a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment
bioemerl  ·  3528 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: For blacks, America is dangerous by default

    The "I'm not going to the South Bronx because its poor, dangerous, and beneath me" allows those people to block out the needs of those who have been born into that cycle.

The issue here is that people aren't avoiding south Bronx because it's poor and beneath them, it's because they fear being mugged, robbed, shot, etc. No sane person would chose to be there.

That isn't the issue. Having people go to the bad parts of town will not make people more sympathetic when they get mugged, they will relate that mugging to going into the "black side of town", it will make them less sympathetic because of that.

    So when all these community organizations form to combat the ills of society, they can't get help from the government at large or even the mindshare of the people.

Things don't change overnight. It takes time for any cultural moment to get going, and it takes time to get that push strong enough for it to become self-sustaining.

    Then, when something happens to force these issues into their faces, you get arguments like "why don't black (read: poor) people stop killing each other. why don't black (read: poor) people stop selling drugs. why dont black people stop dressing differently from the normal (read: white) standard" and so forth.

I'm sorry, but the "normal" standard is not the white standard. It's the normal one. I will agree with you on the subject of accent though, which is just about as much a choice as the color of one's skin.

People in the US dress a certain way no matter the race. Most all of it is based on wealth, with old ragged clothing for the lower classes, and fancy suits and ties for the higher classes.

Wearing chains, wearing baggy pants, etc, is not a standard of people trying and seeking to look down on black people. It's society looking down on anyone who doesn't fit the norm.

And it is entirely true that in order for stereotypes to change, we need to change the actions of the black community just as we do the white one. Do you think change is just going to come from one group in a situation like this? Where do you think the stereotypes come from? We could have the biggest push against steriotypes possible, and in twenty years they will pop right back up if the real issues of inequality do not get fixed. (see, war on drugs, attacking the "to be smart is to be white" culture, and ensuring our education systems become equal again rather than having good schools in rich cities)

I do agree that ideas need to change on the idea that black people are the cause of them being poor, because that isn't true. However, those ideas are founded in ignorance, and they aren't going to change without a large cultural push. That push isn't going to just happen one day for no reason, it has to be caused, and onto the next point.

    we'd find that white people propagated the attitudes necessary for those conditions to exist and to go interrupted long enough to become self-perpetuating.

Bullshit.

White people didn't create the conditions for the civil rights movement, black people(MLK and similar) did that. White people didn't create the conditions for global warming to become a thing, Al-Gore did that. And, it is probably true that it isn't until a large number of white people start allying with a cause that it starts to steam-roll. However, when white people make up ~50 percent of the population, it's kind of hard for that not to be true.

People, society, is not an "active" being. We don't change without being pushed. There has to be something pushing for change to occur. Society doesn't move because everyone gets up and decides they; want to change, it moves through the blood and sweat of people who spend their lives trying to move it.

And, just as the extremist "THE WHOLE EARTH IS GOING TO DIE GAIZ" articles hurt the cause of making people aware of global warming. "IT IS DANGEROUS TO BE BLACK AN AMERICA GAIZ" hurts the cause of ending stereotypes. We need a good, rational, push against something that is portrayed as something which is wrong. We don't need to be pointing fingers, attacking each-other, or making outrageous statements for the sake of trying to attract attention. Nobody takes the guy yelling about the apocalypse on the corner seriously, but if that guy presents himself well and shows the specifics of what is going on, has a clear plan to facilitate change, etc, than the plan has a far better chance of working.