AH Challenge: Better Reconstruction

[Diamond]

Who did what a hundred years ago doesn't matter one bit. As you note, the greatest cause of death and suffering among the black community is other black people. Us crazy white people aren't lynching blacks by the thousands; it's poverty and the crime which poverty brings which is the source of the black community's problems. If you actually want it to stop, quit bitching about whose ancestors did what and try to close the wealth gap.

But it's so much easier to blame white people...
"Oh goodness no, we can't admit any culpability ourselves! That's madness!"

 

[Michael E Johnson]

I have done no more to worsen the plight of the poor black population of America than any of you. Can I make it better? Yes. How? By refusing to take the easy way out, and instead of blaming everyone who isn't black, trying to do something about the real factors which are hurting the black communities: poverty, cultural hostility, and explicit racism.

Finally the other shoe.You speak like you are talking about seperate issues but you arent.Racism apolgists love to seperate the poverty and cultural hostility that exists in the black underclass from slavery and racism.But guess what there isnt a seperation they are directly linked.Black people as a whole have never been given and fair or equal shot in this land because of white racism.The fact that so many blacks have had sucess has been in spite of slavery,jim crow and white racism.

 

[Michael E Johnson]

; it's poverty and the crime which poverty brings which is the source of the black community's problems

Actually the slavery and jim crow laws that kept black people in poverty and the white racsim that kept aspiring blacks from rising out of that morass is the source of the black underclass and the poverty and crime that exists in it today.I know you dont (or wont) accept that but it has the benefit of being an historcal fact.

 

[Forum Lurker]

Finally the other shoe.You speak like you are talking about seperate issues but you arent.Racism apolgists love to seperate the poverty and cultural hostility that exists in the black underclass from slavery and racism.But guess what there isnt a seperation they are directly linked.Black people as a whole have never been given and fair or equal shot in this land because of white racism.The fact that so many blacks have had sucess has been in spite of slavery,jim crow and white racism.

What you're talking about is past. If I wanted to compare histories of oppression, I'd beat you by about three thousand years and a hell of a lot more deaths. It's simply a matter of wealth at this point. Close the wealth gap, and racism against blacks will disappear within a generation; fail to close it, and no amount of laws, resolutions, or public declarations of sympathy will stop racism against blacks. The reason blacks are the target of racism much more than Asians, Jews, and other traditional targets of discrimination is simply and solely because the black community remains poor, and that poverty induces crime and cultural hostility.

 

[Forum Lurker]

; it's poverty and the crime which poverty brings which is the source of the black community's problems

Actually the slavery and jim crow laws that kept black people in poverty and the white racsim that kept aspiring blacks from rising out of that morass is the source of the black underclass and the poverty and crime that exists in it today.I know you dont (or wont) accept that but it has the benefit of being an historcal fact.

History. It doesn't matter why the black community is poor. They could have been poor because they donated all of their wealth to starving children in Singapore, and it wouldn't matter. They'd still be poor, and they'd still have the problems of poverty.

 

[Michael E Johnson]

What you're talking about is past. If I wanted to compare histories of oppression, I'd beat you by about three thousand years and a hell of a lot more deaths. It's simply a matter of wealth at this point. Close the wealth gap, and racism against blacks will disappear within a generation; fail to close it, and no amount of laws, resolutions, or public declarations of sympathy will stop racism against blacks. The reason blacks are the target of racism much more than Asians, Jews, and other traditional targets of discrimination is simply and solely because the black community remains poor, and that poverty induces crime and cultural hostility.

LOL

My F finger is itching.

 

[Forum Lurker]

LOL

My F finger is itching.

I bet it is. The urge to refuse to listen to someone with a better claim on oppression than you, and go back to the hidey-hole where the problem is something that you don't need to try to solve because it's someone else's fault, must be overwhelming. Try to resist it.

 

[Michael E Johnson]

I bet it is. The urge to refuse to listen to someone with a better claim on oppression than you, and go back to the hidey-hole where the problem is something that you don't need to try to solve because it's someone else's fault, must be overwhelming. Try to resist it.

Actually what I'm seeing is a person that doesnt face ,and has never faced,the same degree of oppression-in the United States-that blacks have .Said person is saying that the reason that blacks expereince racism is because they are poor and amassing wealth is the only way THEY will ever eliminate whites underserved racism which is what has prevented blacks-unlike whites (of ALL ethnic groups) from amassing wealth in the first place-pretty disgusting.Ahh cant stop it

F-

 

[Othniel]

Disgusting but honest.I give you credit for finally saying it-black slavery isnt a big deal to you.Nor is the racism that resulted from it based on your attitude and what you have said .You are clearly not capable of understanding the concept of degree if you say that the Japanese internemt was worse than slavery-of course your attitude is a typical one in this country -why didnt you just come out a say it earlier?

Slavery is less recent. It happen in a region of a nation I'm not part nor ever was. The japaness internment was worse for me because I know people directly effected and it happen in my own back yard at tipinogous. Rasicism is not realvent to my daily life, nor is it going to be because I will not be rasicst. I have enough problems in my own life, and don't see how you can get off minimizing the accomplishments of those that stuck their necks out so I could live a good life. I'm sure your ansectors are proud people deserving of more than what credit you are giving them. To me its something that might as well be gotten over with. Your form of Racial pride is obviously greater than my form of national pride. History is a thin of intrest and something to be learned from but mistake me not for taking on the burdens of my past.

 

[Superdude]

Actually what I'm seeing is a person that doesnt face ,and has never faced,the same degree of oppression-in the United States-that blacks have .Said person is saying that the reason that blacks expereince racism is because they are poor and amassing wealth is the only way THEY will ever eliminate whites underserved racism which is what has prevented blacks-unlike whites (of ALL ethnic groups) from amassing wealth in the first place-pretty disgusting.Ahh cant stop it

F-

And how much money do you or your family make in a year, sir?

 

[Forum Lurker]

I'm telling you it's a wealth thing because that's what statistics and history have proven. Why are blacks getting bad educations? You can't blame "separate and equal" anymore; it's because their schools are bad, and that's because the districts are poor and crime-riddled. Why do police officers assume that blacks are more likely to be involved in gang crime? Statistically, they're right. Why is someone with a black-sounding name less likely to be hired for a job? Simply the fact that I can say "black-sounding name" and be understood by even a handful of people should tell you that there's a very real cultural gap between blacks and every other group that's been in America for this long. How does this problem get solved? How do blacks cease to be poor, crime-ridden, and culturally divided from their neighbors to an intolerable extreme? Look at history. The Irish, the Italians, the Russian Jews, all of them have been at some point in time exactly where the black community is now. They were poor, they were considered by law and common wisdom to be a separate and inferior race to proper whites, and they were associated with organized and violent crime. You'll notice that these are no longer the case, and this is entirelybecause they assimilated and reached the middle class.

 

[Othniel]

Oh, and compared to the Untouchables in India to the blacks. Whom do you think had it worse? I could be black and argueing these points. In America it is our duty not to hold pointless grudges. I like George Washington Carver, I like invention. I like the twists and turns of politics. But I'm holding myself personally accountable for what I've done.(All 19 years.) I applogize for being defensive when attacked.

 

[Diamond]

How does this problem get solved? How do blacks cease to be poor, crime-ridden, and culturally divided from their neighbors to an intolerable extreme? Look at history. The Irish, the Italians, the Russian Jews, all of them have been at some point in time exactly where the black community is now. They were poor, they were considered by law and common wisdom to be a separate and inferior race to proper whites, and they were associated with organized and violent crime. You'll notice that these are no longer the case, and this is entirelybecause they assimilated and reached the middle class.

That's the core of his idiocy, though. He thinks that because blacks were the slaves of 'proper whites', their remote descendents, from now until the end of time, are entitled to whatever the hell he says they are. Irish, Italians, Russian Jews, were never slaves in the US, and so they automatically suffered nowhere near as badly... And thus are deserving of no special treatment, as blacks are. Besides, a white is a white is a white to him, apparently.

The irony is that I understand what he is saying as far as no other minority in this country has suffered the sheer indignity of being owned as a piece of property. What he needs to see, however, is that 'this too shall pass'. You can't milk it forever. It's getting to the point where it is as asinine as if I was to demand retribution from the Romans because they enslaved the ancestral German tribes I ultimately come from. The past is fucking dead and you have to let it go. There are no Romans anymore; there is no one for me to get my blood money from.

 

[Othniel]

The irony is that I understand what he is saying as far as no other minority in this country has suffered the sheer indignity of being owned as a piece of property. What he needs to see, however, is that 'this too shall pass'. You can't milk it forever. It's getting to the point where it is as asinine as if I was to demand retribution from the Romans because they enslaved the ancestral German tribes I ultimately come from. The past is fucking dead and you have to let it go. There are no Romans anymore; there is no one for me to get my blood money from.

I wonder if it is possible to say the past is dead on an alternate history board. It's more like the past is possiblity.

 

[MerryPrankster]

I bet it is. The urge to refuse to listen to someone with a better claim on oppression than you, and go back to the hidey-hole where the problem is something that you don't need to try to solve because it's someone else's fault, must be overwhelming. Try to resist it.

What is your claim to oppression, by the way?

 

[Forum Lurker]

Judaism. It's a pretty good one.

 

[MerryPrankster]

Judaism. It's a pretty good one.

Ah. Understood.

 

[Spartan]

A Jew should be the last one talking about the plight of Black people, they're no different than the whites that crawled out the caves of Europe.

 

[Forum Lurker]

Right. Because, like all of the other white people, whose history is a monolithic one of fraternity in the oppression of blacks, we have historically been at the top of the social ladder and crushed all other ethnicities beneath our jackbooted heels.

I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you didn't really mean to say the above. I'd hate to think that someone on a board dedicated to exploring history would be so ignorant of it as to believe that Jews A) owned a statistically significant number of slaves, B) were considered "whites" during the period in which slavery was legal, or C) came from Europe in the first place.

 

[Superdude]

Yeah, Jews preetty much deserved what happened to them in the Holocaust.

/sarcasm