I am tired of hearing that we need to have a conversation on race. Dr. King said that he dreamed of a day when all men would be judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin. I am tired of being told that I need to understand black people. I do not. My wife is black. I am not. I do not need to understand her blackness. I need to understand her as my wife and helpmate. Blackness does not define her. She is an individual. I do not need to understand any race. I have no guilt for anything I have not done. What we need to do is forget race. Only decide about a person if you have talked to the person. That is the only way to ever come close to understanding someone. Have a personal relationship, not a racial judgement.
We can stop talking about race the minute charts like this stop being true. Until then, we need to talk.
There are at least three Americas: One wealthy, where people largely oblivious of poverty have never known manual labor or want; one middle-class, largely insulated from poverty and discrimination, though nowadays starting to melt at the bottom into the under-class; and one where the American dream of upward mobility is strangled by discrimination, abominable schools, rat-infested housing, and a police force that seems to consider "driving while black" to be a crime. That under-class is not populated exclusively or even primarily by people of color, but discrimination and racism see to it that even today people of color are grossly over-represented in the under-class. As long as this remains the case, we need to have a national conversation about race. When Dr. King's dream comes true, we will no longer need to have that conversation.
There are at least three Americas: One wealthy, where people largely oblivious of poverty have never known manual labor or want; one middle-class, largely insulated from poverty and discrimination, though nowadays starting to melt at the bottom into the under-class; and one where the American dream of upward mobility is strangled by discrimination, abominable schools, rat-infested housing, and a police force that seems to consider "driving while black" to be a crime. That under-class is not populated exclusively or even primarily by people of color, but discrimination and racism see to it that even today people of color are grossly over-represented in the under-class. As long as this remains the case, we need to have a national conversation about race. When Dr. King's dream comes true, we will no longer need to have that conversation.
Longevity: The rich live longer than the poor. More white people are rich. More minorities are poor. Rich man, Poor man. Here's another chart for you.
Baraks white grandmother was afraid of black men or so he says. My mother was afraid of men that she didn't know, didn't matter what color they were. I'm leary, not necessarily afraid, of situations I'm not comfortable with. The look my kids called ghetto, don't know what it's called now, doesn't make any difference if they're black or white or American Indian. I'm OK with the 'old hippie' with long hair and beard 'cause I grew up with them Corn rows make me wonder who I'm dealing with. If the eyes don't say friend, I'm leary. I'm a white male. Isn't this a conversation? What could possibly be wrong with having one?
You're right, that chart does need to stop being true, but not for the reasons you think. Looking at just the 2006 numbers (i added in a second column for each next to the %, being number of households): Code: W B H 94705 14354 12973 <5k 2.50% 2368 6.60% 947 3.50% 454 5k-10k 3.70% 3504 9.20% 1321 5.70% 739 10k-15k 5.60% 5303 8.60% 1234 7.10% 921 15k-25k 11.50% 10891 15.20% 2182 15.50% 2011 25k-35k 11.30% 10702 13.50% 1938 14.00% 1816 35k-50k 14.60% 13827 14.80% 2124 17.50% 2270 50k-75k 18.80% 17805 15.20% 2182 17.30% 2244 75k-100k 11.80% 11175 7.70% 1105 8.90% 1155 100k+ 20.20% 19130 9.10% 1306 10.50% 1362 100.00% 99.90% 100.00% You can now see the real problem... it's not that so many more whites are rich compared to blacks - in fact, we have more poor whites in this country than blacks and hispanics combined. The problem is that the blacks and hispanics follow the normal bell curve you would expect. A large number in the middle, with fewer on the ends (more or less). But the whites don't - instead of a bell curve, they practically have a straight line, increasing in numbers as wealth increases... something that is not natural, and not sustainable. The real problem our nation faces isn't one divided by race - it's one divided by wealth. As unfortunate as it may be, that wealth has been passed down through generations, starting with the white, male, land and slave owners in our distant past, so most of the irregular distribution of wealth is among whites.
sorry about the table... Code: [code] W B H 94705 14354 12973 <5k 2.50% 2368 6.60% 947 3.50% 454 5k-10k 3.70% 3504 9.20% 1321 5.70% 739 10k-15k 5.60% 5303 8.60% 1234 7.10% 921 15k-25k 11.50% 10891 15.20% 2182 15.50% 2011 25k-35k 11.30% 10702 13.50% 1938 14.00% 1816 35k-50k 14.60% 13827 14.80% 2124 17.50% 2270 50k-75k 18.80% 17805 15.20% 2182 17.30% 2244 75k-100k 11.80% 11175 7.70% 1105 8.90% 1155 100k+ 20.20% 19130 9.10% 1306 10.50% 1362 [/CODE]
AMEN. Everyone should strive to take each person on a case-by-case basis. Unfortunately, the reality is that a lot of people don't.
Oh, I agree the wealth problem is the real issue (CEOs making zillions of dollars while laying off thousands of workers - that should be illegal). However, because such a large percentage of blacks and Hispanics are in the "don't have wealth" category, it does become a race issue, too.
I'm leery of any group of 6 teenage boys of any kind. They could be rich, white kids and still cause problems. I've worked in schools in lower income areas for 30 years. The majority of the students are polite and respectful. It's the 3% of problem students that get all of the attention. Likewise the adults. I think the media certainly does it's part (both in fictionalized movies and TV and news broadcasts) to feed racism.
One major problem on race is in our legal system. When you start looking at our legal system you will become appalled at some of the things that go on. And they wonder why more black men are in prison. For instance cocaine and crack are huge problems in this country. As far as a negative impact the studies show they are very similar in crime they produce, deaths, etc... right across the board. However crack is mostly used by black people and cocaine by white people. When they wrote the laws getting caught with equal amounts of each drug, crack will get you a much longer sentence. If you look at conviction rates for murder, rape, etc.. across the board black people are convicted at a much higher rate.
