The Glade 4.0

Yeah, in an ideal world this would go in the Rants section, because thats what it is...a rant, but I'm pretty sure given the subject matter that this conversation will end up in here anyway.

On Sunday afternoon, my son came home from his dads house and went down the hill, across the street to play with the neighborhood kids. The house across the street from us usually has about 6 to 7 little boys (they don't all live there, just family visiting) from age @5-@10 running around.
Anyway, I heard a kid crying and I peep open the door to make sure its not my son. As I open the door, I see a young black woman get out of her vehicle in the middle of the street, grab a young boy @6 years old by the arm, and punch him in the back 6 times while screaming at him. (My son insists that it was open handed and only 5 times) before she threw him in the yard and drove off. A young black man @ 19-22 grabs the boy and drags him kicking and screaming into the house.

I have seen things like this SO MANY times down here its not even funny. At Wal-Mart, black woman will take 18 mth old boys and drag them by the arm and beat them if they don't keep up, beat them if they cry, beat them if they ask for something...its awful and I'm sick of it.
I yelled across the street to the young man "do ya'll always beat your kids like this???" And he said "He was in the street!" I replied "If I see you beating any of your kids again I'm calling the police." He just laughed at me and said "go ahead! Call 'em!"

Sooooo.....I did.

An middle-aged white officer showed up, asked me what happened and I told him. He gave the young black man a hard time about emptying his pockets and putting his hands against the wall and "come back here when I'm talking to you" and for a minute it was pretty intense with the officer shouting at the guy and the guy being a smart *** but they settled down. They called the mom back and when she got home she got an attitude and starting yelling as well and ended up in handcuffs.

About that time, three black women come tearing out of the yard towards me screaming profanities and telling me that this young woman is about to get arrested "for NO GOOD REASON" and that they are gonna "**** me up" and "beat the **** **** outta me" and I just stood my ground and said simply, "It wasn't 'nothing' she was beating her child." Since I didn't run away scared they backed off and I went inside so as not to cause any more trouble but I was angry enough that I wished they had carried through and attacked me. I would have loved to have taken out some of that anger on them physically...but...my whole point was to show that you don't have to use violence to solve a problem, ESPECIALLY when it comes to children.

The officer eventually uncuffed the young woman and drove away. No idea what punishment, if any, there was for what she did especially since there were a dozen black people in the yard yelling that "she ain't DO nuthin! she ain't DO nuthin that lady LYIN!" Of course. And the young black men in the house next door stared me down and told me I shouldn't have done that, it was none of my business.

Shortly after that, the matriarch of the family called me over to "talk." She only had 5 minutes since she was a "minister" and on her way to preach, but she wanted to get something straight with me so we could all "get along"....she said that what I saw was not a beating, it was a spanking and since I am not black (yes she said this) I wouldn't understand because it is a black, cultural thing and thats just how they spank their kids. Furthermore, she said that the problem in the world today is that people are no longer allowed to beat their children with things like extension cords and when kids were getting beat with extension cords they didn't grow up to be thugs.

Later on, Taylor was playing with his two friends in the other house next door and I had just brought down my ladder and a philips head to fix their porch light when Taylor runs up and says "mom, that boy just punched me in the face!" I said "what boy?" and he pointed to the little boy that had gotten the beating that day. Apparently, Taylor would not let the boy spin tops with him because there were already too many kids doing it and not enough room, so this kid smacks Taylor in the face.

I told Taylor thanks for telling me and not retaliating physically and I told the kid that he can't go around hitting people just because they don't do what he says (even though that is EXACTLY what his parents are teaching him) and told him to tell an adult next time. Then I asked Taylor to include this kid in their game.

I wound up apologizing to the young black man and the matriarch of the family for "butting into their business" because I really don't feel like having my tires slashed or having my child beaten or getting shot in my yard. I'm serious. It's like that down here.

It sucks that nothing gets changed, but its always gonna be the same....down here, its a "black cultural thing" to beat your children. I see it all the time. Can't do a damn thing about it. I see someone beat their kid and try to do something about it and get the whole neighborhood ready to beat the **** out of me. No wonder people down here just "look the other way" and things continue to get worse.

As always, there are several more "black cultural things" down here that I could rant about....but why bother. Nothing is gonna change. We're all gonna walk on eggshells stepping around the racism issue and let people throw down the race card and get away with these things and continue to live off the system creating a "sub-culture" of societal leeches. I actually called a friend of mine to talk about this and she went in depth into the "entitlement" problem down here and referenced a family that had their house burn down. They called Habitat for Humanity to build them a new home and had more demands for the new home during the building than the organization could keep up with. (The house they wound up building is on stilts...for who knows what reason) The family started harassing Habitat for Humanity because they didn't put in an elevator. AN ELEVATOR!

I'm sure I've gone all kinds of off topic and not given enough examples but I've seen so many young black children (even babies) get beaten and neglected but since its "a black thing" we can't rock the boat. How the heck do you change something like this?

I never believed ANY of this stuff, and refused to even believe what I was seeing with my own eyes for about 15 years AFTER I moved down here. I've spoken with black people in other parts of the country and they have no idea why its like this in the South. I dunno. We don't have any more money than these people do and we don't live like that. I guess I will just never understand it.

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

Not sure where to start. Sorry you had a bad time of it. I'm glad you see it as a culture thing and not a color thing.

The habitat thing is pretty stupid and they should have been told to pound sand.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

Its a cultural thing. I'm sure if I was living in Arkansas or Kansas next to a trailer park, I'd be ranting about a whole different sub-culture.
As it is, I'm in Mississippi on the edge of a lower economic neighborhood and this is what I have to deal with.

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

Nothing about that situation that doesn't suck, LK. Good on you for stepping in like that. Even if it doesn't change anything major in that immediate moment, you never know what subtle ripple effects setting a good example can have.


On this point, I'd just say - that's what happens when a group of people gets beaten down for centuries and then suddenly the top gets popped on the pressure cooker. Doesn't excuse individual actions, of course, but that's where the culture comes from. It took generations to do the cultural damage and it'll take generations to fix it.

Also, just imagine the roles were reversed! Imagine a well-spoken, economically better-off black woman stepped in and called the cops on a poor, bigoted white dude. Maybe I'm wrong, but I seriously doubt it's the family preacher that woman would be getting a visit from.

You really have no idea what you're talking about; I'd simply advise you shush on this matter.

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You can roll your eyes all you want, RangerDave; but discussing cultural phenomenology is not something you should do, as you've demonstrated a bias toward popular liberal demagoguery on the subject instead of any substantial or actual intellectual consideration of the situation. More to the point, since I'm almost entirely certain you'd subconsciously drive the discussion in the direction of Guyatri Spivak and other post-Colonialists with agenda, action, and agency issues; it's honestly not worth more of my time than to tell you to shush about the topic.

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*shrug* If it's not worth your time to say something useful, you should probably take your own advice and simply shush.

The entitlement thing is definitely a cultural problem, the issue is a lot of black children are raised to believe "the man" will ensure that they will never get anywhere regardless of how hard they try or what they accomplish, and that because of white person oppression, they have no choice but to live off the system. The entitlements are "all they have" and they have to fight tooth and nail to defend them from "the man" trying to take even that away from them. When I worked in the dean's office at university we got several black students in with 3.5+ high school GPAs that would have easily gotten a full ride turning college down because "doesn't matter if I get a degree, nobody's going to hire a black man in engineering."

There's also the opposite problem: I've had black adults on the streets (yes, I live in the south) tell me that "they don't need to find a job, now that Obama's in office they'll never have to work again".

And I'll add, these are definitely subcultures, not a pure race thing. I work with several inner city schools here in New Orleans which are probably 95%+ black children.

Some of the schools definitely have the entitlement "I don't need to work, I can get by without it" mentality... And some of the other schools have the majority of kids that are going to college, trying to make something out of their lives.

And it all seems to depend on the parents.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

Shut off the freebie faucet and let the rest sort out itsself. Generations of "helping hands" have made their legs weak and unable to carry them.

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A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~ John Stuart Mill

Yes but it is not restricted to blacks. Go talk to a 22 year old in a bar, or job interview.

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Like the Chinese and Irish?

Apples to oranges, Lex. (The situations, that is, not the people.)

interesting sociological question: Do oppressed people tend to 'take out their frustrations' on their children?

Eh, not really. I've not really seen the comedy level of entitlement that shows up in news stories where new graduates turn down $40k/year jobs because they think they deserve more. Most people just don't want to get stuck working 80+ hours per week, namely 50 hours at a "filler" job and then 30+ more looking for a job in their fields.

Apparently you have seen the comedy level of entitlement that shows up in news stories, because the people you're talking about need to man up.

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People who actually work 80 hours a week and do a good job quickly rise to the top, because they're a special bunch. I work "full-time" and probably do 15-20 hours of real work a week, yet management thinks I'm doing really well.

If someone holds out for a bit and ends up getting a better job that pays more and doesn't have a ton of extra hours, that isn't a "comedy level of entitlement" that's good job hunting skills.

Now, if they are still turning down jobs after a prolonged time then yes they need to man up.

It's not really about job hunting skills, people choose to sit on entitlements while job hunting instead of doing both because they know they don't have the energy for two "full-time jobs," one being the filler job and the other being the job search. If they were to get a job, their job search would be sidelined due to lack of energy until their degree becomes old and irrelevant, and then they're stuck in that dead end job for life.

For life? Way to be dramatic. Probably a couple months if they really want a new one.

I think this is a bad example. What you initially laid out was new graduates not jumping on the first job that came their way. I see nothing wrong with waiting a reasonable amount of time for a better offer if you feel confident that you can command that job/salary. Similarly, most of those folks don't have much in the way of entitlements to rest on, other than their parents good graces. And if their parents are willing to support them for a while as they look for the right job, more power to them.

Well $40k/year is an excellent salary for a BS graduate and frankly they should be jumping on it if they get offered such. My first job barely paid $30k and I felt fortunate to get that. The "entitlement" comes from people thinking they can command more than $40k off a BS degree, unless you have a really high class degree in a very technical field like engineering you probably can't expect any more than that.

The issue is when people ***** about "entitled young people," they're usually complaining about either the guy who turned down a dream job or the graduate who chooses to sit on government entitlements while job hunting so they can fully focus on the job hunt instead of having to work a full time job while job hunting. The vast majority of people do not possess the motivation/energy to do a full fledged job search while working a separate full time job. The job search will get sidelined. Remember it's not like working two jobs, or working a job and going to school, there are no deadlines, due dates, or bosses you're forced to appease in your personal job search, it all has to come from you, and you have to keep yourself motivated to keep plugging at it despite what will probably be repeated failure.

Perhaps you should have majored in something more employable, such as engineering.

Eh, my first Bachelor's (a B.S. none the less) got me a job that paid $35,000 a year with a board stipend and full tuition And that was long enough ago that $35,000 was a rather ... awesome salary.

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