Will the Tea Party movement have a positive effect on the country?

[Layla_Z]

Not really. The US is 3/4 white, but not not 'basically all' white by any stretch of the imagination. So, 25% of the country are minorities, but what, maybe 1% of tea parties? It's like if you went to a party and there were only 1/25th of the usual number of men. That would be a party of 98 women and 2 men... Wouldn't that make you wonder what the heck was going on? Same deal with this.

It's actually closer to 35% minority but I enjoyed your post.

Racial make-up in the United States changing - KOTA Territory News

 

[Josie]

That's a good thing, and I am by no means trying to imply that you are a racist. I don't really even think the tea party as a whole is racist. And I did not know you are a teacher. I love teachers. It's one of the toughest and most important jobs in the world. Kudos to you for doing that.

Thanks! I love my job and I can't think of anything I would love to do more. I hope I don't get to be one of those burnt out teachers that's angry all the time, though. I hope I quit before I do that to any children.

Well, that's a very different thing though. A church is there to tend to the spiritual needs of it's own congregation. It isn't seeking control over the whole country, so its message does not really need to represent or appeal to the whole country. A political party is seeking control over the whole country, so its message does need to represent and appeal to the whole country. If there were a nearly all black political party, or a nearly all muslim political party, wouldn't you be concerned if they won elections? It is easy to say "no" because that sounds all post-racial, but in reality, wouldn't that honestly freak you out a bit? It sure would me. I would be very concerned about a political party that for whatever reason only seems to appeal to and be driven by members of a group I am not a member of. Same deal with the tea party.

An all black party - no. An all black party preaching hate? Yes. An all-Muslim party - yes. I would be creeped out by any political party that was entirely one religion. Not to mention there's a segment of the Muslim population that hate this country.

Black and hispanic people in some ways have radically different experiences in the US from white people. They face racism frequently, the average black child is born into a household with only 7% as much wealth as the household the average white person is born into, they are far more likely to live in urban areas, etc. All those different experiences give them insights and perspectives that tend to be different. If a political platform hardly appeals to anybody who has seen that side of things in this country, then that political platform is missing the boat in one regard or another. It's like if you are proposing an architectural drawing for making an office building, and many of the structural engineers that look at the plans say it looks great, but virtually all of the electrical engineers that look at the plan say it looks like a terrible plan, you would be wise to learn more about the concerns of the electrical engineers and try to come up with a plan that would look good to both groups.

I don't see vast differences between races like that. Perhaps it's my small town upbringing - pretty much everyone is either living in poverty, poor or middle class no matter what color they are. I imagine big cities are incredibly different. I don't have much experience with them.

The problem is that we can't ignore race until racism is gone. If we start trying to pretend race doesn't exist while racism is still running wild, then we just end up giving racism free reign to go wild. The goal, one day, is for people not to really think about race. But you can't just skip past the intermediary step of erasing the racial inequality. We need equality fist, then we can stop talking about it.

I know racism still exists. I'm not saying it doesn't. I agree that we need more equality especially with getting black children in large cities proper education. That's why I support vouchers, but that's for another thread.

 

[Josie]

That's the same mantra I ALWAYS see from the tea partiers but I have NEVER seen any real solutions.

I fixed your immature, foul mouth for you.

That's because there aren't many tea party candidates in office yet.

The vast majority of the tea partiers are white, it's an outlet for Republican anger, not a search for solutions.

I'm not a Republican. Tea parties are made up of Libertarians, Republicans, Independents with a splash of Democrats who are realizing they were wrong to vote for Obama.

 

[lizzie]

The problem is that we can't ignore race until racism is gone. If we start trying to pretend race doesn't exist while racism is still running wild, then we just end up giving racism free reign to go wild.

Racism will never be gone as long as there are races. The problem is whether or not we can live with each other in peace and have equal opportunity, as opposed to preferences. Our current society will not let racism revert back to the things you fear unless racism on all faces of the issue gets out of control. We are in a period of the pendulum swinging back toward center on the race issue. That's not a bad thing. Trying to dredge old guilt only works for so long before it becomes counterproductive.

We need equality fist, then we can stop talking about it.

There will never be equality in reality. There is not even equality of people of the same race, because each of us has our own talents, skills, and character traits. What we can have is equality of access, which we already have achieved for the most part.

 

[Hoplite]

I fixed your immature, foul mouth for you.

Hey, dont blame me for the terms you choose for yourself.

That's because there aren't many tea party candidates in office yet.

Thats because most political candidates want to avoid this kind of nut-baggery

I'm not a Republican. Tea parties are made up of Libertarians, Republicans, Independents with a splash of Democrats who are realizing they were wrong to vote for Obama.

Teabagger groups are vast majority Republican with some Libertarians. Teabagger groups are an outlet for Republican anger and a place for them to rant and rave with people who agree with them.

 

[teamosil]

Thanks! I love my job and I can't think of anything I would love to do more. I hope I don't get to be one of those burnt out teachers that's angry all the time, though. I hope I quit before I do that to any children.

What do you teach? If it's elementary school, I have a suggestion. Start finding an area that you might want to specialise in later in your career within education. That gives you an option to kind of retreat from the chaotic classroom and do something different for a while when you start to burn out. That's what my mom did and it worked great. She taught first grade for like 20 some years, but eventually she kind of got bored of it and a bit exhausted by all the crazy kids running her ragged all day, so she became a reading specialist. It was a great new challenge for her. Figuring out exactly what exactly it is that is hanging a kid up trying to learn to read and how to fix it is actually a really complex intellectual problem, and by focusing in on that she was able to really dig in to the problem and read a ton of books and go to seminars and all that instead of just following a generic approach like you kind of have to in a classroom setting. She eventually ended up writing a reading curriculum that the whole state adopted. She loved classroom teaching, and was glad she stuck with it for so long, but she was also glad to have a change after a while.

I don't see vast differences between races like that. Perhaps it's my small town upbringing - pretty much everyone is either living in poverty, poor or middle class no matter what color they are. I imagine big cities are incredibly different. I don't have much experience with them.

Yeah, it's a way different issue in big cities. I grew up living in the woods in northern minnesota. Out there I really believed race didn't really matter anymore. The people I knew who were black or native american really didn't seem to lead any different of a life from what I did. But then I moved to DC for college and ended up running a program that tutored kids who were on probation... And, man did that change my perspective on race in the US... The biggest issue is economic, not racism. There are whole huge communities, especially in cities, that are just completely impoverished. Places where the cycle of poverty is running so strong that it is almost impossible to pull yourself out of it. And, unfortunately, that mostly falls on racial lines. Partly that is because of racism. Even today if a black person and a white person apply for the same job with the same resume, the white person is two and a half times more likely to get the job, and that has a massive impact in keeping black people poor. But, also there are historical reasons. It can take many generations to pull a family tree out of poverty and there are still many people working today who were not allowed to go to decent schools when they were kids because of jim crow laws. Poverty isn't really just a matter of how much income you have at a given point in time. It comes with a whole series of other problems that reinforce it over the generations. Somebody born into poverty is a lot less likely to have gotten the nutrition they need to develop properly, they're far more likely to be a victim of crime, they're far more likely to get sucked into the drug trade when that's the only thing hiring in their neighborhood, the schools in those areas are just flat out pathetic, a parent who can't read is not going to be able to provide the same kind of support to their kids when they're in school as one who can read, there is a lack of hope, nobody wants to open a business in an impoverished neighborhood, etc, etc. The poorer a community is, the more factors there are trying to push them down further into poverty. At the same time, cities also have huge pockets of some of the most wealthy people in the country, and those areas tend to be mostly white and asian. So you really have a pretty stark divide in the cities that I don't see so much in smaller towns.

Growing up in MN I mostly thought of racism as being like a conscious attitude of hatred. After my experiences in DC I realized that it's a lot more complex than that. It is a whole network of negative assumptions people make about races yes, but probably more importantly it is economic and structural and historical inequality. Where I used to think defeating racism was mostly about people not really thinking about race so much, I came to believe that it is about actively taking steps to level out the playing field and create more opportunities for some communities that have all but given up hope.

 

[Josie]

What do you teach? If it's elementary school, I have a suggestion. Start finding an area that you might want to specialise in later in your career within education. That gives you an option to kind of retreat from the chaotic classroom and do something different for a while when you start to burn out. That's what my mom did and it worked great. She taught first grade for like 20 some years, but eventually she kind of got bored of it and a bit exhausted by all the crazy kids running her ragged all day, so she became a reading specialist. It was a great new challenge for her. Figuring out exactly what exactly it is that is hanging a kid up trying to learn to read and how to fix it is actually a really complex intellectual problem, and by focusing in on that she was able to really dig in to the problem and read a ton of books and go to seminars and all that instead of just following a generic approach like you kind of have to in a classroom setting. She eventually ended up writing a reading curriculum that the whole state adopted. She loved classroom teaching, and was glad she stuck with it for so long, but she was also glad to have a change after a while.

I teach elementary. I have my Masters so I could either be a general education teacher in K-3 or a reading specialist K-12. I would like to go back and get my 4-8 certificate. Your mom sounds awesome. The state adopted her curriculum? That's very impressive.

Yeah, it's a way different issue in big cities. I grew up living in the woods in northern minnesota. Out there I really believed race didn't really matter anymore. The people I knew who were black or native american really didn't seem to lead any different of a life from what I did. But then I moved to DC for college and ended up running a program that tutored kids who were on probation... And, man did that change my perspective on race in the US... The biggest issue is economic, not racism. There are whole huge communities, especially in cities, that are just completely impoverished. Places where the cycle of poverty is running so strong that it is almost impossible to pull yourself out of it. And, unfortunately, that mostly falls on racial lines. Partly that is because of racism. Even today if a black person and a white person apply for the same job with the same resume, the white person is two and a half times more likely to get the job, and that has a massive impact in keeping black people poor. But, also there are historical reasons. It can take many generations to pull a family tree out of poverty and there are still many people working today who were not allowed to go to decent schools when they were kids because of jim crow laws. Poverty isn't really just a matter of how much income you have at a given point in time. It comes with a whole series of other problems that reinforce it over the generations. Somebody born into poverty is a lot less likely to have gotten the nutrition they need to develop properly, they're far more likely to be a victim of crime, they're far more likely to get sucked into the drug trade when that's the only thing hiring in their neighborhood, the schools in those areas are just flat out pathetic, a parent who can't read is not going to be able to provide the same kind of support to their kids when they're in school as one who can read, there is a lack of hope, nobody wants to open a business in an impoverished neighborhood, etc, etc. The poorer a community is, the more factors there are trying to push them down further into poverty. At the same time, cities also have huge pockets of some of the most wealthy people in the country, and those areas tend to be mostly white and asian. So you really have a pretty stark divide in the cities that I don't see so much in smaller towns.

Growing up in MN I mostly thought of racism as being like a conscious attitude of hatred. After my experiences in DC I realized that it's a lot more complex than that. It is a whole network of negative assumptions people make about races yes, but probably more importantly it is economic and structural and historical inequality. Where I used to think defeating racism was mostly about people not really thinking about race so much, I came to believe that it is about actively taking steps to level out the playing field and create more opportunities for some communities that have all but given up hope.

 

[cpwill]

No. The teabaggers are largely reactionary and ill-informed who often have overly-simplistic views about what should happen based on a lack of knowledge.

Tea Party Supporters More Educated than General Populace

They get angry because what they see as "the right thing" isnt getting done but they dont stop to consider "maybe I dont have all the information, maybe there's a concrete reason my wishes arent being followed" and instead immediately jump on almost conspiracy theory-style ideas that paint everyone who disagrees with them or with their ideology as traitors or worse.

The teabagger movement contributes to turning American politics into an exercise in demagoguery rather than a concrete attempt to find solutions for problems; they add to the noise and confusion of a crowd by yelling and screaming rather than trying to co-ordinate and work the problems out as a unit.

hmmm... looks like someone has the conservative Tea Party movement confused with someone else:

...Democrats in America are evenly divided on the question of whether George W. Bush knew about the 9/11 terrorist attacks in advance. Thirty-five percent (35%) of Democrats believe he did know, 39% say he did not know, and 26% are not sure...

 

[teamosil]

Racism will never be gone as long as there are races. The problem is whether or not we can live with each other in peace and have equal opportunity, as opposed to preferences. Our current society will not let racism revert back to the things you fear unless racism on all faces of the issue gets out of control. We are in a period of the pendulum swinging back toward center on the race issue. That's not a bad thing. Trying to dredge old guilt only works for so long before it becomes counterproductive.

There will never be equality in reality. There is not even equality of people of the same race, because each of us has our own talents, skills, and character traits. What we can have is equality of access, which we already have achieved for the most part.

The penduluum analogy assumes that somewhere in the middle between slavery and equality is the best spot to be. It's not. Racial equality is the best place to be. We never came close to that goal. The average black household has only 7% of the wealth of the average black household. The perception that black people got preferential treatment is completely false. Even with AA and equal opportunity laws and whatnot, it never was nearly enough to overcome the discrimination in the system. Even with all those things in place, white people were still getting massive preferential treatment.

Here is an experiment I would recommend reading- http://www.econ.brown.edu/econ/events/pager&western1.pdf . It was an experiment first done by Northwestern University, then repeated by Brown and Princeton under supervision by Harvard and the National Science Foundation. It is insanely thorough and they really accounted for every possible flaw. What they did is they took two groups of test subjects- half white and half black, and they ensured that they were very closely matched on tons of criteria- same height, judged to be roughly equally attractive, same IQ, same educational attainment, same income levels, even things like how frequently they made eye contact, vocabulary, accents, how they dressed, etc. They had each group go into the same companies and apply for the same jobs with essentially identical resumes. They did it at several hundred companies. All the test subjects did was drop off a resume. They trained them all on exactly what to say and how to interact when they did it. What they found is that the white applicants were two and a half times more likely to get called back in for an interview. That is with AA and whatnot in place. Even with all that, the white people were still getting massive preference, and even when they were scientifically controlled to have exactly the same talents, character traits, and skills, there still was a massive preference for hiring whites.

What that tells me is that it isn't like a penduluum where we started out with white preference, then went to black preference, and now we're back in the middle. It's a problem we have been slowly making progress on for decades, but it keeps being two steps forward, one step back. Right now, we're talking a step back. The country definitely seems more racist to me now than it was a few years ago even. Things like politicians openly supporting racial profiling, openly racist commentary from pundits that are appearing on mainstream news outlets like Fox, the massive spike in membership in white supremacist organizations, etc, are all very bad signs. Those aren't signs that we're moving back to the center, they're signs that we're slipping back towards white supremacy.

Now, don't get me wrong. I don't think we're headed back to the jim crow days. But, I do think we're backing away from trying to solve one of the most serious problems in our country and it is immoral and destructive to do so.

 

[teamosil]

I teach elementary. I have my Masters so I could either be a general education teacher in K-3 or a reading specialist K-12. I would like to go back and get my 4-8 certificate. Your mom sounds awesome. The state adopted her curriculum? That's very impressive.

Cool. Yeah, my mom is awesome She's a very smart lady and she worked like from 5 AM until the sun went down pretty much every day...

Your plan sounds good. Changing grade levels would definitely keep it interesting. Changing it up a bit is the key to staying excited about the career I think.

 

[cpwill]

Hey, dont blame me for the terms you choose for yourself.

:roll: please. let's not pretend that those opposed to limited government don't take delight in using a sexual innuendo in describing their foes.

Thats because most political candidates want to avoid this kind of nut-baggery

wrong, it's a matter of time; we are coming up on the first real election cycle in which the Tea Party movement will have impact; as far as primaries are concerned, it has been quite impressive in its' reach. the aligned Club for Growth, for example, has successfully targeted several Republican incumbents for replacement with more conservative, limited-government candidates.

Teabagger groups are vast majority Republican with some Libertarians. Teabagger groups are an outlet for Republican anger and a place for them to rant and rave with people who agree with them.

:lol: well it is true that those who label themselves as supporters of the Tea Party are more likely to describe themselves as "angry" about the idiocy that's been going on in Washington.

mind you, Forty-six percent (46%) of U.S. voters say the Tea Party movement is good for the country, so you're dealing with a pretty hefty percentage of the US population that is 'angry', here.

 

[teamosil]

Democrats in America are evenly divided on the question of whether George W. Bush knew about the 9/11 terrorist attacks in advance. Thirty-five percent (35%) of Democrats believe he did know, 39% say he did not know, and 26% are not sure...

The correct answer to that question is actually not that clear cut. They absolutely did know that Al Qaeda was about to launch a major attack. Nobody knew what kind of attack it would be, and certainly nobody imagined it would be anything on that scale. Most the analysts assumed it was just going to be something like an attempt to hit an embassy or another incident like the Cole or something, but they did know something was coming. The Bush administration was in negotiations with the Taliban about creating the pipeline across Afganistan and the Taliban had explicitly committed to hold Al Qaeda at bay as to not jeopardize the negotiations. When the negotiations failed, a number of sources reported to us that the Taliban had released the hold on Al Qaeda and Al Qaeda issued a formal threat of a major attack. They talked up that it was going to be something like had never been seen before and all that, but I don't think anybody took them all that seriously...

Anyways, do I think Bush knew something like 9/11 was coming? Absolutely not. Do I think he knew a major attack was coming, yeah, he did. So, it isn't so clear cut that answering yes in that poll was wrong. It's a matter for interpretation.

 

[lizzie]

The penduluum analogy assumes that somewhere in the middle between slavery and equality is the best spot to be.

Not at all. It assumes that somewhere in the middle, black, white, red, brown, and yellow all have equal access., and that no single race is being labeled as racist.

What they found is that the white applicants were two and a half times more likely to get called back in for an interview. That is with AA and whatnot in place. Even with all that, the white people were still getting massive preference, and even when they were scientifically controlled to have exactly the same talents, character traits, and skills, there still was a massive preference for hiring whites.
.

Did the study include making sure that those doing the hiring/interviewing were equally dispersed along racial lines? Just curious.

Now, don't get me wrong. I don't think we're headed back to the jim crow days. But, I do think we're backing away from trying to solve one of the most serious problems in our country and it is immoral and destructive to do so.

Racism is a problem that cannot be solved legislatively, and must be solved culturally. It cannot be solved in reality until there are no more races, when humans are all one race. That’s going to be a long long time.

 

[Hoplite]

:roll: please. let's not pretend that those opposed to limited government don't take delight in using a sexual innuendo in describing their foes.

Ask Griff Jenkins.

wrong, it's a matter of time; we are coming up on the first real election cycle in which the Tea Party movement will have impact; as far as primaries are concerned, it has been quite impressive in its' reach. the aligned Club for Growth, for example, has successfully targeted several Republican incumbents for replacement with more conservative, limited-government candidates.

You've had three years to get your **** in order and I've seen nothing but nutbaggery from the teabaggers, no solutions, and conspiracy theories.

Forty-six percent (46%) of U.S. voters say the Tea Party movement is good for the country, so you're dealing with a pretty hefty percentage of the US population that is 'angry', here.

Im not real interested in people's value judgements.

Tea Party Supporters More Educated than General Populace

I'd like to see that poll.

Also, I never said teabaggers were stupid, just ignorant. Even a PHD can make a wrong conclusion about politics if they arent aware of how the political system works.

 

[teamosil]

Not at all. It assumes that somewhere in the middle, black, white, red, brown, and yellow all have equal access., and that no single race is being labeled as racist.

Then we're going the wrong direction. White still have superior access to blacks, and many folks are trying to stop the efforts to equalize that.

Did the study include making sure that those doing the hiring/interviewing were equally dispersed along racial lines? Just curious.

No, but they took a random sample of job listings, so it would represent the same racial makeup as the job market in that area in general. They did it first around Milwaukee, then the second time around New York.

Racism is a problem that cannot be solved legislatively, and must be solved culturally.

I don't agree. We need to work the problem on both fronts. For example, most of the stereotypes people have about black people are directly related to black people being disproportionately likely to be poor. Make less black people poor, and those stereotypes start to disappear. Some of the stereotypes are related to lower educational attainment by the black community on average. Improve education in black neighborhoods and that starts to disappear. And so on.

Besides, the attitude of racism is just a small part of the overall puzzle. Racism is also a condition in which people don't have the same opportunities as other people because of their race. Bottom line, I don't really care so much if somebody is a racist so long as they are hiring, enforcing the law, creating economic opportunities, etc, in a non-racist way. If some blocks within the culture lag behind and continue to carry on racist attitudes, yeah, we can't really force them to change their minds, but we can use legislation to limit their ability to hurt people with those attitudes.

 

[cpwill]

Racism is a problem that cannot be solved legislatively, and must be solved culturally.

that's correct; and it's worth pointing out that when it comes to actually breaking racial barriers and minimizing the impact of racialism, there has thus far been no better mechanism discovered than a free competitive market. wherever government puts into place a regulation that forces us to judge people other than by the content of their character and their ability to produce good work, the market sneaks, jumps, and sidles around over and underneath to degrade its' effects. Thomas Sowell, in particular, has done some excellent work on this topic. our attempts to 'fix' racism in our society via legislative action have merely led us to replace one form of government-sponsored racialism with another.

 

[Barbbtx]

I'm not sure how anything I said was filthy unless, you think disagreeing with you is filthy. I'm not talking about everyone unless, you think everyone is a teabagger. The people in the tea party movement are not the people that voted for President Obama. Additionally, try to focus on the topic. We are talking about the tea bag/party movement, not the opinion the sane part of the country has about President Obama.

I'm sorry, I didn't realize you didn't know what teabagger meant in liberal circles. To be honest, I didn't either until those on MSNBC started giggling about it like a bunch of grade schoolers.
How do you know those in the tea party are not Obama voters? According to the polls we have a lot of buyer's remorse going on in the country.

 

[cpwill]

We need to work the problem on both fronts. For example, most of the stereotypes people have about black people are directly related to black people being disproportionately likely to be poor. Make less black people poor, and those stereotypes start to disappear. Some of the stereotypes are related to lower educational attainment by the black community on average. Improve education in black neighborhoods and that starts to disappear. And so on.

hmm, and how do you make those improvements in black culture. an important source of material on how not to do it might be Losing Ground, by Charles Murray, about the declining state of the African American population in the United States. you know what's interesting? as measured by rising out of poverty, employment, and education, the African American population did better under the Jim Crow of the 1950s' than it has done under the liberal welfare state supposedly dedicated to it's benefit.

want to make fewer black people poor? want to improve their education? get government to stop trying to help.

another interesting point, especially as pertains to what happens when you have a government program incentivize single-parent families: Father absence is the major cause of child poverty. Nearly two-thirds of poor children reside in single-parent homes; each year, an additional 1.5 million children are born out of wedlock. If poor mothers married the fathers of their children, nearly three-quarters of the nation's impoverished youth would immediately be lifted out of poverty. Yet, although work and marriage are reliable ladders out of poverty, the welfare system perversely remains hostile to both. Major programs such as food stamps, public housing, and Medicaid continue to reward idleness and penalize marriage...

Thomas Sowell has done some good work demonstrating (for example) that black children from two-parent homes who are read to as children tend to end up the equals of white children from two-parent homes who are read to, etc. and so forth.

Besides, the attitude of racism is just a small part of the overall puzzle. Racism is also a condition in which people don't have the same opportunities as other people because of their race. Bottom line, I don't really care so much if somebody is a racist so long as they are hiring, enforcing the law, creating economic opportunities, etc, in a non-racist way. If some blocks within the culture lag behind and continue to carry on racist attitudes, yeah, we can't really force them to change their minds, but we can use legislation to limit their ability to hurt people with those attitudes.

oh but that's not all! tall people also have better access, as do good-looking people. smarter people, similarly, have doors open for them that those of us in the dull masses do not; and (i know, as unfair as it seems) 7-foot tall men do better in getting jobs in the NBA than 5'3 men.

WE WILL NEVER BE FREE UNTIL THE GOVERNMENT COMPLETELY ACCOUNTS FOR EVERY POSSIBLE PRE-EXISTING AND UNFAIR GENETIC ADVANTAGE OR DISADVANTAGE!
that the government will have to actually take away all of our 'freedoms' in order to achieve this is inconsequential and, if expressed, probably a sign that one is an ageist, racist, sexist, and/or a member of a hate group

herein lies equality of result delivered to you by the government

 

[teamosil]

hmm, and how do you make those improvements in black culture. an important source of material on how not to do it might be Losing Ground, by Charles Murray, about the declining state of the African American population in the United States. you know what's interesting? as measured by rising out of poverty, employment, and education, the African American population did better under the Jim Crow of the 1950s' than it has done under the liberal welfare state supposedly dedicated to it's benefit.

Charles Murray is a full fledged white supremacist... You should not be getting your information about black people from Charles Murray...

The truth is that the income and education levels of black people have risen at exactly the same rate as they have amongst white people very since the civil rights act. The problem is, the same divide between the races economically still exists. You can't catch up in a race by just running as fast as the guy who starts out ahead of you.

As for public assitance hurting those it is supposed to help, that just is not remotely true... It's a republican talking point because it fits in to the rest of their agenda neatly, not because it has any validity. Countries with a better funded safety net all have better intergenerational income mobility. The US has one of the thinnest safety nets of any first world country and we have the worst intergenerational income mobility. It's a very clear cut and direct relationship. The more safety net a country has, the easier it is to get out of poverty.

Thomas Sowell has done some good work demonstrating (for example) that black children from two-parent homes who are read to as children tend to end up the equals of white children from two-parent homes who are read to, etc. and so forth.

I'm sure that is true, but that is part of the cycle of poverty I'm talking about. People living in poverty are far less likely to get married for a million reasons. Financial problems is, by far, number one on the list of reasons for divorce in the country. Having time to read to your kids is a product of being able to work only one job and to do it during the day time. Most people in poverty have to work two jobs and/or work nights. Things like that dramatically cut in to stuff like being able to read to your children enough. Certainly cultural change needs to happen too, both in terms of the racists doing more self examination and in terms of minorities making improvements. But, that doesn't mean that ONLY cultural changes are required... That legislation is not the only thing required is not an excuse to do nothing... It is one of the things that is required. We need to create more opportunities for education and work in the worst off neighborhoods, we need to crack down on employment discrimination, we need to address crime and health care and drugs and all the things that make it so hard to claw your way out of poverty.

Take your scenario above- a kid who was lucky enough to grow up in a two parent household and get read to a lot will achieve the same sorts of test scores and whatnot. But that doesn't do him a whole lot of good if he still can't get job interviews even after everything on his resume is the same as a white applicant. Like I said, we need to tackle it from both ends. No excuses accepted on either end, the time has come to all just get off our asses and do it.

 

[Barbbtx]

Honestly, why do most blacks still vote Dem.? Makes no sense to me. All they do is keep them down and dependent.

 

[teamosil]

Honestly, why do most blacks still vote Dem.? Makes no sense to me. All they do is keep them down and dependent.

Well, you've accepted a premise that most people do not believe to be true- that safety net programs hurt the people they aim to help. That really is not supported by the facts at all. If you compare countries with thicker safety nets to countries with thinner safety nets, within the same economic brackets, the countries with thicker safety nets always have higher intergenerational income mobility. What that means is that the thicker the safety net, the better the odds that somebody born poor can get out of poverty. The US has a very thin safety net for a first world country, and we have very low intergenerational income mobility. Lower than any other first world country except the UK. A thicker safety net, more like the rest of the first world has, would most definitely help more people get out of poverty.

But, even putting that debate aside for a second, black voters consistently rank education, poverty, racial discrimination and health care as their top three priorities in who they vote for. Anybody who lists those as their top four of any race votes Democrat for obvious reasons- the Republican party doesn't even have a plan at all for dealing with any of those issues. They just don't seem to think fixing those problems is high priority. So, if those are the things you care about, you wouldn't vote Republican.

 

[Josie]

Democrats have consistently been against vouchers that would allow kids in poorer neighborhoods to go to a better school, therefore, causing the cycle of poverty and poor education to continue.

 

[lizzie]

No, but they took a random sample of job listings, so it would represent the same racial makeup as the job market in that area in general. They did it first around Milwaukee, then the second time around New York.

That’s what I figured. The study wasn’t done to get an accurate picture of racism in hiring if all factors and persons in the study aren’t accounted for in the possible biases. Example: If you are a white man and the person responsible for hiring employees, and you have people of two different colors with the same qualifications, experience, educational levels, you are more likely to hire the white guy, not the black guy, the Indian guy, the Mexican guy, or the girl of any color. You identify with the white guy by nature. You aren’t intentionally prejudiced, but you will naturally find more in common with the white guy unless he strikes you as trash or morally inferior. If you are a black guy in charge of the hiring, you will most likely hire the black guy , and the same in any situation where choices are multiple. If the majority of the hiring/interviewing personnel in the study were white, it’s no surprise that whites were more frequently hired. It’s not a sign of racism, but of personal identification and preference which has nothing to do with hating people of other races. Do the same study, and have a majority of blacks, Mexicans, Indians or any other racial/cultural group doing the hiring, and the results would likely be very different. Would we be screaming that the study was racist if this were the case? No.

Make less black people poor, and those stereotypes start to disappear. Some of the stereotypes are related to lower educational attainment by the black community on average. Improve education in black neighborhoods and that starts to disappear. And so on.
.

Then improve education in black neighborhoods, but you can’t make less black people poor. The black people themselves must make themselves less poor by seeking education and employment opportunities to accomplish this. Welfare programs have been making black (and white) people “less poor” for decades, and there has been nothing but cultural decay and growing crime because of it.

If some blocks within the culture lag behind and continue to carry on racist attitudes, yeah, we can't really force them to change their minds, but we can use legislation to limit their ability to hurt people with those attitudes.

We already have that. It’s called criminal and civil law.

 

[lizzie]

I have a challenge for all of you who believe and/or say that the Tea Party movement or the group itself is racist. Can anyone give me a specific example of a racist act at any of the rallies that was committed by a tea partier? The only violent or racist act I have seen in the news was the SEIU member (black man) assaulting the black guy who was selling small American Flags at one of the events a few months ago. I repeatedly see accusations of racism thrown around toward the tea partiers, but I have yet to see evidence of it.

 

[Barbbtx]

If the study was done with the blacks having better resumes than the whites and a white guy hired the white person, that would be racist in my opinion. However this study seemed to do it's best to make everything identical except for skin color. Hec the white guy probably thought Geez these applicants are identical. How do I choose? I know, I'll choose the one most like me. I think a black man would choose a black person under the same circumstances.