Sorry, never got back to the computer last night
Absolutely, we ought to address those as well, but let's be honest, Native Americans don't represent the same size demographic and often, unfortunately, they fall through the cracks. I'm not saying we ought to pay any less attention to any group that has any legitimate problem.
Absolutely. Then again, this goes back to my notion that it's very subjective. If you want to talk about size demographic then it can also complicate things. For example, if 75% of black children are with one parent and 25% of white children are with one parent, that still leads to 2 million more white children with one parents. A different "size demographic".
That said, I have no inherent issue with someone wanting to focus on a particular groups issues if I feel there's an honest desire to want to help and assist that group as the primary motivation for addressing it. I think you can go to/speak to Native Americans or Blacks or Whites or young people or geeks or poor people or football players or libertarians or baptists or any group and talk about issues directly as it relates to that group even if there's issues elsewhere. HOWEVER, anytime you make ANY comments the audience is going to make a decision on the worth of your words, and when speaking to a singular group the intent and genuineness of your comments are going to go into the reaction.
The intermixing of so many political messages, the pointedly emotional rhetoric sprinkled throughout, the inflammatory nature of utilizing MLK's speech as a means of telling blacks where they're doing poorly in this guys opinion doesn't really help provide a context where it's widely going to be accepted that his "dream" has anything to do with bettering the lives or helping blacks and everything to do with pushing his political positions.
You'd be surprised how many blacks attack people like Cosby and Lemon as race traitors and Uncle Toms because they dare to criticize the status quo of the black community. There are plenty of conservative black men who say the same thing and are absolutely attacked for daring to open their mouths. These are legitimate issues. It shouldn't matter who points them out.
No, I know there are a lot that attack Cosby for that kind of thing...and I've criticized those that do as well, as often MY personal opinion in terms of intent and presentation there are that those attacking Cosby tend to be the ones that are doing it for ulterior reasons rather than legitimate ones.
In a perfect world you're right...who and how things are said shouldn't matter at all. We don't live in a perfect world and people aren't perfect beings. People listening to a statement are going to make decisions, and people making statements may very well have ulterior motives.
The purpose of pointing out a problem is not to make people feel good about it, it is to correct it. I don't care if it makes people happy. I care if it makes them sit up and take notice.
Absolutely disagree. The purpose of pointing out a problem isn't to make people feel good about it, but it's also not simply to be "Correct" about it. The
only worthwhile reason to point out a problem is in an effort to legitimate try and get that problem fixed.
If you're pointing out an issue just in a way to make everyone happy, you're probalby not actually accurately pointing out the problem and that isn't really going ot help correct it. If all you care about is being "correct" however, then you're ALSO not worried aobut convincing people you just want to have the ego stroke of patting yourself on the back going "haha, I spoke truth to them!"
Telling people about issues as a means of getting those issues corrected requires you to both honestly address the issues
and put forth a convincing argument and reasoning as to why they needs to change.
WHO the messanger is, WHAT the message is, HOW the message is said, WHEN the message is said, etc
ALL play into that notion.
A white conservative, mimicing MLK's famous speech on it's anniversary, singularly focusing on blacks, while using language like "planation" and "enslave", who slowly deviates from statistical backed notions to opinion based politically motivated statements is
not going to effectively convince, inspire, or enlighten any nominal amount of “correction” to occur with the problem.
It’s funny that in his piece he talks about Juan Williams comments. Juan’s comments are an example of a situation where, had it been an average white person, I wouldn’t have thought twice about their motivations. In that situation the person was ASKED for his opinion on it with regards to MLK day, and he answered in a generalized way that both acknowledges the good realities AND the poor:
When asked by Chris Wallace if the dream has been fulfilled, Williams noted that there isn’t, “any question that [African Americans] have come along way,” before importantly pointing out that blacks have to address the problems that are created within their communities. “I think that if you look at the realities of today, you’ve got to talk about things like family breakdown,” Williams said. “You’ve got to talk about the fact that 70 percent of black children today are born out of wedlock. I think Dr. King would cry.”
No mimicking of King’s speech, no random divergence into political opinions, no inflammatory language…and yet still highlighting one of those issues that the individual in the OP was trying to highlight. He was both honest about the issue, correct about the issue, FAIR about the issue by not singularly harping on the bad, and compelling in presentation and style. His would be a useful and worthwhile comment seemingly honestly addressing the issues because he feels the ISSUES need to be address.
And I agree entirely with you on that, but we have to start somewhere and it makes sense to start with the demonstrably biggest problem. That's not racist, that's reality.
Well, I disagree we can only start in one place really in the grand scope of things…as well as my earlier point about the subjective nature of “biggest problem”….but that’s neither here nor there. My issue isn’t so much that he’s talking about blacks, but rather then entire context and method make me sincerely question the motivations and intent behind it as well as the effectiveness of it and thus its actual worth and value as a statement.
But I haven't seen anyone making that claim.
Really? You missed the person who responded to your post suggesting that we should remove “Black” and apply it to every single American everywhere by stating that would ignore the “substantial problems that exist in inner city communities” which he’s since gone on to clearly show means to him “black people”.
No one’s bluntly stated it’s only a black issue…but someone DID absolutely respond to your post in disagreement with the notion that it would be better said as a dream for everyone, and not just for “blacks/inner city community dwellers”.