Originally Posted by
Safety
1) What are the primary reasons for violence and dysfunction in the black community? What's holding the black community back from being, on the whole, productive members of society like most other races?
In my opinion, the major reasons for the dysfunction and violence in the inner cities with focuses on blacks due to their overwhelming representation is due to several factors. I think the major ones are the fact that so many are living above means (mainly black women) and doing things like co-signing for cars, credit cards, and loan applications for a man they’re not married to and wind up being the one who’s having to pay the bill. It’s stuff like that which addresses the nonsense within the community with black women taking care of a man they’re not married to.
Chronic incarcerations among black men is contributing to the dysfunction and discord because they can’t do anything for their children, wives, and significant others. What can a man who is locked up do aside from writing letters, calling home, and getting periodical visits? Nothing and is likely to return to prison on a parole violation and/or on a new case. People refuse to address some issues within the community because it seems as if it’s a badge of shame to call out individual(s) on their BS nonsense. All those factors are compounded when there is an air of impropriety being handed out to the inner city communities with paid public servants acting as judge, jury, and executer in some cases.
2) What is the white communities role in this? What responsibilities are on society for the successes and failures of the black community?
White communities? Zero. (depending on how you take the next paragraph)
Society? A lot. If we are to generalize that the majority of the country is white, then juxtapose that generalization as everything that happens is because of whites, then the flip side of that should be, everything that falls on society is white also, no? I don’t think you would agree with that sentence, so that is the type of thinking we need to distance ourselves from. When people are protesting the actions of a police officer shooting someone who is unarmed, and the video evidence released shows that there was no immediate threat, that is not a blight on white people or indicative of whites. It is directed towards the police. If we are able to ignore the knee-jerk talking points and focus on the cusp of the issue, then you will see that most folks want what you and I want…the ability to provide for our families and be left alone to our own devices.
3) What is racism? Who are the racists? On that point, what is bigotry and who are the bigots?
Racism is a term that has evolved to include everything not listed in the dictionary. It is as abused as much as the term progressive is abused. But basically, I consider anything to be racist that could be attributed to a person solely due to their skin color. Saying white people can’t dance is a racist statement, just like saying black folks are only good at sports due to fast muscle twitches. Bigotry is subcomponent of racism, that ignored can manifest into full blown racism. Think about the events leading up to the holocaust. It just didn’t happen one day that someone said, let’s persecute the Jews. No, it was a 7-10 year process that used propaganda and fear to arrive at the point where Jews were lead into the gas chambers. Now, I’m not saying anything like that is going to happen, but it was used to show that things don’t manifest themselves overnight and it takes time to sway the public, good or bad. Serious question, how many websites are dedicated to nothing but showing black people doing bad things compared to websites showing white people doing the same? According to the FBI database, black people are overwhelming killing blacks at a rate of ~ 95%, so where do sites like whitegirlbleedalot.com get their data? I mean, if taken at face value, the stats would have to show that blacks are committing 75-90% of the crime in the country compared to their white counterparts, but that isn’t even close to what the FBI reports. Even taking the demographics into consideration, blacks are responsible for 51% of murders in this country and 95% of those are each other, so the facts don’t seem to jive with reality.
4) Why are the current processes to combat inequality and racism working or not working? Like PC, affirmative action?
One of the biggest reasons is due to the pushback and resolve people didn’t think most folks would have. The average public aren’t really that intelligent and will follow like sheep any shiny object placed before them. That is why reality shows like Honey Boo-Boo and the Kardashians are more popular than science or documentary shows. All it takes is a couple of loud talkers to plant the seed of discourse for things to be blown out of proportion. Think of whenever Al Sharpton speaks about an event that happens before the facts are known and how he incites people to be outraged. It happens on both sides constantly, so it’s not that hard to understand that anything that was set into place to help blacks could be argued as not needed or not fair. I always ask…if white women receive more AA than blacks, why are blacks the only one’s mentioned when the topic of AA comes up?
5) Finally, what is governments role in all of this? Are they promoting equality, true equality or are they pandering and/or playing the game?
Government has a role, although not as a big of a role as in the past, but a role nonetheless. You see, when the southern states decided to try and marginalize and oppress blacks, the government were the entity that stepped in and made people whole again. When the KKK was riding around lynching and burning crosses on folk’s lawns, the local law enforcement was some of the guys wearing the sheets or were friends with the sheet wearers, so nothing was getting done on the local and state level. The federal government had to step in and bring justice for citizens who were treated like they were not citizens by the locals.
This is all I dare to write on my phone, but I will expound on it more if needed.