Privilege and Responsibility

[Craig Arko]

Hey kids. I'm in my 60s. You've never lived in America where the wealthy paid their fair share. I have. We did great things:

- eliminated polio

- built new schools

- built new highways

- cut the poverty rate

- led the world in technology

- landed on the moon six times!

[ewen21]

 

Hey kids. I'm in my 60s. You've never lived in America where the wealthy paid their fair share. I have. We did great things:
- eliminated polio
- built new schools
- built new highways
- cut the poverty rate
- led the world in technology
- landed on the moon six times!

I am in my 50s and I watched your generation smoke pot, grow long hair, listen to the Eagles and join cults.  Great job!

[PseudoSABR]

 

Wrong.  I found this one just logging onto my computer (I think my home page is the generic Microsoft).

 

As far as his rallies go, whatever.  I have not had one swing through my neck of the woods, nor have I felt compelled to attend one.

Look, you keep professing your centrism, but all I see is constant critique of the left, and out crying about white-guy as victims, and a constant flow of anecdotal information as proof of a trend.  

 

MAGA is guilty of way more hate/attacks than any counter protest, but it's not worth belaboring this point.

[ewen21]

 

Look, you keep professing your centrism, but all I see is constant critique of the left, and out crying about white-guy as victims, and a constant flow of anecdotal information as proof of a trend.  

 

MAGA is guilty of way more hate/attacks than any counter protest, but it's not worth belaboring this point.

Sorry.  I am watching a ballgame.

 

Maybe you should, too

[TheLeviathan]

I agree the Smollet case is fishy, but if this the case where the Feds start looking into prosecutorial malfeasance, I'll be pissed.  Prosecutors have been playing loose and fast for decades, and many of those who crying bloody murder, didn't give one wit, because it merely disadvantaged the poor and the disenfranchised.

 

I can understand that. For the record, my issues with criminal justice run much deeper than this case. But this is too Chicago-y, maybe the not the feds but there should be some recourse.

 

The grand jury on this case was pretty clear, to end like this is not ok. And his legal team's smug public demeanor only makes me more upset.

[NumberThree]

Hey kids. I'm in my 60s. You've never lived in America where the wealthy paid their fair share. I have. We did great things:

- eliminated polio

- built new schools

- built new highways

- cut the poverty rate

- led the world in technology

- landed on the moon six times!

Then along came Reaganomics of the 80s and we’ve been in decline ever since.

[PseudoSABR]

 

Sorry.  I am watching a ballgame.

 

Maybe you should, too

Good advice.

[ewen21]

 

Then along came Reaganomics of the 80s and we’ve been in decline ever since.

My vote for Reagan in 1984 was the proudest vote I ever cast

(You must have been in a coma during the Carter years)

[TheLeviathan]

 

My vote for Reagan in 1984 was the proudest vote I ever cast

(You must have been in a coma during the Carter years)

 

Obviously there were problems.  I'm a firm believe that economics are about balance and we probably were out of balance in the Carter years, being too far to one end of the spectrum.

 

However, I do believe Reagan helped shift policy very hard to the right and people since him have doubled down further and further.  I think Reagan gets too much flak from some (and FAR too much fealty by others), but his term was definitely a turning point.  Our government has slowly become more and more subservient to big donors and corporations and less attuned to the needs of the everyday citizens.

 

I think, largely, that's been bad for America.  The left owns some of the mistakes too, the Great Society has wrought a lot of hardship for our society too.  Either way, this probably belongs more in the general politics thread and less in this one.  We should be talking here about the plight many of our non-white brothers and sisters face in society and how to make the American dream more real for all people, regardless of their identities.

[NumberThree]

My vote for Reagan in 1984 was the proudest vote I ever cast

(You must have been in a coma during the Carter years)

I think history has shown that I, in fact, was not in a coma and was actually more astute than you, considering the resulting decline of our country, largely due to Reaganomics of the 80’s.

[stringer bell]

 

I am in my 50s and I watched your generation smoke pot, grow long hair, listen to the Eagles and join cults.  Great job!

Hey! Lay off the Eagles.

 

Seriously, I am also in Craig's generation and I mostly give credit to the generation before us. Something has changed in the public discourse and in the sausage-making that is politics. 

 

On the Smollett case, I was stunned when they charged him with 16 felonies, then almost feel off my chair when all charges were dropped. I am nearly sickened by the claim that he was totally innocent, when we know enough to say that he was part of a conspiracy. 

 

I think somewhere in the middle is the proper treatment of this guy--charge him and threaten him with jail time, exact a confession and a big check.

[Craig Arko]

Huh. Well, I do have long hair and play dungeons and dragons. But listen to Bach and Vivaldi.

 

Might consider CBD products after I’m off the prescription painkillers for my ankle.

 

Meanwhile will be watching the technical innovations continue to come from Asia, since the West is becoming increasingly scientifically illiterate.

[Squirrel]

 

Huh. Well, I do have long hair and play dungeons and dragons. But listen to Bach and Vivaldi.

Might consider CBD products after I’m off the prescription painkillers for my ankle.

Meanwhile will be watching the technical innovations continue to come from Asia, since the West is becoming increasingly scientifically illiterate.

Listen to Bach, not Fox! Has a good ring to it ... as long as it's Johann Sebastian Bach. My official portrait with the CSO has me looking out over the top of a score. While you can't see what the score is, it's a score to J.S. Bach's St. Matthew Passion. Pablo Casals started and finished every day by playing Bach. Well, actually playing ... not putting something on the phono.

 

CBD products. I'm convinced. Have been trying it on the arthritis in my foot ... omg ... a God send! The pain has been almost non-existent. And this from one who has been walking a minimum of 3-4 miles a day for the past three weeks. One day I walked 11.4 miles. Thank you, CBD oil! Thank you!

 

 

[biggentleben]

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/nypost.com/2019/03/27/school-bus-aide-suspended-for-snatching-maga-hat-off-teens-head/amp/

Why are people emboldened to do this? WHY should anyone need to feel guilty (or even explain themselves) for wearing that particular hat?

Specific to the link I posted, I'm seeing WAY WAY more of these kinds of incidents than I am any wild eyed reactionary MAGA hat wearing guys preventing anyone from peacefully going about their business.

This assumption that it's "racist" is problematic to say the least

 

Or it's confirmation bias of what you want to see, something all of us are guilty of to some level. I can tell you from those on Pine Ridge, you're signing a death certificate coming on the reservation with one of those hats due to the abuse in local towns by people wearing those hats, much of which doesn't get charged, let alone prosecuted, because of the way those counties bordering the reservations work. Are there plenty of incidents where someone is reacting to the hat? Sure.

 

It's why guys leaving prison pay to remove their white nationalist tattoos. If those symbols speak to a certain type of person, displaying them says something about the person you are, whether or not you still are (or ever were) that type of person.

[biggentleben]

 

Wrong.  I found this one just logging onto my computer (I think my home page is the generic Microsoft).

 

As far as his rallies go, whatever.  I have not had one swing through my neck of the woods, nor have I felt compelled to attend one.

 

You do realize that those sites use previously viewed and frequently viewed website as a basis for the types of news stories you see, right? Your "generic" page is skewed heavily by what you view already, so you're getting more echo chamber, not getting a wide-ranging perspective.

[KirbyDome89]

 

I think for many on the right, they refuse to see privilege or racism as a spectrum and only want to acknowledge it at it's most extreme.  If they don't 'hate' a group, they believe they should be insulated from being called racist, even though with every vote and every talking point they seek to diminish policies that help disenfranchised groups.   That's broad brush, but for my part, the indifference and the self-centered policy choices are a huge part of the systemic problem.  

Doesn't the left bare some responsibility here as well? Both terms have been bastardized and misapplied to the point where they are extreme. If confronting issues is a positive, and I agree that it is, these labels have the exact opposite aim as they're often used to shut down dialogue. 

 

I'm not certain if the self-centered policy choices you're referring to pertain to elected officials serving themselves or citizens casting votes. 

[PseudoSABR]

 

Doesn't the left bare some responsibility here as well? Both terms have been bastardized and misapplied to the point where they are extreme. If confronting issues is a positive, and I agree that it is, these labels have the exact opposite aim as they're often used to shut down dialogue. 

 

I'm not certain if the self-centered policy choices you're referring to pertain to elected officials serving themselves or citizens casting votes. 

The left certainly shares in terms of using inflammatory rhetoric in inapplicable situations, sure.  And I do mean both the citizens casting votes for those politicians and the politicians enacting self-centered policies.  But clearly there's a spectrum here, and there's lots of reasonable conservatives and reasonable conservative positions, so I don't want to paint too broad a brush.

[KirbyDome89]

 

The left certainly shares in terms of using inflammatory rhetoric in inapplicable situations, sure.  And I do mean both the citizens casting votes for those politicians and the politicians enacting self-centered policies.  But clearly there's a spectrum here, and there's lots of reasonable conservatives and reasonable conservative positions, so I don't want to paint too broad a brush.

I'm with you 100% on elected officials abusing trust. I'm not quite there with the voting public though. I think a large portion of the country lives a "hard," life relative to American standards. Very few, if any, voters from all SES backgrounds cast ballots that are entirely altruistic. IMO it's too harsh to toss the label of racist on individuals for being selfish, especially when the prospect of economic boon is dangled like a carrot in front of their face. 

[MMMordabito]

I think for many on the right, they refuse to see privilege or racism as a spectrum and only want to acknowledge it at it's most extreme.  If they don't 'hate' a group, they believe they should be insulated from being called racist, even though with every vote and every talking point they seek to diminish policies that help disenfranchised groups.   That's broad brush, but for my part, the indifference and the self-centered policy choices are a huge part of the systemic problem.

Hmm ... So, live and let live isn't an option if you want to stay out of the racist spectrum? .... I guess I'm a racist then. But if that's all it takes, then I guess I don't really care if someone wants to define me that way.

 

- nasu1970, the racist

[PseudoSABR]

 

Hmm ... So, live and let live isn't an option if you want to stay out of the racist spectrum? .... I guess I'm a racist then. But if that's all it takes, then I guess I don't really care if someone wants to define me that way.

- nasu1970, the racist

Look, I wouldn't call anyone a racist for live-and-let-live, but there is that saying that all evil needs to succeed is for good men to do nothing.  It's the complicity that bothers me, and I don't think we should shield people from the consequences of that complicity and indifference. The term racist isn't very helpful in this regard, and we really don't have a term for such people, but if one isn't working to rid our society of systemic racism, one implicitly tolerates such a society. 

[MMMordabito]

Look, I wouldn't call anyone a racist for live-and-let-live, but there is that saying that all evil needs to succeed is for good men to do nothing.  It's the complicity that bothers me, and I don't think we should shield people from the consequences of that complicity and indifference. The term racist isn't very helpful in this regard, and we really don't have a term for such people, but if one isn't working to rid our society of systemic racism, one implicitly tolerates such a society.

How about just calling us/them complicit, instead of racist? That way you aren't confusing values with priorities. And, before the "values should determine priorities", realize that equity is only one value.

[ewen21]

 

Hmm ... So, live and let live isn't an option if you want to stay out of the racist spectrum? .... I guess I'm a racist then. But if that's all it takes, then I guess I don't really care if someone wants to define me that way.

- nasu1970, the racist

The last thing anyone needs is a bunch of white boys going around screaming..... THAT'S SO RACIST!

 

It's such a BS act, in my opinion.  It is a way to score points (in their own minds) for what they see as altruism.  There is nothing noble about it.  If you want to scream about white people being racist or things that are out of balance racially have the guts to do it both ways otherwise I have no use for you

[ewen21]

Be darn sure it's actually racism before you jump on the wagon I.e. Covington.

[PseudoSABR]

Privileged by Kyle Kover.

 

Edit: Can't recommend this article enough.

[ewen21]

 

Privileged by Kyle Kover.

 

Edit: Can't recommend this article enough.

This statement right here

 

The fact that black Americans are more than five times as likely to be incarcerated as white Americans is wrong. 

 

This statement about the massive incarceration of blacks seems to suggest that it has less to do with the behaviors of the people being incarcerated and more to do with a system looking to incarcerate black people.  If you research the data blacks are far more likely to commit aggravated assault than are whites.  They are far more likely to commit murder and rape than are whites.  These behaviors and actions land you in jail.

 

A fairly large percentage of young black men have for years talked about "keeping it real", meaning "I'll do what I have to do to get what I need" and that leaves little room for empathy or thoughts of any kind of consequence.  If you want to adopt that kind of credo or lifestyle then good luck with that.  it is akin to joining the Hells Angels or some other biker gang where you wear a patch, live like an outlaw and outlaw and bask in the glory of that.  The only thing is, I don't see bikers who adopt that lifestyle crying about how police are mean to them.

 

it is such a mixed message.  Blacks get killed by the hundreds by other blacks in Chicago and other predominantly black areas of the country.  Yet police have trouble convicting killers because "snitches get stitches".  You have these wild hoaxes and silly lies beginning most notably with Tawana Brawley in the1980s.  The gross misrepresentation in Kaepernick's statement about "bodies in the street" because of police officers killing so many blacks, the Michael Bennett lie in Vegas, the "hands up, don't shoot" false narrative that people jumped on, the Jussie Smollett bologna.  It goes on and on.  And if you question it or bring it up you are whining or a racist.  There is a kneejerk reaction by whites to point the finger at other whites like what Korver does in his letter.

 

This Kyle Korver stuff doesn't move me at all.  Sounds like he's a white player in the NBA trying make sense of things and I feel sorry for him.  Maybe he should look at some statistics before he starts spouting this narrative dripping with white guilt.  Maybe his family has been here for 10 generations and they lived in the Jim Crow south or he came from privilege, but that is not my cross to bear.  My grandparents on both sides were immigrants who came here with nothing.  Quotas were actually instituted to control immigration from the countries my family came from.  My father lived in poverty as a child and was the first in his family to attend college and graduate school where he would become an engineer.  I don't owe any ethnic or racial group a damn thing. So I don't buy this white privilege stuff.  If it applies you then suffer inwardly or take action somehow in your own way.  The rest of us don't care about your guilt. 

 

 

 

[PseudoSABR]

 

A fairly large percentage of young black men have for years talked about "keeping it real", meaning "I'll do what I have to do to get what I need" and that leaves little room for empathy or thoughts of any kind of consequence.  If you want to adopt that kind of credo or lifestyle then good luck with that.  it is akin to joining the Hells Angels or some other biker gang where you wear a patch, live like an outlaw and outlaw and bask in the glory of that.  The only thing is, I don't see bikers who adopt that lifestyle crying about how police are mean to them.

I just want to quote this for posterity in case your better judgment persuades you to delete it. (Should you, I could be persuaded to do so as well).

 

Otherwise, your post isn't worth responding to, as you conveniently ignore the fact in the same paragraph that black men are six times more likely to face incarceration for the same crime than whites. No one disputes that the underlying behavior is criminal; that's a straw man. 

[ewen21]

 

I just want to quote this for posterity in case your better judgment persuades you to delete it. (Should you, I could be persuaded to do so as well).

 

Otherwise, your post isn't worth responding to, as you conveniently ignore the fact in the same paragraph that black men are six times more likely to face incarceration for the same crime than whites. No one disputes that the underlying behavior is criminal; that's a straw man. 

I am not going to alter anything I said in the prior post so copy away.

 

You should be aware that Clinton's violent crime bill in 1994 helped to target blacks and is a big reason for the mass incarceration of them.  You've only served to fortify my point that white liberals have exploited and sold blacks down the road worse than anyone.

 

Under Trump they have had the lowest unemployment rate ever for the last several months.  That racist!

 

[Brock Beauchamp]

I am not going to alter anything I said in the prior post so copy away.

 

You should be aware that Clinton's violent crime bill in 1994 helped to target blacks and is a big reason for the mass incarceration of them. You've only served to fortify my point that white liberals have exploited and sold blacks down the road worse than anyone.

 

Under Trump they have had the lowest unemployment rate ever for the last several months. That racist!

White *people* have exploited and sold black people down the road historically. Party hasn’t played much of a role, barring a few twitches of decency now and again (from both parties, mind you).

 

But today, only one party is saying “black lives matter”. Say what you want about historical awfulness but I care more about today than 25 years ago.

[PseudoSABR]

 

I am not going to alter anything I said in the prior post so copy away.

 

You should be aware that Clinton's violent crime bill in 1994 helped to target blacks and is a big reason for the mass incarceration of them.  You've only served to fortify my point that white liberals have exploited and sold blacks down the road worse than anyone.

 

Under Trump they have had the lowest unemployment rate ever for the last several months.  That racist!

Well aware about Clinton's crime bill, one of many reasons I'm not a fan of that President.  Clinton was hardly a liberal.

 

And, just as a person can both have "black friends" and be a racist, a President can have positive outcomes for black people and still be a racist.  

 

And thanks proving my point that you can't even see how problematic and deeply shameful your post which I quoted is.  

[ewen21]

Sorry I'm not moved by the Kyle Korver missive. It might have struck a chord with you because you come from white privlege. I don't so it's not my cross to bear.