Rick Reuben wrote:Everything is a collaborative effort. No minority pushes around the white elite power structure all on its own. If you think the black community holds enough power on its own to get what it wants in our class system, then prove it. Demand that the last fifty years of civil rights legislation be repealed and demand that all government spending on the social safety net be terminated.

Don't you liberals realize what a paradox you keep walking into?

If your mantra is 'we need big government to restrain big business', then you must praise big government for restraining big business and for making society behave fairly.

I'm willing to grant that blacks' gains have been a somewhat collaborative effort. The white power structure did grant them crucial civil rights measures. But don't forget how those measures were gained: through lots and lots of struggle and protest.

Black civil rights were achieved by blacks mobilizing and fighting for them. The white establishment fought them tooth and nail and only granted these rights after the public outcry for them had been so loud that it would have been dangerous for the establishment *not* to have granted them. People forget how close to the brink of anarchy this country was during the mid- to late-60's.

Besides, granting civil rights does not in and of itself make society fairer or more amenable to the needs of black people. All the legislation in the world didn't change the fact that 1% of our population -- the majority of whom are black -- are currently in prison. Black people still face a raft of other burdens which legislation can't do much to ameliorate. That they have fought through them and gained the achievements they have is a testament to their bravery and resilience.

So, I'll grant that it was a "collaborative effort," but only to a negligible degree. People make changes for themselves. Not laws. Laws open the door, but people still have to walk through that door.

That many black people and their communities were able to live fulfilling lives despite mistreatment and unfair laws is to their credit. It doesn't mean that mistreatment and unfairness need not be prevented.

A person's success despite barriers is praiseworthy, not but an argument to take away the barriers.

This is about to go the way of the homeless thread.

Look, I'm not denying the importance of laws.

What I'm saying is that laws in and of themselves are not sufficient to create a fairer and safer society. This has been proven in spades. Just to take some examples:

* The drug laws are harsher now than they have ever been at any point in American history. *Far* harsher. And yet, what do we find? The influx and abuse of drugs is accelerating.

* Abortion was made readily available after Roe v. Wade. And yet how prevalent is teenage pregnancy among black mothers today? How prevalent is unprotected sex even though we've passed a law saying that sex education shall be taught in public schools? Are you starting to realize that legislation only scratches the surface of structural societal trends and problems and is incapable of really changing them?

* Let's say I pass a law saying that a certain university must admit a certain percentage of minority students in any given year. This is only the first step, because it's not able to attack the underlying problems in the education system. How could it? Unfortunately, we cannot teach minority students any better by passing such laws. They may be admitted to the university, but if they're unprepared or have to work a job on the side, they may not be able to perform up to their capacity and may then drop out. The law was a good idea: it opened that door for more minorities. However, its scope is not broad enough to, say, provide better wages at part-time jobs, or provide more funding to public secondary schools. The door has been opened, but people need to walk through that door.

* You can pass a law which makes it a civil wrong to discriminate against employees based on race or sex (Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964). But do you think that this has ended racism or sexism in the workplace? Has it really brought people together and ended their discriminatory ways? No, it's only swept it under the rug. That's because putting tape over peoples' mouths does not get inside their heads and do any real damage.

I'm not saying that these laws have no value. Quite the contrary, in fact. I think they are necessary albeit rather negligible measures taken as a first step on the path to enlightenment and to the end of reducing prejudice. But laws cannot enlighten people. Only people can enlighten other people, by trading ideas and talking through difficulties and dealing with real-life situations. Laws are a means to an end and not the end itself. And I am way more supportive of the power of the law than many on the left are. You should check out Noam Chomsky or Karl Marx or Peter Kropotkin if you really want to see the legitimacy of laws themselves challenged and seriously critiqued.

Anyone who says America has less racial tension today than it did forty years ago is flat wrong. Anyone who thinks the position of black Americans is any better than it was forty years ago is wrong to a significant degree even if he can point to some beneficial changes.

Rick, your inability to extricate and then combine the two propositions, "Laws often only have a negligible impact on dealing with societal problems," and "Nevertheless, those laws are still helpful and we should have them," has led you into the creation of a false dichotomy. I can hold both of these positions without contradicting myself.

Rick Reuben wrote:

nerbly bear wrote:Anyone who says America has less racial tension today than it did forty years ago is flat wrong. Anyone who thinks the position of black Americans is any better than it was forty years ago is wrong to a significant degree even if he can point to some beneficial changes.

Hah hah hah ha ha.... you walked right into that one! Either you have lost your mind, or you have just called 40 years of Big Government efforts to make society and our economy more fair *A FRAUD*. You just threw the entire Great Society liberal agenda under a fleet of fifty buses! Traitor to liberalism! You said we have gone backwards. Obama doesn't say we have gone backwards. He says we have made great progress. Are you calling him a liar?

No, no, see you're misusing language again, as is your wont, and over-generalizing so as to completely miss my point.

I said that there is the same amount of racial tension as there was forty years ago. I also said that there have been some achievements and strides forward on the part of black Americans. I also said that, by and large, the state of the black community is just as rife with problems as it was forty years ago, even though I grant that there have been significant strides forward. There have also been significant strides backward, negating the impact of many of the strides forward. Such as the fact, for example, that, forty years ago, black Americans didn't have to deal with the crack cocaine epidemic, or with the pressure on young men to form gangs and engage in criminal activity in them.

Sure, there are way more black executives than there were in the '60's, but there are also fifteen year old black kids dealing drugs and pimping teenage girls right outside my apartment building downtown.

Nothing that I have said above contradicts anything else I have said above.

Rick wrote:Ahh hah hah... Nerbly says that blacks have made great strides on their own, and then denies their progress three posts later!

See above. Aspects of progress can co-exist with aspects of regression.

Rick Reuben wrote:What is taking the 'racist White America' that you see so long to destroy Obama's campaign? His poll numbers still look good. Shouldn't racist White America have started wrecking his chances by now?

Barack Obama being elected president would, in my eyes, signify extremely little in regard to whether or not America is still a heavily racist society. It would also signify very little as to whether the black community as a whole is really progressing.

Nerbly, if it's as you say, then what should take place to rid ourselves of racism, and what should blacks do to help themselves?

I feel I have to ask this if we're at the point you say we're at, yet the black community hasn't gained ground.

For some reason, I have had incredible technical difficulty in trying to post this. I don't know why. It's the same stupid boring ass shit. Man, fuck politics.

I found this in the March/April 2000 issue of The Eye magazine. It's an interview with the singer/guitarist from Cobra Verde (whose music I do not know), called "All over the map with John Petkovic".

In this section of the interview I am quoting, he's referencing his job as a reporter with the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

"I interviewed Noam Chomsky a while back -- he was coming to Cleveland -- and he said the one person he had regular contact with in the political establishment is [Pat] Buchanan. He sees Buchanan as being a political ally. He and [Ralph] Nader and Buchanan work together on various issues. You have a lot of people who portray Pat Buchanan as "far right", and they portray "Nader as "far left", and Chomsky, somewhere along that continuum. The establishment politics of both parties have forced people to go outside the system, and it's not just an American phenomenon. For instance, in Russia, the political establishment is controlled by a mafia clique, and the Nationalists on the right and the Communists on the left are basically denigrating each other. The tenets of capitalism and democracy are just accepted in the same sort of unison as communism was accepted in the Soviet Union. Has there ever been a public, mainstream discourse along the lines of, say, "How does the idea of a free market, and a free flow of goods, and a free flow of speculators looking to make a big buck -- how does that benefit the working class of America, or Mexico, or Indonesia?"

I don't know where they stand with each other eight years later, but, according to Petkovic, Buchanan, Nader and Chomsky would work together on various issues"

Here's Buchanan interviewing Nader:

http://www.amconmag.com/2004_06_21/cover.html

These fuck warts need to hang out in public more often. It could be so elucidating.

I'm going NOT CRAP, but only out of sympathy due to the imbalanced voting result. I think I'm entitled to invent any reason I choose when casting my vote.

He's pretty fucking ridiculous.