Metalwolf wrote:
I'll I can hear from you is, "Black people, you will always be a victim! If things go wrong in your life, blame it on long dead white people, don't take responsibility for any crappy personal decisions! Your life will automatically be better when white people perpetually flagellate themselves and offer you a cheap cash expiation, instead of treating you like an equal and acknowledging that you aren't a child and could figure out how to make your own life better!"
I can't help it if you hear what you want to hear and not what I said. Most people would call that a strawman argument, since I didn't claim that black people are always victims or that they shouldn't take personal responsibility for their lives. But there are some things that are out of their control, which you, as a member of a privileged class, might not be aware of. It's my understanding that affirmative action doesn't mean you don't also have to achieve personally and academically. It just means that historic and current inequalities make achieving as a black person generally more difficult than for a white person. They are given more scrutiny by police (an arrest is bad for future success in employment), they are given harsher sentences for equivalent crimes, until very recently they were denied housing in some areas even if they could afford to live there (and schools are funded by property taxes), in public office their American-ness is questioned (Obama) (if they can transcend gerrymandering in the first place), in the south unjust voter restriction policies reduce their participation in politics, GOP controlled voting districts put fewer polling offices in black areas during elections, from 1981 to 1997, the United States Department of Agriculture discriminated against tens of thousands of Black American farmers, denying loans provided to white farmers in similar circumstances (a practice echoed by many private banks), to cite just a few examples.
15 Nov 2013, 1:37 pm
