Back to the plantation

[Montcalm]

If whitey keep the blacks down then how does JJ AS and LF explain people like Oprah,Colin Powell,Morgan Freeman and all the other blacks who made it.

You don't appreciate the ability of an ideologue to dismiss inconvenient facts.

How can black kids don`t see they`re being lied to by manipulative rats.

[Stormbringer]

How can black kids don`t see they`re being lied to by manipulative rats.

Indoctrination. They're told by everyone they know growing up how The Man's keeping them down and so most of them don't bother to question it. Throw in the benefits of scapegoating any behaviour not matter how illegal and immoral as well as the benefits extorted by said rats and you get an attractive ideology.

It's the same way we get little fundy nut jobs.

[Xenophobe3691]

If whitey keep the blacks down then how does JJ AS and LF explain people like Oprah,Colin Powell,Morgan Freeman and all the other blacks who made it.

The Rappers eclipse them.

Did you know that the president of the National Bar Association is a black woman?

[HemlockGrey]

Bullshit. Other minorities and oppressed groups have triumphed over such circumstances. Not to mention (as your anedote shows ) that even under the same conditions blacks tend to do poorer than whites and even many minorities.

This is because other minorities do not have ever-present cultural pressure telling them to fail at academics and become gangsters.

Whitey did indeed keep the blacks down for a time, and when that time ended they simply refused to hoist themselves back up.

[Stormbringer]

This is because other minorities do not have ever-present cultural pressure telling them to fail at academics and become gangsters.

Yeah, that sure is true. The problem isn't Whitey, it's the black hucksters like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.

Whitey did indeed keep the blacks down for a time, and when that time ended they simply refused to hoist themselves back up.

Yup. Though why it is puzzels me. I mean why do they let Jesse Jackson and his ilk run things? I mean why the hell would people want to be poor and ignorant?

[Howedar]

That way if they fail they don't have to blame themselves.

[Perinquus]

That way if they fail they don't have to blame themselves.

Eric Hoffer said it best:

There are many who find a good alibi far more attractive than an achievement. For an achievement does not settle anything permanently. We still have to prove our worth anew each day: we have to prove that we are as good today as we were yesterday. But when we have a valid alibi for not achieving anything we are fixed, so to speak, for life. Moreover, when we have an alibi for not writing a book, painting a picture, and so on, we have an alibi for not writing the greatest book and not painting the greatest picture. Small wonder that the effort expended and the punishment endured in obtaining a good alibi often exceed the effort and grief requisite for the attainment of a most marked achievement.

The following quote by Hoffer also seems somewhat applicable:

There is apparently some connection between dissatisfaction with oneself and proneness to credulity. The urge to escape our real self is also an urge to escape the rational and the obvious. The refusal to see ourselves as we are develops a distaste for facts and cold logic. There is no hope for the frustrated in the actual and the possible. Salvation can come to them only from the miraculous, which seeps through a crack in the iron wall of inexorable reality. They asked to be deceived.

[Darth Wong]

When I was a child, my father explained to me that as a member of a visible minority, we were under an unequal burden. In order to be thought of as highly as the racial majority, we had to perform better than them. We had to be cleaner, work harder in school, get better grades, keep farther away from crime and bad elements. Why? Because when people see a visible minority acting badly, they tend to create a hasty generalization. This means that as an Asian, I am acting as an impromptu ambassador for my race, not just another bloke on the street.

Is this fair? No, but it's true; the human tendency to stereotype and generalize is instinctive, and will not go away. When you're a member of a minority, the bar is set higher, not lower, or you risk being a bad ambassador. If you see a gang of black teens in a community pool acting like assholes, you might not be able to help but connect their skin colour and their behaviour in your mind. If you see a gang of white teens doing the same thing, you just think they're individually a bunch of assholes, without connecting it to their race. Why? Because they're the majority, and that's just how the human mind tends to work.

There are two ways to approach this inequity. You could shout that it's an injustice, and get angry. Or, you could just deal with it. By and large, most Asian parents of the last few generations took the same approach as my father, and encouraged their children to just deal with it. Learn to excel, work hard, and Mr. White Man will respect you. The "black community", on the other hand, took the approach of getting mad.

Are they angry at a real phenomenon? Despite the ignorant bleatings of those who would say that racism is no longer a problem in America, the answer had to be yes. However, getting mad at the problem will not solve it. The "black community" (by which I mean the self-serving idealogues who whip blacks up into a racial solidarity frenzy) is more interested in pointing fingers than solving problems, and that's where the problem lies.

The other problem is self-segregation. The most visible blacks in America seem to revel in being black. They make a point of holding festivals and promoting TV shows that celebrate black culture, black history, black art, yadda yadda yadda. They name their kids goofy African-sounding names. They try to construct distinctively "black" forms of clothing, language, dance, art, etc. While Asian parents want their children to excel in the system and assimilate into the local culture, there is a "black community" which actively encourages blacks to set themselves apart from the system and declare some perverse loyalty to a distant continent upon which they have never set foot. Worse yet, blacks who do try to excel in the system are promptly ostracized by the "black community" which should take pride in their achievements. What's the line on Colin Powell? Oh yeah; they make jokes that he's a white man in black skin, when they should be saying "here's an articulate, intelligent, successful black man".

As for the original thread subject, an unequal enforcement pattern is hardly atypical. In predominantly liberal universities, it was perfectly acceptable to harass and threaten anyone who was in favour of the Iraq invasion. In predominantly conservative universities (which do exist, particularly in the south), it's perfectly acceptable to harass and threaten anyone who advocates abortion rights. Engineering faculty members like myself never got involved in that bullshit because it was just a lot of useless posturing anyway. Nobody gives a fuck what a bunch of university students say about social issues anyway (sorry to break the secret, but it's true).

[TrailerParkJawa]

Worse yet, blacks who do try to excel in the system are promptly ostracized by the "black community" which should take pride in their achievements. What's the line on Colin Powell? Oh yeah; they make jokes that he's a white man in black skin, when they should be saying "here's an articulate, intelligent, successful black man".

This behavior is all too common in middle schools and high schools. Black kids who get good grades are treated with scorn by other blacks as being too much like "whitey".

Nobody gives a fuck what a bunch of university students say about social issues anyway (sorry to break the secret, but it's true).

Sshhh.....your gonna upset the children. The whole point of going to college is to teach all those people in the real world with years of experience that the world revolves around students who have no obligations other than to study.

[Howedar]

*snip*

I know/have known perhaps a dozen Asians through my life, and all but one could have repeated that, word for word. Its kinda interesting.