@CA- but muffins are bad. they impede on the rights of scones to be a popular pastry and use their societal higher presence to maintain their place in dunkin donuts shelves. speaking of dunkin donuts and big corporations. these places propagate the muffin agenda through over advertising the muffins and failing to give credit to pastries like scones, cupcakes, and brownies. I am talking a large scale operation. Dunkin donuts, starbucks, local pastry breakfast joints, Tim hortons, the illuminati, and most surprising ..... jesus (https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTljPetxYMGxbwJk9SdHjJZZqe82OSzNPkC7gUK9JiKxQHUV4n_)

Why are people not protesting in the streets about this. all of you are responsible for the muffin superiority.. i shutter to say "Muffin privilege" .. because you aren't helping to educate others and supporting this cause wholeheartedly. You all disgust me. I think I might go and smack muffins out the hands of two police officers on patrol in NY because of the anger this ensues in me... DOWN WITH THE MUFFIN AGENDA...

@ zultar and bo_sox (I'm speaking more to the latter than the former)

Even if you re-brand any sort of race-based tax, fee, or whatever, it's still a reparation. The only thing that I am suggesting with this thread is that the legal system *as it exists today* is not inherently racist. Furthermore, I am positing that lingering socioeconomic discrepancies between different races are simply old wounds that require nothing but time to heal naturally.

For these reasons, I stand opposed to reparations on principle, because reparations are inherently racist. You can't fix past racism with present racism, just as killing 6 million Germans today wouldn't magically revive 6 million Jews. Also, why draw an unnecessary line between the races? Why are reparations inherently racist? Because you are discriminating based on race, which is the textbook definition of racism.

Let's say you implemented these proposals. Great, now you're boosting the poor black guys relative to the poor white guys. *That's* racist, and you would create even more racial tensions. Do you *want* to piss off a lot of white people and potentially revitalize hate groups like the KKK and the neo-Nazis? Because that's precisely what would happen with ANY sort of race-based welfare. I would be much more comfortable with you drawing a line between socioeconomic classes than you drawing a line between races.

This is the Land of Equal Opportunity, not the Land of Equal Outcome. Let's say we have a young black kid in the inner city (a "deck stacked against him" type) who wants to be the first in his family to get a four-year degree. In this day and age, do you think he will (plausibly) be discriminated against when doing any of the following:

A) attending, striving for, and achieving success (good grades) at an underfunded, poorly performing high school? B) applying for university admission(with the good grades he got at his poorly performing high school)? C) applying for scholarships with his good high school grades? D) getting a job to mitigate the financial cost of school E) attending university? F) getting a tutor because his bad high school didn't prepare him for college? G) (optional) joining ROTC to go to school for free?

You can point out the socioeconomic disparities between blacks and whites all night long, but you cannot prove that the "system" is racist. Will our young black friend from the inner city have a tougher route ahead of him than the middle-class white guy from a both-parents-graduated-college household? Of course, but that's a product of their background, not their race per se. Furthermore, let's say our black friend here graduates (yay!) and gets a nice comfy white-collar job. Cool, now he's cleared an easier path for his children and successfully saved his descendants from having to grow up in poverty in the inner city.

That's the whole fucking point of having kids: to clear them an easier path than the one you had. But that's the tougher route. It would be *much* easier to blame the system, the white guys, and racism, right? My family has literally bled for the black man, but according to you guys, I'm still a racist fuck who should pay out of my pocket just because past racism will be magically solved by present racism. Is my family's blood that insufficient?

Just to add, we already have institutional racism in affirmative action.

After having read most of the topic - I skipped the part about muffins - I want to take back some of my statements. I have been naive. I did know about Rosa Parks, but the whole Jim Crow thing and the accompanying hatred is new for me. That sucks and I think America has a genuine problem with racism.

This situation is different from Europe, as we never had laws based on racial segregation. And less people of African descent I might add.

@Ursa: I think all nations have a genuine problem with racism. In the United States, we fought a Civil War about the issue. That settled some big issues, but left many others to linger on.

We also talk a lot about race and racism here, too much for some and not enough for others. Lots of people are accustomed to stepping up on their soapboxes and having their say on the matter. The media does have an out-sized impact on the conversation though.

We're also witnessing the last gasps of our Baby Boomer generation, many of whom came of age during the Civil Rights Movement and hardened their stances then. The younger generations are much more tolerant and aware of race. They grew up in a different time and with different messages.

I think Europe has experienced tremendous change in the past two decades or so since the EU was officially founded. Borders are porous and people are much more mobile. There are many Africans and Asians who have chosen to emigrate, legally or illegally, to Europe. This new diversity is causing some upheaval. The rightward trend in European Parliament seems to be indicative of this.

Saw this article about international opinions and thought I'd share.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/05/17/5-insights-on-the-racial-tolerance-and-ethnicity-maps-from-an-ethnic-conflict-professor/

Europe is interesting while not completely absorbed into the muffin agenda the EU does support the muffin agenda. Muffins while not as popular in the EU have found themselves with varying types such as the English muffin which is the most prejudice of them all. English muffins once ruled a large empire that stretched from the Americas to Far East Asia. This span contributed to the muffins wide popularity today and this the EU should be held accountable for the sconocaust in 1940s Germany where millions of scones were killed in ovens set to over bake the delicious treats.

"This situation is different from Europe, as we never had laws based on racial segregation. And less people of African descent I might add."

@Ursa - Europe went through religious wars instead of racial problems and is heading that way again with the influx of Muslims that want to enforce Sharia Law over state laws. Europe has always had segregation of ethnic groups that were viewed by one group as inferior by another. English versus Irish, French and German, everyone against Romany (gypsies), ....

@Randomizer - Muffins versus Scones

@Commander Byron - Did you ever watch the "Seinfeld" episode where Elaine is responsible for a bakery business that only sells the muffin tops and then needs to dispose of the stumps? Not even poor homeless people would take free stumps. :)

@randomizer ha love it