I was looking to see what other folks were saying about John Tierney's ode to poorly explained research. I knew I'd see stuff like this:
Tierney ("Computing the Cost of 'Acting White'") on the social pressure faced by some black students. "But at integrated public schools, minority students face a special problem, according to [economist Roland] Fryer's study. Unlike their white classmates, whose popularity steadily increases as their grades go up, minority students with higher grades end up with fewer friends. For blacks, this effect is noticeable among B-plus and A students. For Hispanic students, the drop in popularity is even more pronounced, affecting students who average at least C-plus grades."
"Unlike their white classmates." Yes, Tierney makes a statement that directly contradicts the research.
But I also ran across some interesting stuff...in particular:
Our blogger, Whitney Tilson, has a series of really interesting quotes from the article.The New White Flight
In Silicon Valley, two high schools with outstanding academic reputations
are losing white students as Asian students move in. Why?
By SUEIN HWANG
November 19, 2005; Page A1CUPERTINO, Calif. -- By most measures, Monta Vista High here and Lynbrook High, in nearby San Jose, are among the nation's top public high schools. Both boast stellar test scores, an array of advanced-placement classes and a track record of sending graduates from the affluent suburbs of Silicon Valley to prestigious colleges.
But locally, they're also known for something else: white flight. Over the past 10 years, the proportion of white students at Lynbrook has fallen by nearly half, to 25% of the student body. At Monta Vista, white students make up less than one-third of the population, down from 45% -- this in a town that's half white. Some white Cupertino parents are instead sending their children to private schools or moving them to other, whiter public schools. More commonly, young white families in Silicon Valley say they are avoiding Cupertino altogether.
Whites aren't quitting the schools because the schools are failing academically. Quite the contrary: Many white parents say they're leaving because the schools are too academically driven and too narrowly invested in subjects such as math and science at the expense of liberal arts and extracurriculars like sports and other personal interests.
The two schools, put another way that parents rarely articulate so bluntly, are too Asian.
So what do the white parents do? Make excuses that the Asian kids are too narrowly focused, yada, yada, yada and run away:
Many white parents say they're leaving because the schools are too academically driven and too narrowly invested in subjects such as math and science at the expense of liberal arts and extracurriculars like sports and other personal interests.
And:p
Four years ago, Lynn Rosener, a software consultant, transferred her elder son from Monta Vista to Homestead High, a Cupertino school with slightly lower test scores. At the new school, the white student body is declining at a slower rate than at Monta Vista and currently stands at 52% of the total. Friday-night football is a tradition, with big half-time shows and usually 1,000 people packing the stands. The school offers boys' volleyball, a sport at which Ms. Rosener's son was particularly talented. Monta Vista doesn't.
"It does help to have a lower Asian population," says Homestead PTA President Mary Anne Norling. "I don't think our parents are as uptight as if my kids went to Monta Vista."
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This is an interesting but
This is an interesting but not surprising development. White America claims to love its model minorities and ethnic Chinese Asians who are recent immigrants have seemed, in particular, especially eager to qualify for this role. Part of the problem, as they undoubtedly are discovering, is that White America does not want them to actually morph into templates that white children will have to emulate in order to remain at the top of the SAT pyramid and the quest for college admissions.
Twenty years ago I recall having a conversation with some Chinese friends all of whom were third, fourth and fifth generation Americans about the admission policies of an Ivy League university we had all attended. They were miffed because they felt that the university was not admitting all the qualified Chinese students who had applied. My contribution to the conversation was that the university in question would absolutely never admit all or even a majority of the qualified Chinese students that applied because one of the school's unstated societal roles was to uphold a certain cultural hegemony and viewpoint that would be undermined if a majority or a substantial minority of the students were ethnically Chinese.
White America has never been
White America has never been able to compete on an even playing field. America established its apartheid system based on the specious claim that blacks were inferior and thus incapable of participating in American life as equals. The reality is the system was created to constrain and curtail black achievement and aspirations.
From the beginning of slavery, in the colonies and in early America, white folks were well aware of black genius and ingenuity. In 1791, Benjamin Banneker (a free black man whose father and grandfather had been enslaved) sent Thomas Jefferson a copy of an almanac he had published along with this letter. Jefferson, clinging ever faithfully to the myths of white supremacy, begrudingly admitted the significance of Banneker's work and promptly shipped it to the Academy of Science in Paris. At a time when more than 90% of the Africans in America were enslaved, Banneker, a scientist, put lie to the notion of black inferiority. Many others also did so before and after him. Such accomplishments threatened the ideological foundation of the slaveocracy. They also explain the necessity of passing laws to prevent Africans from being educated. If blacks were incapable of learning and excelling, no such restrictions were needed. But educated blacks meant not only the end to slavery's justification, they also brought the threat of competition in every arena of American economic and intellectual life.
The fear of those white parents of their children having to compete as equals with Asian-American students is greater than any racial animus they may harbor. Centuries of white privilege have inflated white folks' sense of self-esteem at the same time its has corrupted their work ethic. And now a new day has dawned on the vast American plantation. Unfortunately for them white skin will no longer be a ticket to instant opportunity.
I thin this explains, in
Sounds like Reconstruction
Sounds like Reconstruction to me. 'Cept there ain't no Klan and too many TV cameras for these incompetent caucs to handle their biz in the traditional way. I say, "Move out and STFU!"
Excellent analysis of the
Excellent analysis of the Tierny's, and others of his ilk, BS. I mean, if its not the knitwit brooks, then they trot out Tierny as a supplement to the so called neo-con game. Hey, I guess he could have said they were acting Irish. Oh wait. The Irish are white now!
PURE UNADULTERATED BS.
By the way, the guy he's quoting, Fryar, is that the same kid who threw his father under the bus in the NYT magazine a while back?
By the way, the guy he's
By the way, the guy he's quoting, Fryar, is that the same kid who threw his father under the bus in the NYT magazine a while back?
Same guy. Let's be fair, though, didn't Fryar's dad sort of earn that pavement ride. Fryar's work, if I'm to believe that this study is fairly representative, reminds of the sort of abstruse trivialities that once attracted the more extreme members of the logical positivist movement in academic philosophy in which allegedly intelligent people were debating questions such as can two people catch the same cold. These arguments were going on, mind you, in a world where nuclear weapons had already been used and their reuse did not seem like a remote possibility.
I work in education and the
I work in education and the constant talk about closing the achievement gap between blacks and whites is exactly the type of inane discourse that causes many to laugh at folks holding doctorates in education. Why would a city or state or university focus considerable resources on closing the gap between blacks and whites (unless it was some held-over anachronistic conversation from the 1950's) when asians are outdistancing caucs by a good measure across the board? Maybe the resources aren't all that considerable, but it is bears mentioning that folks are sponsoring forums and funding research to get at this issue. The achievement gap between black folk and white folk has always been a red herring - and at no time more than now. There is no point in trying to catch up to an obsolete collective. Bottom line...these Cupertino folks can read the writing on the wall - and will soon be running out of places to hide. I suppose there will always be Fresno State.
Bottom line...these
Bottom line...these Cupertino folks can read the writing on the wall - and will soon be running out of places to hide.
Cupertino is significantly majority Chinese T3.
I predict that the most common college, by a factor of more than two, is UC Berkeley.
Palo Alto might still be majority white, if you're looking for a high achieving white high school.
Now as stated it is the case that plenty of white kids in Cupertino are sent to private schools because they can't compete in the public schools. Maybe "can't" isn't the right word, more like "don't think they should be required to". This leaves Cupertino High School even more Chinese than the population.
"I thin this explains, in
"I thin this explains, in some part, America's increasing reliance on force of arms and veiled threats backed up by military means to deal with what it views as growing threats to its hegemony."
If they can't beat the competition in the global marketplace, they'll beat them on the battlefield.
The Iraq war was a pre-emptive strike at Europe and China; it wasn't about Saddam. It was a strike against Europe out of fear Saddam was going to abandon dollars (the current oil trading currency) for Euros. This would have been a major blow to the US economy. It was a strike against China because it is fast becoming America's main competitor for oil and petrolem products. China currently is building the capacity to produce 5 million cars a month. Where's all the oil going to come from?
The US consumes 40% of the world's oil, 23% of the natural gas, and 23% of the coal. Even though the U.S. is the third largest country (behind China and India) it only has 300 million people compared to China's 1.3 billion and India's 1 billion. India also should not be ruled out as a major competitor. The UN estimates India's population will overtake China's by 2030. It's growth and industrialization will further strain the rapidly vanishing oil reserves.
If the US government spent a fraction of the money wasted on military expeditures on the research and development of renewable and clean energy sources and technology, it could solve some of the problems of global warming and reduce the nation's dependence on foreign oil. That would be the intelligent thing to do. But the vestiges of white privilege (manifest destiny and all that crap) refuse to die a natural death. That leaves military might. But as we see on the news everyday, the US military, despite its vaunted technology, hardly looks like it's up to the challenge posed by Iraqi insurgents let alone China.
But the vestiges of white
But the vestiges of white privilege (manifest destiny and all that crap) refuse to die a natural death.
Racial memory in the form of manifest destiny certainly plays a significant role in a psychological or subconscious sense, but the American government made a Faustian bargain beginning in the late 1940s with what by the end of Eisenhower's second term emerged as the "military-industrial complex". This nexus of so-called national defense priorities, weapons producers, big labor and Congress has so successfully insinuated itself into the fabric of American life that entire regions of the country have become dependent on the production, transporting and care of military personnel and materiel in order to put food on the table and a roof over their heads.
The use of the fear of Soviet expansion, metaphors like the "domino theory" and domestic communist infiltration (I live in a state where many townships do not fluoridate their water because the citizens were convinced that putting fluoride in water was a "commie plot".) has so indelibly warped the consciousness of so many of my fellow citizens that they would have to be put in controlled laboratory conditions in order to be relieved of the effects of the brainwashings they have been subjected to for the past 50 years. Anyone who seriously proposes reorganizing our national priorities is denounced as a fool whose parentage is suspect. We have gotten ourselves into a fine mess and what is far worse is the we have produced political leaders on both sides of the aisle who don't have a clue as to what needs to be done in order to extricate ourselves from this situation.
I think I made this comment
I think I made this comment before: at the med school where I work Chinese and Indians make up a substantial portion of the student body, the research fellows, and, increasingly, the faculty. The university could not sustain its programs without them, nor could the university hospital maintain its services.
The only way out is
The only way out is through...living through this means enduring the consequences of the myths and fables. When you believe in things that you don't understand and you suffer - superstition is the final word... If the myths were laid end to end, the implications and outcomes would be fairly evident. For example, the myths relating to the intellectual capacity, integrity and loyalty of black folk have laid the foundation for the current "crisis of concern." The decision to withhold equitable access to education, capital, credit and civil protections to black folk have directly impacted this domestic crisis. The outcome is only too predictable. The nation lacks the resources and the will to change course. It's too late.
"It's too late."That's what
"It's too late."
That's what all the proverbial writing on the wall indicates to me too. I've been searching for an exit strategy from this "American quagmire," but I haven't come up with anything. I'm open for suggestions. Please help a brother out.
That's what all the
That's what all the proverbial writing on the wall indicates to me too. I've been searching for an exit strategy from this "American quagmire," but I haven't come up with anything. I'm open for suggestions. Please help a brother out.
My tendency is to approach questions like this from a very practical perspective. I've been thinking a lot about taking flying and/or sailing lessons in case my family and I have to get out of here in a REAL hurry. At some level I am absolutely convinced that the only alternative for the fools currently manning the helm of this spaceship is martial law. I am further convinced, by the way, that our military services, particularly the Army, may be close to widespread mutiny if this folly in Iraq continues for a lot longer.
The modes of exit sound
The modes of exit sound good, PT. But where do you go?
For a start probably
what're you guys talking
Exit strategies from the
Fear is the mindkiller - so
RE: Mormons - I have a large
RE: Mormons - I have a large house but not enough room to store enough food and water for more than seven years.
RE: The Clampdown - In the immortal words of Dr. Miles J. Bennell (Kevin McCarthy): "They're here, they're here!
Exit strategies from the
...nearly as bad as
...nearly as bad as Argentina...
I'm thinking Chile after Allende. Or worse, Venezuela under Juan Vincente Gomez.
That leaves military might.
"Ironically, on a per capita
"Ironically, on a per capita basis, the military consumes 8 times as much energy as the average ugly American, and as noted, we have the most overshot energy and ecological footprint in the world. "
I read somewhere recently (sorry I can't remember the source to cite it properly) the meat and diary industry consumes 15% of U.S. energy resources to produce their products. The point of the article was basic dietary changes could dramatically reduce dependence on foreign oil.
Asking Americans to give up cheeseburgers is like asking them to give up guns or porn.
I read somewhere recently
Ranking the ecological
boy, ya log off for a little
boy, ya log off for a little while and it's armageddon...it may be over, but not like right this minute...there's still a ways to go...i certainly don't think you need to pack your bags - unless you're going on vacation.
My bags aren't packed but I
My bags aren't packed but I see a lot of ominous signs. When Raygun was elected these folks thought that they had died and gone to heaven and that as part of their heavenly reward the presidency would be theirs from then on. They went nuts when Clinton was elected and tried to do everything in their power to delegitimize his election as POTUS. They have stolen the last two elections and were looking forward to maintaining control of all three branches of government for the next 75 years at least.
Now all of their "backroom scheming and power trip dreaming" is slowly unraveling and they are fit to be tied. They don't have a heck of a lot more tricks to show us. You can smell their desperation and their fear. They believe they are entitled to fleece the rest of us and if we don't believe them it's only because our priorities are askew. These are hard and bitter people and they worship a deity who, according to them, plans to turn the rest of us into crispy critters on the Plains of Armageddon if we don't get with the program.
"God gave Noah the rainbow sign
No more water, the fire next time."
Now all of their "backroom
The clampdown, when it does
The clampdown, when it does come, if indeed it must come, will be implemented by vastly smoother operators than the ones currently doing the do.
To paraphrase a line from Jack Nicholson, what if these operators are as smooth as it gets?
See, I think the era of smooth operators is long over. The heir apparent was shot in the head 42 years today in Dallas, Texas. Lyndon Johnson filled in for awhile but he lacked a certain style, a certain bearing - je ne sais quoi if you will - to pull it off and he took the war in Vietnam far more seriously than the Order of Smooth Operators thought was necessary. By the end, he had two of the premier emissaries of the Order, Clark Clifford and George Kennan, biting their foreheads. John D's grandson was waiting in the wings and would have been glad to oblige but there was that messy little divorce with Happy and a suspicion by the cowboy wing of his party that he wasn't going to be quite hard enough on the commies and the Negroes. Who , BTW, was this colored fellow Richard Parsons and why did Rocky keep bringing him to meetings?
By 1975, the Order figured it had regained a little bit of the traction that it had lost as a result of Vietnam debacle and Richard Nixon's complete meltdown. The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Henry Kissinger certainly must have given them reason to think that they could still fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time. Jimmy Carter was conservative enough but, unfortunately, he actually wanted to bring Jesus into the White House, which was okay only if they needed to have the wine carafe replenished, but otherwise he and the guys he traveled with were a little too funky. And that do unto others stuff was for the birds. Do others as often and as many times as you could was the real operative standard.
It has been downhill since then despite the ascendancy of Ron the Red Smiter. Now we have a president who not only is opposed to stem celll research but he doesn't have a clue as to what stem cell research is. This is very troubling for the Order of Smooth Operators. Once the dessert has been served what can you talk to this guy about. No, JFK was the real deal plus his wife could actually speak French.
Who we have in charge now are pretenders and, at last report, there is no let up in sight. Miles J. Brendell was right. They're here, they're here.
I'm not too big on so-called
I'm not too big on so-called "conspiracy theories" because conspiracies suggest collaborative planning in secret - and much of what has been done/is done has not been all that secret. That said, this conversation reminds me of some stuff I read years ago about the Trilateral Commission and the planned obsolescence of the US and the dollar and territorial sovereignty and nation-states and all the rest. Those documents didn't explicitly anticipate technology like the internet or cell phones and the rapid advance of real-time, interpersonal communication...but, those documents did anticipate a global community and the need to change the prevailing mindset of isolationist, nation-staters in the US and nationalists in Europe. What I found most interesting about these documents was the broad participation across so-called political lines...democrats and republicans, liberals and conservatives participated. The demise of things Americans hold dear has serious implications for mediocre white folks. American racism and sexism and other -isms have always provided an effective mechanism for rewarding white mediocrity. As borders disappear and competition steepens, it will become increasingly difficult to reward mediocrity. It just may be that this new cauc exodus from realms of authentic competition portends an international trend away from fighting the good fight - when options such as firebombing (Tulsa, Black Wall Street), etc., are not available. White folks locked in mediocrity will always be able to flee to Idaho and Wyoming and Vermont and Montana. California may no longer be an appropriate venue for these unpatriotic folks who would rather play games than study. It may no longer be an appropriate place to undermine national competitiveness and national security. This is the type of abdication that could not have been foreseen by participants on the TC. How could they have imagined that their own progeny, with all the stacked decks and privilege dishonesty can muster, would come to abdicate the throne. Even if that moment is here, the type of preparation (for allofwe)required suggests a reconnection with Africa and the Caribbean.
I don't believe in
Events, like avalanches,
Events, like avalanches, sometimes cascade, building their own momentum as they go, ripping the ground away without warning. Who knows what the tipping point may be that starts the landslide, or how long movements may proceed undetected before the mountainside collapses in a cacophanous thunder and falls into the sea.
Alarmist? Maybe. But we live in a time when things move at an accelerated pace, quicker than the eye can see or mind can comprehend. A man sneezes in the Hong Kong airport. The next day someone in Toronto is admitted to the hospital with a previously unknown viral infection. A week later new cases appear all over the planet. Or, the trade deficit soars beyond the stratosphere and the dollar falls precipitously against other currencies. Inflation and interest rates shoot through the roof. WalMart, the nation's largest employer and the largest private employer of black folks, lays off tens of thousands of workers (GM announced the pending layoffs of thirty thousand workers yesterday. They used to say as GM goes so goes the nation). In the aftermath of the catastrophic economic meltdown, the rich retreat to the safety and security of their walled enclaves. The poor, sans welfare or social security, are left to fend for themselves. Martial law is declared to control massive social unrest.
The country has experienced a massive epidemic and a great depression in the past. But that does not immunize it from either occurring again.
Whether the collapse is imminent or decades away, gradual or accelerated, forward thinking and preparedness are the keys to survival. An exit stategy may mean a strategic retreat to some corner of America or it may mean leaving these shores altogether. I don't know. I'm looking for help to find the underground railroad station. That's why I posed the above question about exit strategies. One thing I have learned over the years, conspiracies real or imagined notwithstanding, the power of white folks is an illusion. Yes they control capital. But that too is an illusion. You can have all the money in the world and the military might to protect and project it, but that won't buy you a single drop of oil when none is to be had. It won't cure a virulent disease that kills in a matter of hours or days. It won't stop a hurricane, earthquake, fire or flood.
Granted, life is about chances and risks. But living is about having the wisdom to recognize and deal with it.
Well... does anyone know where the entrance to the underground railroad is located?
One thing I have learned
One thing I have learned over the years, conspiracies real or imagined notwithstanding, the power of white folks is an illusion.
One of the things in this country that has certainly changed is that the ruling class that began coming into ascendancy in the 1930s and 1940s , and it didn't matter whether they were Democrats or Republicans, are gone. These people at least understood that in order to keep the masses of folks reasonably happy, content and reluctant to erect barricades on Main Street that bits and pieces of the nation's wealth would have to be redistributed.
They may have disagreed over the amount to throw in the kitty, but after FDR the smoothest and brightest ones knew that government had to provide a safety net to protect the populace against the excesses and dislocations caused by the search for profit and wealth. This social contract has been declared null and void by this new gang who sincerely believe that they can rewrite the rules. Jack Abramoff, Michael Scanlon, Tom DeLay and Bob Ney, for example, are not exceptions to the new ruling order; they are per excellence exemplary representatives of this new capitalist ethos. I'm convinced that they make folks like David Rockefeller and his crowd quite nervous.
Martial law is declared to
Being able to escape or to
As borders disappear and
Yes indeed.
White folks locked in mediocrity will always be able to flee to Idaho and Wyoming and Vermont and Montana.
No moreso than black folks, but it's not a solution.
Once in some semi-rural part of the west, one still has to make a living somehow, and the kind of jobs available are limited. Purely manual labor is the realm of Mexicans. Good jobs have a surplus of good applicants. Our mediocre citizen is in for a hard life.
The solution, to the extent that there is a solution, is to encourage an upgrade off of mediocre. It's not that mediocre people can't change, it's that they decide every day of their mediocre lives to not change.
Being able to escape or to
Being able to escape or to support yourself and your family sounds good, but, it should be noted that helping others helps yourself. If your neighbors are self-sufficient they are less likely to rob or harm you and your family. Also, perchance a disaster strikes your family a kind community is a good thing for you.
If by society all of the U.S. or even all of a state (unless you're mormon) is meant, then the communitarian impulse is quixotic. The underground railroad is in small communities and viable models of what such a construct can do will have a butterfly effect.
Every once in a while CN, and at some peril to your reputation I'm sure, I just gotta agree with you in a truly deep way.
I don't think the frontier
I don't think the frontier option will be open to very many black folk - unless they roll deep and pack lots of steel.
I don't think the frontier
I don't think the frontier option will be open to very many black folk
I don't think you've spent much time in Idaho, Montana, or Wyoming.
What do you think might go wrong?
I don't think you've spent
I don't think you've spent much time in Idaho, Montana, or Wyoming.
What do you think might go wrong?
My personal experience tells me that Alaska and British Columbia would be okay for black folks but not Idaho, Montana or Wyoming and I don't care how many black people you know who live there. If I was trying to get my family away from a potentially dystopian nightmare in the United States I wouldn't go to those three states or the Dakotas.
haven't spent any time
haven't spent any time there, but I know that's where survivalists with virulent white supremacist ideologies have held sway. that would make for an unnecessarily volatile mix - unless you're writing a novel or making a movie.
"Being able to escape or to
"Being able to escape or to support yourself and your family sounds good, but, it should be noted that helping others helps yourself."
The underground railroad is a collective effort.
"In a country whose populace is as heavily armed as ours, and whose military is as far flung as ours currently is, what conceivable aim would be accomplished by such a declaration? The U.S. military can't control Mogadishu or Baghdad, how the hell they gonna control Chicago?"
The US was not prepared to contend with problems of language, culture and history in East Africa and the Middle East, anymore than it could deal with those issues in Viet Nam. But it has been preparing for decades to deal with urban unrest in this country. The apparatus of a police state already exists; it's called the Patriot Act. And while I'm sure there will be pockets of resistance to the imposition of martial law, Americans are too divided and disorganized to put up much of a fight. Many would support the government's actions. Few, if any, would respond with the kinds of suicidal attacks that have become the hallmark of the Iraqi insurgency.
"No, imoho, if the pandemic demand destruction scenario is implemented, it will be staged elsewhere."
An engineered pandemic is one thing--and I agree with you that it's possible it will be "staged" elsewhere--but you can't control nature. Once the genie is out of the bottle anything can and will happen. The pandemics we should be concerned about are not the ones cooked up in a human laboratory, but those that nature designs and implements. Global warming could unleash viruses heretofore unseen. Lacking resistance, we all would be laboratory animals involutarily undergoing massive global clinical trials. Such events further justify the limiting of what freedoms we have left. Bush has already talked about quarantines as a measure to deal with a bird flu that doesn't even exist in humans.
"The underground railroad is in small communities and viable models of what such a construct can do will have a butterfly effect."
I hope you're right. But it's a discussion I think we should have nonetheless.
Off pandemics and false flag
haven't spent any time
haven't spent any time there, but I know that's where survivalists with virulent white supremacist ideologies have held sway.
A few such people might exist, but they don't "hold sway". They're widely despised, have no political power, and represent no threat.
i'll have to take your word
i'll have to take your word for it...maybe it's not so bad after all. lol.
If you've never experienced
If you've never experienced being a minority^2 T3, you might find it enjoyable.
If you went to a small town in any of those states you mention, you might be a curiosity. People will LOOK at you, but not with hostility.
I spent the first half of my life in such towns.
If you went to a small town
If you went to a small town in any of those states you mention, you might be a curiosity. People will LOOK at you, but not with hostility.
The point, DW, is that we don't want to live or go places where we are curiosities. Not in the Year 2005 and beyond. And you did not spend the first half of your life in those towns as a black person.
The point, DW, is that we
The point, DW, is that we don't want to live or go places where we are curiosities.
I've been to small towns in Japan PT where I surely was a curiosity.
I enjoyed it.
Agreed, not everyone would, but I'm predicting that that kind of thing is not well correlated with race.
I've been to small towns in
I've been to small towns in Japan PT where I surely was a curiosity.
I've been to small towns and places outside the United States where I was a curiosity because of my race. We have no desire to be curiosities in the country where we were born and live.
I'm tempted to write that I'm surprised that you appear to not be aware of this fact, but given your postings on matters pertaining to race why should I be surprised.
We have no desire to be
We have no desire to be curiosities in the country where we were born and live.
At best it's a chicken-egg issue. If black people don't go there because they're curiosities, they'll remain curiosities.
but given your postings on matters pertaining to race why should I be surprised.
It's just reality PT. There exist white people, even in 2005, who have never spoken in person to a black person. No black people live nearby, and they don't travel. Nearly all of them are available as a source of pleasant interpersonal experience.
At best it's a chicken-egg
At best it's a chicken-egg issue. If black people don't go there because they're curiosities, they'll remain curiosities.
You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. There are no chicken and egg issues here. Simple common civility is called for in these situations not interpersonal experience. I can't conceive of any black child in America who has escaped from being taught that you don't stare at people because its impolite to stare at people. I foolishly presumed that white folks taught their children the same thng.
Thank you for letting me know that the bad manners exhibited by too many white people is not an acquired deficit but is the direct result of a lack of proper home training.
"Economics is too complex to
"Economics is too complex to pin down one solitary cause for the eventual reality correction we're eventually going to have to face."
I agree. The trigger could be any one of the factors you mentioned or various combinations thereof.
One thing is certain, no one in government or the private sector seems to be doing a damn thing to solve the problems. Cutting taxes or tinkering with interest rates are not solutions to structural deficiences and flaws in the system.
no one in government or the
"What does that tell
"What does that tell you?"
Capitalism has warped and rotted their brains.
Warped brains may be part of
Warped brains may be part of it, but the other part of it certainly involves the inherent weight of large institutions. I would imagine that institutions like the Fed, World Bank, Dept. of Treasury and others are as difficult to move (with a lever designed to serve "the people") as your local, neighborhood mountain. Arguably, mountains are easier to move.
Peak Oil resolution in U.S.
"Arguably, mountains are
"Arguably, mountains are easier to move."
No doubt. But part of the reason for institutional inertia is greed. According to the Afl-Cio:
CEOs and their enablers will sell their mamas to line their pockets. So selling out the American worker and the American economy is just another item on the daily calendar. Offshoring jobs, union busting, laying off workers, forcing wage concessions, underfunding pensions, reducing healthcare benefits, forcing states and cities to give tax abatements, concocting schemes to avoid federal taxes, getting Congress to give them public dollars in the form of corporate welfare, that's how doing business is defined in America today. By these means profitability is maintained and dividends are paid whether the company actually sells a single widget. Sooner or later this house of fraud will come crashing down.
Check here for more examples of CEOs run amok.
Nice link. That's a major
Nice link. That's a major reason I don't want to hear much from folks about the salaries that athletes pull down. And don't get me started on Kelli Ripa's gig and her dough.