smooth

no man, what I tried to say is that you guys keep focusing on racism between individuals and that's not really where the problem lies when we talk about "racism."

If you find discrimination for any reason to be a bad or ugly thing, then you'll hate it when people do it to one another. I'm not disputing that. What I was trying to point out was what we mean by institutional racism.

Also, check this out. When you have systems in place like I wrote about, what do you think happens when you get a bunch of non-racist people interacting? well, you get no ugly words bandied about but you still get all the nasty effects of racism.

Non-racist people still perpetuate racism so long as they operate within institutionalized racism contexts. That's the point and why it's so difficult to pinpoint and address and fix. That's why we say that you can't just "call it good" because people aren't THE problem.

You guys keep asking what happens if this guy does such and such to another guy...well yeah it's fucking racism. I don't know why you need to belabor the point. But it's not the reverse that if this guy doesn't do such and such to another guy that racism is gone.

If we implanted chips in everyone's head and racism as you guys are discussing it ended tomorrow, we would still have the racism that I'm trying to let you guys in on. In fact, this is the major disjuncture. you guys think that we're calling all whites racist or something, I guess. or that we're aiming critique at the individual level.

if you want to answer the question about whether I think that it's purely black vs. white, that's just not the case. I tried to make it clear I was talking about a specific case (the history of blacks and education) so you could take those principles and apply them elsewhere. I chose that specific example because we were talking about Obama.

If we had been talking about McCain, and if we still had discriminatory policies against the Irish, I would have talked about that because their early time in the US was similar to any other ethnic minority.

but the difference between Irish and black discrimination, historically, was the accumulation of capital which blacks were prohibited by law and then by residual effects, they couldn't vote for a long time, and the length of the discrimination. The other thing should be obvious, short of a name there isn't much telling anyone that you're not a WASP, but fuck how the hell can a black man hide his blackness? So when when someone like Obama makes it to the top DESPITE the structural impediments, he still has to deal with interpersonal racism. McCain's family may have had to deal with structural impediments, too. But the difference is that if he somehow makes it out of a shitty school system bad neighborhoods, he doesn't have to deal with as much interpersonal racism anymore. Had this been 150 years ago, he'd be getting similar treatment as any other racial minority granted.



If you fix the structural problems, then interpersonal racism is not going to do much damage other than hurt people's feelings. If you fix interpersonal racism, but don't address structural racism, then everyone will think it's over but the effects of racism will still be in operation.

I don't know how anyone can fuck up my position on this. All of you have been around long enough so even if I didn't post it in this comment I know for a fact that you all have read me post elsewhere that the largest beneficiary of affirmative action is white women. By definition, a "minority" has no power or influence to exert. But that's not the point I was making anyway. The problem is not in interpersonal relations...

I don't know what I was silent in. what did I miss? what should I be outraged over? I know that I haven't been back since my long ass post, so I just got through reading the responses after it. I just find my time better spent elsewhere and most people I think realize that I haven't been here much at all but a few posts over the past year. It's because these kinds of conversations are frustrating not because I disagree with anyone, I disagree with people all the damn time, believe me, I have not many allies in my politics or what I think about the world around me, but the reason is that so many people I think in the back of my head are generally intelligent people who I assume are not just rolling their faces across their keyboard, seem to intent on speaking past one another without making any adjustments in how they think about shit.

Like my post could really not have been posted any clearer, I thought. but now I'm left with my jaw agape at how someone comes away from it thinking that I believe racism to only be a black vs. white thing. if you read what I actually wrote rather than what you think liberals must be saying, then you can even make an argument for black on black racism. you would probably be surprised at the level of black racism scholars who raise that very point...and not in the vulgar way that Cosby does it. And you'd also be able to make sense out of some interesting critiques of the abolishment of separate but equal policies.

There are some very well respected people who argue that it would have been better to keep separate education systems and force the government to adhere to the equal part. Then we'd at least have schools that weren't dirt poor and totally inadequate for training people for Taco Bell registers let alone any knew industries we'd like to create and be competative on the global market.

and if you're wondering why I'm so focused on education it's because normally people are hellbent on arguing over equality at the onset rather than equality of outcome. There's no equality at the onset if the education system is linked to heavily to our country's racist policies of the past...and when people move from my description to the arguments they make over it then that leaves very little left but to try and at least get some equality of outcome from the deal. But believe that we would much rather be addressing this issue at the structural level.
-----Added 21/11/2008 at 10 : 50 : 19-----
Incidentally, when Rev. Wright talks about a "racist america" he's probably talking about it in the sense that I am. but I would suspect that a good portion of his audience are thinking and hearing that america is full of racists. I don't have any data on that, but that's definately how his words are portrayed on the news so at least a good portion of the people not in his pews think he means we are a nation of racists.

but when we think of detroit, we have to think of what it means to live there and what it meant to live there 50, 100, ++ years ago.
back when it was illegal to sell a house to a negro. back when things like buying a car were hard to do until black bankers and black auto dealerships started loaning money to blacks for cars. and until that happened, there was a literally meaning to "the wrong side of the tracks" where you can't just haul your shit in a Glad trash bag to the good side of town.

so while rev. wrights parishioners might hear racism in the sense that the white dude at Tower Records wouldn't hire them, they might forget that it's more because they graduated from a school with a 2.5 GPA and barely know how to read and write as an artifact of shitty education in their historically poor neighborhood than because their skin is black.

but don't forget for a second that the reason they lived in that neighborhood and the reason for their school being so shitty is because of them being black. that's the whole problem with this discussion. it's both because of being black and not because one is specifically black that causes these racial problems that are so concerning. and yes, inter-personal racism is still a problem but discrimination is illegal in a lot of places and venues. hate crime policies are not in place because of inter-personal racism. there are ways to prosecute what happens when a chinese person either doesn't hire, fires, or defaces someone's property. and I'm not making a distinction between nationalism and racism, but if you really want to know about hate crime then you should go read up on it and the reasoning behind it. there are, btw, instances where whites do shit to blacks that can not be prosecuted as a hate crime. but yes, a black person can be prosecuted for a hate crime against a white person and chinese vs. korean; but like many things, the argument is less about what actually happens, but it's because you guys don't understand why hate crime came about and what it intends to stop.

__________________
"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

Cynthetiq

because dc and filth have both stated in several posts in this conversation and others, that it isn't racism, because racism requires power and subjegation to be racism.

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

smooth

I was the one who said something close to that. But even I didn't say that, I said that when people like roachboy and myself discuss racism (and I only spoke for him, it's the only time I can remember doing so, because we both have sociology hats in our hampers; it's not a liberal thing, see, it's a sociology thing. my wife, a psychologist would focus on racism at the individual level, too. but the difference is, she wouldn't mire herself into ONLY understanding it as such...just like roachboy and myself do not ONLY understand racism at the institutional level), we are doing it from a systems perspective and it's the cross-talk between people who only see racism as a individual acts vs. those of us discussing the problems of racism that exist at the systems' level, that makes it so discussion breaks down.


You did the very thing I was writing about. A pointless red-herring that doesn't clarify anything, it only served to disrupt the conversation about the problems directly related to racism in this country and its institutions. The way you've been carrying on appears like you don't really want to know what people who are talking about the problems related to racism mean when we talk about it. It comes across as you trying to trip people up by pestering their sentences without profit because the conclusion you try and draw from the confusion isn't warranted. how does what you were trying to point out rebut the point I raised that racism is about subjugation and power? you never developed that portion of what I thought you were trying to clarify.

I scrolled back and the first time you tried to raise this red-herring DC was the first to reply to you and he wrote pretty clearly that those were not acts of institutional racism.

Filtherton was replying to your posts as he tried to make sense of what you were writing. But he couldn't, because your basic concepts about the topic do not reflect how things normally are defined. He finally gave up and just flat out asked you what you meant.

there is no such thing as a "minority using their power and influence to maintain barriers to equal opportunity" because if an ethnic group can do that they are, by definition, not a minority in discussions about racial discrimination at the system's level.

you list a bunch of non-racial groupings and ask them to come up with rational explanations as to why that is or is not racism. in everyday common language, it's racism for lack of a better term because most people do not want to explain the problems with using "race" as a signifier. Some people want to use racism in a technical manner. To them, those acts are nationalism. That's correct, too. The breakdown was less about trying to figure out what racism is than a problem with coming to terms with what constitutes race. There's a problem from a scientific standpoint in defining people from a racial standpoint. And if you want to force that out of people, then you should realize there are only three scientific races and if we gotta use them, they don't break out in the way you categorized people.

what you did was float the idea that racism is only when one race discriminates against another race, but then challenged people to explain why discrimination between caucosoids isn't racism. And why isn't discrimination between mongoloids labeled racism? Do you see how you are confusing things by moving across problematic categories and using a strict definition for racism when you explain your point and then challenging people when they try to answer your questions by using the same strict standard you are employing?

Everyone agreed that it was some form of discrimination, but you still refused to let it go. When different groups discriminate against one another at the individual level, grant that we all can see that as some form of discrimination that should not continue. I even agreed that I'll go ahead and call the examples you are worried about "racism"...can we move on?

somehow that wasn't enough. because that's all you took away from my post! your only reply to my thoughts were, well filtherton and DC_dux said such and such. well aside from the fact that they didn't, it's not really relevant because I'm moving the discussion forward...or trying to at least by explaining where we see the real root of the problem. that's why I classified the last two pages as pointless red herrings, because you didn't even address the larger points. you just nitpicked some minor points and then moved on without even engaging with the lengthy explanation of what we are trying to talk about.

you go on and on about discrimination against the Irish, from Pakistani to Indian, from Chinese to Korean. It makes no sense...if your point was to ask those questions to rebut the argument that racism is about power and subjugation, how do those support such an argument?

Do you have any knowledge about the schism between all those groups you listed?
Each and every example you listed supports the general point I made about power and subjugation regardless of whether you see them as nationalists, racists, ethnic groupings, or "racial" groupings.

Hate crimes are not based solely on racially motivated crimes. Your assumptions about hate crime legislation is factually wrong yet you have a stance on it and built an argument around that stance.

no, no it's not. you spent all this time and energy trying to get people to disagree with a straw man you built about their responses instead of addressing the points I raised in my post explaining why this statement of yours can't work.

How do you get fairness to everyone when structures that prepare people for society are inherently racist because they embody the historical development of racism in our country?

how can we operate in a color blind society while at the same time our basic institutions, such as public education, are reproducing racist policies that used to be codified?

in this sense, how is racism anywhere near dead in the US?

__________________
"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

Cynthetiq

Cynthetiq post

Please note that in the above post I did agree with the institutional racism aspect for the purpose of this discussion, but I also stated that I do not agree that once it has been removed and settled will not remove it.

My point on hate crimes I've elaborated on a different thread, but it is mostly easily understood from this write up:

New York's Hate Crimes Act of 2000: problematic and redundant legislation aimed at subjective motivation | Albany Law Review | Find Articles at BNET

You have your thoughts on how to discuss and "fix" this situation of racism. I have mine.

My questions re: the confusion, filth put that to rest simply and I agreed that it is nationalism. Which is why DC suggested I "conveniently" change my position. No it wasn't convenient, it was corrected by another member, and my point of trying to understand this discussion of racism has put me on the outside of the racism discusssion since as a non-european or african american race, I'm excluded from having racism (your institutional definitions) affect me, yet somehow I know and feel like a person who has been sidelined and marginalized because I don't fit into those races but am also equally affected by the policies and situations created.

Your solution, having to discuss and theorize about the past as a prerequisite understanding to order to postulate a solution, interests me only from a historical perspective and not a solution perspective.

Sometimes, not having that baggage can be the path to finding the solution. It is looking at the problem from outside the box, and not within the confines and restraints of the situation and system, but to actually break the system and rebuild it in a new paragidm.

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

smooth

Yeah, well the difference is I wrote two full pages about the problems endemic to one of our primary social structures that is supposed to guarantee equality of opportunity, and you wrote one sentence.

I wrote a historical analysis of what actually occurred, no theory at all as a matter of fact, and you wrote, "If you want things to be equal it's not about dominant institutional practices, it's about fairness to everyone regardless of color, creed, etc."

If you think that's a "fix" to the problem outlined above, please explain how it addresses fundamental inequality in our schooling system.

It's interesting to me that you speak of paradigm shifting yet even in this last response you still conceive of racism as an interpersonal act...of something that someone is currently doing to you as a function of your race. If you want to practice paradigm shifting, try to shift out of that modality and into this one where we are speaking about racism as it permeates social institutions regardless of people's actions and thoughts.


It's not theory Cyn, it's historical fact that blacks were restricted from accumulating capital by law. This didn't happen 100 years ago, when you and I were attending primary school, Black families in Detroit could still legally be prevented from buying homes and were not allowed to bus their children to the better schools in white neighborhoods.

Even today you can't just choose to send your child across the street if it happens to be a top-notch school with current textbooks and enough desks for its students IF you are not in the same ZIP code.

And if you think that's a mere coincidence, realize this: if you look at a top-down map of Los Angeles, what you'll find is something that looks kind of like doughnuts of ZIP codes. Where the hole in the center is a wealthy zone, and all around it is poverty stricken zones with depressed housing prices.

This came about literally because small groups of wealthy whites moved closer together and successfully lobbied their local politicians to give the area its own ZIP code. So you literally end up with a shit-hole school on one side of the street that services 20,000 students, even though the local tax dollars can barely keep the teachers paid to say nothing about buying textbooks. And on the other side of the street you have a bad-ass state of the art school with a teacher to student ratio of 20:1 since it only services about 3,000 children, with not only textbooks, but also each student has access to a brand new, state of the art, computer lab.

Let's ignore the fact that all of the kids are toting laptops and iphones. You don't need them to learn. It's a lot easier and more fun, but you sure don't need them. But you certainly need a textbook and desk to learn effectively. I'd argue that you need a computer, too, these days, but I can accept that some people wouldn't agree.

It'd be nice if our public library system could help. You know, like if there were even 10 computers and 10 copies of a current chemistry and algebra book on the shelf. I mean, it'd be a clusterfuck trying to get everyone access to such limited supplies, but the problem is that public libraries are funded similarly to schools so they don't even have 10 of anything...in fact, public libraries are shutting down in impoverished communities.

And you're right, this no longer affects just black kids. It's a big fucking problem for poor white people...you don't have to go any further than Southern Oregon to find out what happens when poor white kids' schools shut their doors and public libraries can only stay open for 8 hours per week.

It's a huge problem. But when I talk about something like that, I am often accused of "class warfare." But the exact sequence of events that I'm describing that happened to blacks historically, is the same reason that roachboy made the comment earlier that schools perpetuate the class structure in US society. They don't really lift you out of deprivation, they make the problems the parents face those of the children generation after generation...until someone is lucky or crafty enough to send their kid across the street to that nice new school in Beverly Hills. Usually by lying about where they actually live, but sometimes because certain schools actually reach out and bring in a few promising students each year.

Cyn, it's a scientific fact that the first few years of childhood development are critical to that child's cognitive abilities that will affect him or her over the entire lifespan. There's a separate social fact that the school you take your degree from has a direct effect on the places that are open to you for hiring. Given that, we have to address the problem, whatever the cause, that puts some kids in classrooms with 200 students while other students are sitting in classrooms with 20 students and prepares some students for community college while the others are prepared for CalTech; some will learn geometry because the school had enough books and classroom space and a teacher actually able to teach the course...while in the other school everyone will learn geometry. Some will be lucky if their school offers Spanish, while at the other school the kids have the option of learning not only Spanish, but Chinese, Russian, and German. Some are going to be struggling to take a class on English composition simply as a function of the rooms available, not because they can't handle it. Meanwhile, every student in the other school has a choice to take drama, 3D modeling, animation, and film making.

To their credit, major corporations have long since realized that racism-schmacism if kids keep dropping out or graduating totally incapable of working the tools of a modern economy, we'll fall even further behind the rest of world as our workers are unable to compete in a global market. Hence, microsoft, apple, SUN, adobe, for example, have long assisted inner city schools with free and reduced pricing on current products. That's not too effective if the school can't hire teachers capable of actually teaching C++. Some companies even send out reps to teach, knowing this is a problem, but I think you can do the math...they're barely scratching the surface.

We haven't even scratched the surface, Cyn. We still haven't discusses what happens from a development standpoint when one student gets adequate rest and a full breakfast, while another goes to bed slightly hungry. We haven't added in the problems of a school system that can afford to hire guidance counselors and give them a caseload of 10 students they are responsible for tracking over the course of their educational career. Meanwhile, a guidance counselor at an inner-city school, if they can even afford any, is charged with "guiding" 3,000 kids. Is it any wonder that the best intentioned counselor at such a school will only notice if one of those 3,000 kids is getting straight F's for a few semesters? Basically if you totally fuck up or just ridiculously excel, you simply won't be on anyone's radar as a basic function of numbers. Totally nothing to do directly with race at this stage of the game. But will that excelling student have MIT recruiters talking to his class? Will he or she even know that MIT exists as something to strive for unless someone in his or her life actually thinks it's worthwhile to say something about MIT? That's a lot of ifs...

We have to address this entrenched inequality if we claim that we are concerned, as a nation, with equality of opportunity because public primary education is the gateway to the opportunities kids will be faced with for the rest of their lives. Adequate training is a pre-requisite for remaining competitive in the global market.

How do you propose we address it?

__________________
"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

Cynthetiq

in fixing the school systems, that's a whole different thing.

I lived in LA I lived in the doughnut hole growing up. I know about poor people and having to interact with gang members just so that I could ride my bike to my friends houses.

First, don't tie it to the housing market and tax bases of the area. I don't have kids, don't plan on it , but I know that's the game of the housing market so that's how I have to shop for a home.

But simply smooth, you are talking classism, not racism by the simple basis of there are poor in all countries. Yet they seem to still have the same strife and problems, there are people who seem to come out of those places somehow. Some of them even get enough money to emmigrate to the US of A.

New York seems to celebrate those that come from the poor neighborhoods and succeed. I don't see much of that from other cities. I don't know the reasons why, but there are many people that have come from the poor parts of the outer boroughs and achieved and succeeded.

Maybe it's because they have to compete directly with immgrants who come here fighting for the same jobs and if they don't they continue to have not.

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

smooth

Class and race intertwine. So does gender, incidentally. We call that multiple marginality.
So a poor white person experiences discrimination differently from a poor black person.
A poor white women experiences disadvantages differently than poor black males.
Radical feminists argued that poor, black, homosexual females simultaneously experience four layers of discrimination.


Education funding from the government is class based. There's a lot of problems with leaving the analyis at the class level, however, but that's a good start and it's not inaccurate to discuss class issues. Usually, people who attempt to do so are accused of engaging in class warfare. I would not be "simply" talking classism if you'd understand the concept of institutional racism. I hope you go back and re-read my posts or perhaps look somewhere else for a more elaborate definition. I'm not sure how you take my historical examples of de jure segregation giving rise to de facto segregation and distill them into "classism." If there was a historical legal context of preventing white minorities from educating their children, owning homes, and voting thereby preventing them from building economic, political, and social capital, then you'd have a stronger argument.


If you're actually interested in this stuff, there's a canon of discrimination literature available for the asking. If you don't have a certain amount of the literature under your belt, then people who know about it aren't likely to take your views on it with much weight. I'm not talking about here in this context, we're just forum avatars bouncing ideas around. I mean if you encounter someone who wants to have a serious discussion in real life...or maybe if you're curious and want to base your opinions on more than speculation and a collection of anecdotes.

You might be interested to start at the beginning:
I'd suggest reading some stuff from Omi & Winant
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Winant
Here's something I thought you might find interesting:
http://www.essortment.com/all/analysesrace_rspo.htm
(I read it...I found it while googling for links to stuff I knew about to link for you. So if you agree or disagree with portions of it, let me know and we can take it from there; don't just assume I agree with everything I'm posting for you to consume or that everything is coming from a radical leftist perspective)

You could also check out some writing about world systems theory.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Wallerstein

I'm trying to remember two other theorists that you might enjoy reading. Well, one you would enjoy, the other you would just have to endure because he's dry as shit.

It's probably also important to note that the critical race theory started out as a critique of liberalism. It's not like all these people are coming from the left. Much of the project was to argue that the leftists could not speak for the racially oppressed since they represented the views of the dominant racial paradigm. As an example that you might understand, some of the harshest critiques of white feminists were from black feminists not from conservatives. It's like building blocks, it's not really going to be profitable to try and glean anything from just one block.

__________________
"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

Cynthetiq

i already had trial by fire with triple dips over 40 black woman that I couldn't fire even though she was incompetent because the company was afraid of a discrimination lawsuit. Nice to know that there's yet another layer for lawyering if she was a homosexual...

please provide a link, I'll try to read when I can.

As far as historical, I don't argue that point. What I point at is there are immigrants who come here with little knowledge/education/money. Yet these people seem to be able to break out of the cycle of poverty which you keep saying is so institutional that once someone is within the confines of it, nothing escapes it.

I'm not requiring that people become CEOs, presidents, state senators, etc. yet you and dc continue to site those as points that requirement to show advancement. I'm simple thinking that they could be better to themselves and their community.

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

smooth

Those immigrants you're talking about are not poor by their countries standards. Very few come with low knowledge, I'm not sure where you get that idea from. Most immigrants are middle/upper-middle class professionals. The ones we hear about most often are migrant farm workers, but those are not representative of immigration patterns. Keep this in mind, except for Mexico where you can literally walk here, it takes substantial capital to migrate trans-nationally. Most of our migrants were white collar workers in the countries they came from.

Secondly, immigrant communities have informal systems to counter-act the lack of formal systems in the US. They do not "make it" independently. When a migrant mexican, russian, chinese, immigrates to the US they come to specific communities that are already established.

You should know this, since you came from Los Angeles.
Ethnic minorities have communities where wealthy benefactors can subsidize private business loans and provide housing. They assist one another in child care and learning English. Many come on education VISAs. These communities have capital and they can share it with newcomers. Black communities have none of this for the reasons I outlined earlier.


I've never said anything about "requiring that people become CEOs, presidents, state senators." I also never said that something is so institutional that nothing escapes from it. I would never say that nothing escapes from it and besides that I really encourage you to think of it more in terms of systems than entities. I get the sense you are thinking of it as like a building. Like a public institution or something...it's not.

__________________
"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

Cynthetiq

sorry to have lumped you in with dc and SMeth, that's them who've made that requirement.

One of the reasons that I so enjoy where I live is because I'm experiencing a different immigrant experience than what I grew up with in LA. I can agree that some are white collared workers, but many are just people who are looking to come to the US with a dream for a better life. The immigration history shows a good diversity of people from classes and workforces.

The Nigerians that are here, aren't white collar, they were just poor workmen who saved their money for passage to the US. There isn't much of a Nigerian community here in NYC, but it is growing.

I've actually watched the NYC area grow it's Mexican groups, there are now good carnecerias and taquieras which when I first moved here were very difficult to find authentic Mexican foods. There are Mexicans that have migrated to NYC and have grown their community. It is a very different community than the ones that live in the barrios of LA.

I could go on, but that's not the point, it is just something that I find interesting.

Structures and community? Maybe for the established, but I know that there are some that migrate with no or small community. My parents emmigrated to the US when there was no Filipino community in LA. Interestingly enough, my own frustration of this process is that they too have not established themselves as a strong community to help each other as the Chinese, Korean, Japanese, etc. and they are one of the largest communities after the Chinese. So when my parents wanted to borrow monies they borrowed from banks, not these "wealthy benefactors" you mention. There is no Filipino Action League or community group to assist other Filipinos. Now, here's where the institutional part is determined, since you're saying that blacks aren't gettting loans and quite possibly that is probably true back in the days my parents first arrived.

Now what about the people like Magic Johnson, Robert L. Johnson, Oprah Winfrey, Bill Cosby, Spike Lee, Russell Simmons, Sean Combs, etc.? We know they give back to their communities, they are trying to do so based on the philantropic efforts. So the infrastructure you are talking about is being built and does exist to some degree. The community where I live is 36,000 housing units, 18,000 are low income, Henry Street Settlement assists a large part of the community with social services.

I worked with an exNBA player that did lots of philanthropic work, but why doesn't this seem to impact the communities?

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

dc_dux

I didnt know that facts can make one lumpy.

According to a recent GAO report, black small business owners are not treated equally as white small business owners...fact!
According to a recent US State Department report, housing discrimination against minorities is still widespread.....fact!

Unlike you, i triied to bring factual information and not just anecdotal stories into the discussions.

But thanks for the lumpy insight!

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

Cynthetiq

I don't understand how one can say it is a fact and not have any persecution against those that are discriminating towards blacks, if it is a fact since there are supposedly laws already in place to address this.

As far as business owners not treated equally can you explain what that means better please?

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

dc_dux

cyn....I only got back into this discussion after you used my name in vain.

I am not lumpy....I am a lean, mean liberal machine.

Discrimination towards black small business owners....from a June 2007 GAO report I posted in the other tiring discussion on AA:
As is noted, the fact that current laws dont require lenders to collect or provide personal data, including race make it difficult to conclude with 100% certainty.

Why hasnt discrimination in lending, housing, employment, voting, etc. been prosecuted?

Simple, at least for the last eight years, the Bush DoJ chose to ignore its responsibilities to uphold the federal civil rights and voting rights laws and ignored or fired any DoJ attorneys who tried to do their job.

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

Cynthetiq

And Clinton DoJ did?

Since lending is based on risk, are black businesses a bigger risk because of location? or is the risk the same because of income and ability to pay?

Since it can't be said 100%, is it fair to at least understand someone's skepticism?

Here's a question:
I purchased a home in a predominately black neighborhood. I've had only black applicants. None have been creditworthy based on the criteria to my property manager which rents another property of mine in a white neighborhood. Is that an example of institutional racism? Should I be renting to someone who doesn't fit the criteria to be able to afford based on the similar criteria? Or should I be lowering my standards and taking more risk?

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

dc_dux

The Clinton DoJ did a better job, but also fell short, IMO.

In spire of that, Obama's selection of Eric Holder as AG is a great choice. He was the Deputy AG for the DoJ Civil Rights Division under Clinton.

Did you read what the report concluded:

African-American owned small businesses are denied loans more often or pay higher interest rates than white-owned businesses with similar risk characteristics

IMO, you're nitpicking, but feel free to read the full report if you're interested.

Public policy can rarely be defended based on 100% certainty of the results or unintended outcomes or impacts. But the preponderance of evidence should carry greater weight that biased anecdotes.

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

Cynthetiq

sorry I stopped at white owned businesses.

Does this just all fall on the USAG? What about the individual states? If what you are saying is true, then aren't they remiss also in persuing such discrimination if it exists?

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

dc_dux

Discrimination cases at any level are difficult to proscecute because intent is so difficult to prove.

But failure to prosecute is not an excuse to throw away the legal remedies.

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

smooth

how do you expect someone to take you seriously when you said you didn't bother to read past half the sentence answering your other question?

how do you expect someone to prosecute for a crime that has to be proven when the basis of the complaint is statistical trends that are hard to discern based on the fact that factors relevant to the crime aren't being collected?

that is, the trend says something but can't definitively conclude it's based on race because lenders don't collect that data...but you think any prosecutor, state or federal, would be able to take the case without the evidence of race based exclusionary policies?

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"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

Cynthetiq

One of the reasons I've not been posting alot as of late, and why most of my posts are short are because I've been rather busy at the office. I could have easily not admitted to the fact, to which I apologized for doing so. It's as serious as you wish to take it. That's your choice, not mine. I'm involved in the conversation as much as I can.

And why don't the lenders collect that data? Is it because they aren't allowed to or do not wish to be prosecuted as discriminatory because an actual trend would show up? So then isn't the answer simply put a check box there to indicate race? My last mortgage required me to to fill out many boxes, an optional one was race. I declined to answer.

I'm failing to understand how lending practices are able to follow the no racial bias but then are being scrutinized as having done so.

I was under the impression that all banks in neighborhoods are required to invest in local businesses via lending. There are banks in poor neighborhoods, agreed that there aren't as many as in richer neighborhoods.

Then what is that solution? More AA type mechanisms?

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

dc_dux

That was the case until Bush (using an executive order and changing the intent of the law) gutted the Community Reinvestment Act effectively enabling more than 95% of banks that serve minority communities to bypass that requirement to invest (lend) in community businesses.

added:
we know republicans hate the CRA, but before anyone brings up the myth that the CRA was responsible for the housing crisis, most CRA home loans were not subprime loans and were under a much stricter review and approval process.

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

Cynthetiq

as a registered republican, no I do not hate the CRA. I expected the CRA to do what it is intended which is ensure that the community the banks are in keep the money in the community and not funnel it out completely.

can you explain more what the bush admin did specifically?

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

dc_dux

My mistake for tarring all republicans with a broad brush.

Here is an explanation from a democratic congressman on the actions by Bush, not by Executive Order, but through FDIC regulations:

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

Locobot

It's pretty ironic this thread exists on the same page as one questioning "Is Obama a house negro?"

Italianman137

racism is never gonna die. trust me