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[Pancakes]

The next time there's a protest that turns into a riot, news outlets should call it the second civil war, just to mess with people. "The Second American Civil War broke out today... and also ended today. Twelve people were hurt, and <large city> was moderately damaged on three of its streets."

Plus, think about how disappointed everyone who is trying to predict a new civil war will be.

[penguinofhonor]

snip

The article isn't saying that being charitable to black people will solve all their problems, just that it will help. Your interpretation of what she "implies" just seems like a cheap way to dismiss her article for being focused on a couple issues and not an exhaustive encyclopedia of racism.

Also, Louisville is an incredibly segregated city, with a very clear poor black half and wealthier white half. Everyone is aware of the "ninth street divide" separating the city into two populations with very different qualities of life. If black people move into houses in the east half that have been white-owned for decades, they aren't just getting free stuff. They're getting access to better jobs, better education, better public transport, and more.

[sluissa]

After seeing it, I have the opinion the dude was doing it to intentionally provoke a response... and he got one. A vulgar and disgusting one worse than anything he did on his own. Still, that's what he probably wanted, given the smirk you see several times. I don't really have any respect for him. If anything more that he's willing to go that far to be a troll about the whole thing than anything else. But the people "protesting him" were just inhuman about the whole thing. I have absolutely no respect there at all.

He got yelled at. Is that really a "inhuman" thing to do? Imagine if someone had decided to really calmy and respectfully stand to attention with a ISIS flag two weeks after the boston bombing that he would have gotten away with just being shouted at?

They have given up on attempting any sort of reason or discourse. They've given up one of the primary things that makes us human. Screaming incoherently is what you expect from an infant, maybe an untrained child. Not adults. Not fully fledged human beings.

It's also, like, incredibly common and pretty typical reaction to things that they find abhorrent to just shout them out. Besides, when both sides are entrenched in their positions and unwilling to compromise, angry shouting and shittalking is just about the least bad outcome.

When you have someone like that, ignore them. An individual, even a small group doing something stupid but largely is not going to be a threat to anyone. If anything, quietly walk by and just tell him your opinion. Don't make a scene though, don't draw more attention to the Troll than you have to. By acting like babies, I hesitate to say animals since I know many animals with more civilized mannerisms than they had, you do nothing for your own cause, you solidify the opposing cause and you just make yourselves look like fools. The cop at the end was entirely right. You want another riot situation with violence, injury and maybe death? Cause that's how you get another riot situation. Maybe not immediately, but behavior like that will only lead to it.

[Rolan7]

The next time there's a protest that turns into a riot, news outlets should call it the second civil war, just to mess with people. "The Second American Civil War broke out today... and also ended today. Twelve people were hurt, and <large city> was moderately damaged on three of its streets."

Plus, think about how disappointed everyone who is trying to predict a new civil war will be.

"It was over by Christmas, exactly as expected.  Largely due to the emergent War On Christmas, now in progress..."

In some way, it's a testament to how peaceful our societies have become that some shouting is considered the beginning of a civil war.

Indeed.  There are many good reasons to be outraged, but people tend to escalate unreasonably.  We've been trained to get bored of controversy after a few days unless it gets significantly worse, so people start thinking that these mostly-peaceful events herald the fall of American Democracy.

I'm tired of this slow-burn shit, can we just have the civil war and get it over with.

We did.  Now we just need the losers to give up the ghost.

If Lincoln hadn't been assassinated this wouldn't be a problem.  Every city official who tried to glamorize the confederacy, would get a lovingly written and signed letter saying "you lost shitlords, get over it ~Abe."  Even after his presumably natural death.

The fourteenth amendment does something similar, barring from office anyone who joined the Confederacy *while in the US government*.  Other than that, Confederate soldiers and leaders were allowed to stand down without much punishment...  which is why they stood down. 
We were fortunate to have a civil war mostly via field battles instead of guerilla insurgency and terrorism. 

I look at areas wracked by decades of civil war, with grudges too deep to ever reconcile, and think "That could have been us".  If Sherman had slaughtered many more civilians, maybe it would have been, but fortunately his literal campaign of terror succeeded.  Only because there was a reasonable offer of peace, though.

Even "reconstruction" was more economic exploitation than punishment.  It was also *exactly* what Southerners had been afraid of before the war.  But it could have been worse.

[Neonivek]

snip

The article isn't saying that being charitable to black people will solve all their problems, just that it will help.

Only point 1, 2 (Wow is 2... overtly racist. One second as my watch my White Neighbors get their Privilege Check), 3, 4, 6 deal with Charity directly... and are woefully ignorant even if you do ignore the whole "Rich White People" aspect as they involve direct hand outs and not say... Affordable housing.

Point 5, 7, 8, 9, and 10 are a doozy!

5 includes charity but... given it is identical to an earlier point except includes "Don't let racists have a home"

It speaks of a intense victim/victimizer mentality with an outright assumption as to the lives of White people. I wouldn't trust that Chapter with any policies if they are that toxic to the core.

[Reelya]

The article isn't saying that being charitable to black people will solve all their problems, just that it will help.

It's actually quite arguable that a hand-out culture doesn't, in fact, help.

And the main point is that all the things she's pushing promote a dependency culture. If she's a leader in a movement it's her job to help shape how people view the struggle. Get Free Stuff Now isn't an attitude that helps.

[Neonivek]

Plus it also shapes how it is viewed from the outside.

Which to many White people from the outside it seems like it suggests that White people are struggling to roll out of bed because the sacks of money from their privilege funds keep getting in the way... and that is just from the Charity part.

That and they would catch onto the outright accusation in there

---

And the main point is that all the things she's pushing promote a dependency culture.

Some of the problems are just the logistics of what is suggested here.

What happens when you give someone a room in your house for free, for example, versus someone who pays a fee? It isn't the same relationship.

Or if you just let someone live in one of your extra houses that are fully paid for (because your White, you obviously have multiple houses like all White people) for free, the question on upkeep becomes a serious issue.

[smjjames]

The article isn't saying that being charitable to black people will solve all their problems, just that it will help.

It's actually quite arguable that a hand-out culture doesn't, in fact, help.

And the main point is that all the things she's pushing promote a dependency culture. If she's a leader in a movement it's her job to help shape how people view the struggle. Get Free Stuff Now isn't an attitude that helps.

I agree here, and BLM does have a slight black nationalist streak in it among the more fringe parts. 1-6 come off as "gimme your stuff" while the parts about combatting racism have a point.

Plus it also shapes how it is viewed from the outside.

Which to many White people from the outside it seems like it suggests that White people are struggling to roll out of bed because the sacks of money from their privilege funds keep getting in the way... and that is just from the Charity part.

That and they would catch onto the outright accusation in there

Yeah, and as I said, it sounds a lot like "gimme your stuff" as a demand, without the gun. If she is trying to make a case for something, she is going about it completely the wrong way.

[Reelya]

That's why I said she seems to view the whole issue as a zero-sum-game. It's a common blindspot of both left and right ideology. Whites have more stuff, because they're white, so transfer the stuff to a black family, now it's even ... sorry poverty doesn't work like that.

The problem is that giving lump sum charity never addresses the core issues underlying poverty. Like that experiment where they gave a homeless guy $100,000 in free cash and 6 month later he's broke and homeless again. Turns out there were reasons he was in dire straits, and "lack of cash" wasn't the main reason. There ... is some truth in the idea that people who are in shitty situations are more likely to be bad decision makers than those in less shitty situations. Not always, just more often. It's not popular to say so, but it's true.

Just throwing large amounts of money at people who are dirt poor is a bad solution, because people who have no money are more likely to be terrible financial decision makers than average joe blow, who isn't all that finance savvy as it is. That's called "victim blaming" so I apologize for that, but it's a hard fact of life.

Charity works much better when it's linked to some show of effort from the person receiving it, e.g. micro-credits to start a small business, grants to encourage the hiring of disadvantaged people and the like.

[Neonivek]

They actually now have financial advisor programs in Professional Sports BECAUSE they noticed how often sports players end up destitute after they retire.

But one big issue they find is someone who is used to having no money, when given a lot of money, treats that money essentially as infinite or some impossibly large amount.

[Reelya]

You also get the ultra frugal poor people, who if you gave them money would buy a house or something. Property keeps it's value and you can rent it out. That's what I'd buy with a jackpot.

[smjjames]

Trump's first possible Hurricane emergency is coming right up, served on a platter named Harvey. NOAA page: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/graphics_at4.shtml?cone#contents

[Trekkin]

It is also the case that all the advice in the world on how to handle money and rise out of poverty on your own steam and pull yourself up by your bootstraps isn't going to do much for someone with no money -- and, frequently, the advice given by people who are above the poverty line is of limited utility to people far below it.

Fast food is a good example. Rich people love to tell poor people not to eat fast food because it's unhealthy and more expensive than cooking for yourself -- and this is, in a marginal sense, true. It is also true that being able to cook for yourself requires equipment and a safe place with running water and electricity in which to do it, to say nothing of the time required. Lentil soup recipes don't help people who don't have a place to boil water or can't afford to keep a pot to boil it in from getting stolen. Ditto the old adage that you should buy quality, not quantity; if you can't afford quality at any one time, then you're stuck with quantity by default, a little bit at a time.

America is built with systems that are designed to bleed you dry of excess money at the first opportunity in ways that it takes more money to prevent. Look at how aid programs drop off suddenly as you pass salary thresholds, so the total money in your hands can decline sharply after a raise. Look also at how expensive it is to weasel out of paying your taxes. The best way to save money in this country is by being very wealthy, and that's very much by design, because rich people want their kids to be richer and they can buy the politicians necessary to write kleptocratic legislation.

This is what Chantelle Helm (the author of that ludicrous piece of inept satire) fails to understand -- and, again, this is intentionally common to a lot of social justice movements: the systems keeping black people in poverty were put in place by rich people who happened to be mostly white men, not white men who were also incidentally rich. When you fix the 1% and restore economic mobility in this country, you also vastly lower the barrier to entry for everyone who happened not to be rich when it was decided that only rich people could save money -- and that's something they could get almost everybody behind.

But then, that flies in the face of all the careful engineering done to keep all the little people at each other's throats, so it will probably never happen.

[Paxiecrunchle]

Trekkin seems like the voice of reason to me.  But I think what were neglecting to cover here and I release but it looks like to me correct me if I'm wrong, but what about the working poor.

There seem to be plenty of Americans stuck in positions where they manage to get a basic job but basically are unable to move up from there, I find blaming sloth for all of that to be as naiïve as assuming that poverty is always the systems fault.

Any thoughts?

[Trekkin]

Trekkin seems like the voice of reason to me.  But I think what were neglecting to cover here and I release but it looks like to me correct me if I'm wrong, but what about the working poor.

There seem to be plenty of Americans stuck in positions where they manage to get a basic job but basically are unable to move up from there, I find blaming sloth for all of that to be as naiïve as assuming that poverty is always the systems fault.

Any thoughts?

Well, you're right, and it's also important to note that poverty is not one monolithic condition. It takes different skills to successfully hold a minimum-wage job and survive off of that income than it does to save enough money to put children through college while also trying to feed and clothe those kids on a blue-collar salary, and even though the dollar amounts are different they're still both dealing with a kind of persistent poverty.

I think that we can say that a great deal of poverty is exacerbated by the system to the point where it's unreasonably difficult to rise out of it, but also that there are some people who are just unwilling or unable to rise out of whatever level of poverty they're at even with considerable help. It's why I like universal basic income: it helps ameliorate both problems at the same time while also making sure that everybody can afford the thousand tiny expenses that are so important to actually being able to function in society. It also takes advantage of our inherently relative conception of how rich we are; everyone at the minimum will always feel poor and want more money, but if they have enough money to afford options in how they get more, that does a lot to break the cycles of generational poverty.