From: kaygee@hardy.u.washington.edu (Kevin Giansante)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan
Subject: Re: Not a Myth at All
Date: 11 Jan 1993 00:03:12 GMT
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
NNTP-Posting-Host: hardy.u.washington.edu

In article 21315, maierj@edmund.cs.andrews.edu (Joey Maier)
writes:

>I implied because, to the best of my knowledge, the identity of
>the
>vandal(s) was never discovered.  If, indeed, one of the black
>students
>on campus was the culprit, this would be a good example of how
>the
>behavior of a minority, or even a single individual, within a
>group is
>capable of causing discrimination towards the entire group [the
>topic of
>the post I was responding to.]

And if the culprit was NOT black, then this would be an example
of how black people in general are presumed to be responsible for
something that NONE of them did.  So that would be, to use your
reasoning, a situation in which a non-black person "caused"
discrimination against black people.

But since we don't know who was responsible for the vandalism,
what we do in fact seem to have here is a situation in which an
UNKNOWN person has "caused" you to implicate black people in a
crime for which you have no evidence of their involvement.

Now this is starting to get a little complicated, so let's apply
Occam's razor: Isn't it more likely that YOU caused YOURSELF to
believe what you believe?  In other words, doesn't it seem that
you might be a bit prejudicial in deciding who did the spray
painting?


>>It's unfortunate that black Americans don't have that same
luxury
>>of choice.

>Sorry.  I don't follow.  Please clarify.

What I mean to say is that many black people in this country are
born into a social milieu that doesn't allow them the same
choices that white Americans have come to expect.

I'm white and I know white culture, and my knowledge of that
culture leads me to believe that the police --to stick with the
Rodney King example-- generally treat black people differently
than they treat white people.  They do not tend to force white
people into the same position that King found himself in, which
was the position of having to decide whether submission to police
authority would have cost him his life.  King resisted arrest
because his knowledge and experience suggested that he was in a
life-or-death situation when surrounded by white cops, leading
him to resist and leading them to subdue him violently.  In that
sense, King was not as free to choose as I would be in the same
situation.

I would not have resisted arrest because my experience of the
police is different than the average black man's experience of
the police.  White people and black people are presented with
different choices by the police, by the courts, by the educatinal
system, by every other social institution, and by most
individuals.

It's an easy step from here to saying that the society causes
people to commit crime, but I don't go quite that far.  I say
that society sets the parameters and that we make choices within
those parameters.  I do believe, though, that the limits and
options options for blacks are generally much different than the
limits and options for whites.

I hope that clarifies my point.


Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan