Internet trolls (by 1992) are those on the Internet who want to create trouble and get people upset for their own amusement. In comment threads, like on this blog, they are not seriously interested in the subject at hand.
As far back as the 1980s there have been Internet trolls, before most people even knew there was an Internet. The first recorded use of the term appeared on the Usenet newsgroup alt.folklore.urban on December 14th 1992.
They have been studied by psychologists. I thought of them as attention whores, but it is worse than that. At heart they seem to be sadists: they delight in other’s pain and discomfort. Their ideal self may be a villain of chaos and mayhem.
Trolls want you to get angry, they want you to be upset. They enjoy it! They are sick and twisted like that.
The best thing to do about trolls is to ignore them – or calmly warn others to ignore them. Being ignored is the thing they hate most. If everyone ignores them, they will lose interest in time and move on.
If you must talk to them, remain completely calm. That means do not answer them right away but wait an hour or so when you have a cooler head. Getting upset is what they want.
Of course, not everyone who gets you angry is a troll. In a discussion passions can run high. Name-calling is common when people disagree. And some people are just plain old jerks, not actual trolls.
In Japanese and Korean, Internet trolling is called fishing. That is a good way to think of it: they leave bait, waiting to see if anyone bites. If they get no bites they will find a better place to fish.
Stuff that trolls do:
- Use hot-button issues to stir people up.
- Derail discussions.
- Step up the bait when they are ignored.
- Complain about their free speech rights.
- Pretend concern about your issue (concern trolls).
- Pretend to be another commenter.
Moderators, in my experience, choose between two main models:
- Safe space model: kicking off trolls and possible trolls, erring on the side of caution, creating a safe space for talking about sensitive topics for those who are serious.
- Free speech model: allowing as much free speech as possible, seeing trolls as the cost of doing business.
For a blog like this one, where race is a huge topic, there are good arguments for either model.
I follow the free speech model: Bad ideas, like racism, can only be fought in the light of day. American racism since the 1970s has depended heavily on silence and the power of whites to police that silence – through television, film, education, the press, even in face-to-face conversations (White Women’s Tears, etc). They have not yet learned how to control the Internet in the same way, so it offers an opportunity that is rare in American public life. That means, though, that trolls can bend the discussion to their own ends.
See also:
I hate trolls. No, I am not a troll. I actually exist. Anyways I am tired of racist trolls coming on here and disrupting the conversations we have on here. It is ridiculous.
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Better to learn from Trolls Adeen.
Learn what they do, how they do it. It’s all about pattern’s and outcomes. Believe it or not trolls actually exist too, even out in the real world. You can either run from them, or develop an immunity through measured exposure to them. The only safe place is the space between your two ears when you’re prepared to make it so.
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Great advice and if anyone needed it I do, I respond quickly with emotion and end up regretting my descent to their level…thanks A.
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Reblogged this on oogenhand and commented:
Useful to people of all political convictions.
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abagond
Internet trolls (by 1992) are those on the Internet who want to create trouble and get people upset for their own amusement.
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What about a racist white supremacist that notices a blog where black people are learning how to counter the system of white supremacy, is he working to disrupt it for his own amusement?
If not, what do you call people who work to disrupt a blog for a reason other than their own amusement?
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They just like to rankle and jerk people’s chains. I say “Don’t feed the trolls” They are attention seekers.
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And they are cowards. Whatever is in their junked up minds they are behind their laptop screens, they would never say this stuff to people’s faces.
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I don’t allow trolls to bother me because they have their opinions and I have mine.
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I don’t think it’s their opinion we are in dispute of but their convictions to that opinion…Are they real or just spite.
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I don’t think it’s their opinion we are in dispute of but their convictions to that opinion…Are they real or just spite.
Spite? I can’t imagine having an opinion due to spite. My opinions come from my experiences and my belief system. But to each, his own.
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@Jayis, my comment was in response to your comment but was not meant about you specifically, i felt no trollish behavior from your post…
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Okay, William The Conqueror; The term “spite” just grabbed my mind for a second. Didn’t mean to make it seem you were addressing me.
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BTW, I think its incorrect to say the Joker (played by Heath Ledger) is evil. Disappointed?
Yeah.
Evil? no. He thinks “civilization” is a fraud because most people hide behind distractions like material gain as a way to avoid and have cover for a lack of integrity. You ever had a good friend try to blame his job or his wife for the reason he won’t help you? Remember how he couldn’t look you in the eye?
Thats kinda what the Joker was exposing. EVERYBODY is walking around in “drag” except him; and somehow he’s the problem?
I don’t think so.
R.I.P Heath Ledger
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Some don’t go away no matter what you do.
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Dimwitted people don their troll mask and spew racist rants in an attempt to soothe their own failures in life. Off topic posts, nonsensical, incoherent, psycho-babbling on black blogs is generally their mode of outlet to vent and give voice to their psyche-ache. And in a twisted manner uplift their questionable self esteem, nothing less, nothing more!
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@blakksage: Well said.
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Some trolls think they are so intelligent and will argue to prove how right they are, and they actually believe what they type. Then there are the other trolls that just act this way on the internet and do not believe what they type but just say it to make people go crazy. either way I try to ignore them.
Then there are the borderline trolls that will say something crazy one minute but say something worth while the next minute. And the trolls that come here just to “prove” something and don’t want to learn anything.
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I’m not sure that they are really trolls if they actually believe what they are typing. If they aren’t doing it just to get a reaction then in my opinion, they’re just a “person with a different opinion.”
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Ive gotten use to them. There isnt anything in a comment section or message board that surprises or upsets me anymore
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XPraetorius by another name….
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If Abagond wanted a “safe” site, then he would put all of his posts behind a sign-in wall. Nobody who was not specifically invited or referred by a current member would be given access to even read his posts. In this way, nobody would ever seriously disagree with any of his posts, and nobody would negatively blog about any of his posts elsewhere.
Or, he could make his posts public, but only allow member comments, so that only people who shred his views rarely closely would be able to make comments—although people could then copy his posts and go not to challenge them on their own blogs.
Or, he could have a wide open site, and just ban anyone who admitted that they were White, or who disagreed with his posts.
BUT Abagond has not done that. He has taken the most intellectually fearless route in leaving his posts up for anyone to challenge forever.
Once you post something on the Worldwide Web, and allow open comments, you are inviting in ANYONE who wants to come against those posts with their own thinking or worldview.
By it’s very nature, it is combative, and non-exclusionary. So no… this site is not “a Black site.” It covers Black issues, but there is nothing that I have read in any of the policies that says that Whites cannot make themselves just as at home here as anyone else. And people who honestly disagree with the posts or comments are not “trolls.” There is a whole world of human being out there and many of them actually disagree on things. That is not what being a troll is.
Besides, wouldn’t it be boring if every comment was:
“Great post Abagond!”
“Spot on Abagond!”
“Well said Abagond!”
“You’ve done it again Abagond!”
“Keep up the good work Abagond!”
“Totally agree Abagond!”
“Couldn’t have said it better myself Abagond!”
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King
I’m not sure that they are really trolls if they actually believe what they are typing.
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If what they type is true, it doesn’t matter if they believe it, or if you believe it.
The truth exists independent of its medium of transmission.
I once threw a troll off a highway overpass cause he said he could fly. Guess what?
they can kinda fly; but they can’t land worth a damn.
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That’s incorrect thwack
If someone is using certain truths just to incite an argument and to get “a reaction” out of people, for his/her own amusement, then they are still a troll.
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Troll so hard university
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Trolls are easy to pinpoint after 5 comments.
-usually mention a trite stereotype without backing up their point with credible sources
-never engage in true conversation
-usually have diarrhea of the mouth
-use of ad hominems
*And for me, I just selectively read comments after I’ve deemed someone a troll. (i.e skip over their comment to the more interesting ones or my favs:-D) Yep, also would agree having a different opinion or one that is not apart of groupthink doesn’t necessarily mean troll in my book.*
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“American racism since the 1970s has depended heavily on silence and the power of whites to police that silence – through television, film, education, the press, even in face-to-face conversations (White Women’s Tears, etc). They have not yet learned how to control the Internet in the same way, so it offers an opportunity that is rare in American public life.”
Not that the internet trolls post is not well written,informative and interesting ,its just that this last part ,really got me; have not thought about it like this before.
And it starts to explain a whole lot about my offline social experience.
And I dare question why I have and continue to regularly visit and comment on this blog;-/
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I see another racist White troll on here. Not shocked. Abagond, you need to do something to get rid of these trolls! I can’t stand them and they are the MAIN reason why I don’t comment on this blog as I used to. And trolls from other nationalities and ethnicities demeaning Black Americans and Black American culture also offend me as well.
Abagond, please take charge and stop letting these trolls come on here and disrupt the discussions that take place here. There are people like MBeti and Kiwi who want to read your posts and discuss with the people on here. We want you to do something about these trolls and get them off of your blog for good!
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Mbeti
(abagond quote)
“American racism since the 1970s has depended heavily on silence and the power of whites to police that silence – through television, film, education, the press, even in face-to-face conversations (White Women’s Tears, etc). They have not yet learned how to control the Internet in the same way, so it offers an opportunity that is rare in American public life.”
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The racists don’t have to keep us silent because we get our LANGUAGE from them and the words we us function in support of white supremacy.
“black as sin”
“MINORity”
“acting white”
“good hair”
“MIScegenation”
We think with words. Thats why you can look directly at something and NOT see it because you lack the accurate word to describe it. Most of us use the same words online as we use off line. Thats why the racists don’t have to watch out or worry about us. We act the same on line as we do off line because the LANGUAGE we use is the same.
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My take.
In certain e-circles I am considered a troll. Go figure.
I believe in what I write & I back it up with all currently available data that I am aware of.
And I don’t have a problem with debating my ideologies. Iron sharpens Iron.
Now, as relevant to this blog, we have racist trolls aka closeted white nationalists who try to intellectualize their flawed racist ideologies.
Every once in a while when we get into INTRA-racial politics across genders, we have those trolls from both sides.
And I delight in debating them if I have the time.
Good post.
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And my take.
I guess people think of me as a troll here when I put in an appearance.
For the most part, however, I think I and most (but not all) of the non-Narrative following white commentators here are just trying to share alternate view points. To simply label them “racist trolls”.. “who try to intellectualize their flawed racist ideologies” doesn’t seem fair. If I called someone the “n” word, it doesn’t further discussion. It’s just an insult. The “r” word has a similar effect. It presupposes that one is not allowed to discuss the possibility of racial differences.
Anyway, I respect Abagond’s approach to his blog. Certainly, if he wanted to have an echo chamber as many “progressive” sites apparently do, he could have that. I think his blog is much more lively and interesting because it has discussion with those who disagree (they are usually distinctly in the minority, but get their voices heard), though I think Abagond’s basic rules (e.g., nothing completely off topic, no name calling) make sense.
thwack, I think we are not on the same page at all re: a lot of substantive issues, but I appreciate the wit and delivery!
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Although Trolls are intent on on making trouble-the point is they also provide arguments that bring up a cause for good debate-not all trolls go out to cause harm-its just the fakery behind it and the need to conceal themselves that add to such suspicion…the more Serious ones are the ones that are not so passive and who Agabond has specifically called out here in this post.
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biff said:
I do not consider the two comparable.
There are many circumstances in which “racist” is not an insult but an accusation. The ‘N’ word is just plain offensive (IMO regardless of who uses it) whereas “racist” is more akin to “murderer”, “thief”, “vandal” – it is a label for a chosen behaviour.
White people claim “racist” is insulting just as we claim that “redneck”, “h*nky” and “cr*cker” are offensive. It’s done to provide something to use when POC point out racial abuse aimed at them. These terms are used by whites to play the victim and divert blame.
If we whites were honest we would admit that there is no racial epithet that really offends (many) whites. We just don’t have the backstory that puts us in a position where they affect us. We can shrug it off.
I would hate to be called “racist”, but not because it is an offensive insult, rather because it is an accusation of something bad. Something that I constantly try to ensure that I am NOT.
As for discussion of “racial differences”… If you mean discussion of supposed disparity in intelligence, crime rates, who is good at sports etc… Well, sh!t, those are mostly racist bullsh!t troll standard fare.
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Adonis
My take.
In certain e-circles I am considered a troll. Go figure
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Yeah, you must be a terrible person because people accused me of being you.
are you really that bad?
what did you do?
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biff
I guess people think of me as a troll here when I put in an appearance
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I consider all white people who participate on this blog to be suspected trolls.
Why?
Because there are many blogs where white people can participate with no problems, yet they come here; here to a blog a black person had to produce in order to get away from the racists.
a blog where black people can exchange information in the completely elastic manner white people take for granted. It is my opinion the white people are ONLY here for one of two reasons:
1. To find out how much we know.
2. To confuse us.
Thats it. As proof, when asked, they never provide any FUNCTIONALLY effective counter racism information. They just repeat the things you already know or pretend to be stupid.
White parents of nonwhite children are the same way.
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Folks, here is my take on the trolls, particularly the white racist ones. There are two ways to deal with them. As many have mentioned, just ignore them. Or you can have loads of gut laughs at their expense! For those of you who love to laugh at absurdities you can mock these clowns! Here are some of the conditions under which one can do this:
1. Whilst washing floors, waiting for the floors to dry.
2. Waiting for paint to dry.
3. Waiting for the wax to dry on your floors.
4. Talking to a babbling loon on the phone from which you cannot extricate yourself from. (say a relative).
5. Channel surfing during a hockey game(I surf to the fights, otherwise I don’t watch hockey)
6. Waiting for supper to finish cooking or burning(depends on your culinary skills I suppose).
7. Idle time on ones hands(make of that what you will).
The outcome? It’s good for a laugh! Deride, deride , deride . Why feel bad about what some sociopathic white racist maniac writes? As for the more benign ones, condole with them or ‘engage’ them, it is all good! There is no down side just chuckles galore! You know what the best thing is? These racist clowns whatever their ilk, good, bad, indifferent are funny in and of themselves so you do-not have to be particularly adroit at mocking them!
What about black trolls? Ignore them and have pity as many suffer from extreme internalized racism. There is enough infighting amongst black folk which only serves to enhance the deleterious effects of White supremacy! Smarten up!
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Most trolls I consider the equivalent of blue-collar entertainment and run-of-the-mill circus acts that have the urge to jump through hoops when one is presented. After a while though, they get less and less amusing. So, in the end, at least on my blog, I ban them. It’s like watching a horrible song stuck on repeat in an endless loop, unless I turn the off switch.
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Here’s a CNN article that backs up the claim that trolls are sadists:
http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/11/tech/web/online-trolls-sadists/
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@Mary Burrell, thank you!
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just as an administrative point: The “Chaotic Evil” designator is from the alignment or “morality” system from the Dungeons & Dragons game, originally. I think it’s more “Chaotic Neutral” for the Joker’s character in that movie because he was insane, well it’s sort of nerdy and pedantic, but whatever.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alignment_(Dungeons_%26_Dragons)
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v8driver
I think it’s more “Chaotic Neutral” for the Joker’s character in that movie because he was insane,
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No he wasn’t. He was simply calling out all the powerful white captains of industry and “city fathers” on their bullsh*t.
What do white people call any black person that dares tell the truth?
“Crazy”
Exhibit A: Minister Louis Farahkan
How dare he look the white man in his eye and tell him the truth.
Is this _____ crazy?
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oh my lord, well anyway:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Joker_(The_Dark_Knight)
‘When Ledger saw Batman Begins, he had realized a way to make the character work that was consistent with the film’s tone:[13] He described his Joker as a “psychopathic, mass murdering, schizophrenic clown with zero empathy.”‘
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1. To find out how much we know.
2. To confuse us.
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” White parents of nonwhite children are the same way.”
Gosh , the stink in here on this blog about anti interracial relationships, who have children , and one parent is white, is like someone vomited in your new car…you can scrub it with all the desinfectant you want , but, you just cant get the stench out
Great blog by Abagond, but I find it severly resticting
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Based on my investigation, study and observation, white parents of nonwhite children do NOT provide their nonwhite offspring with ANY unique, “inside”, “secret” and/or USEFUL information regarding the system of racism white supremacy; what it is, how it works and how to counter it.
When I talk to biracial people about racism, they have the same “answers” we have. Having a white parent is no advantage when it comes to recieving effective information for replacing white supremacy with justice.
Indeed, having a white parent often makes the nonwhite child MORE confused about racism because they can’t even talk about it in their own house for fear of upsetting the white parent.
*be advised*
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“In Japanese and Korean, Internet trolling is called fishing. That is a good way to think of it: they leave bait, waiting to see if anyone bites. If they get no bites they will find a better place to fish.”
The word means the same in English. Trolling, as the fishing technique: “to fish with a hook and line that you pull through the water”. IE, “He’s just trolling for replies”.
It’s not 100% certain that’s the origin of the term, but that’s what I’ve always heard since back in the early 90s.
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@ lifelearner
Good point. Da Jokah, the commenter, is a good example of that. From time to time he makes a sharp observation, but when you engage him you find out you cannot have a serious conversation with him. He is just lobbing grenades from the sidelines.
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@ buddhuu
Good comment on the R-word.
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@biff
@ ‘em or dap ‘em. You cannot properly debate on a safe (meaning no one is coming for your physical safety) online forum, then get off the thread.
Personally, that is to be seen.
When they use racially coded terms or make flawed arguments with flawed statistics that known white supremacists use, the dots are not that hard to connect. Stop being willfully obtuse.
Neither is the systematic racist system brown/black people in this country experience. If there are racial differences that you are presuming the possibility of (which usually goes into, whites are just superior/smarter, blacks are inferior/have low IQ), then all the terroristic acts from whites towards blacks, historically & in recent times would be unnecessary.
Inferior people do not need to be constantly reminded they are inferior.
You are right, I was cavalier in calling them “racist trolls”. They are “Suspected White Supremacists”.
Or “thugs” or the countless derogatory names whites create, that blacks have to cope with.
The racial differences argument is strangled by intellectually dishonest whites who have no firm grasp of world (or US) history & when making the argument of racial differences DEVOID of context.
For example, whites love to talk about recent crime stats (2000 to now). They ignore crimes that Whites commit. They ignore criminal stats from before 2000. They ignore how different neighborhoods are policed differently and blacks are punished harsher for similar crimes committed by other groups.
So, even if their arguments have any basis, (which they don’t) like talking about Barack Obama’s tenure as US President, they get into “ad hominem” arguments, rather than being genuinely upset with the way he is leading this country.
So, white debaters have lost their credibility before walking into the room.
Too bad stormfront and the amren websites can’t show the same level of courage.
Good Day
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abagond
@ lifelearner
“-never engage in true conversation”
Good point. Da Jokah, the commenter, is a good example of that.
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Who are you refering to?
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White people claim “racist” is insulting just as we claim that “redneck”, “h*nky” and “cr*cker” are offensive. It’s done to provide something to use when POC point out racial abuse aimed at them. These terms are used by whites to play the victim and divert blame
I agree with this comment by buddhu. Wholeheartedly.
This ‘racist’ tag has become the stock phrase amongst some disengenuous whites. It is a tactic used to deflect from what might be described as implicit or barely perceptible behaviour that has racist undertones. Unfortunately because the word racist historically has been used to describe people who have blatantly and wantonly been particpating in such behaviour, other people fall for the ruse and feel ‘offended’ for the disingenuous people for being labelled in such a ‘bad’ way.
I heard this from an ex colleague late last year who talked about how his boss was relieved to see the back of a colleague of his who had played the race card. As a result, his boss was wary about employing someone from this race. When I asked him if there was any truth in the accusation he became flustered and said that his boss couldnt be racist for employing the individual in the first place!
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George Ryder
Kind of ironic i think. All this time racists are saying it as an insult when they are really calling the person a God, Kind, Lord.
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No its not.
because a word is a SOUND + a MEANING.
It matters not what word they call you right before they hang you from a tree; They could call you a “Monday” since everybody hates those; but it would not change the fact you are being mistreated/abused on the basis of color.
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The problem with taking a hard-line stance against trolls is whose a troll?
Adeen feels the need to point out she’s not a troll.
I wouldn’t have felt she was but apparently people have thought she could be.
Some people seem to feel that someone saying something they don’t want to hear or that goes against their belief is automatically trolling and/or racist.
And trolls do kind of serve a purpose; they get people to have to honestly defend their view points.
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Kiwi said
Hahahahahahahahahaha!!!
………………………………………………
This made me laugh out loud. Lol.
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As for the Joker.
He is evil; he is somewhat put off by the hypocrisy of humanity but even when they don’t act like he thinks he still just wants to blow stuff up like the boats at the end.
He didn’t go, okay you proved me wrong I’ll go on my way….he was like, damn I was really hoping they would go along with this….oh well I have other bombs planted that allow me to blow stuff up and hurt people.
The Joker isn’t a fan of hypocrisy but partly he just wants to make other people as ugly as him internally. He doesn’t want to view himself as a monster.
That said he was both smart and had insight into humanity.
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@v-4
“And trolls do kind of serve a purpose; they get people to have to honestly defend their view points.”
that much is true, they do seem to worm their way into one’s arguments
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Well said Baddhu, I concur 100%, there is not one single white experience in general that can compare to the treatment of Blacks, Chinese, Native Americans, etc…I don’t believe a Black American or Native American can ever be considered a racist because their actions will always be a reaction from past and present atrocities and discrimination. If I beat my dog everyday and after 2 years of taking my bullshit he bites me, can you honestly say this dog hates people. No, he is responding to treatment by people. So if a Black person uses racist sentiment towards a white person, is he/she responding out of racism or is he/she only responding to 300 years of abuse. how could we ever really know if people in this country are really racist except for whites. Whites in my mind are the only racist in this country and the facts all point to these conclusions….actions speak louder than words and history and present day inequality is overwhelming.
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George Ryder
Thwack is definitely a troll, don’t feed him, move along, nothing to see here…
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Says the white man who comes to a black blog to tell black people the “N” word is really a compliment.
1. To find out how much you know.
2. To confuse you.
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V-4
As for the Joker.
He is evil;
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You can’t cheat an honest man.
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@ naishee
Ahh! Insightful point. Makes more sense than a strange creature who lives in a cave or under a bridge.
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Thwack, you are clearly taking Georges comment out of context. His comment clearly was meant as an insult to racist. After all we all know that with hate and racism comes ignorance and a clear lack of logic and intelligence and that is exactly what George is eluding to. But you know that, your not stupid but you are an antagonist, why don’t you try helping those on this site when you can instead of pushing their buttons. Remember most of the whites or non blacks on this site are here because they want to learn, they want to change and they want to discuss those issues they aren’t sure of, which are all actions that are needed for change and for assurance that we don’t repeat the past. Not only that but when we go back to our jobs, our Churches, etc we can take what we learn here and spread it to other people. Since my first participation in a discussion I have changed the way I speak, I no longer use the word minority as I did because I learned right here on this site it can be an insult. I have done my best to leave this word out of my vocabulary, this is progress and I owe it all to this diverse educational site. This is but one example and there are other important things I have learned and one day I might be free of my learned white supremacy ways…
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William The Conqueor
. Remember most of the whites or non blacks on this site are here because they want to learn, they want to change and they want to discuss those issues they aren’t sure of,
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So you expect me to be your big black mammy and take care of you?
How dare you.
See how much nerve these white people have?
(((SMMFH)))
A white man is gonna come over to a black blog (which black people had to create in order to get away from racism) and try to get black people to help HIM straighten out HIS life, and teach him, hold his hand…
You gotta be kiddin me?
Oh well,
if black people fall for this, maybe it means we deserve to be mistreated on the basis of color?
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Oh, is that what this is?
Abagond created this “black site” so we could all “get away from racism?”
Do you expect Abagond to be your big black mammy???
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I think the advice to refrain from engaging with trolls is sound in many instances. It’s working for me so far in this thread.
@ Abagond:
Thanks. To be honest, your blog has been a serious tonic to my naïveté. Seriously, I had no idea – really, no idea – that things were so bad.
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thwack
William The Conqueor
. Remember most of the whites or non blacks on this site are here because they want to learn, they want to change and they want to discuss those issues they aren’t sure of
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1. When white people at work are choosing people for promotions, do they call you in to discuss it?
2. When white people are writing the school history books your children will be forced to read, do they call you in to discuss it?
3. When an unarmed black teen, minding his own business walking home from the store at night is murdered by a home owner, does the white police chief call you to discuss it BEFORE they refuse to charge the shooter with ANYTHING?
Or do you hafta start marching and protesting to get their attention?
If you fall for this routine you deserve to be crushed
Deuteronomy verses 16 – 68
1. To find out how much you know.
2. To confuse you.
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King
Abagond created this “black site” so we could all “get away from racism?”
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Why are you here and not posting on a white blog?
exactly, because you know if the white people find out you are black you will be mistreated on the basis of color. Your opinions will be dismissed and your comments confined to the “black ghetto” and not taken seriously.
With the exceptions of trying to get a date and black blogs; white is the default internet identity. It was been my experience that most people will not reveal their nonwhite identity without prompting.
You can be on a blog for 3 years before you find out another person there is nonwhite.
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No time to argue! I’m off!
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buddhuu
Thanks. To be honest, your blog has been a serious tonic to my naïveté. Seriously, I had no idea – really, no idea – that things were so bad.
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Thats because you think its all a game, and academic exercise…
Every German tried to use the same argument of personal ignorance at the end of WW2.
Im glad the allies made the German townspeople clean up the concentration camps and bury all the dead bodies.
The footage is on youtube somewhere and it is very interesting to see all the healthy white towns people forced to pick up those, naked, filthy, emaciated, disease ridden, foul smelling dead, untermensh, carry them to a big pit, and dump them in.
Oh you had no idea?
Well now you do.
Get back to work.
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To the white allies here on this blog, you need too see that nothing Thwack has posted in response to your posts is in fact untrue. He uses sarcasm and can be antagonistic and sometimes it seems he’s trolling but that’s not what is important here. Whether he’s really black or white, straight or gay aren’t important either, rather it’s the content of the post that’s important.
How you process that content is what you need to pay attention too.
Thwack did an epic deconstruction of a post I did and pointed out some flaws in how I think. As serious allies we need to be able to take criticism and use it to better understand ourselves. Keep in mind you have been programed since birth to think in white supremacy so understanding what it is doesn’t mean that you stop white centric thinking in your head. You will make statements that you think support anti racism but really all you have done is deflect personal responsibility away from yourself.
Abagond writes this blog for the benefit of blacks and POC. Whites are welcome but I keep in mind that I am a guest. It is like Abagond invited me to his home and he would expect certain mannerisms and etiquette to apply. If I got into a confrontation with one of his guests I would be expected to deescalate that confrontation or leave. I also wouldn’t over extend my stay or comment on things that aren’t a part of my white culture for to do so would be an interference.
As a rule of thumb if a white poster misspeaks don’t attempt to jump in and help explain to the offended POC what that white poster really meant. (somehow “offended POC” sounds wrong my apologies)
To me this blog is about moral values and the ethics behind dealing with racism.
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@ George. It’s not my place here to call POC out.
I sparse whatever I read in social media. A person may make statements that I agree with and others statements I don’t. I read books on economics, philosophy, history ect and rarely do I read a book I agree with 100%. We take information and process it against out ethics, world view ect and see what makes sense, what builds upon our beliefs.
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Hello black people. I haven’t been here for a couple of months. I’m flattered abagond still remembered me enough to make a post in my honor. At least I assume it’s my honor since he used a picture of the joker.
abagond — From time to time he makes a sharp observation, but when you engage him you find out you cannot have a serious conversation with him. He is just lobbing grenades from the sidelines.
Indeed I do make sharp observations. But we both know I’ve done more than just lob grenades. I crushed your delusions for months. Screaming “Troll!” is a way for you to avoid admitting the obvious. Not unlike that interesting exchange we had concerning blacks’ propensity for violent crime. It must have been very painful for you and brotherwolf considering how long you both denied the obvious. No wonder you call me a sadist. But if I’m a sadist for telling the truth then I must ask why the truth is so painful for you?
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I will never understand why, especially among Blacks and other POC that they would, wittingly or unwittingly, refer to themselves as NON WHITE/NON-WHITE.
Why not an AFFIRMATION of who we are as opposed to who we are not?
When I hear/read NON WHITE/NON-WHITE by Blacks/POC, it connotes aspirational mindset/goal that to be white is it. When I hear it used by Whites, it says to me, you are not like me and you want to be like me. Maybe, it’s me having a little understanding of colonialism and rabid racism of the past, which still resonates with me today.
I will NEVER EVER be NON anything!
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The truth is relative in the mind of a sadist…. Facts, logic and moral majority play no part in the conclusion of a sadist…
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I do understand that the Non means “Not” in Latin. Nevertheless, let’s give affirmation to ourselves and let not “White” be our barometer.
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Ubuntu said:
An excellent and interesting point. Especially when one considers that language does, indeed, influence thought.
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Anybody coming in with anti interracial sex attitudes , stereotypes , clichês, and , hiding behind political agendised dogma to justify those attitudes is a green slime oozing out of their orafaces troll in my world…maybe not to the blog owner, but, they wont get away with it in my real life…
I dont know where people get this is some monolithical black position blog…it absolutly isnt…its about forty posters, who are anomonous cyber blips , giving personal opinions…where agreement cliques are formed one minute, the next minute, the same people might be at each others throats.What a mistake for any one to think this is monolithical black opinion that has to be deferred to at every step…people who think like that sound like they dont know many black people
Thwack, be advised , junk your studies when talking to me, you have no idea how I raised my son , deal with my reality, not some intellectualised studies
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@ Michael Jon Barker:
For my part, I don’t entirely agree with your post above, Michael.
Some of what thwack has said while addressing me is, in fact, untrue. Like others before him, he has assumed that he can either generalise or extrapolate my motives and attitudes. He is not good at it, but he is good at presenting his opinions with the kind of confident bluster and pseudo intellectual word games that impress some people.
One might wonder why someone who wishes to make a genuine contribution to discussion should choose such an arrogant hostile and antagonistic approach. Such tone does not instill any desire in me to engage in conversation.
When I am able to translate thwack’s points I see little that isn’t simple repetition from what others here have said many times – usually in clearer, more reasoned terms.
Michael said:
No. In this specific case, it really isn’t. It is my opinion that the content in question is presented in order to further some agenda that I do not grasp, and that is is not posted in good faith.
What you say is true, however, when referring to the content of posts by serious contributors here, and I do try to bear in mind how much my preconceptions taint the meaning I divine from what I read.
Agreed. That is part of the value I take from this blog, as was implied in my comment to Abagond above. I constantly learn here – THAT is why I come here more than I visit any blog other than a handful of specialist political blogs. However, as with any environment, there is noise here as well as signal. I think you and I may make different judgements about what is noise. You seem to have found value in it. I choose not to be drawn into an exchange that would simply further degrade signal.
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Hello black people. I haven’t been here for a couple of months.
Hello Uranus! Were you on vacation or in the psych ward at the local lunatic asylum? Perhaps you were off on a bender of some sort?
Screaming “Troll!” is a way for you to avoid admitting the obvious.
TROLL!!! What’s the obvious? I love screaming!
It must have been very painful for you and brotherwolf considering how long you both denied the obvious.
No dear, pain is suffering from chronic hemorrhoids and gas pains, not reading the post from some anonymous person. If one is affected thus by reading your rants, perhaps they do need help.
No wonder you call me a sadist.
Oh no you’re wonderful! I would say you are, in reality a masochist.
But if I’m a sadist for telling the truth then I must ask why the truth is so painful for you?
It wasn’t painful, he was suffering from gas that day. It causes on painful stomach cramps. Try staying focused when you are doubled up in pain and ex-lax isn’t working!
I personally enjoy your rants and responses as I think you are comical. Is that something inherent to whites?; to be unintentionally funny due to their cluelessness? Something for a race realist such as your self to ponder. Good day.
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I prefer the term racialized and race is a social construct.
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@ Buddahh
I was speaking to white posters in general not to you specifically. What Thwack wrote about you is insulting. Thwack generalizations about white supremacy are mostly true and his projections on specific posters not always true.
This is what I mean by parsing content and getting through the noise. If the essence of something said makes you feel uncomfortable and defensive maybe that’s something needs to be looked at. Some posts are useful others are not and are distortion.
In the real world some WP try to guess the race of POC and it’s insulting. So I’m saying don’t bring that here. It doesn’t matter if Thwack is black or white, it’s not relevant to the content of what he is writing nor is it our place to make that assumption.
Nor is it our place to make a judgment call publicly on this Blog whether POC are serious contributor’s or not.
I like Abagonds policy of free speech for the reasons he has laid out. That allows for Thwacks style as well as the hateful speech that white racist’s spout off here as well. That said you haven’t seen hate speech till you have gone to a supremacist blog and seen the kind of things they talk about. Their was a discussion the other day about who was more dangerous. White anti racists or Jews and who should they kill first.
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@ buddhuu
Contextually, that is exactly my point within the milieu of the social, political and especially psychology of “race.”
Thanks!
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No time to argue! I’m off!
King found a Queen on Valentine’s , huh? 🙂
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Hopefully He laid some pipe!
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buddhuu
One might wonder why someone who wishes to make a genuine contribution to discussion should choose such an arrogant hostile and antagonistic approach. Such tone does not instill any desire in me to engage in conversation.
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Another white person used to nonwhite people tip toeing around him, genuflecting and kow towing like they are God’s avatar…
buddhuu must be an old white person. The look on their faces when they realize they aren’t in Kansas anymore is priceless.
LOL
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B. R.
Thwack, be advised , junk your studies when talking to me, you have no idea how I raised my son , deal with my reality, not some intellectualised studies
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Are you a white person?
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Ubuntu
I will never understand why, especially among Blacks and other POC that they would, wittingly or unwittingly, refer to themselves as NON WHITE/NON-WHITE.
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Are you a white person?
Why not an AFFIRMATION of who we are as opposed to who we are not?
—————————————————————————————————-
OK, but whats to stop a white person from saying they are “one of you?”
When I hear/read NON WHITE/NON-WHITE by Blacks/POC, it connotes aspirational mindset/goal that to be white is it.
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What does it mean to be a white person?
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@ buddhuu
My apologies for misspelling your name.
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Good Morning Everyone, can anyone please tell me how to change my profile picture?……thank you.
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@Michael Jon Barker
Your humility is truly wonderful, but sometimes it’s a matter of where words are comming from. Not every Black person screaming up the walls is worth while, just because there are one or two nuggets of truth buried under their tantrums. One has displayed hatred for White people, Black women, and hostility towards Black women with non Black men, while campaigning for the other way around. It’s rooted in the desire to insult and antagonise. There’s contradiction, no consistent doctrine, just antagonism and ego. Christian Bale’s character in “American psycho” probably said one or two things that are true.
@William the conqueor
I’d like to know how to actually put a picture up.
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Ebonymonroe: You hit the nail on the head, the Christian Bale character from American Psycho is what I think is an internet troll come to real life.
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Internet troll (n) – an easy way to dismiss arguments you disagree with.
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Michael Jon Barker said:
No probs. Thanks for noticing. 🙂
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@ Mary and William…
Grrr, the Gravatar thing drives me nuts. I’d like to use my usual symbol for my pic, but due to the way I have various WordPress and FB accounts set up I have got into the situation where I cannot have both the symbol and my preferred username.
Kind of my own fault.
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^Apologies, I meant to address the above comment to Ebonymonroe and William.
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Lol @Mary B
And I don’t believe Abagond views his blog as being specifically for Black people only. I’ve never gotten that impression.
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Michael Jon Barker
@ Buddahh
Thwack generalizations about white supremacy are mostly true
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Interesting.
Do you guys see how white people use LANGUAGE to discredit nonwhite people even when it appears they are doing the opposite?
See how MJB refers to my comments as “generalizations” instead of “observations?”
This is how white people marginalize and minimize nonwhite people right in front of their faces, and we don’t even see it.
This is the LANGUAGE white people use when they are writing your performance evaluation for your permanent file in the work place.
Its real slick and you gotta catch it because if you don’t, white people will litterally write you OUT of the history books. You won’t get credit for anything you do that is of constructive value.
For example, people think Madonna invented “Voguing”.
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@ thwack
I always view issues of “race,” not from physical appearances, but from one of culture. What I’ve stated, is analogous to my saying, I would also NOT want to be considered “Non-European” either – knowing fully well, the cultural legacy of Western Europeans, vis-à-vis the lives of us who are “Non-Europeans”/POC, the world over. I will also extend that legacy to those who are of Eastern European descent, but were acculturated/schooled in Western thought on the social, political and psychological concept of “race.”
I hope my explanation was clear thwack.
Cheers!
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@ thwack
“…that to be white is it”. In my earlier post “white” should have been in quotation marks.
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Ebonymonroe
And I don’t believe Abagond views his blog as being specifically for Black people only.
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Thats because its not.
Its a blog for people who support justice and correctness. We can’t find it anywhere else so we have to carve out a space and try to produce it ourselves.
ALL black organizations are compensatory; especially the professional ones:
black fire fighters
black law enforcement
black lawyers
black doctors
black teachers
ect…
Theres probably an organization/association of black bloggers?
White people try to retard nonwhite peoples constructive abilities because if/ when we are equal to or greater than them, they don’t feel white. And thats a big deal for a white person.
The ability to function as a white person is the only thing that gets some white people out of bed in the morning.
Who needs an example?
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I don’t want to try and speak for Abagond, But it needs to be made clear that this blog is not just for black people and their perspectives, it is a forum for everyone who can engage in intelligent discourse. Even when we respectfully disagree with each other. Respectful, being the operative word here.
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@Thwack…your observations are rooted in truth but also a degree of paranoia. My observations on how you view myself and any other white person is that regardless of what we say, do or feel we will be doing something to offend you. If I agree with you I am sure you will tell me I am humoring you and that I am displaying my superiority over a black man. If I disagree with you, it’s not because I think you are wrong, it’s because I am white and you are black. There have been multiple instances where the entire group has disagreed with you and yet you turned it into the white mans uncanny ability to gain support even when we are wrong. So in your eyes change is futile, white is white and black is black.
Of course you are completely wrong. People have learned behaviors that indeed may offend others, I succeed that this is true of the white race and of course this includes myself. However, you can’t blame a puppy for pissing on your carpet, if he doesn’t know any better. That’s why you train them to go outside. The internet and other social devices allow us to learn from each other and reach out across the world to all people and find out what we have to do to get to the point where we can shed our learned racist behavior, because to tell you the truth I do everything in my power NOT to offend anyone, regardless of their race, religion, social status, etc. and yet I still continue to offend someone in someway, well I apologize but please let me know. Remember I am not speaking of obvious offenses here, I am speaking of simple words that have a different meaning to some due to how history or people have treated them. The word minority is the one that comes to mind recently but for all intensive purposes I have tried to keep this word out of my vocabulary when referring to people.
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@Thwack….You forgot to mention our Black President. In which 40% of white America voted for…Now that is hope and if you can’t see that I feel sorry for you.
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@ Michael Jon Barker:
I don’t recall making any assumptions or expressing any speculation about whether thwack is black or white.
If you check the post of mine to which I believe you are responding, you’ll see that while I mentioned “serious” contributors, I did not make any distinction between POC or whites. There are some commmenters here whose contributions I do not consider to be particularly helpful or conducive to productive discourse – most in that category appear to be white people. Equally, I’m sure there are people here who neither trust nor value what I say. Such is life.
I know that (according to some principle whose origins are rather nebulous) it is widely said that we should not make judgements, but in the real world we all do. Where this blog is concerned I think I make judgements based upon how people talk and behave. A good debater is a good debater whether POC or white. The same is true of a rude or arrogant person. I speak generally here.
I do not know whether thwack is a POC or a white person. Any impression I may have formed is based upon his (a gender assumption, I admit) demeanour and tone.
Personally, I choose not to engage. You, of course, will make your own choices. I also choose not to spend further space discussing that contributor.
I hope this post doesn’t seem terse or hostile. No bad vibes intended.
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I think that internet trolls give insight into the society we live in today.
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William The Conqueor
@Thwack….You forgot to mention our Black President. In which 40% of white America voted for
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Nothing more than a perfect example of “white guilt” and attempted redemption before sh*t gets biblical (Psalm 118:22 ).
I as a black man hafta have perfect qualifications to be a friggin truck driver; but when white people want a black president, they don’t even bother to find one with qualifications or experience…
Al Sharpton has more executive experience than Barack Obama.
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buddhuu
I do not know whether thwack is a POC or a white person.
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OK people, read that sentence and ask yourself WHY.
Why is this white man CONFUSED about my racial classification?
Now, ask yourself why YOU are confused about my racial classification?
The answer is the same for both of you. You are both unfamiliar with a black person using logic to counter racism instead of EMOTION.
Its like in the movie “The Matrix” where Trinity asks Neo; “How did you do that? You move like they do?”
Thats all it is, people think Im a white person because Im too logical to be a black person. Black people don’t use logic, they just get emotional, and LOUDER!
Its kinda funny imagining the puzzeled look on these white peoples faces as they read my comments and think silently: “wha? his logic is countering racism, but his language is too complex for a negro…?”
He must be mullato?
No wait, he’s Jewish, yeah, thats it…
He can’t be black. At least I HOPE he’s not?
PS— If you are a black person that white people accuse of being white on the internet?
its because the white person thinks/HOPES no black person can be that smart. They are projecting their fear on to you.
*be advised*
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Uh oh. Thwack is confusing his babble with logic again. ROFL
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“its because the white person thinks/HOPES no black person can be that smart. They aro projecting their fear on to you.”
Nope (list of things thwack is wrong about is unbelievable), they are in shock that you can be that ignorant about certain information and topics that have become common place for many blacks in here. Only racist delusional whites show saif behavior and so same becomes attributed to you. Simple yet you make it into a whole conundrum. Further more if whites think you are stupid they will just call you such.
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Sharina
. Further more if whites think you are stupid they will just call you such.
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“Calling you black” is the sophistcated way white people discredit your opinion without offending you. It allows them to do it without you even knowing it. Its like a “dog whistle” for other white people.
They “get it”
You don’t.
BTW– females experience the same phenomenon. At a big meeting with the boss, a woman will make a suggestion for the company and no one will really cosign.
Later, a white male will make the same suggestion, and all the sudden:
“you know, thats a great idea!”
“hey you know we are gonna have to look into that”
“hey, that might work…”
“yeah, get with me this afternoon so we can flesh it out…”
Like I said, after all these years, “white” is still the default identity in cyber space for a good reason.
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George Ryder
Obama isn’t black.
Why do people forget his mother?
I seem to remember her lacking pigment, maybe i’m wrong…
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. Indeed, your are incorrect because the racists don’t ask you who your mother is/was before they “hang you from a tree.”
Or your haplotype
or your DNA test
or your alleles
or your /unique-event polymorphism (UEP) mutations
or the migrations tens of thousands of years ago of your direct patrilineal ancestors…
This is why its so funny to watch black people get in arguments with white people over the science of racial differences.
What are you trying to prove?
That white people can’t DECIDE who is qualified for harm?
I suspect by the time a white child is about 6 years old, they know who is qualified for mistreatment/abuse based on color.
Even a blind person knows what a white person is and if they are one.
They might not tell YOU, but they know.
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@thwack
““Calling you black” is the sophistcated way white people discredit your opinion without offending you. It allows them to do it without you even knowing it. Its like a “dog whistle” for other white people.”— That is a great, but that deflects from what I actually said and puts direction into yet another topic.
“You don’t.”—Or perhaps you just don’t get it. Would explain why you have several explainations usually dealing with something contradictory to something else you brought up.
Congrats!!! I crown you snake because you slide out of every topic without really addressing it. More characteristics of a white racist.
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@William The Conqueor
The best liars tell half truths. Tell enough of the truth to sucker one in and coat it with a lie.
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@Sharina….unfortunately I am an easy mark as I get suckered in by the worst of them…I am unfortunately gullible as I try to make friends with everyone, but alas this is not a reasonable personal goal as you cannot please everyone. I will take solace that Thwack is the exception and not the rule, racist are the exception not the rule, evil people are the exception not the rule and assholes come in all colors.
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Thank you Kiwi…
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@William The Conqueor
Don’t be hard on yourself. I used to be just the same upon arrival on this thread. When you see enough of the exceptions then you begin to realize when and who you should and should not give the benefit of the doubt.
Sad part is those individuals always play the race card once you say anything to them, even if the logic is what is being addressed.
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Sharina
Sad part is those individuals always play the race card once you say anything to them, even if the logic is what is being addressed.
——————————————————————————————————–
Race card = Carte Blanche or “blank check” (white check)
A blank check (blank cheque, carte blanche), in the literal sense, is a check that has no numerical value written in, but is already signed.
In the figurative or metaphoric sense, it is used (especially in politics) to describe a situation in which an agreement has been made that is open-ended or vague, and therefore subject to abuse, or in which a party is willing to consider any expense in the pursuance of their goals.
In a system of racism white supremacy every card white people play is a race card.
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@buddhuu
“No bad vibes intended” Same here.
I should have worded my original post differently as it may appear that I made white posters the problem when they weren’t. I also hadn’t meant to put words in your mouth in my follow up I was just clarifying more how I view things. I have a tendency to talk past people sometimes.
I wanted to explain my ethics in regards to how I act here. I think it is more appropriate for Abagond, King or Sharina (and others) to call out a black socket puppet then us. For me its more about my respect for the Blog then is about my opinion of Thwack who I’m not defending beyond his right to speak. I do believe that we should criticize bad behavior of course.
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Michael Jon Barker
@buddhuu
“I wanted to explain my ethics in regards to how I act here.
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How do you act everywhere else?
Do you ever go somewhere and challenge the white people on the racism they practice there?
or do you avoid it so you can be a “white person in good standing” among them?
When do you go among white people and call them out on their racism?
You come here and pull that Jimmy Buffet routine while our people are being crushes on a daily basis; and then you attack me for calling you out on it?
WHEN do you do useful work?
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jesus this is like charging a machine gun nest at this time
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@Michael Jon Barker and @Buddhuu…Friends your presence here alone is helpful in mans plight to rid itself of evil and to understand one another on levels that sometimes cannot be attained face to face, your works here are forever appreciated, thank you for your CIVIL and POIGNANT participation.
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I think that Randy and thwack ought to have some exchanges on here – does anyone else agree?
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@ Thwack
Ethics are important and yes I extend them outside of this blog.
To live peaceably with your neighbor means having mutual respect for your neighbors rights even if on religious or philosophical grounds you think your neighbor is immoral. If your neighbor isn’t interfering with your life, liberty or property then you have no reason to object to that persons peculiarities.
As an Anarchist who recognizes hierarchy’s in society like racism, sexism, corporatism, religionists ect a blog like this affirms what I already believe.
In my personal life I respect people no matter what their class. I don’t respect authority like the police but I remain polite when I run into them.
I call out racism, sexism in real life when I run into it. It’s natural for me to do that. I have a black wife, a gay son, all my workers are Hispanic and more then 70% of my clients are non white and most of them weren’t born in the U.S. I don’t live or work in a mostly white area. I also fund a paintball team of inner city kids and we travel around playing tournaments. I school them to be anarchists. When I am around company my wife’s kicks me to keep my mouth shut because she knows I’m getting ready to mess it up.
On FB I’m involved some anti racist pages and theirs plenty of racism, misogyny over their their to deal with.
I can criticize your personal behavior based on the evidence of your actions. I think your actions are toxic to the group overall. Your not interested in solidarity rather you just want to win your argument at any cost. You set traps and manipulate. You gained peoples trust initially and then attack them later. Your participation is more destructive then productive. That’s the game you are playing. Is it any wonder people think you are a troll?
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@thwack
We challenge the illusion of White Supremacy similarly. Nothing more, nothing less.
Salute
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^ Aha! So you ARE the same person!!
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Michael Jon Barker
I have a black wife, a gay son, all my workers are Hispanic and more then 70% of my clients are non white and most of them weren’t born in the U.S
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Thats all fine and well, thats the easy part. The moment of truth for a white person is when they are around all white people because its far too easy for a white person to “go along to get along”; to do and say nothing while the racists plot, scheme, and practice racism.
For example, a white person like Michael Jon Barker will not tell a nonwhite person if a white person he knows is a racist, without prompting.
In other words, white people do not snitch on each other about racism. They KNOW who the racists are, but they won’t tell you unless you grill them. They don’t give YOU that information without prompting.
At least 3 times in my life Ive had a white person who was angry with another white person, come tell me of a racist act they witnessed the person commiting.
But the key is, its always after the fact.
They wouldn’t tell me when it happened; it was only after they had a “falling out” which was sometimes years later..
See how that works?
*be advised*
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Adonis
@thwack
We challenge the illusion of White Supremacy similarly. Nothing more, nothing less.
Salute
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All I do is tell the truth.
I don’t know what you did here, but they tried to accuse me of being you, and I had no idea who you were.
Im treated badly here. Everybody attacks me and Im on probation for mock ebonics. The call me white. I feel like Im back in 6th grade.
But Im tough guy. They make me stronger. I get high off their poison.
Tally ho
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Omnipresent
My money is on Randy. Perhaps he can figure out this babble he keeps calling “Truth.” Oh and now he is claiming to be hated (people have to care to hate). I haven’t laugh this hard since I watched Dave Chappelle.
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I’ll do my best to join in, but I know I’ll miss the mark anyway.
I keep seeing the word “truth” thrown around. I see it from those who claim that their truth is the only truth, especially when their bigotry is showing. Then again, they claim what we call bigotry is anything but. They consider it the truth, and nothing but the truth.
Truth, in the simplest terms, refers to facts and reality. The trolls I see that appear here and other like-blogs all think their racist views are the one and only truth.
When they appear on sites that discuss racism, they lead strikes to try and other views, the ones that go against their mindset. Apparently, they don’t know that attempting to silence the views of nonwhites is itself racist.
Trolls of this nature are narcissistic in thinking not only in that they are correct but that their realities, or racist collective reality, of the world exist and that only it matters.
Like I always point out, there are more than one truths and many realities. My reality/mindset is not the same as Abagond’s, Randy’s, Sharina’s or Da Jokah. But in the same token when taking about groups, Randy and Da Jokah’s realities are different from mine, Abagonds and Sharina.
To explain it further, myself, Abagond and Sharina have most likely experienced or witnessed some form of prejudice and racism. Given the history of racism in this country, it’s nothing that we can not just put aside, especially if it’s ongoing. Still, we are individuals with different personal truths. We haven’t all experienced and witnessed the same issues and moments of racism. But we all have faced some form of offense and discrimination that is absolutely linked to race. If we live in a racist society, such a possibility can not be brushed aside.
On the other hand, you have racist trolls that are racially narcissistic in peddling victimology, especially in articles in white crime against black victims. Their mantra is that white people are the only “true” victims in this country against ravaging black people. Remember, there were white people from as far back as (at least) more than 200 years ago with that same victimhood mentality.
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sharina:
My money is on Randy. Perhaps he can figure out this babble he keeps calling “Truth.” Oh and now he is claiming to be hated (people have to care to hate). I haven’t laugh this hard since I watched Dave Chappelle.
Yes, both seem keen to present a detached approach, one free from emotion!!!!!!!
In honesty though, if you havent felt something in life, good, bad, indifferent, you havent lived and if you havent experienced these things, surely its difficult to comment on.
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In a system of racism white supremacy every card white people play is a race card.
I agree with you here as whites hold all the aces. There is no such thing as the ‘race card’ for black people, unless you call defending yourself from the vagaries of white supremacy as a ‘race card’ move. However, I do not agree with your characterizations of black women. This is what whites love, seeing black folk fight , argue, debate amongst themselves over inconsequential buffoons or topics of black fallibility of some sort. If anyone plays the race cards it’s white folks. Centre your energies on fighting their supremacy complex and systemic racism. Stop making dumb assertions as to the supposed foibles of black women.
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Herneith
In a system of racism white supremacy every card white people play is a race card.
I agree with you here as whites hold all the aces.
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Aces?
With their Carte Blanche (blank check/ White card) they can write any demomination they want on it.
You can hold all the aces and all they need to do is write in a greater denomination on their Carte Blanche (blank check/ White card) and they win.
This is why black people need to invent a better currency to exchange between themselves.
One that white people can’t counterfeit.
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Herneith
Stop making dumb assertions as to the supposed foibles of black women.
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Are you a black woman?
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Herneith, if you are speaking in general about white people enjoying a dispute between blacks I strongly disagree, at least regarding this white person. If you are speaking of those whites who I would call racist, then I agree. However I would put good money that most the white people on this site get no pleasure watching two black people argue. Now, is there some comfort when one person comes to the aid of another or specifically oneself, YES. I think it makes any person feel good when others defend you or believe the same way you do, thats called being HUMAN.
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http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/climate_desk/2014/02/internet_troll_personality_study_machiavellianism_narcissism_psychopathy.html
“In the past few years, the science of Internet trollology has made some strides.”
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Are you a black woman?
Yes, I am a multi-generational Black Canadian woman to be exact. My family arrived in Canada as veterans of the War of 1812 and were given land whilst the other strand are runaway slaves.
Herneith, if you are speaking in general about white people enjoying a dispute between blacks I strongly disagree, at least regarding this white person.
You can disagree all you want as can anyone else. White racism is so entrenched in Canada and the US, notwithstanding individuals, most whites are racist;from the most blatant to the most kumbaya, ‘I am trying to learn’, seemingly benign types. But, that is the nature of the beast. As a black person, it is my duty to try and navigate and circumvent these micro and macro aggressions perpetrated on an almost daily basis. I do not need nor do I seek out white people’s validation by dialoging with them on matters for which 95% of them don’t have a clue, it is a waste of time. My time is better spent conferring with other black folk in the real world. That is the only way one can effect any type of change for other blacks. One must use whatever resources are at hand especially those laws formulated by whites in order to address ‘inequalities'(Human Rights). These laws were designed so that they could , can, feel ‘good’ and ‘morally upright’ about themselves. These laws can be quite effective if you know how to navigate the system. To be be blunt, if you are going to discriminate against me, you are going to pay me for the white privilege of doing so. The white supremacist system tries to keep most black people ignorant of these laws and, or, the procedures in regards to pursuing such complaints. Sadly, they are too successful at doing this;put in laws to ‘effect’ change but make it too intimidating for most or those it is designed to aid.
Now, is there some comfort when one person comes to the aid of another or specifically oneself, YES.
I couldn’t care less about being comforted, that is not what I am on about. I am greatly ‘comforted’ when I win a settlement(which I have, and another one is in the works), not kumbaying with a bunch of white folks and making them feel better because they ‘comforted’ me. All the support I have gotten through these processes were and are from other black people(discounting the ones who either drink the kumbaya kool-aid or are just plain terrified of any consequences accrued through lodging complaints). My philosophy is that I am already standing on a pile of sh#t so I might as well go for it and hopefully, some ‘well intentioned’ white will put a policy in place to combat white racism however small.
Now consider yourself blessed as a white person as I have not addressed many of them on this blog in a serious manner unless it is, was to mock their incipient racism, realized or unrealized. Good day and don’t bother to address me again with your kumbaya cluelessness again. I much prefer the blatant ones, now that is saying something eh?
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Yes sir. But for you consideration sir, the first couple of sentences were for ‘thwack’, the last ‘multi-paragraphs’ were for William the Conqueror, is he a troll sir?
Hernieth, do you really prefer blatant racists over ‘well intentioned’ ‘kumbaya’ whites?
Yes sir I do. At least with them, I know where I stand , no subterfuge is involved sir. The blatant racist will fornicate you in the short run while the ‘kumbaya’ ones will fornicate you in the long run. Please do not address me again. Good day! Next…..
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George Ryder is a white person.
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Herneith
My family arrived in Canada as veterans of the War of 1812
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If these white people fought each other again, which ones would you fight for?
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George Ryder
I wouldn’t give him so much flattery. I have been without power for 5 days, so I think he serves as a perfect form of entertainment. Based on the comments I believe many see him the same.
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Trolls gain energy by you insulting them.They are immune to criticism and logical arguments. They have no remorse, and think they are above social responsibility.
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@mary burrell
I agree. Though I think now they get a high on any response.
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@ George Ryder
Not really. There will always be some people, who because of their experiences, or their acculturation or misconceptions, that will hate other people just for how they look. But there are also always going to be people who steal or cheat and start trouble. Then every now and then you’ll find a real gem of a person who’s back you will nearly check for signs of wings.
This is ALL humanity. Humanity is imperfect, you’re not going to fix that. Best advice is to be cool with those you can be cool with, and don’t mind those who you can’t.
The very essence of ‘Kumbaya’ is the belief that you can personally change everything for the better. You can’t! Once you accept that, you are free.
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@ King:Amen.
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@Herneith….My first response to your statements would be to get angry but as someone who wants the world to change I have to except that your anger is indeed justified. After all even though we don’t share the same experiences and I do not have the pain or anger that one must feel dealing with such hate and exclusion everyday in the white portion of this world, we do share the same views, mine are just from the point of a white learned racist and yours are likely from the results of racism. Of course this is only a vague observation and I don’t want you to blow up again but I refuse to simply give up.
Today I have thought much about things that Thwack has said and what George has said about Thwack. I will take Georges advice and for the most part I will not engage him but some of the things he and a few others said, Like Michael and Herneith make some sense to me now and I think I see how some of my comments and even my presence here could upset people who have come here to speak among each other about atrocities I could never understand. I can see how Abagond is a place of solitude for people who have been hurt, who are angry and who want to speak to others who have experienced the same. If I ask for help trying to shed my learned ways I am detracting from REAL issues and again making it about the white guy and garnishing support from other people who are more tolerant of my presence again can make it seem that the white guy has now turned my own people against me.
Let me apologize for not being more understanding, more observing and needy. From now on I will only join conversations sparingly and with great thought about how my comments may come off to the people on this blog who have experienced a life I am lucky to never know…thank you Hernieth for spanking me verbally, I hopefully learned something today…(even though I know that wasn’t your point).
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@ William The Conqueror
It is necessary to understand that people come with different experiences and to varying degrees, and depending on where they are in their experience are in different stages of healing or hardening. So you have to take into consideration that people may not be reacting to YOU personally but to an experience.
Secondly, stop with the apologies. You don’t have to step on egg shells or somehow justify being here. If people are uncomfortable with your presence because you are White, so what? You don’t represent the White Race, you represent you and so long as you are not attacking anyone, then what are you sorry about?
And finally, anyone who cares to look back through the early posts on Abagond will realize that there have Always been “White” people on this site, before most of the current posters ever showed up. Some where great contributors, like Mira or Asians like Leigh, and even the over the top Thaddeus or folks like Jake stood side by side in fighting off true racists, trolls, and parasites. People who think this site is now or ever was some kind of sanctuary are confusing it with a BlackPlanet Facebook page.
My early years here is seems like all I did was fight dummies (both White and Black). Just state your opinion and stand by it until someone gives you a good reason to reconsider. That’s all that can be asked of anyone.
And stop listening to that fool thwack or you’ll spend all your time thwacking-off instead of engaging in anything useful.
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@George, understood…Great advice and true…
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@King…thank you my friend, I will take your advice.
I do believe however I learned something from their posts and I “think” I gained some degree of understanding of what they meant. That’s a good thing, no matter what they say…
THANK YOU!
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George Ryder
I agree. No harm in it. Lol
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And stop listening to that fool thwack or you’ll spend all your time thwacking-off instead of engaging in anything useful
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Responding with charges of “troll” is the weak persons reaction to their own intellectual limitations. Vigorous debate has always been a hallmark of intelligence and is responsible for most of the scientific and philosophical advances we depend on and enjoy today.
Seeing an entire thread produced in response to my superior intellect is a first for me. Its like you guys had to come together on one thread for a giant “group hug” after being defeated one by one on the battle field of ideas.
Unfortunately, the real world does not operate this way. So I suspect many of you, at least the nonwhite ones, will continue to be crushed and hammered on a daily basis by the smartest, most powerful people in the known universe.
This hurts me more than it hurts you.
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@ King:
For your post to William, thank you. Seriously. Helpful to all white posters.
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@buddhuu
Are the white posters the ones who need the most help?
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This is true of trolls and in fact, there seems to be a business in funding trolls to engage in disinformation campaigns. Recently had some problems with trolls who decided to slander my “person” after my court case against the government. Government trolls trying to protect their illegitimate legislations. As a constitutional challenge, (to challenge several of their contraventions to international and national laws). On the record, my claim as the plaintiff was dismissed. (no hard feelings there since the judiciary system is a private organization that contracts with the “so-called” government). The moral of that story is that if anyone took the time to follow their own research on their “rights” (that means you gotta know how to write, or to as put the international or national statutes on paper!), they would soon discover that every facet of life has been turned into a business. Of course, the simpleton or “average joe” who doesnt know that, is NOT to know that! Simply put, when it comes to balancing out the level of ignorance in place for “right-action” and universal intelligence, you will find trolls since the fallacy of who’s who in the zoo of human lineage and geneaology is always challenged by guess who….?
The facts or deductive methods for triangulating accuracy in most controversial debates is there but when so-called intellectual conversations start to resound like emotional rants, you guess it, you may be dealing with trolls.
When looking towards a solution with directly dealing with trolls, AGABOND has it on point and if others know this through personal experience, its the attention they want since they have no real intention on building community but destroying it!
Trolls come in many variations or better yet they come with many motivations and for the 21st century troll, that usually looks like money as i have said before but when the situation surpasses monetary gain, its the system of slavery they wish to impose upon people’s thinking as though they have some sort of authority by magically ignoring real points in conversation and moving to assert their slant and pent-up hatred. What else could it be but hatred? – and it seems that the energy trade off for their hatred is to invite you into hatred as well.
We all (minus the trolls), know who needs help the most because its our hearts that we use as the filter for information not simply the brain. The hallmark of intellectual conversation needs to be said constitutes some actual facts or process of deduction when beliefs are moving into certification when no facts exists. The assumption that “nouns” are facts without identifying the “verbs” (the process) that create the “noun” or fact is the typical so-called intellectual conversations today. Do those types of conversations bring anymore closure to the people in the conversation when people are venting their limitations for an expand horizon of universal truths?
Whites posters are the problem? Better yet, there are problems within White peoples as are in Yellow, Orange, Red, Brown, Blue, Purple, Black peoples. These problems that seem to frustrate the people essential is that the element of the problem is “the denial of seeking real consensus on a spectral front as opposed to trying to subject others to a limited perspective!” So, it could equally be said that “one” has a white problem or a black problem…etc, but of course, we are talking about not only this present time and the attitudes in this time that span over 10,000 years of history, for the record. And for that record, the total incidents of certain attitudes that fall into a certain category that has been labelled “trolls”, goes without saying, and thats why there are trolls to make sure it remains without saying!
What is it that some viewers find intriguing about AGABOND or other blogs that continously report outside the mainstream media? Are all that are here, here for a group hugging session? IF one need to leave here with anything, heres a notice: “The mind is a terrible thing to waste or better yet, did you know the potential of your mind requires critical analysis and group consensus in order for it to move into higher potentiated realms of projection? So if you come here and project, remember the radius of thought is the circumference of your activity and so, if that provides you a proper self-reflection, keep close to you that you will naturally gravitate towards your own manifest.”
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Thwack said:
“The moment of truth for a white person is when they are around all white people because its far too easy for a white person to “go along to get along”; to do and say nothing while the racists plot, scheme, and practice racism.”
That’s true.
In my opinion their are two kinds of white people. The idealists and the indifferent. The idealist are the anti racists and the racist’s and combined maybe make up 10% of the population (just a guess). They will bring up race and argue about it and aren’t concerned about the collective.
The other 90% are indifferent or politically expedient meaning that if they do believe in such a thing as white privilege that means then they are more concerned with maintaining unity within their cause or movement. They see race issues as “divisive” and not healthy so why can’t we all get along for the greater good. For progressives/liberals Obama care is what’s important and though they may talk the talk about race that’s not where their focus is until an election cycle shows up.
This is true not just for politics but for any group like churches ect.
The most common excuses I hear are “we need to move on for the greater good of the movement”, “it’s my free speech right why are you calling me out” and “who made you the thought police.”
During causal conversations in the real world whites will make racist comments to another white person presuming that because the other person is white they will concur. This happens more then you would think and is one way I run into racism. If they are in the indifferent category and I respond back politely with information that proves what they said is untrue, they will then change the topic to the weather. The reality of oppression make’s them uncomfortable. Only on two occasions did I run into an idealist racist who pounced at the opportunity to argue their BS.
Both liberal and conservative whites think the same way and are just as racist though that have different priorities.
We live in a loft building and the residents are mostly white hipsters, in the industry, professional, liberal with a few Ron Paul types and I as the house anarchist. My wife is politically independent and doesn’t share my enthusiasm with burning it all down.
The community is a working class/poor/immigrant neighborhood so we are like the bastion of liberal/progressives values shinning forth our enlightened ways to our neighbors. So on one hand they speak about the evils of gentrification but on the other hand everything they propose for the community is in fact gentrification.
Their is also racial paranoia and worries about crime by some residents in the building. This comes up in the group emails and in the board meetings.
Their was one group email where a lady was asking whether she should call the police because their was a Mexican skin head loitering outside. I responded asking here why she would move to a community where everybody looked like that and why doesn’t she go down and introduce herself so she could tell everyone that she now has a Mexican skin head friend. The moderator responded that I wasn’t being sensitive to the needs of the residents and that I needed to tone it down.
When racial paranoia comes up at the board meeting I slap that stuff down so now no one brings it up in my presence.
A police officer came out to our building to talk to us about the community. As I sat their listing to him feed everybody racial paranoia and crime statistics it occurred to me that I would never have an opportunity to call a police officer out and not go to jail. He was totally unprepared for what happened next and he looked like a gold fish that just got flipped out of his bowl. “Mr. Barker please sit down; your speaking out of turn”.
Thwack also said:
“For example, a white person like Michael Jon Barker will not tell a nonwhite person if a white person he knows is a racist, without prompting.
In other words, white people do not snitch on each other about racism. They KNOW who the racists are, but they won’t tell you unless you grill them. They don’t give YOU that information without prompting.
As I said in a previous post all my workers are Hispanic, some Mexican and some from El Salvador. We have discussions about race because they are the ones most affected by it.
The LAPD profiles workers, pulls them over expecting they won’t have a drivers license or insurance. This has happened to us a number of times and though they are licensed the police will still write a ticket for a violation they did not commit.
I won’t work for racists either. If some one calls up and says make sure my workers “don’t pick their oranges” I know that’s somebody I don’t want to work for.
It sounds like the dynamic that your speaking about may occur in work places where their is some diversity and is hierarchically structured.
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brothawolf Like I always point out, there are more than one truths and many realities.
Reading brothawolf discuss the relativity of “truth” was like listening to Clinton say, “It depends on what the meaning of the word is is.”
You’re entitled to your own opinion but you’re not entitled to your own facts. Which is exactly what I said about you in my last comment. Reality is too painful for you to face so you try to invent your own. Good luck with that. haha
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And stop listening to that fool thwack or you’ll spend all your time thwacking-off instead of engaging in anything useful.
Hurry up and lay some pipe King!
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???! 😮
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Michael Jon Barker
It sounds like the dynamic that your speaking about may occur in work places where their is some diversity and is hierarchically structured.
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Not at all.
One time it was the white girl I was boffing who ratted out the white girl who introduced me to her.
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@ King
That response (graphic) was hysterical! Bravo.
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^Ha! Just messing around with Herneith.
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^ I can just imagine Herneith’s next reply /visual. I can tell you guys have some great banter.
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King
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Who painted it white?
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Da Jokah,
Reading brothawolf discuss the relativity of “truth” was like listening to Clinton say, “It depends on what the meaning of the word is is.”
You’re entitled to your own opinion but you’re not entitled to your own facts. Which is exactly what I said about you in my last comment. Reality is too painful for you to face so you try to invent your own. Good luck with that. haha
Of course my comment would sound that way to you. LOL
Anyway, my point was that there is more than one truth, and some “truths” are opinions which people call “truths”. Also, there are such things are personal truths. Your personal truths are not the same as mine. I’m just saying.
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By the way Jokah,
It really seems like you want your views to have more substance than ours, a sign of narcissism it seems like.
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Brothawolf
Anyway, my point was that there is more than one truth, and some “truths” are opinions which people call “truths”. Also, there are such things are personal truths. Your personal truths are not the same as mine. I’m just saying.
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If I stabbed you in the neck with a rusty fork which “truth” would the blood flowing from your wound be?
*Im just saying*
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I feel like I need to qualify myself and what level of racist I am. People have made quick assumptions about others on this site with no knowledge of the persons life or background. Some may assume that a white Liberal is here out of some new found guilt or political cause. The word Kumbya white Liberal is junk and the very notion that there are bad whites and whites that don’t know their bad is also junk.
If I can take the very wise Kings comments and use them, everyone has their own life experiences and those experiences are what led them to the person they are today.
Are their indeed some people out there that have just come to a point in their lives where they want to fight racism and they are Liberal and white, of course. But not so many that every white person can be placed on a sliding scale as to the degree of their racism.
Racism is racism, you are either a racist or you are not. You are either for equality or not, you can either see the huge gap in wealth regarding blacks and whites or you choose not to, you can see each and every incident as it is or you are so entrenched in hate and denial that if you were placed in the middle of Watts and then placed in the middle of Beverly Hills you would not see the obvious social and racial differences and you would never believe that almost every single disparaging social condition can be traced back to slavery and/or modern day racism.
As for my emotions regarding white racism here in the United States, it began, not a few years ago when I decided to register as a Democrat, but way back in 1972.
This was the year my Mom started dating my soon to be Step Dad. 6 year old children should not be told by adult men and women that their mother is a “N” lover, not once but multiple times over 6 years. Of course most six year olds don’t know what that means but you learn fast in the 70’s when you live in a biracial family. We had our house broken into and the “N” word sprayed on our television, the gift my Dad gave me and my little 3 year old brother. They stole our mini bikes which we just got from J.D., my step Dad, who rebuilt them for Christmas. Who do you think the cops blamed for the dispute my step father had with the white neighbors? In 6 years the police surrounded our house on three occasions, shot guns drawn, no lights, silent approach, we could see them sneaking around each window, eventually kicking in the door. On one occasion kicking our doberman pincher several times as he yelped in pain. Our house even got shot up one time with all of us inside, J.D. was used to this from growing up in Louisiana in the 60’s and he would always take us to the bathroom and put us in the bathtub made out of cast iron.
Of course J.D. was not totally innocent and he had his problems. He was an alcoholic and he was a wife beater and my Mom was his wife. He would beat her almost once or twice a month depending if his drinking got out of control. Yes, the abuse transferred to me and my brother as well but not nearly as bad, my Mom took the brunt of the violence.
There was not all bad times either. I had three great Aunties and two cool uncles and a slew of cousins who called me and my brother Cuz even though we were white, it was the 70’s and that was the cool word then. J.D.’s family could not have been more excepting and looked at my brother, my mother and me as one of the family as if we had always been there, it was wonderful and we had family get together’s almost every single weekend and many times during the week as well. It took awhile to get used to collard greens and black eyed peas but now I crave them, especially the way J.D.’s Mom made collard greens with large pieces of bacon. My favorite of all time was sitting down with JD when he was in a good mood and only had a few beers in him, he would boil some neck bones and sprinkle hot sauce on them after splashing them with salt and pepper. I tried to cook them once but it wasn’t the same as I remember.
I watched J.D. and my Uncle Blue beat up a white man right in front of his family because he kept staring at my Mom and J.D. and his wife finally said something about whites being with whites and blacks being with blacks.
Anyway I am going to stop here. So you see, my emotions could have gone one of many ways in regards to racism as well as other sensitive subjects. I could have grown up hating black people and believing that they are all wife beaters and alcoholics. I could have grown up hating the police and thinking they are all racist assholes but I know better. My brother was jumped by several young men when he was 17 years old because he was white and he was out at midnight in Buena Park. He had his face broken in 14 places, including his nose. He cannot breath right to this day, he suffers from depression, is a recovering alcoholic and his handsome face was changed forever…Unfortunately he is racist even though he wont speak about it I see the anger when any subject is brought up regarding racism. My brother is my best friend and I wanted to kill the bastards who did this but even at 21 yrs old when it happened I refused to blame an entire race of people because a few assholes attacked my brother.
Look it, we have to move beyond the hate otherwise the hate wins. If you disregard someone based on the color of their skin, if you prejudge them, exclude them, segregate them, see yourself as superior…Then you have indeed become the very thing you hate.
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“If I stabbed you in the neck with a rusty fork which “truth” would the blood flowing from your wound be?”
The “truth” isn’t the act of stabbing somebody in the neck nor the wound but rather the why somebody would stab someone in the neck and what the wound represents.
Crime statistics is the wound and it’s the why behind the facts that is the truth in question.
Personal truth is subjective and it is that understanding that arranges statistics to prove your suppositions.
Objective reality is broader and takes into account that places with limited resources and scarcity have higher crime rates.
The war on drugs concentrates resources in areas where the poor and POC live. The results are much higher incarceration rates then in areas where resources aren’t spent fighting the war on drugs, which is primarily middle and upper class area’s where mostly white people live. It’s not that white people don’t do drugs or aren’t involved in crime. They indulge just as much as POC do. The difference is that where the resources are spent to ‘fight” the drug war directly affects the incarcerations rates of POC since it is their communities that are targeted.
So DJ wants to focus on the race of the incarcerated. I want to focus on the system that put them in prison in the first place..
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^ Last line should read “I want to focus on the system that puts people in prison. “them” seems to be dehumanizing.
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What about statistics that seemingly do not allow objectiveness, such as incarceration rates and times served for similar crimes? POC serve more time and are convicted at much higher rates than whites who commit the same crimes and have similar arrest records, this is clearly an injustice and for the life of me I can’t see any argument one could come up with to blur or explain these statistics.
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William The Conqueror
POC serve more time and are convicted at much higher rates than whites who commit the same crimes and have similar arrest records,
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It may be because in a system of racism white supremacy, white people have more behavioral options.
For example, white people consume and sell lots of illegal drugs, but per capita, there is a lower level of physical violence associated with it compared to black people.
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@Thwack….I should have said at the end of my comment, …”for the life of me I can’t see any argument one could come up with to blur or explain these statistics, except for plain and simple systematic racism. I am sure many would move quickly to once again put the blame on skin color and if they did I would say in this case they are right. A white prisoner will do less time served than a black prisoner for the same offense and that is unacceptable. The fact that it occurs is not in dispute but the fact that it happens almost every single time and the gap between the two is so large and
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thwack
If I stabbed you in the neck with a rusty fork which “truth” would the blood flowing from your wound be?
Pardon??
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I added a picture to the end of the post. It says something that goes through my mind all the time: “Not sure if troll – or just very stupid”:
^^ me reading Bobby M and Thwack comments.
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Hey, that’s not fair. My insult got deleted! 😉
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abagond and buddhuu
LOL.
George
I think some are attempting to engage in a logical sense, but I have to wonder why bother seeing as they have not show maturity or logic. …I guess to each his own.
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George and Sharina are just mad because nobody bothers to engage them in discussion. They have nothing to say that is interesting or important.
All they can do is complain about who someone else is talking to.
Must suck to be them?
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*Looks at Thwack’s comments of projection and rolls eyes*
The way I see it is George is Thwack’s desperation for attention knows little to no bounds. See how he tries so hard to engage the people who ignore him? Maturity level zero…..Brain cells…..completely depleted.
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William — “I am sure many would move quickly to once again put the blame on skin color and if they did I would say in this case they are right. A white prisoner will do less time served than a black prisoner for the same offense and that is unacceptable.”
Hypocrisy is accusing others of blaming skin color and then blaming skin color yourself. What makes you think skin color is the reason for a sentencing disparity? Did you actually bother to look up the report? Of course not. But I did.
http://www.allgov.com/news/top-stories/black-americans-given-longer-sentences-than-white-americans-for-same-crimes?news=843984
The report concludes that sentence disparities “can be almost completely explained by three factors: the original arrest offense, the defendant’s criminal history, and the prosecutor’s initial choice of charges.”
So what does that mean? It means blacks get longer sentences for the “same offense” because 1) black are more likely to be repeat offenders and 2) they did NOT commit the same crime. I repeatedly addressed that same claim regarding the War on Drugs before you joined this blog. Blacks and whites use drugs at the same rates. But blacks are 5 times more likely to sell drugs. So blacks get arrested and charged with selling drugs. The prosecutor doesn’t have time to take every single drug dealer to trial. So he offers them a plea bargain for possession instead. But the drug dealers still get a longer sentence than if it were really a possession.
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This month the United States celebrates the Selma-to-Montgomery marches of 1965 to commemorate our shared history of the civil rights movement and our nation’s continued progress towards racial equality. Yet decades later a broken criminal-justice system has proven that we still have a long way to go in achieving racial equality.
Today people of color continue to be disproportionately incarcerated, policed, and sentenced to death at significantly higher rates than their white counterparts. Further, racial disparities in the criminal-justice system threaten communities of color—disenfranchising thousands by limiting voting rights and denying equal access to employment, housing, public benefits, and education to millions more. In light of these disparities, it is imperative that criminal-justice reform evolves as the civil rights issue of the 21st century.
Below we outline the top 10 facts pertaining to the criminal-justice system’s impact on communities of color.
1. While people of color make up about 30 percent of the United States’ population, they account for 60 percent of those imprisoned. The prison population grew by 700 percent from 1970 to 2005, a rate that is outpacing crime and population rates. The incarceration rates disproportionately impact men of color: 1 in every 15 African American men and 1 in every 36 Hispanic men are incarcerated in comparison to 1 in every 106 white men.
2. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, one in three black men can expect to go to prison in their lifetime. Individuals of color have a disproportionate number of encounters with law enforcement, indicating that racial profiling continues to be a problem. A report by the Department of Justice found that blacks and Hispanics were approximately three times more likely to be searchedduring a traffic stop than white motorists. African Americans were twice as likely to be arrested and almost four times as likely to experience the use of force during encounters with the police.
3. Students of color face harsher punishments in school than their white peers, leading to a higher number of youth of color incarcerated. Black and Hispanic students represent more than 70 percent of those involved in school-related arrests or referrals to law enforcement. Currently, African Americans make up two-fifths and Hispanics one-fifth of confined youth today.
4. According to recent data by the Department of Education, African American students are arrested far more often than their white classmates. The data showed that 96,000 students were arrested and 242,000 referred to law enforcement by schools during the 2009-10 school year. Of those students, black and Hispanic students made up more than 70 percent of arrested or referred students. Harsh school punishments, from suspensions to arrests, have led to high numbers of youth of color coming into contact with the juvenile-justice system and at an earlier age.
5. African American youth have higher rates of juvenile incarceration and are more likely to be sentenced to adult prison. According to the Sentencing Project, even though African American juvenile youth are about 16 percent of the youth population, 37 percent of their cases are moved to criminal court and 58 percent of African American youth are sent to adult prisons.
6. As the number of women incarcerated has increased by 800 percentover the last three decades, women of color have been disproportionately represented. While the number of women incarcerated is relatively low, the racial and ethnic disparities are startling. African American women are three times more likely than white women to be incarcerated, while Hispanic women are 69 percent more likely than white women to be incarcerated.
7. The war on drugs has been waged primarily in communities of color where people of color are more likely to receive higher offenses.According to the Human Rights Watch, people of color are no more likely to use or sell illegal drugs than whites, but they have higher rate of arrests. African Americans comprise 14 percent of regular drug users but are 37 percent of those arrested for drug offenses. From 1980 to 2007 about one in three of the 25.4 million adults arrested for drugs was African American.
8. Once convicted, black offenders receive longer sentences compared to white offenders. The U.S. Sentencing Commission stated that in the federal system black offenders receive sentences that are 10 percent longer than white offenders for the same crimes. The Sentencing Project reports that African Americans are 21 percent more likely to receive mandatory-minimum sentences than white defendants and are 20 percent more like to be sentenced to prison.
9. Voter laws that prohibit people with felony convictions to vote disproportionately impact men of color. An estimated 5.3 million Americans are denied the right to vote based on a past felony conviction. Felony disenfranchisement is exaggerated by racial disparities in the criminal-justice system, ultimately denying 13 percent of African American men the right to vote. Felony-disenfranchisement policies have led to 11 states denying the right to vote to more than 10 percent of their African American population.
10. Studies have shown that people of color face disparities in wage trajectory following release from prison. Evidence shows that spending time in prison affects wage trajectories with a disproportionate impact on black men and women. The results show no evidence of racial divergence in wages prior to incarceration; however, following release from prison, wages grow at a 21 percent slower rate for black former inmates compared to white ex-convicts. A number of states have bans on people with certain convictions working in domestic health-service industries such as nursing, child care, and home health care—areas in which many poor women and women of color are disproportionately concentrated.
Theses racial disparities have deprived people of color of their most basic civil rights, making criminal-justice reform the civil rights issue of our time. Through mass imprisonment and the overrepresentation of individuals of color within the criminal justice and prison system, people of color have experienced an adverse impact on themselves and on their communities from barriers to reintegrating into society to engaging in the democratic process. Eliminating the racial disparities inherent to our nation’s criminal-justice policies and practices must be at the heart of a renewed, refocused, and reenergized movement for racial justice in America.
There have been a number of initiatives on the state and federal level to address the racial disparities in youth incarceration. Last summer Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced the Schools Discipline Initiative to bring increased awareness of effective policies and practices to ultimately dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline. States like California and Massachusetts are considering legislation to address the disproportionate suspensions among students of color. And in Clayton County, Georgia, collaborative local reforms have resulted in a 47 percent reduction in juvenile-court referrals and a 51 percent decrease in juvenile felony rates. These initiatives could serve as models of success for lessening the disparities in incarceration rates.
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…..http://www.alternet.org/story/154587/1_in_3_black_men_go_to_prison_the_10_most_disturbing_facts_about_racial_inequality_in_the__u.s._criminal_justice_system?page=0%2C1.
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I challenge anyone who wants to SEE the TRUTH about America…Watch these videos on YouTube, of course many of you don’t have to watch these videos…You live them everyday! I am white and white people act normal around me and so I get to see just how racist and ignorant they can be, not all but many.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyL5EcAwB9c),
True Colors – Racial Discrimination in Everyday Life .
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William
The “facts” in your last post can be easily explained in one simple sentence — Blacks commit more crime.
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If after watching these hidden camera studies you don’t have some sense of guilt, empathy or injustice then you have no heart, no compassion and you are indeed a racist!….Reality such as this cannot be misconceived unless your view of the world is broken.
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Yes because they are approached by more police, they are targeted by more police, whites are ignored by police, whites are not targeted by police….Those are the FACTS! Watch the undercover videos and try to wiggle out of this one…If I go fishing everyday of the week I am going to catch more fish than my neighbor who only goes fishing one day a week. See if you can tie this together with why their are so many blacks in jail as compared to whites. We won’t even bring up poverty and the systematic oppression of POC by the wealthy white establishment. We’ll save that for the next time I school you…
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William the Conqueror,
Da Jokah only cares about one thing and that’s his belief that blacks commit more crime. We can tell him why that’s a racist statement, but to him, it’s the truth, and that’s all he wants/needs to know. He could care less about why or the factors much less if what he said is racist.
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I’ll tell you this upfront, and it may sound pathetic, but if there’s one thing racist trolls accomplish with me after a while is driving me to the brink of lunacy.
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Da Jokah
Brothawolf:
So Brothawolf, you’re attempting to refute a factual claim with a “feelings” claim, a “tone” claim, or “just so” correlations claims?
You can only effectively counter a factual claim by disproving it.
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@Brothawolf
“I’ll tell you this upfront, and it may sound pathetic, but if there’s one thing racist trolls accomplish with me after a while is driving me to the brink of lunacy.”
Don’t let them because that seems to be what they want.
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William — “If after watching these hidden camera studies you don’t have some sense of guilt, empathy or injustice then you have no heart, no compassion and you are indeed a racist!”
I love the exclamation point. It makes everything so emphatic! LOL
It’s interesting you’re so concerned about a salesman ignoring a black customer or asking more for a used car. So what? Go somewhere else. Problem solved. Better yet, open up your OWN business if you think they’re not treated fairly. You’ll get all the black customers who were ignored and get rich. Do it. Come on, I dare you. But you won’t do it because you know the same thing I do. Blacks are lousy customers and commit more crime. Your video showed that black salesmen don’t even like black customers.
http://madamenoire.com/89658/applebee%E2%80%99s-waitress-claims-she-was-only-given-black-tables-to-serve/
This black waitress complains that she’s only given black tables to wait on. She doesn’t even like waiting on blacks. Do you think a white waitress would complain about only getting white tables? Nope. Do you know why? Because blacks are a pain the a$$ who don’t tip.
Utube is full of black waiters/waitresses complaining about blacks who won’t tip.
Economists have even studied it. Their conclusion is that blacks are just a$$holes.
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@ Randy and DJ. What’s your political leanings? Conservative republican or worse?
Is it your contention that the high rate of crime amongst blacks is because of “their nature” and not because of other factors?
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^ No, because that would be racist. Your family members are probably not going to change their entrenched views, even if, to you, many of their entrenched views are plainly odious.
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*groan*
that comment above was directed to Kiwi
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@ Brothawolf: Do not give them the power. The trolls feed off of this.
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@ Brothawolf
I’ll tell you this upfront, and it may sound pathetic, but if there’s one thing racist trolls accomplish with me after a while is driving me to the brink of lunacy.
The problem there is trying to control something/someone that CAN’T be controlled. You are looping your mind into a ring of frustration. It’s actually you driving yourself to lunacy. We need to determine when to let go of an idea or a desire. I don’t think what I’m saying is foreign to you; I notice you have a Buddhist link in your blogroll.
^ It’s all two cents, you can take it or leave it.
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kiwi
I doubt anyone in your family was robbed by anyone.
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(cont.)
You say Asians give whites the benefit of the doubt. Probably. Whites give asians the benefit of the doubt, too. It has nothing to do with the MSM and everything to do with experience and common sense.
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Da Jokah
William
The “facts” in your last post can be easily explained in one simple sentence — Blacks commit more crime
———————————————————————————————-
Yep, and we also have sorry legal representation.
And I gotta say this, some black people are hard headed and just don’t want to listen.
When I tried to explain to black people right here on this site how you are always in court; it was a bunch of black people fighting it tooth and nail.
This is why sometimes I think its best if black people get crushed and hammered; its the only way some of them will ever learn.
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“[…]Blacks commit more crime.”
_ _ _
While it may or may not be a factual statement, it is definitely a constantly repeated incendiary one; its main purpose seeming to be more the incitement of the ire and wrath of non-Blacks toward Blacks in general than the passing along of so-called “facts”.
I myself am a law abiding citizen but have definitely been treated as a criminal on a good many occasions over the course of my life … and It is not at all a mystery to me as to why this has been the case ….
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Michael Jon Barker
Nicely loaded question. Interestingly, it’s worded to imply that “conservative republican” is the least worst option. I’m guessing you meant the opposite.
My political orientation is: non-denominational radical pragmatist with collaboratist and compassionate libertarian leanings.
You?
As for crime rates, I don’t presume to know all of their causes.
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My political orientation is: non-denominational radical pragmatist with collaboratist and compassionate libertarian leanings.
In other words he is a jackazz, a constipated cockatrice if you will.
@Randy:
Were you on vacation again?
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Pay it Forward — “While it may or may not be a factual statement, it is definitely a constantly repeated incendiary one; its main purpose seeming to be more the incitement of the ire and wrath of non-Blacks toward Blacks”
On the contrary, it’s said because black racists demand it. If blacks continually use higher incarceration rates to falsely attack others as being “institutionally racist” one is forced to either acquiesce to the lie or refute it with the truth.
>>
Michael Jon Barker — “Randy and DJ. What’s your political leanings? Conservative republican or worse?”
liberal independent. Legalize guns, drugs, abortion, buttf’cking and anything else people wish to do. I wouldn’t do most of those things myself but I certainly have no desire to prevent others from acting stupidly.
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William The Conqueror
Yes because they are approached by more police, they are targeted by more police, whites are ignored by police, whites are not targeted by police….
—————————————————————————————————–
Black people need to understand that large police forces are a reletively recent social phenomenon and were never designed to be an occupying force; its too expensive.
One of the reasons there was less crime in the past is because there was less opportunity for it. There was no time for black people to be idle because if you didn’t work, you didn’t eat; it was that simple.
In a real civilization, you don’t need a bunch of police and a bunch of laws because people police themselves. Ive lived in several areas where nobody locked their doors or their cars… and nothing was ever stolen.
Its a great feeling.
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Kiwi,
it’s all psychological. It’s not some all engrossing mystery, and it’s not my intention to chide you by saying that. Look, those kinds of people (Asians in this case) simply want to like whites and want to belong to the white club. At the very least they want to maintain and expand their place in the racism hierarchy that has been etched out in America (i’m thinking of Jefe’s comments to me on the Open Thread, on this topic).
When you want to like someone, you dismiss or forgive actual and possible faults. When you want to dislike someone, well, it’s easy to create or find reasons.* Then think of all the investment that goes into adopting their position, these Asians aren’t just going to say, “Wow, I am so wrong and so propagandized (or whitewashed, if you prefer), I’d better reassess my screwed up views on race.” Many people simply won’t do
that sort of thing.
——————-
* I speak of the general case, of course.
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I can’t wait to see your pitiful pale face in 20 years when there are more blacks in this country than white….of course I’ll actually be rolling in my recliner watching you hillbilly whites get the same treatment you’ve been dishing out for 300 years. Besides Dajokah I know your secret…
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Randy,
So Brothawolf, you’re attempting to refute a factual claim with a “feelings” claim, a “tone” claim, or “just so” correlations claims?
You can only effectively counter a factual claim by disproving it.
Even if it’s been dispelled, internet trolls could care less.
Sharina,
Don’t let them because that seems to be what they want.
Very likely. If very recent articles that reveal that most of them are indeed sadistic, then they enjoy in the dismantling of any topic that requires some thought.
Mary Burrell,
Do not give them the power. The trolls feed off of this.
Indeed they do. It’s their nutrition for their self-esteem.
Legion,
The problem there is trying to control something/someone that CAN’T be controlled. You are looping your mind into a ring of frustration. It’s actually you driving yourself to lunacy. We need to determine when to let go of an idea or a desire. I don’t think what I’m saying is foreign to you; I notice you have a Buddhist link in your blogroll.
^ It’s all two cents, you can take it or leave it.
I see it like this, and you’re right. However, trolls like any other kind of bully, try to control as well. And let’s be real here, even if there was no internet or internet trolls, the frustration living with ignorance will still be strong as we live in a nation that thrives on it. Internet trolling is just another demon spawn to deal with.
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Da Jokah,
Tell me again, what is racism? I forgot what you said last time.
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That’s because there wasn’t a “last time.”
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Okay. So, what is racism, or is the question too complicated for you?
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@DJ…..Since we are generlizing and bringing up statistics about which race commits more crime lets look at some other crime statisics….
1. 67% of serial killers are white men compared to only 33% that are black, yes the craziest of our society are white men.
2. The vast majority of pedophiles are white, studies show that numbers range from 70% to 80%.
3. 90% of the terrorist attacks in the U.S. are perpetrated by whites.
4. Men who murder their families are almost always white or Hispanic.
5. Of course 90% of all hate groups are white.
6. Whites have committed more crimes against humanity on a global scale than blacks.
7. Whites commit more mass shootings than blacks and the victims are almost always innocent women and children.
So if you believe that general statistics define an entire group of people using the color of their skin as causation, then one must deduce that white men are sociopathetic, children molesting, family killing, genocide marching, baby killing terrorist….but thats not my opinion just the facts. Hey but at least they don’t steal cars and deal drugs…
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To William the Conqueror:
1. 67% of serial killers are white men compared to only 33% that are black, yes the craziest of our society are white men…
67% and 33% add up to 100%. So does this mean there have been no Asian, Latino, Native American, or Middle Eastern serial killers..in the US? You do realize that if the above statement were true (I’ve never seen any figures like that…) that would mean black men are almost 3 times more likely to be serial killers than white men…?
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OFF TOPIC: “black” crime or ANY deflection that turns attention away from Internet trolls onto supposed black shortcomings.
There are already threads on this blog about black crime.
The Broken Record one is here:
But there is also:
and at a more abstract level:
but the root of it all:
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Abagond
If you’re going to make the topic off-limits then I’d appreciate it if you would remove the original post. Otherwise, it’s not really off topic but merely preventing others from defending themselves. Thanks.
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@brothawolf
Last time? Or do you want to count the several other time he was asked that question and danced around It?
@ william
I suggest adding your sources. It helps when making a point.
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Hi, everyone! I just read this post, and IMHO, I think the issue could be anything. For example, yes, I agree, some folks are just mean. Some are narcissists. Some just like to disagree. Some like to debate. Some are very kind. Some are very supportive. Some are insecure, so they use these platforms to say their truth. Some truly ARE trolls. I see a troll as someone who is truly out to ruin someone’s day. For no reason other than…to ruin someone’s day! This has happened to me. I agree with Abagond – I don’t give them a platform. Why? I will gladly discuss issues or even have a lively debate. But when respect for another is lost, then it turns into “trolling.” I don’t have the personal energy for trolls. But that is simply my decision. 🙂 Great post. D
BTW, there is another form of trolling going on that I would like to discuss. Abagond, can you send me an email at AirportsMadeSimple.com? It’s something you might want to share with your readers/viewers. Thanks.
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AirportsMadeSimple
Darn don’t leave me in suspense on this new type of troll or trolling.
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AirportsMadeSimple
Hi, everyone! I just read this post, and IMHO, I think the issue could be anything. For example, yes, I agree, some folks are just mean. Some are narcissists…
————————————————————————————————–
The charge of “troll” is often and escape hatch deployed by people who have painted themselves into a corner with their own logic.
They get asked a question which they cannot answer without contradicting themselves; therefore, instead of admitting their logic is flawed, they scream troll!
Its a weak and feminine discussion technique.
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To me, the most noticeable thing about trolls is the way they ruin the signal-to-noise ratio. The threads in which they appear usually decay into meta discussion about the troll.
This could, in fact, be a handy way of spotting a troll. Ah, but then going by the image macro that Abagond shared above, I guess there is a chance of a false troll flag when stupidity is the real culprit…
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@ buddhuu
I like to think that stupidity is more common than sadism 😉
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@ William the Conqueror: Comment deleted for being off-topic.
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abagond said:
Agreed. Whichever, it really is spectacularly common wherever there is a forum for free discussion.
I imagine there are also those cases that combine sadism and stupidity.
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buddhuu
abagond said:
I like to think that stupidity is more common than sadism
Agreed. Whichever, it really is spectacularly common wherever there is a forum for free discussion.
———————————————————————————————————
Not necessarily, there are many blogs which have no moderation because the participants moderate themselves; its usually a bunch of white people.
This is why I asked the question about a national registery of black blogs and bloggers. I want to determine if there are any black blogs that don’t require a heavy “police presence”.
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@Abagond….I should have read your comment on OFF TOPIC comments, still learning. Thank You.
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Sharina,
I guess the question is way too complicated for him. 🙂
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@thwack what’s wrong with showing decorum!
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@buddhuu
Agreed. I can think of two cases where we may have encountered the sadism and stupidity.
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@v8driver
Everything when you are someone that has none. LOL
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@Brothawolf
I agree, but I believe in him answering that question it would possibly unravel much of the wall he has built around himself.
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Pay It Forward claimed I make comments to be “incendiary”. I responded by saying I’m merely refuting false comments with the truth because black racists demand it. Case in point, William posted numerous false claims. Abagond banned the topic which prevented anyone from defending themselves against them. I would have been happy for him to simply remove the off-topic comment. But he’d apparently prefer for it to sit their unchallenged. So now one either acquiesces to the lie or refutes it with the truth. I choose to refute it. ? No doubt someone will claim that’s “incendiary”, “trolling” and “racist”. But how can I refute it without posting the truth? Like I said, I post what I do because others demand it. My response can be found on the open thread.
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*taking Da Jokah off ignore*
ok and what point are you making? You complain to us on and on about abagond instead of addressing Abagond himself. You have a few ways of doing that yet you continuously cry to us about your victim status.
“But how can I refute it without posting the truth?”—Put it on open thread where it obviously would belong unless some other post was given to you that better suits it. You have been on this thread long enough to know this yet here we are. So do tell me how someone is keeping you from posting “the truth” if they are telling you a place to go to actually post it?
” Like I said, I post what I do because others demand it.”—-No and you may want to stop the lying here. I ask for proof and I can count all the times I have simply because I personally like to see things myself (so if the proof was for me then yes your claim is valid). You just post it for your own derogatory means and I can count the amount of times you have done that as well.
*pushes ignore*
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@ Sharina:
Yup. Two do kind of spring irrepressibly to mind… 😀
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@Abagond…Just to defend my post, I have never posted any fact based comment without first researching them. I understand that we are all sitting in front of a computer and any given comment can be researched so I never post statistics without first substantiating them. There is not a subject in point where one cannot find a study using an infinite number of different catalyst’s that will point to your view point, however the most prestigious of organizations will all come up with similar conclusions. Claims made that my comments were unfounded are indeed unfounded…thank you and there will be no more responses to suspected TROLLS.
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v8driver
@thwack what’s wrong with showing decorum!
—————————————————————————-
Nothing; but my people suffer for lack of knowledge.
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Sharina
Either that or he really doesn’t know the answer. I doubt it though. Maybe it’s a case of his word against that of the actual definition. If it is, his ego is showing.
Da Jokah,
What makes what you say the “truth” and what we say that objects to it false or opinions even even though both sides presents info to back them up?
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What makes what you say the “truth” and what we say that objects to it false or opinions even though both sides presents info to back them up?
Because I use empirical data and reason and you don’t.
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Da Jokah,
What makes your data empirical and those who disagree not?
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Definition of empirical: originating in or based on observation or experience.
The number of people on this thread who have had real life observations and experience out number the TROLLS experiences and observation, this is a fact based on the numbers. It is also obvious that those who have had an opposite opinion have continued their education far past the high school level, where reason and logic are taught and debated. On most threads minus a TROLL these highly intelligent individuals disagree with each other constantly, debating each other and many times coming to a understanding or conclusion based on the subject. However, whenever a TROLL is present within the thread these extremely reasonable and logical people are all in agreeance with each other with regards to the opinion of the TROLL. Any person who uses data, statistics and reason would have to conclude that the TROLLS are in the wrong or have a flaw in their logic….
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William The Conqueror
The number of people on this thread who have had real life observations and experience out number the TROLLS experiences and observation, this is a fact based on the numbers.
——————————————————————————————————-
But that doesn’t mean they tell the truth.
Just because a person knows the truth doesn’t mean they tell the truth.
The so called “troll” is often the only one who can afford to tell the truth because everyone else is vested in maintaining the lie.
Some men just want to watch the liars burn.
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brothawolf — What makes your data empirical and those who disagree not?
What you’re really saying is that “It depends on what the meaning of is is.”
>>
william — The number of people on this thread who have had real life observations and experience out number the TROLLS experiences and observation
I wasn’t aware that reality depended on a show of hands.
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DaJokah……..I wasn’t aware that reality depended on a show of hands.
If you have proven anything on this thread and every other thread you have commented on, it’s that reality is relative to the individual, as well as statistics, facts and anything else you refute that pairs itself with logic and human decency….
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thwack replied:
v8driver
@thwack what’s wrong with showing decorum!
—————————————————————————-
“Nothing; but my people suffer for lack of knowledge.”
Well, no points for style.
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William
You got angry at me because I told a truth that didn’t suit you. So you made a list of claims to get even. You provided absolutely no evidence to support your claims. I debunked every single one of them in the open thread. Now you deny reality by claiming its “relative to the individual.” Why do you have so much trouble accepting reality? Are you really that emotionally unstable that you have to invent a false reality to hide from the real one?
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Is “Da Jokah” using mock ebonics in his name?
Or is he German?
Im conducting an inquiry.
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I wish you would have went into more detail on the types of trolls that present themselves on forums and blogs. There are a few different types and each approach topics in different manners. I will try to find the website showing and explaining the different types.
I personally reserve calling a person a troll until they truly show themselves to be one. Amazing enough the little liars are apt at trying to convince people they are not. Asplund was big on this and so was xprae. Each masters at lying and manipulation. We have a third one that is exhibiting the very same, but disguising it as “delivering the truth.” If it looks like a duck…quacks like a duck…then chances are it is a duck.
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duckduckgoofs!
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Was Jesus a troll?
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No Da Jokah, it’s just what I asked. What makes your data empirical and those who disagree not?
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Here are two sites that actually gives a list.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/robinedds/types-of-troll-youll-meet-on-the-internet
http://www.smosh.com/smosh-pit/articles/18-types-of-internet-trolls
I think delusional troll is one they need to put on this list. Anytime one starts comparing himself to Jesus then I think it is necessary.
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@v8driver
I remember him. duckduckgoofs and churchs were two individuals I felt really sorry for.
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@Brothawolf
You can do what kiwi did and repeat the question over and over again. That was quite cleaver and funny.
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Martin Luther King and Malcolm X both engaged in troll like behavior.
They both:
1. Use hot-button issues to stir people up.
2. Stepped up the bait when they were ignored.
3. Complained about their free speech rights.
(examples of such behaviors provided upon request for the benefit of those who do not believe)
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@DaJokah……… https://abagond.wordpress.com/open-thread-2/#comment-215949.
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*Takes Thwack off ignore*
Your problem is that you don’t actually know what troll behavior (or perhaps you do and you are trying to excuse your trollism). Of your 1,2, 3 none of them are actually troll behavior and none of them compare to what you have been doing.
1. You have yet to present any truth. What you presented was your exaggerated opinion. When refuted or challenge then you move on to something else that is so ridiculous that many wonder if you are stupid or a troll. I believe you are both, but then again that is my personal opinion.
2. You spent more time making personal attacks (particularly at me). Another mayor sign of a troll. Particularly #8 The Bored Hater, but per another post you have revealed yourself to also be #17 The liar.
3. Your complaining just to complain. You have not been subject to nothing more than the same rules as everyone else. Get over it.
*Places Thwack back on ignore*
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@ Sharina
Thanks. Kind of: I am afraid Thwack will try each one just for kicks.
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@Abagond
A part of me is hoping he is not that loony, but after Asplund I could be completely wrong.
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Sharina
@Abagond
A part of me is hoping he is not that loony
——————————————————————————
Are you calling me loony?
Do you have a subscription to “Fat and Ugly” magazine?
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@ Thwack
The fact that you have to ask about Jesus, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr shows that you are a troll. First, anyone with any sense knows they were not trolls. Second, right in the first sentence of the post I said trolls get people upset for their own amusement, that they are not seriously interested in the subject at hand.
You cannot say that about those men.
But we can say it about you. You seem to write each comment with a snicker, like you are 14 or something. Especially when you make ridiculous statements, like being #1 in blackness, or use outdated words, like “colored” and “negro”. I have yet to see you engage in a serious debate. Sometimes you make a good observation, but mostly you just seem to be baiting people.
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@thwack:
Listen Uncle Thomas, your misogyny towards black women is showing. There is no call to resort to such insults. Focus your ire on the white supremacist society, not on other black folk especially black women, after all, were you not born of one? Go insult the white racist women who fetishize and sexualize you. Call them all the filthy and obscene names you can muster. But that would be to difficult wouldn’t it? Your hatred of black women brings to mind that old saying; ‘the blacker the talk, the whiter the woman’. You exemplify this! If there wasn’t a comment policy on this blog, I would tell you what I really think, too bad there is. For all your talk of black credentials you are basically full of fecal matter, a kerchief head in sheep’s clothing.
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Current trolls:
– Thwack
– Da Jokah
– Bobby M
Troll Hall of Fame:
– No Slappz
– Asplund
– xPraetorius (level: professional)
Borderline trolls:
– Thad
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No_slappz was my favourite!
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@thwack
“Do you have a subscription to “Fat and Ugly” magazine?”—Considering I am neither no, but then again since you know about it then I assume you do.
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Herneith
@thwack:
Listen Uncle Thomas, your misogyny towards black women is showing. There is no call to resort to such insults.
—————————————————————————————————-
Be silent woman. Your vanity and insufferable hypergamy are the reason we are in the position we are in today; its not the white man, it you and your big mouth; you just won’t listen to ANYBODY except thugs, players and SERPENTS.
“Unto the woman he said, I will greatly increase thy sorrows, and thy conceptions. In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children, and thy desire shall be subject to thine husband, and he shall rule over thee.”
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“Now the trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Magician’s Nephew
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Some trolls seem to specialise in being irrationally and childishly rude to women. Another trait to add to the checklist.
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@ George
Thad is an anthropologist. He came on here calling me an essentialist. At first I thought he was a No Slappz sock puppet. Very intellectual and well-read, too much to be No Slappz, but also something of a bully. He would egg commenters into getting angry until they flipped out and got banned. The first time he did it, I banned B.R., but the second time he did it, I banned him. I have since unbanned B.R., realizing it was more Thad’s fault than his.
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google searches don’t get you to the truth he’s talking about..
Yes, George. Yes!
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@Abagond….
“You seem to write each comment with a snicker, like you are 14 or something…… Sometimes you make a good observation, but mostly you just seem to be baiting people.”
I think you hit the nail on the head. I thought the very same thing a few post’s ago but never called it out. I really believe we have a smarter than average teenager who hasn’t hit his wisdom decade yet. He has just enough knowledge about black and white history but too many hormones to do anything good with it. I hope he makes a turn for the better, however, I will take THK over DJ any day.
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http://www.understandingrace.org/humvar/race_humvar.html
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http://parablemania.ektopos.com/archives/2006/05/racial_essentia.html
more semantics
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buddhuu
Some trolls seem to specialise in being irrationally and childishly rude to women.
————————————————————————————————
Some men seem to specialise in being weak and flacid to women in the hopes of “getting some”; yet all they ever get is an empty wallet and a blue sack.
Attention all simps, women don’t want to win, they want a WINNER.
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William The Conqueror
@Abagond….
I really believe we have a smarter than average **teenager** who hasn’t hit his wisdom decade yet.
—————————————————————————————————–
He used the word “teenager” so as not to offend you guys. What he really means is “clever negro”; I get this all the time from the white people on the racists web sites.
They see me as the ape that can talk. At first they are amused. But as I increase their body count, they become enraged until finally they start calling on the moderator to ban me.
Trust me; I have been among the white people; we live rent free inside their skulls.
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I think this is the perfect time to introduce the term meta -troll (thanks to biff).
Metatroll: Online web forum user convinced of own superiority and intellect when actually posessing neither of these qualities.
*playing Pharrell Williams – Happy in background*
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Troll Hall of Fame:
– No Slappz
– Asplund
– xPraetorius (level: professional)
I would’ve added GL Piggy (Chuck), Unamused and Doug1 to the list.
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thwack — “Do you have a subscription to “Fat and Ugly” magazine?”
I suspect she’s the cover model.
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Really? Trolls confuse puerile, petulant rudeness with being a “winner”?
You know that ROFL thing? Well, that very nearly literally happened here.
@William the Conqueror:
The “smarter than average”… That was typed with tongue in cheek, no?
My aching ribs.
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Hey, and Jokah has become n00b troll’s cheerleader. Nice dress, dude.
Get a room, guys.
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@Da Jokah
We all know you suspect a lot of things you happen to be wrong about.
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@buddhuu
It tells a lot about them. For example how upset I apparently make them for them to have to stoop to the levels they do. So now we have two jealous, bitter, hater trolls. Muwhahaha
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@Brothawolf
Almost completely forgot about Doug1. Took his logic to task and he ended up calling me a derogatory name that got him banned. Good times
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^ I recall. It was indeed good times.
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For what it is worth, if I am to picture Sharina, I think of someone definitely on the beauty side of the spectrum. (This is not empty flattery, this is based on familiarity with her comments.)
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In regards to THWACK…….All bets are off now. I now believe he may be sitting in one of the countries few and overpopulated sanitariums. I can see him typing away in front of one of many security screened windows that look out over a dismal landscape of weeping willows, overcast skies and rolling hills of grass speckled with patients teetering back and forth in one spot, some with nurses, others with orderlies…Thwack has been given secular rights after months of attempting to fight the system, eventually giving in to hopelessness and mass quantities of forced Thorazine doses…I think this time I might be right…LOL!
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@legion
Thank you. 🙂
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*turns on Janelle Monae- Electric Lady*
In a music mood today. 🙂
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@George, not really when you read his response to my comment to Abagond. It was aggressive and much too baffling considering I thought of him as an over intelligent young man who just has too many hormones.
His response to that was to accuse me of wanting to call him “a clever Negro”, that is very offensive since I have given him more respect than he deserves and when no one would answer him I did as long as his comments were respectful.
In addition I have been cordial to him on several occasions after he spent an entire day beating me down and then browbeating me for the color of my skin. Accusing me of being dishonest about my post and questioning my presence here as a white dude….But it’s all good, I really do prefer him over Jokah and the last post was meant as humorous and not meant to ruffle feathers too much, as was his comment for me.
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@William The Conqueror
I have to agree with George. You really can’t expect anything better from trolls. Mary has a saying that I like. It goes “when he shows you who he is…believe him.” Not just his comments to you but to anyone. Has he shown you to be less than a troll? Remember there goal is for you to be angry, emotional, and out of control. Don’t give them the satisfaction.
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@George and Sharina…Yes, I kept feeding him and you both are right, I should have checked my emotion and refrained from responding and always show respect whether I am getting it or not. I am not as well behaved as some of you veterans but I will be someday. However, George your comment about locking him up and feeding him medication was only a comment that came to fruition based on his behavior. If the comment didn’t sit well with you because you are equating it with the assumed color of his and my skin then your gut is seeing something that just doesn’t exist. When I am speaking with someone every comment I make is based on our interaction as human beings and not insignificant physical traits. Thanks guys….I appreciate your comments.
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@George…Oh wait, I see it now. The last part about fighting the system and secular rights all really sounds horrible…I see it, oh my I am sorry Thwack and anyone who was offended.
My comment was purely me thinking about a person who has said some odd things and I imagined him sitting in a mental hospital with a bunch of crazy people walking around and him typing away at his little table….I then meant that he kept fighting the doctors like he is fighting people on this blog and he finally just did what they said so they gave him more free time to do what he wants unlike the others. I don’t know why I thought it was clever or funny but after George and Sharina have pointed it out to me specifically I am ashamed at myself, I keep forgetting that I’m white…..Thanks George and Sharina.
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By the way Thorazine is for Schizophrenia if anyone was wondering…
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@William The Conqueror
Here is something you can try and see if it helps. Laugh at the comments and remember that what he says has no bearing on you. What he said says more about him than it says about you, but only if you learn to take his comments for what they are. Read the links I posted on types of trolls and that will help you detect troll behavior. Abagond also mentions some techniques to use in the post on how to deal with trolls.
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@Good night George, I accept all criticism, especially when it helps me dislodge the proverbial foot in the mouth.
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Da Jokah:
At turns you’ll unfold serial, rational arguments, at turns you’ll engage in puerile insults.
What gives?
Just curious.
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I wonder if the trolls we see here are just as obnoxious in real life as they are on the internet like Hunter Moore. Some of them are true bullies in real life I suspect. Others are just plain spineless punks who only talk big behind a screen.
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I wonder about trolls if they are bullies in real life as well. Then again I think they are just spineless and cowards just hiding behind their screens.
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Thirsty for attention.
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@ Brothawolf and Mary:
Surely people who were that obnoxious in “real” life would very quickly have the error of their ways pointed out to them in firm terms. Unless, of course, they only direct the behaviour at people who are comparatively smaller and weaker.
I suspect this kind of self-inflated bravado on the web is a compensatory mechanism: something to boost low self-esteem.
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Yes, Abagond, I am eternally grateful you unbanned me , and, I am releived to not be on the troll list…I have found myself on the defensive a lot , lately, but, I never thought of myself as a troll
Blanchette alienated lots of people on the blog at the time…I saw people just drop out at being frustrated by his constant flippant insults and put downs, and, it wasnt like he was just right all the time , and , in truth, more patronising than anything…for sure it wasn’t because of me he was banned, he managed to belittle and insult most anyone who would disagree with him…
And he did start trying to make statements about your personal life, Abagond, something he uses a lot , if people dare question his comments…
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@buddhuu
“I suspect this kind of self-inflated bravado on the web is a compensatory mechanism: something to boost low self-esteem.”—I believe this to be true as well based on my experience on other forums with others who will resort to the same tactic. Though I think @Mary @Brothawolf are correct as well. If we all think about it bullies are simply individuals who are not happy with themselves or the way things are going in life and seek to inflict pain on to others in order for them to feel better about themselves.
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@B.R.
You might say things people dislike, but what on earth would make you even consider you might be troll?
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@ Sharina:
Yup.
It is odd that some people are so insecure that they have to “win”, or score some kind of point, or cause some kind of disruption in order to feel that they have made an impression and feel good – then wonder why they meet resistance and scorn. Other people make an impression by being pleasant, polite and positive and get much less cr/\p in return.
You’d think there would be a lesson in there somewhere.
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buddhuu
@ Sharina:
Other people make an impression by being pleasant, polite and positive and get much less cr/\p in return.
——————————————————————————————————
Other people are often ineffective and leave problems unsolved so their children have to deal with them.
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Trolls are also often vague and afraid of making clear points.
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@buddhuu
That depends on if they make a point at all. They spend so much time going in circles about irrelevance and never get to not one single point. Thus making much of what abagond said true about them. Attention whores is the perfect term for them.
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At turns you’ll unfold serial, rational arguments, at turns you’ll engage in puerile insults. What gives? Just curious.
Excellent question. If you’ll notice, I feed people bread and pigs slop.
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Surely people who were that obnoxious in “real” life would very quickly have the error of their ways pointed out to them in firm terms. Unless, of course, they only direct the behaviour at people who are comparatively smaller and weaker.
buddhuu,
Some people are pathologically demented to ignore others confronting them about their bad behavior. Some of them see themselves as victims when they’re rightfully blamed. If they have access to the internet, they can spew their toxic wastes in another realm. Whether in real life or online, they’re twisted.
But like I said, you have some who are cowards. They’re only bad behind the screen. If and when they’re caught, then they act like wimps.
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@Da Jokah
“Excellent question. If you’ll notice, I feed people bread and pigs slop.”—No wonder there is always slop coming out of your mouth. Silly me. You’ve been eating this slop yourself.
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@Brothawolf and Buddhuu
Perhaps there are a few reasons behind why such individuals get so vile.
1. They may feel that if they say enough vile things then the individual they feel is upsetting them by will back off.
2. They have a narcissistic personality disorder, which would go inline with what you said @brothawolf.
Even if confronted they will likely start throwing their venom at others to project from the real issues in them.
“Narcissistic individuals use various strategies to protect the self at the expense of others. They tend to devalue, derogate and blame others, and they respond to threatening feedback with anger and hostility.[19]
People who are narcissistic commonly feel rejected, humiliated and threatened when criticised. To protect themselves from these dangers, they often react with disdain, rage, and/or defiance to any slight criticism, real or imagined.[20] To avoid such situations, some narcissistic people withdraw socially and may feign modesty or humility. In cases where the narcissistic personality-disordered individual feels a lack of admiration, adulation, attention and affirmation, they may also manifest a desire to be feared and be notorious (narcissistic supply).”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_personality_disorder
Do we need to guess who continuously have displayed this?
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Some people are pathologically demented to ignore others confronting them about their bad behavior. Some of them see themselves as victims when they’re rightfully blamed.
Project much?
>>
Did someone say “narcissism” ?
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092656611000912
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@Da Jokah
And this changes your Narcissistic behavior how?
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excuse me as your should look more like YOUR
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I’ve tried to ignore racist trolls. However engaging with them (sometimes) enables opportunities to debunk the often flawed “information”, misperceptions and generalizations they make about Black people.
When new visitors browse this site, it’s nice to know there’s a wealth of content/perspectives from abagond and many of you that I think is very educational; even thought-provoking. Some bigots may never change biased perceptions. However if we reach one person and help them understand our POV, then it’s worth being “trollslayers.”
I’ve personally learned so much since discovering this site and am glad it exists!
With that, I bid everyone a great weekend.
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* change their
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@ Do Jokah
“The association between pathological narcissism and poor psychological adjustment was especially strong for Black individuals.”
What that means is that blacks and POC have to adjust to the pathological narcissism of the Western empire, white supremacy.
All empires exhibit the narcissism of their rulers. Rome was all about the self worship of Romans. Western culture is the self worship/self love of the ruling group and white is the standard of beauty which all things are judged by.
This attacks the self identity of POC who have to react too and often change their self image to accommodate white cultural dominance.
What I find ridiculous is how you on one hand can claim Blacks are stupid and have low IQ’s resulting in poverty and on the other claim that they have high self esteem which reflects positive self worth. That’s a contradiction.
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@ Da Jokah: Comment deleted for using Mock Ebonics.
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michael
This attacks the self identity of POC who have to react too and often change their self image to accommodate white cultural dominance.
Meanwhile, whites are the ones who are blamed for others’ poor performance and misbehavior.
What I find ridiculous is how you on one hand can claim Blacks are stupid and have low IQ’s resulting in poverty and on the other claim that they have high self esteem which reflects positive self worth. That’s a contradiction.
On the contrary, blaming others for ones situation removes any personal responsibility. Low IQ? tests are biased. Poor academics? Schools discriminate. Convicted? Courts are racist. Unemployed? the man is keeping me down. If blacks fail then they don’t have to feel bad because it wasn’t really their fault. Scapegoating raises self esteem.
Paradoxically, those sorts of delusions raise self esteem while actually lower performance as discussed in this article.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887323735604578440932135073630
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@DaJokah…You have spent several post pointing out studies, statistics and reports, and if I have this correct, your position is that all of these references were to disprove that racism, cultural bias’s, racial profiling, discrimination in education is all bullshit.
Why do you hold so much stock in these studies?
Do these reports, experiments or studies have any bearing on the truth?
Come on!
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I was going to do a post on black self-esteem a while back but did not because some studies said it was higher than white self-esteem while others said it was lower. Da Jokah is giving a slanted view of the subject.
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@ bygodsloveandgrace
Good point. If a troll is giving voice to a common misconception, then for the sake of lurkers (99% of the readership) it might make sense to give a calm rebuttal.
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abagond
I was going to do a post on black self-esteem a while back but did not because some studies said was higher than white self-esteem while others said it was lower.
——————————————————————————————————–
Perhaps you should do a post defining what self esteem is?
What is the FUNCTION of self esteem?
Does a person need self esteem to eat when they are hungry?
Does a person need self esteem to drink when they are thirsty?
Can I lend my self esteem to a person who doesn’t have any?
What is the difference between self esteem and lying to yourself?
What is self esteem?
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tanha does not equal self-esteem nor yama
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http://www.swamij.com/yoga-sutras-23034.htm
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abagond
Studies overwhelmingly show blacks have higher self esteem than whites who, in turn, have higher self esteem than asians. You might be able to cherry-pick a special case or narrow set of circumstances for which this isn’t true. But you’re the one giving a slanted view by suggesting these aren’t exceptions.
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@ Da Jokah
Just to make the point.
Even if you were right. What would these studies show?
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william
You’d have no problem pointing out studies, statistics and reports if they suited you. In fact, you tried very hard to do just that. Having struck out you now question their value. Examine yourself.
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@DaJoakh….You hold so much stock in studies and statistical proof to make your points and you are so adamant about their construct that nothing can disprove them. Do you agree?
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“Scapegoating raises self esteem.”
Which is why you are here ?
“On the contrary, blaming others for ones situation removes any personal responsibility.”
Whites make up all kinds of excuses to deflect taking personal responsibility for their history and for their actions. “It was God’s plan”, “racism was fixed by civil rights” ect
Identifying why those problems exist isn’t the same things as blaming others for poor performance.
Competent teachers in working class public schools get rotated up to better school systems and incompetent teachers get rotated down because their next to impossible to fire.
When their is funding cuts it affects poorer school districts first because of the central planning behind the politically conected teachers union..
“Absent state revenue increases, raising prison guard compensation necessarily means trimming provisions for other state employees and services. Citing this, the LAO tentatively recommended rejecting the employee contracts negotiated in early 2011. Ignoring the recommendation, the California Legislature approved the contracts. Three months later, the Governor and the Legislature passed a budget that issued major cuts to K-12 and higher education.”
Those kids who can’t get educated because of substandard teachers/schools drop out and then get recycled into the prison system.
The DEA’s budget for the “war on drugs” this year is $2.6 billion dollars.That’s money that’s gets targeted directly at lower class communities where POC live resulting in a disproportionate amount of arrests compared to the rest of the country. It’s not that whites don’t do drugs rather its the DEA focusing it’s resources at target area’s that fills up our prison system.
“In California, the prison industry is the fastest growing industry around. In fact, if you want to talk about pure political muscle, there is no lobby quite as strong as the prison lobby. Consider what the prison guard’s union has helped to accomplish in the last 20 years. They have increased tenfold the number of inmates in prison, they have increased exponentially the number of prisons, they have backed numerous draconian laws to ensure that more and more people go to prison for longer and longer for doing less and less”.
“The prison union have also leaned on politicians to ensure that only district attorneys are appointed as judges. Thus, the judiciary is filled with law enforcement, with an agenda of putting away as many people as possible, no matter how much we have to subvert the laws to do it.”
State prison guards won a guarantee that they will be used if the state leases a private prison in California City, one of the options Brown will present to federal judges who have ordered him to alleviate crowding.
http://www.policymic.com/articles/41531/union-of-the-snake-how-california-s-prison-guards-subvert-democracy
“Paradoxically, those sorts of delusions raise self esteem while actually lower performance as discussed in this article.”
The Wall Street journal article you posted that deals with self esteem issues mentions nothing about race or narcissism.
In my opinion the original article you posted in regards to blacks and narcissism is flawed because the author does his study out of context from the white cultural narcissism within our society. POC feel the need to over compensate and that symptom gets interpreted as narcissism.
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Post in Mod
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You hold so much stock in studies and statistical proof to make your points and you are so adamant about their construct that nothing can disprove them. Do you agree?
This pretty much sums up my opinion.
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@DaJoakh….You hold so much stock in studies and statistical proof to make your points and you are so adamant about their construct that nothing can disprove them. Do you agree?
I know you do, then why do you disregard all the videos, reports and studies that those with an opposite position present you? ….its the behavior of a person who has no convictions.
The one thing you said when you had no answers for the numerous news reports proving racial profiling, civil rights violations and out right racism was for black people to just move on to the next store, salesman, job…..Well I notice how you don’t take your own advice. You have been overwhelmingly disliked, disagreed with and schooled by the smarter people in the room and yet you keep coming back for more, are you a masochist?
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@Dajokah………..”On the contrary, blaming others for ones situation removes any personal responsibility. Low IQ? tests are biased. Poor academics? Schools discriminate. Convicted? Courts are racist. Unemployed? the man is keeping me down. If blacks fail then they don’t have to feel bad because it wasn’t really their fault. Scapegoating raises self esteem.”
You call it scapegoating but you were presented with visual proof beyond a reasonable doubt and instead of graciously bowing to defeat and being a man you regressed into a miffed teenager, explaining to Black people that they should go somewhere else if the salesman doesn’t like you. Again refusing to accept that white racism is not only still present but directly affects social and economic behavior, it is all on tape, it was a really good STUDY on human behavior!
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyL5EcAwB9c)
@Everyone else…..I found a great study on race by The American Anthropological Association on Race and it’s conclusion about race markers, how race is a myth and was invented to allow dissonance for atrocities, how environment and culture play more of a role than race, and that all of mankind is a single species….I haven’t read it all but I will. please feel free to read this poignant REPORT by the one of the most prestigious anthropological sources in the world.
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@ Everyone else…..Forgot to add the link
http://www.aaanet.org/stmts/racepp.htm
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It’s funny how Da Jokah says what he says is fact in one breath and he calls it his opinion in another. I wonder if he knows the difference. Then again, this is a guy who doesn’t know what racism is, but claims blacks are racist.
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michael
Which is why you are here ?
I haven’t scapegoated anyone.
Whites make up all kinds of excuses to deflect taking personal responsibility for their history and for their actions.
You want to assign people collective guilt for something they didn’t personally do. Should people also blame Jews for the crucifixion?
Identifying why those problems exist isn’t the same things as blaming others for poor performance.
It need not be but in this case it is.
Those kids who can’t get educated because of substandard teachers/schools drop out and then get recycled into the prison system.
Most of those kids can’t be educated because they’re ineducable. You view students who eventually go to prison as “victims”. But people who go to prison are criminals not victims.
The Wall Street journal article you posted that deals with self esteem issues mentions nothing about race or narcissism.
It wasn’t supposed to.
In my opinion the original article you posted in regards to blacks and narcissism is flawed because…
…it doesn’t support your prejudices.
>>
william
I know you do, then why do you disregard all the videos, reports and studies that those with an opposite position present you? ….its the behavior of a person who has no convictions.
In case you missed it, my response to your question was hyperlinked to a video which sums up my opinion.
I haven’t disregarded anything. I examined your claims and the evidence you presented didn’t support them.
The one thing you said when you had no answers for the numerous news reports proving racial profiling, civil rights violations and out right racism was for black people to just move on to the next store, salesman, job
That’s correct. I believe business transactions should be voluntary. No one should be forced to buy or sell with anyone else. If you’re not happy with the goods, services, prices or treatment then you should be free to go somewhere else.
Well I notice how you don’t take your own advice. You have been overwhelmingly disliked, disagreed with and schooled by the smarter people in the room and yet you keep coming back for more,
I’m disliked and disagreed with for telling unpopular truths. But I don’t think anyone here believes they’re smarter than me. They may say so to insult me but none of them believes it. And neither do you.
are you a masochist?
What did you have in mind?
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To trolls like Da Jokah, holding white people accountable for past and present actions is racism while linking black people with crime is fact.
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@Dajokah………
“You want to assign people collective guilt for something they didn’t personally do. Should people also blame Jews for the crucifixion?”
We provided you with statistics backed up by dozens of visual media reports proving that racism is an ongoing, systemic plague that is just as crippling today as it was 40, 80, 200 years ago.
“It need not be but in this case it is.”
Again you have confused yourself with the one person in this universe who is able to determine what is truth and what is not even when your truth defies logic and reality. Those are traits of a Sociopath.
“Most of those kids can’t be educated because they’re ineducable. You view students who eventually go to prison as “victims”. But people who go to prison are criminals not victims.”
You viewed Priest who molested children as lonely men who are not allowed to marry, are you fucking kidding me! You gave them an excuse for child rape because they are white and lonely! According to your statement above if you were an honest person you would have said, “Priest that rape children are pedophiles not lonely men.” That was the biggest piece of evidence to suggest you cannot be trusted to come to a non bias conclusion when presented with arguable dialogue, your allowance of child rape by white priest was your Trojan Horse….your done!
“I haven’t disregarded anything. I examined your claims and the evidence you presented didn’t support them.”
“Leaps in logic” = Making seemingly logic-based statements, even though the process that led to the idea was missing obvious steps. Jumping to conclusions, often negative ones. One type of logical leap is assuming that you know what someone else is thinking or that you know what is best for others. Downplaying qualified information from prestigious sources based on only your opinion as a superior model. Putting words in someone’s mouth.
I notice that when you don’t have an answer for many of your cherry picked responses you begin to testify for people, especially when you already know how they will answer. You deflect attention away from the other point of view by pre-answering the question, also another classic sign of paranoia.
“That’s correct. I believe business transactions should be voluntary. No one should be forced to buy or sell with anyone else. If you’re not happy with the goods, services, prices or treatment then you should be free to go somewhere else.”
One had nothing to do with the other. The study proved that racism is alive and well in America and that those who believe that racism does not affect POC on a day by day basis were proven wrong and could never know what it’s emotional, economical and social affects are like to a human being. It proved to you that racism does affect ability to function in America and makes it much more difficult for a POC to attain success than a white person who is not being punished by trial and error daily task. Not to mention achieving higher education, wealth and job status.
“are you a masochist?”
“What did you have in mind?”
Humor, good, your human side is showing, you might want to let it out more often.
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@Brothawolf and kiwi
I actually busted out laughing when he made the comment he believed in justice for all. There is so much proof on the very bored that is contrary to what he said. In fact any time you say something bad about a white person (even if you don’t mean all whites) he runs in claiming he is defending himself. I am sure there is some type of mental defect in all this. I mean Asplund did it now Da jokah/churchs.
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Michael Jon Barker:
The very form of your argument disproves itself. How can one take “personal” responsibility for historical actions of other people?
Also, there is the question of “historical windows of accountability”.
Should black Africans and their descendants take “personal responsibility” for displacing the Koi, San, and Pygmy people from AD1000 onwards during the Bantu migration? If so, how much responsibility?
Da Jokah:
I think that’s a terrible policy dressed up like a freedom issue. The reality is that we all share the public space and as such deserve equal access and treatment.
Consider: a small town zones a parcel of land to be used as a gas station. How much freedom to discriminate should the gas station owner be granted? That zoning designation is a public good, and the roads abutting the property a public resource funded by public taxes.
If my wife is driving through town, and the station owner won’t sell her gas because she’s Asian, would your advice to my wife be: “if you don’t like it, go open your own gas station”?
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Da Jokah:
I believe business transactions should be voluntary. No one should be forced to buy or sell with anyone else.
———————————————————————————————————-
I agree with this concept.
But the key is, in order to practice this behavior, the person should be forced to display a symbol telling EVERYONE this is how they behave.
That way, all the people who don’t support it could patronize their competitors.
In other words force the racists out of hiding and into the light of day.
Imagine if child molesters were forced to wear a sign that said “I rape babies?”
Everyday a different person would slam their head through a plate glass window.
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@Michael Jon Barker
Da jokah scapegoats every chance he gets. The thing is it only seems to be scapegoating when someone else does it and not when he is doing it. In fact I have found that he sees just about everything that way.
@William The Conqueror
He disregards other information because that is not what he wants to believe (he is far from unbiased even if he claims to be). Remember when you found one of his sources to be from some racist source? That should tell you all that you need to know. Now I don’t believe every white person or black person that comes in here is a racist, but the ones that fight so hard against every single post seem to be one.
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@Randy
“If so, how much responsibility?”
Even if you are not talking to me I felt the need to answer. I think they should take as much responsibility as they need to in order to restore what they took or destroyed of those individuals. I understand that it is much to late for that and lives have been made, but wrongs must be made right and if it requires some discomfort for those who wronged then so be it. I say this with hope that forgiveness will be met and perhaps those people can simply live together. Then again I know little about the situation and will probably need to research.
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correction:
The thing is it only sees it as scapegoating when someone else does it and not when he is doing it.
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Da Jokah said:
A good example of scapegoating. But Da Jokah and other racists will never see it that way. Despite the country’s racist past of genocide and slavery and its ongoing racial disparities, they want to believe America is not racist, that racism is pretty much dead. But to do that they have to blame the victim and believe there is something profoundly wrong with Black people – which is itself racist! By definition. This is why they put such faith in IQ tests and twisted crime statistics and call it Truth.
Blacks, given the patch of history they are going through, are not going to be without issues. That means there would still be some disparities even if Whites were no longer all that racist. Yet Black unemployment, infant mortality and poverty rates are still two to three times higher than White rates – just like they were 50 years ago during Jim Crow times. So there is little reason to suppose that White racism has weakened all that much. It is just less naked and open.
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@ Sharina
I think that is a noble sentiment, but an impractical one. The problem is that these things become impossibly complicated in time. And all over the world, the vast majority of original populations have been displaced or interbred, or assimilated. It would be impossible to reverse or properly unwind these chains of events without a time machine.
That’s not to say that NO efforts should be taken to acknowledge past injustices, but there is just a practical limit to had far back one can turn the clock. At this point, having everyone except the Native-Americans leave North America in a mass exodus to the places of their ancestry would simply cause another wave of displacement, disruption, and forced redefinition of cultures elsewhere to people who were not involved. And North America would not be better off for it, not even from the perspective of most Native Americans.
History is full of forced migration, wars, droughts, bad weather. I think at some point you just have to accept the past and make the best of it, because that’s what everybody has to do.
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@King
I appreciate you pointing out a major flaw in my thought process. I never truly thought through the trouble that would occur in an effort to make thing right in regards to my way. I started to think of a bunch of people running to get genetic testing to prove they have claim to certain lands and could stay. So i agree as it would cause a major disruption the world over.
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@ Sharina
Well, I used to think the same thing, but I began thinking about it along those lines and realized how difficult it would be to “unmake the omelette.” And then how impossible it would be to truly unscramble ALL of the ethno/cultural omelets around the world and throughout all time. It became clear that, for better or for worse, what was done could not be undone.
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@ King. Sometimes discussions here hang on telelogy and and essentialist beliefs that add up to nothing in life off-line.
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Da Jokah said “Scapegoating raises self esteem.”
My point was that’s why Da Jokah is here. To raise HIS self esteem. lol
@ Randy. Point taken.
In regards to reparations blacks should have been given the lands that they were enslaved on once slavery had been outlawed. Native Americans today could be given public lands as a form of reparations.
America incarcerates more people today then at the height of Stalinist Russia’s gulag system. Is it because crime and terror is rolling through American cities? No because violent crime rates are the same as they were in 1965 even with an increased population.
China has a huge prison population as well yet it is one of the safest countries to travel around in. Their prisoners are mostly political.
In Russia the secret police would show up and coerce a signed “confession” and off you would go to the Gulag. America does the same thing but it’s called a “plea bargain”. Threaten the individual with a draconian amount of prison time if that individual doesn’t agree to the plea bargain.
The United States, Russia and China have different political ideologies but their governments FUNCTION the same way. Their repressive, coercive and violent.
The public service unions in the U.S. have considerable clout within the democratic party and help elect democratic candidates. The problem is when it comes to reforming schools to make them better the teachers union steps in and stops it. The prison unions like wise are always lobbying for more prisons and tougher, longer sentencing and along with the money spent on the “war on drugs” and the Republicans “tough on crime”, all this has fueled these mass incarcerations.
In 2009 the Congressional Black Caucus sent out a letter to community leaders requesting their input in regards to community problems. The letter listed 35 topics it thought important but the one topic missing was the criminal justice system and the high incarceration rates of black males. Why? I think because prison unions helped elect them and therefore are indirectly controlling the conversation.
To blame crime and incarceration rates on IQ, race ect doesn’t take into account the political forces behind incarcerations, the money targeted at specific communities in the “war on drugs” nor the failing public schools in repressed neighborhoods.
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@ Bulanik
Agreed. Understanding is not application… and theory is not always the parent of practicality in the real world setting. 🙂
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@ King 😀
How glad I am that you came back.
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Like I was never gone 🙂 Thanks!
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I read that a study was done on internet trolling. It was called the Dark Tetrad, A study of personality traits. Trolling correlated with sadism, psychopathy, Machiavellianism. I have seen this behavior demonstrated daily on this blog and other message boards. Some people just enjoy this as a past time. Most trolls enjoy making others suffer, lack no remorse or empathy, and have no problem with manipulating and lying to people.
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Some just love being despicable jerks on the internet.
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@mary burrell
Interesting. I will go find it and read it. Thanks for providing that information.
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Machiavelliaism: Disregard for how their (trolls) immoral behavior affects others.
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Power is a sociopath’s drug they live for this.
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I read thwack is has left. There will be another to take his place.
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william
We provided you with statistics backed up by dozens of visual media reports
The stats you provided did not support your claims. And the ‘visual media reports’ showed black salesmen didn’t like black customers, either. In fact, studies show blacks in the service industry are actually less likely to want black customers than whites are. Abagond would suggest that’s ‘internalized racism’. But these black waiters/waitresses deal with black customers and have a different opinion (click here and here) Researchers in this video studied it and validated their personal experiences (click here) You can not be a horrible customer and expect salesman to be enthusiastic about waiting on you.
You viewed Priest who molested children as lonely men who are not allowed to marry, are you fucking kidding me! You gave them an excuse for child rape because they are white and lonely!
I didn’t say they had higher rates of molestation because they were lonely. I said they had a higher rates because prohibitions on sex attracted “unusual people” ie sexual deviants. Your inability to understand what you read is part of the reason you reach incorrect conclusions.
Downplaying qualified information from prestigious sources based on only your opinion as a superior model.
I wouldn’t consider Bossip a prestigious source. And some of your information was copy/pasted from anonymous comments on message boards. I know because I googled and found where they came from. That’s why you didn’t provide links for all of them. You didn’t even bother to check the original sources to see if they were quoted accurately. Some of them weren’t.
The rest of your comment was personal attacks and lectures on “leaps of logic”. I noticed you copy/pasted that from somewhere else as well.
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Randy
I think that’s a terrible policy dressed up like a freedom issue. The reality is that we all share the public space and as such deserve equal access and treatment.
It is a freedom issue. Interaction is either free and voluntary or it’s coerced. Zoning doesn’t change the fact that businesses are privately owned and operated.
If my wife is driving through town, and the station owner won’t sell her gas because she’s Asian, would your advice to my wife be: “if you don’t like it, go open your own gas station”?
My advice would be to go to the gas station across the street. If you’ll notice gas stations are nearly always located near one another. But, honestly, even during segregation gas stations weren’t segregated. I’m sure you remember my arguments from months ago that segregation helped black businessmen because it provided opportunites for them to serve black customers. When desegregation ended the black customers went to white businesses instead. And the majority of black businesses had to close. It’s ironic that people on this blog regularly complain of segregation yet will turn right around and lament that more blacks don’t shop at black owned businesses. That’s exactly what blacks had under Jim Crow!
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abagond
Da Jokah: “Most of those kids can’t be educated because they’re ineducable.”
Abagond: “A good example of scapegoating. But Da Jokah and other racists will never see it that way.”
My best friend and I went to school in a housing project. We sat in the same classrooms, read the same textboks and listened to the same black teachers as our black classmates. I scored over 1500 on the SAT and my friend got a perfect score on the ACT. So it’s not the schools. Most of the students are simply ineducable.
Despite the country’s racist past of genocide and slavery and its ongoing racial disparities, they want to believe America is not racist, that racism is pretty much dead.
Once again, you pull out the genocide canard to incite racial hatred. There was never a genocide. Moreover, if black failure is a legacy of slavery then why is black failure worse the further we get from slavery? Shouldn’t black performance be improving the further we get from it?
Blacks, given the patch of history they are going through, are not going to be without issues. That means there would still be some disparities even if Whites were no longer all that racist.
In what country do blacks not have issues? If anything, it seems black “issues” are worse the fewer whites there are.
Yet Black unemployment, infant mortality and poverty rates are still two to three times higher than White rates
Black unemployment and poverty is similar to that of whites of similar ability. But you wish to compare blacks with an average IQ of 85 to whites with an average IQ of 100. If you compare whites and blacks of similar ablility the emloyment and poverty rates are similar. As for infant mortality, black infants are more likely to be born premature or with congenital anomalies. Your standard canard — find a disparity and blame it on racism whether it is or not.
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michael
In Russia the secret police would show up and coerce a signed “confession” and off you would go to the Gulag. America does the same thing but it’s called a “plea bargain”. Threaten the individual with a draconian amount of prison time if that individual doesn’t agree to the plea bargain.
The average rapist and murderer only serve 55 to 71 months in prison. That’s less than 6 years. Hardly draconian. If it were up to me they’d be hanged.
In 2009 the Congressional Black Caucus sent out a letter to community leaders requesting their input in regards to community problems. The letter listed 35 topics it thought important but the one topic missing was the criminal justice system and the high incarceration rates of black males. Why?
Because blacks don’t like crime, either. Incarceration rates only become an issue when some hustler wants to racebait.
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@mary burrell
True. Though a part of me believes he was always here and may be still lurking.
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“Randy to Michael Jon Barker:
Whites make up all kinds of excuses to deflect taking personal responsibility for their history and for their actions. The very form of your argument disproves itself. How can one take “personal” responsibility for historical actions of other people? Also, there is the question of “historical windows of accountability”.
Should black Africans and their descendants take “personal responsibility” for displacing the Koi, San, and Pygmy people from AD1000 onwards during the Bantu migration? If so, how much responsibility?
Linda says,
WRONG analogy Randy… and since when are the “Khoi, San, and Pygmy not Black”?
http://www.nairaland.com/347410/picture-thread-1-khoisan-people
this is why the European created classification of “Race” should cease to exist because white race “realists” like to put people in fake boxes to suit themselves and further their agendas.
and the Khoikhoi and San were never “displaced” — the Khoi lived in the southern part of the continent of Africa (from east to west)
http://www.sahistory.org.za/arrival-khoikhoi
As the Nguni’s and other groups moved into Khoi territory, they fought and the Khoi lost — they either stayed and lived with Nguni or they moved on further south, where they eventually met up with the San, where the cycle repeated itself between the Khoihoi and the San, and again with arrival of the Xhosa. (Nelson Mandela was Xhosa and Khoi/San)
This type of territory land grab and expansionism is very similar to what happed to the Celts (Britons) of the British Isles (aka Britian)… the Romans and then the Anglo/Saxons moved in and the Celts fought, lost, stayed or moved on…. should we consider the Celts to be of a different “race” than their occupiers because their land was taken over by a stronger group of people.
you race realist need to stop distorting the so-called “Bantu Expansion” … because the Nguni never committed “genocide” during their expansion; whereas, white European immigration to other Continents went beyond territorial expansion, it also most times included genocide.
The San, Khoi, Nama, Xhosa, and other black African ethnic groups lived, traded, married, learned, and fought with each other– just like how the “tribes” in Europe lived and fought with each other — and how the Europeans treat the “Roma/Gypsy” is comparable to how the Pygmies of central Africa are treated.
you wish to play a game of “tit for tat” between Europe and Africa but you cannot… because there has been NO African group of people who invaded, occupied and committed “Genocide” on the continent of Europe
(the Moors invaded and occupied Spain/southern Europe, but they NEVER committed “genocide”; and even they were eventually absorbed into Europe, defeated and sent back to Africa or to the “new World” Americas by Spain)
it was the white Europeans/Dutch “Afrikaans” who “enslaved, displaced, and committed genocide” against the Khoi, San, Xhosa, and other Nguni people who were already in South Africa when white people arrived.
whose white descendants today also don’t wish to accept “accountability” for their ancestors actions and want to “Excuse and Deflect” their governments acts of genocide, which only ended 20 years ago; white people who desire(d) to live in an Apartheid system; who now want to claim that the Khoi/San are not “black” because some of their white ancestors laid down and had children with them.
As an American, you could have easily stayed in the USA for your analogy, and brought up how the white “American” government went about invading, “displacing” and murdering the First Nation native American people of North America
so that their white descendants and other white European immigrants, could one day enjoy the entire continent, then get on Internet blogs to try to tell the descendants of Africans (involuntary immigrants) and other non-white immigrants, that they need to “go home”.
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How many times before has Randy used the example of “Bantu Expansion” to make the same point and how many times has he been told he’s wrong, over and over?
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I see Da Jokah’s whole view as like this:
Blacks commit the most crime because that’s what I think and the proof I present negates any and all arguments. Any evidence that proves otherwise is from the left and therefore isn’t true just because. I am not not narcissistic, but I am right because I just am.
I don’t know or say why blacks commit the most crime, but it seems like it’s because they’re…black. It has nothing to do with any outside factors, especially of the socioeconomic kind. I admit that white people commit crimes too, but blacks are criminals.
Blacks are racists, more so than whites. Even though I don’t know what racism is or won’t say what it is, blacks are racist. They are racist because they always blame the white man for everything instead of taking responsibility.
White racism is gone or at least no longer as big as black racism is today. So people like Abagond and his commenters need to concentrate more on black crime, especially against whites because they are true victims. They don’t have to take responsibility because they haven’t done anything, according to me.
And I am not a racist myself, even though I don’t really understand the meaning of the word, or at least pretend not to.
What I’m doing is not being racist, nor am I scapegoating. What I am doing is telling the truth. Black people are criminals and white people are victims.
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Continued from the last comment
And in conclusion, I believe I know more about black people than black people. They are the cause of their own problems. They are just plain screwed, and maybe they would be more respected if they don’t complaining and fix their own problems.
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Wow. Looks like it’s been a busy day in here.
mary burrell said:
There you go. Post of the day. Concise and accurate.
Some of the others were good, but after the day I’ve had, Mary sums it up for me. And not just on the Internet.
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Linda
should we consider the Celts to be of a different “race” than their occupiers because their land was taken over by a stronger group of people.
The genetic distance between English and Italian is only .02. Whereas the genetic distance between San-Bushmen and negr0s is .75. To put this in perspective, the genetic distance from English to S Chinese, Filipino and American Indian is .73, .74 & .76, respectively. So if San-Bushman and negr0s are the same race then English, Chinese, Filipinos and American Indians are the same race as well.
Genetically, [pygmies] are extremely divergent from all other human populations, suggesting they have an ancient indigenous lineage. Their uniparental markers represent the second-most ancient divergence right after those typically found in Khoisan peoples.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/324/5930/1035.abstract
white people who desire(d) to live in an Apartheid system; who now want to claim that the Khoi/San are not “black” because some of their white ancestors laid down and had children with them.
Indeed they did. The Khoisan are 14% European… from 3000 years ago.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2551543/Mankind-s-migratory-U-turn-Humans-returned-Africa-3-000-years-ago-tribal-DNA-reveals.html
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You mad bro?
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Da Jokah:
Sorry, but I respectfully disagree.
Pure “freedom” is not only an illusion, it’s a rather an immature idea, a curious tidbit of Ayn Randian bumper-sticker schlock which people smart enough to know better nonetheless often require disabusement of.
Heresy? Hardly.
Even the most “free” societies nonetheless have a social contract to which its members implicitly agree, with terms to which they abide.
So your business, unless it’s in the middle of nowhere in an autonomous part of the world, abides by terms of a social contract.
You, the private business owner, didn’t pave the road outside your store, you didn’t hire the cops to keep it safe, you don’t enforce international trade policy, and you didn’t fight the last war by yourself to guarantee your constitutionally enumerated rights.
At a practical level, the argument also fails.
Consider the “gas station” experiment. Shall a town zone innumerable parcels for gas stations to conform to an ever-changing landscape of racial, ethnic, and religious biases?
The new station owner is Hmong and hates the ethnic Chinese? Ok, we’d better zone our 48th gas station on this block so that everyone has a place to fill up.
It’s absurd.
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I’m disliked and disagreed with for telling unpopular truths
Oh no, I think you’re wonderful!
But I don’t think anyone here believes they’re smarter than me.
Only the mighty Cthulhu is as smart! That’s right folks! Are you from the land of Thule?
They may say so to insult me but none of them believes it.
I think you are absolutely brilliant but so was Hitler!
are you a masochist?
What did you have in mind?
Does the thought of a session with the Iron Maiden turn you on. Can you hack it? How about a love session with thwack?
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Abagond:
In general, Jokah is making a “what” argument and you’re making a “why” argument. They’re apples and oranges.
There are a couple of problems with your argument.
Firstly, your appears to rob black people of any agency by suggesting that they’re merely like leaves in a stream, carried along by the current. You’re making an argument against free will. Therefore, any solution which depends on free will would fail.
Secondly, you’re arguing a bit of post hoc ergo propter hoc, i.e.:
A: Discrimination existed.
B: Black Americans score low on a number of wellness metrics.
Ergo, A caused B.
That’s not a complete argument.
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Bulanik,
How many times before has Randy used the example of “Bantu Expansion” to make the same point and how many times has he been told he’s wrong, over and over?
Linda says,
Bulanik, That’s part of the “Race Realist” talking point package straight out the Race Realist manifesto playbook…. Most race realists (aka Racists) seem to bring up “Bantu expansion” eventually, that’s one of the ways how they “out” themselves as “race realists”….
because No one else discusses ancient African migration patterns (3000 BC) except anthropologists, historians, and blogs that discuss it as a particular topic… but the only people who will “randomly” bring it up or even refer to Africans as “BANTU” are white racists aka “race realists”.
the whole world was peopled by groups migrating and expanding….ancient African migration patterns are Not on par to white European imperialism and colonialism of North and South America, Asia, Australia and Africa… this more “current” set of events is what has changed the world and shaped western cultures and societies, and we are all still dealing with the “Aftertaste” of it.
I most times would prefer to not even talk to these racist but as one commenter said,” Blatant lies and Half-truths” Cannot be allowed to sit online without being addressed.
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Sorry, but I respectfully disagree.
I respectfully don’t care.
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Da Jokah, as for you,
you are in a special category all by yourself… you are a racist blowhard, who is so full of sh’t, I’m sure you float above the Keyboard.
you’ve already proven yourself to be the biggest ignorant a’shole on this blog who is brings NOTHING to any conversation you take par of… so take a seat Scrub and don’t address me….
leave the intellectual “stuff” to Randy, that’s not your forte..
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and also a’shole, Da Jokah, as to your statement:
“Indeed they did. The Khoisan are 14% European… from 3000 years ago.”
There is no such Ethnic group as the “Khoisan”… they are 2 separate groups… one is called “Khoi” and the other one is called “San”… I’m surprised you didn’t discover that in your quick Google search.
this is why I called you an “ignorant a’shole”. because you like to jump into peoples conversations and attempt to sound intelligent, when it’s obvious that you don’t even know what the h’ll is going on…
also, you should read the articles you attempt to bring in to make it look like you have a f’cking clue, you clueless windbag.
per you own article that you presented:
“When humans first left Africa some 60,000 years ago, they went on to leave their genetic footprints around the world.
These same footprints have revealed that some humans decided to return to Africa, carrying genes from the rest of the world back to the continent
Further evidence suggests a subset of Khoisan, known as the Khoe-Kwadi speakers, arrived in southern Africa from East Africa 2,200 years ago”
that’s called “back-migration” son, that’s why you having many east African people that have so called “Caucasian” Eurasian DNA.. .the Khoe-Kwadi migrated “South” from east Africa, they brought it back with them from east Africa….this has NOTHING to do with the San or the majority of the Khoi….
stay out of grown peoples conversation until you learn to read…
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Linda
I addressed the factual content of your comment and not you personally. If you don’t want me to address you personally then I suggest you don’t engage in personal attacks against me.
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@ Randy
1. How in the world am I arguing against free will?
2. What quick-and-dirty metric would you suggest to tell if racism is weakening or strengthening?
And, in regard to your Mists o’ Time argument:
3. Should the American government uphold its treaties with Native Americans?
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If you don’t want me to address you personally then I suggest you don’t engage in personal attacks against me.
Why not? It’s hilarious! Carry on genius!
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you don’t get to play “victim” with me, son… you addressed me personally by saying “Linda” and then proceeded to tell me your “opinion” … which I did not ask for… I refuse to entertain your ignorance.
I’ve already told you in the past that I think you are a clueless racist, who doesn’t know sh’t but you keep on going like the “little engine that could”… when I want a comedic relief, then I will ask for your “opinion”…
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There is no such Ethnic group as the “Khoisan”… they are 2 separate groups…
I never said otherwise. However, geneticists lump them into one group called Khoisan because they are genetically similar.
that’s called “back-migration” son, that’s why you having many east African people that have so called “Caucasian” Eurasian DNA
I’m well aware of “back migration” mom. DNA studies is that Ethiopians are about 40% Caucasian, and are genetically a little more closely related to Mediterranean Caucasian groups like Berbers and Arabs than Western Africans, as is shown by this twig map. That’s why real Ethiopians have caucasian features.
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you addressed me personally by saying “Linda” and then proceeded to tell me your “opinion”
I’m sure you’ll get over it… eventually. 🙂
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@Brothawolf
You summed him up perfectly
@ Linda
*Applause*
@Herneith
LOL
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@ Linda, da jokah ect
I said “Whites make up all kinds of excuses to deflect taking personal responsibility for their history and for their actions.”
I took Randy to mean that he objected to me using the word “personal” in my statement. Meaning that young Germans today can’t be held personally responsible for the holocaust that their grand parents participated in. But modern day Israeli’s can be held personally accountable for the apartheid and genocidal policies that they practice towards the Palestinians as those violations are happening as I type this.. But maybe I misunderstood Randy’s intent as I haven’t been on this blog long enough to know where he is coming from.
Whites are in denial about their history which has directly affected the economic well being of POC in this country today. Jim Crow was all about protecting the jobs of white people. Further more both political parties are responsible for the mass incarceration rates. Neither party has shown any intention of stopping the prison industrial complex and both profit from it.
Randy said:
“I think that’s a terrible policy dressed up like a freedom issue. The reality is that we all share the public space and as such deserve equal access and treatment.”
Da Joka answered:
“it is a freedom issue. Interaction is either free and voluntary or it’s coerced. Zoning doesn’t change the fact that businesses are privately owned and operated.”
It is a freedom issue or more precisely a liberty issue. Freedom deals with the individual but Liberty defines it within the community.
My ethics are drawn from Natural rights which means the right to life, liberty and property. Locke’s referral to property meant more then land and things and refers to self ownership of the individual as a sovereign human being. Our natural rights allows us to pursue our happiness without interfering with the life, liberty and property of our neighbors.
I’m now going to break it down to show how I see it play out in society.
You can own a piece of land that’s private and exclude who you want to come onto our property. But if a trespasser shows up you can’t just shoot that person unless that person is actually aggressing against you.
You can own a diner that’s open to the public but to discriminate against a specific group violates that’s groups rights to liberty specifically travel. If someone is at your lunch counter and they do not threaten your life, liberty or property then to use force to move them outside your diner requires you to violate that persons life, liberty and property.
The person who travels into your public diner isn’t using coercion against you but you would be using coercion or force to remove that individual.
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@Linda: Touche’
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and you will forever be ignorant… your brand of “stupid” is not curable.
don’t try to educate anyone on a subject you don’t know anything about….because you’re little blurb just continues to show you are ignorant on the topic of Africa’s inhabitants, from north to South..
you have no clue about Africa, or the Africans… you only know and repeat what your Manifesto tells you to say… stay in your racist lane and repeat the words of your Racist masters like a good little parrot.
and by the way, since when has being called “Black” been based on genetic DNA…
the average “black” American, whose ancestors you white Racists like to call “Bantu”, are 12-30% white European, with more obviously mixed black Americans going up to 80% white European…. so I am sure you racists will now allow them out of the “Black” category because they share the same gene DNA pool as you and most of white America… based on what you say, Obama should be embraced as “white” since he is 50%.
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@DaJokah… I have proven my points emphatically on my last post and just about every single time prior and morally I find it reprehensible debating a man who makes excuses for WHITE child molesters and then turns around and demonizes Blacks who would like to get an education. Your white behavior I just spoke of is exactly why there is so much inequality in America today. Your excuses for a white child molester and demoralization of Black students is the epitome of every single category that proves white superiority we have been talking about. Your actions alone time and time again have explained, proven, justified and substantiated racism and given justification for every single issue you have tried to deflate or disprove. I don’t believe I could be any prouder or do any better for the human race than what I have done to you on these threads….Good day sir!
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Michael Jon Barker,
no, you didn’t misunderstand Randy’s basic intent. I understood the point Randy was trying to make but I addressed his statement because he and other race realists like to bring up the “Bantu expansion” as their version of historical “tit for tat”…
he could of used any other analogy that would have been more fitting but he chose to use that one and it was deliberate — why go back 1000’s of years BC into Africa, when he could have found something within the last 200 years.
the subject of ancient African migration and expansion is only on par with Asian migration eastward and into North and South America… or with Goths migration west and south… it has no relevance in what you were discussing but it is a favorite talking point for “Race Realist”, that’s why I did not let it sit.
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@ Linda. Understood. I didn’t get the Bantu analogy.
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Linda,
I bring up the “Bantu expansion” simply because I remember it from “Guns Germs and Steel”. Diamond makes a distinction between “black” African people and other African peoples.
abagond
1. Arguing that the fate of a group of people is entirely the result of prior history is precisely the argument of “determinists”.
In that model, people lack free will / agency, having no control over their fate, and thus are never accountable (good or bad) for their state.
Oddly, in your argument, only black people lack agency. White people are said to have privilege and prejudice which they’re encouraged to give up in order to help black people who have no such capacities of their own.
Talk about belief systems which are racist against black people! Unpack the paternalistic “guilty white liberal” narrative and you’ll find a kernel of racism at the core.
2. There is no quick-and-dirty metric to tell if racism is weakening or strengthening. Complex issues tend not to have simple diagnostics or solutions.
The only way that the “results” argument is sufficient is if racism were the only factor impacting a population of people. Quite obviously, it’s not.
3. Should the American gov’t have held up its treaties when they were signed? Sure. Should they do it now? I don’t think that’s practical anymore.
You could invoke another mists-o-time argument here too: how far back will everyone be held to account?
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“San hunter-gatherers and the Khoi-Khoi herders”
kinda funny i was just posting about the khoikhoi (“hottentots”) earlier today, this is somewhat random, but….
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More on Da Jokah’s mindset:
Stop attacking me! Even though I say that blacks commit the most crimes, I don’t think it’s offensive let alone wrong. I do not attack other people!
Race is real. It is genetic. It is not what the liberals believe, that it’s a social and political construct based on a caste system based on physical appearance. Again, blacks are their own problem, not the white man.
I am highly intelligent. After all, I get my resources from the internet, especially right wing sites, which to me is better than reading actual books.
This blog should be geared towards what I think and to white people who have been punished enough. White people have done nothing wrong, and the history of “racism” before the 1970’s does not have an influence or is connected in any way to the present.
There is no effect because there is no cause. Black people are just messed up. It’s not an offensive statement. They hate us poor whites and they take out their hatred on us for no reason. None.
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michael
It is a freedom issue or more precisely a liberty issue.
I agree with almost everything you’ve said about liberty and freedom. With the obvious exception of private property. I don’t think anything involving government should be allowed to discriminate. That includes government programs as well as any business or organization that receives government grants or contracts. Nor do I think public corporations should be allowed to discriminate because they’re not privately owned. I do, however, think privately owned businesses should be allowed to discriminate. People should be allowed to do what they like with their own property. Allowing some public access shouldn’t nullify one’s right to control access.
>>
william
You’ve long since stopped addressing the evidence. Instead, you’ve deliberately misrepresented my position and launched into full scale personal attacks. That’s weak sauce, sir. Good day.
>>
brothawolf
Stop attacking me! Even though I say that blacks commit the most crimes, I don’t think it’s offensive let alone wrong. I do not attack other people!
I’ve pointed out that people have attacked me personally. And I’ve explained why. But I haven’t told anyone to stop. On the contrary, I think it’s funny when people get angry.
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@Brothawolf…….”I am highly intelligent. After all, I get my resources from the internet, especially right wing sites, which to me is better than reading actual books.This blog should be geared towards what I think and to white people who have been punished enough. White people have done nothing wrong, and the history of “racism” before the 1970′s does not have an influence or is connected in any way to the present.”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!….LMAO!
Brilliant Sir, simply BRILLIANT! With your permission I am going to save this for future TROLLS.
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.Da Jokah said
“Allowing some public access shouldn’t nullify one’s right to control access.”
The only way to control public access is by force. Either it’s open to the public or it’s not. Putting up a sign that says “white’s only” requires aggression to enforce. It is unfounded force that violates natural law.
A sign that says “we reserve the right to refuse service” may refer to health codes or if a patron has had too much to drink ect. The intent is different and deals with the well being of the community.
“No one may threaten or commit violence (‘aggress’) against another man’s person or property. Violence may be employed only against the man who commits such violence; that is, only defensively against the aggressive violence of another. In short, no violence may be employed against a nonaggressor.”
Rothbard
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michael
The only way to control public access is by force.
That’s true of any private property.
Either it’s open to the public or it’s not.
Either one has the right to control access to their privately owned property or they don’t. I understand your point concerning the state’s compelling interest. For example, restrictions on dumping toxic waste on one’s own property. But if you start tweaking it to suit your own personal preferences then you’re ‘aggressing’ against another person’s right to do with his own property as he wishes.
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“Randy to Linda
I bring up the “Bantu expansion” simply because I remember it from “Guns Germs and Steel”. Diamond makes a distinction between “black” African people and other African peoples.”
Linda says,
Yes Randy, I’m familiar with “where” you got your information – you brought it up before in the past… that’s why I’m hip to your game.
another comment from same post:
Bulanik to Randy @This Bantu word is ‘loaded’ because of
1. its with association to Apartheid’s ethno-racial designation,
2. the desire to shame, and,
3. the need to deflect white guilt – and all in the name of sounding like educated in African history
Randy to Bulanik@ I’m not familiar with these negative associations of the name Bantu, and am not using them as such. Rather, I think the Bantu migration historical event serves to expose what I perceive to be double standards with regards to moral behavior.
If European-descended peoples are expected to acknowledge, disavow, and remediate “white privilege” based upon a history of supremacy, then why shouldn’t Bantu-descended people also be expected to acknowledge, disavow, and remediate “Bantu privilege” based upon a history of supremacy?”
The average black American/ Afro-Descendant in the Americas are genetically different from the south African Nguni people (due to admixture, as well as diverseness in the west African gene pool) .. that’s why your analogy doesn’t work
Your analogy would be the same as me saying that the “Bengali’s should be held accountable for the historical atrocities of the Mayans” because they both had ancestors, who had ancestors that migrated out of the Caucasus mountains —
Or maybe we should hold some east Africans groups accountable for the German genocide of the Herrero and Namas because white race scientists lumped anyone with slim facial features and loose hair into the fake “Caucasian” category
I think you should keep the people and the players of historical events current and relevant…currently, it is “white” people who enforce “white supremacy” in the Americas and abroad; and Europeans keep up their end in Europe and abroad, and their black/brown “cousins” keep it alive by internalizing the Eurocentric mindset, education, and culture.
if you had wanted to bring up Africans doing something “bad” against other Africans that correlated in any way, shape or form with black Americans or Afro descendants in the Americas — then you should have brought up Benin… whose government, by the way, issued an apology to African Americans for their role in the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
Some people don’t mind taking responsibility for the more recent ancestors “actions” which changed and shaped the current world we live in.
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I’ve pointed out that people have attacked me personally. And I’ve explained why. But I haven’t told anyone to stop. On the contrary, I think it’s funny when people get angry.
You don’t have to type that you haven’t told anyone to stop. I just know that you say so, AFTER you get served what you dish out.
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Thank you William and Sharina, by the way.
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“Randy @ Linda,
I bring up the “Bantu expansion” simply because I remember it from “Guns Germs and Steel”. Diamond makes a distinction between “black” African people and other African peoples.”
Linda says,
As Abagond and other commenters mentioned on the post that Abagond did about Jared Diamond and his book, “Guns Germs and Steel”
Jared is very clumsy with his concept of “races” and even Jared acknowledges it:
“Now, I know that classifying people into arbitrary races is stereotyping.
Each of these groups is actually very diverse, and lumping people as different as the Zulu, Masai, and Ibo under the single heading “blacks” ignores the differences between them.
So does lumping Africa’s Egyptians and Berbers with each other and with Europe’s Swedes under the single heading “whites.”
The divisions between blacks, whites, and the other major groups are arbitrary anyway because each group shades into the others. All the human groups on Earth have mated with humans of every other group they’ve encountered.
Nevertheless, recognizing these major groups and calling them by these “inexact” names is a shorthand that makes it easier to understand history.”
He admits that he is stereotyping and using fake racial/social constructs to make his book “Easy Reading” for his audience …
he could have easily called each group by their Ethnic names, but I guess in an effort to not waste time, I guess he didn’t mind being “incorrect” in the pursuit of telling his story.
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@Jokah:
Would you count yourself libertarian or anarcho-capitalist?
(There is an on-topic motive to the question.)
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I had to laugh at this statement.
“I’ve pointed out that people have attacked me personally. And I’ve explained why. But I haven’t told anyone to stop. On the contrary, I think it’s funny when people get angry.”
He gets personally attacked after he first personally attacks? Then he assumes they are angry when they respond in kind so it is funny? So I guess by this logic it is safe to assume him just as angry. The vixtimhood he plays is so hilarious.
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@brothawolf
You forgot the part where he contiously blames abagond.
Oh and his repeated liar status. “I know I personally attacked you first, but give me a few days to make up something you personally attacked me on so I can be the victim simply defending myself.” ROFL
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The troll battle cry.
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I had to wonder about thwack, his Kanye West type antics with the commenters of this blog. The word that comes to my mind is hubris. Just an over inflated ego.
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Da Jokah said:
“But if you start tweaking it to suit your own personal preferences then you’re ‘aggressing’ against another person’s right to do with his own property as he wishes.”
I’m making a moral argument based upon natural law.
If you owned a restaurant called “Da Jokah Hamburger Shack” and you operated this during the Jim Crow days prior to civil rights law, and you had posted a “whites only” sign how would you handle blacks entering your restaurant?
Would you or your patrons remove them physically?
Would you call the police?
Or would you provide service if you were not threatened?
Property rights in natural rights theory trace a line of equipoise balancing the individuals right to property against the duties individuals owe others out of respect for their Liberty which is like wise legitimately held in the sovereignty of self ownership.
The determining factor is the use of force and as I pointed out earlier “no violence may be employed against a nonaggressor” so whoever initiate’s violence first when their is no threat has violated the moral values behind natural law.
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@ Buddhuu
I asked Da Jokah further up the thread.
“Michael Jon Barker — “Randy and DJ. What’s your political leanings? Conservative republican or worse?”
liberal independent. Legalize guns, drugs, abortion, buttf’cking and anything else people wish to do. I wouldn’t do most of those things myself but I certainly have no desire to prevent others from acting stupidly.”
It sounds libertarian. Maybe he views himself as “classical Liberal” .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism
His Social Darwinism is race realism which he adds on top of his political views.
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I’m making a moral argument based upon natural law.
No. You’re making an argument based on your own personal preferences and saying it’s based on natural law.
how would you handle [trespassers] entering your [privately owned property]?
I could refuse service or call the police to have them removed.
Property rights in natural rights theory trace a line of equipoise balancing the individuals right to property against the duties individuals owe others out of respect for their Liberty
My respect for liberty entails no obligation to provide others goods, services or access to privately owned property.
His Social Darwinism is race realism which he adds on top of his political views.
Opposition to racist scapegoating.isn’t social darwinism.
Buddhuu — Would you count yourself libertarian or anarcho-capitalist?
Neither. I’m an independent liberal.
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Sharina,
Well, that’s true. Then again, I did mention his ‘black racist’ rants and how he wants this blog to suit his interests.
All in all, he shows he’s not the kind to have an intelligent or civil conversation with if you don’t agree with him. That’s when he goes off with his race realism.
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@Michael and Jokah:
Apologies for missing the question and answer further up the thread.
Jokah I didn’t mean to offer libertarian or anarcho-capitalist as multiple choice, I meant them as examples – i.e. are you perhaps one of these or something else. Thanks for the reply.
I think we are dragging this off topic. Perhaps best to shift any remaining political discussion to Open Thread or one of the specific political threads…
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@ Randy
At this point in history, White Americans have way more agency than Blacks. Because they have way more power. They have five times more votes and a hundred times more wealth. They control Hollywood, the press, the banks, the courts, the police and what gets taught at school. With power comes responsibility.
Black Americans, on the whole, are pretty much doing the best they can under the circumstances. Some are evil or foolish or both, of course, but that is part of the human condition. I do not see Blacks as a criminal class or a race of fools.
White Americans, on the other hand, ARE a criminal class. They have committed huge historical crimes and continue to benefit from them. They are a glorified band of armed robbers. Instead of using their ill-gotten wealth to set things right as best they can, they make lame-ass excuses. Like your Mists o’ Time thing. Or they blame the victim, like what Da Jokah, “The Bell Curve” and CNN do. Either way Whites, on the whole, are not taking responsibility for their actions. They SAY they are for equality but do not ACT like it.
YOU may have never owned a slave or racially profiled a Black man walking down the street minding his own business. BUT, on this very blog which has been seen by millions, you do EXCUSE those crimes and defend a racist status quo. That alone makes you an accomplice.
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“White Americans, on the other hand, ARE a criminal class. They have committed huge historical crimes and continue to benefit from them. They are a glorified band of armed robbers. Instead of using their ill-gotten wealth to set things right as best they can, they make lame-ass excuses. Like your Mists o’ Time thing. Or they blame the victim, like what Da Jokah, “The Bell Curve” and CNN do. Either way Whites, on the whole, are not taking responsibility for their actions. They SAY they are for equality but do not ACT like it.”
**********
Abagond, as is Jeremiah Wright, is correct. America has plenty to answer for:
“It is incontestable and deplorable that [African Americans] have committed crimes; but they are derivative crimes. They are born of the greater crimes of the white society.”
“God didn’t call American to do what she’s doing in the world now. God didn’t call America to engage in a senseless, unjust war… And we are criminals in that war. We have committed more war crimes almost than any other nation in the world and we won’t stop because of our pride, our arrogance as a nation”
“A nation that will keep people in slavery for 244 years [will]… exploit them, and poor people generally, economically. And a nation that will exploit economically will have to have foreign investments and everything else, and will have to use its military might to protect [those investments]. All of these problems are tied together”
“Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken, the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments. I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin… the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.” Jeremiah Wright
Whiteness hates for TRUTH to be thrust in its face. The LIGHT is the enemy of darkness (whiteness).
******************
“Ultimately, it is their allegiance to the ideological strictures of whiteness that makes their demise necessary; and it is indeed whiteness that calls forth their inability to fully feel the pain of so-called non-white peoples, and causes them to shift the discussion and the burdens of proof to black and brown folks, whenever harm comes their way. It is whiteness — a paradigm of thought that relies upon the presumption of cultural superiority for those of us called white in this society, and which presumes that we better understand the problems faced by peoples of color than they do, which must be demolished.
In short, for America to live, whiteness must die. Not white people but whiteness. You may not know the difference, but if not, that is your problem, not mine.” Tim Wise
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@Matari
“In short, for America to live, whiteness must die. Not white people but whiteness. You may not know the difference, but if not, that is your problem, not mine.” Tim Wise”—-Interest quote indeed. I think the big issue is that white people don’t know the difference between white and whiteness. I will go so far as black people don’t either. I am one who at one time did not know the difference until brothawolf explained it to me. I have to agree with the quote on the basis that if one does not know the difference it is because I feel they may simply not want to know or be ready to know what that knowledge brings.
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A great point Matari…
“…In short, for America to live, whiteness must die. Not white people but whiteness. You may not know the difference, but if not, that is your problem, not mine.” Tim Wise …”
I’d say if American (or Western) society is to survive the false and erroneous notion of white superiority as currently defined by “whiteness” must die. This would also include all those people adhering to or clinging to this unnatural concept. (As Oprah correctly observed about racists)
The reasoning for this is simple: Its destroying ALL life, and the environment for life, on this planet! Such people are now widely recognized as “Psychopaths”. Either they are eliminated or life on the Planet is!. Such a split needs to, and indeed already is, taking place.
To the Trolls (you know who you are!)
Agreeing, defining and defending ownership and property rights as some part of a “Natural Law”. is a distortion!. Its part of this psychopathic and immoral foundation which Western society has been built upon.
There is no “natural God given right” to ownership of anything other than your own person or body. Anything else is a distortion and a corruption of Natural Law something we all intrinsically understand (apart from Psychopaths of course! 🙂 ………
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@ mary
I read thwack is has left. There will be another to take his place.
He has left? Where did you read that?
(he was singularly odd, even for a Cress-Welsing acolyte, no one will take his place.)
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Kwamla said:
This. Totally this.
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Sharina & Kwamla
Invariably those who are fatally attached to ways of whiteness will have to go, whether they be white, or black, or otherwise – as second witnessed by Kwamla’s astute assertion.
As Mr Wright eloquently put it, “I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin… the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”
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@ Matari
The speech you are quoting seems to be Martin Luther King’s “Beyond Vietnam” given in 1967 at the Riverside Church in New York. Or, at the very least, Wright is quoting King (one of those quotes that White people never seem to bring up).
The speech:
http://www.blackpast.org/1967-martin-luther-king-jr-beyond-vietnam-time-break-silence
My post on it:
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@abagond
@ bygodsloveandgrace
“Some bigots may never change biased perceptions. However if we reach one person and help them understand our POV, then it’s worth being “trollslayers.””
Good point. If a troll is giving voice to a common misconception, then for the sake of lurkers (99% of the readership) it might make sense to give a calm rebuttal.
—————————————————————————
Agree. Keep responses calm, cool and collected. Sometimes (for me) that’s easier said than done.
Fortunately there are enough savvy and knowledgeable commenters here to counterbalance the “troll clutter.”
You can’t leave this site without learning something and/or being exposed to very candid conversations on racism’s impact on societies worldwide.
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Ya’ll wanna read something funny?
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Whoa! I just posted a link and when I pressed ‘Post Comment’, it vanished. It was a link to our old friend xPrae. I’m on his mind again for making a blog about the argument for having a White History Month:
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Something’s up with the comment box. I can’t seem to post anything here.
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Oh wait, nevermind.
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@ Brothawolf
My spam filter goes kind of nuts if you bring up xPraetorius.
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@Brothawolf…I followed your link and added a few life experiences of my own as a white person on that site, and remember folks if I put anything personal on this or any site you can rest assured it is straight from my heart and 100% honest. here is the comment about the article…
I am a white guy and I am nearly 48. I have the distinct opportunity to be around other groups of white people when no people of color are around. I have to first say that it does not happen as much as it used to but I could not count how many times I have been offended by white men who have made horrible racist comments once they are alone. Of course there are always a few that don’t like it and don’t participate but once I started to encounter it at my job in a warehouse with 80 plus employees I began to believe that most white people were racist. Of course some people would say jokes don’t count but thats bull, especially when the jokes are so cruel or make light of slavery. the worse moments were in my boss’s office, if 4 or 5 of us were in his office he would scan the warehouse for our ONE black employee before he would start in with the jokes. The worse thing he ever did was when he had two new interviews. one was a black guy and one was a white guy, he said he felt bad because he gave the black guy the impression he actually had a chance at getting the position when his other choice was a white guy. he then made everyone laugh by throwing his resume in his trash can, i went back later to see if he was just joking about throwing it away and the application was on top of his resume….still in the trash. now to answer the main question; have i ever heard a white person ask why there is no white history month? off the top of my head i would say at least 10 times in my life. so there you go, now you KNOW that white people say it all the time….the answer of course to whites who say this is…they do; jan, march, april, may, june, july, aug, sept, oct, nov, dec…..
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Wow, Abagond. Has he been coming often?
William, from dealing with xPrae first hand when he came to my blog to comment on the Paula Deen story, I’ve learned that he’s the type to tell you what you think and that what you think and know is insane. He has an authority over what he calls the Race Grievance Industry. He seems obsessive over my and Abagond’s blogs. He claims he’s part of some “think tank” of bloggers. And he believes that the right is the right way to go for blacks. Anything else outside of those points is unrealistic to him. Disagree with him and you’re considered stupid.
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@Brothawolf
For a think tank of people they sure fail to focus on much of anything other than you and Abagond. There are so many topics to explore yet you guys have become his obsession.
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@ legion: I saw thwack’s parting words to Abagond on the “Africans sold their own’ thread.
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Sharina, I dunno if I should be scared or flattered. lol
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@Matari….awesome post, the one with the Tim Wise comment at the end…thank you.
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Thanks Mary.
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Abagond:
I’ve tried to understand what you mean by this. Am I correct in presuming you mean “collective agency”? I’m not quite sure what that would entail.
I was referring to individual agency, that is to say the degree to which a person is free to choose their destiny vs. the degree to which they’re a powerless leaf in a stream.
Abagond:
Again, the “mists o’ time” argument fairly applies. Nearly every person alive today is descended from groups who again and again and again warred against other peoples, bullied them off their land, and took their possessions.
Abagond:
I’m not “excusing” anything, but rather attempting to set events in a historical context to which a universal standard is applied.
As stated above, nearly all people are descended from groups who repeatedly subjugated other people. How much guilt should everyone feel about the past? How much do you feel?
Not only doesn’t anyone else feel historical guilt, few are even remotely curious about the tally of their ancestors’ combined deeds.
So why should I be expected to feel any differently?
The desire to impose a moral regime on others which one is not willing to apply to oneself would seem to embody the definition of a “double standard”
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@ Randy:
I think that there are a number of considerations that make the past crimes of white people against other groups fairly extraordinary.
White imperialism and slave trading are relatively recent phenomena. They occurred in a time of widespread literacy and were, thus, well documented, contemporaneously. We know what happened from records, not just from legend, speculation, deduction and reconstruction.
The scale of the impact that European whites had, globally, was huge and the the consequences persistent. White privilege is its legacy. The continuing dominance of whites on the world stage is its legacy. The benefits that whites continue to enjoy, of the status their forebears achieved at the expense of peoples in less developed lands is its legacy.
Mists-of-time does not apply here, IMO. The process is ongoing, not archaic and past.
The guilt could come from recognising that whites do little to correct the inequalities that have continued down through the generations.
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@ Randy
1. Your thinking, far from being “objective”, is warped by the fact that you are White and racist. Do you even SEE that? You are almost a textboook example of a colour-blind racist. Sociologist Eduardo Bonilla-Silva gives a good summary of it:
2. By your logic, you would see nothing wrong with Obama seizing power as dictator and taking nearly all the land and wealth of Whites and giving it to Black families, banks, universities, businesses and so on to set them up as an elite racial caste. And if he had to wipe out millions of Whites to do it, that would be all right too. So would selling millions of Whites as slaves to Africa.
Because, hey, “historical context”! Everyone does it! Mao! Genghis Khan! Bantu Expansion! Yay! Whites killed their own (Holocaust) and sold their own into slavery (Slavs). Get over it. Go back to Europe. It was the times. It is not “practical” to undo the damage. It is “too late”. My family came here for better opportunities from Nigeria after Obama was dictator. I have nothing to do with it. I am just trying to be objective. I am not trying to excuse anything.
And, hey, if Whites, after being stripped of everything wind up in slums going to bad schools and suffer from high rates of unemployment and crime, they have only themselves to blame. The government bears no responsibility for directly causing their plight. Because of the Mists o’ Time. They can pull themselves up by their bootstraps like everyone else. And if they fail to get good educations, it is probably because their parents did not set proper bedtimes. I mean, what else could it be but bad parenting? I am just trying to be objective. I am not trying to excuse anything.
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@ Randy
I disagree. White guilt is a HUGE part of American history because of the historical crimes it was built on. Sure, most Whites do not feel it – because most of them are racist. Racism is the callus that makes them callous, the spiritual painkiller.
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Randy
Do you feel that all the issues/concerns/examples/incidents that are raised by PoC on this blog can be fixed by them taking individual responsiblity?
What if more people than you or I can appreciate have the same viewpoint as William the Conquerors boss? Do you agree that this would have a detrimental effect on PoC?
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@Kiwi
He might actually use him having an Asian wife as a counter argument.
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Kiwi said:
Understood and agreed.
As for privilege being “right here, right now”… Absolutely. That’s what I meant by:
BTW, I know I tend to write in UK-centric and international terms. That’s not because I mean to drag things away from abagond’s US perspective. I just have no empirical basis for sounding off too much about the US situation myself, except where it interfaces or influences that with which I am more familiar – and it DOES greatly influence what happens throughout the world, including where I live.
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buddhuu:
I think you’ve started to sketch out part of a single standard. Perhaps you might complete the idea with an overarching argument that would apply to everyone.
The world counts other genetically and/or economically successful peoples against whom your standard can potentially be applied, such as the Han Chinese in Asia, and several successful ethnic groups in Africa.
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Abagond:
I’m not sure we’re discussing the same point on this one. I’m saying that since virtually all people are descended from groups who conquered and abused other groups, why is only one group today being asked and expected to show guilt for what others in their group did?
Among this greater group of non-guilt-feelers, how many even make any effort to examine the historical record to see what extent their ancestors may have abused other groups, groups which may still exist today?
The answer is probably, “virtually none”. Well, how can such a double standard be explained?
Buddhuu offered part of an explanation, though it seems yet incomplete, and doesn’t explain why the Han Chinese are not expected to feel guilt nor why non-Pygmy central and eastern African people and their relations are not expected to feel guilt despite the ongoing repression of those groups this very day.
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Abagond:
Had this happened hundreds of years ago, I think it would be quite fair to answer calls for reparations and “black guilt” by asking for some common, accepted standard of historical justice, and not just “because your people did that to my people”.
Abagond:
“Blame” and “accountability” are related concepts, but different.
I would say that people in poorer communities, regardless of race, are as accountable for preparing their kids for school as anyone else.
Here again we see the “agency problem”.
If you propose that such people are incapable of helping themselves, then the government would have a duty to deprive them of freedom and liberty and remove their children from their care. I don’t think you’re saying that.
If you’re not saying that, then who exactly is responsible for making sure that Johnny gets 8-9 hours of sleep and fears punishment if he acts up in class?
What process or set of forces do you think has the authority and capacity to do this if not the parents?
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Omnipresent
The issues raised on this blog are diverse, and as such, I don’t think that any one strategy applies universally.
In the case of schools where children are disruptive, where metal detectors and police are employed to keep order, then I’d say “personal responsibility” is the only available solution, unless you’re prepared to declare the parents of disruptive kids as being legally incompetent, and remove the children from their care.
What else is there?
It sounds like WtC‘s boss engaged in illegal discrimination and should be appropriately punished.
On a related note, I once had a tough-as-nails female boss who admitted, after an excess of chardonnay, to deliberately not hiring women.
Why? She would let go anyone who didn’t measure up. Men, according to her, could be fired without consequence whereas women might sue.
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Randy said:
I don’t see it as equivalent.
One reason is kind of a matter of scale, of magnitude. White domination has been pretty universal. Consequently the white assumption of superiority, and the conduct that follows from it, is universal. Whites of all kinds – Celtic, Germanic, Mediterranean etc etc etc all share this supremacist arrogance. An outrageous generalisation to illustrate the point: Put a group of average white people from Germany, England, Russia, Spain, Greece, Italy together in a room with a black person from anywhere and they will probably, consciously or subconsciously, feel that they are superior to him or her. They will probably also feel wary and distrustful.
The prejudice and the privilege both persist.
I confess difficulty in finding ways to express this adequately. In reading through what I have typed above, it fails.
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Randy:
The issues raised on this blog are diverse, and as such, I don’t think that any one strategy applies universally.
A vague answer, yet I have never seen you give nothing but a definate response when people raise issues on this blog – usually suggesting that they ‘check themselves’ rather than acknowledging their dilema.
Omnipresent said: What if more people than you or I can appreciate have the same viewpoint as William the Conquerors boss? Do you agree that this would have a detrimental effect on PoC?
Randy said It sounds like WtC‘s boss engaged in illegal discrimination and should be appropriately punished.
It is good that you acknowledge this but I notice that you did not respond to the what I am suggesting is far more widespread than is imaginable – is it that difficult for you to contemplate? Have you never had someone make innappropriate comments/jokes about PoC in your presence – honestly?
I would say that people in poorer communities, regardless of race, are as accountable for preparing their kids for school as anyone else.
Here again we see the “agency problem”.
If you propose that such people are incapable of helping themselves, then the government would have a duty to deprive them of freedom and liberty and remove their children from their care. I don’t think you’re saying that.
Not sure how you can say that when it seems that the same government are responsible for disparity in access to decent education – if, as it seems from what is said on here frequently, the attention to academia is lacking in poorer areas which are, it seems predominatly majority PoC, how are people supposed to pass on what they dont know? You can teach your kids morals and manners til you are blue in the face but it isnt going to give them the edge to get ahead in life – is it?
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@Omnipresent
” You can teach your kids morals and manners til you are blue in the face but it isnt going to give them the edge to get ahead in life – is it?”—I think perhaps I should teach my kids financial fraud and con artistry seeing as big companies are not only getting away with it but making a killing in financial gain.
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Randy – scary thought. What if the majority of people in government share the same mindset as Williams boss – what do you think the outlook would be for PoC then?
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Sharina
I think perhaps I should teach my kids financial fraud and con artistry seeing as big companies are not only getting away with it but making a killing in financial gain
Yes – White Collar crime. Biggest F*ckin crooks evah.
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William the Conquerer
In the example you gave about the warehouse manager, do you know how the guy got picked to be interviewed in the first place? I would assume that it was based on his skill but was his name ‘generic’ i.e. was it not a name assumed with ethnicity other than white?
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Omnipresent said
“Not sure how you can say that when it seems that the same government are responsible for disparity in access to decent education – if, as it seems from what is said on here frequently, the attention to academia is lacking in poorer areas which are, it seems predominatly majority PoC, how are people supposed to pass on what they dont know? You can teach your kids morals and manners til you are blue in the face but it isnt going to give them the edge to get ahead in life – is it?”
The problem is the teachers union and their unwillingness to fire incompetent teachers. Detroit has one of the highest drop out rates and incompetency is at 47%. Average teacher salaries in the U.S. are 56,000. In Detroit the average salary is 71,000 and the average cost per child is 14,659 compared to 10,469 average cost per child US. So the problem isn’t the lack of resources rather it’s that incompetent teachers get rotated too poor districts rather then get fired. Competent teachers get rotated up the system to better school districts.
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Michael Jon Barker:
So the problem isn’t the lack of resources rather it’s that incompetent teachers get rotated too poor districts rather then get fired. Competent teachers get rotated up the system to better school districts.
The teachers union has authority from the government – right? You cannot form an official body without government approval can you. So, the two go hand in hand as far as I am concerned. Give the ‘appearance’ that you are staying within the confines of a system and for the most part, they will let you get on with it.
Whilst there is a mercenary element to it too, if it became common knowledge that a teacher was sexually abusing a child, they would be taken out of the system. Neglect is also a form of abuse and in this example, deprivation of decent education and the teaching of that is being ‘abused’ for want of a better word.
In my response to Sharina I said it – white collar crime, biggest f*ckin crooks evah. I should also add unscrupulous and immoral too.
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Omnipresent
“The teachers union has authority from the government – right?”
Agreed not really arguing with you just pointing out why the school system sucks in some school districts.
“Whilst there is a mercenary element to it too, if it became common knowledge that a teacher was sexually abusing a child, they would be taken out of the system”.
This isn’t happening in California. Like the Catholic church the school districts keeps sexual predator in house and just rotate them to poor school districts. When it does come out it is years after the abuse when the children have grown up.
The teacher unions are fighting any legislation that has any meaningful affect on the problem.
(http://laschoolreport.com/teacher-dismissal-bill-no-added-concern-for-predators/)
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Omnipresent
http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/apr/01/classroom-predators-cta-cft-unions-students/
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“It was also pointed out in an interview with Steve Estey that, while the L.A. Unified School District has a relatively high population of Hispanic students, the proportion of Hispanic students who are sexually molested in comparison with the number of white students is disproportionate.”
“L.A. Unified is currently facing close to 200 pending molestation and lewd conduct claims. Estey believes that, sadly, the problem will get worse before it gets better.”
http://childmolestationlawsuit.com/index.php/2013/02/one-of-many-child-sexual-abuse-cases-in-the-la-unified-school-district/
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More on trolling ….
“The 15 Rules of Web Disruption”
“David Martin’s Thirteen Rules for Truth Suppression, H. Michael Sweeney’s 25 Rules of Disinformation (and now Brandon Smith’s Disinformation: How It Works) are classic lessons on how to spot disruption and disinformation tactics.”
We’ve seen a number of tactics come and go over the years. Here are the ones we see a lot of currently.
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/08/the-15-rules-of-internet-disinformation.html
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buddhuu:
Again you’re making a just so argument, not advocating for a single standard. Think broader.
Also, for a group of people living under the domination of another group, the existence of perhaps larger-scale domination somewhere else in the world is rather irrelevant to day-to-day life.
Omnipresent:
Isn’t it??
Certainly schools with more resources can produce better outcomes. But the scale here isn’t from “good” to “great”. The scale is from “failure” to “great”.
If you are interested in the topic, I would encourage you to examine schools which are considered “failing”. Look at security, discipline, and attitude towards education among students at such schools. Those are necessarily the domain of parents, not educators. Concordantly, “great” schools require less security, not more, than failing ones.
Why? Because such problems are due to the nature of the students, not the size of the budget, the newness of the books, the number of computers, how fresh the paint on the walls is, etc.
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@ Omnipresent
Be warned. My first long argument with Randy was over just this issue of education and parenting. In the end he just moved his goalposts – and then moved them back a few weeks later. He believes American society is so wonderfully unracist and meritocratic that it does, in fact, all come down to parenting.
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it’s a lot of pressure from the prison-industrial-{so-called} justice complex to create union jobs, there’s no other industry besides healthcare any more, retail is going in the toilet very fast
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Michael Jon Barker
Thank you for the links – they have proved interesting and I shall be referring to them in my response to Randy.
Omnipresent said:
You can teach your kids morals and manners til you are blue in the face but it isnt going to give them the edge to get ahead in life – is it?
Randy said:
Isn’t it??
No Randy it isnt. This isnt the eighteenth/nineteenth century where the ‘poor’ are happy to lower their eyes in the presence of their ‘betters’ and feel gratified that Sire has commented on the genteel manners!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If you are interested in the topic, I would encourage you to examine schools which are considered “failing”. Look at security, discipline, and attitude towards education among students at such schools. Those are necessarily the domain of parents, not educators. Concordantly, “great” schools require less security, not more, than failing ones.
Michael has provided some information and a link which I thing YOU need to look at. I feel that to look at individual schools is futile. There are too many diverse situations that could contribute to any one school being labelled ‘bad’ as well you know.
Why? Because such problems are due to the nature of the students, not the size of the budget, the newness of the books, the number of computers, how fresh the paint on the walls is, etc.
What, a child as young as 5 is expected to be aware that they need to take individual responsiblity? That they will need to map out their whole academic future regardless if through no fault of their own, their parents attended the same $hitty school they go to and had the same useless teachers they should ‘grow up’ and get to grips with this.
For someone who tries to present himself as smart you dont have talk some $hite sometimes.
BTW, regarding your suggestion that I examine schools, what Michael says is interesting…..
The problem is the teachers union and their unwillingness to fire incompetent teachers. Detroit has one of the highest drop out rates and incompetency is at 47%. Average teacher salaries in the U.S. are 56,000. In Detroit the average salary is 71,000 and the average cost per child is 14,659 compared to 10,469 average cost per child US. So the problem isn’t the lack of resources rather it’s that incompetent teachers get rotated too poor districts rather then get fired. Competent teachers get rotated up the system to better school districts.
(http://laschoolreport.com/teacher-dismissal-bill-no-added-concern-for-predators/)
Now, I dont know about you or anyone on here but to my mind, adults are supposed to LEAD by example – especially when young vulnerable and susceptible children are involved. If the teachers are so incompetent and useless, regardless of whether they have good manners and morals, how does this support their academic achievements and progress?
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abagond:
He believes American society is so wonderfully unracist and meritocratic that it does, in fact, all come down to parenting.
There is a part that nurturing plays but this is not the whole story imo.
I dislike that Randy seems to conveniently ignore the fact that this is something that trickles down from high on above and with the best will in the world, individual responsibility alone cannot solve it.
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Wouldn’t it be easier to just ban trolls?
But then again my question would be what criteria is used as the deciding factor of what makes a poster a true troll or just an idiotic moron who hasn’t mastered the skills of debate, discussion, reading comprehension, etc..?
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I also should add:
Has not mastered the skills of logic, reasoning and controlling their emotions instead of going into a childlike fit when they’re agruments don’t stand up on their own.
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@Omnipresent…Hello I saw your post and inquiry. I assume you are talking about my experiences working back in the 80’s in a warehouse. The system as I remember it was another example of how whites also have had advantages that you just can’t quantify because of how many and how deep they run within society. Myself and just about 50% of the warehouse employees got our job from directly or indirectly knowing someone. My step father was old friends with the division manager. I do remember though that in order to comply with the law the company had to entertain other applications and before affirmative action I believe that each company had to have a representative sample of the local population working for you. We were in Anaheim, CA at the time and there was a small Black population so we had of course only one employee. So I believe the warehouse manager would bring back applications and have applicants come in and go through the motions to keep up appearance for the state labor board. So if you think about all of the jobs in America and how many of them are run by white men and women and those managers are in charge of hiring then you must assume that they mostly hire people they know, are related to or whose friends have asked for a favor. This is further proof that because whites own and control everything it is a huge disadvantage for Blacks as whites hire their own. Just another kick in the ass by the system and another cause of oppression and social detriment. It’s a frickin horrible system and so one sided I want to puke…even though I myself benefit from it I would like to see it all disappear forever…
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Should say
*regardless of whether the children*
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Michael:
Myself and just about 50% of the warehouse employees got our job from directly or indirectly knowing someone. My step father was old friends with the division manager
A healthy dose of nepotism then with a dash of ‘screening’ to fulfil diversity quotas. Dont tell me, that ‘token’ black person was subjected all day and every day to comments about his race etc and was discouraged from complaining as he would be seen to ‘have a chip on his shoulder’ SMH
Just another kick in the ass by the system and another cause of oppression and social detriment. It’s a frickin horrible system and so one sided I want to puke…even though I myself benefit from it I would like to see it all disappear forever…
Its good that you recognise it and want it to change it but also that you acknowledge that you benefit it. Some might say though be careful what you wish for lol. In the words of Sam Cook “A change gonna come “
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@Omnipresent…thank you but it’s not something I had to think about, it’s obvious to any person with simple compassion and general logic that these things exist all around us and for our fellow man.
Yes Larry was the “token” black guy in the warehouse, he actually became one of the most liked guys though. But i do remember talking with him and him making short comments about keeping his mouth shut so as not to draw attention, the job paid really well and Larry and his wife did very well with both incomes. His daughter got a scholarship for Julliard school of Arts in New York, a full scholarship. I have not seen Larry for years but I think about him all the time. He used to hold big BBQs at his house and I am telling you I can taste his BBQ sauce right now, best I have ever tasted. I would eat my shoe covered in that stuff…Great man, great father and great worker….by the way Larry insisted on taking Martin Luther Kings birthday off every year, this was before it was made a National holiday. I think it was Larry’s little way of saying “F” you to the Man….His one little ambiguous protest…….and yes he was very quiet regarding anything black or white. you should have saw how uncomfortable the warehouse manager was when talking to Larry, it was disgusting.
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Abagond:
It’s not that it all comes down to parenting, but rather that good parenting is essential, and the role that parents play cannot be replicated elsewhere.
This is a small, but ultimately significant distinction.
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Omnipresent
Good manners and a proper attitude are a requirement for being a good student who is willing and able to contribute toward an environment conducive to learning. A school full of such children is a recipe for success. A school with a lack of such children is a recipe for failure.
Omnipresent
I would argue that following a survey of “bad” schools, you’d quite readily observe common patterns and paradigms.
Omnipresent
Here you’re taking a common sense idea, inflating it to absurdity, and casting derision.
What I’m saying is this: a child as “young” as 5 is expected to be respectful of their teachers and have the proper discipline to participate constructively in a classroom.
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Randy believes fundamentally in INEQUALITY which is why he resists, ignores and refuses to address any issues or concerns others may raise out of empathy and a sense of moral decency to want to do something about them.
Most die-hard racists or firm believers in white supremacy believe and act in this way.
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Randy:
Good manners and a proper attitude are a requirement for being a good student who is willing and able to contribute toward an environment conducive to learning. A school full of such children is a recipe for success. A school with a lack of such children is a recipe for failure.
Where is the responsibility on the adult? The teacher? The mentor?
I would argue that following a survey of “bad” schools, you’d quite readily observe common patterns and paradigms.
And, once you have found these patterns, what do you think would be the common/core discoveries?
Here you’re taking a common sense idea, inflating it to absurdity, and casting derision.
No Randy, it is YOU who is being absurd by consistently, repeatedly and dishonestly debating about something with nuances that you refuse to acknowledge.
What I’m saying is this: a child as “young” as 5 is expected to be respectful of their teachers and have the proper discipline to participate constructively in a classroom.
A ‘normal’ child is not a ‘subservient’, ‘meek’ child. At that age, they have no filter, They LEARN and DEVELOP by observing those around them, their peers, and in particular and their guardians and mentors – those who they feel are older and therefore more knowledgeable. I remember myself being in awe of those even a year older than me because I felt that that ‘year’ gave them the edge in certain things.
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A ‘normal’ child is not a ‘subservient’, ‘meek’ child. At that age, they have no filter, They LEARN and DEVELOP by observing those around them, their peers, and in particular and their guardians and mentors – those who they feel are older and therefore more knowledgeable. I remember myself being in awe of those even a year older than me because I felt that that ‘year’ gave them the edge in certain things.
What I mean is a childs nature is not necessarily to be inhibited. These aspects of personality come later and are influenced by the environment and those around them. A child is not normal/abnormal based on these things alone.
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Omnipresent:
The parents have the primary responsibility to prepare the child. How is this not completely obvious?
Omnipresent:
Bad parenting creates bad students who, at sufficient concentration, create bad schools. This isn’t just a black/white or rich/poor issue either.
Omnipresent:
You’re not countering my point here. In communities where learning is valued, younger children absorb that from home and from other children. In communities where learned is not valued, the reverse happens.
The fundamental question is how you can transform communities that don’t value learning into ones that do. Here is where philosophical concepts like “agency” and “free will” come into play.
But from a distance, it should be plain that there seems to be no school program, budget line item, or form of government fiat which can force people to change their actions and priorities.
I’ve asked Abagond to suggest a mechanism for this, but have never received an answer. I’m not sure one exists. Perhaps you might propose one.
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Randy:
The parents have the primary responsibility to prepare the child. How is this not completely obvious?
I dont disagree that parents should teach children manners – I disagree at your insistence on personal responsiblity whilst casting aside the responsibilities of the other influential people in a growing childs life – i.e. teachers.
Randy, you wouldnt be trying to derail this conversation would you?
Lets go back to what I originally asked you
Do you feel that all the issues/concerns/examples/incidents that are raised by PoC on this blog can be fixed by them taking individual responsiblity?
What if more people than you or I can appreciate have the same viewpoint as William the Conquerors boss? Do you agree that this would have a detrimental effect on PoC?
What if these children with ‘manners’ but $hit education, when they left school found themselves having to approach a boss like this for work? How successful do you think they might be? Do you think that the boss would be impressed with their manners? What element of personal/individual responsiblity would you expect them when they are told they were unsuccesful in getting the role (which seems highly likely)?
In the case of schools where children are disruptive, where metal detectors and police are employed to keep order, then I’d say “personal responsibility” is the only available solution, unless you’re prepared to declare the parents of disruptive kids as being legally incompetent, and remove the children from their care.
Notwithsdanding the disruptive behaviour of the other children, a student turns up to this type of school every day never missing a lesson, they apply themselves to learning however, the teachers are useless and the education is dire and as a result, they leave school without qualifications, practically unemployable. What more could the student have done?
What is it that you dont appreciate is that It is much much MORE than personal responsibility that enables us to get on in life.
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I think that what Randy says about “personal responsibility” and “parental” involvement” is correct. I think most of us would agree that those are correct.
But that does not erase the problem of “national responsibility.” Conservatives tend to make grandiose statements about how *others* should take responsibility for their own actions. But at the same time are famous for downplaying the long-term ill effects of the notoriously bad actions by their nation, and their race.
For centuries, White Americans did the following:
1 Purposely made Blacks more ignorant
2 Purposely crushed all of their hope and self esteem
3 Purposely destroyed their family structure
4 Purposely terrorized them
5 Purposely emasculated their men in front of their families
6 Purposely made sure that they were very poor
7 Purposely bombarded them with messages of their inferiority
8 Purposely equated them with animals or as half animals
9 Purposely segregated them away from everybody else
After which, most Conservatives for decades tried to paint this as “not that bad” and as at least “partially the fault of the Negros themselves.” They fought efforts presented to make these things right, and came up with no plans of their own to fix the problems created by their historic abuse.
Liberals were more responsive to admitting to the wrongs done but still believed Blacks to be inferior. This was shown in their paternalistic treatment of Blacks and their penchant for imposing White solutions onto Black problems without allowing Blacks to seriously participate in formulating the remedies. Liberalism was still, “White knows best.” And many of their attempts to fix things were just wrong-headed. Blacks soon just became a convenient constituency to be given lip service to help them win elections.
So today Black crime rates ARE higher, and Black families ARE worse off, and Black culture IS more lost, and Black education IS down. But anyone with a brain can understand why, given the long history of systemic abuse.
But today, the sin of White people is impatience. They caused these problems, then they unilaterally came up with the wrong solution. Now that that hasn’t fixed the problems, they feel that they have given it “the old college try.” They felt that 20 or 30 years of imposed White solutions would fix the problems and they could move on. Never mind that the history of White-American racial abuse began in the 16th Century. WE want an instant solution!!! Why aren’t you better yet!??
Republicans don’t want to spend their holy cow of tax money (saving that to waste on unnecessary wars and Wall Street bailouts) and the Democrats don’t want to admit that their solutions were wrong, and that they have also been corrupt, used minorities for their own ends, and advanced their more subtle brad of White power. But whatever side they land on, the problem is still there, and although Blacks need to take personal responsibility for their own actions and their own destinies, Whites need to take personal responsibility for their actions and be committed to MAKING THEM RIGHT (or as closely as can be reasonably accomplished) rather than saying, “OK, well, we tried!”
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@King:
It appears that whenever black people make any kind of inroads, socially financially, etc, that efforts are made to put them in ‘their place’. It seems to be a historical pattern.
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Agreed Herneith.
But I don’t fancy being ‘put in my place!’
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A lot of these wealthy white men pay good money to be put in their place, ironically enough.
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King:
I think that what Randy says about “personal responsibility” and “parental” involvement” is correct. I think most of us would agree that those are correct.
But that does not erase the problem of “national responsibility.”
Much better and succinctly put than my effort – 🙂
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King:
Let’s take your assessment at face value. What solution do you propose? The answer to that question is exactly the “problem”.
How do change people’s values and behaviors when it’s their values and behaviors which contribute significantly to keeping them in poverty?
This is what I call an “Agency Well” or “Agency Problem”. By law, we treat people as independent agents who are capable of free will. As such, people have accountability for their choices.
What can you do when those choices propagate poverty?
Let me re-state that I don’t believe this to be an exclusively black/white or rich/poor paradigm. As Abagond says, even richer white schools hand out “stupid pills”, undoubtedly due to parents who are fine with it.
Story time:
A while back I took my kids to a park which attracts children from a variety of neighborhoods. A sweet young boy about 7 or so, who was black, took an interest in my kids. They played for a while and had fun together.
At one point the little boy turned to me and asked, “What old is they?”
This brought the education divide into sharp relief. It was heartbreaking, actually. What chance did this nice kid have in our globalized knowledge economy?
I was at the park with my 3 year old who I’d taught to read already and who could talk in (reasonably) grammatically correct sentences.
I happened to overhear his mother on the phone, and she also spoke, shall we say, “informal” English.
So dear King, please tell me what you propose do to save this lovely young child and those like him.
How do you change behaviors when the will to change is absent? What proposed government program do you envision accomplishing this task?
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Randy:
How do you change behaviors when the will to change is absent? What proposed government program do you envision accomplishing this task?
It is about the government acknowledging and ensuring that the systems that are in place that lead to things like this happening, can happen no longer. For example, ensuring that EVERYONE has equal access to decent education. Why are there still schools that are failing their pupils?
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@ Randy
We can address two things on two different levels. One is “attitude” and the other is “atonement.”
Attitude
Lets start with attitude. Too many Whites wish to fast-forward past the primary cause of the racial dysfunction in this country, because they are “tired of being blamed.” But “being tired” is not a good reason to cast off situational reality. What White American Society did HAS done generational harm to Black Americans. “Being tired” of being the bad guy doesn’t make that fact somehow go away. I imagine Blacks “got tired” of being slaves. I imagine Blacks “got tired” of being poor. I imagine that Blacks “got tired” of Jim Crow. BUT THEY HAD TO ENDURE IT.
White people may “be tired” of having to admit to having an embarrassing and terrible legacy in this country that was propagated by racist White people. BUT IT IS NOTHING compared to what the real victims of this system have had to endure, and to some degree, still endure.
So just to start with, Whites need to change this poor habit of rushing to point the finger at Black problems, and realize that even the problems that they cannot fix may well be related to bad things done to these people by White society in past generations. So instead of laughing at them, lampooning them, or being disgusted by them, there needs to be an attitude of societal contrition.
There is no reason why the internet should be full of comments from anonymous racist White people stereotyping and ridiculing Black people. Why are Whites so much more concerned about Black problems on the internet? How many of those same posters would go over to Stormfront to argue with the nimrods there about their pathologies? “Decent White people” seem strangely reluctant to confront their own White racist pathology among fellow Whites, but seem eager to point out every problem they can find “in the hood,”
And that attitude of deflection and misdirection needs to stop.
Atonement
OK, on to fixing the problems. One of the reasons why “repair and recovery” efforts made by Whites to mitigate past damage is that these efforts immediately became politicized. Instead of this becoming a societal effort for the repair and redress of past wrongs, by helping Blacks to recover, it became a political football, and has been ever since.
Black American social recovery should have been equally addressed by both parties. It should NOT have been used as a social dividing wedge. In should not have been used to gain power or votes. It should not have been used to raise money, or as a way of directing money to political supporters. It should not have been used as a social experiment. It should not have been used as a way to propagate an ideology, or to prove a point.
The reason that efforts have largely failed on many levels is because truly helping Black Americans has never been as important as:
-raising money
-consolidating votes
-painting a particular social narrative
-winning a culture battle
And that is the biggest elephant in the room, Randy. I can certainly give you my own opinions on specifics, but until this macro issue is acknowledged and addressed, my opinions alone will not make much difference.
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Randy’s “What would you have the government do?” is a legitimate question, but coming from him it is a ploy. He will look for holes in whatever you propose and say it is impractical – and then go back to blaming the victim. It is common among colour-blind racists.
For many Republicans, “responsibility” is code for “not worthy of government help”. It applies to poor Blacks but not to oil companies, agribusiness or Wall Street banks.
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abagond:
Randy’s “What would you have the government do?” is a legitimate question, but coming from him it is a ploy. He will look for holes in whatever you propose and say it is impractical – and then go back to blaming the victim. It is common among colour-blind racists.
For many Republicans, “responsibility” is code for “not worthy of government help”. It applies to poor Blacks but not to oil companies, agribusiness or Wall Street banks.
Yes – I suspect that this is true abagond – you did warn me 🙂
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@Omnipresent
I was simply waiting for Randy to move the goal post. He would want you to address one thing then say “well ok what about this….”
Even though I have a response to something he asked king, I decided it was simply not worth the bother. Mainly because the answer was so simple that I believed he was using it as a ploy instead of as an honest discussion.
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Sharina:
I was simply waiting for Randy to move the goal post. He would want you to address one thing then say “well ok what about this….”
Yes, You are not the first person to point this out. I cant imagine what he gets out of it – there is no satisfaction there. It is not as if people are unaware of this.
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King:
You’ve articulated the necessity of doing something, and the impediments to doing something.
But what “something” would you do, could you do if the will were present, and the impediments manageable? I’ve yet to actually hear a reasonable proposal that even theoretically is capable of producing the desired results.
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Abagond:
Of course I would look for “holes”. Anyone undertaking a large and/or complex project should look for “holes”. It would be irresponsible not to.
You’ve yet to respond to the crux of the “agency well” conundrum. I suspect because the nature of the problem is neigh intractable, at least as far as exogenous (e.g. government) solutions are concerned.
Abagond:
I’m not a Republican, and nor do I argue that people aren’t worthy of help.
Rather, I critically question the types of “help” which have proven repeatedly to be ineffectual or even counterproductive.
You all may impugn my motives, because really, how would you know that I care? Well, I do care.
What you attribute to a callous attitude is actually the manifestation of a recognition of the difficulty of developing effective solutions. I’ve yet to hear any such solutions.
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@ Randy
Off the top of my head I propose that the American government should:
1. Make itself the employer of last resort. It should either train or employ those who cannot find work but are willing to work.
2. Make sure everyone, regardless of race or class, can get a decent education, decent health care and, if accused of a crime, decent legal representation. “Decent” would have to be defined and provided by the government.
3. Raise the minimum wage so that working people do not have to live in poverty.
4. Uphold all treaties with Native Americans or renegotiate them under UN arbitration.
5. Reparations for Blacks, probably in the form of a G.I. Bill paid for out of general taxation, helping Blacks get a university degree or start a business. Any native-born citizen who was marked down as Black, African American or Negro on the 2010 census counts as Black.
6. Outlaw racial profiling by law enforcement.
7. Allow national voter registration at the post office.
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@ Randy
I actually agree with most of Abagond’s list. But allow me to speak once again toward the big picture before diving in to the pool of solutions.
As you may note from my posted rhetoric, I consider myself neither a Democrat nor a Republican, a Liberal nor a Conservative. I am not on anybody’s side, because nobody is particularly on my side. I will answer your question, but I’d first like to give a little context for why I will say what I will say. Because the issues have been so politicized, I cannot now speak to them without including their political framework as part of the context .Bear with me.
I think that Conservatives have had a terrible track record when it comes to owning up to the problem, and it’s obvious causes. In past decades they have been good at denying the depth of the problems caused, and in indirectly justifying the past while voicing “concern” that American resources should not be spent to correct the problems in the present. OK, I’ve said that before. But the EFFECT that this has had is to give the Black Community no alternative but to become almost totally politically Liberal.
The problem with that is that Liberals aren’t right about everything either. The best solutions can probably be found by picking things that work, no matter where the ideas come from – so some Conservative ideas will work and some Liberal ideas will work. But the hard stance of the Conservatives has made it only politically possible for Blacks to be aligned with Liberal ideas, and many of those have not worked, particularly in education.
So the mix that is needed (in my opinion) is to have the good will to at least do *something* that the Liberals seem to have. But to also be open minded enough not to ONLY use Liberal-leaning ideas but include good Conservative ones also. We must use whatever works, and we cannot afford to let the politics of Left and Right color our judgement when it comes to solutions.
Does that surprise you Randy?
My opinion on Solutions to come next post
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abagond:
You’ve proposed a reasonable list. It’s a bit heavy on the “command economy” side, but pure economics critiques aside, I would ask if it accomplishes the goal.
Roughly, the “goal” was two fold:
1. Remove barriers to success from the poor (among whom black Americans are overrepresented)
2. Modify the behaviors of this cohort from those which produce less successful outcomes to those which produce more successful outcomes. Ultimately, this means producing workers who are competitive in the marketplace.
How would you see your proposals achieving goal #2?
For one thing, the existence an “employer of last resort” who pays a living wage to anyone who is simply willing to work would seem to shield people from competitive pressures, rather than expose people to them in a way that encourages them to improve.
I’ve actually mulled over this idea for several years, but had come to believe it would need pretty aggressive carrots and sticks in order to not simply produce a dependency class that is willing to push a broom or dig a ditch.
Against the backdrop of globalization and rapidly progressing automation, simply being “willing to work” doesn’t appear sufficient to pay the bills of society that accrue from infrastructure costs, healthcare, retirement, etc.
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King:
That’s not the only problem. When a group unconditionally grants support to a political party, there is no reason for that party to attend to the group’s needs and interests. It’s a recipe for powerlessness.
King:
We must use whatever works, and we cannot afford to let the politics of Left and Right color our judgement when it comes to solutions.
Does that surprise you Randy?
I agree, and I’m not particularly surprised that you’d say that. A rational idea from a rational person seems pretty…rational.
I look forward to hearing your solutions.
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@ Randy
I see poverty as mainly structural. That is #1, roughly. Bad schools and racism are a huge part of that. Decent education for everyone and reparations for Blacks would go a long ways to undoing the damage caused by past racist policies. And, by having a better educated workforce, America would be more competitive in the world economy. By not educating Blacks and Latinos properly, America is shooting itself in the foot. Pat Buchanan’s America of 89% Whites is long gone.
I am not a fan of “free market” solutions. They lead to high unemployment, poverty, drugs, crime, prison. They lead to vulture capitalism and plutocracy.
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Abagond:
.
I think that argument misses two important and related points:
1. It ignores the role of kids that kids play in making a school “good” or “bad”.
Thought experiment: Find a bad school. Randomly select a teacher. Put that teacher in a room with only your kids and my kids. Would you propose that such a classroom would score the same as the other classrooms?
2. The negative effects of structural poverty do not appear to be evenly distributed. Some kids in poor areas with failing schools do well, and their families don’t exhibit the social pathologies one commonly associates with structural poverty.
Let’s call what those families have the alpha factor.
I think that you and I could easily come up with a number of characteristics of this alpha factor. If the goal is really to help people, why not heavily promote the advantages of acquiring the alpha factor, and build a strong narrative around it? Make being alpha a cultural imperative.
Otherwise, you’re basically consigning the poor to ever-so-slow improvement generation upon generation. That seems cruel and unnecessary.
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Looong week at work with no free time. Anyway, finally getting back to normal, so I can once again, go on answering this post.
Above I outlined the following:
1) Conservatives poor attitudes historically have pushed Black Americans decidedly to one side of the political spectrum. Liberals seemed to be the only ones who originally were willing to take any responsibility for the many impediments to the progress of Black people in the America.
2) But what is problematic about that is that being better than Conservatives (on that point) does not make Liberals necessarily free of their own brand of prejudice, nor always right in their policies.
EDUCATION is the biggest example that demonstrates this problem and is #1 on Abagond’s list above.
If you look at education worldwide, all of the successful systems rely on one primary principle: Rigor. Whether you look at successful learning systems in Africa, in Asia, in Europe, or in the Americas, they ALL demand hard work, hard study, personal sacrifice, and practice, practice, practice.There has been no substitute for these things throughout the millennia. Education has always been challenging, time-consuming and ego-bruising. But Liberals seem to love to experiment with “alternative” forms of education, particularly when they are dealing with minority kids who’s parents may not be quite as distrustful or demanding of the system.
Such Liberal ideas include:
1) Building student self-esteem is more important than harsh ideas about “correct” and “incorrect” answers
2) Using your imagination is as important (or more important) than knowing facts and methods
3) Making learning fun is more important than forcing kids to learn things they are not interested in
Now, don’t get me wrong. self-esteem is important, imagination is important, making learning fun is important, but it just cannot be prioritized over a demonstrated positive growth of learning path. If these methods where being applied in the the inner city and test scores were high, I would have no problem. But these “ideas” have a tendency to be most often used in the laboratory of the disenfranchised, and then run forever, obj ego and excuses, while most White kids in the suburbs never seem to be bothered by such tragic “innovations.”
Most telling is that the children of wealthy and powerful Liberals never are taught this way. For example Sasha and Malia attend Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C., as did Chelsea Clinton, All Gore’s son, Tricia Nixon Cox, and Archibald Roosevelt and the grandchildren of Vice President Joe Biden. The school is highly selective and the tuition for the 2013–2014 school year is $34,588. I ask you to guess… do you think this school prioritizes student self-esteem over test results? Without giving you the long and boring list, let me assure you that ALL of the prominent liberals do the same. In fact,in many cases the children of the rich Democrats and rich Republicans are sitting in the same classrooms.
It is only YOUR KIDS that Democrats want to use “experimental education” methods on.
Yet Blacks keep believing that Liberals are really trying! They are doing the best they can, they just haven’t had a breakthrough yet. It must be because the dirty Republicans aren’t giving enough money for education. But nobody ever brings up the fact that in the all the places that do cost money, the METHODOLOGY is 180 degrees different than the kind of ideas being practiced in the inner city! So if you just employ a more expensive version of a method that rich people universally avoid for their own kids, do we think it will suddenly work?
Minorities need to stop giving Liberals a pass on education. The places where the most dramatic changes in educational gains have been seen most quickly are places where teachers were most challenging/demanding of both minority students and parents. Sorry, if that sounds Republican, but it works,
Jaime Escalante
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaime_Escalante
American Indians Model Schools
http://www.aimschools.org/aiphs_welcome.shtml
Oh well…
http://www.eagleforum.org/publications/educate/oct13/d-c-schools-past-excellence-collides-sad-present.html
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^^^^ King, I completely agree with your assessment. Let’s take it further.
You said:
Being more “demanding of the system” implies that that people accept accountability for their own outcomes, and then require that others in their sphere of influence also be accountable.
The million dollar question: how would you propose to get people to embrace the necessity of accountability and then behave accordingly?
I’ve yet to hear a reasonable proposal to solve this challenge.
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I know that by responding to this theme, I am contributing to the off-topic divergence that it has taken, but I have always been a bit disturbed by what Abagond expressed in this:
“In my (black middle-class/West Indian) experience a better way to put it is not that black parents do not care about education, but that they expect teachers, as trained professionals, to do their job. That leads black parents to be more hands-off than they should be. ”
Then I asked Abagond to consider becoming more distrustful or demanding of the system, because it is not serving his kids.
Maybe the current turn in the discussion should be carried on there. I am not sure how much it relates to Internet Trolls.
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Sorry, Abagond, for bringing up that topic again. I guess that is why it went into moderation. I wish I could understand your point of view on *that* topic.
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I don’t think that’s a solvable problem. It seems clear to me that human nature is such that NOBODY wants to be accountable. Wall Street firms are not accountable, politicians are not accountable, government agencies are not accountable, the U.S. auto manufacturing businesses was not accountable… Who is it who you think that is accountable? When people want to impose accountability, they mean “other people’s accountability,” not their own.
So accountability just becomes a distraction, in a world where every institution avoids it. I would rather talk about “Incentive,”
Notice that when Abagond mentions reparations above, he talks in terms of education and business startup, not in mass Lottery ticket style payouts. I think that we all know that just handing out money doesn’t fix anything long term. Therefore, you have to incentivize long term success.
From the very beginning, “Welfare” programs should have been weighted much more towards incentivizing successful behavior, and much less about taking on a patronizing ‘parental role’ in the lives of the poor. Education and business development should have been where the bulk of the money should have been targeted. If this had been the case, today many more poor (of all races) would be much further ahead than they are today. But the way things were structured, it was often very hard for Blacks to get business loans. And although government loans and grants did make it possible to go to college, it was still very difficult to get the kind of education that would take you to college in the inner city. As a result progress has been slower than it should have been, and non-existent, in some places.
So the short answer Randy, is you just have to incentives success much more earnestly in ways that actually work.
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King:
Successful people (across the myriad ways that is measured) hold themselves accountable, a process which often includes holding others accountable. I don’t see that as a contradiction.
Trivial example: you ordered fish and received beef. To correct, you contact the server and if that doesn’t work you contact the manager.
King:
Agreed 100%, but I am still waiting to hear HOW that might be accomplished. There have been high-profile examples where school districts have spent vast sums but that has not produced successful outcomes. I suspect that the limiting factor in those cases was that the kids in those districts basically just didn’t want it.
Abagond (via Jefe):
Here’s an “accountability gap” on display. Expecting teachers to “do their job” is a naive and incomplete belief which produces weak outcomes, and not just among poor and black folks. I’ve seen this from middle-class white parents who send their kids to highly rated schools.
In a nutshell, the problem is this: what does it mean for teachers to “do their jobs”? A teacher’s job is build on an educational trajectory begun and continuously sustained in the home.
Their “job” is not to take unprepared kids whose parents do not follow and support their education and miraculously manifest education in their heads.
Interestingly (and unsurprisingly), the same dynamic applies to puppy training.
King:
Agreed! But how do you propose to actually do it?
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I can only address this from the standpoint of a parent and what I have seen and talked about from teachers in school, but kids across the board are no long accountable for anything period (my kids go to a majority white school so this is not a matter of black or white). If grades are low and kids are not “passing” I have had many teachers say that the result is that they get stuck in a bunch of meetings centered on how they can improve. The teacher is not getting the poor grades so why is our educational system lecturing these teachers on their improvements instead of the improvement of the kids with poor grades?? If there is no consequence for this at home and then none at school of course these kids will lack accountability. Then this no child left behind bs. If a kid is not making the grade why in hell should they be rewarded with passing?! Among other factors society has spoon fed a generation with the idea of why work hard…it will be handed to you. Ok done venting.
@ King
I agree with you 100%.
@Randy
What solution do you have? In my mind personal accountability is just that and I am only one to shed a tear if an individual does not know what to do and need guidance. Otherwise I see it as personal fault and one that should not require me to take responsibility for.
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@ Randy
I really think that you should stop and think about your word “accountability” and my word “incentive.” Ask yourself if incentive does not accomplish the same goal you are after? When you say someone is “accountable,” you mean that they must be “held to account” to a certain standard or expectation. Often there is a consequence, penalty, or punishment, for failing to meet that expectation.
In a case where White society spent centuries imposing a generational inferiority upon Blacks, it seems obviously inappropriate to punish Blacks who do not recover from said generational injustice. But neither can society reward Blacks for failing to recover from the abuse. What is needed is not the stick, but the carrot. There should be far fewer resources available to people who are not taking positive steps to either train, or educate themselves. There should be far more resources available to those who are willing to be trained (especially in technology fields) and/or seek higher education.
You are offering an incentive for positive behavior. If one does not take up the challenge they will not receive the incentives… is that accountability enough for you?
You have to see what is working, why it is working, and then duplicate the success. If you’re asking me to write the final curriculum plan, in detail here on this blog, then you misunderstand what I’m saying.
However, I believe that a successful plan must:
– Begin stressing excellence and long-term goals early on
– Find ways to visibly reward academic achievement for students & parents
– Find ways to tailor teaching plans to their demographic
– Significantly boost pay and prestige for teachers who produce good results
– Get rid of unsuccessful teachers who do not.
– Establish tutoring programs to help students from disadvantaged backgrounds
– Practice rigorous fundamental educational methods
– Realize that this must be as GENERATIONAL a program for success as was the centuries-long campaign for imposed inferiority. Own the problem White American society created and pay the cost for the remedy (accountability)
Now obviously, not everybody is going to take you up on this contract for success, but as the method proves itself more and more people will. Obviously, you can’t do anything about people who will not participate. They must simply be left behind, until such time that they begin to realize that people all around them are moving on and succeeding in life. But no, you can’t save everybody.
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Reputation
Question: How powerful is reputation and first impressions to you guys?
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Do you mean personally, Legion? Like my reputation within my social group, or perhaps professionally? Or just as a general principle?
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^ Wow, you have really been sifting through his posts with a fine toothed comb.
Indeed, it seems like he was assaulted by a black man with a bullet, and shot him back and killed him. That might explain some of his motivation.
However, he seems to be particularly hard on people who identify as multiracial, as though they were a hypocrite, are race traitors, or suffer from severe cognitive dissonance. Besides having been attacked by a black person whom he subsequently shot and killed, he must have been taunted for not being 100% white at some point in the past.
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@ King
As a general principle. (sorry for late reply)
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That he generalized his one experience with crime to blacks as a race is a scary thought
Killing his attacker is another conversation, so I’m not talking about the kill part.
But Kiwi, really? It’s supposed to be so shocking that the attack was a catalyst for racism on the part of the attacked person? The psychology on false attribution is established and we all learn it when taking our first basic psyche course. Recall the unethical experiments of younguns subjected to a loud noise with a bunny rabbit in close proximity. Yeah, the kids have a (unless they try to correct the nervous system and psychological response) lifelong fear/aversion/etc. to bunny rabbits. People meet these grown kids years after the fact and think, “wow he’s so weirded out by rabbits, what a weirdo, what’s his problem?” Well, the problem is an event from personal history that had a deep effect on the person. The powerful effect of the personal event increases in relation to the lack of coping skills of the victim or subject (the situations are not always victim situations).
I always wanted to relate a story that happened to me. I hesitated because I thought it might be met with negativity and it was. Anyway, the same sort of mechanism happened to me:
^ If you’re going to read my comments there, I’d start at the first comment not just were it gets heated with me and Jefe. I’m convinced he was on a witch hunt from the very start.
It’s certainly hideous to be racist but it is explainable to. Just because something is hideous does not mean it is a great mystery. It’s difficult to picture someone as being in a vulnerable position, at some point in their past, as a catalyst for their current hatred or bias, etc. But sometimes the catalyst is some critical circumstance of vulnerability.
Food for thought on the nervous system:
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*explainable too
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*young’uns
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@Kiwi,
I saw your comment earlier up about the infamous troll, and I did indeed think about what Legion had mentioned earlier about his experience. However, I dare not mention it as he is convinced I was on a witch hunt.
I am not on a witch hunt. Far from it.
In fact, I welcome his views very very much, and was very happy that he offered to share some things about himself, but I was afraid to mention any more lest he get even angrier. However, it seems like I might have an opening now to clarify my position.
Yes, I found my experience in the USA to be very unique. I have yet to meet anyone that I can share or relate it to, even my very own brother – we are only a little over a year apart in age and we had such a different experience. I interacted with whites, blacks, Latinos and Asian-Americans to an extensive degree, but they all made me feel alienated also – as though my background has nothing to do with them and they have nothing to do with me. Before I left I started hanging out more with new immigrants, refugees and foreign students more – other people who just felt alienated and outside of US society, people who did not go to high school in the USA and could not speak much English.
However, I do think I can and do understand Legion’s position. In fact, his position is very common in the USA.
My brother was attacked and beat up by a group of blacks when he was a teenager. From that day on, he held a great disdain, even almost hatred of blacks (not too unlike Legion’s dislike of persons of east Asian descent, but perhaps even more violent). A Bruce Lee fan, he got a set of nunchaku and carried them with him all the time. After he got a car, he kept them in his car. He would hang out with a group of white guys and terrorize groups of blacks – whip out his nunchaku and threaten them with bodily harm if they did anything, even approach them.
I was also beat up and attacked by black kids (I can remember when a particular group of 4-5 black teenagers chased me down the street – they yelled “let’s go get the “ch*nk” and jumped me and punched and kicked me). But I was beat up and attacked more often by white kids. When I watch those videos of those white teenagers attacking others with violent bullying TODAY I can just feel those kicks and punches on my own body all over again, that blood and broken bones. However, I was not able to join either of those white groups or black groups to protect myself from the bullying from either side. My survival technique was trying to identify when a group was about to bully someone and go run and hide or avoid them somehow. My brother did join groups of white kids to protect himself from bullying by blacks. However, I didn’t think that was right either. I yelled at my parents for forcing me to grow up in that violent environment, but they pointed my brother out to me and lauded him on how he was able to solve it. Anyhow, they were violent at home too, so I figured out the only way was to leave home. I went to university when I was 16 – the first time I could go outside or go back to my room and not have to worry constantly about daily violence.
In my 20s, I was assaulted on the street and punched in the face by a white guy who split my lip and cracked my whole upper set of teeth under my gums. After stitching my mouth back, I had my teeth wired together for many months. Later I was assaulted on the street by a black guy who grabbed me in the neck by the back and choked me until I passed out. While I was unconscious he kicked my face in with his sneakers and stole everything I had on my body. I had to go back to the hospital for weeks to attend to my neck injuries. Those were among the worst, but I had many other assaults, attacks, robbings.
But my interactions with many Asian-Americans has not been that positive either. Many of them told me that they cannot believe that I experienced anything, as I could probably try to pass as something else – even Latino or something, and therefore, I could not UNDERSTAND what they go through. Yet none them grew up with overt racial violence against them, and most of them were not that familiar with Asian culture and languages or Asian-American history either. I had experienced people refusing housing and accommodation, attack my family home, and had to listen to my white grandmother in Alabama pull out her Bible and tell me that I was going to go to hell.
Everybody in the USA has told me that I cannot understand their experience. Even my brother.
I got fed up with it. It finally gave me the courage to leave.
I think I can understand Legion’s experience to a large degree. I have seen it happen over and over again to many people. It happened to my brother. They have 1-2 bad experiences and racialize that experience so that they develop negative, even hateful feelings towards entire groups. In fact, it is a very common American experience.
I had negative violent racial experiences with blacks (probably considerably more violent than the negative experiences he had with people of East Asian descent), so Legion automatically assumed that I should develop a negative attitude towards blacks, which is viewed as “normal”. However, I had even more negative violent racial experiences with whites. Many of my experiences with Asian-Americans have not been positive either. So, what have I got out of it – I just decided that American society is a complete racial mess. I think what was depicted in the movie “Crash (2005)” is just a sanitized version of the actual situation. (Actually, I think that they depicted Asian-Americans as cardboard figures and as “foreigners”, not something I like about that movie).
So, I did develop an attitude of sorts. I am very sensitive to Americans racializing a negative experience and develop all sorts of racial generalizations based on that. But I think it is a problem facing American society at large, not just an individual thing. While I think it is very common, I don’t see it as something that should be regarded as “normal”, or the way it should be. I still even have some issue with how Abagond racialized the experience of multiracial people to draw negative characterization on a racial basis. Maybe it is one reason why I don’t talk to too many Americans in person – their racialized experiences come up sooner or later and I am not in a position to agree or disagree with them. It is something that Americans do, but I have not felt that comfortable with it.
So, I hope that Legion does not see it as a personal vendetta against him. The purpose is to take a closer look at how Americans constantly racialize their experiences,
The psychology of “false attribution” is common, but I think that we have to learn to try to combat it if America is going to heal from its racial past.
I would love to see America heal from its racial past. I wish I knew what I could do.
I remember thinking when Obama got elected, maybe here was someone who could do something the USA’s racial scar. We are from the same generation, born into interracial families and have many social and family experiences that span the racial and ethnic gamut. However, it seems like he ended up more like Booker T. Washington, heralding a new era of oppression. If it is going to be anyone, it is not him.
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“false attribution”
Not really the right terminology. I posted in a hurry that day and couldn’t remember what the spot on term was.
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Hmm, anyway bit of an “about face” with regard to Jefe’s comment above when contrasted with the response he gave me in the China thread, oh well…
I made a further response on the China thread instead of this one.
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F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function”.
With regards to opposing views to mine, I still would like to investigate the world, however, long ago I have rejected most European thought and ideas- their brand of Christianity, their brand of atheism, communism, fascism, etc.
Although, I do not hold the same opinions, I cannot throw the baby out with the bathwater. I get it that there cannot be unanimity of thought, as attested by my being frozen out, because of my opposite reaction to Christianity, esp. I had not expanded on it though, to include the nuances that I find some of the best expression of Christian love amongst Black people. My extreme point, would be that one can love and demand justice, regardless of religion. However, I hold a minority point of view in a community whose shares a similar perspective in regards to racial matters. Abagond has granted me magnanimity in spite of my views being antipodal to his.
So, as regards to the latest uber-troll, I am of two minds. On the one hand, I totally agree with Adeen’s point of view as regards trolls. And my passion/emotion is constantly balanced on a tight-rope in coming to grips with full-frontal hate speech.
‘Troll’, to me, is a euphemistic misnomer to the deranged thinking that this latest person has exhibited. His dangerous misanthropic worldview brings to mind Dylan Roof- meets- Jerry Springer- meets -the klu klux klan. My emotion/ intuition tells me that in real life he is not a ‘nice’ person and not to be trifled with.
On the other hand, exposure of such ideas intended for the targets of hatred, provide a bird’s eye-view into the psychopathic racist mind-set that some/ many? white people hide behind closed doors. The racial views that they deny until they are blue in the face, then comes out of the wormwood, the dye-in –the wool racist who blows their cover of non-racism.
Are there not a plethora of hate-sites out there that can give a platform to such expression? Has it not been long established on the blogosphere that such toxic and odious views against people who are not white?
I do not agree that the Abagond’s blog would be an echo chamber.
As a long time lurker (off the top of my head) I have been educate by the intelligent ,rich arguments presented by – Matari, Kiwi, Jefe, Mira, B.R., William the Conqueror, Kwamla, Brothawolf, Buddhu, v8driver, Munubantu, Sharina, Mary Burrell, Michael John Barker, David Benjamin Steele, Cornlia, Origin, the professor on the Transatlantic slavery thread, Villagewriter, Linda, Tablimensah, Truthbetold,Mbeti, and many more (even Mirkwood). And of course, the author of this splendid blog.
I am still two-minded- whilst I fully endorse a free exchange of ideas, at what point does one draw the line on hate speech? Who is the arbiter of what hate speech is or isn’t? I would not say that I have a ‘first rate intelligence’. I am tenuously holding two unresolved polar opposite ideas at the same time in regards your policy on trolls, Abagond.
With the risk of being repetitive and being an echo chamber, I love this blog, for its articles on philosophy, literature, ebonics, African American expression, race matters ( for me the comparison of South African and American history and racial issues) etc. etc.
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@ taotesan
I’m very pleased that you included me in your list above.
Should I say that your thoughts and feelings towards those commentators are reciprocated? I cannot speak on behalf of others but this is exactly what I feel about your presence in this blog: informative (many first-hand examples and reflections about the situation in South Africa), intelligent, and at times very passionate (your thoughts about the situation in Palestine), and more, much more.
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