@Brad, you're better than that. Surely I can list off any number of white people in charge who abused their authority. Must I go through that exercise? You need to step it up and lead by example, not by snarky commentary.

look, the best way is to find a path that empowers everyone instead of this exercise of pitting one group against another as if it is zero sum game. when we attack ANY group we bring everyone down. and don't think politicians are the answer. they will work for whatever group they can manipulate to support them in power.

Sometimes the path is through politicians. Think of the 13th, 14th, 15th amendments. Proper laws interpreted properly by the courts (e.g. Brown v Board of Education) can achieve more than non-political methods because they directly empower people. Thus, regulation and audit should be used. The "free market" has failed in this regard and will continue to fail unless equality is enforced from above (e.g. Central High School in Little Rock).

The amendments you mentioned were silenced by the courts until the mid twentieth century. It wasn't the courts but pressure from below that made the change.

If it were fixed by the courts why do we have problems now?

The amendments were actually enforced until Reconstruction ended in 1876. The federal courts certainly didn't silence them and the state courts could not override Constitution law. Check your facts.

Even if pressure below "made the change" it doesn't explain WHY they would have done so. According to your reasoning, if the people were empowered enough to force the change, then certainly they were empowered enough to cleanse the entire system of racism!

Problem remain because the law was written in broad strokes and the remaining racism is achieved in the detail (where the devil lives). We can solve the problem with greater government intervention/regulations and audits to ensure a more perfect union.

Ha! Hauta! I know about reconstruction. I was commenting on it before. But the politicians of the south blocked it and nullified it in a deal to let the republicans have the presidency. Power does not come from the government. It comes from the people.

Government is not the solution it is the problem

But back to the enforcement of reconstruction. That was my president, Grant. But he was abandoned by the politicians of both parties and stymied his attempts to change the south.

Don't worry, I know that you're a big Grant fan and that you are familiar with the election of 1876. But there was not a FORMAL nullification. And the deal was not for nullification per se but rather for the end of the occupation. (I don't dispute that it was tantamount to nullification.) So the law came from above but the DENIAL of the law came from the (non-Black) people.

@Ogion,

I can turn the situation around and make the same point. Clarence Thomas is now one of the longest serving justices on the court and has had an exemplary legal career, formerly uaving been "one of the very top law students in the nation" and yet he is "dismissed and denigrated" by the radical left. Your simple little narrative is frankly embarrassing.

"How does America perpetuate White economic dominance?"

because all White people are the same and all white people were advantaged from racism and slavery?

or maybe we shouldn't generalize

and @CAPT isn't wrong.

government legalizing ownership of humans. government enforcing Jim Crow laws. government is in control of bad sentencing. government runs the police.

Why haven't I muted civwarbuf? Thomas is derided for his terrible jurisprudence, much as Alito and Roberts are. But yeah, there's one black justice, so racism must not be a problem. Perfect.

The point is that Thomas is criticized based on his actual actions, not for having been "born in Kenya" or "being a socialist" or a "secret muslim" or for "blowing up the deficit" etc etc etc. The widespread use of completely made up "facts" to attack Obama is where the problem lies. There's plenty of legitimate bases to criticize Obama, but he has come in for vastly more than any predecessor.

@james. Of course Brad is wrong. I have him muted and I know whatever he wrote is wrong.

@James, you quibble with the term White economic dominance as if it means that all White people must be thriving. Clearly, ALL White people are not thriving. However, ALL White people do benefit from White privilege, even though for some of them it is not enough to prosper. (I'll assume you'll write about affirmative action screwing somebody in college admissions. In response, that white person does tend to go to college somewhere, if not at the school of their first choice).

@Hauta

not all white people benefit from white privilege, and even if they did, we don't blame people for benefiting from something they or their ancestors in no way endorsed or created.

@Ogion

he said that more government isn't always the option for this stuff. i'm hard pressed to disagree with him.

anyways, just because a lot of racists attacked Obama, doesn't mean that all attacks on Clarence Thomas are justified

@hauta

ALSO, slightly more social acceptance due to the color of your skin, isn't as important as economic discrimination.

show me individual cases of racism, and i'll stand alongside you. just repeating a narrative over and over again, doesn't get us anywhere. address bills, policy that does stuff. address businesses and individuals that discriminate.

the problem with talking about things like "implicit bias" is that many people get accused of is without having taken any bias tests. many bias tests show some black people have more bias against white people than some white people do against blacks. the overall trend *i believe* has more white racists as a proportion of the samples test, BUT this leads back to once again people should be judged as individuals

i've seen white people take tests who come out with scores showing they're more racist against white people than blacks.

if you want to address something, use specifics.

@James, yup pretty much all white people benefit from white privilege. Even the poorest ones would be even worse off if they weren't white. I don't blame anyone for benefiting from it and I certainly don't favor reparations. However, I do favor a RIGOROUS enforcement of equal opportunity in the workplace, in schools, at banks, at the polling place, etc. In exchange, I'd like to end affirmative action.

Not sure where you're going with the demand to "show me individual cases" because that just takes us into the trap of anecdotal evidence. There will be cases out there showing black prejudice against white people but does that really prove that white prejudice against blacks doesn't exist?

wrt "implicit bias" (Are you the first to bring up this term in this thread?), this might be what I was referring to when I started the thread. That is, about people who don't realize that they perpetuate white economic dominance through innocent things like getting a job for their nephew by pulling a few strings -- strings that are unavailable to the disempowered.

@Hauta

"Even the poorest ones would be even worse off if they weren't white."

source needed. and if you mean *socially* worse off then that matters MUCH less.

"RIGOROUS enforcement of equal opportunity in the workplace,"

has to be based off merit. if merit is *truly* equal then yes there should be no discrimination

"in schools,"

agreed, unless if they're private ones in which case there will be disadvantages for the poor.

"at banks,"

control c control v

"at the polling place"

i assume this is in response to voter id laws? if they were provided free, and in easy accessibility, then they'd be fine i assume.


the whole basis of discrimination is because we have a created a society that DEMANDS dependance of their citizens to either government or one another. if people had the secondary option to them for complete 100% self sustainability, then i'd imagine discrimination of luxury items wouldn't be such a problem if any at all

@James, "Even the poorest ones would be even worse off if they weren't white." is my opinion. I haven't researched. It's in the category, "I don't know for a fact, but I know it's true". "RIGOROUS enforcement" would be based on merit. Nice point on private schools. Disagree on the root cause of racism being government, but agree on desirability of self sustainability.

BIG QUESTION: Maybe I should be approaching this the opposite way. Tell me which way Whites are suffering from discrimination? (other than affirmative action on college admission)

@Ogion,

Obama did not come in for exceedingly more ad-hominem criticism than other Presidents have.

@Civ, I agree with you. But the personal attacks that Obama did endure tended to arise from race. As you know, his administration was relatively scandal-free and he didn't have any particular whitewater or sex scandal in his past.

economic discrimination. many of the "racist" housing laws and the such, affect EVERYONE in a lower social stratus.

it's oppression of the poor, if you get pull over, and look at sentencing, white people generally do better than black people. however you look at rich vs poor, a correlation becomes MUCH more clear, the poor get screwed in this country.

@Hauta,

I am not sure that I would agree that criticism leveled at Obama was influenced by the color of his skin in any substantial way any more than I would say that such was the case for Margaret Thatcher based on her sex. I would characterize such a charge as being unfair in both cases.

@civwarbuff

surely some of the criticism was, but all of MY problems had to do with his actions.

@James, please clarify. Are you saying that their are housing laws that are racist against white people? I don't dispute that the poor are oppressed in that they have little meaningful access to the courts, but certainly the white poor are not WORSE OFF than the black poor. I'm looking for examples where Whites are discriminated against, not poor people.

@civ, are you really daring me to post links to racist memes against Oba -- oh look, found one already!