Re: Cue the villagers with pitch... ah... automatic weapons
 

can you think of a webpage where rich white people write off poor rural white people as shiftless idiots?

Re: Cue the villagers with pitch... ah... automatic weapons
 

You know, there are people out there who do indeed go out seeking to be racist assholes. Every day. Hopefully fewer than in the past, but still not an insignificant number.

Re: Cue the villagers with pitch... ah... automatic weapons
 

The New York Times?

We've got the blues on the run.
 

The FB, but that's really more related to The Poors' taste for mass-market beer.

Re: We've got the blues on the run.
 

Unfair! I know you wear shirts.

Oh wait, never mind.

Re: Cue the villagers with pitch... ah... automatic weapons
 

You are absolutely fucking wrong. Young black men get shot because white people have been taught all their lives (in many different ways) to fear them.

TM

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

http://money.cnn.com/2014/11/19/medi...ech/index.html I guess we are a country happy to stay uniformed idiots?

Re: Cue the villagers with pitch... ah... automatic weapons
 

I think Sebby was referring to the "stop and frisk" in Adder's post. But you are right as to shootings- cops (and neighborhood patrols) are on edge. I wonder if there are any stats on cop shootings that compare numbers based on percentages of the cops' race?

Re: Cue the villagers with pitch... ah... automatic weapons
 

Unfortunately, there aren't even any reliable statistics nationally on the numbers of people shot by the police, much less ones that have a break down like that. (Sebbyesque Disclaimer: I could be completely wrong on this, but I seem to recall reading shortly after the Ferguson stuff first broke that the FBI/DoJ deliberately don't keep track of these numbers.)

Re: Cue the villagers with pitch... ah... automatic weapons
 

What's the difference? Do you think the policies, the policy-makers, and the policy-carry-outers behind stop-and-frisk aren't influenced by the same exact thing?

TM

Re: Cue the villagers with pitch... ah... automatic weapons
 

How, exactly, were white people "taught" to fear black people? Actually curious not snarky.

Re: Cue the villagers with pitch... ah... automatic weapons
 

the same ignorance is the well-spring but in one case isn't it "this kid might SHOOT ME!" and in the other "a kid like that is likely to be carrying dope and getting him off the streets is going to make everyone safer?"

Re: Cue the villagers with pitch... ah... automatic weapons
 

There are no stats on cop shootings. Here's a Daily Show segment on that problem (about a minute and a half in, after the faux familial spat).

Re: Cue the villagers with pitch... ah... automatic weapons
 

That's a good question, but it's there in our culture somewhere.

Re: Cue the villagers with pitch... ah... automatic weapons
 

I can give you a few examples:

1. Some are actually outright taught, whether it's "You should hate black people because they're all thugs who want your money or vagina," or the more subtle influence of being with your mom or friend when she clutches her purse closer or crosses the street when a black man approaches

2. Some are taught because of ignorance bred from under-exposure (ghettos are created in places easy for all non-ghetto people to avoid, white people flee cities in favor of lilly white suburbs and gated-communities, etc.)

3. Popular culture: from beauty standards, to acting opportunities, to the types of "black" music embraced and disbursed by white people, stereotypes created around fear win the day

4. Rush Limbaugh and his ilk

5. Media issues: Whether we're talking about darkening OJ's skin on the cover of a magazine to make him more menacing or reporting on crack cocaine and how it's creating a generation of crack babies (complete bullshit), while completely ignoring how much worse meth has been in this country. Hell, picture a white dude who smokes weed in your head and then picture a black one. Is one of them a college dude who enjoys a good bong toke and the other a dark-skinned criminal in a hoodie and skully pulling on a blunt while looking menacingly at everyone?

6. The drug war, which has been waged primarily against minorities (even though drug use numbers are almost exactly the same between whites and blacks), which results in a higher incarceration rate for blacks, which feeds fear and stop-and-frisk and 3-strikes policies

7. Politicians: Don't get me started. The fears they constantly stoke with ad campaigns of black men coming to get you while running on a tough-on-crime platform. Palin-types who say shit like, "let's take back our country" or "Obama pals around with terrorists" or "He's from Nigeria, he's not American, he's a community organizer [or any other dog-whistle bullshit]" to a group of rabid racists

I can go on and on. Fuck, I went to a Halloween party in New York fucking City last month and dressed as a member of Run DMC and 3 white girls (separately) asked if I was a thug. You don't think that fear is constantly being taught? You're sure as hell not born with it.

TM

Re: Cue the villagers with pitch... ah... automatic weapons
 

I fail to see the distinction.

TM

Re: Cue the villagers with pitch... ah... automatic weapons
 

I was simply trying to explain what Sebby meant (or what i think he meant).

Re: Cue the villagers with pitch... ah... automatic weapons
 

We could also go with, "Statistically, young black males are involved in more crime than other groups"

Re: Cue the villagers with pitch... ah... automatic weapons
 

What about real life experience? When that fear is learned through personal experience rather than taught? I've seen enough to where I am crossing the street when I see a group of young, poorly dressed black men walking towards me at night. Am I being fearful or am I making a reasoned decision based on probability? Probably both. Isn't crossing the street the smart thing to do? Would you cross the street? And if you wouldn't cross the street, would it only be because you are telling yourself that's what a racist person would do?

Re: Cue the villagers with pitch... ah... automatic weapons
 

I know. I'm not attacking you. I'm asking you to think about the word "safety" in your second example and ask yourself what the actual difference is between your two examples.

TM

Re: Cue the villagers with pitch... ah... automatic weapons
 

Recently I found myself crossing the street mid-block only to realize that there was a black man coming the other way on the side I was crossing from. My crossing had nothing to do with him, as I really was just going that way, but I felt a little bad about it.

Which is not to say that I would not do it on purpose if I felt it was the smart thing to do in the circumstances. A group of young men behaving boisterously I would cross to get away from, and, yeah, probably even more likely if they were black.

I can't claim to be free of the instinct that young black men are dangerous. But that doesn't make the instinct not racist.

Re: Cue the villagers with pitch... ah... automatic weapons
 

I like that you zero'd in on the one example that makes you the most uncomfortable. But let's talk about it.

If you see a group of teenagers who are dressed poorly, I imagine that you cross the street whether they are black, white, hispanic, asian, or any combination. If you're telling me you only cross the street when they're black, I'd probably think you are an asshole (and a liar).

But let's change your hypothetical. I'm a black (albeit way too light-skinned), grown up. If you saw me (and just me) walking toward you in sweats at night (like I was coming from the fucking gym), would you cross the street? Would you do that if a similarly-aged white partner from a law firm in the exact same outfit with the exact same build approached you in the exact same circumstances? If you were a woman, would you clutch your purse or your child a little tighter for one and not the other? Would you lock your car doors with your kids in the back?

Are all the instances when I experience that bullshit, based on personal experience of being attacked by a black man? Or do you think that's based on fear that's passed on constantly in a myriad of different ways (including those I listed above)?

TM

Re: Cue the villagers with pitch... ah... automatic weapons
 

Agree. But I don't think it's necessarily fair to blame everyone else for the existence of that fear. Much of what TM said about the sources of that fear are probably true, but some of that fear is based in reality. Now, whether that reality is a result of centuries of oppression, racism, etc. is a different question.

Re: Cue the villagers with pitch... ah... automatic weapons
 

Once I heard my brother's wife say to her daughter, who was around 8 and holding a $20 (?) bill my father had given her on the way to the mall, "Lauren, put your money in your pocket or some black man is going to come up and take it from you."

At a Thanksgiving party my uncle, who did not have the excuse of being drunk, having spent the day talking about how black people were inferior ("look at Europe -- they had churches and monuments and symphonies when Africans were still living in trees!") and seen me basically ignore him, grabbed me on the way out and said "You're a liberal. What'll change your mind is when some nigger rapes your wife and leaves her for dead."

I could probably recount dozens of these vignettes, hundreds if I really tried. They are generally from the 1970s and 1980s. I think it's getting better.....

Re: Cue the villagers with pitch... ah... automatic weapons
 

The two are not inconsistent. However, I acknowledge that yes, Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown did not get shot because some someone woke up that morning and decided to be a racist asshole. They got shot because someone woke up that morning being a racist asshole. In a society that they felt confident would shield them if they shot someone for being Black.

Re: Cue the villagers with pitch... ah... automatic weapons
 

Does Paul Ryan have a web page?

Re: Cue the villagers with pitch... ah... automatic weapons
 

Honestly not really sure what you mean by this.

I don't really know the answer to this except that I think it's more likely that I'd cross the street if the group were black. But I'm actually guessing at how I'd react instinctively, and that's an honest guess. In that situation, I'd probably be half-way across the street before I even thought about the racial undertones of the decision. And then I'd probably feel guilty about it. You can call me an asshole, I guess, but I'd say it's my subconscious brain "playing the odds". But maybe your point is that the odds in my brain are wrong because of all of your stated sources of fear.

I think in your first hypothetical I wouldn't cross the street for you. In fact that exact same situation happens to me relatively frequently in Chicago and I've never crossed the street.

Anyway, I agree with you that the sources you state of the fear-of-young-black-men are causative of that perception. I just don't think that all of that perception is necessarily taught.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

Yes. For the most part, we do.

Re: Cue the villagers with pitch... ah... automatic weapons
 

You'd think it should be easier for white folks to realize what they're being taught than black folks. Shows how blind we are to the built-in biases.

Some of my favorites are the "bad neighborhood" that you're told not to to go near, which often redlines half a city as places whites shouldn't go, the "where is he from" question that really means, is he black, one you highlighted, the "don't dress like a thug" meaning, dress like a white boy, etc.

Any time people are segregated fear is taught of the other group in a million little ways. Segregation and stereotypes are two of the biggest weapons.

Re: Cue the villagers with pitch... ah... automatic weapons
 

I don't know about you, but I was taught from a very young age not to go to certain neighborhoods because I wouldn't be welcome there. Their kind wasn't very hospitable to us crackers. Whenever we went to a Hawks game, back when they still played at the Amphitheatre, it was explained to me that the area around the stadium looked like a bombed-out area of Fallujah because the Blacks rioted and burned down the buildings, and nobody was going to rebuild there because "they" just didn't respect property.

The thing about this that you should find most disturbing is that my parents were both McCarthy liberals who liked my dentist because he used to throw cocktail parties where he invited Black Panthers.

Of course, you are too young to remember the Blacksploitation films of the 70s, in which Richard Roundtree and James Brown were killers, drug dealers, pimps, etc., but it was cool because that was the "culture" in the places where the Dark people lived.

Re: Cue the villagers with pitch... ah... automatic weapons
 

Not really, no. In both cases, it's fear that the Black man (or boy) is violent and means to do us harm. The only difference is that in the suburbs of St. Louis you need a badge to kill a Black youth and in Florida it's just open season.

Re: Cue the villagers with pitch... ah... automatic weapons
 

I was in Central Park last month, somewhere in that woods walk at the north end. You can be secluded in there, which isn't a typical feeling for NYC. Anyways, I turned at one point on the path and coming at me were 3 young black men. I felt a bit of apprehension, ain't no road to cross, but I might have felt the same if they were white. Then the one says "let's sing show tunes!" and then they started to. Boy did I feel sheepish.

Re: Cue the villagers with pitch... ah... automatic weapons
 

The way some of the outright racists change can be interesting. I had an uncle who was deeply racist, and made a regular career out of keeping blacks (referred to by the N word) out of his union. He and my father had screaming battles over it, to no effect.

Then his daughter is dating an Italian guy who beats her up. My uncle beats him up sufficiently so he stays away from her. Next guy his daughter dates is black and treats her well. Presto, Uncle wants to integrate the union. He can't figure out why he had so much hate in him before.

But after that, don't get him started on those Italians....

Re: Cue the villagers with pitch... ah... automatic weapons
 

Not surprising at all -- If you grew up with being taught this way, it's water.

Most of my experience with this sort of shit is from people who were not segregated, or at least not so completely that they did not have plenty of opportunities to deal with black people as people, rather than as stereotypes. The SiL I talked about grew up in Yonkers. The uncle's kids mostly went to my public school, which was about 1/3 black (though certainly there were black areas of the city).

Some time ago, I was walking thru Chinatown and Fisherman's Wharf in SF with a bunch of martial arts instructors I trained with/under. They are all black, mostly muslim, and just generally an energetic group of people -- loud (not obnoxiously), dressed colorfully, fairly big physically and with enormous presence.

I cannot tell you how many people looked at me as if I was in danger -- I was surrounded by black men! It was astounding, especially since I had never been so safe in my entire life.

Re: Cue the villagers with pitch... ah... automatic weapons
 

OTOH, you should have heard the names my parents, particularly my father, called my sister when she was dating a Puerto Rican. And they considered themselves tolerant -- and, relatively speaking, they were (kingdom of the blind....) -- because they had actually been willing to talk to, and go to the home of, the one black family that ever moved into my neighborhood.

Sometimes I hate everyone.

Re: Cue the villagers with pitch... ah... automatic weapons
 

I live in a tiny suburb that is lousy with liberals. we vote 70% for everything that the Dems push. we are the second highest % of towns in Michigan for folks having a second college degree. We are evolved motherfuckers. Metro D is the second most segregated area (Hi Chicago!) in the country. Right next to us is a largely black suburb.

We just got a "Next Door" neighborhood chat room. For years cars get riffled when they are left unlocked. Every so often the police catch a kid doing it. But since the NextDoor chat room came on these knuckleheads believe a crime spree has broken out because they are suddenly aware of the car thefts (of unlocked cars). And every thread includes the question, "do we know where the thief is from?" Which, as GGG suggests, isn't the real question being asked.

But the most fun was when a white kid* from my town was caught doing it and all these libs expressed the shock that evidenced their actual assumptions.

*of course the black kids from the next town also do it. Meanwhile the answer is "lock your fucking car doors."

Re: Cue the villagers with pitch... ah... automatic weapons
 

Hey, the Italian guy was from Yonkers! Maybe they're related?

When I was growing up, there was a street in my Father's old neighborhood that was the dividing line. North of Dyckman, 98% white, 2% American Indian (different story). South of Dyckman, 80-85% black and hispanic, with a smattering of whites (Irish) right near the line.

It was dangerous for a black person north of Dyckman. The "bad neighborhood" was south of Dyckman. Also referred to as the "changing" neighborhood.

Certainly, the schools in those neighborhoods were mixed, and there were other places that weren't segregated, noticeably the park in the area and one church in particular. But for the most part, there was a very bright line.

Re: Cue the villagers with pitch... ah... automatic weapons
 

You went from the statement in my post, that my parents were "relatively tolerant," to talking about "libs".

My parents were anything but liberals. Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Reagan..... You apparently assumed that someone who thinks he is tolerant, but is actually not, must be a "lib". Because, you know, libs are dishonest like that.


That said -- it's good to see that people have stupid biases other than those that are race-based.

Re: Cue the villagers with pitch... ah... automatic weapons
 

This is true.

We used to go to the Italian section of the Bronx every once in awhile, where my parents lived before moving to the 'burbs. One time I saw four white kids start beating on a black kid -- all maybe 12 years old. They were hitting him with a chain, because he had crossed the wrong street. He pulled a knife, and that's how he was able to get away. All the old guys sat around laughing about the "little nigger with a knife."

I'm starting to get depressed, honestly.

Re: Cue the villagers with pitch... ah... automatic weapons
 

I just wanted to post the point. I didn't mean to imply I was adding to your point. I do believe that several posters here have racial issues (as almost all Americans do) while posting from a position of complete God head