Organization: Penn State University
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 07:08:37 EST
From: <KRB104@psuvm.psu.edu>
Newsgroups: alt.discrimination
Subject: Re: alt.discrimination = alt.caucasian whining
 <1993Jan07.114650.26259@anomaly.sbs.com>

In article <1993Jan07.114650.26259@anomaly.sbs.com>, kd1hz@anomaly.sbs.com
(Michael P. Deignan) says:
>
>dowdy@tochtli.biochem.nwu.edu (Dowdy Jackson) writes:
>
>>The fact is that whites are STILL
>>discriminating against blacks.
>
>...and blacks still discriminate against whites.

    This is interesting.  Some Blacks may be prejudiced against whites, no
question about that, but discrimination?  You are going to have to give
specifics with Blacks discriminating against whites.  In order to discriminate
one has to have control over something.  What do Blacks control enough to
discriminate?  You are going to have to give specifics.

>
>
>>    I really don't care what you think because it won't change the fact that
>>whites hate blacks and blacks hate whites because of the horrid way in
>>which they are treated by whites.
>
>People in life are constantly treated poorly by others, based on some
>physical characteristic. Too short, too fat, too ugly. Black/white is
>merely another physical characteristic which individuals use to group
>and classify.
>
>As long as you demand special treatment because of your physical
>characteristic, then you will build more resentment from other groups,
>just as the ugly person who demanded special 'rights' simply because
>s/he was too ugly to get a date, or the fat person constantly demanded
>and received special treatment simply because s/he is far.
>
     No one is asking for special treatment, but we are asking for a "level
playing field".  Because of the institutionalized discrimination that was (and
still is) in this country, Blacks have not been able to compete fairly.  Until
the playing field is level, somethings are going to have to be as they now are.
It is the white man who discriminated on the basis of a physical characteristic
for so long that things are the way they are.  Place the finger pointing in the
right direction.

>
>>Fact is that I, as an African American
>>will continue to help my people attain their goals while you as a Caucasian
>>American will do what you can to help your people hold onto whatever they    e
>stol
>>in the past.
>
>Funny, those doing the stealing around here seem to be black moreso than
>white, at least according to law enforcement records. Is that because blacks
>think us whities had their turn stealing and now should get equal rights?

   Who is talking about stealing?  In addition, statistics show that the most
rampant "stealing" going on is white collar crime, which is, for the most part,
stealing.  White collar crime costs us much more than what is typically called
robbery.  In Maryland, Jeffery Levitt, one of the S&L scum, has just been
released from prison after only serving 7 years of a 30 year sentence.  Now let
me go out and steal over a 500 million dollars and bilk thousands of people of
their life savings and see how long I will be in prison.  The problem is that
people are more tolerant of white collar crime, even though it takes more from
their pocket then street crimes.  So, though statistics show that Blacks commit
a disproportionate amount of street crime (though whites still commit the
majority of robberies - source, FBI crime statistics for 1991, which is
opposite of what you say above), it is somewhat skewed because white collar
crime is detected less and punished even lesser.

>
>
>>The only solution is that whites must learn to
>>share. This is something that you should have learned in kindergarden but
>>I guess most of you were absent that day.
>
>Most whites I know don't care if their co-workers/acquaintance's skin is
>black, white or orange. It simply gets exhausting hearing the same cries
>of RACISM! RACISM! every time a black doesn't get hired for some job.

     Well I guess you haven't been reading this network for too long, because
all we hear here is white people yelling "reverse discrimination" about not
getting school money or jobs.  Black people don't yell racism EVERY time we
don't get a job, but when the less qualified gets a job over them, or a lower
bid on a house gets the house over them, well, something has to be at work
here.  The latter happens more then you think as one of my best friends, who
is white, works for the Department of Justice Fair Housing Division.  You would
be sickened (at least I hope you would) over how many times this occurs.

>While there should, statistically be 14% black representation in every
>job category, statistics doesn't take into account socioeconomical factors
>such as schooling or job experience.

     We aren't asking for 12% (the correct figure) representation in every
 field. We know that, for instance, that 12% of the population of engineers
aren't Black.  You are correct, statistics don't take into account socio-
economic factorslikeeducational attainment or job experience.  But racism
effects all of these.  For instance, if we aren't able to get the education we
will not get the job experience so that we can get the higher salaries, so that
we will not get the higher tax base, so that our schools get less money, so our
kids get an inadequate education and the cycle repeats itself.  What we need is
a new way of financing education to stop this cycle.  I live in an area in
which the public schools are very good, and thus I was saved from this cycle.
Educational attainment shouldn't, in a democracy, depend on your socioeconomic
status.  Sure the rich will always have their private schools, and I see
absolutely nothing wrong with that, but public education IN ALL AREAS of the
country should be properly financed.  This all fits into the same equation.

>
>Until blacks can learn to be judged on their own merit against similar
>white competitors with receiving "special" treatment simply for their
>skin color, I'm afraid that they will also build resentment and
>discrimination from others. You cannot legislate away people's
>discriminatory tendencies.
>
    I think we can learn that, we aren't all idiots like you think.  Until
whites give us a fair and even playing field, then some concessions are going
to have to made.  And you are telling me that whites don't receive "special
treatment" (look at the tax codes sometime).  No, you cannot legislate away
people's discriminatory tendencies, but you sure as hell can make it illegal
to discriminate.  Discrimination is anti-democratic.  If you think we should
let people discriminate because it is human nature to discriminate, then you
have problems.  And as a Black person, whose people do not discriminate because
we don't own enough of America to discriminate, we would lose out even worse
in such a situation.  We have historical precedent of this.  Look at the
USA pre-1960, when it was legal to discriminate.  Though Ronald Reagan and
others would have you believe that it was an "edenistic" time in America,
obviously they weren't Black during that time.
Newsgroups: alt.discrimination,soc.culture.african.american,misc.education