RIP Fidel Castro

[Vinyanyérë]

I'm not saying that there is no racism, nor am I saying that poor black people have it tougher than most. What I am saying is that white people have had it tough too, this is why there are programs now in place to give everyone a "helping hand," no matter what their race. I'm sure that under certain circumstances, its' easier for a white person to get ahead in America than a black person, all other things equal. However, I don't think that there is near the "white privilege" that the SJWs want us to believe. As I've said before. I know of, and personally know, lots of black people who started out poor but now are as successful as anyone. That "white privilege" doesn't go far if you are a lazy, unambitious no-account.

To reiterate, which SJWs are you referring to? The phrase has become used so frequently that anyone who leans Republican or left of that can be called a SJW, and this large group of people have differing viewpoints on the degree to which white privilege persists. Your statement "I don't think that there is near the 'white privilege' that the SJWs want us to believe" is thus not meaningful until you specify further.

I won't quote your entire next syllogism but I think that it has the problem of many such in that is leaves out information. Putting effort into becoming a success goes a long way toward reaching that goal but there also are other factors involved. For instance, someone who wishes to be successful in business needs to have the ability see an opportunity when one arises, the intelligence or education to seize said opportunity and run with it, and the charisma to make contacts and sway them into being investors.

We can include that information, then. It is known that American-born black people are, to a statistically significant degree, less successful than American-born white people. According to your claim, lack of success is due to some weighted combination of the following: lack of effort, lack of ability to see opportunities, lack of intelligence, lack of education, lack of charisma. Thus, you believe that American-born black people, on average have a weighted combination of effort, ability to see opportunities, intelligence, education, and charisma that is less than American-born white people.

Note that the above statement is not equivalent to "there are no black people whose [weighted combination of etc.] is as good as white people", nor is it equivalent to "the black person with the highest [weighted combination of etc.] is not as high as the white person with the lowest", or similar statements.

Fortunately, the affirmative action policy aims to reduce the education barrier between blacks and whites, so the United States are on track to remove one of those things. I do want to ask you, however, why you believe the above, whether you think that the above is a problem or not (and why), and, if you believe that the above is a problem, what should be done to correct or mitigate the problem.

[Metis]

To reiterate, which SJWs are you referring to?

People like this:

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2lPmD7ga7g[/video]

Also, you misunderstand what I was saying. I listed some of the characteristics of successful people but they might also apply to some unsuccessful people who simply have had bad luck in life.

None of the black people I've met were any less capable than the white people I've met. This goes for the Indians, Hispanics and Asians too. Of course, other than treating their injuries, I've not really hung around biker gangs, drug dealers and the like either.

Like I keep saying, stop being so concerned about the statistics and look for individual success stories. You will find that there are more than you think. Just because a certain percentage of black people fail doesn't mean that the overwhelming majority don't succeed.

[Vinyanyérë]

To reiterate, which SJWs are you referring to?

People like this:

(video)

In the interest of avoiding misunderstanding, could you explicitly state the extent of white privilege which you believe does not exist?

Also, you misunderstand what I was saying. I listed some of the characteristics of successful people but they might also apply to some unsuccessful people who simply have had bad luck in life.

Okay, so I will amend my previous statement:

According to your claim, lack of success is due to some weighted combination of the following: lack of effort, lack of ability to see opportunities, lack of intelligence, lack of education, lack of charisma, lack of luck. Thus, you believe that American-born black people, on average have a weighted combination of effort, ability to see opportunities, intelligence, education, charisma, and luck that is less than American-born white people. The previous question remains.

You will find that there are more than you think.

On the contrary, I think that the number of success stories is exactly as many as the statistics would indicate. If I were to go look for those success stories, the number of those that I would find would indeed be the number that the statistics would indicate.

Just because a certain percentage of black people fail doesn't mean that the overwhelming majority don't succeed.

This is not a true statement for the "certain percentage" being in the range [50,100]. The lower bound of this range is actually lower than 50 depending on how you define overwhelming majority.

Like I keep saying, stop being so concerned about the statistics and look for individual success stories.

Why are individual success stories more valuable than statistics?

To probe this question further, in which situations is this true? According to you, on the subject of black people in the states, it is more important to look at individual cases than statistics. Do you believe that, on all subjects, it is more important to look at individual cases than statistics, or just this subject, or on some specific set of subjects?

[Metis]

You all keep trying to get me to admit that I have "white privilege" but it ain't gonna happen. I wasn't born as poor as my Dad or Grandpa but my family didn't have any money to spare. We had a house to stay in, clothes to wear and food to eat but if we wanted anything else we had to work for it. We never got an allowance, or even a couple of bucks for doing a chore. Doing chores was expected of the family members who weren't bread winners. I've had to pretty much work for everything I have obtained.

I've done jobs that I would venture to say that none of you ever have or would ever dream of doing, like literally shoveling shit out of a feedlot for days on end in the hot sun or removing a dead liquified body that had cooked in an apartment for weeks. I've treated patients under fire, negotiated weapons away from people who were threatening to shoot me and my patients and done my share of routine nursing work like emptying bedpans, wiping asses and giving sponge baths.

I've had patients vomit all over me and others go crazy and stab me. I've been inside burning cars extricating patients and hoping that the firefighters would hurry up and put the fire out or we all were going to cook. I've also done a crapload of other things and I've been told more than once that I really should write a book.

I've taken pride in my accomplishments and learned to become better from self-criticism of my few failures. I now am well-read, well-educated, somewhat well-experienced and reasonably skilled but this was mostly my own doing, not because I was born with any "privilege" just because I was white. In fact, I was born poorer that I was raised as I was born in Germany to an unmarried maid who gave me up for adoption because she couldn't afford to feed a child. This was before the Berlin wall went up. I was damned lucky that a US serviceman and his wife thought I was cute enough to take home and raise as their own kid.

[egg]

You all keep trying to get me to admit that I have "white privilege" but it ain't gonna happen. I wasn't born as poor as my Dad or Grandpa but my family didn't have any money to spare. We had a house to stay in, clothes to wear and food to eat but if we wanted anything else we had to work for it. We never got an allowance, or even a couple of bucks for doing a chore. Doing chores was expected of the family members who weren't bread winners. I've had to pretty much work for everything I have obtained.

I've done jobs that I would venture to say that none of you ever have or would ever dream of doing, like literally shoveling shit out of a feedlot for days on end in the hot sun or removing a dead liquified body that had cooked in an apartment for weeks. I've treated patients under fire, negotiated weapons away from people who were threatening to shoot me and my patients and done my share of routine nursing work like emptying bedpans, wiping asses and giving sponge baths.

I've had patients vomit all over me and others go crazy and stab me. I've been inside burning cars extricating patients and hoping that the firefighters would hurry up and put the fire out or we all were going to cook. I've also done a crapload of other things and I've been told more than once that I really should write a book.

I've taken pride in my accomplishments and learned to become better from self-criticism of my few failures. I now am well-read, well-educated, somewhat well-experienced and reasonably skilled but this was mostly my own doing, not because I was born with any "privilege" just because I was white. In fact, I was born poorer that I was raised as I was born in Germany to an unmarried maid who gave me up for adoption because she couldn't afford to feed a child. This was before the Berlin wall went up. I was damned lucky that a US serviceman and his wife thought I was cute enough to take home and raise as their own kid.

With all your experience in life you should really know you cant reason with todays kind of liberals.

[Vinyanyérë]

You have admitted it though. See the following posts:

I'm not saying that there is no racism, nor am I saying that poor black people have it tougher than most. What I am saying is that white people have had it tough too, this is why there are programs now in place to give everyone a "helping hand," no matter what their race. I'm sure that under certain circumstances, it's easier for a white person to get ahead in America than a black person, all other things equal. However, I don't think that there is near the "white privilege" that the SJWs want us to believe. As I've said before, I know of, and personally know, lots of black people who started out poor but now are as successful as anyone. That "white privilege" doesn't go far if you are a lazy, unambitious no-account.

I'm not saying that, in certain cases, whites may have an advantage over minorities. What I'm saying is that "white privilege" isn't as prevalent as the SJW's make it out be. Most people, no matter what their race, have to work hard to get ahead.

You've admitted that white privilege exists. What remains to discuss is the extent to which it exists. You believe that its extent is small, others (a small number of people, none of whom are here) believe that racism is institutionalized to the extent that race is the sole predictor of success. I believe neither of these. I'm looking for us to come to an agreement that lies somewhere between these two degrees.

Secondary remark: I literally don't care about what jobs you've done in the past. I don't mean that as in insult, it's just that I don't see their applicability to the current discussion, and so including that in your post mostly serves to make it more difficult for me to read.

[Metis]

You've admitted that white privilege exists.

I said that white privilege may exist in certain cases but minority privilege definitely exists in other cases, such as college admissions.

Can you give me an example of a definite case of white privilege today (not in the past)? I'm not taking statistics here but an individual account. And I'm not talking about a white person born with a "silver spoon in their mouth" either because if you want to go that route I can mention the kids of Tyler Perry, Beyonce, Mariah Carey, etc. who will inherit a fortune worth hundreds of times more than what 99% of working whites will earn in their entire lifetime.

[Vinyanyérë]

You've admitted that white privilege exists.

I said that white privilege may exist in certain cases but minority privilege definitely exists in other cases, such as college admissions.

Can you give me an example of a definite case of white privilege today (not in the past)? I'm not taking statistics here but an individual account. And I'm not talking about a white person born with a "silver spoon in their mouth" either because if you want to go that route I can mention the kids of Tyler Perry, Beyonce, Mariah Carey, etc. who will inherit a fortune worth hundreds of times more than what 99% of working whites will earn in their entire lifetime.

The "may" featured in one post, but not in the other. The point stands.

Statistical evidence is more appropriate. This is because specific examples involve multiple variables together, and so a valid response to any specific example that I provide is to respond with "that was not an instance of white privilege, it was [something else]", and we can spend quite a bit of time discussing this. Statistical evidence allows us to marginalize out other variables. If you are looking for a specific example though, the acquittal of the Oregon militia earlier this year makes for a pretty good one. Seven of the (white) militia were acquitted by an all-white jury*, and meanwhile the Dakota Access Pipeline protests have provoked an increasingly militarized response. More examples pending.

I have to now ask that you respond to my previous post, as I did use that post to ask you several questions. I am referring to the post that begins with "In the interest of avoiding misunderstanding..." and ends with "...specific set of subjects?"

*I found one source for this particular fact but could not find any other sources, so I am going to leave it as tentatively true until I can find a secondary source.

[Metis]

I have done considerable work in sampling and multivariate statistical analysis, which is why I know that the statistics reported by the media are fraught with error. Furthermore, there are really no sound data on "white privilege" because it's just a catchphrase made up by Internet social justice warriors and is not even well defined. There are good data, collected by local law enforcement and submitted for compilation by the FBI, that show blacks to be more likely to be murdered by other blacks than by whites or by the police. There are also good data that show that blacks make up a disproportionately large percentage of prison inmates. I've told you the reason for this, it's drug-dealers and gangs in the cities. I've also told you the solution to the problem and showed you an example of someone who is working on it. Just because one part of society causes problems for themselves doesn't mean that another is "privileged."

Underprivileged -- having less money, education, etc., than the other people in a society; having fewer advantages, privileges, and opportunities than most people; poor or disadvantaged.

What opportunities are denied minorities in America? Every child, no matter what his race, must, by law, receive at least 12 years of education. Every poor child must, by law, receive housing and sustenance under HUD, WIC and NSLP programs. Every adult must, by law, be given an equal opportunity when applying for housing or a job. Minorities are given an advantage in collegiate admissions and access to college grants through affirmative action. So where is the "white privilege" in all of this?

Speaking of "minorities" you may not be aware but in many areas of America "whites" are not a majority. For example, in California, Anglos are a plurality at best and are soon to become a minority. Does California thus have "Hispanic privilege?" Can the affirmative action laws be applied to Anglos there now?

Speaking of those Oregon militia members (who weren't even from Oregon, for the most part), they weren't acquitted because the jury was white, they were acquitted because people were fed up with the way that the government had been acting towards local ranchers and the federal prosecutors were charging them under conspiracy laws that really didn't make any sense to the jury. Just because they had guns doesn't mean that they were starting an armed insurrection. With a few specific exceptions, it's perfectly legal in America to carry a gun almost anywhere. In fact, it's not just legal, it's a Constitutional right. It's also a Constitutional right to assemble and petition the government for redress. The protesters may have been spouting their mouths off more than they should have but that's also a Constitutional right. One protester was killed but it was the government officials who ambushed and shot him, he didn't fire first.

[Metis]

Why "White Privilege" is Bullshit

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoHAG9UFaKI[/video]

[Metis]

The economic problems minorities face in our society are almost entirely caused by their own actions or lack thereof. -- Jay Fayza

[Vinyanyérë]

I have done considerable work in sampling and multivariate statistical analysis, which is why I know that the statistics reported by the media are fraught with error.

So have I, however, the main statistics that we have worked with so far have either been ones you provided or which you have implied agreement with (particularly: American-born black people are, on average, less successful than American born white people). The question of whether or not statistical evidence is erroneous when reported by the media is not an inherent problem to the statistics themselves and is resolvable. And anecdotal evidence is an example of a statistic that is fraught with error (it is a statistic for which n = 1).

Furthermore, there are really no sound data on "white privilege" because it's just a catchphrase made up by Internet social justice warriors and is not even well defined. There are good data, collected by local law enforcement and submitted for compilation by the FBI, that show blacks to be more likely to be murdered by other blacks than by whites or by the police. There are also good data that show that blacks make up a disproportionately large percentage of prison inmates. I've told you the reason for this, it's drug-dealers and gangs in the cities. I've also told you the solution to the problem and showed you an example of someone who is working on it. Just because one part of society causes problems for themselves doesn't mean that another is "privileged."

We can dig deeper than "there exist drug dealers and gangs in the cites". Why are there drug dealers and gangs in the cities?

I made a very precisely-worded statement on this matter. Do you believe that American-born black people, on average, have a weighted combination of effort, ability to see opportunities, intelligence, education, charisma, and luck that is less than American-born white people? If no, can you resolve this with your previous statements (as specified before)? If yes, why do you believe that?

The solution that you have indicated, which, from my understanding, is to have more people like George, is not a policy-level solution. It requires a large number of individual actors. However, if you believe that American-born black people, on average, have a weighted combination of effort, ability to see opportunities, intelligence, education, charisma, and luck that is less than American-born white people, then relatively few people like George exist. That's not to say that there exists no such person: George is an an example of one such person. It is to say, however, that
the solution that you have proposed is not one. This is actually something that is quite interesting to me but may require discussing more fundamental philosophical points: I am trying to see if I can get my point across without going down this route, but let me know if the point is not coming across clearly enough and I'd be happy to expand upon it.

Speaking of "minorities" you may not be aware but in many areas of America "whites" are not a majority. For example, in California, Anglos are a plurality at best and are soon to become a minority. Does California thus have "Hispanic privilege?" Can the affirmative action laws be applied to Anglos there now?

The proportion of a group's population in a society is not the sole and only a relatively minor indicator of overall status. Thus, no to both questions.

Speaking of those Oregon militia members (who weren't even from Oregon, for the most part), they weren't acquitted because the jury was white, they were acquitted because people were fed up with the way that the government had been acting towards local ranchers and the federal prosecutors were charging them under conspiracy laws that really didn't make any sense to the jury. Just because they had guns doesn't mean that they were starting an armed insurrection. With a few specific exceptions, it's perfectly legal in America to carry a gun almost anywhere. In fact, it's not just legal, it's a Constitutional right. It's also a Constitutional right to assemble and petition the government for redress. The protesters may have been spouting their mouths off more than they should have but that's also a Constitutional right. One protester was killed but it was the government officials who ambushed and shot him, he didn't fire first.

It should be noted that I am not fully opposed to their acquittal. The seven acquitted were being tried for more than the conspiracy charge. The point, however, is the duality between this case and the current ongoing one in North Dakota.

[momuuu]

The thing that kinda happens to me is that you see this statistical fact that some ethnic group struggles (in this case black people). So then I see metis denying that there is white priviledge and I wonder, why does metis think black people struggle? The only answer that remains, if it is not white priviledge, is that metis somehow things black people are inferior, which seems pretty fucking racist to me.

[Metis]

Relatively few people like George exist -- to have more people like George, is not a policy-level solution. It requires a large number of individual actors.

There you have the solution in a nutshell. Legislation alone has not and will not solve much of anything -- the community itself must act to implement change. This has to be a bottom-up, grass roots effort, not a top-down policy one. People like George are making a difference by teaching youth that there is another way out of inner-city poverty than joining a gang and selling drugs on the street corner. You can pass all the laws you want and nothing is going to happen until you actually "go into the trenches" and interact with the young people on an individual basis before they are recruited into a gang.

[Vinyanyérë]

That's not a solution, though. I'd agree that "there needs to be more people like George" is the correct way to approach a solution. However, from a policy standpoint, saying "there needs to be more people like George" doesn't produce any more people like George: it just shifts responsibility of the problem away from people who can create a solution to people who cannot. We can say "we should direct policy to produce more people like George" - affirmative action is arguably one such policy, despite its flaws.

[Dolan]

The thing that kinda happens to me is that you see this statistical fact that some ethnic group struggles (in this case black people). So then I see metis denying that there is white priviledge and I wonder, why does metis think black people struggle? The only answer that remains, if it is not white priviledge, is that metis somehow things black people are inferior, which seems pretty fucking racist to me.

I'm so sick and tired of this BS, who do you think isn't struggling? Bulgarians are struggling, Romanians are struggling, Hungarians are struggling, Italians are struggling, most people on this planet are struggling. Why do you think all these migrants from African and Arab states don't come to Romania to join the struggle? Because it's so comfy to go to Germany or Sweden and live on welfare. Why struggle when you can game the system in your favour and then blackmail everyone with your problems?

Let me ask you one thing: if you live in Ethiopia and see the poverty and violence that exists there, why the fuck do you spawn 4.46 kids per woman, when you know they have no future there? Do you think the world is responsible for your offspring?

And no, don't come telling me this is a good thing for the West because "mah low fertility rates in the West justify letting in more and more migrants", because I thought in the future we wouldn't need as much human workforce as more and more robots would pick up the slack for us, once we grew older. And you know these hordes of migrants in Europe are not going to be the future engineers building those robots or programming them. Just take a look at the Turkish minority in Germany and tell me most of them hold high-skilled jobs (..such as kebab shop employees and taxi drivers). After 30-40 years, basically the second generation is in the same spot as their parents were back in the 80s (http://www.spiegel.de/international/ger ... 03588.html):

[...] immigrants from Turkey, the second biggest immigrant group in Germany making up almost 3 million people, are very poorly integrated. They come last in the Berlin Institute's integration ranking and the difference between them and the Germans is greatest -- they are worse educated, worse paid and have a higher rate of unemployment. And it doesn't make much difference how long they've been living in Germany.

If your name is Ümit rather than Hans or Gülcan rather than Grete, you're less likely to climb the career ladder. Some 30 percent of Turkish immigrants and their children don't have a school leaving certificate, and only 14 percent do their Abitur, as the degree from Germany's top-level high schools is called -- that's half the average of the German population.

And because immigrants tend to have more children than the Germans, the problem is likely to get worse in the future. Today a third of all children born in Germany are born to immigrant families.

[Metis]

That's not a solution, though. I'd agree that "there needs to be more people like George" is the correct way to approach a solution. However, from a policy standpoint, saying "there needs to be more people like George" doesn't produce any more people like George: it just shifts responsibility of the problem away from people who can create a solution to people who cannot. We can say "we should direct policy to produce more people like George" - affirmative action is arguably one such policy, despite its flaws.

If you want to legislate a policy that would go a long way toward solving the problem, then institute a mandatory two-year national service. This doesn't have to be the military per se but can include things like cleaning up vacant lots, building housing, maintaining the country's infrastructure, providing rural transportation or health care, etc. There would be no waivers or 'outs' for anyone, rich or poor, unless you simply were too physically impaired to do anything but lie in bed with an IV in your arm. This national service draft, unlike the military draft of old, would be mandatory for females too -- welcome to the world of equal rights, girls.

Such a policy would do several things to help improve the nation. It would give poorer people job training and a job. It would force the "elites" to mingle with the "hoi polloi" and get to know them, giving them some idea of how the other 99% lives. It would get people of all races, cultures and walks of life together to interact so that they could learn more about each other and hopefully make some friends. It also would act to split up street gangs as it would be hard to maintain a gang when most of its members were scattered throughout the country.

[Vinyanyérë]

I would be okay with that so long as it were predominantly a non-military service, and I agree that it would go a very long way towards resolving the issue. That said, I think it's a fairly extreme proposal. I suspect many Americans who are both far-left and far-right politically would like the proposal (perhaps for different reasons), but I'm not sure that the general American population is as amenable to the idea at the present time. There should exist more feasible ways to accomplish similar goals.

[Metis]

I'm not sure that it's so extreme. Many countries have mandatory national service of some type, including Israel, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Switzerland, etc. If you want the privilege of being a US citizen, then you should be willing to spend a couple of years in service to your country.

[Vinyanyérë]

That's certainly possible. I'm not sure it scales cleanly into a population as large the United States', though: from what I can tell, the countries that do have mandatory service are either small (Norway, Finland), not heavily enforcing the policy in practice (Brazil), have meaningful national security concerns (RoK, Taiwan), or aren't shining examples of countries that respect personal freedom (Iran, Russia). I have not researched this subject much, however, so I may be wrong about it's feasibility. That said, I do want to stress that I believe that there exist alternative (not necessarily better or worse) solutions, and that a solution should be implemented.

Regardless, I think that we have established some common ground on the subject (let me know if you disagree).

[Metis]

I do know that current policies aren't working. For example, the "war on drugs" doesn't do much to solve the problem of drug-dealing street gangs or addiction. What it does do is militarize the police and alienate them from the communities they are supposed to be serving. Not to mention that it fills the prisons with people that the taxpayers now have to support. Removing a drug dealer from the street is akin to "droning" a terrorist. It may look like something's being done when it's reported in the media but by the next day someone has already taken his place.

Jesse Jackson and other rabble rousers aren't helping matters either. In fact, the riots they incite actually make things worse by causing people who were trying to make the community better to close up shop and leave. Several companies left Ferguson, MO after the recent riots. It's hard to blame them when the rioters burned or looted 56 local businesses. Those who can't leave or wish to stay get little support from the likes of Jackson, who is off protesting the next issue de jour.

“It’s been very challenging,” Jones said. “I’ve been trying to keep up the bills here and at home. It’s proven to be very difficult and challenging and almost impossible.”

“You have all of these different protesters. They don’t pop into your business and say, ‘Hey, what do you need?’ or ‘Hey, are you all OK?’” “It just seems like with the protests, it seems very selfish.” -- Ferguson. MO business owner whose shop was looted by "protesters".

http://dailysignal.com/2015/08/11/with- ... -protests/

[spanky4ever]

About the topic here: I guess Castro was better than the other choices - to become a banana state for USA: this is the south america state you did not get to wreck: The place where human rights where broken - is in the Guantanoma base (you know the place in Cuba where US has a prison where they held ppl for years without charges or convictions )
[video]https://youtu.be/6K1C6SxQiG4[/video]

[spanky4ever]

Not saying Cuba and Casto did not break any civil rights - but looking back on what USA has done in the south America last 60 years - I guess the Cubans did pretty good in comparison