with the "Abandoned Areas" he envisioned in "I Will Fear No Evil," possibly his darkest book. (And really terrible in so many other ways that there's reason to hope he was wrong about that as well.)
Posted by: sigaliris | January 30, 2008 2:21 PM
>>>>

Heinlein was in very poor health when he wrote that novel.

I'm tempted to second forestwalker's comment. However, in the interests of decorum, I'll use the term "proctomorph" instead. (I believe it was invented by another commenter here, who can out his/herself if s/he wants the credit.) A proctomorph is a person of any color who has, indeed, found their own hole and dug him or herself into it. : P

Btw, fgb, you spelled "moniker" (or "monicker") wrong. You had two correct options, yet picked an erroneous third. God is in the details.

Well, fgp, thanks for a moderate, rational and non-proctomorphic reply. I suggest (respectfully this time) that you may have been mistaken about what "any adult" could read into your into statement. It's never safe to assume, which is why I try to use plenty of qualifiers even though I, too, get tired of parsing every statement to see if it's overly inflammatory. I've been misunderstood quite often even though I thought I'd been more than clear.

I think all that bd_rucker was originally asking was for the acknowledgment that whites, blacks and Hispanics are "not a monolith unto themselves," which you've now given. I understand where you're coming from a good deal better now.

I wondered if you'd notice the misspelling of your name. I was thinking about the story of Jonah, in which Jonah gets extremely irate with God for allowing a tiny vine that shaded him to die. God then asks Jonah, "If you're going to get so bent out of shape over the death of a plant, can't you understand that I would be concerned about the lives of all the many people in Nineveh?" You sound like a smart guy, so I'm sure you can draw the inference, but I'll spell it out in the interests of clarity. If you feel a need to correct a mere misspelling of three letters that you identify with, wouldn't black people feel a nagging urge to correct what they might see as a gross over-generalization about "thousands upon thousands" of people?

I mean nothing prejudical about white guys, though. Many of them are quite good spellers! ; )

fgp (hope I got that right):

You make an excellent point about conflict among minorities in New York City being minimized by the fact that a lot of Latinos ARE ALSO AFRICAN-AMERICAN and a lot of African-Americans ARE ALSO LATINO. (Including Adam Clayton Powell, infamous though he may have been, and, I believe, Charlie Rangel.)

In contrast, in South Central L.A., there has been huge demographic change since the riots and a "black flight" as a result to middling far-flung suburbs 50 to 75 miles away like the Antelope and Moreno Valleys. (Where, this being SoCal of course, there are still lots of Latinos, too.) And there has been conflict as a result similar to the "white flight" conflicts of the 60s.

(And, not coincidentally, the flight has taken African-Americans outside the South Central congressional district of Maxine Waters -- the female version of Jesse Jackson Sr. and Al Sharpton -- who rather prominently endorsed Hillary Clinton; her constituency numbers-wise, if not yet voter-wise, is now overwhelmingly Latino.)

If I read Rod's posts correctly, similar "black flight" is taking place in Dallas, too. (Sigh.)