What, the time machine stuff isn't enough? As Louis said, you're an asshole!

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that was great Tyral, thanks. Looking for more of that guy.

He's fucking awesome. I was howling through his Chewed Up show, but all of his stuff is great. Especially whenever he starts talking about his kids.

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While the time machine stuff is actually somewhat true (Did I really just say that? Why am I even discussing it?) I don't see how that relates to the modern day.

Ok, so women couldn't vote some-odd generations ago. But they can now. Does that mean I have some advantage now?

Do I have some inherent advantage over blacks because they were enslaved ages ago? Hey, my ancestors were enslaved and oppressed generations ago, too! Crap, maybe that's why I didn't get my bag of gold.

http://www.areteadventures.com/articles ... apsack.pdf

A well-regarded article amongst race theorists that attempts to answer your question (or at least the whiteness part of it). I'd be interested to hear what you think about it.

white males don't have centuries of being repressed behind them, and a heritage unlike institutionalized denial of opportunity. for someone who puts on a facade of being smart, you're sure playing dumb here.

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I think your reply here sorta proves my point. I give evidence X to prove Y, but you suggest X has a freckle.

Not really sure what I'm deviating away from - I fully admit I'm not making any grand claims here, but I found it unfortunate that you wouldn't concede the small point that avoiding an argument by ignoring it and making an irrelevant point is somewhat fallacious.

Replace Hitler with "bad entity X" and the point remains quite accurate. Thus the silliness of claiming "omgah Godwin", but that's another matter =)

Um, no. The issue here (On the guns issue) has been a pretty wide-based discussion covering a lot of points.

You, however, want to focus on a singluar point regarding the use of guns to defend us from the government. But the dicussion isn't just about that, and when we try to steer it back into the wide field that it had previously occupied, you played some strange Hitler analogy.

There's, "Hitler used vitamin C too, you still like vitamin C?!?!" and then there's, "Look, asbestos is bad for you, maybe you should stop eating it." ...the two aren't remotely the same.



I shall go and read!

How about average income, average unemployment, etc? Just being born white you and I have the roll of the dice in our favor. Regardless of whether we are below income or are unemployed, we still had a better chance at it than those who weren't born white. Generally being born into a stable, well-to-do family would be a serious blessing if everyone got it.

But the roll of the dice doesn't entirely end when you're born into a family. Applying for jobs(Yes, there's a good amount of affirmative action, but for every one of those there's likely equal or more instances of racism), general racism, and other social factors are nice little benefits as well.

And if we go further into the white "male" portion, there are even more discrepancies where women get paid less for the same job.

We have it better. Maybe we're not a gigantic leap ahead of everyone else, but it's hardly a worse situation as some of the white male martyrs would have you believe.

Again, the overall discussion isn't just about that, but the specific point being responded to was. The out-in-left-field manuver happens when I say "A is bad" and you respond with "B is bad". Both topics are covered in the thread, but the response is irrelevant to the dialogue and context.

The Hitler analogy goes to prove one point and one point alone: That a solid point can be made(that Vitamin C is generally good for you regardless of what purposes it could be used for), and that point is completely ignored by focusing on an irrelevant aspect by suggesting it's a negative example on the basis that Vitamin C was utilized to the ends of evil purposes.

Ok, I've made it part-way through the article! Lemme try to address a few.



Blacks can't hang out with blacks? Hispanics can't find hispanic friends? Even if that were the case, I don't understand this one aside from being a matter of population. (Which isn't even true in many areas. Where I work, for example, there is a massive hispanic population. Some days I will see many more "minorities" than I will whites.)



Ok, what does this prove? That blacks can't make money? This seems to be entirely the opinion of the author.



Again, a baseless opinion, just assuming that if you're a minority you can't expect people to be nice? And that if you're white people will just cheer at your arrival, or at least not throw rocks at you? Maybe I'm some advanced Star Trek man from the future, but I'm nice to white, black, hispanic, asian alike and address and treat them all kindly and respectfully until given reason to do otherwise. (And if a black man turns out to be a jerk, I'm sure I'll be a racist if I decide I don't like him.)



Again, I don't understand where the author is getting these ideas. Want to REALLY get harassed in a store alone? Be under 18 and walk in the door. But just being black or hispanic? I don't get that one. (Note: If you happen to be black and walk into the door wearing "thug" or "gangsta" apparel and walking/acting like a sterotypical g-dawg or whatever, don't cry race when people react to you accordingly. Double note: People will react the same way when a white person dresses/acts this way.)



Granted, there are many more whites on TV than blacks, at least in my experience. I don't understand what advantage this presents to me, or if I should feel better about myself because of it.



I'm not a history major, but it did seem as though whites were the "big players" in the creation of the nation. Granted, this was probably because blacks weren't allowed to play a role. And yes, there are many historical elements of our nations youth that DO incorporate blacks.

But again, I don't understand what advantage this affords me. I don't identify with those fat, rich white men in wigs and funny outfits any more than a black man does.



I work in a library. We have tons of books and materials that have hispanic/black pictures/characters. But again, I don't understand what advantage in life it would afford me if every kid in a book was white.



This one went right over my head.



Really? Really? You been to a record store lately? I can't swing a dead cat without hitting 4 new hip-hop artists or something.

And as for the hair, I'm sure I can find hairstylists that can't deal with my hair, either. (And I have.)

But for the Nth time, what advantage does finding more Billy Joel CD's than Fifty Cent CD's afford me in life?



People will judge you on a LOT of stupid things when it comes to money. Will they judge your financial situation solely on race? I suppose they could if they're assholes.



This one went right over my head too.



I guess the author has never heard of "white trash" before. But sure, if you're a jerk and happen to be black, someone might call you a black jerk or something. There's also plenty of cases (rednecks, hicks, white trash, inbred southerners, trailer trash, po'white folk, etc) where people's failings get blamed on their race/status/etc and they aren't black.

The flip side is, if you're white, you don't get to blame your lifes failings on white folk oppressing you, either!



???



???



Ok, granted, this is actually true...you do get a lot of, "You're black, what do you think?" from some people. I don't know what advantage in life this gives me though.



Really? Sure, if you're totally oblivious I guess you won't notice (That's what oblivious means, after all.) but I'll be damned if us Americans don't take a lot of shit for the stereotype of not caring about any other culture in the world. (Even if we do.)

That's as far as I got so far. Even if many of those things are true (And I'm not saying they are.) I don't see what "advantage" they give me in life. A lot of them are just, "I don't like...." sorts of things.

Oddly missing from that is "I make the same average income as a person of color".

I will concede that my far-far-less-than-desirable situation in my childhood may in part color my opinion regarding the "better start" stuff in terms of being white.

I do agree, but the problem is that the issue of "an armed populace being able to repel an oppressive government" cannot be analyzed in a vacuum.

Yes, an armed populace can do so. I do not disagree. But we cannot just look at that one fact and ignore all the accompanying issues surrounding it.

Kinda like the asbestos comment. You can say that it tastes good and insist that I don't divert the topic into the fact that it more than certainly cannot be good for you. But that doesn't mean that it's not a factor just because you want to focus on the yummy taste.

Yeah, I'm a little tired of hearing this bullshit about the "better start." I grew up in a single-wide mobile home. My wife grew up in motels with weekly rental rates. Is it true that some whites have a better start than some minorities? Of course it's true, just as some minorities have a better start than some whites. Even with the numbers skewed one way or the other, to ignore the fact that there are millions of whites living in poverty because it doesn't support your argument is just bullshit.

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(Another post?!)



I felt the need to further address this one in particular. This is not a white vs. minorities thing, this is a factor whenever you have a person of one group dealing with another group.

Men tend to treat women as a singular, monolithic bloc. Women tend to do the same to men. People of one race tend to do it to another. People in a particular social group or nationality or economic status tend to do it to people in others. (In fact, the author is doing it!)

It's just human nature, not some element specific to whites vs. blacks.

You know, one thing that strikes me about some of the stuff I'm reading on poverty is that families with a single mother as the head of the household tend to have much, much higher poverty rates, regardless of race (married couples have a poverty rate of 4.9%, whereas single parent female heads of households had a poverty rate of 28.3% vs. males with only 13.6%). Looking over the National Center for Health Statistics website, some of the info I found there was interesting when compared to poverty rates.

White children born out of wedlock: 26.6%
Whites in poverty: 8.2%

Hispanic children born out of wedlock: 49.9%
Hispanics in poverty: 21.5%

Black children born out of wedlock: 70.7%
Blacks in poverty: 24.5%

I'm not saying it's a direct correlation, but it certainly bears attention (which it has gotten by a few groups). I'd say the first thing anyone wants to do to avoid increasing poverty rates is to WEAR A FUCKING CONDOM, or to get married if you have a kid.

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Lol really? I spend a few days defending one of my many crazy beliefs, and now I've been reduced to a man who's single defining drive in his life is the removal of the second amendment from the Constitution.

Give me a break :p

And I don't have to "justify" any of the other bullshit you brought up from the right's talking points. You point to one ruling about one issue and call it a "trend." You don't even hear how quickly you are ready to string her up, and based on your past posting patterns here I simply don't believe you when you claim to enter this with no bias based on what party is nominating her.

Being poor is the defining characteristic, not skin color.

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Your lack of recognition of the validity of most of the points made in the article suggests that you're relatively sheltered from much of the world. It might simply be a perspective thing and not a lack of experience thing. I've lived in and spent time in varied environments as a mixed raced male and I'm generally considered white. I have on occasion recognized, perhaps incorrectly, being judged as, for lack of a better term, "something other". That can be a very alienating experience. That's really the gist of it I believe and everyone is alienated against at some point or another but with the race issue it's more or less a constant. All of these nuisances that people of color have to deal with regularly in our society contribute to a sense of alienation. Even when no intent discrimination of substance is present, these alienating factors are, which when accumulated become significant. Which reminds me of a quote.
At least that's my current and maybe horrifically simplified take on the subject.

It's more of a stance of questioning the taken-for-granted idea that since I'm white I was born with a silver spoon, a set of special advantages just for me, and a destiny that included health, wealth, happiness, universal acceptance, etc etc right from birth.

Which is bullshit and everyone knows it, but you can't say so because then you're at least "unconsciously racist" or something.



And are these people that judge you worth your concern and notice? Because like you said, we ALL have to deal with assholes and alienation and judgment throughout our lives. You can either hang your shoulders and lament your pitiable lot in life because some racist redneck with the mental capacity of a goat thinks you're a "dirty negro", or you can recognize that people such at those are probably well beneath your notice and not move through life taking it all to heart.

Dammit, I hit post.



Look at what you've said in your post. You've basically said, "I think there are people that don't like me and I think it's because of my race."

That's what it came down to in your post. Truly.

You may not recognize it, but it is there. Even if you don't want it.

I'm going to have to dig a bit. There was a study done where they sent in resumes to jobs. Lots of them. They "applicants" were always equal in skill/qualification/eductation, but they had easily identifiiable names that would impart/scan as "asian" or "hispanic" or "african american" to the average person. They then tracked which resumes got call for interviews.

If I recall correctly, John Smith and Jane Baker got 40% more calls than Chang Lee or Marisia Rangel. Why would that be if they all had resumes indicating exactly the same skill sets and qualifications?

All things equal, just the names differed. Not even a chance to see the skin and the bias was clearly present.

I know it got replicated in Canada as well. I'll see if I can find it. It was eye opening to me, because I really didn't think it was QUITE as rampant as it was.

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That's the gist of it, yeah. Well said.

No one is saying you're destined for wealth and fame because you're white, Bov. Things are tough all over. The point being made is that, all other things being equal, people of color have more shit to deal with than white people. And that's fucked up.

Some of the biases mentioned in this thread you may take issue with; some you probably won't understand until you experience them (if ever). But can you see how the existence of even half of those biases would contribute to the sense of alienation Raethong described?

I think there's a small case to be made about being born of a certain race gives you advantages or disadvantages. That, however, is lessening dramatically with every generation.

What is MORE of an advantage/disadvantage and NOT getting better with time is what economic situation you are born into. It's a lot easier to overcome being a middle class black person than a poor white person, in my opinion.

Ta-da!



Sure, they would suck. As would pretty much any of the social issues that pretty much everyone has to deal with throughout their lives.

I think that's my biggest issue. Look at what Raethong actually posted. Look at it without just taking for granted that there's rampant racism chasing him around. Just look at what he said at face value. It's basically, "I might not see actual racism, but I think there are some people that don't like me, and I think it's because of my skin color."

That's basically it. You could plug any number of things into that sentence and play mad libs and it'd hold true for many segments of the population.



That, at least, would be interesting to read. Of course, 40% isn't exactly an earth-shattering difference when put into perspective. (10 Hispanics were called versus 14 whites.)

Were there an exactly equal number of white and minority applicants?

Did they clump "white" all into a single group and "minority" into a single group, or did they separate minorities into their individual groups while still treating "white" as a single group? (That's important mathematically, I'm sure you can see.)

If you can find the links to that study, I'd be interested in reading it. It's not hard for statistics like that to be twisted all into big, ugly knots.

I'd also be curious as to whether all the resumes looked exactly alike, because I've seen managers decide not to call someone based solely on not liking how the resume looked.

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Yah, most resume-making professionals will tell you right up front that how your resume looks is a good 50% of the entire thing sometimes.

Again, it's variables like that which can twist these sort of statistics all to hell, as can the manner in which they are interpreted.

Yep.. as Senator Bulworth said, "Black people got more in common with white people than they do with rich people."
Cool. So the problem exists! Glad we could extract that tooth from ya.

Rugen: is this the article?

Bertrand, Marianne and Mullainathan, Sendhil. "Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination." The American Economic Review Vol. 94, No. 4 (Sep., 2004), pp. 991-1013
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3592802

Abstract:
Looks like the article's not open source, so you need access to jstor or some other database to read it.

Sounds like an interesting article.

By the way, please note that I'm not trying to say racism doesn't exist. I know it does, and I'm vehemently against it. Just like how the gay marriage issues get me all in a tizzy.

Still reading it, but the study is very well done so far. Bertrand is a prof in the business school at U of Chicago, and Mullainathan is an economist at MIT. Their sample size is large enough to draw valid statistical conclusions: 5,000+ resumes sent to 1,300+ employers in response to job ads.

BTW, Bov you should have jstor access through the library you work at, if it's worth a damn.

I think I do!

....but I'm too busy with important work to go look right now.

And by important work I mean posting crap here.

But I will go look!

Logically speaking, that makes no sense. And it's not echoing what Joxur said at all.

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It's not supposed to be logical, just funny. Obviously, Warren Beatty's delivery beats the hell out of mine.

I think you're too dismissive of the real possibility of oppression. The 2nd ammendment wasn't written to protect hunters. It was written because the founders had a belief that all humans have an innate right to protect themselves by any means necessary from those who would take their life or liberty.

Is it likely Elessar and his gun fights off a tank - no.

But people feel he has the right as a human being to have that opportunity.

What about the person he kills because he's a cranky ex-eq-addict? Well, that person is an unfortunate side effect and Ellessar should be punished for his murderous ways.

Ultimately, every freedom we have has a risk/utility formula. You might kill someone or yourself in a car, but we feel the utility outweighs the risk. Guns do some bad things, but the pro-gun crowd feels the utility and innate right of protection outweighs that risk.

I don't think even racist people would try to claim racism doesn't exist.

But the study does address your question of, "where's all this stuff that is handed to me as a white male?" You may not realize it, but it is happening all the time with things like that resume study.



noo: yep. That is the one.

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I my case, no. Like I stated earlier though, I'm generally considered white. Being mixed and having a variety of experiences allows me perhaps a little insight though.

In the case of a black man living in an overwhelmingly predominant white area that is generally suspicious of blacks, there may not be much opportunity to circumvent it. Also, why should he have to, particularly when the racism is directly in his chosen path?

Consider someone who is prejudiced against you if you can. Maybe just someone you can't see eye to eye with or the stuck-up girl who wouldn't give you the time of day. Now imagine you see that person everywhere. They are the teller at the bank, they're the policeman on the corner, they are your coworkers and your boss. I wouldn't doubt that it could be something like that for someone who suffers from racism. In order to understand, you need to take into consideration the saturation of the alienation.

It is improving. We have a black president after all. You might be surprised to realize how many people are wondering what that n****r is doing in the White House though.

A lot more instances of "wise Latina" than the one or two previously thought.

http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/legal_beat/ ... rence.html

Still, though. While I think there would be more uproar if Trent Lott said this, I think it's a non-issue in this case. Mostly an example of someone feeling racial/gender pride than anything. And I can understand that, for someone who got so far in life.

Personally, if it were me, I'd totally be all like "mmo players make the best judges, suck it". I get it.

In your opinion, would the opposite be true? As in, a white person living an overwhelmingly black area?

And if so, is that ok? And if it's ok, why?

I'm essentially white and I lived in Detroit for a while. I never felt particularly discriminated against while I was there.

Assuming that the same suspicions exist, I'm fairly certain that similar racism would occur and that would not be okay.

I've not spent any time in Detroit but I'm assuming it is predominantly black. I'm curious if you've ever experienced any alienation being essentially a minority in that area. I don't consider alienation to necessarily be discrimination but it can often be oppressive.

To be clear, there are all kinds of injustices in the world. Racism and sexism are among them. That doesn't invalidate any disadvantages that an individual that is white and male has had to overcome. These two just don't happen to be among the disadvantages a white male would encounter often and are nearly nationwide to some degree or another.

These things do occur in reverse though. In my family for instance, the females are in the majority and make most all the decisions. My grandmother on my moms side was very opinionated and was clearly sexist. My mom is more liberal in her opinions but that didn't keep her from claiming control in family affairs. As a young adult I identified that environment to be oppressive for me as a male. It doesn't hold much sway over my adult life but I think it adds to my perspective on oppression.

While I'm not the one being vetted for the Supreme Court, I can understand where perspective would aid a potential judge.

Totally off topic... Raethong, do I remember correctly that you're working on a PhD in poli sci? If so, how's it going? Must be a couple years into it by now, ya?

Good, thank you.

I know it seems small, but that's all I want people to understand sometimes. The fact that lack of understanding between races/sexes/social groups isn't always just whites or men being assholes...that it's a universal thing between all races, sexes and social layers.

It's one of those things that us whites and men get tired of hearing.

You must have me mistaken with someone else.

okthx