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[Frumple]

... gryph, you've been here long enough to know B12 really isn't the place for direct personal attacks. Yeah?

[GlyphGryph]

... gryph, you've been here long enough to know B12 really isn't the place for direct personal attacks. Yeah?

You're right. It's absolutely clear at this point that I don't belong here anymore, and I should have left a long time ago.

[Frumple]

Not what I was saying, but okay. I'd rather see you leave of your own free will instead of getting banned. Prefer you sticking around to either, but eh.

Best of luck wherever life leads you. Was good having you around when you weren't being overaggressive. Will miss, etc., etc.

[Phmcw]

Well then I deny that white are a privilieged groups

Then, in regards to the US, you'd be denying flat statistical fact. You can look at the demographic makeup of pretty much every position of power in the states, in regards to pretty much the entire legal system from enforcement to legislation, in regards to income, wealth, health -- there's just this whole massively huge list of ways in which white individuals are disproportionately favored in the USA. White citizens of the USA are a quite blatantly privileged group of individuals.

Well I use the definition imposed to me : "If being a part of a privileged group doesn't grant you any privileges, it is either not a privileged group or you are not part of it!"

There are enough whites at the bottom of the society to say that being white isn't a sufficient condition for being privilieged.

Arguing that rich and powerful rights are the real victims of oppression.

All whites are rich and powefull? Have you never seen a trailer park? I was under the impression that there where sizable portion of America's population that lived in pretty abject poverty...
Or are they guilty for the crimes of white white collars criminal because they share their skin color?

Denying that racism is actually a problem, and arguing that the real problem is talking about racism.

I said that obviously it IS a big problem in America. But yeah, I don't think my opinions are racist.

You may not be racist, but you manage to pull off a really good defender of racism.

I just completely disagree with you, probably because I'm from another country, with another culture....

[Frumple]

There are enough whites at the bottom of the society to say that being white isn't a sufficient condition for being privilieged.

Except they're still treated disproportionately well compared non-whites in similar conditions, Phmcw. Incarceration rates alone are proof perfect of that. Which is the point being made -- yes, being white in the states is being part of a privileged group. You are notably more likely to be treated better, especially by the major systemic powers (politics, law, business), if you're white than if you're part of a different demographic. Regardless as to your societal status. That's what being part of a privileged group means.

[wobbly]

... gryph, you've been here long enough to know B12 really isn't the place for direct personal attacks. Yeah?

You're right. It's absolutely clear at this point that I don't belong here anymore, and I should have left a long time ago.

& then where would I get info on some of the stuff going on in the US? Seriously I enjoy hearing your views.

[Descan]

Being part of the privileged group doesn't mean that life gives you fucking lemonade and handjobs every moment of every day.

It means that if someone is in an equal position, let's use your trailer part for example, but did not share the same privileged property as you, then in the same circumstances (walking with a visible hand-gun that you have a license for, or having a domestic dispute called on your house, or applying for a job or a loan, whatever situation you are in) then by virtue of your skin colour, you have a better shot at it than the non-white person. A cop might not pull you over for the hand-gun, they'll assume you have a license, or if they do pull you over, they won't leap right to thinking you own it illegally. Or they won't assume you're beating your wife just because of a call, they'll investigate instead of assume you're a black dead-beat dad. You might have a better chance of getting that job or that loan,

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

(that's what things like affirmative action are supposed to help with, that and that because of slavery and Jim Crow, quite a few black people are in poor straits because their father is in poor straits because their grandmother only could get a job as a maid for a poor white farming family because Jim Crow prevented them from holding any other job, etc, etc. It's there to short-circuit that loop of "I can't get anywhere because I have no foundation" by helping the parents get the foundation to give their sons or daughters an education to stay on an equal playing field. And *even then*, they're not going to give the job to someone literally incompetent, it's usually "two equal people, but one is gay/black/a woman, one's a white straight dude, give the job to the discriminated party." It's not a *good* thing, but it's an attempt to be better than the alternative.) At least, that's my understanding of it...

And that's not even counting the circumstances you cannot or are very, very unlikely to live in. As a white guy, you're very unlikely to grow up or live in the ghetto. You're not likely to live on a native reservation, with poor education and poor healthcare. You won't have a racist father beat you for daring to date his daughter, or at least you're unlikely to (black father might be racist, of course, but even then, they almost certainly won't be supported by the community for doing so)

[Helgoland]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

(that's what things like affirmative action are supposed to help with, that and that because of slavery and Jim Crow, quite a few black people are in poor straits because their father is in poor straits because their grandmother only could get a job as a maid for a poor white farming family because Jim Crow prevented them from holding any other job, etc, etc. It's there to short-circuit that loop of "I can't get anywhere because I have no foundation" by helping the parents get the foundation to give their sons or daughters an education to stay on an equal playing field. And *even then*, they're not going to give the job to someone literally incompetent, it's usually "two equal people, but one is gay/black/a woman, one's a white straight dude, give the job to the discriminated party." It's not a *good* thing, but it's an attempt to be better than the alternative.) At least, that's my understanding of it...

And that's not even counting the circumstances you cannot or are very, very unlikely to live in. As a white guy, you're very unlikely to grow up or live in the ghetto. You're not likely to live on a native reservation, with poor education and poor healthcare. You won't have a racist father beat you for daring to date his daughter, or at least you're unlikely to (black father might be racist, of course, but even then, they almost certainly won't be supported by the community for doing so)

I wholly support the first part of your post, but in the second (quoted) part you make the classic mistake: You apply a reasoning that's appropriate for individuals to whole groups. Blacks aren't being discriminated because the average black person is poorer than the average white person; blacks are discriminated because stuff like your handgun example happens. Discrimination is always enacted against individuals.
There's a way to fix your argument, though: If by affirmative action we get enough black people into the higher strata of society to erase the prejudice against them, the discrimination on the individual level will fade as well. The key is arguing via public perception!
When applying this fix though, keep in mind you'll have to make changes to your implementation of affirmative action. With black people, these changes won't be too big; with women (the other big group to which affirmative action is often applied) they'll be more relevant. One suggestion I'm especially fond of is giving the affirmative action program an expiration date: If the program didn't solve the underlying problems in the allotted time - let's say, fourty years -, it won't do so in the future, and thus is unnecessary and should be scrapped.

[Descan]

Yeah, I wasn't so sure about posting that spoiler'd bit, but I figured, what the hell, maybe someone can correct me and we'd all be smarter for it~

[Phmcw]

There are enough whites at the bottom of the society to say that being white isn't a sufficient condition for being privilieged.

Except they're still treated disproportionately well compared non-whites in similar conditions, Phmcw. Incarceration rates alone are proof perfect of that. Which is the point being made -- yes, being white in the states is being part of a privileged group. You are notably more likely to be treated better, especially by the major systemic powers (politics, law, business), if you're white than if you're part of a different demographic. Regardless as to your societal status. That's what being part of a privileged group means.

First let's use this study as a baseline for our discussion, will we?

https://www.amacad.org/content/publications/pubContent.aspx?d=808

This is a pretty standard study about the Americain Penitentary system, that indicate that prison rate is highly dependant of the education level and race, with black males that didn't finish high school make a disproportionate amount of the prison polpulation.

A standard Americain response would be to attribute it to racism, to race, or to leave the issue alone. But the explications are mooth when you notice that hight school dropouts of hispanic descent are less incarcerated than whites. Even without that difference, I'd have trouble imagining that Americains judges are so racist that they'll imprison so many innocents based on their skin color. That would indicate that you live in a deepely racist country and I'd have trouble imagining the population of that kind of country accepting black politicians in both the republicain and democrat party. And I'm not so much speaking about Obama, but also about Condoleeza Rice. Let's admit that the idea that race is the root cause is absurd, especially since black population are not overrepresented in criminality in Belgium despite our sizable Congoleze immigration.

So there must be another explanation, no?

Long term disfranchisement create a culture that reject the laws of the country and thus tend to break those laws. By disfranchising them further (by being though on crime) you emplify this effect and get a more and more criminal population. That's why you should implement left-wing policies. Not being you're compational, bleeding hearth or anything. Because they work.

So I think that Black males are overimprisoned not primarly because the judges are racists, and I'm pretty sure that you'll end up with more and more white imprisoned too, but because that system is going to make more and more criminals with children that are more and more likely to be criminal themselves. And given that black population of the USA where pretty disfranchised since the beginning they have a good headstart.

Mistaking the causes for the consequences there lead to two things : you target the wrong problem and the peoples you accuse of racism won't help you. 

Being part of the privileged group doesn't mean that life gives you fucking lemonade and handjobs every moment of every day.

It means that if someone is in an equal position, let's use your trailer part for example, but did not share the same privileged property as you, then in the same circumstances (walking with a visible hand-gun that you have a license for, or having a domestic dispute called on your house, or applying for a job or a loan, whatever situation you are in) then by virtue of your skin colour, you have a better shot at it than the non-white person.

As I said above, I'm pretty sure that if that cop identify you to the disfranchised white population, your luck will be barely better if it's better at all than if you're part of the disfranchised white population. I heard the term "wh*te tr*sh" used.

[Frumple]

As I said above, I'm pretty sure that if that cop identify you to the disfranchised white population, your luck will be barely better if it's better at all than if you're part of the disfranchised black population. I heard the term "wh*te tr*sh" used.

Think I fixed a typo in there. Though -- I've lived in areas that's about as much trailer trash (the more inclusive term, though honestly, white trash is barely a slur in this country, or at least the parts of it where trailer trash is common) as not pretty much my entire life. You would be hilariously wrong. Yeah, a homeless white guy or panhandler is probably going to be harassed by the cops. But they're not going to be harassed as hard, nor is the probability of harassment as high to begin with, as a homeless black fellow would.

And again, as has been noted. Domestic disputes in poor areas? Black family, shit is probably about to go down when the cops hit the scene. White family, chance of shit going down considerably less likely. Same social situation. Same extent of disenfranchisement. Literal only difference is skin color. There's patterns like that throughout the entire freaking country.

US has issues with classism, sure. Lotta' hate for poor people. But the country absolutely has a racism issue, that is distinct and separate (albeit definitely interacting) from the classism one. The country has definite and systemic issues with treating people of color, particular black people, disproportionately poorly. Definite and systemic issues with treating poor people disproportionately poorly, too, but no, it's not the classism being misconstrued as racism.

Can understand why you have problems wrapping your head around it -- you're from a very different cultural area. But. No, there's not another explanation for what's going on in the states. Country, and particularly the legal system, is in fact pretty damn racist. Not really as bad as it used to be, but it's still pretty bad.

[Sirus]

...Did GG just actually leave? Not just the thread, but the entire damn forum?

[USEC_OFFICER]

By the looks of it? Yeah, that's exactly what he did. I'm incredibly sorry to see him go, actually. He seemed like a pretty cool dude.

[XXSockXX]

...Did GG just actually leave? Not just the thread, but the entire damn forum?

I hope not. One shouldn't take all these discussions too personally.

[Eagle_eye]

Five hours seems a bit early to determine that someone has left the forum.