Re: Interesting Article
 

maybe, but every so often you might hire a black attorney that spends all damn day surfing the internet looking for pictures of nearly naked woman, and until he finds 20 good ones.

Top 20
 

Hire that motherfucker yesterday.

http://www.lawtalkers.com/forums/sho...postcount=2115

http://www.lawtalkers.com/forums/sho...postcount=2116

http://www.lawtalkers.com/forums/sho...postcount=2117

http://www.lawtalkers.com/forums/sho...postcount=2118

TM

Related?
 

Somehow I feel like this is tangentially related to our discussion of private schools the other day.

http://truthseekerdaily.com/2013/10/...-happens-next/

TM

Re: Interesting Article
 

You said it, sister. (Uh... you know what I mean.) Actually, I would venture to say that there is no such person. And, loathe as I am to side with Mr. Cranky-Pants, he's absolutely got the facts on his side.

Furthermore, not only is it inaccurate to minimize the influence and effect of racism, it makes the problem more pernicious and intractable. It is far more productive to acknowledge one's own latent racism, even unintentional racism, than it is to proclaim it's not there. Only by noticing and acknowledging it can it be addressed. Sort of like "admitting you have a problem is the first step".

That is not to say that everyone is a rabid, ignorant racist like that football player (though I know such people exist, it's still jarring to hear that kind of ugliness; same thing with Kramer -- forget his real name now...). It's so important to acknowledge one's micro-aggressions or internal reactions to people different from one's self, especially black people (if they are different from one's self), because of the unfortunate place black people had in what is this country's most shameful institution. The end of legal slavery in this country didn't happen that long ago, and its deeply ingrained effects cannot be eradicated in a few generations. (I am ONE degree -- if I'm counting correctly -- from a man born into slavery; a law school professor of mine in his childhood knew a man who had been born into slavery. It wasn't that long ago.)

Anyway, it advances the ball to acknowledge that one is, e.g., nervous when encountering a group of urban yooots (ha) with their waistbands barely above their knees and crosses the street to avoid them. OK, that doesn't make you Kramer, but at least it heightens your awareness to your own reactions and forces you to think about what is making you nervous.

I do, however, take issue with one thing Mr. Cranky-Pants said. I'm not sure I would blame anyone who could move out of an area where there are daily shootings, drug violence, etc. who availed himself of that opportunity. That doesn't seem to me to be at all related to racism, but a matter of simple self-preservation. You don't need to be looking to get away from "those people" (Puerto Ricans, Domincans, Somalis, Muslims, whatever) to rationally decide that your family might be safer in a place that didn't experience daily gunplay in the building's courtyard. But maybe I misunderstood.

Re: Interesting Article
 

One of my proudest parenting moments was when I realized that one of my son's best friends at school is black. I wasn't proud because the kid was black, but because I didn't know he was until I saw him at a school function. My son would talk about him, and in response to questions I'd ask, like I do about all the kids he mentions (is he a boarder? where is he from? what classes do you share? does he play the same sports as you? etc., etc.), not once did my son mention that the kid is black.

That said, I don't know how much of that is parenting, and how much is the school environment, but it was eye-opening, and it felt like progress that the description of the friend's salient characteristics did not include "he's black".

Re: Interesting Article
 

Relatedly, this is the best thing I've read in a while.

Re: Interesting Article
 

In other words, they're treating them differently because of the color of their skin. How is that not racism? I don't get it.

Re: Interesting Article
 

They both have some serious competition in the skier category.

Re: Interesting Article
 

Great. Now I want to go home and somehow punch the humanity out of myself.

Re: Interesting Article
 

It's already gone. Already gone.

Re: Interesting Article
 

No hint of hyperbole, that is one of the most disturbing things I've read in a long time.

Plotzensee is an ugly, monstrous historical footnote. I've found myself reading articles about it in the past and almost always wishing afterward that I hadn't clicked the link.

Re: Interesting Article
 

Um, that's psycho to you. You just made the list. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OnpkDWbeJs

Even though you're pissed at me for being a dick (understandable), it's okay to address me directly. This level of passive aggression when we're not even in the same room seems silly.

I don't think I ever said people shouldn't move their families out of harm's way. But the options aren't just hard core ghetto and gated community. And I said that any one person's decision to remove their child from a crappy school is surely justified and difficult to criticize. But the collective result of those actions decimate schools and communities. And for me, if my child isn't in a school that is the top of the tops, I would rather expend the energy to supplement her education and/or strengthen the school then pull her out and place her with a bunch of other rich, privileged kids who are isolated, and as a result, don't really know what the real world looks like.

I think the wealthier we become the more isolated we try to be to protect our awesome stuff from all the awful people we just know want to take it. With that come the decisions to provide our children with the best. And we all believe "exclusivity" equates with "best." After all, if anyone can get in, how good could it be?

But, look. I'm a city boy. I think I would murder everyone around me if I lived in a rich suburb. I can't stand those people, I don't get why anyone with fewer than three children needs more than 2,000 square feet (which is a lot of fucking space), and it seems weird to me for kids to have to be driven miles in order to play with other kids (let alone other kids of different socioeconomic backgrounds).

TM

Re: The Jews have all the money, and the whites have all the power.
 

Jesus Christ... I don't, and haven't, said racism is not a cause of exclusion. I have acknowledged it is (who couldn't?), but suggested that there are other causes as well, a big one being people's native inclination to herd with members of the "same tribe."

You've seen it. I know you have. It's the inside handshake thing. "Hey, you went to a school like me. Hey, you probably had to sit through church like me. Hey... We probably enjoy the same shit." It's lazy, superficial branding that unfortunately segregates a lot of people into factions.

But yes - there is racism also. People exclude people based on racism (I assume three admissions of this in one post are adequate to cause people to stop arguing past me). Oh, hell-- Here's a fourth:

I hereby acknowledge racism often plays a part in people being excluded in work and social situations, and that it remains a significant problem today.

Now, if one person acknowledge that the tribalism/laziness I note also plays a part, we'll have had an honest back and forth. But I very much doubt that will happen. The narrative shall be, "In all instances in which a minority is excluded, it is irrefutably racism." And we can never trifle with conventional wisdom, even only with an argument of degree. It is the only thing more infallible than the Pope.

Re: Interesting Article
 

I'm not proud of my kid for the same behavior. I expect it. We don't describe people lazily by saying "He's the black guy," and unsurprisingly neither does our child.

Re: Interesting Article
 

I agree with you. I just happened to be responding to someone who wasn't you, so I referred to you then in the third person.

Do you think it is at all narrow minded to pre-judge people on the basis of their economic status?