Alma wrote:
You stated something along the lines of "until there is something better than affirmative action, I will support it", which means that you do not believe that there is anything else better than AA.
Saying "until there is something better than affirmative action, I will support it" is not equivalent to saying "AA is the best & only solution". False Equivalent!
Instead, I'd love to hear you solve the issues of White Privilege, the generational wealth disparity, & economic policies that keep the brotha's down. Ya know, since you know better and everything.
Gbaji wrote:
Jesus F'ing Christ. Are you kidding me?
No; African Americans, the VAST majority whom are descendents of slaves, have been at an economic disadvantage in American society since slavery. This is a fact. If you'd like to dispute it, I'd love to see a cite.
Gbaji wrote:
Ok. But the habitual refusal to look at anything but the BS "descendants of slaves" angle prevents us from addressing the far more significant causes of that wealth gap. Even when I pointed it out to you, you backpedaled, but *still* failed to look at anything else.
What's a bigger contributing factor to how much money someone can make over their lifetime? I thought you agreed it was whom their parents are? If their parents are African Americans, they've descended from slaves & their family has ALWAYS been at a disadvantage. AA addresses this disadvantage for a small percentage of African Americans whom can use it to pass on wealth to THEIR descendents, but I don't feel it goes far enough to solve the cause of that disadvantage.
Gbaji wrote:
Do you think it happened because they are descendants of slaves? Or maybe it happened because of government treating them differently because they are descendants of slaves? I'm going with the latter.
It happened because George W. Bush doesn't care about African Americans & cares more for his rich white friends. I'm sorry, that can't be proven. What CAN be proven is Dubya's economic policies benefited rich white folks MUCH more than poor black folks, which caused the loss in wealth for blacks.
Gbaji wrote:
Yes. Get rid of (or dramatically alter) the Community Reinvestment Act. You do realize that the reason blacks were more often steered into sub prime loans is *because* those programs were advertised and supported politically as programs designed to help poor and minority people become home owners. It's an affirmative action program embedded into FHA. How can you tout how many black people you helped become home owners if you don't steer black people into the program?
Do you see how the "help" isn't really helping? That's what I'm trying to say.
I agree it didn't truly help, but for different reasons and motivations. Those programs
were advertised and supported politically as programs designed to help poor and minority people become home owners, but in reality were just another way rich white folks in the banking industry were trying to make cash off of poor black folks whom couldn't afford the loans to begin with. I'm glad they got what was coming to them.
Oh, wait, we just bailed them out & told them not to do it again while doing nothing to help the folks MOST screwed over; the poor black folks whom lost their money & their homes!
Gbaji wrote:
How? For the love of God tell me how you think one has anything to do with the other? We're not likely to try Bush for war crimes related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan either, so by your logic that's responsible for a wealth gap between the races too? One has nothing to do with the other, but it's bizarre how you're trying to tie the failure to do one to the failure to fix the other.
Erm, the Bush tax cuts disproportionally give rich white folks tax breaks while poor black folks pretty much didn't benefit from them at all. Furthermore, ending them puts more tax revenue into the system that can be used for other things that COULD benefit poor black folks. Don't bother saying "ending tax cuts is a tax increase!" or "ending the tax cuts doesn't create revenue": we've been down that road & I disagree.
Gbaji wrote:
We don't need more money put into those programs. We need less. The only way black people are going to change their collective position is to pursue (and achieve) individual success. And that requires opportunity and the abandonment of the current liberal socio-political approach to black poverty. We need more Rice's and fewer Sharpton's. Arguing to just take more money to fund programs which have not only failed for the last 40 years to address that racial wealth gap, but have arguably made it worse, is absolutely foolish. But so many people are so invested in the assumptions behind those policies, that it's incredibly hard to get them to abandon them as failures.
Hell, it's hard to get people to just stop repeating the rhetoric and look at the actual issue.
Spoken like someone whom believes he's earned everything he has in life on his own & expects darkies to do the same. But guess what? Some of what you have is
unearned. You got it for no other reason than you are a white person, living in a society run (mostly) by & for white people. You've got a MUCH better chance than an African American to: not be in jail, get an education, get a job, get credit, get access to healthcare, get a car, buy a house, get a "good" mortgage...and the list goes on.
If you have any of the above things, you have them in part because you're white. So much for a post racial society, eh?
You're disadvantages: You're less likely to make it in the big leagues (Well, NFL & NBA).
Edited, Dec 6th 2011 3:10am by Omegavegeta