RangerDave wrote:
I don't doubt that the people who post on that site are way over-the-top in their rhetoric (and a bit offensive for so blatantly using Martin), but do you not believe there's a valid underlying point? Compared to white people, black people, particularly black men, are more likely to be stopped and/or arrested (and to have more force used) by cops, charged and prosecuted (with more serious charges) by the prosecutor, convicted by juries, and given a more serious sentence by judges and juries. Studies consistently show that people (including black people themselves) are more fearful and suspicious of and less likely to trust black people, less inclined to hire black people, less likely to offer assistance to a black person, etc. Whether or not (or to whatever extent) those prejudices have some rational basis in statistics like crime rates and and so on, it's gotta suck for all the regular, perfectly decent black people who have that **** stacked against them.
Except that doesn't establish that regular black people have anything stacked against them. The simple fact is that black people DO more frequently commit crimes, and get themselves into the situations where the things you described occur to them.
Your studies indicate that
black people themselves have this supposed bias against blacks. There's a reason for that. Aside from the general tendency of these studies to be constructed specifically to find bias, rather than determine if it exists. I was going to type up a lengthy explanation of how black concentration into a "black community" has resulted in blacks emulating the habits of criminals, defending them (Trayvon Martin in fact being a near-perfect example), and refusing to better themselves. Celebration of the inner-city culture associated with high crime and poverty is widespread even among those "regular" black people you describe.
This is why, as I described here recently, I can listen to a black Master Sergeant talk about how he's "black and proud, but he hates niggers." Those "regular" black people who have succeeded in life recognize these behaviors for what they are and don't approve of them. Yet, at the same time, we continue to pretend that the problems blacks encounter are due to their skin color, rather than the behaviors that have become so common.
Do you remember LadyKate's descriptions of the behaviors of blacks where they used to live? Walking down the middle of the street and screaming "hit me, I NEED a check" at passersby? This is not uncommon; in our neighborhood in Ohio we saw this sort of behavior.
When black people encounter the sorts of "discrimination" these studies purport to describe, how are they acting? How are they presenting themselves? It doesn't have to be criminal, either; are they walking in with a chip on their shoulder? Are whites simply afraid they will be subject to the race card, or claims of "racism" as soon as there's a disagreement? The answer is yes, but you will find no studies attempting to look at this because we're told that these questions are "racist". As if it is racist to question the value of behavior based on a culture of inner-city poverty, ignorance, and crime.
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There's a scene from an episode of The West Wing that's always stuck with me on the issue of racial profiling (in the broad sense of the term, meaning allowing broad statistics to affect one's judgment or attitude, even on a subconcious level, toward an individual based on their race). In the episode, there was a terrorist attack, and some White House staffer's name popped up on a watch list. The staffer was Arabic, and even though his name was a common one, the Chief of Staff and the Secret Service aggressively questioned him for a while. At one point, the guy complained about being subject to suspicion and animosity all the time because of his race, and the Chief of Staff retorted, "Yeah, well that's the price you pay!" The guy responded, "Excuse me? The price I pay for what?" At the end, after the actual terrorists were caught and the staffer had been cleared, the Chief of Staff went to the staffer and said, by way of apology, that the answer to his question was, "that's the price you pay for having the same physical features features of criminals."
And the message here is what? That script writers can base an episode on the attitudes of regular Americans that the press tells us we have? It's very easy to create prejudice by authorial fiat.
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In short, even if most terrorists are Arabic and/or Muslim, even if crime rates are higher among black men, and so on, and even if one argues that it's rational/reasonable for those general stats to affect one's predisposition toward an individual member of those demographic groups absent countervailing evidence, the burden that places on those individuals is wholly undeserved by them and, particularly over time, must be deeply frustrating, stressful and at times even frightening.
And yet, that burden really isn't there. The assumption being made is that these people are being classified
only on their skin color. If some white guy is all tatted up and has a raggedy haircut and beard and generally looks like a felon, and acts loud, obnoxious, and unreasonable, people are going to be scared of him too. On the other hand, my black Master Sergeant is hardly going to occasion a second look, in or out of uniform because he doesn't look or act in a threatening way.
Blacks may perceive that, but the problem is largely one of assuming that black perceptions are necessarily accurate. We hear all the time about what "white America" supposedly thinks from black public figures. How can they know?
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