George Floyd Riots

They want to restart history with the people on the bottom starting at the top and the people on top getting sent to the bottom. It’s purging your society of its smartest, best educated, most ambitious, hardest working and most creative members. What could go wrong?

1 Like

I think its great that cities are trying out new policies meant to make police more efficient and more helpful for the community. Will some of these policies work? probably. Will some of them fail miserably? probably. But, i think its great to try them out if the community is on board.

What’s even more insane, many left-of-center intellectuals are advocating what is basically a socialist concept of workers’ self management, only with “races” and “gender identities” instead of Marxist social strata.

You know how did that work in practice? For example, in a state-owned company that produced high-precision machinery the workers’ council would hold a vote whether to buy a new piece of equipment. This proposal from the engineers and scientists would be rejected by janitors, cleaners and unskilled laborers who held the majority and who’d then decide to spend these funds on booze and prime beef cuts (true story)

Now imagine that, but only with intersectional racial/gender quotas, in other words, existing “diversity” initiatives dialed up to 11.

2 Likes

I am not a huge fan of this term myself. I think it worsens the issues faced by many black and brown people, and puts many white people on the defensive. I think it is inaccurate, because it isn’t that white people are privileged, it is that black and brown people are often mistreated and or don’t have the same opportunities (some of which just comes down to being on average poorer). I don’t believe it is a zero sum game, in which black and brown people getting treated better results in white people being treated worse (which would imply privilege). Why not just call it what it is.

Additionally, calling it white privilege implies that the only people perpetuating the negative actions towards black and brown people are white people, which is false.

No, it’s all about appearances.

Define work. Reduction in arrests does not mean reduction in crime.

And that’s the problem. Everything is an experiment when the answers are staring at us in the face. The schools are full of policies that someone came up with on a piece of paper and when put into action have failed. These people have been in control of inner city schools for decades and kids still can’t read. I don’t trust them to fix crime and law enforcement. What they are doing is blaming cops for crime which is like blaming teachers for kids not doing well academically. At some point you have to tell people they have to bear some responsibility. But pandering is easier.

If your parents are married, white or black, that is considered privileged. If your parents read to you as a child, you are considered privileged. If your father was never in jail, you are privileged. This is how deep these crazies go. If your father did what a father is supposed to do, you are privileged because you didn’t earn that. Doing the right thing for your kids is giving them privilege. They actually want you to feel guilty that your father didn’t go to jail and supported you because you didn’t earn that.

2 Likes

In a sense if you have those things you may be privileged relative to someone else, but your privilege is not the reason for them not having those things.

When I hear people throw around the white privilege stuff, I infer that me having a good family is somehow responsible for them not having a good family (replace family with father, college, house,… whatever). Maybe I infer incorrectly? To me it sure sounds like they infer a zero sum game, and additionally that whites are responsible for the vast majority of these differences.

All i’ve ever been asked to do is recognize the privilege that i have. I’m still not sure what they or i am supposed to do with that acknowledgement.

It essentially boils down to this:

If you are born white, you are privileged and should feel guilty. Everything else is irrelevant.

This is the problem. A child whose father does the right thing is seen as privileged which implies to me, that a father does not have an obligation to be a father. A child does indeed not earn the things a father gives him but he is owed those things. A father fulfilling his obligations and giving his child what he is owed, is not privilege, it is the right thing.

2 Likes

You’re supposed to bask in feelings of wokeness which means feel guilty the rest of your life.

So you’d be happier if the hot word was underprivileged and applied to the folks with less advantages?

I don’t like any derivation of privilege. How about we just say being poor sucks? Here’s the thing about privilege, whether you agree with it or not: you can’t unprivilege yourself. The implication then becomes, you can’t un-underprivilege yourself. I mean, if you were raised by a single mother on drugs in a poor community surrounded by violence but one day win the lottery and now live in a gated community and your kids will be going to Ivy League colleges one day, are you privileged? Do you lose your underprivileged card? Are privileged and underprivileged permanent states?

3 Likes

In my state, there is a large disparity between the performance in academic performance among black kids and the white kids. They are almost always blaming systematic racism for these differences, and improving the black neighborhood schools is almost always the solution. The results seem to be a consistent disparity, or occasionally the disparity grows.

I think it is better, because it is more accurate. It doesn’t imply that someone else’s privilege is responsible for someone else’s lack of privilege (not a zero sum game). It can also apply to a wider swath of people (white poor people).

And the people responsible for the failing policies in schools want to fix law enforcement. Just as none of them work in schools, none have been police. They don’t know what they are really up against or, if they do, they are afraid to confront it.

Does the disparity change in the smaller schools, ie only 1 high school and few elementary/ middle schools? It is a bit difficult to pin under achievement on racist allocation, when all are attending the same facilities.

I don’t know TBH, but in my opinion it is a defendable position that the disparity in school performance, police violence, incarceration rates, etc… is caused by systemic racism, and also cultural differences that lead to undesirable outcomes.

We can look at the rest of the world and say poverty is to blame. The poverty is a result of systemic racism in the past but that system no longer exists. There may be individuals who are racist but the system stacks the deck against the poor, white or black. The geniuses who are going to save poor (black) people don’t do anything to teach people to stop doing the things that keep them poor. Kids in the inner cities have Nikes, jewelry and iPhones but can’t buy a pencil or a notebook. If only the cops stopped arresting black people, things would change.

2 Likes

Actually, there’s a more sinister explanation for this. The term “privilege” implies that you’re enjoying an advantage that could/should be taken away from you.

So the goal is no to treat those that are disadvantaged in any shape or form better, but to treat the “privileged” worse.

The problem is, they have the ability to overcome that and still succeed.