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Interesting Article Re Byu Student Fighting Racism


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5 minutes ago, Amulek said:
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Racism is incompatible with the Restored Gospel.  However, it's also a highly subjective, heavilty politicized, moving target.  Nevertheless, I'm open to discussing it.  What do you think?  Should a prohibition against "racist remarks and actions" be added to BYU's Honor Code?

I think the principles in the Honor Code already encapsulate what such a change is intended to cover. 

That is my thought as well.

5 minutes ago, Amulek said:

Plus, while we can all certainly think of remarks or actions which would be undeniably racist, I think there's a pretty big spectrum of gray area in between undeniably racist and unequivocally not racist remarks/actions.

Yes.  And given the casual way in which "Racist!" is thrown around these days, alongside the exhortations to have "discussions" about "race," I think we need to give each other some breathing room.  

Thanks,

-Smac

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9 minutes ago, Calm said:
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School choice?

Greater emphasis by family members and non-governmental community leaders?

And how can they choose better schools when such are not in their district due to lack of funding?

"Better schools" is not really correlated with "more money."  There are plenty of failing schools that have lots of per-pupil money.

9 minutes ago, Calm said:

Greater emphasis to go to crap schools still results in crap education.

To some extent, yes.  Hence the a multi-factored analysis of the situation.  

Advances in technology all for all sorts of individualized educational goals and efforts.  

9 minutes ago, Calm said:

So how would you suggest they improve the schools?

That's a big question.

9 minutes ago, Calm said:

Scholarships to good schools only allow access to good schools for a small number of black students in school districts with poorly funded schools. 

Higher education need not be as expensive as it is.  It should be substantially overhauled.  And not just for black students.

Thanks,

-Smac

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I do wonder if it is actually my skin color that privileges me, or if it is more my cultural traits that privilege me.  Even within cultures, there are micro cultures that may benefit or harm economic outlook. 

Does anyone disagree that different racial groups have different cultural traits (generally speaking)?

Does anyone disagree that our capitalist system rewards certain cultural traits more than others because they are more profitable?

Does anyone disagree that black Americans have different cultures from black Africans?  If white privilege was a thing, we would expect to see black Americans and black Africans equally deprivileged when compared to white Americans. But if the privilege favored culture over color, then we would expect to see diversity in economic success between the two black groups, and even between white groups of different cultures.  And we do:

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"black immigrant groups such as Nigerians, Barbadians, Ghanians, and Trinidadians & Tobagonians have a median household income well above the American average."

"Ghanian Anericans, earn more than several white groups such as Dutch Americans, French Americans, Polish Americans, British Americans, and Russian Americans."

"Nigerian Americans, meanwhile are one the most educated groups in America, as one Rice University survey indicates.  Though they make up less than 1 percent of the black population in America, nearly 25 percent of the black student body at Harvard Business School in 2013 consisted of Nigerians.  In post-bachelor education, 61 percent of Nigerian Americans over the age of 25 hold a graduate degree compared to only 32 percent for the US-born population."

Furthermore:

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According to median household income statistics from the US Census Nureau, several non-white minority groups substantially out-earn whites.  These groups include Pakistani Americans, Lebanese Americans, South African Americans, Filipino Americans, Sri Lankan Americans and Iranian Americans (in addition to several others).  Indians are the highest earning ethnic group, with almost double the household median income of whites. 

Why are black haired and brown skinned groups outperforming white-privilege?  How is that possible unless the system favored cultural traits instead of color?

The quotes are from the following article.  I think it makes some really compelling points.  What do y'all think?

https://nypost.com/2020/07/11/the-fallacy-of-white-privilege-and-how-its-corroding-society/

While I don't doubt that there is racism, and maybe even systemic in some systems.  Is the overall economic success we see in different cultural groups really due to the color of their skin, or is it due to the profitability of their cultural traits (generally speaking)?

Edited by pogi
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1 minute ago, smac97 said:

Good to know.  But then why present me with a litany of plain-as-day statements about the plight of African-Americans at the hands of (now dead) white Americans?

If I were having a discussion with a person of German extraction about anti-semitism, and if I then said "Germans killed millions of Jews, Romani, and other 'undesirables' during World War II, even though you didn't," what do you suppose the German would think about why I just made that super-duper obvious point?

Thanks,

-Smac

What is obvious to me and apparently opaque to you is that it is impossible to understand race relations today without acknowledging past wrongs (even if we aren't responsible for those wrongs). I don't get what is hard to understand about this. I would be a different person if I was raised in a different environment. Is there nothing about the way that you were raised that shaped you as a person? Is there nothing about the way you were raised that still shapes how you raise your children today?

 

If we studied the prosperity of the average black American compared to the average white American, at what point after the civil war was the Black American responsible for his or her own plight? Like right after the civil war? ""Hey you guys are free now what are you complaining about?" During the many long years of Jim Crow? Hey black people, you have your own separate but equal schooling, your lack of success is your own fault. Racism what racism?" Wealth begets wealth. Wealthy people enjoy better health, have less stress, get their kids better education. Its generational. When did we overcome the systematic subjugation of an entire class of people in America? What year exactly? 

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4 hours ago, smac97 said:

I can't establish that as factually true.  I don't know that you can, either.

Did you read the letter published by the Writer's Guild? They make an excellent case. The leadership of the Guild, both black and white, thought the arguments were valid and important. And CBS did too. Maybe you understand the industry better than the Writer's Guild and CBS. Even if you do, it would be great if you demonstrated that you understood what they believed and why.

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Race-based discrimination is bad.  That is what I am teaching my kids.

Great!

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I am not advocating to them notions of collective guilt.  That some white people over here can and ought to be punished because of the misconduct of some other white people over there.  Simply because they share a skin color.

Neither is CBS, nor the Writer's Guild, nor Black Lives Matter.

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I am also not advocating retributive racism.  

Neither is CBS, nor the Writer's Guild, nor Black Lives Matter.

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That point of view would not negate the reality of what CBS is doing.

Again, a press release does not negate the reality of what CBS is doing: discriminating against white applicants solely because of their skin color.

You are fundamentally misunderstanding what they are doing and why.

As an analogy to help you understand their position, say there was a hit TV show called Provo! about a large Mormon family living in Provo, Utah. None of the writers are Mormon, although one of them visited Provo for a football game, once. And not surprisingly, the show misrepresents in details large and small what life is really like for Mormon families living in Provo.

And say there are lots of Mormon writers who would love to do the show, but they are never picked for it. The network claims they are picking the people who are best qualified, but it turns out the executive producer was picking up his friends from USC, as well as the people he socializes with at LA parties, non of whom happen to be Mormon.

If a group of Mormons in the Writer's Guild said this wasn't right--that despite the executive producer honestly believing he was choosing the best people for the job irrespective of religion, he was really inadvertently decimating against Mormons because of the fact they were in different social circles.

And what if the members of the guild, Mormon and non-Mormon alike, agreed with him on this and made the case to the network. What if they argued that not only was this unfair to the Mormon writers, it was also hurting the show, the network, and ultimately all of society. And say the network found the argument convincing and responded by saying they wanted to have at least 50% of their writers for Provo! to be Mormons. This would not only right a small wrong, but also improve the quality of their program.

Would that be an egregious example of insisting upon general non-Mormon collective guilt? Would it be reverse discrimination against non-Mormons? Would you cry it is morally wrong for the network to want Mormons on the staff and that they ought to completely ignore the religious background of the people they pick to write about life in Provo?

Edited by Analytics
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1 hour ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

Over the last 40 years, society has finally made great strides in removing overt racism, but structural inequality exists. By Almost any metric, black Americans are worse off than their white peers. The reasons can be tied by a direct chain of events back to the days when their ancestors were slaves. You say that a company setting a minority hiring target is unacceptable racism against white people. What is your solution to correct the systemic problems that exist today? Or does nothing more need to be done in your opinion?

I would say that the systemic problems that we see today, which contribute to the discrepancies in wellbeing between racial groups, are primarily the result of poverty. African-Americans have historically been denied many opportunities to amass generational wealth, real property, education, and other opportunities and assets. I think a more fruitful approach would be attacking poverty, the "supply side" of the systemic disparities. I don't know how close I'm teetering to breaking the "no politics rule", so I won't go in depth into specific policy solutions or ideas here. But I do think depicting intergenerational poverty as the "enemy" rather than structural racism will lead to a more harmonious and successful future. 

In this "honest conversation about race" that we are having, I fear that every policy and every idea is becoming racialized. Everything is being judged along lines of racial effect, which some people think is a good thing, but to me it appears to be creating endless fuel for racial conflict. We bemoan partisanship and its effects in the United States, but at least political parties are generally voluntary associations. Race is a fundamental and generally non-disposable element of identity; how much compromise will be possible when the minutest matters of governance become existential battlegrounds and everything is personal? I don't see a future for a cooperative republic down that path. Let us deal with the underlying causal forces of poverty as a unified citizenry, as opposed to reifying racial divisions for show. 

I anticipate that my comments will sound naive to many, so I await rebuke. 

Edited by OGHoosier
Revised an opinion after consideration.
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2 minutes ago, OGHoosier said:

I would say that the systemic problems that we see today, which contribute to the discrepancies in wellbeing between racial groups, are primarily the result of poverty. African-Americans have historically been denied many opportunities to amass generational wealth, real property, education, and other opportunities and assets. I think a more fruitful approach would be attacking poverty, the "supply side" of the systemic disparities. I don't know how close I'm teetering to breaking the "no politics rule", so I won't go in depth into specific policy solutions or ideas here. But I do think depicting intergenerational poverty as the "enemy" rather than structural racism will lead to a more harmonious and successful future. 

In this "honest conversation about race" that we are having, I fear that every policy and every idea is becoming racialized. Everything is being judged along lines of racial effect, which some people think is a good thing, but to me it appears to be creating endless fuel for racial conflict. We bemoan partisanship and its effects in the United States, but at least political parties are generally voluntary associations. Race is a fundamental and generally non-disposable element of identity; how much compromise will be possible when the minutest matters of governance become existential battlegrounds and everything is personal? I don't see a future for a cooperative republic down that path. Let us deal with the underlying causal forces of poverty as a unified citizenry, as opposed to reifying racial divisions for show. 

I anticipate that my comments will sound naive to many, so I await rebuke. 

You won't get any rebuke from me. If we took real steps to attack poverty and provide real equal opportunity for all (not equal outcomes) I think we would be in a much better place as a country. I'd say more but it would get political so I'll leave it there.

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38 minutes ago, smac97 said:

The "Welfare State" have done huge damage to the African-American community

Do you consider it a possibility that one of the reasons the welfare state had done such damage to the black community is due to the systemic racism that is seen by many as present in its funding and administration since the beginning?

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/06/race-safety-net-welfare/529203/

https://academic.oup.com/ser/article-abstract/doi/10.1093/ser/mwz025/5489411?redirectedFrom=fulltext#135614892

Edited by Calm
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13 minutes ago, pogi said:

While I don't doubt that there is racism, and maybe even systemic in some systems.  Is the overall economic success we see in different cultural groups really due to the color of their skin, or is it due to the profitability of their cultural traits (generally speaking)?

I appreciate your thoughts. The only thing I would add is that America's history of racism has had a HUGE influence on modern black culture. 

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17 minutes ago, Calm said:

Greater emphasis to go to crap schools still results in crap education.

So how would you suggest they improve the schools?

Isn't this what Title 2 funding is for? 

Far more important than merely improving schools, however (at least, in my opinion) is parental involvement, and I don't know that there is an easy fix for that.

 

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7 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

What is obvious to me and apparently opaque to you is that it is impossible to understand race relations today without acknowledging past wrongs (even if we aren't responsible for those wrongs). I don't get what is hard to understand about this.

That's not "opaque" at all.  I get it.

7 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

I would be a different person if I was raised in a different environment. Is there nothing about the way that you were raised that shaped you as a person? Is there nothing about the way you were raised that still shapes how you raise your children today?

Yes, how I was raised has affected me as a person, and also affected how I raise my children.

7 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

If we studied the prosperity of the average black American compared to the average white American, at what point after the civil war was the Black American responsible for his or her own plight?

I reject the notion that the sole cause of "the average Black American{'s} ... plight" is what happened to his great-great-great-great-grandparents.

I just don't buy that.

I previously provided a partial list of factors that I think are in play:

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1. Historic racism and injustice certainly play a part, though in diminishing ways as we move through time.

2. Current racism certainly plays a part.  But I don't think it's systemic any more.  It's more individualized.

3. The "Welfare State" have done huge damage to the African-American community.  Thomas Sowell (who, I hasten to add to preemptively defend myself against accusations that I am speaking from a purely "white" perspective, is black) has influenced my thinking about this.
...
More here: https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/thomas-sowell-on-the-legacy-of-slavery-vs-the-legacy-of-liberalism/

4. "Culture" seems to be a contributing problem.  See, e.g., here...
...
5. Personal responsibility and family life is a huge factor.  

I'm sure there are more.

Again, I reject theone-to-one causation you seem to be suggesting here.

Thanks,

-Smac

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Education is not about money or schools or the color of a person's skin.

Education is all about learning something and with God to help us learn from books and the words of others there is nothing we can't learn when we determine to learn all we can about it.

 

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3 minutes ago, smac97 said:

That's not "opaque" at all.  I get it.

Yes, how I was raised has affected me as a person, and also affected how I raise my children.

I reject the notion that the sole cause of "the average Black American{'s} ... plight" is what happened to his great-great-great-great-grandparents.

I just don't buy that.

I previously provided a partial list of factors that I think are in play:

Again, I reject theone-to-one causation you seem to be suggesting here.

Thanks,

-Smac

Do you believe Nephi's testimony that an entire nation would dwindle in disbelief without the brass plates?

If so, how can that one factor have such a long-lasting, generational impact on an entire nation hundreds of years later, but slavery not?

 

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5 hours ago, Calm said:

I am not up in arms. It was just so contrary to my own experience, I was surprised and amused by it. It certainly does me no harm to be assumed to be punctual if I was out looking for a job rather than the reality of a last minute, barely got there in time only because I would get fired if I wasn’t there kind of person.

Attributing punctuality to whiteness/white culture is something new to me though the other characteristics listed are quite familiar.   I assumed a much more global treatment, institutions worshipping the clock while individuals ignored it where possible, but it appears I am projecting too much of my own experience on to others.

I am not in up in arms, I am delighted to learn something new about people around me I was too dense to notice. 
 

PS:  for me “rigid” or watching the clock behaviour translates as “clock obsessed”...though it doesn’t take much to qualify as that for me due to me feeling that way when forced by circumstances to watch the clock. I realize for others it made be viewed as just being punctual.  I was talking though about how I would perceive the implications of the comments.  My life is very atypical for white Americans I know and I am assuming most other Americans.  I sleep when I am sleepy...mostly during daylight and eat when hungry, usually evening and early morning and clean house when I feel like it. There is a very vague pattern overall, but no guarantee I will hit that on any given day. In some ways, I very much enjoy this. OTOH, the fact the rest of the world is out of sync with me does cause issues, but my family has adapted, so not too much of a problem for me.  My body appears to be incapable of establishing a sleep pattern no matter how rigid I get, so I stopped fighting it. 

Thanks for the explanation.  I get better where you're coming from.

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32 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Better schools" is not really correlated with "more money."  There are plenty of failing schools that have lots of per-pupil money.

Sure, money you have can be misspent...but you can spend wisely or poorly money you don’t have. How many good schools have that level of lack of funding?

Low funding could be in part balanced by high volunteerism by parents and community...but the needed volunteers are unlikely to be coming from communities where parents have to work multiple jobs or don’t have the educational level to contribute to teaching their children. 
 

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That's a big question.

That is apparently going unanswered. 

Edited by Calm
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37 minutes ago, Amulek said:

I think the principles in the Honor Code already encapsulate what such a change is intended to cover. 

Which Honor Code principles do that, and how long have they been around? Furthermore, how can we be sure that the message is clear? Specifically, we have every reason to assume that some students are getting mixed messages because of teachings taught at BYU to their parents and other students not that many years ago. BYU was teaching blatantly racist ideas until 2012 atleast.

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Teachers’ salaries show a significant gap between mostly minority and mostly not schools. Since good teachers speaks a good deal of their own money for supplies in classes, even if a teacher is willing to take a pay cut, they have much less to work with...and sometimes we are talking basics such as reading material, glue sticks, crayons, pencils even from what I have been told by teachers themselves. 
 

https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/significant-pay-gap-teachers-schools-serving-more-latino-and-african-american-students-according-new-us-department-education-data

Edited by Calm
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41 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

I appreciate your thoughts. The only thing I would add is that America's history of racism has had a HUGE influence on modern black culture. 

That's exactly right!  I think our histories play a huge role in our present day economic perspectives and cultures.  Just as poverty culture is generational, one can't expect a people's economic perspective and culture to be unscathed after dehumanizing them to be objects of slavery without rights to ownership or income, etc.  The tentacles of hundreds of years of slavery culture (speaking of black culture) undoubtedly reach into the present and was in part formed by the mistreatment of their race.  

Of course there are sub-cultures in every race and I think that some of those have broken the bands of those historical tentacles. 

Edited by pogi
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24 minutes ago, Calm said:
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The "Welfare State" have done huge damage to the African-American community

Do you consider it a possibility that one of the reasons the welfare state had done such damage to the black community is due to the systemic racism that is seen by many as present in its funding and administration since the beginning?

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/06/race-safety-net-welfare/529203/

https://academic.oup.com/ser/article-abstract/doi/10.1093/ser/mwz025/5489411?redirectedFrom=fulltext#135614892

You are presupposing that which has yet to be demonstrated ("systemic racism ... present in its funding and administration").

I get that you are qualifying it, but still...

But to directly answer your question: I don't know.  The problem with the welfare system is that too many black folks are using it.  I would of course oppose administering these programs in "racist" ways, but you seem to be suggesting that the problem with these programs are that they are not sufficiently funded in states with large black populations.  I surmise, then, that you think these programs should get more funding.  But wouldn't that make these programs more attractive?  Wouldn't that lead to more long-term reliance on these programs?

Short-term assistance from the state as a "safety net" is a wonderful thing.  But my concern has more to do with long-term, even multi-generational, reliance on welfare programs.  Consider these thoughts from Walter Williams, professor of economics at George Mason University:

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Sometimes, during my drive to work, I listen to Clarence Maurice Mitchell IV, host of the Baltimore’s WBAL C4 radio show. Mitchell was formerly a member of Maryland’s House of Delegates and its Senate. In recent weeks, Mitchell has been talking about the terrible crime situation in Baltimore. In 2018, there were 308 homicides. So far this year, there have been 69. That’s in a 2018 population of 611,648 — down from nearly a million in 1950. The city is pinning its hopes to reduce homicides and other crime on new Police Commissioner Michael Harrison.

Another hot news item in Baltimore is the fact that Johns Hopkins University wants to hire 100 armed police officers to patrol its campuses, hospital and surrounding neighborhoods. The hospital president, Dr. Redonda Miller testified in Annapolis hearings that patients and employees are “scared when they walk home, they’re scared when they walk to their cars.”

Philadelphia’s Temple University police department is the largest university police force in the United States, with 130 campus police officers, including supervisors and detectives.

In 1957, I attended night school at Temple University. There was little or no campus police presence. I am sure that people who attended Johns Hopkins, University of Chicago, and other colleges in or adjacent to black neighborhoods during the ’40s, ’50s and earlier weren’t in an armed camp. In the nation’s largest school districts that serve predominantly black youngsters, school police outnumber, sometimes by large margins, school counseling staffs. Again, something entirely new. I attended predominantly black Philadelphia schools from 1942 to 1954. The only time we saw a policeman in school was during an assembly where we had to listen to a boring lecture on safety. Today, Philadelphia schools have hired more than 350 police officers. What has happened to get us to this point? Will hiring more police officers and new police chiefs have much of an impact on crime?

No doubt hiring more and better trained police officers will have some impact on criminal and disorderly behavior — but not much unless we create a police state. The root of the problem, particularly among black Americans, is the breakdown of the family unit where fathers are absent. In 1938, 11 percent of blacks were born to unmarried women. By 1965, that number had grown to 25 percent. Now it’s about 75 percent. Even during slavery, when marriage between blacks was illegal, a higher percentage of black children were raised by their biological mothers and fathers than today. In 1940, 86 percent of black children were born inside marriage. Today, only 35 percent of black children are born inside marriage. Having no father in the home has a serious impact. Children with no father in the home are five times more likely to be poor and commit crime, nine times more likely to drop out of school and 20 times more likely to be in prison.

Our generous welfare system, in effect, allows women to marry the government. Plus, there is shortage of marriageable black men because they’ve dropped out of school, wound up in jail and haven’t much of a future. Unfortunately, many blacks followed the advice of white liberal academics such as Johns Hopkins professor Andrew Cherlin who in the 1960s argued that “the most detrimental aspect of the absence of fathers from one-parent families is not the lack of a male presence but the lack of male income” Cherlin’s vision suggested that fathers were unimportant and if black females “married the government”; black fathers would be redundant.

Most of today’s major problems encountered by black people have little or nothing to do with racial discrimination and a legacy of slavery. People who make those excuses are doing a grave disservice to black people. The major problems black people face are not amenable to political solutions and government anti-poverty programs. If they were, then they’d be solved by the more than $20 trillion dollars nation has spent on poverty programs since 1965. As comic strip character Pogo said, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

(Emphases added.)

Thanks,

-Smac

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58 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

I thought it was obvious. It is impossible to understand the disparity between white and black Americans without understanding America's racist past. 

That's exactly it. 

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33 minutes ago, smac97 said:
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I reject the notion that the sole cause of "the average Black American{'s} ... plight" is what happened to his great-great-great-great-grandparents.

Who is saying it is the “sole cause”?  Serious question. 
 

Extraordinarily significant one that should be considered in any discussion about causes of inequality, I would be happy to say that. Sole cause...no. 

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24 minutes ago, Meadowchik said:

Do you believe Nephi's testimony that an entire nation would dwindle in disbelief without the brass plates?

That wasn't Nephi.  See 1 Nephi 4:13.  And it was a prospective statement on what would happen if Nephi did not obtain the brass plates.  And I believe the angel was telling the truth.  

24 minutes ago, Meadowchik said:

If so, how can that one factor have such a long-lasting, generational impact on an entire nation hundreds of years later, but slavery not?

"But slavery not?"  Where are you getting that idea?

Thanks,

-Smac

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7 minutes ago, smac97 said:

You are presupposing that which has yet to be demonstrated ("systemic racism ... present in its funding and administration").

What would you call setting up the funds such that most funds went originally to white families?  What would you call currently setting up funding that used to go to individuals to go to projects in higher white communities? Serious questions.

 Yes See the two links for evidence.  Relatively near the beginning iirc, I can quote if you want.

Edited by Calm
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Just now, Calm said:

Who is saying it is the “sole cause”?  Serious question. 

Extraordinarily significant one that should be considered in any discussion about causes of inequality, I would be happy to say that. Sole cause...no. 

It's one of many factors.  Sure.

But notably, it's one that is 100% in our rear view mirror.  It's one over which we have no control, and cannot change.  It's done.  Slavery is no longer legal in the United States.  We are also more than 50 years removed from the passing of the Civil Rights Act.  Things ain't perfect, but they are way better than in 1865.

Again, I provided a list of contributing factors:

Quote

1. Historic racism and injustice certainly play a part, though in diminishing ways as we move through time.

2. Current racism certainly plays a part.  But I don't think it's systemic any more.  It's more individualized.

3. The "Welfare State" have done huge damage to the African-American community. 

4. "Culture" seems to be a contributing problem. 

5. Personal responsibility and family life is a huge factor.  

We can certainly study history, but I question the wisdom of fixating on it at the expense of these other factors, all of which are much more within our ability to influence and control.

Thanks,

-Smac

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