I noticed that not one paragraph in this long article mentioned the roots of the problems (crime, police and cultural bias, poverty, etc), which are in fact cultural and educational. Patrick Moynihan's piece 50 years ago warning about the disastrous consequences in the future if the breakdown of the family wasn't reversed, and unfortunately the problem in the black community has tripled -- the fatherless families have gone from roughly 25% to 75%. Add the toxic ingredients of welfare policies that further incentivize the Uncle Sam replacing Dad as the main source of food on the table, then add a generous dollop -- billions -- from the teachers unions -- whose sclerotic policies lead to the poorest and most vulnerable children being sentenced to the worst public schools with the worst teachers (who CANNOT be fired), which leads to a 50% dropout rate for blacks in the inner cities (and the half that graduate from h.s. do so with a reading level 4 years behind their white counterparts)...this is an outrage beyond belief. And you think the main problem is racist white cops?! Really...?! Give me a break.
8
"Here he moves perilously close to a racial pathology argument, as if there were something inherent in blackness and black culture that predisposes one to criminality."
Of course, he didn't say or imply that at all. He did make the point that not having a male role model has a negative impact on males growing up and that this is a common state of affairs in black households. These are facts, not opinions. He never stated, suggested, implied (or believes, methinks) that there was something inherent in blackness that predisposes to this state of affairs. Blow would have us believe that pointing out these correctable social ills borders on racism. Nonsense!!
Of course, he didn't say or imply that at all. He did make the point that not having a male role model has a negative impact on males growing up and that this is a common state of affairs in black households. These are facts, not opinions. He never stated, suggested, implied (or believes, methinks) that there was something inherent in blackness that predisposes to this state of affairs. Blow would have us believe that pointing out these correctable social ills borders on racism. Nonsense!!
8
Final final:
The basic thought (end classification by “race”*) that I presented yesterday was not original to me but rather comes from Professor Kenneth Prewitt, former director of the US Census Bureau, an expert.
Thus that thought deserves much more serious discussion than it would if it were simply an odd idea from an American who has lived too long in Sweden to be able to "think American".
So this challenge to Charles Blow and to at least one reader, JH:
Read: Chapter 11 - Getting From Where We Are To Where We Need to Be
Prewitt, Kenneth, 2013, What Is Your Race? The Census and Our Flawed Efforts to Classify Americans, Princeton University Press.
Professor Prewitt's proposal for the 2020 Census begins with:
"One: Do Not Ask Any Ethnic or Race Question In The Decennial Census" (p. 196)
Please understand that this is not just a “line in a book” but is intended to be part of a formal proposal for change in USCB practice. As such it deserves the attention of Charles Blow who will receive this submission today 2/17.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
* The thought (39 reader recommended) was presented in its simplest form as final comment: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/16/opinion/charles-blow-a-kaffeeklatsch-o...
The basic thought (end classification by “race”*) that I presented yesterday was not original to me but rather comes from Professor Kenneth Prewitt, former director of the US Census Bureau, an expert.
Thus that thought deserves much more serious discussion than it would if it were simply an odd idea from an American who has lived too long in Sweden to be able to "think American".
So this challenge to Charles Blow and to at least one reader, JH:
Read: Chapter 11 - Getting From Where We Are To Where We Need to Be
Prewitt, Kenneth, 2013, What Is Your Race? The Census and Our Flawed Efforts to Classify Americans, Princeton University Press.
Professor Prewitt's proposal for the 2020 Census begins with:
"One: Do Not Ask Any Ethnic or Race Question In The Decennial Census" (p. 196)
Please understand that this is not just a “line in a book” but is intended to be part of a formal proposal for change in USCB practice. As such it deserves the attention of Charles Blow who will receive this submission today 2/17.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
* The thought (39 reader recommended) was presented in its simplest form as final comment: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/16/opinion/charles-blow-a-kaffeeklatsch-o...
Its interesting to note that notionally speaking freeing blacks came before freeing woman or Native Americans and that today all still suffers under some considerable degree of oppression at the hands of a largely White, Male, Christian run society. Not to be forgotten are also immigrants of most kind, people of other religions, gays, and just about anyone and everyone who doesn't quite fit the mold of our WMC based society.
The point being that bigotry and hate runs so deep through our nation; that the gulf between our laudable ideals for freedom and equality on the one hand and the historical reality of bigotry, discrimination, slavery, and genocide on the other is so vast that it makes us among the most hypocritical peoples on earth; that with one whole political party largely based on pandering and perpetuating such hate while subscribing to a total myth of what America actually is, it will therefor take far more then "national conversation" or "productive conversation" to make a dent in all this any time soon.
If you want to put an end to it very quickly all you have to do is stop buying the junk you don't need from people who hate you. When you come right down to it the only thing the WMC really care about is power and money. Stop giving them your money and pretty soon they will stop having their power.
The point being that bigotry and hate runs so deep through our nation; that the gulf between our laudable ideals for freedom and equality on the one hand and the historical reality of bigotry, discrimination, slavery, and genocide on the other is so vast that it makes us among the most hypocritical peoples on earth; that with one whole political party largely based on pandering and perpetuating such hate while subscribing to a total myth of what America actually is, it will therefor take far more then "national conversation" or "productive conversation" to make a dent in all this any time soon.
If you want to put an end to it very quickly all you have to do is stop buying the junk you don't need from people who hate you. When you come right down to it the only thing the WMC really care about is power and money. Stop giving them your money and pretty soon they will stop having their power.
2
“His second hard truth acknowledged the existence of unconscious racial bias ‘in our white-majority culture’ and how that influences policing.”
“Here he moves perilously close to a racial pathology argument,” as if there were something inherent in whiteness and white culture that predisposes one to racial bias. “This, too, is a ‘lazy mental shortcut.’"
“Here he moves perilously close to a racial pathology argument,” as if there were something inherent in whiteness and white culture that predisposes one to racial bias. “This, too, is a ‘lazy mental shortcut.’"
4
Charles Blow has absolutely no interest in having a conversation on race. He is interested, instead, just as Eric Holder is, on peddling the increasingly far-fetched (and tiresome) narrative of black victimhood in a "racist" White power structure. Far from speaking truth to power, Blow is pushing the Establishment party line.
8
Is there cop, white or of color (Black, Asian etc) who doesn't experience a higher sense of fear when patrolling slums or poverty areas, and many even come from that background. So it's easy to pass off "bad" behaviror as cynicism or laziness. I am not saying that the point Mr. Comey is trying to to make point isn't without merit. I just think that an environment of poverty, lack opportunity, violence etc. affects their behavior and may make them more prone to shoot first and ask questions later.
That's not the case in this summer/fall fiascos where grand juries found no cause to indite. I thank the police for their duty just as much as I do the men and women in the Armed Services for theirs.
If you want better policing, provide better training.
That's not the case in this summer/fall fiascos where grand juries found no cause to indite. I thank the police for their duty just as much as I do the men and women in the Armed Services for theirs.
If you want better policing, provide better training.
1
Mr. Blow is the master of statistics. How about statistics comparing black on white crime to white on black crime? How about statistics comparing the incredibly disproportionate amount of crime committed by black males ages 17 to 30.
And please stop blaming poverty. In what period in the last 100 years was the crime rate the lowest? Yes, the 1930's during the Great Depression. Just because you're poor doesn't mean you have to mug people and steal.
And please stop blaming poverty. In what period in the last 100 years was the crime rate the lowest? Yes, the 1930's during the Great Depression. Just because you're poor doesn't mean you have to mug people and steal.
6
Want to have a national conversation on race let's talk about the following
1) disintegration of the black family. Blow will not touch this. 70% of black families are single parent families. As a result many of the black males migrate to the gang subculture. I worked for the Department of Corrections and a large number of the black wards were in the Crips and Bloods gangs. It gave them a purpose, an identity, a sense of belonging to something.
2) Let's talk about the drop out rate among blacks. Doesn't that limit their opportunities with jobs, earning potential and a better place to live?
3) Let's talk about why so many black fathers either walk out, start another family. They are absent. We have to find out why this happens over and over.
4) Let's talk about the failure of whites to understand why there are so many barriers to blacks in education, trades, in life in generals.
5) Let's talk about cops. Let's have mandatory dash cameras and camera's on the officers. Some time of audio setup so inappropriate comments could be investigated.
6)Let's get back to community policing. Have whites patrol black neighborhoods and require they spend time just talking. No titles, no inherent biases. Just talk
7) Let's have police officers who are trained in race relations meet with local leaders once a month and address issues that are pressing to the community
There is way too much finger pointing on and not enough people swallowing their pride and admitting their part in the failure
1) disintegration of the black family. Blow will not touch this. 70% of black families are single parent families. As a result many of the black males migrate to the gang subculture. I worked for the Department of Corrections and a large number of the black wards were in the Crips and Bloods gangs. It gave them a purpose, an identity, a sense of belonging to something.
2) Let's talk about the drop out rate among blacks. Doesn't that limit their opportunities with jobs, earning potential and a better place to live?
3) Let's talk about why so many black fathers either walk out, start another family. They are absent. We have to find out why this happens over and over.
4) Let's talk about the failure of whites to understand why there are so many barriers to blacks in education, trades, in life in generals.
5) Let's talk about cops. Let's have mandatory dash cameras and camera's on the officers. Some time of audio setup so inappropriate comments could be investigated.
6)Let's get back to community policing. Have whites patrol black neighborhoods and require they spend time just talking. No titles, no inherent biases. Just talk
7) Let's have police officers who are trained in race relations meet with local leaders once a month and address issues that are pressing to the community
There is way too much finger pointing on and not enough people swallowing their pride and admitting their part in the failure
5
Numerous studies have shown that race is not the primary factor in success and perpetrating crimes in this country, but wealth is. Will Smith's children will be very successful in comparison to the countless impoverished white and black children across the nation. The only color that matters is green.
In discussing this issue there always seems to be a complete and planned ignoring of the fact that more white people are killed every year by the police than any other race. Instead of a thoughtful and compelling conversation on police brutality and the American community as a whole, it always reverts back to being focused on the African American community because they have 2 out of every million people killed by the police compared to the 1 white person out of every million people. And the fact that according to FBI statistics that blacks account for a larger percentage of violent crimes in which the police has to respond makes one wonder, how serious Mr. Blow really is about finding the truth in the matter, or just perpetuating the lies of "white privilege".
In discussing this issue there always seems to be a complete and planned ignoring of the fact that more white people are killed every year by the police than any other race. Instead of a thoughtful and compelling conversation on police brutality and the American community as a whole, it always reverts back to being focused on the African American community because they have 2 out of every million people killed by the police compared to the 1 white person out of every million people. And the fact that according to FBI statistics that blacks account for a larger percentage of violent crimes in which the police has to respond makes one wonder, how serious Mr. Blow really is about finding the truth in the matter, or just perpetuating the lies of "white privilege".
2
I am a white Yankee and was militarily stationed in Georgia, Alabama, and Florida when segregation (American Aparthied) was in effect. The Nazis weren't the only ones labeled and treated some ethnic groups as subhuman untermensch.
Not should segregation been ended, those that supported and profited from it should have been punished. Specifically, every politician that supported segregation should have banned for life from holding public office. Strangely enough, even Barry Goldwater voted against the Civil Rights Law of 1964. Not only were blacks impoverished, they could be murdered with impunity. How Christian were the evangelical preachers that defended segregation from the pulpit? Why are Military Instillations in thecSouth bearing the names of traitors like Lee, Jackson, Hood and Bragg?
Not should segregation been ended, those that supported and profited from it should have been punished. Specifically, every politician that supported segregation should have banned for life from holding public office. Strangely enough, even Barry Goldwater voted against the Civil Rights Law of 1964. Not only were blacks impoverished, they could be murdered with impunity. How Christian were the evangelical preachers that defended segregation from the pulpit? Why are Military Instillations in thecSouth bearing the names of traitors like Lee, Jackson, Hood and Bragg?
1
This may be 2015, not 1915, but in some parts of this country - especially in my state - you wouldn't know it. There's still a 'sundown town' mentality in many an area, to the point where you see two or more police cars next to one civilian vehicle that's been pulled over at night and the first thing that come to mind is 'DWB' - Driving While Black. I've called it at least 95% of the time around here, and believe me, that's no feat of genius, just two normally functioning eyes. And this in a state where the common law doctrines of scienter and mens rea - knowledge and intent (literally, 'evil mind') - have been specifically removed as conviction requirements in drug cases, so they can plant drugs on you and it's your word against theirs. Anyone who thinks there's not a boatload of serious racism involved all too often in law enforcement needs either a Seeing Eye dog or a brain transplant.
1
More blacks and Hispanics commit crimes (by percentage) than whites. The truth hurts. No excuses in the USA. To quote Frank Sinatra, "If you can't make it here (NYC), you can't make it anywhere." This country offers astronomical services to those in need, more than it should.
6
We can talk about racism all we want, but until we start punishing those police officers whose commit these racist acts, only then will we see a decline in police brutality
2
"If blacks had the same opportunity as whites such as adequate education, jobs, housing there would be less violence and crime in black communities."
Sorry, but these kinds of meaningless statements do not advance the discussion. How is a black child limited in education or housing? Public school is available to all, and if one has parents who care, even the most challenging school circumstances can be overcome. If one has parents who use common sense in choosing when to have children, one can have decent housing. No black or white about it. The fundamental problem for most poor black and white children is that their parents have chosen to reproduce before earning sufficient education or experience to earn enough or know enough to provide a child a decent home. This has been going on (and getting worse) for five decades, war on poverty be damned. For a long time I bought into "think of the children and give these parents all sorts of social services and cash assistance." Now I think that organized orphanages are the better plan. Each child would then have a bed and three meals and clothes and homework.
Sorry, but these kinds of meaningless statements do not advance the discussion. How is a black child limited in education or housing? Public school is available to all, and if one has parents who care, even the most challenging school circumstances can be overcome. If one has parents who use common sense in choosing when to have children, one can have decent housing. No black or white about it. The fundamental problem for most poor black and white children is that their parents have chosen to reproduce before earning sufficient education or experience to earn enough or know enough to provide a child a decent home. This has been going on (and getting worse) for five decades, war on poverty be damned. For a long time I bought into "think of the children and give these parents all sorts of social services and cash assistance." Now I think that organized orphanages are the better plan. Each child would then have a bed and three meals and clothes and homework.
4
There isn't a conversation. Its a one-sided lecture. And many of us have better things to do than listen to such acrimonious and harmful rhetoric.
4
<>
And thus Charles continues the proud tradition of substituting sanctimonious, politically correct nonsense for candor, while insisting that he is, in fact, being candid. And no one was saved.
And thus Charles continues the proud tradition of substituting sanctimonious, politically correct nonsense for candor, while insisting that he is, in fact, being candid. And no one was saved.
5
Sorry, I realize this is the NY Times. That said, not every race issue in the US can or should be seen through the prism of East Coast mainland US black-white socio-politics. I fear that many readers may project that onto the nation as a whole, which is, as a whole, in my view, considerably more complex.
3
Mr. Blow still doesn't get it. There's obviously nothing inherent in "blackness" that predisposes one to criminality, as he states, but there is indeed an underclass of black people who live in a "black culture" that is steeped in violence & drugs. They constitute a small percent of the overall black population but they exist and it is counter-productive to pretend that they don't. Nor do I think it's helpful to excuse their actions because of poverty & hopelessness. Read the "Autobiography of Malcolm X", Claude Brown's "Manchild in the Promised Land", Sanyika Shakur's "Monster", or any one of a dozen other books that have been written over the past 50+ years that detail the very pathology that Mr. Blow is loathe to admit ever existed. When you're done with those, read Fox Butterfield's "All God's Children: The Bosket Family and the American Tradition of Violence" in which he argues that the primary origin of black violence is the tradition of white violence that was transferred to them from their former slave owners.
Once we admit that there's problem, we can work to address it. Black activists want to focus on tragedies like the shooting of Michael Brown but they don't want to focus on the 5 fights per day that occur in the high school he attended. It's not just white parents that fled from that school district, it was black parents.
Once we admit that there's problem, we can work to address it. Black activists want to focus on tragedies like the shooting of Michael Brown but they don't want to focus on the 5 fights per day that occur in the high school he attended. It's not just white parents that fled from that school district, it was black parents.
10
When I've commented on these pages that part of the problem is the anti-social behavior of a large number of black men in these neighborhoods, some replies say this is perfectly rational since these young blacks have bad experiences with the police and are getting ready to be treated violently. There are two things wrong with this thinking.
First, it assumes that the anti-social, aggressive behavior is displayed only toward police. Not so. There is a lot of anti-social behavior from young black males against every imaginable person: the schoolteacher (including teachers who are black and/or female), the landlady, the storeowner, ordinary passers-by, and perhaps most strikingly, their own parents and the parents of schoolmates.
I teach at a good university, and have seen terrific kids of every background come through my class. There are few people I admire more than the kids and their parents (often single moms) who managed, against all odds, to emerge from toxic neighborhoods, got in on merit, are proud to be in school, work hard, and outperform kids who come from highly privileged families. But there is also a disproportionate display of aggressive rudeness and 'attitude.'
Second, if you feel police is predisposed to shoot you, shouldn't you be extra cautious? Wouldn't it be rational to not provoke them by swearing and threatening them? Like it or not, cops represent the public and the law. Punish cops who abuse power? Definitely. But don't start by provoking them.
First, it assumes that the anti-social, aggressive behavior is displayed only toward police. Not so. There is a lot of anti-social behavior from young black males against every imaginable person: the schoolteacher (including teachers who are black and/or female), the landlady, the storeowner, ordinary passers-by, and perhaps most strikingly, their own parents and the parents of schoolmates.
I teach at a good university, and have seen terrific kids of every background come through my class. There are few people I admire more than the kids and their parents (often single moms) who managed, against all odds, to emerge from toxic neighborhoods, got in on merit, are proud to be in school, work hard, and outperform kids who come from highly privileged families. But there is also a disproportionate display of aggressive rudeness and 'attitude.'
Second, if you feel police is predisposed to shoot you, shouldn't you be extra cautious? Wouldn't it be rational to not provoke them by swearing and threatening them? Like it or not, cops represent the public and the law. Punish cops who abuse power? Definitely. But don't start by provoking them.
21
Back in the days of Philosopher Bertrand Russell, liberals would hesitate to simply blame the police until a good reason had arisen that the cops were in the wrong.
Today's liberals, however, not only start out by blaming whites and authorities and the religious among us but insist on that posture even AFTER their assumption was proven wrong. Whatever occurred that got us from the old days to here needs to be rooted out and forgotten.
Today's liberals, however, not only start out by blaming whites and authorities and the religious among us but insist on that posture even AFTER their assumption was proven wrong. Whatever occurred that got us from the old days to here needs to be rooted out and forgotten.
Northstar5, I would like to see what you wrote on billboards, posters and on public transportation advertising all over this country.
Fortunately, it would seem that there are no such things as white punks.
"I would argue that we are in the midst of a national conversation about race at this very moment. Its significance isn’t drawn from structure but from the freedom of its form."
So very well said, Mr. Blow. When strangers of different races waiting in airport lounges come around to talking about "out of control" police and the lethal mix of guns, unemployment, and the illegal drug economy (whether pot and meth in Appalachia or pot and crack in the inner-cities) -- listen and learn for the other's prospective -- we are having very important conversations about not just about race, but about the class, the economy and violence in our society.
So very well said, Mr. Blow. When strangers of different races waiting in airport lounges come around to talking about "out of control" police and the lethal mix of guns, unemployment, and the illegal drug economy (whether pot and meth in Appalachia or pot and crack in the inner-cities) -- listen and learn for the other's prospective -- we are having very important conversations about not just about race, but about the class, the economy and violence in our society.
10
I've not a lot of sympathy for the yahoos who rant about governments and cops and Them, but could we maybe not pretend that plain old folks aren't a fair amount of the problem?
This is a democracy, however convenient it may be to pretend otherwise and wash hands. When these probs show, we have met the enemy, and he am us.
This is a democracy, however convenient it may be to pretend otherwise and wash hands. When these probs show, we have met the enemy, and he am us.
And every step in those drug trades does definitely constitute violence.
2
Police brutality cannot be explained by race alone,nor by economic factors.
Notice the brutal assault on an elderly Indian man walking in his neighborhood.
Police got call about a " strange skinny man walking around the streets"
His apparent crime(apart from his brown skin) was he could not speak English.
The cop thought it fit to slam him to the ground and break his neck .
Ignorance,xenophobia,poor self-esteem seemingly corrected by a gun and a badge all add up.
I am skeptical that race conversation will change that.
Notice the brutal assault on an elderly Indian man walking in his neighborhood.
Police got call about a " strange skinny man walking around the streets"
His apparent crime(apart from his brown skin) was he could not speak English.
The cop thought it fit to slam him to the ground and break his neck .
Ignorance,xenophobia,poor self-esteem seemingly corrected by a gun and a badge all add up.
I am skeptical that race conversation will change that.
9
Why don't we just have the federal government recruit thousands of black men and women to work in the predominantly black areas of every city for the local police department. This would be good hiring opportunities for blacks and it would give reassurance to the black communities. This seems like otherwise an insolvable problem. Most of us are not racists, not the people I know, yet segregation in many to most cities is still present among the poorest people, including poorer blacks, who prefer to live among their own people, go to their own churches, have their own culture, and in turn end up with more gangs and crime because of lack of opportunity, stable families, and lack of role models, or the wrong role models. It is not the way it should be, or the way most of us want it. But how do you fix it? Middle class blacks live among us comfortably, and for those of you who think blacks are held down, I worked and have been friends with many middle class blacks who were either totally my equal in intelligence and opportunity or who were smarter and had more ambition. It is not fair to pounce on what is considered white racism or dominance without pointing out that many blacks do have make it and live comfortably among us by choice. They are our supervisors, our politicians, our attorneys, our teachers, and our CEO's. So is this a race problem or a poverty problem? Till we know, staff troubled black neighborhoods with black cops and see what happens.
9
But statistics show they still have lower net worth. It takes generations to fix that problem.
It would almost certainly turn out as disastrously as Sen. Daschle's vaunted TSA at airports (Thugs Standing Around.) You want local people spending local money with local control and supervision IMHO.You'll then have diverse results and have the chance afterward to see which worked out the best.
One more. I grew up in a small mining town in the Upper Michigan. From the time Iron was discovered there in the late 19th century, there were successive waves of immigrants from places mining areas - first Cornish, then Finnish and finally northern Italians. The major mine closed down during the depression, but most of kids I grew up with in the 50's and 60's were the children of miners, a tough group and some history of ethnic conflict.
What cops in my hometown almost exclusively dealt with was teenagers. Fights and drinking for the most part. For us the cops were the adversaries and if you were around a group of your friends you didn't want to get caught speaking respectfully to them, so we 'talked wise' and acted defiant. Having a 'run in with the law' was almost a badge of honor in some circles. Most of the cops were fairly sanguine about it but there were a couple who were real jerks and would harass those who were particularly mouthy.
But nobody ever got shot; as far as I know no policeman in my hometown ever even drew his gun. Were we a product of our 'culture?' Sure, to some extent, but mostly we were being teenagers and doing what teenagers do. When I look at the 'young black men' so often referenced and criticized in these comments it's hard for me to distinguish in any meaningful way their behavior from what we did as kids. Except that they can't get away with it and the consequences can be a lot worse. And they are the ones who are supposed to fix it.
What cops in my hometown almost exclusively dealt with was teenagers. Fights and drinking for the most part. For us the cops were the adversaries and if you were around a group of your friends you didn't want to get caught speaking respectfully to them, so we 'talked wise' and acted defiant. Having a 'run in with the law' was almost a badge of honor in some circles. Most of the cops were fairly sanguine about it but there were a couple who were real jerks and would harass those who were particularly mouthy.
But nobody ever got shot; as far as I know no policeman in my hometown ever even drew his gun. Were we a product of our 'culture?' Sure, to some extent, but mostly we were being teenagers and doing what teenagers do. When I look at the 'young black men' so often referenced and criticized in these comments it's hard for me to distinguish in any meaningful way their behavior from what we did as kids. Except that they can't get away with it and the consequences can be a lot worse. And they are the ones who are supposed to fix it.
17
Sorry for the grammatical errors and awkward wording in the above. I had to edit for length and didn't review carefully enough.
I'll add one kind of entertaining story, in part to make clear that the conflict sometimes went a little beyond words:
One night when I was in high school, somebody called in to the station and reported a big fight at a hunting camp, which was outside the populated area but still technically in the city limits. The camp was about a mile off the main road and because there'd just been a heavy snowfall, when the cops got there they had no choice but to park their car and trudge through the snow to the camp where they of course found nothing. When they got back to the road, the engine of their car was sitting on the road next to it. I might know who did it.
Not very nice, but you have to admit that was one heck of an imaginative prank.
I'll add one kind of entertaining story, in part to make clear that the conflict sometimes went a little beyond words:
One night when I was in high school, somebody called in to the station and reported a big fight at a hunting camp, which was outside the populated area but still technically in the city limits. The camp was about a mile off the main road and because there'd just been a heavy snowfall, when the cops got there they had no choice but to park their car and trudge through the snow to the camp where they of course found nothing. When they got back to the road, the engine of their car was sitting on the road next to it. I might know who did it.
Not very nice, but you have to admit that was one heck of an imaginative prank.
7
Most small U.S. towns have no police shootings. There are about 400 fatal police shootings per year, but the United States has about 25,000 incorporate towns. Most of the police shooting are clustered in large metropolitan areas. The same goes for all types of murders. Most small town go years without a homicide.
4
What Director Comey said has great importance and is a great step in the right direction. What Mr Blow adds to the conversation in this column is of great importance.
We all live with race issues, result of a shameful history that too many of us try to pretend doesn't influence the state of things today. I'm just adding my voice to say that it's of central importance to me as an American.
We all live with race issues, result of a shameful history that too many of us try to pretend doesn't influence the state of things today. I'm just adding my voice to say that it's of central importance to me as an American.
9
Both Comey and Blow are speaking truth in terms of their reality. However the depth and tone of their words are unavoidably colored by their respective historic perspectives and also the color of the ears that are hearing them.
I applaud both. Progress is being made. Much more progress needs to be achieved.
In some ways the easy part is behind us. The obvious stuff, the more flagrant, the lynching, equal public access, equal rights to vote, more equal justice in theory and the acceptance of the theory by the overwhelming majority. However we are not yet there and to quote my overly conservative Representative Ted Poe in Congress as "that's just the way t is." However that is not the way it should be and more progress must be made.
The hard part is what remains. The more subtle issues, the parts that result in the overt poor conduct and action of not only whites but of blacks and all the colors in between. It has taken 50 years since Segregation was made against the law of the land. 100 years after the Civil War it was finally the start. It made possible all the rest that has followed.
However, It will take much more hard work and generational change to make equal Civil Rights and equal opportunity truly the reality of our society that our law now mandates. We are moving that way in spite of bumps in the road like the Tea Party reaction to a black president no matter how qualified and the difficult challenge of truly color blind law enforcement by our police.
I applaud both. Progress is being made. Much more progress needs to be achieved.
In some ways the easy part is behind us. The obvious stuff, the more flagrant, the lynching, equal public access, equal rights to vote, more equal justice in theory and the acceptance of the theory by the overwhelming majority. However we are not yet there and to quote my overly conservative Representative Ted Poe in Congress as "that's just the way t is." However that is not the way it should be and more progress must be made.
The hard part is what remains. The more subtle issues, the parts that result in the overt poor conduct and action of not only whites but of blacks and all the colors in between. It has taken 50 years since Segregation was made against the law of the land. 100 years after the Civil War it was finally the start. It made possible all the rest that has followed.
However, It will take much more hard work and generational change to make equal Civil Rights and equal opportunity truly the reality of our society that our law now mandates. We are moving that way in spite of bumps in the road like the Tea Party reaction to a black president no matter how qualified and the difficult challenge of truly color blind law enforcement by our police.
8
I've been stopped in stores by security, who asked me to open my bag to show them I hadn't been stealing. I grew up poor / lower middle class, and when I was a teenager security looked me over closely whenever I walked into a store. I've been followed by cop cars through town.
My wife, who grew up thousands of miles away but in similar financial circumstances, has also been accosted by store security, accused of stealing. One night, while we waited for a table at a restaurant, a couple of businessmen walked in and asked her to seat them (assuming she was a waitress).
Oh, maybe I forgot to mention: we're both white.
My wife, who grew up thousands of miles away but in similar financial circumstances, has also been accosted by store security, accused of stealing. One night, while we waited for a table at a restaurant, a couple of businessmen walked in and asked her to seat them (assuming she was a waitress).
Oh, maybe I forgot to mention: we're both white.
31
When Blow starts portraying a balanced equation I will begin to listen to him. Acknowledge that white folk paid a high price in the Civil War to free slaves. Acknowledge that white folk were instrumental in repealing the Jim Crow laws and implementing civil rights laws. Acknowledge the great strides we have taken over the last 50 years to the extent we have a black president. Acknowledge the role the "progressives" have paid in the breakup of the black family. Acknowledge that the breakdown of the black family has a great deal to do with the poverty black experience. Acknowledge that the rap culture glorifying violence and degradation of women has led to some of the negative stereotypes.
As is Blow and his like just want to lecture, but conversations have two sides and until that is recognized by Blow and his like they deserve nothing but ridicule.
As is Blow and his like just want to lecture, but conversations have two sides and until that is recognized by Blow and his like they deserve nothing but ridicule.
35
the "equation" is not balanced and never will be.
11
Brilliant exposition of America's problem--answer logic with ridicule!
8
I guess then that ends the conversation.
When Central Americans began flooding into the South they faced tremendous prejudice, but over the years their actions overrode preexisting bias.
If the Black community wants its' image to change, their behavior has to change. The public isn't stupid. What they read, hear and see on the local and national news will trump the bizarre quasi-reality that comes from the entertainment media.
If the Black community wants its' image to change, their behavior has to change. The public isn't stupid. What they read, hear and see on the local and national news will trump the bizarre quasi-reality that comes from the entertainment media.
23
Yeah, the Republican Party's ongoing crackpottery, last summer's screaming at women and kids, and the ongoing yelling about how our measles outbreaks all come from Latin immigrants really shows that our prejudices have evaporated, simply evaporated.
9
Racial prejudice is real. Bias is real. People either experience that and accept it or they do don't and do not.
People end up being oppressed because someone who holds more power oppresses them. Ditto. You either accept that or you don't. The people in the USA who have "power" also have money. In every case. Always.
If you allow for the fact that some people, no matter how lowly or economically deprived still manage to rise both socially and economically to become part of the "top" of the society, how can you say it is not possible to break free of the oppression should you have the will to do so. It is not.
If you allow for the fact that it takes an exceptional person to make such a change, you would be facing reality. That the "average" person needs some kind of outside support and help to make a shift seems obvious. From where is that help to come? From the community or from those outside it? Both?
Until and unless attitudes are examined (a conversation is only a beginning) and some consensus exists about what people hold as being true, possible, reasonable and available, nothing will change. To make such a shift, we would need a very special kind of leadership which seems scarce everywhere. You have to get to the underlying issues to change behavior. If you don't look, you can't find them. On both sides of the problem.
People end up being oppressed because someone who holds more power oppresses them. Ditto. You either accept that or you don't. The people in the USA who have "power" also have money. In every case. Always.
If you allow for the fact that some people, no matter how lowly or economically deprived still manage to rise both socially and economically to become part of the "top" of the society, how can you say it is not possible to break free of the oppression should you have the will to do so. It is not.
If you allow for the fact that it takes an exceptional person to make such a change, you would be facing reality. That the "average" person needs some kind of outside support and help to make a shift seems obvious. From where is that help to come? From the community or from those outside it? Both?
Until and unless attitudes are examined (a conversation is only a beginning) and some consensus exists about what people hold as being true, possible, reasonable and available, nothing will change. To make such a shift, we would need a very special kind of leadership which seems scarce everywhere. You have to get to the underlying issues to change behavior. If you don't look, you can't find them. On both sides of the problem.
1
Asian Americans are the richest racial group in the United states with a median household income of $67,065.
11
"The stone cannot absorb no matter how much you drench it." Another beautiful turn of phrase by Charles Blow.
7
"That violates not only an American principle but also a human one: that no person should be punished for the crimes or sins of another."
There is no better argument against reparations than this. Nobody alive today was alive during the time of slavery thus nobody today should be punished and reparations are unjust. This makes sense but it doesn't seem like justice and it shouldn't. Large groups of people in the past were wronged by the federal government. Native American displacement and genocide. Slavery. Hiroshima. Nagasaki. Effects from these atrocities echo to the aggrieved populations to the present day. In the name of justice and morality, something should be done to attempt to make amends. A moral case centered on the maxim above hinges on the definition of a person. If a corporation is legally considered a person, why not the federal government? Both are functionally equivalent in a legal sense in almost every way. Sure the federal government is more powerful and is the parent company of all US companies, but in a sense it too is like the immortal person that we allow corporations to be. If this is the case, then the sins of this person have yet to be atoned for and reparations are a good start. And they can begin without violating the sound principle that no person should be punished for the crimes or sins of another.
There is no better argument against reparations than this. Nobody alive today was alive during the time of slavery thus nobody today should be punished and reparations are unjust. This makes sense but it doesn't seem like justice and it shouldn't. Large groups of people in the past were wronged by the federal government. Native American displacement and genocide. Slavery. Hiroshima. Nagasaki. Effects from these atrocities echo to the aggrieved populations to the present day. In the name of justice and morality, something should be done to attempt to make amends. A moral case centered on the maxim above hinges on the definition of a person. If a corporation is legally considered a person, why not the federal government? Both are functionally equivalent in a legal sense in almost every way. Sure the federal government is more powerful and is the parent company of all US companies, but in a sense it too is like the immortal person that we allow corporations to be. If this is the case, then the sins of this person have yet to be atoned for and reparations are a good start. And they can begin without violating the sound principle that no person should be punished for the crimes or sins of another.
6
No, the government is not a "parent company". The government gets its money via force (taxes) while companies must offer the public goods and services they want to buy. What parent says to his children "give me money or I will throw you in jail?
3
Why is it not the parent company? United States companies/corporations cannot exist without the federal government. US Laws allow their existence and describe allowed behaviors as well as prohibited behaviors via regulation. In essence it gives birth to companies and is thus the parent company.
Yes, the government uses coercion to remove money from actors in the economy as is necessary in it's distributive function and as a check on inflation. It's not it's money as the government doesn't need money and can print it at will. But companies are legally allowed to exercise coercion as well through their exclusive property rights that generate the goods they "offer" the public. Rights that the government again enforces in a coercive manner. But in a sense you are right. The government IS not a parent company in the same way that a corporation IS NOT a person. That same parent also throws in jail an impoverished hungry citizen who takes food to live in violation of the "right" of property.
Yes, the government uses coercion to remove money from actors in the economy as is necessary in it's distributive function and as a check on inflation. It's not it's money as the government doesn't need money and can print it at will. But companies are legally allowed to exercise coercion as well through their exclusive property rights that generate the goods they "offer" the public. Rights that the government again enforces in a coercive manner. But in a sense you are right. The government IS not a parent company in the same way that a corporation IS NOT a person. That same parent also throws in jail an impoverished hungry citizen who takes food to live in violation of the "right" of property.
Can you please share the website of the number 1 victim of crime in the world with your readers? It's www.bossmoneyco.com
I liked the part about how your "attemots to renounce US citizenship," caused massive earthquakes in Haiti, Japan and elsewhere. How's that work, exactly?
1
Charles, did you reach out to Mr. Comey for a discussion on the portions you disagreed with prior to writing this column? Perhaps put or explained in a different context, you might find he meant something different than you're assuming he meant. Isn't that what happens in conversations?
15
I liked the way Comey tried to bring people together by acknowledging historical biases, yet he projects enough confidence to assert the white perspective... that racism is not the only thing at play here. There is a cultural repression at work too. It takes a big man, like Comey to be a peacemaker. I felt relieved by his words. I also appreciate that Blow recognized the tone with which Comey's words were spoken and didn't reflexively attack the speaker. Good people can have profoundly different views of the same subject. Just acknowledging that there is a significant problem is the first step... on both sides.
5
Your opinion pieces always make me think. Thank you. A recent visit to the exhibition at the New York Historical Society on the treatment of Chinese and other Asians through history also made me think about another aspect of racism in America that I knew much less about. Extremely well done and can be seen in conjunction with the Freedom Journey of 1965 show with photos of the Selma to Montgomery march. http://www.nyhistory.org/exhibitions/chineseamerican
8
I don't know that the issue is racist individuals in the police force per se, but I do think its an issue of how new recruits are inducted into 'the force' - heck even that term is loaded. How about being inducted into 'safety patrol' or some other creatively constructed term that does not connote condoned use of violence.
Police can be trained to be community servants. Or they can be trained to be peacekeepers. They can be the eyes and ears of a safe community, or they can look for trouble.
Police can be trained to be community servants. Or they can be trained to be peacekeepers. They can be the eyes and ears of a safe community, or they can look for trouble.
3
maybe have them ...
with all due respect to you Ella, you're looking at the world through rose colored glasses. The police have to deal with psychopaths, gangsters, run of the mill criminals. Those are who they are protecting the public from -- and I'd rather have a few Dirty Harry's on my force.
with all due respect to you Ella, you're looking at the world through rose colored glasses. The police have to deal with psychopaths, gangsters, run of the mill criminals. Those are who they are protecting the public from -- and I'd rather have a few Dirty Harry's on my force.
4
If the "Black Lives Matter" signs are not just an empty slogan, why is there no national as well as local black outrage and mass protests at premeditated—not unexpected or accidental—killings of blacks by blacks?
Take a good look at Jason L. Riley (WSJ editorial_member) article "Race, Politics and the Zimmerman Trial."
He states, "The homicide rate claiming black victims today is seven times that of whites…Some 92% of black murder victims are killed by other blacks"
In 1993, Jesse Jackson told organizers in Chicago: "There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery. Then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved."
If he, a black man, was afraid of blacks what can we expect of a white person? What can you exect from the police whose lives are in danger?
C.L. Bryant, former head of NAACP said that in the Trayvon Marvin case Sharpton and Jackson was not welcome.
"His family should be outraged…they’re using this child as the bait to inflame racial passions,…like buzzards circling the carcass of this young boy."
The problem with African-Americans is they had or have so called leaders and role models who are self-aggrandizing, corrupt, adulterers, immoral, or anti-Semitic; leaders like Louis Farrakhnan, Al Sharpton, Bill Cosby, Adam Clayton Powell Jr., Charles Rangel, and Jesse Jackson.
Where are black leaders like Martin Luther King?
27
Well, one of 'em is President, another's Attorney General, there're a number in the House, and then we get to folks like Oprah and Colin Powell and Cornel West and Kay&Peele.
Where ya been?
As for Revered Al and the others, yup, some less-than-good apples there. On the other hand, nobody's auite had the nerve to chew black folks out for their failings like Reverend Al. Where ya been?
By the way...the list of shady white "leaders," includes Spiro T. Agnew, Bob MacDonald, Bernie Madoff, Randy Cunningham and a whole passel of others who got nabbed fat-out taking money.
Yet somehow, we never quite seem to see loud, hectoring demands that white folks fess up, get their house in order, and start acting moral.
why is that?
Where ya been?
As for Revered Al and the others, yup, some less-than-good apples there. On the other hand, nobody's auite had the nerve to chew black folks out for their failings like Reverend Al. Where ya been?
By the way...the list of shady white "leaders," includes Spiro T. Agnew, Bob MacDonald, Bernie Madoff, Randy Cunningham and a whole passel of others who got nabbed fat-out taking money.
Yet somehow, we never quite seem to see loud, hectoring demands that white folks fess up, get their house in order, and start acting moral.
why is that?
7
Bernie Madoff - jailed
Spiro Agnew (Spiro Agnew!) Fined in a civil suit
Bob McDonald - TBD
Randy Cunningham - imprisoned
Not a bad record of fessing up and getting the white house in order
Spiro Agnew (Spiro Agnew!) Fined in a civil suit
Bob McDonald - TBD
Randy Cunningham - imprisoned
Not a bad record of fessing up and getting the white house in order
2
"The problem with African-Americans is . . . ": Wow. How would you feel if someone wrote "The problem with Caucasian-Americans is . . . "?
1
I would like Charles Blow to add to the discussion the horrible treatment heaped on those in the black community who dare to step out of line.
Clarence Thomas for example.
If you want to see nasty hate speech, just take a google Justice Thomas, Secretary Rice, Thomas Sowell, or Ben Carson.
Clarence Thomas for example.
If you want to see nasty hate speech, just take a google Justice Thomas, Secretary Rice, Thomas Sowell, or Ben Carson.
19
Clarence Thomas was accused by Anita Hill, a Black woman, of inappropriate sexual behavior. He resorted to accusing her of a high-tech lynching. That lynching was actually turned on Anita Hill. Having joined the SCOTUS, he showed his strength of character by becoming a Catholic. His wife is an activist Right-winger--not a good recommendation for a justice.
Condi Rice, who once referred to W as her husband, oops. was part of the amen chorus that sold the Iraq invasion to the American people.
Thomas and Rice occupy or occupied positions of power and deserve criticism for their demonstrable mistakes.
Ben Carson carries no weight, but has made objectionable remarks as a means of getting attention: "“My thoughts are that marriage is between a man and a woman. It’s a well-established, fundamental pillar of society, and no group — be they gays, be they NAMBLA, be they people who believe in bestiality — it doesn’t matter what they are — they don’t get to change the definition.”.
Never heard of Thomas Sowell or any criticism of him--I can't bother with this man.
Condi Rice, who once referred to W as her husband, oops. was part of the amen chorus that sold the Iraq invasion to the American people.
Thomas and Rice occupy or occupied positions of power and deserve criticism for their demonstrable mistakes.
Ben Carson carries no weight, but has made objectionable remarks as a means of getting attention: "“My thoughts are that marriage is between a man and a woman. It’s a well-established, fundamental pillar of society, and no group — be they gays, be they NAMBLA, be they people who believe in bestiality — it doesn’t matter what they are — they don’t get to change the definition.”.
Never heard of Thomas Sowell or any criticism of him--I can't bother with this man.
3
Anybody shot at the Justice, or run in his house waving a knife?
Blow has changed his tune on "national conversations": recently he called for one, even though the concept is vague and absurd. Now, he says we are in a free form national conversation, ok, whatever.
What he really wants "ideally" as all of us "in our collective imaginations (sic)" conceive it, is a grand conclave an ATR.
So, his continued conversation is in lieu of what he really wants and what really comes through in his commentary: atoning and reparations without absolution.
The national conversation can have no end for Blow without this.
What he really wants "ideally" as all of us "in our collective imaginations (sic)" conceive it, is a grand conclave an ATR.
So, his continued conversation is in lieu of what he really wants and what really comes through in his commentary: atoning and reparations without absolution.
The national conversation can have no end for Blow without this.
11
Once more a very thin graphic illustrating questionably obtained numbers and vwalla instant social scientist. For me their will be no conversation and certainly no "atonement" for transgressions identified by methods more churlish than scientific. Anyway it's not a dialog you want but an audience for another lecture. Here are some real numbers for you Mr.Blow. One quarter of (legal) Hispanic marriages (typically second generation) are mixed and their families stable. Recent African and Caribbeain immigrants fair better than native blacks in the same communities. I don't know why but these are the numbers, the real ones. If you were black in the deep south in 1950 and went to the doctor the chances of his also being black were pretty good. Not so today.
This problem is ignored and exacerbated by this same old tired sanctimony. For god sake in d.c. philly and parts of N.Y.C. black children born in wedlock are below 8%. My grandfather (who was too old for ww 1) married at fifty and had four children, my father at forty and I at thirty. We were all employed married within our faith had a sense of humor and decent work ethic. It's not rocket science. I now believe for anything to be improved you must accept I am not the problem because if you do not my waining desire to be some part of the cure will fail entirely and I am my middle class cohort will stop underwriting failure.
This problem is ignored and exacerbated by this same old tired sanctimony. For god sake in d.c. philly and parts of N.Y.C. black children born in wedlock are below 8%. My grandfather (who was too old for ww 1) married at fifty and had four children, my father at forty and I at thirty. We were all employed married within our faith had a sense of humor and decent work ethic. It's not rocket science. I now believe for anything to be improved you must accept I am not the problem because if you do not my waining desire to be some part of the cure will fail entirely and I am my middle class cohort will stop underwriting failure.
17
You are aware that if black southerners always saw black doctors in the 1950s, it's because they weren't flippin' ALLOWED to see white ones, yes?
7
" But in seeking to offer context, he mentioned “environments lacking role models, adequate education, and decent employment.” Here he moves perilously close to a racial pathology argument, as if there were something inherent in blackness and black culture that predisposes one to criminality. "
You may want to describe this argument as “This, too, is a lazy mental shortcut" but that is your read on it. It is sheer nonsense. It recalls outdated aphorisms from the Amos n' Andy era.
The facts are clear that the % of criminal behavior among African-American youths is far greater where positive parental influence is lowest. It is a fact that African-American youths (or any racial group) who have the benefit of strong, positive value parental influence tend to succeed. Needless to say, there are many thousands of examples. Unfortunately, they are often vilified by their many of their peers and race baiting leaders (i.e. Al Sharpton) as Uncle Toms or, worse, "not Black".
You may want to describe this argument as “This, too, is a lazy mental shortcut" but that is your read on it. It is sheer nonsense. It recalls outdated aphorisms from the Amos n' Andy era.
The facts are clear that the % of criminal behavior among African-American youths is far greater where positive parental influence is lowest. It is a fact that African-American youths (or any racial group) who have the benefit of strong, positive value parental influence tend to succeed. Needless to say, there are many thousands of examples. Unfortunately, they are often vilified by their many of their peers and race baiting leaders (i.e. Al Sharpton) as Uncle Toms or, worse, "not Black".
19
I'd point out that much of Coney's point is this: you don't need Simon Legrees, Bull Connors, and the sneering slaveowners Django had to deal with to perpetate racism. You don't even need cops and politicians who loudly hate black people.
All you need is a little tweak here, a little disadvantage there, a teeny hesitation in hiring, a bitty bit of giving white kids a pass and black kids static, at every level of our complex legal, educational, medical and economic structures.
It's like saving a penny here and a nickel there: don't seem like much, but it all adds up.
Oh, and by the way: if we sit down and really tot up the human and economic costs of white-collar crime, are African-American and Hispanic criminals really the onesdoing the most damage?
All you need is a little tweak here, a little disadvantage there, a teeny hesitation in hiring, a bitty bit of giving white kids a pass and black kids static, at every level of our complex legal, educational, medical and economic structures.
It's like saving a penny here and a nickel there: don't seem like much, but it all adds up.
Oh, and by the way: if we sit down and really tot up the human and economic costs of white-collar crime, are African-American and Hispanic criminals really the onesdoing the most damage?
6
"Oh, and by the way: if we sit down and really tot up the human and economic costs of white-collar crime, are African-American and Hispanic criminals really the ones doing the most damage?"
Is this the "two wrongs make a right" argument? Let me ask you this, would you rather someone steal $100 from you, or steal 100 from you while assaulting you or shooting you?
Is this the "two wrongs make a right" argument? Let me ask you this, would you rather someone steal $100 from you, or steal 100 from you while assaulting you or shooting you?
4
Problem is, the person who can steal $100 from you without having to resort to fist or gun will NOT stop or be stopped or do it to you only. But that is the side point. Robert is not saying two wrongs cancel each other, but saying which wrong is more wrong. In other words, what he says has nothing to do with "two wrongs make a right." This is how I understand it. Anyways, my 2 cents.
What's your point, that life isn't fair? When I get rejected for a job, I don't wonder why, I simply move on.
Talking about paying back black people because their ancestors were slaves and their labor was used without compensation can be helpful. It could help us to understand where we stand today.
Imagine there is a one mile race on a high school track, four times around the field. Bang! Everyone starts running, except the black guys are told they must wait. When can we start? is a question in their minds, but they don't ask. The runners circle the track once and a few of the black runners are allowed to chase after them, already a lap behind. When the white runners have a full lap and a half on the other blacks, they are told: Go!
There is no way they can win the race or even catch up with the white runners. By the time they were allowed to start, it was too late.
This system of white advantage was used to mock G.W. Bush, an under accomplishing oil "land man". It was said he was born on third base and thought he hit a triple. This applies to a lot of people.
We have a bunch of doctors, lawyers and professors in my extended family. They worked hard for their accomplishments, but they knew at the start that there was pathway to success proved by others. They were supported and encouraged all the way. They got to start when the gun went "bang!".
We have a racially, class (wealth) structured society, not in the rigid model of England, but structured nonetheless. Until we address this at every level, we will continue to see injustice and exclusion.
Doug Terry
Imagine there is a one mile race on a high school track, four times around the field. Bang! Everyone starts running, except the black guys are told they must wait. When can we start? is a question in their minds, but they don't ask. The runners circle the track once and a few of the black runners are allowed to chase after them, already a lap behind. When the white runners have a full lap and a half on the other blacks, they are told: Go!
There is no way they can win the race or even catch up with the white runners. By the time they were allowed to start, it was too late.
This system of white advantage was used to mock G.W. Bush, an under accomplishing oil "land man". It was said he was born on third base and thought he hit a triple. This applies to a lot of people.
We have a bunch of doctors, lawyers and professors in my extended family. They worked hard for their accomplishments, but they knew at the start that there was pathway to success proved by others. They were supported and encouraged all the way. They got to start when the gun went "bang!".
We have a racially, class (wealth) structured society, not in the rigid model of England, but structured nonetheless. Until we address this at every level, we will continue to see injustice and exclusion.
Doug Terry
49
Imagine not an oval track, but an oval spiral circling back beyond sight and reckoning to the big bang itself!
Race track analogies have an appeal, but are a blunt tool.
Race track analogies have an appeal, but are a blunt tool.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2013 poverty estimate, 29.9 million whites and 11 million blacks live below poverty level. There are nearly three times as many poor whites as poor blacks.
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/data/incpovhlth/2013/table3.pdf
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/data/incpovhlth/2013/table3.pdf
5
This example - race track - has been used many times. I have used it too, and I think there is some usefulness to it.
But one also has to be aware of the counter-example of large cohorts of impoverished immigrant classes coming to the US, living and raising the children in lower-income, high-risk neighbourhoods, but still being able to "catch up" with that 1-2 lap headstart - perhaps not in one generation - but in 2 or 3.
This then sets up another set of arguments and counter-arguments. Again, I see valid points on both sides. But the empirical evidence cannot be ignored.
But one also has to be aware of the counter-example of large cohorts of impoverished immigrant classes coming to the US, living and raising the children in lower-income, high-risk neighbourhoods, but still being able to "catch up" with that 1-2 lap headstart - perhaps not in one generation - but in 2 or 3.
This then sets up another set of arguments and counter-arguments. Again, I see valid points on both sides. But the empirical evidence cannot be ignored.
5
"Every discussion over a backyard fence or a cup of coffee is part of that conversation. "
Or over a counter after paying for the purchase. I was the only one in the store, she had a Southern European accent, she was obviously a grandma to someone. and she lived in a big town next to mine. She owned real estate, at first we talked of that on equal footing. Who doesn't want to only find points of agreement in quick conversations, especially the ones which should have ended 2 minutes ago with me back in the truck. So I was smiling and she went into what is politely called racism, speaking of The President (as if she knew him) and her neighbors and fellow residents of her city. I have some experience in that, before I read "racism for dummies", but I grew up and this woman, who has more respect in her world than my long hair will ever afford me was testing my boundaries. It's not even my Grand-nephew whose father is black, it was just a feeling like, "This is bad for your heart, dear"...too much. And she is an immigrant. I would assume legal, but with an air of fascism. I should bring her the weekly vids my brother sends of his grandson Carter. He's part of the real future. Conversation is great but all the talk in the world didn't kill the dinosaurs.
Or over a counter after paying for the purchase. I was the only one in the store, she had a Southern European accent, she was obviously a grandma to someone. and she lived in a big town next to mine. She owned real estate, at first we talked of that on equal footing. Who doesn't want to only find points of agreement in quick conversations, especially the ones which should have ended 2 minutes ago with me back in the truck. So I was smiling and she went into what is politely called racism, speaking of The President (as if she knew him) and her neighbors and fellow residents of her city. I have some experience in that, before I read "racism for dummies", but I grew up and this woman, who has more respect in her world than my long hair will ever afford me was testing my boundaries. It's not even my Grand-nephew whose father is black, it was just a feeling like, "This is bad for your heart, dear"...too much. And she is an immigrant. I would assume legal, but with an air of fascism. I should bring her the weekly vids my brother sends of his grandson Carter. He's part of the real future. Conversation is great but all the talk in the world didn't kill the dinosaurs.
5
I have worked with police in many major urban centers. One conversation does stick with me. I was reminded that we have Dublin rules with our police, that Irish policemen in America came from an English trained force (armed in Ireland whereas in England they were not) designed to suppress Irish Rebellion. Of course we are generations away from that mentality, but I have often seen the old Irish Rules embedded in police policy, that suppression of rebellion, maintenance of order by force, is part and parcel of what police have as their mission. However, that extra step, that one bullet more, that use of just a little more force where rebellion is felt (resisting arrest when it is just force against force), often comes up. I have come to the conclusion that African americans are the current focus of those ancient rules, but the mission of suppression would rear its head no matter who took to the streets. Dressing in black does seem the vogue among SWAT teams, though being black has quite a different connotation. In Colonial America, police were given the mission of finding religious miscreants, unbelievers and apostates, and setting them out to hang or burn. I wonder, if deep inside our national fear, is that raging guilt only assuaged with sacrifice. Police are actually, really just us in uniform, are they not?
I look forward to reading your columns. Often they are about "race" and very well written. Thank-you for keeping the discussion of racial issues alive. Often people read about a particular incident, become enraged and demonstrate. Then they go home and return to their regular lives.
But your continuing columns on race keep the subject "in our face". By reading both your column and the comments I come away feeling that at least some of us are keeping this subject alive. There are many points of view, but all are respectful. Thank you for continuing to spur a discussion that is much needed.
But your continuing columns on race keep the subject "in our face". By reading both your column and the comments I come away feeling that at least some of us are keeping this subject alive. There are many points of view, but all are respectful. Thank you for continuing to spur a discussion that is much needed.
4
This "conversation about race" we are supposed to be having strikes me as anachronistic and myopic - a throwback to the 1960s and 1970s when discussions of race and racism took place in the context of a different America, one that was not nearly as diverse as it is today. Back then, it was all about black and white, but that seems to be the conversation that Mr. Blow and others want us to have.
We need a more sophisticated conversation in 2015 than just one that discusses the relationship between black and white. Any conversation needs to take into account other groups such as the large and growing Latino minority, as well as a discussion of the effects of technology and globalization on everyone's prospects for future, regardless of color.
We need a more sophisticated conversation in 2015 than just one that discusses the relationship between black and white. Any conversation needs to take into account other groups such as the large and growing Latino minority, as well as a discussion of the effects of technology and globalization on everyone's prospects for future, regardless of color.
7
If we are going to have a conversation on race then lets ask the tough questions:
Do you want to lessen the blow (no pun intended) or do you want to eradicate racism?
"I don't see color", it's a phrase some white people invoke when a conversation turns to race, stop it you are lying to yourself.
We don't have time to tend to the emotional wounds of others, not when violence against people of color is the national status quo.
Talk about your biases, because in some ways they are more destructive than overt racism and they're harder to spot, and therefore harder to combat.
Enjoy the mocca.
Do you want to lessen the blow (no pun intended) or do you want to eradicate racism?
"I don't see color", it's a phrase some white people invoke when a conversation turns to race, stop it you are lying to yourself.
We don't have time to tend to the emotional wounds of others, not when violence against people of color is the national status quo.
Talk about your biases, because in some ways they are more destructive than overt racism and they're harder to spot, and therefore harder to combat.
Enjoy the mocca.
Until black political, religious, social and entertainment leadership can consistently offer positive role models of education and achievment to young blacks, especially young black males, the toxic and dysfunctional values of confrontation, aggression, violence and crime within ghetto culture will continue to sabotage any efforts to pull the majority of black people into mainstream middle-class America.
13
Whenever I personally attempt a conversation on race with my white friends and colleagues I can pretty much use one hand to tick off the seconds before I hear, "but what about black on black crime?"
Honest people of all races will do well to educate themselves on some of the root causes and present conditions that have created and exacerbated the poverty, despair, crime, gangs, anger, and frustration in our black communities. We need to get over the idea that mistreatment can be simultaneously ignored by some and overcome by others.
Honest people of all races will do well to educate themselves on some of the root causes and present conditions that have created and exacerbated the poverty, despair, crime, gangs, anger, and frustration in our black communities. We need to get over the idea that mistreatment can be simultaneously ignored by some and overcome by others.
7
An honest conversation would begin with acknowledgement of these topics:
1. racism exists in America and is especially harmful to black economic and educational opportunities
2. black culture includes a powerful influence of self-destructive behavior
Topic 1 is for whites to seriously and introspectively contemplate the depth and breath of prejudice, its roots, persistence, and negative effects on black aspirations and impediments to achieving a semblance of the American Dream.
Topic 2 is for the black community to understand how the juvenile, criminal, and anti-social aspects of "black culture" color the perception of whites towards blacks. No doubt most blacks are tortured by the destructive elements within their communities - and they regularly feel the harm. Which it is somewhat insulting to blacks for whites to constantly remind them of their group's high crime rate. But blacks need to also accept responsibility for the destructiveness.
Not accusations by one side against the other but rather each acknowledging the problems, accepting the responsibilities, and caring enough to develop solutions are the prerequisites for the meaningful conversation to occur.
1. racism exists in America and is especially harmful to black economic and educational opportunities
2. black culture includes a powerful influence of self-destructive behavior
Topic 1 is for whites to seriously and introspectively contemplate the depth and breath of prejudice, its roots, persistence, and negative effects on black aspirations and impediments to achieving a semblance of the American Dream.
Topic 2 is for the black community to understand how the juvenile, criminal, and anti-social aspects of "black culture" color the perception of whites towards blacks. No doubt most blacks are tortured by the destructive elements within their communities - and they regularly feel the harm. Which it is somewhat insulting to blacks for whites to constantly remind them of their group's high crime rate. But blacks need to also accept responsibility for the destructiveness.
Not accusations by one side against the other but rather each acknowledging the problems, accepting the responsibilities, and caring enough to develop solutions are the prerequisites for the meaningful conversation to occur.
4
I see.
White folks need to "introspectively contemplate," and black folks need to "take responsibility."
Interesting division of labor.
White folks need to "introspectively contemplate," and black folks need to "take responsibility."
Interesting division of labor.
2
Robert - that's correct. Today's white people did not cause racism - it's a legacy of the past and so they should not feel - and largely do not feel - guilt. That's not to say they shouldn't do anything about it. If, however, the black community of today avoids, belittles, ignores, refuses to accept its hand in the dire situation it now faces then dialog and especially progress just won't happen.
5
Regarding your first point, if racism is so pervasive in the US, why are there so many successful black people, many of whom enjoy part of their success to a white ticket buying public? And writing columns in the NYT? If someone claims racism has held them back, prove it. Provide specific examples of racism that have held you back . Then we will examine the choices made by individual. Blaming the "system" is intellectually lazy and can't be proven, which is exactly why it is invoked by the race hustlers in our society,
1
"Reparations will not be paid."
Get over it Blow, reparations were paid in blood during the Civil War. I have ancestors who died freeing the slaves.
Get over it Blow, reparations were paid in blood during the Civil War. I have ancestors who died freeing the slaves.
15
There are as many social, economic and familial variations in black life as there are in any other group of Americans - but there's one aspect of being black in America that just won't disappear.
That the history of racism weighs most heavily on blacks is something we can't ignore, and it's very true that individual, conscious efforts to marginalize blacks are still running through this country's daily life.
There's a certain amount of criminality in any group of people you could choose to watch, especially people living on a limited income. When the individual police officers spend their time investigating those criminals, we're in good shape. When they spend their time asserting authority in upholding small laws and regulations within a general population, people get agitated and police encounters escalate into violent confrontation. The "broken windows" push has been successful at re-establishing police presence and a feeling of stable order - that and the phone cameras have improved public life and sparked an improved civility. But it's not productive to ask police to continually enforce what most people would consider to be minor, procedural and certainly non-violent infractions. It doesn't feel fair, the officers are working in an impersonal, detached state of mind, and the people they're dealing with feel harassed.
Police work is inherently difficult work, and much appreciated. But the respect for the profession flows from their ability to keep the peace.
That the history of racism weighs most heavily on blacks is something we can't ignore, and it's very true that individual, conscious efforts to marginalize blacks are still running through this country's daily life.
There's a certain amount of criminality in any group of people you could choose to watch, especially people living on a limited income. When the individual police officers spend their time investigating those criminals, we're in good shape. When they spend their time asserting authority in upholding small laws and regulations within a general population, people get agitated and police encounters escalate into violent confrontation. The "broken windows" push has been successful at re-establishing police presence and a feeling of stable order - that and the phone cameras have improved public life and sparked an improved civility. But it's not productive to ask police to continually enforce what most people would consider to be minor, procedural and certainly non-violent infractions. It doesn't feel fair, the officers are working in an impersonal, detached state of mind, and the people they're dealing with feel harassed.
Police work is inherently difficult work, and much appreciated. But the respect for the profession flows from their ability to keep the peace.
"But it's not productive to ask police to continually enforce what most people would consider to be minor, procedural and certainly non-violent infractions."
So, if I understand you correctly, you want the individual police officers to decide which laws they will enforce and which ones they will ignore? Well i certainly would expect that an officer would stop pursuing a speeder if he heard of a murder going on, for the most part I would like the officers to enforce all the laws and deal with any violations they may come across.
So, if I understand you correctly, you want the individual police officers to decide which laws they will enforce and which ones they will ignore? Well i certainly would expect that an officer would stop pursuing a speeder if he heard of a murder going on, for the most part I would like the officers to enforce all the laws and deal with any violations they may come across.
When the Washington House in Philadelphia was excavated a number of years ago there came a 'revelation' of slaves owned by the first president. I taught the articles as they appeared in the local paper. With the articles came subtexts of local groups wishing to quell the 'slave' notion as a misnomer.
The articles highlighted Oney Judge and the connection to local churches within the city. If you are looking for absolution; I seriously doubt your finding it any time soon. Spirituality must begin with facts not falsehoods. Teach history appropriately and not the white-wash it was and is.
The articles highlighted Oney Judge and the connection to local churches within the city. If you are looking for absolution; I seriously doubt your finding it any time soon. Spirituality must begin with facts not falsehoods. Teach history appropriately and not the white-wash it was and is.
5
I read the same article. Washington lived in a certain era consisting of certain economic facts and socio-religious values that are rejected today. That era is long past.
What I see here is an attempt - as has been done to Abraham Lincoln by liberal-leaning, revisionist historians - to discredit George Washington, He was without a doubt our greatest President. Without him during the pre- and post-Revolution period, our nation would not exist as we know it today. He was a man of his time. It is foolish to put his extraordinary life and contributions in any contemporary historical context.
What I see here is an attempt - as has been done to Abraham Lincoln by liberal-leaning, revisionist historians - to discredit George Washington, He was without a doubt our greatest President. Without him during the pre- and post-Revolution period, our nation would not exist as we know it today. He was a man of his time. It is foolish to put his extraordinary life and contributions in any contemporary historical context.
4
You taught history from a newspaper article? And people wonder why the teaching profession is not held in high regard.
2
No, there will be no reparations paid to the children of former black slaves. Nor to the victims of Jim Crow or even the American Indians who were displaced from their homes by the white European westward movement.
It is too late in any case. For the historical reality of the starting position given to whites and blacks has been lost to our memory. Now with the death of humanities in most of our schools lost not just to memory but to scholarship as well.
We see now the infection of perpetual poverty dragging down an entire people. Because their great grandparents had substantially less schooling and less wealth available odds are that they do as well. It even extends to the complexion of the very police officers in a community. Black youth, more likely to be poor and more certainly surrounded by violence will find themselves at greater odds with the law. They will thus be less likely to follow that profession and another generation will arise with the faces of power being mostly white.
That there will be no reparations is a given. That there will be no turning of the arc of history for young men of color is a decision that we have all made together. A decision backed by fear and self interest. A decision against our own interests. A decision that takes us into yet another generation of racial divide.
It is too late in any case. For the historical reality of the starting position given to whites and blacks has been lost to our memory. Now with the death of humanities in most of our schools lost not just to memory but to scholarship as well.
We see now the infection of perpetual poverty dragging down an entire people. Because their great grandparents had substantially less schooling and less wealth available odds are that they do as well. It even extends to the complexion of the very police officers in a community. Black youth, more likely to be poor and more certainly surrounded by violence will find themselves at greater odds with the law. They will thus be less likely to follow that profession and another generation will arise with the faces of power being mostly white.
That there will be no reparations is a given. That there will be no turning of the arc of history for young men of color is a decision that we have all made together. A decision backed by fear and self interest. A decision against our own interests. A decision that takes us into yet another generation of racial divide.
5
population of the United States reached about four million by 1860. Slaves sold for about $400 in 1850 and about twice that in 1860s, but the monetary value of a slave prior to the Civil War hit a high of about $130,000 in today’s money. (The amount is calculated on what a slave could be expected to produce in his lifetime minus the cost of providing him with food, clothing and shelter.) Since each slave who reproduced would have about a thousand descendants living today, each descendant would get about $130. The United States has been paying reparations to Native Americans for more than a century through the Indian Bureau, which hold 55,700,000 acres in trust for Native Americans. In additions to distributing oil and gas royalties, the bureau budgets about $2.9 billion in taxpayer dollars for services to the nation 30,0000 Native Americans.
2
We all view from a different prospective. Like the elephant in the room. Some only see the tail, some only the trunk. Mr. Blow has been and is the "elephant". Try and see his opinion and situation from that prospective.
2
I think you have your metaphors mixed up. An elephant in the room is something everyone knows about but doesn't talk about. The tail and trunk thing is about 5 blindfolded people who try to figure out what an elephant is by only touching a part of it. It has nothing to do with being in a room.
1
Violence and hatred are not born in a vacuum. While the elite 1% hoard mountains of cash billions of young Negro, Arab, Greek, Indian, Egyptian, Libyan, Syrian men and women have no jobs, no money, no future. Infrastructures around the world rot while our aristocrats and oligarchs buy one more luxury item with money that would better serve the world reinvested in all of us.
I am heartened by Mr. Comey's come to Jesus moment. We cannot have too much conversation on this matter until we have come to terms with it.
However, there is one aspect of the conversation we are not allowed to have; the impact of 300 millions firearms floating loosely around the Country. I have heard more than one cop say their big fear is their firearm being taken from them and used against them. That makes perfect sense.
If police officers were equipped with smart guns that cannot be fired by someone other than the owner, the fear that their gun would be taken would slowly begin to fade and the officer wouldn't have that detail rattling around their brain during any kind of standoff. But even on common sense issues like this the nra stubbornly holds the position that no conversation at all can take place about the rightful place of firearms in this Country. And that alone may be as great a moral failing as the issue of racism itself.
I am heartened by Mr. Comey's come to Jesus moment. We cannot have too much conversation on this matter until we have come to terms with it.
However, there is one aspect of the conversation we are not allowed to have; the impact of 300 millions firearms floating loosely around the Country. I have heard more than one cop say their big fear is their firearm being taken from them and used against them. That makes perfect sense.
If police officers were equipped with smart guns that cannot be fired by someone other than the owner, the fear that their gun would be taken would slowly begin to fade and the officer wouldn't have that detail rattling around their brain during any kind of standoff. But even on common sense issues like this the nra stubbornly holds the position that no conversation at all can take place about the rightful place of firearms in this Country. And that alone may be as great a moral failing as the issue of racism itself.
8
Oh we can have the gun discussion. The problem is most people don't want to lose the right of self protection simply because gangs are shooting each other or some nut does something stupid.
5
All guns should be sold with statistics showing that owners and their loved ones are far more likely be injured or killed by their own firearm. Which is why the NRA wants to impose gag orders.
Joe, don't fool yourself. If you really think you need protection get a dog.
Joe, don't fool yourself. If you really think you need protection get a dog.
4
I don't think American consumerism is the reason some Arab, Greek, Indians, Egyptian, Libyan, Syrian men and women have no jobs. The United States import far more than it exports. The United States runs a trade surplus only with Hong Kong, Netherlands, United Arab Emirates and Australia. For 2014, the U.S. goods and services deficit was $505.0 billion. The U.S. trade imbalance with India is for 2014 was $23.6 billion. That's a lot of jobs for Indian men and women.
1
The most appropriate place for racial profiling would definitely be at airports. Profiling Arabic-looking men aged 20 to 50 would not only focus on all terrorists that have ever attacked our country but would have eliminated all the needless stripping of old ladies, men, and children in these public venues, as well as the unprofessional TSA creeps selecting which good-looking women they were going to make absolutely sure that they got to frisk.
Today's inconvenient truth: You DO know white cops have repeatedly shown that they hesitate more to pull their guns on black suspects than white ones, right?
Today's inconvenient truth: You DO know white cops have repeatedly shown that they hesitate more to pull their guns on black suspects than white ones, right?
4
Neither Timothy McVeigh nor Eric Harris were very Arabic looking. Of course, Harris was under 20. Adam Lanza was 20, but there again, not too Arabic looking.
4
Ah! So Jennifer hasn't flown through one of ''those'' TSA centers yet.
As important as McVeigh has become to Democrat talking points AND the Left-fringe blogosphere, I wonder if the next Liberal President will insist on putting him on a coin one day?
You wisely left out the Unabomber since he was an Al Gore fan.
As important as McVeigh has become to Democrat talking points AND the Left-fringe blogosphere, I wonder if the next Liberal President will insist on putting him on a coin one day?
You wisely left out the Unabomber since he was an Al Gore fan.
3
Why should we give up on an American version of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission like they held in South Africa? Why do we consistently sweep problems under the rug instead of identifying their exact nature and addressing them?
The fact that we have never fully confronted racism allows millions of people to pretend it has all been dealt with, put away on the shelf, no worries, mate. As people grow up without having lived to see the Civil Rights struggles, it all becomes a blur of "ancient history" (anything more than 15 yrs. ago falls into that category if you are under 25). Millions more, especially in the south, see the complaints of black people as little more than an effort to extract more welfare benefits so they don't have to work.
WE MUST find a way to confront racism on a national AND a local level. This wound will not heal on its own. The story of racism, in the minds of most people, is not even half known, not even by 1/4. It started with the most dastardly crime of all, aside from murder, and that was to take away, in a social sense, the humanity of one set of people.
The fact that we have not fully handled racism also allowed people to be confused about Ferguson, Mo., which was people mounting a protest about murder and the constant, excessive harassment of the population by police officers seeking cash for the city govt., a form of racial repression.
Citizens can make a T&R Commission happen and, in time, drag the govt. forward.
Doug Terry
The fact that we have never fully confronted racism allows millions of people to pretend it has all been dealt with, put away on the shelf, no worries, mate. As people grow up without having lived to see the Civil Rights struggles, it all becomes a blur of "ancient history" (anything more than 15 yrs. ago falls into that category if you are under 25). Millions more, especially in the south, see the complaints of black people as little more than an effort to extract more welfare benefits so they don't have to work.
WE MUST find a way to confront racism on a national AND a local level. This wound will not heal on its own. The story of racism, in the minds of most people, is not even half known, not even by 1/4. It started with the most dastardly crime of all, aside from murder, and that was to take away, in a social sense, the humanity of one set of people.
The fact that we have not fully handled racism also allowed people to be confused about Ferguson, Mo., which was people mounting a protest about murder and the constant, excessive harassment of the population by police officers seeking cash for the city govt., a form of racial repression.
Citizens can make a T&R Commission happen and, in time, drag the govt. forward.
Doug Terry
6
I don't think a Truth and Reconciliation Commission would work. The situation in South Africa was quite different; the black majority led by a few spectacularly enlightened people were exercising their new power with magnanimity and prudence. In the US the white majority have always called the shots and continue to do so, and judging by many of the comments in Readers' Picks, most whites have precious little compassion for the problems that minorities experience, and dismiss them contemptuously when they try to express them. I wholeheartedly agree with another of your comments in which you stated that maybe reparations SHOULD be on the table. That might wake up a few people. Black Americans were enslaved for centuries, and then treated despicably for another 100. Can any of these armchair moralizers even comprehend what that means?
4
The following passage from D. B. Davis, The Problem of Slavery is worthy of thought: "In the antebellum South the existence of a debased and slavish race made even poor whites feel equal to the elite. This was only part of a larger paradigm. An historical connection developed between American slavery and American freedom, between the belief in an inferior race and the vision of classless opportunity. Blacks represented the finitude, imperfections, sensuality and depravity of human nature, thereby amplifying the opposite qualities in the white race. This parasitic relationship came to be driven by the nature of the American "mission" of overcoming the limits and boundaries of past history. The "Negro problem" meant that blacks were associated with everything that compromised or stood in the way of the American Dream--with finitude, failure, poverty, fate, the sins of our fathers, nemesis. In short, with dark reality." It is often said that Mandela and King freed the jailed and the jailer. Most whites still don't understand that message, nor the passage from Davis.
42
beautiful quote
What Mr. Blow does not acknowledge is that effect the disproportionally higher black crime rate has on increasing prejudice. The reasons for the greater rate are not due to "blackness" but rather to poverty, unemployment, and cultural factors such as absence of fathers as role models. Police associate African Americans with this disproportion and act accordingly. This is unjust and unfortunate but also all but inevitable. I write as someone who has been held up at gunpoint, at knifepoint, and has bones broken in a mugging--in each case the criminal was a black male. Do I demonize African Americans as a result? No, these events did not keep me from voting twice for a black male for president. But they shape my reactions when I happen to meet a black male on a dark street--and might impact my split second reactions if I were a cop.
Mr. Blow, this is painful stuff. But a conversation on race has to deal with this.
Mr. Blow, this is painful stuff. But a conversation on race has to deal with this.
11
Mr. Blow must realize that the blacks living in the neighborhoods in question are not like him. Middle-class black neighborhoods certainly exist, and there is no more crime there than elsewhere. I know several such places in Los Angeles, and they are as manicured, peaceful, and suburban looking as white neighborhoods. But they are, sadly, very much the exception. By all accounts, Mr. Blow's values are not widely shared in the hardest-hit neighborhoods that Mr. Comey referred to. And therein lies the root problem.
Racism is a vicious cycle: whites become more enlightened, learn to not judge by the color of skin, vote for black politicians and progressive policies, then encounter the reality of the black slum, which includes anti-social behavior, work avoidance, deadbeat dads, crime ranging from petty theft to rape to large-scale organized activity... and the racism returns.
Everyone I've ever met, from social workers to detectives, who has spent a lot of time in these neighborhoods emerges with some degree of racism.
A few days ago, in these pages, a former policeman said that he resigned from the force partly because of what it was doing to his attitudes about race. Because every time he stopped a carful of whites who had run a red light, the occupants acted with respect, but every time he stopped a carful of black teens, he was met with threats and aggression. We can't pretend that nothing is wrong with the demographic that eventually drove him out of the force.
Racism is a vicious cycle: whites become more enlightened, learn to not judge by the color of skin, vote for black politicians and progressive policies, then encounter the reality of the black slum, which includes anti-social behavior, work avoidance, deadbeat dads, crime ranging from petty theft to rape to large-scale organized activity... and the racism returns.
Everyone I've ever met, from social workers to detectives, who has spent a lot of time in these neighborhoods emerges with some degree of racism.
A few days ago, in these pages, a former policeman said that he resigned from the force partly because of what it was doing to his attitudes about race. Because every time he stopped a carful of whites who had run a red light, the occupants acted with respect, but every time he stopped a carful of black teens, he was met with threats and aggression. We can't pretend that nothing is wrong with the demographic that eventually drove him out of the force.
9
Conversation. It is a two way communication. I would really like to have a conversation about race also, but until that conversation is allowed to be truly two-way (where both sides can display their biased thoughts on the other side), I will wait and watch. It is only when both sides can express thoughts that might be ignorant to the other side that we can learn about our ignorance and correct it. Once again, both sides need correction on their mis-perceptions and only a true two-way conversation can enlighten all of us.
7
There are only two basic causes of dysfunction: ignorance and poverty
2
Not quite.
It has nothing to do with poverty or education.
Just remember the 19 Saudi Arabians flew jumbo jets into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon.
They were all university educated and wealthy.
Some people are evil.
It has nothing to do with poverty or education.
Just remember the 19 Saudi Arabians flew jumbo jets into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon.
They were all university educated and wealthy.
Some people are evil.
2
As I see it, all the conversations and conversations we have is not going to change anything. The results will be zilch. I am not being pessimistic. It is the awful reality. Some rotten apples are seen as such. Yet they are not thrown out of the basket as they act with impunity because of some unexplainable immunity. The simple decision by our country's existing laws to toss them out and put into the garbage of criminals does not happen.Some apples are rotten at the core, not obvious. That is more dangerous. Things can change only if there is real, deep change of hearts. Being politically correct in conversations does not change their 'basic' biases.Being an African American as opposed to 'Black' does not indicate a paradigm shift. Equality in justice and hearts is the most important factor. And this will happen only when there is a complete change of guard. I see that already in my kids and their friends and friends of friends. That is what gives me hope. Meanwhile we can keep having all these conversations.
OK lets assume your are right and race relations will never get better, The obvious solution is to segregate, which would end the "institutional racism" overnight. There are many countries where blacks are the majority and would face no racism. It would surely be a better life than living among racist whites, right?
"reparations will not be paid."
as soon as the phrase was uttered by author, Blow any further discussion is useless. welfare, free education, racial quotas favoring blacks, government jobs where are blacks are over represented and the cost to society of curbing black criminality are reparations which never seem to end.
r
as soon as the phrase was uttered by author, Blow any further discussion is useless. welfare, free education, racial quotas favoring blacks, government jobs where are blacks are over represented and the cost to society of curbing black criminality are reparations which never seem to end.
r
15
A "conversation" on race does not mean that one side talks and the other listens. Mr. Blow disagrees with any of Mr. Comey's statements that the black underclass may have some responsibility for its problems, and that is his right. But he cannot ignore those arguments.
The fact that blacks are responsible for about half of all murders in this country is not because of racial profiling by the police.
The fact that blacks are responsible for about half of all murders in this country is not because of racial profiling by the police.
11
Is it possible that African Americans really do commit more crime, and that it is not due to white racism? That should at least be given some consideration as a possibility.
12
Not a single Wall Street bankster who led the fraud epidemics has been prosecuted or had their fraud proceeds “clawed back.”
Not a single Wall Street bankster who led the fraud epidemics is treated as a pariah by his peers .
This class-based rush to shield elite white-collar criminals from even the mildest forms of administrative accountability (the SEC uses “broken windows” as a PR slogan, not a reality) while simultaneously adopting an ultra-aggressive policy of arresting mostly poorer Blacks and Latinos for the most minor of offenses (e.g., selling small numbers of cigarettes from broken packs). Yes, lets have the conversation.
Not a single Wall Street bankster who led the fraud epidemics is treated as a pariah by his peers .
This class-based rush to shield elite white-collar criminals from even the mildest forms of administrative accountability (the SEC uses “broken windows” as a PR slogan, not a reality) while simultaneously adopting an ultra-aggressive policy of arresting mostly poorer Blacks and Latinos for the most minor of offenses (e.g., selling small numbers of cigarettes from broken packs). Yes, lets have the conversation.
BMEL, invite Obama and Holder so they can tell us why they didn't go after the "banksters". Invite DeBlasio to tell us why he wants to bust cigarette sellers. Invite Karl Marx so we can have a rigorously class-based discussion.
Mr. Blow says: "What too few people mention when discussing crime is the degree to which concentrated poverty, hopelessness and despair are the chambermaids of violence and incivility. These factors are developed and maintained through a complicated interplay of structural biases — historical and current — interpersonal biases, environmental reinforcements and personal choices."
I think that this happens because to really admit that the factors mentioned are a LARGE portion of the cause's of crime and racism would force people to, effectively look in the mirror, and see that the enemy is US!
I think that this happens because to really admit that the factors mentioned are a LARGE portion of the cause's of crime and racism would force people to, effectively look in the mirror, and see that the enemy is US!
2
If anything shocks our collective conscience about the plight of blacks in the past and how black slaves were treated by one of our founding fathers, it is the linked piece in the Times today. As for now, the blacks have the same social status and opportunities as I or anybody else does in this country. Those who avail of opportunities to advance their positions and lives do well here. Others are consigned to looking for scapegoats for their problems. You fall in the category of aider and abettor of those scapegoat-hunters.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/16/opinion/george-washington-slave-catche...®ion=c-column-top-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-top-span-region
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/16/opinion/george-washington-slave-catche...®ion=c-column-top-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-top-span-region
6
The link information did not come out well in my original post. Here is a better one that is a MUST READ for all those shopping for mattresses on this President's day:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/16/opinion/george-washington-slave-catche...
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/16/opinion/george-washington-slave-catche...
You are delusional if you think that African Americans (and other minorities) have the same social status and opportunities that a white person does in this country. I would say for some, that is true. But studies have shown that they are more like to experience discrimination in hiring, education access, access to housing and mortgages, to name a few. It's so much easier for you to blame African Americans for their plight rather than to address the racism that continues to reside in many Americans.
3
I thought it peculiar that somebody who insisted on putting the past aside would insist on an article about Washington's slavery written for Black History Month, and then I recalled the recent "discussions," of the reality of the evil that comes from Christianity that boil down to, "Sure, but the Crusades were a long time ago, and nobody's like that now."
Mr. Comey mentioned “environments lacking role models, adequate education, and decent employment.” Mr. Blow says that here, Mr. Comey "moves perilously close to a racial pathology argument, as if there were something inherent in blackness and black culture that predisposes one to criminality."
You could define what you mean by 'black culture.' If you mean the culture in the hardest-hit neighborhoods, which was the focus of Comey's comments, then it is absolutely true that there is something about it that predispose one to criminality.
People born in these areas are born to a culture where crime is a way of life, gang affiliation offers a sense of identity and fraternity, education is catastrophic, fathers are often missing, role models are the well-to-do criminals, and drug use, drug dealing, illiteracy, and extreme poverty are commonplace.
How could these things not predispose someone to crime?
You could define what you mean by 'black culture.' If you mean the culture in the hardest-hit neighborhoods, which was the focus of Comey's comments, then it is absolutely true that there is something about it that predispose one to criminality.
People born in these areas are born to a culture where crime is a way of life, gang affiliation offers a sense of identity and fraternity, education is catastrophic, fathers are often missing, role models are the well-to-do criminals, and drug use, drug dealing, illiteracy, and extreme poverty are commonplace.
How could these things not predispose someone to crime?
12
The cops in Brown/Garner have been widely accused of racism. Racism covers a big spectrum -- from hate crimes, to advocates of racial separation, to blanket prejudice, to dislike, to being oblivious. At the extreme end it's intentional and acted upon. At the other end, it is unconscious though also acted upon. Comey is saying the police are oblivious. The protesters were saying they're prejudiced. If there's going to be a constructive dialogue, I suggest it start there.
14
There will be no great atoning. Reparations will not be paid. There will no sprawling absolution.
------------------------------
The descendants of black slaves have no standing to claim reparation. And, according to black professor Gates of Harvard University, the slave traders in Africa are as much culpable, if not more than, as those landed gentry that imported them. Professor Gates would also argue that the current generation of those slaves have opportunities that their forefathers were not afforded. So, if anything, the problem among some blacks is not so much that they are denied opportunities as that they do not avail of them.
So, quit harping on the reparations nonsense. That is not a powerball lottery to make the blacks in this country rich.
------------------------------
The descendants of black slaves have no standing to claim reparation. And, according to black professor Gates of Harvard University, the slave traders in Africa are as much culpable, if not more than, as those landed gentry that imported them. Professor Gates would also argue that the current generation of those slaves have opportunities that their forefathers were not afforded. So, if anything, the problem among some blacks is not so much that they are denied opportunities as that they do not avail of them.
So, quit harping on the reparations nonsense. That is not a powerball lottery to make the blacks in this country rich.
46
You just quoted Charles Blow's statement that there will be no reparations, said something completely crazy about Gates' endorsing the proposition that white folks had no serious responsibility for slavery (news to Jefferson Davis, I bet), and then went on to repeat the typical "so just get OVER it," attempt to gloss over the real problems that the FBI director--the FBI director!--identified.
One wonders when white folks will get over the Civil War, when white Bill O'Reilley will stop wailing about the asault on Christmas, and when white Rush will stop feeling all hurt by the Crusades. Taking down the Stars and Bars might be a step past 1866, too.
And if the "white," this and the "white," that offends, perhaps you might stop alternately struggling to enlist the "black," professor on your side and to describe everybody "black," as having the same lives and views.
One wonders when white folks will get over the Civil War, when white Bill O'Reilley will stop wailing about the asault on Christmas, and when white Rush will stop feeling all hurt by the Crusades. Taking down the Stars and Bars might be a step past 1866, too.
And if the "white," this and the "white," that offends, perhaps you might stop alternately struggling to enlist the "black," professor on your side and to describe everybody "black," as having the same lives and views.
2
And yet, the property that was accumulated by slave owners is still held by those who later acquired it. In other words, the winners get to reap the rewards of history, while the losers must "forget the past".
3
As a big fan of Gates, I'm sure you know he was the professor who ended up at the White House drinking beer with the cop who, he said, wrongfully arrested him. I'm sure you side with Gates on that matter, too. Your fair-mindedness is admirable.
1
Talk, talk, talk, you worry me to death...it seems to me that until make a major investment (read dollars) to correct the sins of our past (and I exclude prison investment, which is cruel and usual), it's all just talk.
When the best teachers are given the task of teaching in our failing schools, then we'll start to make meaningful progress. When quality pre-school is available to our most disadvantaged, then our progress will begin. When we release all the "drug" related prisoners from our jails and prisons and expunge their sentences from their record non-violent crimes that hurt no one, then perhaps, meaningful progress can be made. Give hose incarcerated a free education to help lift and their families out of poverty. Then we can announce that progress is being made.
Until then, it is all just talk, talk, talk.
When the best teachers are given the task of teaching in our failing schools, then we'll start to make meaningful progress. When quality pre-school is available to our most disadvantaged, then our progress will begin. When we release all the "drug" related prisoners from our jails and prisons and expunge their sentences from their record non-violent crimes that hurt no one, then perhaps, meaningful progress can be made. Give hose incarcerated a free education to help lift and their families out of poverty. Then we can announce that progress is being made.
Until then, it is all just talk, talk, talk.
42
While I sympathize, one of thebad things about the crackpot Right is that they make any conversation about the realities of crime and families, as well as the way that simply pouring benefits around doesn't work, more than a bit difficult.
talk, talk, talk - ? You believe that good teachers will make a difference in failing schools. Hmm, well bad teachers don't help anyone. And they exist in ALL schools because of the public service union. But great teachers go to the inner cities to teach, I know 2 myself personally. They didn't last too long though - it seems that it is the 'culture' of the students that forbid the success of their classmates. It's not cool to do well and it's certainly not cool to like or to listen to your teacher. The biggest problem they faced was a total lack of respect. Without that, we will never fix failing schools. And sadly, the majority of students which do want to learn and get ahead have no voice over those who seek to disrupt. Remove the disrupters and see what happens. Or don't and just continue to blame it on 'talk, talk, talk.'
1
So bythesea, when the disadvantaged are given the best teachers, free preschool, expunged records & free education, then & only then we'll see progress. Is that what you're saying?
If so, attitudes like yours make my heart hurt for, in this case, African-Americans. You mean well but condescendingly infer that, without the benefit of large-scale handouts, African-Americans as a group cannot progress. Demeaning even if not intended to be so.
I may be a hard-hearted (in my case barely leaning) Conservative, but I see African-Americans as every bit as smart & capable as anyone else. Do they face systemic barriers that require assistance in various forms to overcome? Of course. Do they require wholesale handouts on the scale you propose? If you think they do then I'd say you're selling them rather short.
If so, attitudes like yours make my heart hurt for, in this case, African-Americans. You mean well but condescendingly infer that, without the benefit of large-scale handouts, African-Americans as a group cannot progress. Demeaning even if not intended to be so.
I may be a hard-hearted (in my case barely leaning) Conservative, but I see African-Americans as every bit as smart & capable as anyone else. Do they face systemic barriers that require assistance in various forms to overcome? Of course. Do they require wholesale handouts on the scale you propose? If you think they do then I'd say you're selling them rather short.
1
If our troubled racial history (starting with slavery) is the root cause of the disastrous state of affairs in many black neighborhoods, how are we to explain that a similar state of affairs exists in countries with no slavery in their history? How are we to explain that young black males are over-represented in crime in Canada and in every single country in Europe?
And why is virtually all of sub-Saharan Africa in a state of perpetual crisis, comprised of 'failed states', often with astonishing rates of violent crime including domestic violence, a pattern of absentee fathers, bad or non-existent education, rampant destitution, utter backwardness in matters to do with medicine, science, and technology....? Some of these countries were colonized and others not. It simply can't be that white racism is behind the problem everywhere, all the time.
I say this with genuine perplexity, and sadness. I am not hopeful.
And why is virtually all of sub-Saharan Africa in a state of perpetual crisis, comprised of 'failed states', often with astonishing rates of violent crime including domestic violence, a pattern of absentee fathers, bad or non-existent education, rampant destitution, utter backwardness in matters to do with medicine, science, and technology....? Some of these countries were colonized and others not. It simply can't be that white racism is behind the problem everywhere, all the time.
I say this with genuine perplexity, and sadness. I am not hopeful.
4
1. There ARE no countries with no history of slavery.
2. Which countries in Africa weren't colonized and used, please?
2. Which countries in Africa weren't colonized and used, please?
3
Liberia was never colonized. Italy's endeavor in Ethiopia is generally not viewed by historians as a colonization, and it was also a very brief story, not enough to thoroughly change the culture and historical direction of the country. In any case, what is your argument? That the disastrous state of affairs throughout sub-Saharan Africa and the problems facing back communities throughout the West must exclusively be the result of racism and white activity? You did not directly say so, so maybe that is not what you meant. But it seems implied.
It does not make sense. When the sub-Saharan nations were 'discovered' and colonized — in ways that were definitely brutal and appalling — those countries were already in a state of stagnation and had been for centuries. It is just too convenient to lay the subsequent stagnation and problems entirely on the colonizers. I am not defending colonialism — far from it — but it can't be the only or even the main reason for the historical trajectory of this region and the communities that have come out of it.
It does not make sense. When the sub-Saharan nations were 'discovered' and colonized — in ways that were definitely brutal and appalling — those countries were already in a state of stagnation and had been for centuries. It is just too convenient to lay the subsequent stagnation and problems entirely on the colonizers. I am not defending colonialism — far from it — but it can't be the only or even the main reason for the historical trajectory of this region and the communities that have come out of it.
I live in Oakland. Once, three cops stormed into my house to search it. When i asked to see the warrant, they put handcuffs on me and pushed me down on the couch while they went through the house. Then they left. I think they were arresting the kid who lived downstairs, but that was close enough for cops.
Another time, I was arrested on the street and taken to jail. My dog, too. The cops broke in the front door of the house and tore it up. The case was dismissed at 9 am but the cops never quite got around to releasing me until well after midnight way out at the county jail, long after public transit stopped running. The pound wanted $90 for my dog and I got evicted. I don't pretend if i were black, I'd have been treated so... well.
When police stop acting like an alien occupational force and start to abide by the constitution and laws, then, perhaps, the public will show greater respect and cooperation. And when average working people can actually afford to hire a lawyer to charge the police with crimes, then our justice system will come down to earth where the rest of us live.
Another time, I was arrested on the street and taken to jail. My dog, too. The cops broke in the front door of the house and tore it up. The case was dismissed at 9 am but the cops never quite got around to releasing me until well after midnight way out at the county jail, long after public transit stopped running. The pound wanted $90 for my dog and I got evicted. I don't pretend if i were black, I'd have been treated so... well.
When police stop acting like an alien occupational force and start to abide by the constitution and laws, then, perhaps, the public will show greater respect and cooperation. And when average working people can actually afford to hire a lawyer to charge the police with crimes, then our justice system will come down to earth where the rest of us live.
4
I hope this "conversation on race" becomes a conversation about racial justice reform. Changing how people think or feel is a long term project, but changing policies and laws that amplify racial injustice should not be.
Let's start with reform of our drug laws. This is one area of where disproportionate enforcement by race is most profound. It's also an area where both liberal and conservative law makers are at least looking for change, albeit for different reasons.
So let's see laws that decriminalize us possession so that police resources can focus on more serious issues. Let's see sentence reform so that thee is a real distinction between drug use and drug sales. Let's see more treatment programs where successful completion would remove the criminal record similar to the "adjournment in contemplation of dismissal" that judges currently use.
Over half of our enormous prison system is a result of drug related crimes. A disproportionate number of those inmates are young Black men who will be unable to get a job, unable to return to public housing even if their family welcomes their return, unable in many states to vote and unable in most to even get a barbers license. Much of this can change if this conversation about race finally gets serious.
And let's not forget, just as with our civil rights laws reforms for racial justice creates more justice for all.
Let's start with reform of our drug laws. This is one area of where disproportionate enforcement by race is most profound. It's also an area where both liberal and conservative law makers are at least looking for change, albeit for different reasons.
So let's see laws that decriminalize us possession so that police resources can focus on more serious issues. Let's see sentence reform so that thee is a real distinction between drug use and drug sales. Let's see more treatment programs where successful completion would remove the criminal record similar to the "adjournment in contemplation of dismissal" that judges currently use.
Over half of our enormous prison system is a result of drug related crimes. A disproportionate number of those inmates are young Black men who will be unable to get a job, unable to return to public housing even if their family welcomes their return, unable in many states to vote and unable in most to even get a barbers license. Much of this can change if this conversation about race finally gets serious.
And let's not forget, just as with our civil rights laws reforms for racial justice creates more justice for all.
1
I think we are so over complicating this issue. The black community will never progress until they learn that parenting comes with responsibility to society. Stop having babies out of wedlock, start valuing education, and know where your kids are and what they're doing.
12
Single parenthood is a trend among ALL Americans regardless of the amount of melanin they have or not have in their skin.
What country do you live in?
What country do you live in?
The one where out of wedlock births are: non-Hispanic blacks 72.2 percent; for American Indians/Alaska Natives, it’s 66.9 percent; 53.5 percent for Hispanics; 29.4 percent for non-Hispanic whites; and a mere 17.1 percent for Asians/Pacific Islanders.
Charles - I agree that there are lingering race problems in the US but I think you choose to ignore some facts that may be behind it. The black on black crime rate is very high. A 15-35 year old black man is 10 times more likely to be murdered that a white person. These people aren't being murdered by the police but other black males. The percentage of unmarried black women raising children is far higher that for whites (although that is also high). What explains this? I think there are issues in the black community that need to be addressed while we have our conversations about race.
10
Bill, I suspect your comment will be received by many with rolled eyes & assumptions as to how you view or perceive African-Americans. Sad, but true.
If we travel to rural middle America, the towns where mines and plants have long been shut down, we find meth labs, thievery, assaults, murders. More or less all white perpetrators and victims. These locales are not densely populated and are often not really 'neighborhoods' in the urban sense. But where there are poverty,hopelessness and despair, there are crime, teen pregnancy, families abandoned by men. This not to deny anything Mr Blow raises, and particularly not the empirically based beliefs of people of color. But a nation that turns its back on the poor, that preposterously blames them and scapegoats them, has to be addressed as a core issue. This is late capitalism in action.
20
" This is late capitalism in action."
not quite. your scenario is socialism in action where business is excessively regulated and the general populace is paid to be idle through excessively generous welfare and unemployment benefits.
not quite. your scenario is socialism in action where business is excessively regulated and the general populace is paid to be idle through excessively generous welfare and unemployment benefits.
5
Exactly, Dagwood, that is why Professor Kenneth Prewitt, Professor Dorothy Roberts, and I want America to focus on all the things you name by using the real data, SES data (Prewitt refers to American Community Survey data) instead of seeing America in terms of two "races" one "black", one "white".
I am trying to get Charles Blow to read Prewitt and Roberts and then write a column in which he considers what happens if we think in terms of SES and the US Census has no "race/ethnicity" in 2020 (Read Prewitt).
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
I am trying to get Charles Blow to read Prewitt and Roberts and then write a column in which he considers what happens if we think in terms of SES and the US Census has no "race/ethnicity" in 2020 (Read Prewitt).
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Larry, we don't agree on much, but on this we do. It is so obvious that racism is perpetuated by those who continue to focus on it - mainly the race baiters, media, and federal government.
It's interesting that Charles wants to have a discussion, or engage in the discussion we're having, as long as said conversation focuses on the shortcomings of whites and police. but if someone like Comey mentions the crimes among people of color, that's dangerously close to the black pathology argument...can't have that, can we?
As usual, Charles only wants to focus on bad white people in his ideal discussion. But to deny that thee are issues on both side of the racial divide is to almost certainly ensure that problems will go unsolved. Charles might have a better time obtaining his desired objective of equality if he would devote equal energy to addressing both sides of the equation.
But here's another hard truth. None of the whites in this world have owned slaves. They have not lynched anyone. Few have enforced Jim Crow laws. Most have marched toward the same goal of equality that Charles so famously denies we have achieved or can ever achieve without some confession of historical crimes. To that, I say bunk. We are where we are and we continue to make progress. Delving into the long ago past solves nothing. Attributing ever act to racism solves nothing. If Charles wants his conversation he can't set the rules. If he wants people coming to the table he has to be willing to look at things objectively, with an open heart and mind.
As usual, Charles only wants to focus on bad white people in his ideal discussion. But to deny that thee are issues on both side of the racial divide is to almost certainly ensure that problems will go unsolved. Charles might have a better time obtaining his desired objective of equality if he would devote equal energy to addressing both sides of the equation.
But here's another hard truth. None of the whites in this world have owned slaves. They have not lynched anyone. Few have enforced Jim Crow laws. Most have marched toward the same goal of equality that Charles so famously denies we have achieved or can ever achieve without some confession of historical crimes. To that, I say bunk. We are where we are and we continue to make progress. Delving into the long ago past solves nothing. Attributing ever act to racism solves nothing. If Charles wants his conversation he can't set the rules. If he wants people coming to the table he has to be willing to look at things objectively, with an open heart and mind.
29
If looking at the past helps nothing, perhaps you guys should give up on the whole rewriting the Civil War thing.
Then, you could spend some time reading the actual article, which is anything bit an attack on Comey.
Then, you could spend some time reading the actual article, which is anything bit an attack on Comey.
1
The new racism, like God, works in mysterious ways and is quite effective in maintaining white privilege. For example, instead of saying as they used to say during the Jim Crow era that they do not want Blacks as neighbors,
they say things nowadays such as "I am concerned about crime, property values and schools." Have a chit-chat with your neighbors and let it all hang out.
they say things nowadays such as "I am concerned about crime, property values and schools." Have a chit-chat with your neighbors and let it all hang out.
Robert -- who are the guys who are rewriting the civil war? And I didn't say Charles' article was an attack on Comey. What I did say was that Charles appears to reject any invitation to discuss the crime situation in black neighborhoods.
BMEL47 --- maybe that's how it's done in Dusseldorf, but I see blacks living in what had been all white neighborhoods everywhere I go. Sure, the property values ruse has been used in the past -- my father in law even had a group of white neighbors threaten him if he sold to a black family. That was, however, 55 years ago.
All you guys need to quit dwelling in the past and looking for every shred of evidence of white evil and instead, let's figure out how to move forward.
BMEL47 --- maybe that's how it's done in Dusseldorf, but I see blacks living in what had been all white neighborhoods everywhere I go. Sure, the property values ruse has been used in the past -- my father in law even had a group of white neighbors threaten him if he sold to a black family. That was, however, 55 years ago.
All you guys need to quit dwelling in the past and looking for every shred of evidence of white evil and instead, let's figure out how to move forward.
Ah, the replies, showing the lovely usage of anecdote to make a larger point. Yet again.
Thanks, Charles, for another sensible essay from a most sensible and intelligent man.
Thanks, Charles, for another sensible essay from a most sensible and intelligent man.
8
Enough anecdotes and eventually you have a pattern.
5
Anecdotes can be useful. But when they are used to manipulate they are worse than flat out lies, because they have an element of truth, For example, if I am black and stopped by police and claim racism and leave out the fact the cop was black, I have just manipulated the truth in a way that completely changes the perceptions.
I am glad the FBI director made a statement, which Mr. Blow calls 'particularly potent'. Conversations about race abound in America, mostly in a Us versus Them tone. This is not wisdom.
Each side asks questions to the other based more on prejudices rather than to learn the difficulties that the other side has about a certain issue and in this case crime.
After all in a court of law, statistics in not used to decide a case, but rather (hopefully) actual evidence permitted under the law.
Each side asks questions to the other based more on prejudices rather than to learn the difficulties that the other side has about a certain issue and in this case crime.
After all in a court of law, statistics in not used to decide a case, but rather (hopefully) actual evidence permitted under the law.
Statistics help us understand trends in large groups. They can never be used to indict an individual. However, individual behavior adds up to statistics, and just because some people do not like what the numbers say does not mean they have no relevance in this debate.
1
Living in New York Comey is closer to right that there are no attacks on "poor policing" but all police. as an analogy the Daily Show recent discussion about the Middle East America should get out of the region because it caused all the problems but not so fast. When did not police take on the community's attitudes that include the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 busing and affirmative action?
As best I can tell the "conversation on race" only existing if it is about Whites who were never slaveholders, never proponents of Jim Crow not only apologize for such pasts but somehow allow for affirmative action for criminals and make other steps for Blacks.
As best I can tell the "conversation on race" only existing if it is about Whites who were never slaveholders, never proponents of Jim Crow not only apologize for such pasts but somehow allow for affirmative action for criminals and make other steps for Blacks.
4
Mr. Blow latches on to the "hard truths" that put the police and our American culture in a bad light. He refuses to acknowledge, however, the "hard truths" that put the African American culture in a bad light. Acceptance of all these hard truths is a precondition to fixing our race problem.
42
Too much of the dialogue relates to "racism", which emphasizes skin color. Plenty of blacks have white dogs and vice versa. This isn't much about color. It's almost all about behavior and language and clothes and such. A black teen can say something neutral to a white cop in his vernacular that the cop thinks is disrespectful or threatening. If every cop had to do something like refereeing pick-up basketball in the hood for a week, they'd make some good calls and bad calls and learn the difference between respect and disrespect. A basketball court is a lot safer place to learn the rules than is patrolling the streets.
3
What exactly is "his vernacular"? Something other than English? Is it that hard for parents to teach these youths to say "yes officer" and "no officer"? I'm white and was taught to only answer in those terms to police.
Evolution and adaptation in a northern environment gave us the Whites of the modern world. Of whatever origins, their expansionist policies, colonizations, massacres, and appropriations of land and resources of others gave the world its racist regimes--Brits, French, Belgians, and Spanish among the worst in the West. Their depredations were not confined to off-shore ventures. The peasants of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales got a taste of it.
Why are we still arguing about the persistence of these crimes against humanity? The results are glaringly obvious in central Africa. In the Maghreb, too. Haiti is a running sore because of its French history. American slaves may have had a relatively better history than French or Spanish slaves, but they were still slaves, and they are still subjected, to a degree, to the dehumanizing theology and philosophy of medieval Europe. Apologists for this past can only go so far with the argument that it’s a matter of personal responsibility when tens of millions are terminally handicapped by poverty and status.
Why are we still arguing about the persistence of these crimes against humanity? The results are glaringly obvious in central Africa. In the Maghreb, too. Haiti is a running sore because of its French history. American slaves may have had a relatively better history than French or Spanish slaves, but they were still slaves, and they are still subjected, to a degree, to the dehumanizing theology and philosophy of medieval Europe. Apologists for this past can only go so far with the argument that it’s a matter of personal responsibility when tens of millions are terminally handicapped by poverty and status.
10
Because white people weren't the only ones who committted these crimes--look at any other society and you will find that they opressed whoever they could, whether internal or external. Whites just happened to be better at it. They didn't colonize societies where freedom, justice and equality before the law were the rule--they invented it in their own societies.
8
Yeah, this is the old "sun people," vs. "Ice people," argument. Congrats on reproducing the same old crackpot theories of race and environment that the Klan uses.
2
You are ignoring the fact that slavery was not limited to the West. In fact, western slave traders did not capture Africans, but instead purchased the slaves from other Africans.
As for Africa today, I think you would have a hard argument blaming the current corrupt kleptocracies of Africa on a history of colonialism.
As for Africa today, I think you would have a hard argument blaming the current corrupt kleptocracies of Africa on a history of colonialism.
3
Mr. Blow says that black communities want policing like any other, but just want it fair and proportionate. I fear that is not what I hear from family members in law enforcement. It may be true of some, especially older women in black neighborhoods, but young black males definitely do not behave as if they want police around at all.
According to my LAPD cousin and my Sheriff Department uncle, police are met with extremely anti-social and aggressive behavior the moment they approach young black men for any reason, and they approach everyone respectfully and calmly. They tell me this problem is rampant and that many cops enter the force without racism and emerge prejudiced because of this experience.
When the FBI director said that law enforcement isn't the root problem in our hardest-hit neighborhood, he was not making a strawman argument, as Mr. Blow says. He is responding to a commonly heard cry: that racism from institutions in authority, such as police, is the reason why these neighborhoods are in the dreadful shape they are in. It isn't. Mr. Comey is right.
According to my LAPD cousin and my Sheriff Department uncle, police are met with extremely anti-social and aggressive behavior the moment they approach young black men for any reason, and they approach everyone respectfully and calmly. They tell me this problem is rampant and that many cops enter the force without racism and emerge prejudiced because of this experience.
When the FBI director said that law enforcement isn't the root problem in our hardest-hit neighborhood, he was not making a strawman argument, as Mr. Blow says. He is responding to a commonly heard cry: that racism from institutions in authority, such as police, is the reason why these neighborhoods are in the dreadful shape they are in. It isn't. Mr. Comey is right.
56
Your last statement is right on. But it doesn't naturally connect to your first point about young black men not wanting the cops around.
without any assumptions of how we got to the place we are in, with the current state of racial interactions between black communities and the cops that serve them, can you blame them for preferring to having the police in absentia?
Before acceptance must come change.
without any assumptions of how we got to the place we are in, with the current state of racial interactions between black communities and the cops that serve them, can you blame them for preferring to having the police in absentia?
Before acceptance must come change.
1
Your family in the LAPD and Sheriff's Department told you that the LAPD and the Sheriff's Department approaches everyone "respectfully and calmly," and that's all there is to it.
I certainly hold no brief for criminals, but you have GOT to be kidding.
I certainly hold no brief for criminals, but you have GOT to be kidding.
1
Police make most arrests while responding to emergency dispatch calls. Victims call 9-11 or the police hot line and the police dispatcher sends a patrol car to the crime scene. The calls for help come disproportionately from minority neighborhoods.
2
As I get older, I learn about certain words or phrases, or ideas, that mean something particular to other groups of people but which don't have that meaning for me, a WASP woman. When Sarah Palin used the term "blood libel," I had to look it up to learn of its supercharged meaning to Jews. I know there are terms that have similar ugly historical meanings for many black people.
I say this not to imply that WASPs have a history of being repressed or mistreated in America, because they don't. However, that doesn't mean many white people haven't built up sensitivities which Mr. Comey may have been trying to get out of they way in order to effectively deliver his core message. For example, one of these sensitivities is that many white people, particularly those who may be near the bottom of the economic ladder themselves, sometimes feel they are continually being "blamed" for acts of injustice they have had no part of.
So, Mr. Blow, I think those parts of Mr. Comey's language that you quibble with were designed to defuse white resentment that you may not even be aware is present. By acknowledging that no, white people aren't evil incarnate as a group, and yes, we know black men sometimes do in fact commit crimes, he can make it easier for white people to get past their resentments and listen to him say some brutal truths about injustice to black people in America today. I think America is finally ready to listen.
I say this not to imply that WASPs have a history of being repressed or mistreated in America, because they don't. However, that doesn't mean many white people haven't built up sensitivities which Mr. Comey may have been trying to get out of they way in order to effectively deliver his core message. For example, one of these sensitivities is that many white people, particularly those who may be near the bottom of the economic ladder themselves, sometimes feel they are continually being "blamed" for acts of injustice they have had no part of.
So, Mr. Blow, I think those parts of Mr. Comey's language that you quibble with were designed to defuse white resentment that you may not even be aware is present. By acknowledging that no, white people aren't evil incarnate as a group, and yes, we know black men sometimes do in fact commit crimes, he can make it easier for white people to get past their resentments and listen to him say some brutal truths about injustice to black people in America today. I think America is finally ready to listen.
98
"white resentment that you may not even be aware is present."
How could any black American *not* be aware that white racism - uh, "resentment" - is present, Ms. Conant? All that a black American has to do to see that is to read your comment and others less "pleasant," rushing to the defense of white racism, to realize the absolutely stunning depth of endemic white racism in the United States. There are comments ranging from the ridiculously-absurd claim that there is no such phenomenon as white racism to the equally-nonsensical claim that yes, there is white racism, but only because the colored have brought it upon themselves by not having the IQ to have been born, if not white, at least rich.
"[M]any white people .. sometimes feel they are continually being 'blamed' for acts of injustice they have had no part of."
They are? "Continually being 'blamed' by whom? Why, by other white people, of course, just as Northern white people pretend that racism exists only among Southern white people.
Given that racism is as universally stereotypical a feature of America as sun-tan lotion and tanning booths, black people have no reason to pick on some random subset of white people to "blame" for an attitude typical of all white people.
To see support for this claim, look at the number of letters taking Mr. Blow to task for *his* display of *racism" and observe the number of "Recommendeds" received by those letters.
'
' in order to realize that.
How could any black American *not* be aware that white racism - uh, "resentment" - is present, Ms. Conant? All that a black American has to do to see that is to read your comment and others less "pleasant," rushing to the defense of white racism, to realize the absolutely stunning depth of endemic white racism in the United States. There are comments ranging from the ridiculously-absurd claim that there is no such phenomenon as white racism to the equally-nonsensical claim that yes, there is white racism, but only because the colored have brought it upon themselves by not having the IQ to have been born, if not white, at least rich.
"[M]any white people .. sometimes feel they are continually being 'blamed' for acts of injustice they have had no part of."
They are? "Continually being 'blamed' by whom? Why, by other white people, of course, just as Northern white people pretend that racism exists only among Southern white people.
Given that racism is as universally stereotypical a feature of America as sun-tan lotion and tanning booths, black people have no reason to pick on some random subset of white people to "blame" for an attitude typical of all white people.
To see support for this claim, look at the number of letters taking Mr. Blow to task for *his* display of *racism" and observe the number of "Recommendeds" received by those letters.
'
' in order to realize that.
By stating the economic factors contributing to crime Comey in no way makes a racial argument for crime. The mental shortcut here is, criticism equals racism.
69
Orka, you are right. Any criticism of the black community is immediately called racism. This is political correctness hampering an honest and much-needed discussion.
3
Generalizing about any group puts you on a slippery slope.No group is more apt to commit more crime than the other, or are less intelligent or more intelligent than another.You can't even generalize that poverty is the cause of crime & social problems.The only thing you can generalize about is that all human beings are not perfect, & it is societies responsibility to be our brothers keeper & not let those of us that find it difficult to cope fall through the cracks.Welfare has failed as statistics have shown. Throwing good money after bad money just depletes our coffers.We have to let those that feel disenfranchised that society cares about them, not just in words but in loving caring feeling & touching.We must recruit an army of professional Social Workers that are prepared to give personal attention that those of us that are desperate for help, with the clout to make changes where changes are necessary.You might ask doesn't religion do that, it should and it does to some extent, but how about those that are not religiously affiliated, & have lost their faith, these are the people that we must reach out to & help them anyway we can.If we can make a difference with those that feel helpless & hopeless, everything will fall into place.There would not be any stereotyping of groups.Police would stop feeling fear in certain neighborhoods, & not over react, & crime, envy & hatred would decline.It may not be a perfect answer, but it's a start.
So the statistics that show that Furgeson, MO has more crime than, say, Creve Couer, MO is irrelevant?
Please. That is no way to start off a "conversation" about race.
Please. That is no way to start off a "conversation" about race.
2
The grand jury's decision not to act in the Michael Brown case included acceptance of the argument that if police officers fear for their lives they may (must?) kill. Presumably many officers fear black men more than other civilians.
The argument should have been rejected. A police officer's number one mission should be to protect civilian lives -- not his or her own. Just as in warfare, civilian lives matter and officers should be prepared to risk their own lives before taking civilian lives. Read the Army and Marine Counterinsurgency Manual. Lose the hearts and minds and you've lost the war.
Can we expect police to accept a higher level of risk to their lives than today? It does not seen unreasonable, considering that firefighters do so already.
The argument should have been rejected. A police officer's number one mission should be to protect civilian lives -- not his or her own. Just as in warfare, civilian lives matter and officers should be prepared to risk their own lives before taking civilian lives. Read the Army and Marine Counterinsurgency Manual. Lose the hearts and minds and you've lost the war.
Can we expect police to accept a higher level of risk to their lives than today? It does not seen unreasonable, considering that firefighters do so already.
6
I've hesitated to bring this up several times in the past but I agree. Some years ago, while writing about my experiences as an infantryman in Vietnam I wrote about the changes I went through and said something like this: "One change of which I was not aware at the time, but which I see clearly in retrospect, is that I came to identify myself as a combatant. Specifically that I understood that it was in some way ok for people to be trying to kill me, when it was not ok for other people." I went on to add that upon my return I extended that thought process to what I called 'the guys with the guns.' i.e. people who are armed by our government as part of their jobs - the police and others. And lastly I mentioned how outraged I was in certain well-publicized incidents (think school shootings) in which the police seemed to put their own safety above that of the populace they were supposed to protect. You're the guys with the guns, I would say to myself - you're supposed to risk your life.
I think there are many, many brave policemen and I don't want to make a blanket judgment, but one of the things that has come out of the recent incidents is that it sounds like many police departments are training their officers to protect their own lives above all others, and suggesting to them that they have the right to shoot if they have the slightest suspicion that someone, for example, might just possibly have a gun in the car someplace. I can't understand the justification for that.
I think there are many, many brave policemen and I don't want to make a blanket judgment, but one of the things that has come out of the recent incidents is that it sounds like many police departments are training their officers to protect their own lives above all others, and suggesting to them that they have the right to shoot if they have the slightest suspicion that someone, for example, might just possibly have a gun in the car someplace. I can't understand the justification for that.
17
The law does not work that way.
Your problem is in how the law is written. And for that you need to speak with the legislators in your home state.
Note that, while you are free to speak to any legislator in any state, it is doubtful that you will get more than the civil-service shrug from anyone who does not directly represent you.
Your problem is in how the law is written. And for that you need to speak with the legislators in your home state.
Note that, while you are free to speak to any legislator in any state, it is doubtful that you will get more than the civil-service shrug from anyone who does not directly represent you.
2
If someone tries to get a cop's gun, all bets are off. White, black, brown, yellow, or green.
5
Comey mentioned “environments lacking role models, adequate education, and decent employment.” Here he moves perilously close to a racial pathology argument, as if there were something inherent in blackness and black culture that predisposes one to criminality.
-------------------------------------------
I did not see that Comey suggested - even remotely -- that being black is tantamount to being a criminal. It was simply that in community policing, if the officers had to arrest and successfully get conviction on a significant proportion of black offenders, then that information sitting at the back of your mind informs your actions and assumptions.
In fact, Comey suggested that issues of lack of role model, lack of education and, so, of employment opportunities combine to produce the social phenomena we observe among several blacks.
You will do well to tell us how and why those issues of lack of role models in black lives, accepted drug use and abuse, lack of education and of employment do not contribute to criminal tendencies among the black youth.
Your reaction to Comey's remarks is visceral, not cerebral. Secondly, Comey did not start a national discussion about race in this country. Obama did before he became the president and quickly forgot about it.
-------------------------------------------
I did not see that Comey suggested - even remotely -- that being black is tantamount to being a criminal. It was simply that in community policing, if the officers had to arrest and successfully get conviction on a significant proportion of black offenders, then that information sitting at the back of your mind informs your actions and assumptions.
In fact, Comey suggested that issues of lack of role model, lack of education and, so, of employment opportunities combine to produce the social phenomena we observe among several blacks.
You will do well to tell us how and why those issues of lack of role models in black lives, accepted drug use and abuse, lack of education and of employment do not contribute to criminal tendencies among the black youth.
Your reaction to Comey's remarks is visceral, not cerebral. Secondly, Comey did not start a national discussion about race in this country. Obama did before he became the president and quickly forgot about it.
8
"Discussion," doesn't mean, "agree with every jot and tittle, and overlook any and all problems."
Oh, and the claim that the President used race to get elected, then "forgot all about it," is just plain silly.
Oh, and the claim that the President used race to get elected, then "forgot all about it," is just plain silly.
1
You are labelling and stereotyping. Behaviour may be labelled criminal but it is no this behaviour in itself that constitute crime. Due to the moral panic, all youths (black & white) have been labelled as deviant and a threat to society. People who label want to focus our attention not on the behavious of offenders, but on the behaviours of those who label, react to and otherwise seek to control offenders . It is these efforts of social control that ultimately trigger the process thattrap individuals in a criminal carreer. With this stereotyping, the general population will perceive Black youths to be criminal and treat therm accordingly. Do not label people criminal if you know nothing about them because it creates the very thing you intended to stop. It produces a self-fulfilling prophecy which is defined as a flalse definition of a situation, evoking a new behaviour that makes the original false assumption come true.
There is much being talked about race currently. Too many of us, we have zero influence how state and local police department are managed. Secondly for those of us who were directly affected by LBJ's major thrust of his Great Society, we have simply lost interest. We wish no one any harm, but many of us are simply over it. We had a civil war and it is part of our history we cannot erase it.
4
Comey's statement was disingenuous. Thank you Mr. Blow for pointing out a few of his oversimplified observations.
First,the FBI for years was an antagonist of blacks, overtly and covertly. Stetson Kennedy the man who infiltrated the KKK in the 50's said he had information for the FBI on crimes committed by KKK ,who were many times law enforcement themselves. They rejected the information, instead wanting info on peaceful black activists. J.Edger Hoover said about a rally being held at Madison Square Garden by Marcus Garvey that "they couldn't have 30,000 negroes getting any ideas in their heads". These were blacks that believed in self determination. Nothing radical, just seeking to empower themselves in the midst of daily lynchings and degradation by whites. The answer, insert agent provocateurs into black organizations.
Hoover began "Cointelpro" which targeted all black organizations radical or not. Comey spoke about MLK, he just scratched the surface with the FBI's direct involvement in subverting the will of blacks.
Also, this idea that the police take "lazy mental shortcuts" really? Is that the excuse for killing an unarmed man; expecting immunity. The police, as the FBI have no accountability, NONE....
Whites eat this stuff up whenever one speaks to race, subtly blaming the "targets" who have suffered historically due to racist policy/law.
Comey's statement is heralded as great because he is a white man in power who SEEMS to understand.More nonsense and evasion...
First,the FBI for years was an antagonist of blacks, overtly and covertly. Stetson Kennedy the man who infiltrated the KKK in the 50's said he had information for the FBI on crimes committed by KKK ,who were many times law enforcement themselves. They rejected the information, instead wanting info on peaceful black activists. J.Edger Hoover said about a rally being held at Madison Square Garden by Marcus Garvey that "they couldn't have 30,000 negroes getting any ideas in their heads". These were blacks that believed in self determination. Nothing radical, just seeking to empower themselves in the midst of daily lynchings and degradation by whites. The answer, insert agent provocateurs into black organizations.
Hoover began "Cointelpro" which targeted all black organizations radical or not. Comey spoke about MLK, he just scratched the surface with the FBI's direct involvement in subverting the will of blacks.
Also, this idea that the police take "lazy mental shortcuts" really? Is that the excuse for killing an unarmed man; expecting immunity. The police, as the FBI have no accountability, NONE....
Whites eat this stuff up whenever one speaks to race, subtly blaming the "targets" who have suffered historically due to racist policy/law.
Comey's statement is heralded as great because he is a white man in power who SEEMS to understand.More nonsense and evasion...
8
That the Dept. of Justice building is still named after J E Hoover is a disgrace.
1
F.B.I. director, James B. Comey ended his remarks about the effects of racism in our country by quoting Martin Luther King:“We must all learn to live together as brothers, or we will all perish together as fools.” He spoke out about this insidious issue because he did not “want to see those important issues drift away.” Charles Blow responded to Comey's comments, agreeing with most of his points, but questioning Comey's remarks that the police were “not the root cause of problems in our hardest-hit neighborhoods...” because many blacks live “in environments lacking role models, adequate education and decent employment.”
I did not interpret these comments as Mr. Blow did because from my perspective Mr. Comey was not suggesting that this environment was one that was self-imposed by black culture. Indeed from my perspective, it is an environment imposed by the society in which we live, one often influenced by the lack of empathy and greed. Yet I can understand why Mr. Blow might respond as he did, based on his perspective. As both men implied, a national conversation is essential, but if we are to move forward, it must be one in which we each listen, empathize, and emphasize the common ground in seeking to minimalize racism.
I did not interpret these comments as Mr. Blow did because from my perspective Mr. Comey was not suggesting that this environment was one that was self-imposed by black culture. Indeed from my perspective, it is an environment imposed by the society in which we live, one often influenced by the lack of empathy and greed. Yet I can understand why Mr. Blow might respond as he did, based on his perspective. As both men implied, a national conversation is essential, but if we are to move forward, it must be one in which we each listen, empathize, and emphasize the common ground in seeking to minimalize racism.
2
Until the majority white population in our country acknowledge the historic truth of slavery and its legacy, nothing on the topic of race will be solved.
Until we acknowledge the double and triple standards that exist in our society today nothing will be solved. A black man commits an atrocity, the entire black race is condemned...it must be because blacks are proned to violence..it must be a defect in black culture or black IQ etc etc. a Moslem commit an atrocity...see they are all terrorists or terrorist sympathizers. A white commit an atrocity, it's mental illness or somehow he alone is responsible. I am amazed that even the news media who presumably are among the most educated of us should fall for this nonsense. Of course many will immediately say I am being racist just by bringing up this point. How pathetic.
Until we acknowledge the double and triple standards that exist in our society today nothing will be solved. A black man commits an atrocity, the entire black race is condemned...it must be because blacks are proned to violence..it must be a defect in black culture or black IQ etc etc. a Moslem commit an atrocity...see they are all terrorists or terrorist sympathizers. A white commit an atrocity, it's mental illness or somehow he alone is responsible. I am amazed that even the news media who presumably are among the most educated of us should fall for this nonsense. Of course many will immediately say I am being racist just by bringing up this point. How pathetic.
15
How can one have a conversation when people like Mr. Blow are ready to ponce and parse every word? And what's with the "Kaffeeklatsch?" Why bring Yiddish into it? But forget it, instead of focusing on highlighting areas in which I believe Mr. Blow is twisting Mr. Comey's meaning or wondering what Mr. Blow really meant by his title here, I prefer to let him talk, let him express himself. That's a conversation, and if we don't feel free to speak without combing through every sentence to get it somehow beyond reproach, there will never be real conversation.
12
"concentrated poverty, hopelessness and despair"
The richest 10% have acquired 75% of family wealth and next 40% (the middle class) remain strong with 24% of family wealth. This is twice the global average but reflects a slow 8% decline over 20 years.
The poorer half of the population (62 million families) are left to share just 1% of the wealth. It is particularly important to understand that wealth at the bottom is down by 70% since 1995. The trend downward has been more or less constant and gradual in spite of the economic ups and down.
Imagine what it is like living in a ghetto where, on average, families have just $1 for every $4 they had twenty years ago. Young adults have diminished prospects for marriage and child rearing. The only jobs in the neighborhood are low paying dead end jobs that are subsidized with earned income and child care tax credits that create more poverty than they cure.
The structural problem is that the tax credits were an effort to offset the regressive payroll taxes with a combined 15.3% rate. James C. Capretta is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute has called for a reduction in payroll taxes. See http://www.nationalreview.com/article/398514/why-not-cut-payroll-tax-jam.... Bill Gates has recommended a complete replacement of payroll taxes to encourage good paying jobs. A revenue neutral VAT could help to end the downward trends.
The richest 10% have acquired 75% of family wealth and next 40% (the middle class) remain strong with 24% of family wealth. This is twice the global average but reflects a slow 8% decline over 20 years.
The poorer half of the population (62 million families) are left to share just 1% of the wealth. It is particularly important to understand that wealth at the bottom is down by 70% since 1995. The trend downward has been more or less constant and gradual in spite of the economic ups and down.
Imagine what it is like living in a ghetto where, on average, families have just $1 for every $4 they had twenty years ago. Young adults have diminished prospects for marriage and child rearing. The only jobs in the neighborhood are low paying dead end jobs that are subsidized with earned income and child care tax credits that create more poverty than they cure.
The structural problem is that the tax credits were an effort to offset the regressive payroll taxes with a combined 15.3% rate. James C. Capretta is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute has called for a reduction in payroll taxes. See http://www.nationalreview.com/article/398514/why-not-cut-payroll-tax-jam.... Bill Gates has recommended a complete replacement of payroll taxes to encourage good paying jobs. A revenue neutral VAT could help to end the downward trends.
4
Your perspective is exactly why racism will continue into perpetuity.
7
See what I mean? I suppose you are referring to my comments. But why? You write one clever-sounding accusation about my comments but can't stoop to tell me (1) how they are racist and (2) what I should do about it (in your opinion). So much for this conversation about race we should be having.
1
I grew up in a time when there were still racial issues in the greater community. We had riots at my high school, for example. Some whites came away from the riots more prejudiced and some came away understanding the reasons for the riots.
I believe the more people talk and recognize each other's humanity, the better we will all get along. I believe that would work for cops, too.
Where I live now is predominately Latino. I see the cops behaving the same way towards Latinos as big city cops do towards blacks. It's wrong no matter which group is the object of bias.
When I was prosecuting, I had an argument with the sheriff about race. He was determined to call Latinos "Hispanic" in the race slot of the police report. I argued that Latinos were white. I think he decided he was compromising when I got reports that said "WH" in the race slot. Small progress, but progress nonetheless.
Maybe it helped the cops to see people were more like them than different from them. I hope that will work in cities soon. The sooner cops see separate people in a sea of faces of the "other," the sooner we can have color blind policing.
I believe the more people talk and recognize each other's humanity, the better we will all get along. I believe that would work for cops, too.
Where I live now is predominately Latino. I see the cops behaving the same way towards Latinos as big city cops do towards blacks. It's wrong no matter which group is the object of bias.
When I was prosecuting, I had an argument with the sheriff about race. He was determined to call Latinos "Hispanic" in the race slot of the police report. I argued that Latinos were white. I think he decided he was compromising when I got reports that said "WH" in the race slot. Small progress, but progress nonetheless.
Maybe it helped the cops to see people were more like them than different from them. I hope that will work in cities soon. The sooner cops see separate people in a sea of faces of the "other," the sooner we can have color blind policing.
2
This is how I feel about discussions about race. I simply can't keep up with the rules of engagement. I don't know what words are acceptable and what words mark me as racist (except for the obvious which would never cross my lips). Of course, black lives matter. But why can't I say that yes, changes need to be made in how the police interact with the black community (can I even say 'black community'?) and also say that black kids need to stop killing each other in droves? Why can't I say that I would be deathly afraid to go alone to certain neighborhoods in my city of Wilmington, North Carolina? For that matter, since gun crimes are almost daily, why can't I say I would be afraid to go in these neighborhoods accompanied by other people? There is no safety in numbers. I taught eighth grade English for twenty years. It pains me that, now that I've retired and moved back to my home town, I don't even know any African Americans to have a discussion with. It pains me that our paths don't cross. And that's not by choice on my part. It is life in my town. What would I say to a person of color in this conversation we should have? Is it okay to say I'm afraid I or someone I love or someone I don't know will be killed by a random gang initiation? How do I begin? With whom do I converse?
35
I'd suggest beginning by getting some facts, and not taking counsel of your fears.
1
Well, Jesse Jackson has said he'd rather be followed by whites than blacks at night, so yes it is OK to say what you think.
And when they start calling me European-American, I will start using the term "African-American". Political correctness has no place in legitimate discussion.
And when they start calling me European-American, I will start using the term "African-American". Political correctness has no place in legitimate discussion.
Thanks, but we've had the conversation. Daniel Patrick Moynihan explained the situation several decades ago.
Encounters with cops is a symptom, not a cause.
Encounters with cops is a symptom, not a cause.
16
The truth sometimes hurts. Apparently Mr. Blow can't accept the truth. This is nothing new to those of us who read his column. There always seems to be an excuse for African Americans when they commit crimes. And whites are invariably to blame. Poverty is no excuse for criminal activity. It should be a motivator to stay in school, to being married before you create children, and to work harder to better your economic situation.
23
To stay in what schools? With what prospects? To marry with what income? To bring children into a world of hurt?
2
Ah, but that narrative allows for the repetition of the same argument, column after column, all wrapped in a "new" and "different" brand of straw.
3
Conversations, speeches, and opinion articles may whittle away at America's core of racism, but its been the passing of federal laws that helped right the wrongs of 200 years of discrimination and violence against people of color.
Hyper-segregated communities in our cities and their attendant issues of poverty, violence, problematic families and lack of community are symptoms of our racial past and how it continues to be played out. These issues have become generational.
Many suggest root causes from Daniel Patrick Moynihan's thoughts on single family households, to implied character flaws in the African American race, these are all rationalizations to avoid the over-arching issues of deep seated racism in our country.
Raised in a family that denigrated African-Americans, threatened to be cast out of the family if ever a African-American crossed our threshold; how can I deny that I was instilled to a degree with racial prejudice that can linger 45 years later. I've actively sought to correct my indoctrination through education, and hope I taught my own children better.
Police departments and other elements of our social system have been embedded with bigoted racial attitudes since the beginnings of this country. If our current leaders are commended for simply acknowledging the bias, we have failed to teach our children.
Hyper-segregated communities in our cities and their attendant issues of poverty, violence, problematic families and lack of community are symptoms of our racial past and how it continues to be played out. These issues have become generational.
Many suggest root causes from Daniel Patrick Moynihan's thoughts on single family households, to implied character flaws in the African American race, these are all rationalizations to avoid the over-arching issues of deep seated racism in our country.
Raised in a family that denigrated African-Americans, threatened to be cast out of the family if ever a African-American crossed our threshold; how can I deny that I was instilled to a degree with racial prejudice that can linger 45 years later. I've actively sought to correct my indoctrination through education, and hope I taught my own children better.
Police departments and other elements of our social system have been embedded with bigoted racial attitudes since the beginnings of this country. If our current leaders are commended for simply acknowledging the bias, we have failed to teach our children.
59
We have to keep in mind that being a police officer is similar to being a soldier; it is 99% boredom and 1% sheer terror.
Police have no idea when they approach someone (or vice-versa) if they have a knife or a gun and wish to do harm.
I am white but I was taught if the police signal me to pull my car over I should do so as soon as possible. And when they approach my car that I should keep both hands on the wheel and wait for instructions before I do anything.
And to be very courteous and not make a joke out or it. The police may be in a state of high tension from previous incident.
Once a white drug addict stole from a house near our backyard at 8:00 AM. A few squad cars showed up. They caught him and handcuffed him.
Another squad car showed up late and one officer ran to my backyard and let out his pent up tension by pounding on the drug addict which was wrong but he was venting his anger.
This is a similar decision made by a black ex-mayor of NY David Dinkins.
When African-Americans reacted to an accident in Brooklyn NY of a black child killed by a car driven by an Jewish man, mayor Dinkins told the police to lay back because blacks had to "vent their anger."
His decision led to an Australian Jew being murdered by a black man and the exacerbation of race relations.
Let’s not make the mistake of holding back police for those who "vent their anger" by doing criminal acts instead of in peaceful way.
Black or white a criminal act is still a criminal act.
Police have no idea when they approach someone (or vice-versa) if they have a knife or a gun and wish to do harm.
I am white but I was taught if the police signal me to pull my car over I should do so as soon as possible. And when they approach my car that I should keep both hands on the wheel and wait for instructions before I do anything.
And to be very courteous and not make a joke out or it. The police may be in a state of high tension from previous incident.
Once a white drug addict stole from a house near our backyard at 8:00 AM. A few squad cars showed up. They caught him and handcuffed him.
Another squad car showed up late and one officer ran to my backyard and let out his pent up tension by pounding on the drug addict which was wrong but he was venting his anger.
This is a similar decision made by a black ex-mayor of NY David Dinkins.
When African-Americans reacted to an accident in Brooklyn NY of a black child killed by a car driven by an Jewish man, mayor Dinkins told the police to lay back because blacks had to "vent their anger."
His decision led to an Australian Jew being murdered by a black man and the exacerbation of race relations.
Let’s not make the mistake of holding back police for those who "vent their anger" by doing criminal acts instead of in peaceful way.
Black or white a criminal act is still a criminal act.
2
Hello, Michael.
Yes, laws addressing our ignorance helped bring about change.
I believe this change was aided by musicians from that era who wrote beautiful music celebrating life as well as adoring and praising the women in their lives. Unlike some/many of today's artists who write about criminality and disrespecting females, aka their moms, sisters, grandmas and daughters.
Learn why today's artists feel differently about women, and I believe we will discover why some/many people develop into depressed adolescents/adults, as Kendrick Lamar wrote about in his Grammy award winning rap performance, "I."
Yes, laws addressing our ignorance helped bring about change.
I believe this change was aided by musicians from that era who wrote beautiful music celebrating life as well as adoring and praising the women in their lives. Unlike some/many of today's artists who write about criminality and disrespecting females, aka their moms, sisters, grandmas and daughters.
Learn why today's artists feel differently about women, and I believe we will discover why some/many people develop into depressed adolescents/adults, as Kendrick Lamar wrote about in his Grammy award winning rap performance, "I."
Another tiresome article by Mr. Blow. He truly is a one trick pony!
One comment that I found particularly off base was his statement criticizing Mr. Comey’s observation that we all use racial profiling, consciously or subconsciously, in our everyday lives. Of course we do. We are all aware of the statistics; that young black men are much more likely to assault us than Asian, White or Hispanic young men. This is not punishing another person for “for the crimes or sins of another”, it’s pure common sense.
Even Jesse Jackson famously has stated that if he is walking home on a dark night & sees two young blacks men coming up the street towards him on one side of the street & two young whites coming up on the other side, he will naturally switch over to the side the white guys are on.
Our beliefs are all founded on our accumulated experience. If we experience much more hostility, anger and bad behavior by one group of people than others, we will adjust our own behavior to reduce our exposure to members of the more hostile group.
Is that racial profiling? Maybe it is; or just rational behavior.
One comment that I found particularly off base was his statement criticizing Mr. Comey’s observation that we all use racial profiling, consciously or subconsciously, in our everyday lives. Of course we do. We are all aware of the statistics; that young black men are much more likely to assault us than Asian, White or Hispanic young men. This is not punishing another person for “for the crimes or sins of another”, it’s pure common sense.
Even Jesse Jackson famously has stated that if he is walking home on a dark night & sees two young blacks men coming up the street towards him on one side of the street & two young whites coming up on the other side, he will naturally switch over to the side the white guys are on.
Our beliefs are all founded on our accumulated experience. If we experience much more hostility, anger and bad behavior by one group of people than others, we will adjust our own behavior to reduce our exposure to members of the more hostile group.
Is that racial profiling? Maybe it is; or just rational behavior.
18
Perhaps. But a line is crossed when that rationalization is used to reduce an entire minority community to a stereotype which in turn justifies the violation of the rights, up to and including the use of deadly force, against any member of that community.
3
Keep up the good work, Charles Blow. I've read these same thoughts, though rarely as eloquently, for the last fifty years and, unfortunately, they still need saying. So keep your voice calm but peristent. As my generation passes on, we need to keep shining the light on MLK's values.
6
With the mindset that your "difference" is somehow lesser or not as good as my "difference" (in fact, MINE is no difference at all), the seeds of feeling alienated and inadequate are planted in the minds of those whose "difference" is not shared by the majority of one's fellow citizens. And with that feeling, it's not far from lapsing into dysfunctional behavior because ... well, after all, society neither cares nor respects me. And with THAT, it's easy for the majority to point fingers of blame and shame at the minority.
I wish we could learn to celebrate ALL differences and offer praise and a sense of worth and belonging to ALL people whatever their skin color, their "beauty" or "ugliness," their manner of speaking, their age, their gender, their sexual preference and, perhaps most importantly, their particular talent.
In our culture, we tend to most respect those who either score 1600 on their boards, go to Harvard and take a high-paying job at Goldman Saks (OK, maybe not Goldman Saks but ... Google) or those whose athletic or artistic talents propel them to the top of their fields. How about offering a similar amount of respect to someone who can nurture a seed into a plant or take a filthy auto and detail it into a gleaming gem or lovingly care for your elderly parent or young child or even conscientiously flip a burger or push a mop.
Then, maybe, with the respect would come the willingness ... nay, DESIRE, to belong. Isn't it at least worth trying?
I wish we could learn to celebrate ALL differences and offer praise and a sense of worth and belonging to ALL people whatever their skin color, their "beauty" or "ugliness," their manner of speaking, their age, their gender, their sexual preference and, perhaps most importantly, their particular talent.
In our culture, we tend to most respect those who either score 1600 on their boards, go to Harvard and take a high-paying job at Goldman Saks (OK, maybe not Goldman Saks but ... Google) or those whose athletic or artistic talents propel them to the top of their fields. How about offering a similar amount of respect to someone who can nurture a seed into a plant or take a filthy auto and detail it into a gleaming gem or lovingly care for your elderly parent or young child or even conscientiously flip a burger or push a mop.
Then, maybe, with the respect would come the willingness ... nay, DESIRE, to belong. Isn't it at least worth trying?
3
The "lilly white" always find ways to rationalize in a somewhat irrational manner with words tainted in color. The majority of Americans voted for a Black President twice. The minority of Americans voters in those two elections is where to look for suspects promoting Greed and Avarice.
1
I have learned much through introspection prompted by Mr. Blow's insightful writings. However, I have to agree with other readers who say that his deconstruction of Mr. Comey's remarks does not serve the causes of anti-racism or anti-prejudice. The parsing of Mr. Comey's vocabulary to even partially turn it around on itself is unfortunate. Why not just say that we would still have a long way to go even if Mr. Comey's analysis were accepted as the starting point, and then explain what the next steps should be? I am sure that his talk was not intended to exclude or deny the root causes of any of the statistical findings quoted by our other readers.
4
You wrote: "Every discussion over a backyard fence or a cup of coffee is part of that conversation. It is the very continuity of its casualness that bolsters its profundity."
When participating in just such a conversation, I was told that as a white woman, I did not have a place at that table, that my observations, perceptions, and concerns were of no importance, and that if I was not willing to immediately concede that I, along with the other white women in the conversation, were all racists, we should just leave.
It's hard to have a conversation when you are told you are not worthy of participation.
But I did understand what she was saying. As a member of another minority group, I empathized with her frustration. I have had similar experiences as the 'other' in a variety of places. It is hard not to be angry.
However, the conversation must allow for the concerns, the perceptions, and, yes, the fears of both sides to be heard. Shutting off one side or the other is not helping anyone's cause.
Even if you took issue with some of the things Mr. Comey said, at least you heard him. There was civil discourse. You disagreed, you wrote about it, you expressed your concerns about what he said. You did not call for his resignation nor burn him in effigy. This is an important distinction.
You just had a conversation. This is a good thing.
http://wifelyperson.blogspot.com/
When participating in just such a conversation, I was told that as a white woman, I did not have a place at that table, that my observations, perceptions, and concerns were of no importance, and that if I was not willing to immediately concede that I, along with the other white women in the conversation, were all racists, we should just leave.
It's hard to have a conversation when you are told you are not worthy of participation.
But I did understand what she was saying. As a member of another minority group, I empathized with her frustration. I have had similar experiences as the 'other' in a variety of places. It is hard not to be angry.
However, the conversation must allow for the concerns, the perceptions, and, yes, the fears of both sides to be heard. Shutting off one side or the other is not helping anyone's cause.
Even if you took issue with some of the things Mr. Comey said, at least you heard him. There was civil discourse. You disagreed, you wrote about it, you expressed your concerns about what he said. You did not call for his resignation nor burn him in effigy. This is an important distinction.
You just had a conversation. This is a good thing.
http://wifelyperson.blogspot.com/
12
I guess you were told you "had no place at the table" by a statistically significant number of so called black people? Or I suspect just one? Can't you balance this one person with another person, for instance with Charles Blow, who is telling you that indeed "you have a place at the table"?
I'm a Holocaust survivor having been born in Hungary in 1942 where the mass murders came late, but they sure made up for time lost. Like you I understand what it means to be attacked and perhaps killed for "walking while black" as happens in the US now, and that, as we know, includes children. I feel solidarity for all Holocaust victims: Jews, Romas, Blacks, Gays, the mentally disabled = 11 million murder victims.
Perhaps you could start reading the NYT articles and so many others about Jim Crow laws being a system of terror? You could talk to some "black" folks about their parents or grandparents being tortured to death? Lynchings that went unpunished till the end of the sixties always included torture of the children, women and men victims (women were also routinely raped).
Could it be that you have mistaking fear for anger?. Could it be that by so doing, you're blind to the everlasting wounds of terror? When you talk to a person angry about their treatment, whether it's by German Nazis or US racists, what it calls for is a hug and an "I'm sorry" --the "sorry" not out of guilt, but the normal thing you say to someone who has been hurt.
I'm a Holocaust survivor having been born in Hungary in 1942 where the mass murders came late, but they sure made up for time lost. Like you I understand what it means to be attacked and perhaps killed for "walking while black" as happens in the US now, and that, as we know, includes children. I feel solidarity for all Holocaust victims: Jews, Romas, Blacks, Gays, the mentally disabled = 11 million murder victims.
Perhaps you could start reading the NYT articles and so many others about Jim Crow laws being a system of terror? You could talk to some "black" folks about their parents or grandparents being tortured to death? Lynchings that went unpunished till the end of the sixties always included torture of the children, women and men victims (women were also routinely raped).
Could it be that you have mistaking fear for anger?. Could it be that by so doing, you're blind to the everlasting wounds of terror? When you talk to a person angry about their treatment, whether it's by German Nazis or US racists, what it calls for is a hug and an "I'm sorry" --the "sorry" not out of guilt, but the normal thing you say to someone who has been hurt.
Well, there were more black women than any other minority group, but it was only the white women who were told we had no place at the table. As the only Jew, I also tried not to take it personally, although later I would come to understand that my being a Jew was a significant part of the problem. That does not, however, change my stance that the conversation must take place with everyone who wants to participate.
My comment stated clearly that the speaker was angry, but there were others at the table who admitted they were to be both angry and somewhat afraid...and that was why they were there...to shed their fears so they might more fully participate in changing America. Every one of the women in that conversation believed that talking about the challenges was a good way to begin.
We did not leave the table, we listened. We were not permitted to participate in the conversation, but that did not mean we could not hear. We decided we all needed to hear what was being said, even in anger. It was an uncomfortable experience, but I am glad I had it. I learned a great deal.
I wholeheartedly believe the conversation must go on and through and beyond the obstacles. If even one of us quits, we all lose.
http://wifelyperson.blogspot.com/
My comment stated clearly that the speaker was angry, but there were others at the table who admitted they were to be both angry and somewhat afraid...and that was why they were there...to shed their fears so they might more fully participate in changing America. Every one of the women in that conversation believed that talking about the challenges was a good way to begin.
We did not leave the table, we listened. We were not permitted to participate in the conversation, but that did not mean we could not hear. We decided we all needed to hear what was being said, even in anger. It was an uncomfortable experience, but I am glad I had it. I learned a great deal.
I wholeheartedly believe the conversation must go on and through and beyond the obstacles. If even one of us quits, we all lose.
http://wifelyperson.blogspot.com/
1
A comment on some of the comments. I know people that many of you would likely describe as rednecks that I think have a better grasp of the realities of this issue than many of the commenters I read here, most of whom I would assume are middle to upper middle class white people. Part of that is that they have a better inherent grasp of the impact of economics on it. In addition, if you're a rural white southerner, look like a member of the Allman Brothers and wear a grungy baseball cap, you're probably no stranger to profiling by the police.
Most of all, though, it's because the steady residential integration which is happening down here is largely happening among the working class to lower middle class of both races. A lot of wealthier white people (not all, though) seem to have a tendency to move out when their neighborhoods start to integrate and they can afford to do it. Not so much for the working class. The result is areas where there is inevitably a lot of interracial dating and inter-marriage and the bulk of it is among the working class. Maybe the same thing is happening in places in the north; I really wouldn't know, but I bet that where it is, it is similarly among the working class.
It's entirely possible that large portions of the working class in the south may achieve some semblance of genuine racial harmony while many upper class whites are still looking down their noses at the black community and making their code word racist judgments.
Most of all, though, it's because the steady residential integration which is happening down here is largely happening among the working class to lower middle class of both races. A lot of wealthier white people (not all, though) seem to have a tendency to move out when their neighborhoods start to integrate and they can afford to do it. Not so much for the working class. The result is areas where there is inevitably a lot of interracial dating and inter-marriage and the bulk of it is among the working class. Maybe the same thing is happening in places in the north; I really wouldn't know, but I bet that where it is, it is similarly among the working class.
It's entirely possible that large portions of the working class in the south may achieve some semblance of genuine racial harmony while many upper class whites are still looking down their noses at the black community and making their code word racist judgments.
7
Our family holds the answer to racism in more than just the working class. We are both native New Yorkers. My wife is a West Indian Creole [French, Black, and Chinese that we know of] with curly grey hair and lots of freckles. There is no question as to her heritage. She holds a doctorate from Yeshiva University [look it up] and is a practicing psychotherapist. I am 100% Askenazi and retired. We've been relatively happily married for >50 yrears. We live in a totally ethnically integrated middle class neighborhood in the Northwest corner of the Bronx. One daughter lives in NYC is married to a guy who is half Ashkenazi, half Spanish. She holds a doctorate from Columbia and is a professor at Columbia Medical College. She has two teenagers who are doing just fine. The other lives in Houston, is married to a Mexican of obviously Indian descent and has two little girls. She holds two masters degrees, MSW & MBA, and is Director for the entire state of Texas for a major NFP involved in housing the handicapped homeless. Her three year old refers to herself as a "Texican". None of us have any problems with our racial/ethnic backgrounds and while both of our parents were definitely "working class" and of totally different racial/ethnic makeups we all have always gotten along fine. So what is Mr Blow's and your issue?
1
You may be right. Add in the fact that, in spite of whatever residential segregation persists for now, in areas like mine there is one junior and one senior high school. I won't claim it's paradise for minorities, but the result is that people grow up with much more integration than you will find in any larger American city.
1
I have to agree with atozdbf. The best way to end racism is to put people together in a place where they meet on even terms -- to work together, live together, eat and drink together, date and marry each other. Our most racist institutions are the gated community and the co-op apartment house. I spent two years in America's most thoroughly integrated institution -- the U.S Army -- where we never had a "conversation on race," or ever needed one. In fact, the best thing America could do for race relations today would be to re-institute the draft. And make it strict enough so rich white folks can't buy their way out.
What a joke. The only discussion that mr. Blow and his ilk are ready for is, non stop apologies from whites for their non existent racist behavior. When we hold everyone equally accountable for their actions no matter what their race, only then will we be on the road to equality. Holding some in our society to a lower standard than others is the only true racism in America and its got to stop.
95
Which ilk does he belong to?
6
This was an NYT pick?!?! Does JP work on the editorial staff?
6
This must be the "fair and balanced" comment.
7
So in other words, everything the FBI director said placing blame on the majority or police is to be commended and that which he said questioning black community and culture is to be condemned. By your standards, we are having a conversation but a very one-sided one.
14
Charles, another wonderful column on the sorry state of race relations in this country.
2
It is most interesting that certain leaders and certain people can continue to "choose" when, where and how they want to talk about race. And in such conversations it is all about those "other" people, not about themselves. In an American society that has positioned race and racial identity as a central means of ordering the social setting, it seems ironic that it is still impossible for persons in power to have a serious conversation about the consequences of such long term practices. Education has failed most Americans. We are able to have more accurate and meaningful conversations about racial tragedies in other countries than we are able to understand and talk about the racial context in America. The failure of leadership respecting race and racial issues has been comprehensive, and continuing. We have yet to face the truth.
5
Regrettably I find that I don't fully agree with Mr. Blow this time and I almost always do. First, a conversation about race or anything is not really a place to listen and then grade one another's points of view. Because every view is really a view from a point. I thought that Comey's remarks really hit it on the head with how police officers are often effected by their jobs and experiences. It does not makes them right but it accurately describes the problem that needs to be addressed. Once you fully admit that you are taking "lazy mental shortcuts" you can deal with that.
Mr. Blow's first point is off base too and perhaps because it looks like that from where he is. He sees protests that agree with his very reasonable point of view on the matter of policing and reform. However, throwing blood on the facade of the police department in Denver as occurred yesterday is not likely to draw attention to a need to better policing, nor is caring placards that read "white racists terrorists cops". For some, and maybe a minority of protesters it has been personal and directed at police officers. This allows the arguments to go astray.
For me police reform is just a side issue of the greater issue of the criminal justice system and more importantly race relations. In reality I have not heard any real call for police reform, just body cameras and "more training" but never a discussion of how to really re-envision police work.
Mr. Blow's first point is off base too and perhaps because it looks like that from where he is. He sees protests that agree with his very reasonable point of view on the matter of policing and reform. However, throwing blood on the facade of the police department in Denver as occurred yesterday is not likely to draw attention to a need to better policing, nor is caring placards that read "white racists terrorists cops". For some, and maybe a minority of protesters it has been personal and directed at police officers. This allows the arguments to go astray.
For me police reform is just a side issue of the greater issue of the criminal justice system and more importantly race relations. In reality I have not heard any real call for police reform, just body cameras and "more training" but never a discussion of how to really re-envision police work.
4
Two comments on Charles's offerings today:
1.
"There will be no great atoning. Reparations will not be paid. There will no sprawling absolution."
Then why are the requests continually being made by the very people who know full well that they will not? If it is a prerequisite for Mr. Blow's point of view, and he knows it is impossible, why then does he continue to dwell on that and not offer reasoned and effective solutions to the problem?
2.
'...[Comey] makes a straw man argument, “Law enforcement is not the root cause of problems in our hardest hit neighborhoods.” Who said it was?'
Mr. Blow often dwells on this in his columns. If it is such a straw man, then why is he, so often, making that exact point in his writings?
Sorry. Once again, I am unable to buy into Mr. Blows argument. It is as unproductive as he claims others to be, and he whacks away at the very straw man on which he frequently relies.
He is on the verge of becoming a dilettante.
1.
"There will be no great atoning. Reparations will not be paid. There will no sprawling absolution."
Then why are the requests continually being made by the very people who know full well that they will not? If it is a prerequisite for Mr. Blow's point of view, and he knows it is impossible, why then does he continue to dwell on that and not offer reasoned and effective solutions to the problem?
2.
'...[Comey] makes a straw man argument, “Law enforcement is not the root cause of problems in our hardest hit neighborhoods.” Who said it was?'
Mr. Blow often dwells on this in his columns. If it is such a straw man, then why is he, so often, making that exact point in his writings?
Sorry. Once again, I am unable to buy into Mr. Blows argument. It is as unproductive as he claims others to be, and he whacks away at the very straw man on which he frequently relies.
He is on the verge of becoming a dilettante.
14
In general, I like this column, but there are a couple of exceptions. In particular, he talks about reparations as if they should be paid. Most white people (including this white person) disagree. The reason is simple. The vast majority of us do not have ancestors that owned slaves (or had the means). Most of us do not have ancestors that were in America when slavery existed.
Second objection -- when someone uses that phrase "maybe even rational by some lights", they aren't saying it's actual rational. They're saying that when viewed through a particular prism it's rational.
Third objection -- Comey mentioned “environments lacking role models, adequate education, and decent employment.” That isn't a racial pathology argument (or even close). It's simply pointing out an obvious fact. These things contribute heavily to the problems in poor neighborhoods. Is Mr. Blow suggesting that these problems be ignored? Or that they have little relevance?
Second objection -- when someone uses that phrase "maybe even rational by some lights", they aren't saying it's actual rational. They're saying that when viewed through a particular prism it's rational.
Third objection -- Comey mentioned “environments lacking role models, adequate education, and decent employment.” That isn't a racial pathology argument (or even close). It's simply pointing out an obvious fact. These things contribute heavily to the problems in poor neighborhoods. Is Mr. Blow suggesting that these problems be ignored? Or that they have little relevance?
8
Until Blow comes clean and admits that the Yale cop who held his son at gunpoint was black, Blow will not be credible on any issue and, in particular, will not be credible on issues of race.
Blow needs to apologize to readers *in his column*. In the same place where he sought to deceive readers with half truths.
The New York Times does not need a Stephen Glass wannabe.
Blow needs to apologize to readers *in his column*. In the same place where he sought to deceive readers with half truths.
The New York Times does not need a Stephen Glass wannabe.
37
Thank you, Charles. More than most, you have a talent for focusing on fundamental, substantial issues and expressing them with civility.
2
I've been mugged twice and felt fear for my life twice. All the situations involved Blacks. My part of the city has had a demographic change over the last four years. The two banks a mile away have been robbed 7 times. The Food Lion outside the subdivision has had to remove the self service checkout counters. A camera hidden in the ceiling over them revealed that customers were only ringing up 20% of what was bagged. The great majority of people on the lines were Black. We have four little grocery stores that have opened that primarily sell small fruit flavored cigars, rolling papers, beer and wine, snacks and condoms. There are Black people wandering the streets at all hours and the new apartment complexes that surround us always seem to have flashing blue lights on the streets. It isn't just the police that are suspicious of all the strangers in our midst but all of our neighborhoods, even my three Black neighbors two of whom were here a year before I moved in. We now have a neighborhood watch program. A new police substation was opened a mile away next to the biggest apartment complex. Young men who don't live in this neighborhood wander our streets and we have more car and home break ins. My dogs bark more often and the motion detector lights on the driveway turn on more often. And I'm not supposed to have suspicions?
32
Obviously you are a racist and part of the problem. /sarc
At some point I wish Mr. Blow would address the issue of why young black men who turn to crime are so intent on preying on their own. I do realize that being familiar with a specific neighborhood has its advantages, so to speak. Even so, lawbreakers seem to have a certain degree of animosity towards other people of color and a certain incentive towards making them their victims (despite their relative poverty). I keep wondering why.
6
The pattern of prejudices starts when people are very young. Perhaps this is obvious, but it is an important factor. Many of our police come from the same neighborhoods or close suburban neighborhood which they wind up policing. So the personal tensions of the budding officer formed in the young are carried over into their policing. The violence and prejudices that sometimes are seen in them does not get trained out by a year or two of officer school.
We really need more emphasis on teaching the young about race and violence to which they are exposed from the earliest age. Also potential officers need to have intensive racial conversations when they are in training and there needs to be careful weeding out of officers who still hold onto their prejudices. I know that some of this goes on already, but the subject of racial education is still largely not given the attention it deserves.
We really need more emphasis on teaching the young about race and violence to which they are exposed from the earliest age. Also potential officers need to have intensive racial conversations when they are in training and there needs to be careful weeding out of officers who still hold onto their prejudices. I know that some of this goes on already, but the subject of racial education is still largely not given the attention it deserves.
29
The police need to stop treating citizens like livestock. They don't need to be retrained, they don't need to take part in a national conversation on anything. What would really be helpful is to severely curb the qualified immunity they now enjoy. Make them personally responsible- both criminally and financially - for false arrests and beatings and killings. Watch how their monstrous egos shrivel as they run crying to their union when they face real repercussions for their criminal acts.
Badges don't grant extra rights.
Badges don't grant extra rights.
126
What did the looting and destroying of 60 stores in Ferguson have to do with the decision not to indict a police officer?
Why did the police not do anything to stop this?
NY Mayor Dinkins allowed black's to "vent their anger" when a black child was accidentally run over and killed by a Jewish man.
The result of the police not being allowed to arrest the rioters in this rampage was the murder of a Jewish rabbi.
Now two police offers have been assassinated in New York—a Chinese and a Hispanic.
This kind of civil anarchy would not have been allowed if it was done by white rioters.
Do we allow this anarchy because we believe black leaders cannot—or won't— control the situation or because we think less of blacks?
This is what the black community has to answer—not carry on protests.
BTW the ones who did major damage and burning of the stores are now being identified and will be prosecuted.
3
What an overwrought, tortured perspective on public employees! Let's put teachers in jail for failing students, firemen for not rescuing grandma.
I'll be for your "plan" when you carry a badge.
I'll be for your "plan" when you carry a badge.
1
Yeah, those badges do grant special rights. The people wearing them accept the danger they place themselves in return for a modest salary and an expectation for the benefit of the doubt. Take that away and see what happens to all of us, everywhere. If a cop's split second decision is so egregious that 12 jurors can agree, he will pay the price. If not, he should not.
If we stop using prejudice or racism or bigotry as casually as we say words like please and thank you maybe we could have a serious discussion about these things. The truth is that all of us are prejudiced in some way. The key is being aware of it. Tossing around words like racism, bigot(ry), bias(ed), hate crime do not do justice to the issues underlying the words. Nor does it help to classify every crime against Muslims, Jews, Blacks, or any other group as a hate crime. By that I mean that not every murder is motivated by hate of a specific group. Many are motivated by hatred of the person, the person murdered being in the wrong place, or some other factor.
It's too easy to shout racism on either side rather than look at each other and understand that knowing the other as a human being is the best antidote to racism or almost any other form of intolerance. It means that people like Al Sharpton need to refrain from screaming race hatred and someone like the president of the NYC PBA needs to understand where civilians are coming from. It means that we all need to understand the fear black parents feel when they hear about a black teen being shot. It means we all need to comprehend how a family feels when their emotionally disturbed family member is killed by a police officer because there was no place for that family member to go for treatment. As a society we must be inclusive otherwise we fail. We need to acknowledge our prejudice and move past it.
It's too easy to shout racism on either side rather than look at each other and understand that knowing the other as a human being is the best antidote to racism or almost any other form of intolerance. It means that people like Al Sharpton need to refrain from screaming race hatred and someone like the president of the NYC PBA needs to understand where civilians are coming from. It means that we all need to understand the fear black parents feel when they hear about a black teen being shot. It means we all need to comprehend how a family feels when their emotionally disturbed family member is killed by a police officer because there was no place for that family member to go for treatment. As a society we must be inclusive otherwise we fail. We need to acknowledge our prejudice and move past it.
21
The glaring truth is that many are racist and know that they are and celebrate it with their mates.
1
Coming from a group, the FBI, that in investigating the 150 people killed by FBI agents, not one shooting was unjustified according to the FBI, I would take Mr. Comey's remarks on race with a huge grain of salt.
Blacks in this country are targeted too many times as easy pickings in the War on Crime because of skin colour. PERIOD. Whipped into hysteria by corporate media and frightened Caucasians.Drugs! Guns! Welfare cheats, Gangs and all the other same old canards. As if none of this ever occurs in Caucasian communities.
But the reality is WWB, DWB, being in the wrong place at the wrong time, mistaken ID, continue unabated.
Until society gets a handle on the real issues, this will continue.
Blacks in this country are targeted too many times as easy pickings in the War on Crime because of skin colour. PERIOD. Whipped into hysteria by corporate media and frightened Caucasians.Drugs! Guns! Welfare cheats, Gangs and all the other same old canards. As if none of this ever occurs in Caucasian communities.
But the reality is WWB, DWB, being in the wrong place at the wrong time, mistaken ID, continue unabated.
Until society gets a handle on the real issues, this will continue.
12
While I am hugely sympathetic about the burden of racism borne daily by blacks, I am much less swayed by the "it's all your fault" argument to whites concerning everything that's wrong with black communities.
"As if none of this ever occurs in Caucasian communities." Fact is, as I and many have said to deaf ears: young black men are 5-6 times more likely to be killed by another young black man, than a young white man is likely to be killed by a young white man. That means that walking through his own neighborhood is 5-6 times more dangerous for a young black man than for a young white man. That isn't all on white people.
"As if none of this ever occurs in Caucasian communities." Fact is, as I and many have said to deaf ears: young black men are 5-6 times more likely to be killed by another young black man, than a young white man is likely to be killed by a young white man. That means that walking through his own neighborhood is 5-6 times more dangerous for a young black man than for a young white man. That isn't all on white people.
3
I grew up during the period of Segregation. I capitalize that word because I believe it is something that deserves more importance than it gets now. It was a time of abuses and terror and just every day petty demeaning actions that kept the black community from getting the same equal chances that the poorest whites got overall.
When blacks could not work in the cotton mills in the South unless it was to clean the toilets, when they could work only in the worst and dirtiest parts of the chicken business in my town where chickens were the economic life blood of most farmers, where there was never to be seen a black face employed in any store, restaurant, drygoods establishment unless it was to clean or to cook.
When the Civil Rights Movement came about, I was stupid enough to think that now - NOW - we would have that discussion about race and people would look at their biases and prejudices and know how wrong racism was and how destructive it was to everyone black and white.
Why are we still trying to have a conversation that just seems to elude so many Americans about our attitudes and behaviors? Instead, we too often talk about how much crime there is in certain sections of a community, or how difficult it is for police to be 'equal under the law' protectors. We justify and excuse and deny but we don't talk. We pontificate, we evade recognizing our own deepest prejudices, whether we are black or white or whatever.
When blacks could not work in the cotton mills in the South unless it was to clean the toilets, when they could work only in the worst and dirtiest parts of the chicken business in my town where chickens were the economic life blood of most farmers, where there was never to be seen a black face employed in any store, restaurant, drygoods establishment unless it was to clean or to cook.
When the Civil Rights Movement came about, I was stupid enough to think that now - NOW - we would have that discussion about race and people would look at their biases and prejudices and know how wrong racism was and how destructive it was to everyone black and white.
Why are we still trying to have a conversation that just seems to elude so many Americans about our attitudes and behaviors? Instead, we too often talk about how much crime there is in certain sections of a community, or how difficult it is for police to be 'equal under the law' protectors. We justify and excuse and deny but we don't talk. We pontificate, we evade recognizing our own deepest prejudices, whether we are black or white or whatever.
131
I've always hoped that working around people other than one's own ethnic group would change things. Work is no longer the homogeneous environment it used to be. I started working in the late 70s at summer jobs. I got my first real job in 1981 in research. I spent many years working around people who were African American, Asian, Eastern European immigrants, devout Catholics, Orthodox Jews, etc. We had to work together on projects, keeping the labs clean, teaching each other techniques. There was no room for prejudice. If a person knew what he or she was doing that person was the one to ask for a lesson or for help on the technique. Gender didn't matter. Knowledge did.
Unfortunately outside of work that mixing didn't occur. It's not occurring in the schools or in the neighborhoods. We have nothing in today's America that encourages mixing with others whether it's among economic classes or in other ways. It's this lack of mixing that allows so many of us to hang on to our stereotypes. We have no experience to contradict them. In my personal life my experience as the sibling of an autistic brother has left me fairly sensitive. I do understand how it feels to be prejudged. However, my experience is not the same as that of an African American. I don't know whether to be grateful or sad. I do know that the assumptions people make about African Americans are unfair to them.
Unfortunately outside of work that mixing didn't occur. It's not occurring in the schools or in the neighborhoods. We have nothing in today's America that encourages mixing with others whether it's among economic classes or in other ways. It's this lack of mixing that allows so many of us to hang on to our stereotypes. We have no experience to contradict them. In my personal life my experience as the sibling of an autistic brother has left me fairly sensitive. I do understand how it feels to be prejudged. However, my experience is not the same as that of an African American. I don't know whether to be grateful or sad. I do know that the assumptions people make about African Americans are unfair to them.
6
But it seems to me we are having that discussion, as Mr. Blow observed. I see it here, in these comments. The wise will understand that there are two sides to every story, and that only if we listen to both sides of this one will progress be made.
2
Oh, I think most understand the chambermaids of violence and incivility, but that is not just a black problem. Choosing the wrong road is a problem for every hue of man and life is always greener on the other side.
We always had an old saying in our house, to go along with the old saying, "I would steal if my family was going hungry." "Only after I'd asked for help."
We always had an old saying in our house, to go along with the old saying, "I would steal if my family was going hungry." "Only after I'd asked for help."
2
The complexity of this problem is huge. Nevertheless, we must dig in. James Comey made a statement, a step in a good direction. Then, we must look for the next step, which is what your column today seems to be doing.
Our police need retraining throughout the country. Instead of militarization, riot gear, and the rest, they need to be trained in diffusing situations, calming people down, creating trust, as well as knowing when violent response is appropriate. They need support for the day in, day out traumatization they must be experiencing. To bear what many of them see each day, and remain sensitive and open to the needs of citizens, is a tough request of anyone. We need to support them from the inside, take apart the culture that encourages profiling and brutality, make the profession unattractive to those who seek its power over its compassion. Probably very hard to do in the present economic and political climate, where departments are gearing up to use violence against peaceful protestors. If a few departments discover new and better methods, likely those will spread, just as when police departments changed how they handle domestic violence. The good people within police departments wish for good. That inclination and voice needs support. Our conversation must continue. We need to examine, see what's good and useful, and set aside what isn't each step of the way.
Our police need retraining throughout the country. Instead of militarization, riot gear, and the rest, they need to be trained in diffusing situations, calming people down, creating trust, as well as knowing when violent response is appropriate. They need support for the day in, day out traumatization they must be experiencing. To bear what many of them see each day, and remain sensitive and open to the needs of citizens, is a tough request of anyone. We need to support them from the inside, take apart the culture that encourages profiling and brutality, make the profession unattractive to those who seek its power over its compassion. Probably very hard to do in the present economic and political climate, where departments are gearing up to use violence against peaceful protestors. If a few departments discover new and better methods, likely those will spread, just as when police departments changed how they handle domestic violence. The good people within police departments wish for good. That inclination and voice needs support. Our conversation must continue. We need to examine, see what's good and useful, and set aside what isn't each step of the way.
8
A show on NPR talked about how more training for police reduced the number of police shootings in error ( which had involved a higher proportion of black victims). The Republican Starve the Government philosophy and tax and business policies that send jobs overseas seem to put a vise on poor communities. Police departments get cut back so adequate police numbers and adequate training are cut back.
13
Comey is the head of the FBI. He's speaking out after Brown/Garner in an important policy speech. He's talking about lazy mental shortcuts and unconscious racial bias. That's professor talk. Theoretical. Maybe he could have talked about new guidelines for police use of their guns. That's FBI talk.
7
Mr. Comey's words, for me, had a wholeness and hopefulness to them which I don't find in this column in its attempt to debate, dissect, re-define, ending with an angry equating of "some" people, beyond enlightenment, with stones. Comey's major point about the value of police knowing the residents who live in districts they police, is not discussed by Blow. In building bridges between people, there's more promise in finding mutual agreement as a starting place rather than teasing apart words, to expose ignorance and bias.
17
I think the most important message sent by Comey is that the situation is not us versus them.Unlike the NYPD union president's appalling behavior Comey ,though in a unskillful way, did convey the idea that the police have culpability. Can't imagine Hoover speaking in these terms.
15
I'm not so sure about what Hoover would have said. Some say he did send some hit men to Mississippi to take out some Ku Klux Klan, and that effort caused Oswald to kill Kennedy. It's a theory that has received some ink in the past that I have read in credible reporting.
"No one loves the messenger who brings bad news."
3
As always, Mr Blow lapses into the same lazy "mental shortcuts" that he often accuses other of, if not using those words precisely. He is absolutely right that we need a conversation about race, policing, and community relations to continue and to bear some fruit. However, that discussion cannot be one-sided. Why is a young black man five to six times as likely to die at the hands of another black man than a young white man is likely to die at the hands of another white man? You can extrapolate those ratios from FBI murder data.
That's a straight-up fact. And it explains a lot. Perhaps it shows how all the evil that's been perpetrated against blacks over the centuries can affect the very fiber of a community. This violence also explains the vicious cycle of armies of cops swarming those neighborhoods leading to outsized numbers or arrests for silly non-crimes, and fuels the "mental shortcuts" that cops take.
But it also bears attention by black leaders and people, like Mr Blow, whose lofty perch and access to media help regulate the conversation on race. If someone flicks a switch, and racism goes away, the black community will still have a problem with violence among its young men, regardless of the initial cause. And the black community will have to help solve it. Part of true equality should be: a young black man can walk down that street, not be stopped and frisked, and also not be 5-6 times more likely to die that day than a white boy.
That's a straight-up fact. And it explains a lot. Perhaps it shows how all the evil that's been perpetrated against blacks over the centuries can affect the very fiber of a community. This violence also explains the vicious cycle of armies of cops swarming those neighborhoods leading to outsized numbers or arrests for silly non-crimes, and fuels the "mental shortcuts" that cops take.
But it also bears attention by black leaders and people, like Mr Blow, whose lofty perch and access to media help regulate the conversation on race. If someone flicks a switch, and racism goes away, the black community will still have a problem with violence among its young men, regardless of the initial cause. And the black community will have to help solve it. Part of true equality should be: a young black man can walk down that street, not be stopped and frisked, and also not be 5-6 times more likely to die that day than a white boy.
51
If blacks had the same opportunity as whites such as adequate education, jobs, housing there would be less violence and crime in black communities. Any society knows that when you have poverty/despair you have criminal behavior. How do you think the mob got started? Italian, Irish, and Jewish criminals sought opportunity through criminal activity.
However, white America has always vilified blacks long before the statistics waved around today. This weekend was the anniversary of " A Birth of a Nation" a film that utterly degrades blacks. Used as a propaganda tool to recruit KKK. These impressions of blacks goes back much further than present day observations. No one wants to admit that blacks have been living under an apartheid system after they dismantled "reconstruction"
Whites really feared what blacks were able to accomplish with so much virulent opposition during that time. They excelled. That scared whites to think" if we were to give them equal opportunity what they could accomplish". Hence, JIM CROW, signed into law by then Pres. Woodrow Wilson.
Whites today know very little of how blacks arrived where they are today. The white establishment shaped black America out of fear.
The lack of historical context is astounding. Not understanding that this contempt for blacks goes back further than drugs/ gangs.
If conditions are hard fought to survive with dignity, people will resort to whatever they need to subsist. The causality is what we have today, of racism...
However, white America has always vilified blacks long before the statistics waved around today. This weekend was the anniversary of " A Birth of a Nation" a film that utterly degrades blacks. Used as a propaganda tool to recruit KKK. These impressions of blacks goes back much further than present day observations. No one wants to admit that blacks have been living under an apartheid system after they dismantled "reconstruction"
Whites really feared what blacks were able to accomplish with so much virulent opposition during that time. They excelled. That scared whites to think" if we were to give them equal opportunity what they could accomplish". Hence, JIM CROW, signed into law by then Pres. Woodrow Wilson.
Whites today know very little of how blacks arrived where they are today. The white establishment shaped black America out of fear.
The lack of historical context is astounding. Not understanding that this contempt for blacks goes back further than drugs/ gangs.
If conditions are hard fought to survive with dignity, people will resort to whatever they need to subsist. The causality is what we have today, of racism...
66
Earl, despite your nifty NYTimes Pick emblem, you've completely missed the point to an extent that is astonishing. As I explicitly said in my post, and you have actually reiterated as evidence of my lack of historical perspective, the evils perpetrated against the black community have indeed led to the many problems we are seeing within those communities. My actual phrasing so you can re-read it, more slowly and after taking a deep breath: "Perhaps it shows how all the evil that's been perpetrated against blacks over the centuries can affect the very fiber of a community."
My bigger point was ultimately about the solution - which you and Mr Blow have completely ignored. You are simply venting. Like it or not, white America alone can't solve the problems within the black community. Whether you perceive it as "not my fault, but yours" you will have to be part of the solution. And to be part of the solution you have to be facile with the facts.
Comey's message was to admit the problem and say 'we're in it together with you." Your and Mr Blow's message is simply, "it's all your fault."
That's not a Kaffeklatsch moment.
My bigger point was ultimately about the solution - which you and Mr Blow have completely ignored. You are simply venting. Like it or not, white America alone can't solve the problems within the black community. Whether you perceive it as "not my fault, but yours" you will have to be part of the solution. And to be part of the solution you have to be facile with the facts.
Comey's message was to admit the problem and say 'we're in it together with you." Your and Mr Blow's message is simply, "it's all your fault."
That's not a Kaffeklatsch moment.
2
Earl Horton:
The problem is your wanting to keep traveling back in time, searching for responsibility, when responsibility resides right here in the present.
The problem is your wanting to keep traveling back in time, searching for responsibility, when responsibility resides right here in the present.
2
A "conversation on race" is well-nigh impossible in America. An op-ed piece on the same page today is revealing. The revered first president, the one who claimed he "could not tell a lie" embodied the slave-holding aristocracy. They no more cared for those who served them than they did for "life, liberty, and the pursuit if happiness" unless, of course, the pursuit of such was limited to white males. When a society is built upon the fundamentals of rapine and ruthless repression, then it nullifies future attempts to come to grips with the products of slavery: the stratification of society and the inevitable results of of its inherent inequalities which, to America's lasting shame, are celebrated this very day. Mr. Comey's acknowledgement of "lazy shortcuts" in policing are welcome, but show only the hard crust of the wound covering the sore. And not many folks are eager to rip off this scab: first, it hurts; then it has to be examined; then it needs time to heal. Alas, America, exceptional country that in many ways she may be, has historically shown herself to be far from eager to undergo the necessary cleansing to heal herself. The cost, we assure our secret selves, is too great, so let's wink at it and go on to other things.
7
In the process of encouraging conversation and sensitivity about racism, you used a trope demeaning to women: "...poverty, hopelessness and despair are the chambermaids of violence and incivility.." Chambermaids clean up other people's messes; they don't generate chaos. Was "midwives of violence" too obviously misogynist? You could have dug deeper and come up with "sperm of violence" as it is male capitalists in power who evacuated paying jobs from this country for their own benefit.
9
Your attempt to limit English to certain PC approved words is a handmaiden to facism.
1
Ah, but what is the sperm of violence without the egg of chaos? Chambermaid is surely an inadequate term on so many levels. In part, no one, wants to have a national conversation precisely because of the linguistic ratholes and landmines along the way. Thanks for sharing.
I listened to FBI director, James Comey's speech an thought it was very thoughtful & inspiring as it sought to unify instead of constantly divide the line between police & community. He suggested that every police officer visit the Martin Luther King memorial & read the speeches of this great man. Let's face it, people who join the police force don't have an easy job. It's like joining the White Helmet group who patrols Syrian cities looking to help those in need.
At the same time, those law abiding citizens living in high crime and high poverty cities are being squeezed out by the thugs that choose the "easy path" of dropping out of school, using and/or selling drugs, getting pregnant outside of wedlock & then going on welfare, violent crimes involving guns or knives and other dysfunctional behaviors. The good folks in the community, like little kids who just want to go to school & get good grades or walk to the library & use the computers, are being intimidated by the negative influences surrounding them.
It's not fair for small children, disabled or the elderly to have to be frightened to go outside or have to walk by prostitutes or drug addicts congregating on the street corners. I've seen inner city schools where school staff have to pick up hypodermic needles every morning to protect the children from injury. It's time communities to take responsibility & form "Guardian Angels" like was done under Mayor Koch in NYC & start helping the police protect the good guys.
At the same time, those law abiding citizens living in high crime and high poverty cities are being squeezed out by the thugs that choose the "easy path" of dropping out of school, using and/or selling drugs, getting pregnant outside of wedlock & then going on welfare, violent crimes involving guns or knives and other dysfunctional behaviors. The good folks in the community, like little kids who just want to go to school & get good grades or walk to the library & use the computers, are being intimidated by the negative influences surrounding them.
It's not fair for small children, disabled or the elderly to have to be frightened to go outside or have to walk by prostitutes or drug addicts congregating on the street corners. I've seen inner city schools where school staff have to pick up hypodermic needles every morning to protect the children from injury. It's time communities to take responsibility & form "Guardian Angels" like was done under Mayor Koch in NYC & start helping the police protect the good guys.
6
Oversimplification.... Part of the problem. The period you are talking about was in the 70s&80's. Crime is down today. Growing up in a neighborhood rife with social ills it is not even close to how it once was.
Let give you a bit more information. During that period you speak of the NYPD was totally corrupt. They were taking graft as a normal way of doing business. Cops were scrambling to work in black neighborhoods where vice was allowed to run rampant. So that they can get the extra money to fund their children's college. Many cops children went to college on ill gotten gains, drugs, gambling, prostitution , extortion, etc. It wasn't until the 90's that they began to police themselves. Until then, everyone in the black community knew what was going on, and so did the NYPD.
The cops in NYC were complicit with crime in the city. Frank Serpico ,a brave moral upstanding police officer who sought to expose the corruption within the NYPD, they tried to kill him, fellow cops. Cops won't turn in other cops, knowing they are breaking the law. The entire law enforcement system is subjective in its duty. If you are black in a black neighborhood despite your success or socio economic standing you are seen as a criminal.
The police are abusive to blacks because they are able to get away with it. This idea that they aren't racist is laughable.Many are ,they would never admit it out loud though.
The NYPD proved it for generations...
Let give you a bit more information. During that period you speak of the NYPD was totally corrupt. They were taking graft as a normal way of doing business. Cops were scrambling to work in black neighborhoods where vice was allowed to run rampant. So that they can get the extra money to fund their children's college. Many cops children went to college on ill gotten gains, drugs, gambling, prostitution , extortion, etc. It wasn't until the 90's that they began to police themselves. Until then, everyone in the black community knew what was going on, and so did the NYPD.
The cops in NYC were complicit with crime in the city. Frank Serpico ,a brave moral upstanding police officer who sought to expose the corruption within the NYPD, they tried to kill him, fellow cops. Cops won't turn in other cops, knowing they are breaking the law. The entire law enforcement system is subjective in its duty. If you are black in a black neighborhood despite your success or socio economic standing you are seen as a criminal.
The police are abusive to blacks because they are able to get away with it. This idea that they aren't racist is laughable.Many are ,they would never admit it out loud though.
The NYPD proved it for generations...
3
@Earl Horton - thanks for the information regarding the evolution of policing in NYC. It opened my eyes to the corruption within policing and the hypocrisy and resentment it must have presented for citizens within the very same communities. I didn't intend to come off as entirely so one sided, although realize that just as there are good & bad cops everywhere, there are also good & bad citizens who choose to either show respect for authority or not, as difficult as this concept seems in the face of corruption & abuse of power.
I grew up in Los Angeles and witnessed the aftermath of the Watts Riots in the 60s. My father made a point of driving us through the ruined and burnt out buildings to help build a sense of empathy for the individuals who are trapped in such abysmal & depressing situations with little sense of a light at the end of the tunnel. Because of my Dad's liberalism, I ended up becoming a teacher & school counselor in one of the most economically desperate communities in San Diego. While working at Kennedy Elementary school, I witness living situations that most people would never imagine occurs in the U.S. I visited troubled children's at their apartments & homes since many lived with nightly gunfire from gang violence. One particular Hmong family had just immigrated from Vietnam, & a young 3rd grader had witnessed his uncle shot in the head from a drive-by shooting. I know what suffering is from working with the damage poverty causes in innocent children.
I grew up in Los Angeles and witnessed the aftermath of the Watts Riots in the 60s. My father made a point of driving us through the ruined and burnt out buildings to help build a sense of empathy for the individuals who are trapped in such abysmal & depressing situations with little sense of a light at the end of the tunnel. Because of my Dad's liberalism, I ended up becoming a teacher & school counselor in one of the most economically desperate communities in San Diego. While working at Kennedy Elementary school, I witness living situations that most people would never imagine occurs in the U.S. I visited troubled children's at their apartments & homes since many lived with nightly gunfire from gang violence. One particular Hmong family had just immigrated from Vietnam, & a young 3rd grader had witnessed his uncle shot in the head from a drive-by shooting. I know what suffering is from working with the damage poverty causes in innocent children.
1
Kaffeeklatsch's aren't necessarily good. Kaffeeklatsch's are not open to all possible participants. Often the individuals most likely to be part of a solution are not those most likely to vent at kaffeeklatsch discussions.
And...based on the op-ed submission guidelines for us readers, I extrapolate that Charles Blow himself may not have chosen the term "kaffeeklatsch."
And...based on the op-ed submission guidelines for us readers, I extrapolate that Charles Blow himself may not have chosen the term "kaffeeklatsch."
Coffee-table gossip is one of those rare culinary delights in German culture in which the glamour of aristocratic savoir vivre has been preserved. The everyday gossip and coffee-table conversations usually lead from private matters to political topics and back again, but they also evoke memories. Einfach wunderbar!
Exodus, Chapter 21:2 Should you buy a Hebrew slave...
I'm reading Robert Alter's translation in which he comments on the extreme age of this passage on slavery, that extends through Chapter 23. It is noted that it parallels slavery laws from other civilizations of the time and place. Slavery did not begin in the American South. It did develop there such that it has colored every moment and facet of life in these United States since. For an essay on its effect on health care, read The Fight Against Universal Health Care in the US Has Its Roots in the Peculiar Institution by Cecile Lawrence, 2.5.15, which you will find at
Charles Blow has written an essay about one event in the continuing conversation about the effects of slavery on our lives; about specific points made during that event. In it he offers his thoughts and opinions, not overall or final conclusions, nor does he say anything to prevent the inclusion of others' thoughts. Instead, he invites us to share our own thoughts anywhere and any time - in fact, all the time. He doesn't say anything to limit the conversation, either, although the subject IS racism and what it does to us. There is a sense in which there is no right or wrong here: certain events have occurred and continue to occur, affecting all of us, some obviously more negatively than others, but all are affected negatively.
This essay wouldn't have been written 100 years ago. We've made some progress. Let's keep it goin'!
I'm reading Robert Alter's translation in which he comments on the extreme age of this passage on slavery, that extends through Chapter 23. It is noted that it parallels slavery laws from other civilizations of the time and place. Slavery did not begin in the American South. It did develop there such that it has colored every moment and facet of life in these United States since. For an essay on its effect on health care, read The Fight Against Universal Health Care in the US Has Its Roots in the Peculiar Institution by Cecile Lawrence, 2.5.15, which you will find at
Charles Blow has written an essay about one event in the continuing conversation about the effects of slavery on our lives; about specific points made during that event. In it he offers his thoughts and opinions, not overall or final conclusions, nor does he say anything to prevent the inclusion of others' thoughts. Instead, he invites us to share our own thoughts anywhere and any time - in fact, all the time. He doesn't say anything to limit the conversation, either, although the subject IS racism and what it does to us. There is a sense in which there is no right or wrong here: certain events have occurred and continue to occur, affecting all of us, some obviously more negatively than others, but all are affected negatively.
This essay wouldn't have been written 100 years ago. We've made some progress. Let's keep it goin'!
1
Actually, slavery developed in the North as well as the South, but ended earlier in the North than in the South. In Colonial America, a larger percent of Northerner than Southerners owned slaves, but Southerners owned more slaves because of the large plantations. Slavery declined more rapidly in the North than in the South because immigrants who flooded into the Northeast Seaboard supplied cheap labor. Still, New Jersey did not abolish slavery until 1846, and slavery was still legal in Rhode Island and Delaware during the Civil War.
29
There were also significantly stronger moral/ethical movements in opposition to slavery. The economics likely were a driving factor but the south did not find its moral compass until it was beaten repeatedly on the field of battle.
I'm finding it hard to have any kind of rational conversation about race right now. I'm in the Richmond VA area and I've never encountered so many racists. I'm a white male and people just assume that I "know" what's wrong with blacks just like them. Needless to say, I'm not making any friends here.
But don't give up. I think there's more rational and compassionate people out there than not. They just aren't as loud and obnoxious so they don't get the attention they deserve.
But don't give up. I think there's more rational and compassionate people out there than not. They just aren't as loud and obnoxious so they don't get the attention they deserve.
6
My son is in second grade at local public school that is very mixed, racially and economically. He and his friends don't seem to know the words - they don't know the derogatory words, they don't know the PC words. They use real words and facts to describe each other, yellow hair, darker skin, curly hair. They are wholly unaware of the fiction of race.
However, they are about to learn the words (in the flawed ideas that they describe) - and they will learn them in school - they will be taught that they are different races, they will taught that there are bad and good words, they will be taught that they are members of a certain race that suffered or caused suffering. They will be taught who they are, what team they play for, and then they will be told to forget it. Of course, all that means is that they will be taught to be victims of history.
I wish second grade could go on forever.
Isn't that what MLK described? Isn't that what we want? Let's end the defunct idea of race. We are all human. That's it. That's the scientific truth. Everything else is simply built on ignorance.
However, they are about to learn the words (in the flawed ideas that they describe) - and they will learn them in school - they will be taught that they are different races, they will taught that there are bad and good words, they will be taught that they are members of a certain race that suffered or caused suffering. They will be taught who they are, what team they play for, and then they will be told to forget it. Of course, all that means is that they will be taught to be victims of history.
I wish second grade could go on forever.
Isn't that what MLK described? Isn't that what we want? Let's end the defunct idea of race. We are all human. That's it. That's the scientific truth. Everything else is simply built on ignorance.
4
I, like Mr. Blow, appreciated the Director’s speech, but also found that he exhibited the same "lazy mental shortcuts" that accused the cop on the beat as having with his reference to the song, “Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist.”
The root of the problem that confronts America as it relates to race relations is not whether or not a white person likes a black person or vis-versa, but rather how institutional and systematic racism has disenfranchised a race of people economically, socially, educationally, and politically for centuries and how that continue to undergird perceptions as well as realities to this day.
To say that "we are all a little bit racist" completely ignores the larger structural issues cemented over centuries that are at the root of the race problem in America.
The root of the problem that confronts America as it relates to race relations is not whether or not a white person likes a black person or vis-versa, but rather how institutional and systematic racism has disenfranchised a race of people economically, socially, educationally, and politically for centuries and how that continue to undergird perceptions as well as realities to this day.
To say that "we are all a little bit racist" completely ignores the larger structural issues cemented over centuries that are at the root of the race problem in America.
10
This is an excellent column revealing that some truths about law enforcement and its perception in some communities are difficult to identify and correct.
However, aggressive policing such as stopping and frisking innocent young Black and Hispanic male citizens in their own neighborhoods or ticketing and arresting citizens in some neighborhoods for minor crimes that in other neighborhoods would require just a mild verbal warning from an Officer, is not difficult to identify or correct.
The excuse used by some authorities and politicians that such aggressive policing reduces crime, whether true or not, is not sufficient to continue the practice which destroys a community's confidence in and respect for the police.
Imagine a suburban predominantly White community tolerating the police stopping and frisking their teenage sons, 90% of whom were totally innocent, even if it resulted in a reduction in the possession of illegal substances. It would not be tolerated.
However, aggressive policing such as stopping and frisking innocent young Black and Hispanic male citizens in their own neighborhoods or ticketing and arresting citizens in some neighborhoods for minor crimes that in other neighborhoods would require just a mild verbal warning from an Officer, is not difficult to identify or correct.
The excuse used by some authorities and politicians that such aggressive policing reduces crime, whether true or not, is not sufficient to continue the practice which destroys a community's confidence in and respect for the police.
Imagine a suburban predominantly White community tolerating the police stopping and frisking their teenage sons, 90% of whom were totally innocent, even if it resulted in a reduction in the possession of illegal substances. It would not be tolerated.
10
New York City has ended its controversial search and frisk policy. Police in other cities don't stop and frisk people unless they are being arrested for some crime. The most recent Justice Department study shows that white (8.4%), black (8.8%), and Hispanic (9.1%) drivers were stopped by police at similar rates in 2008. Hispanics are more likely to be stopped than blacks or whites. The racial disparity in traffic stops is statistically insignificant and partially explainable by differences in median ages. However, black drivers (12.3%) were about three times as likely as white drivers (3.9%) and about two times as likely as Hispanic drivers (5.8%) to be searched during a traffic stop in 2008. The primary reason black and Hispanic drivers are more likely to be searched is that they are more likely to have outstanding warrants for unpaid traffic tickets. Police search drivers arrested for outstanding warrants before taking them to jail.
http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=tp&tid=702
http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=tp&tid=702
1
As the F.B.I. Director said, we all have some racism in us. Mr. Blow shows that Comely proves his thesis by some of his comments about black America. However, the director's heart is in the right place and he's off to a good start, unlike an earlier head of the F.B.I. named J. Edgar Hoover.
5
F.B.I. director James Comey is to be commended for his speech on the historic roots and widely prevalent problems of police attitudes and behavior toward the populations they have sworn oaths to PROTECT and SERVE.
James Comey is not the only person in authority who should be speaking up. Where are the judges and prosecutors in the JUSTICE system?
All of these people should read Charles Blow's column.
James Comey is not the only person in authority who should be speaking up. Where are the judges and prosecutors in the JUSTICE system?
All of these people should read Charles Blow's column.
7
It blows my mind that so many people still don't get it, even when it's presented clearly and without bias. White fear of people of color doesn't consider the plight of people stuck in poverty. Poverty is a result of white fear of people of color.
If you can't see through all the haze to get to the root causes of racism, then you'll never understand the history of racism. That way you can ignore the bases from which the problems evolve. You can even claim you are not a racist.
If you can't see through all the haze to get to the root causes of racism, then you'll never understand the history of racism. That way you can ignore the bases from which the problems evolve. You can even claim you are not a racist.
17
Here's an article about poor populations, in the US, by ethnicity, concluded during the 2010 census. Very interesting. 39 million Americans need to be lifted up, with education, jobs, affordable housing, and compassion. They belong to every ethnic group.
http://inequality.org/poverty-matter-black-white/
http://inequality.org/poverty-matter-black-white/
3
Jett Rink@ What an apt comment!!
Most whites have no historical understanding so they assume from what they see today is a result of some sort of "mental shortcoming" of blacks. Which actually supports the white supremacy doctrine.
"A Birth of a Nation" had its 100 anniversary today. A vile presentation of propaganda about blacks and their history after slavery. It was screened by then Pres. Woodrow Wilson in the White House. JIm Crow was also written into law by the same man. Everyone involved with the film were virulent racists. Their intent was to subvert the will of blacks. That is what has been white establishment's goal from the start. Many whites don't care to know, then there are others that know full well and they are ostracized. Seen as trouble makers and traitors to their "whiteness".
Many of them say"don't go back into the past". The most ridiculous unintelligent statement made. They don't want to know the accomplishments of blacks or the help their ancestors received on the bloodied backs of blacks. Simply, they refuse to hear the facts of policy,law, and social racism
Fear has always motivated their actions; and inactions.....
Most whites have no historical understanding so they assume from what they see today is a result of some sort of "mental shortcoming" of blacks. Which actually supports the white supremacy doctrine.
"A Birth of a Nation" had its 100 anniversary today. A vile presentation of propaganda about blacks and their history after slavery. It was screened by then Pres. Woodrow Wilson in the White House. JIm Crow was also written into law by the same man. Everyone involved with the film were virulent racists. Their intent was to subvert the will of blacks. That is what has been white establishment's goal from the start. Many whites don't care to know, then there are others that know full well and they are ostracized. Seen as trouble makers and traitors to their "whiteness".
Many of them say"don't go back into the past". The most ridiculous unintelligent statement made. They don't want to know the accomplishments of blacks or the help their ancestors received on the bloodied backs of blacks. Simply, they refuse to hear the facts of policy,law, and social racism
Fear has always motivated their actions; and inactions.....
56
well and good, these attempts to bandage the wounds, dividends from our legacy of racial injustice.
the "conversation," (an infotainment euphemism)
has to become an examination, a searching probe of what amounts to a traumatic early national childhood experience, if you will, the genocide of native tribes and our decline into the inhumanity of slavery, the reduction of human beings, our siblings if we are indeed god's children, to chattel...or property, as the great emancipator reminded us in his first inaugural when he defended the capture and return of slaves (a nice connection to today's nyt piece on slave owner george washington)...it is the repressed guilt from these offenses (the conflict with our professed faiths alone is a frightful burden) that has us both blinded by and enraged at their latter day manifestations
...first lets take the sugar off the facts, discuss them, promulgate them, teach them so that we can, from this therapy, this unsparing self-analysis be more forthright and effective in our steps forward...which ought to include the annihilation of the social conditions of unequal opportunity and the psychological disorders of prejudice and bigotry.
so, by all means tend to the problems with policing and fairness in public policy but no amount of covering over will heal the infection underneath.
the "conversation," (an infotainment euphemism)
has to become an examination, a searching probe of what amounts to a traumatic early national childhood experience, if you will, the genocide of native tribes and our decline into the inhumanity of slavery, the reduction of human beings, our siblings if we are indeed god's children, to chattel...or property, as the great emancipator reminded us in his first inaugural when he defended the capture and return of slaves (a nice connection to today's nyt piece on slave owner george washington)...it is the repressed guilt from these offenses (the conflict with our professed faiths alone is a frightful burden) that has us both blinded by and enraged at their latter day manifestations
...first lets take the sugar off the facts, discuss them, promulgate them, teach them so that we can, from this therapy, this unsparing self-analysis be more forthright and effective in our steps forward...which ought to include the annihilation of the social conditions of unequal opportunity and the psychological disorders of prejudice and bigotry.
so, by all means tend to the problems with policing and fairness in public policy but no amount of covering over will heal the infection underneath.
1
Even in nice neighborhoods and at elite schools, blacks can be harassed. But it's not nearly as bad as in poor neighborhoods. Those in nice neighborhoods may complain or sue or drink beer at the White House, but there are no angry demonstrations to speak of and no one burns down a Saks. Make those poor neighborhoods nicer, and most of the problem will go away. Share the wealth!
3
I'm not sure why Comey's mention of a lack of role models, education, or opportunity is a "lazy mental shortcut". Whatever the forces that created that environment, it is hard not to understand the cops difficulty in dealing with it, whether they're white OR black, and I'm sure decisions made in project stairwells are made under duress and the influence of adrenaline not present when knocking on a suburban door. The pictures of Ferguson looters and rioters do nothing to combat the notion that policing impoverished communities is a dangerous business...
8
We have expressions in the South that explain Mr. Comey's points very simply. When you drive by a police officer who has stopped motor vehicle, 90% of the time you can utter "oh driving while black" or a mall guard stopping a shopper "shopping while black". For all the statistics and polling, it is hard to top the fact that everyone recognizes the obvious.
9
Blackness (genetics) is not a pathological condition. There is no evidence that blacks are genetically disposed to commit crimes.
What passes as "black culture" (but which is really only relevant to those blacks living in ghettos -- and even then not all such residents -- or those who try to copy them) on the other hand, does tend to dispose one to commit crimes. Thus, Blow's attempt to conflate the obvious racist view (blacks are genetically likely to commit crimes) with the simple observation that what passes as black culture contains a lot of violence and "entitlement" is a smokescreen to deny the obvious.
Blow's view that "racial profiling" is not rational is simply false. If you know people wearing yellow caps are many times as likely to commit crimes as those who do not wear yellow caps (even though many yellow-capped people never commit crimes), you tend to be suspicious of people wearing yellow caps. And if you are a liberal and refuse to confront reality, reality is likely to eventually confront you, when a yellow-capped person commits a crime against you. This is unfair to the many yellow-capped people who never commit a crime, but it is a rational reaction to high yellow-cap crime.
Some argue that blacks cannot change their skin color, which of course is true, but it is not skin color per se that puts people (black, white and other) off. It is the aping of criminal appearance. No one locks their car doors when they see a black male in a suit and tie.
What passes as "black culture" (but which is really only relevant to those blacks living in ghettos -- and even then not all such residents -- or those who try to copy them) on the other hand, does tend to dispose one to commit crimes. Thus, Blow's attempt to conflate the obvious racist view (blacks are genetically likely to commit crimes) with the simple observation that what passes as black culture contains a lot of violence and "entitlement" is a smokescreen to deny the obvious.
Blow's view that "racial profiling" is not rational is simply false. If you know people wearing yellow caps are many times as likely to commit crimes as those who do not wear yellow caps (even though many yellow-capped people never commit crimes), you tend to be suspicious of people wearing yellow caps. And if you are a liberal and refuse to confront reality, reality is likely to eventually confront you, when a yellow-capped person commits a crime against you. This is unfair to the many yellow-capped people who never commit a crime, but it is a rational reaction to high yellow-cap crime.
Some argue that blacks cannot change their skin color, which of course is true, but it is not skin color per se that puts people (black, white and other) off. It is the aping of criminal appearance. No one locks their car doors when they see a black male in a suit and tie.
17
Don't be so certain that no one locks their door when they see a black male in a suit and tie. If you believe that, you need to read the news a little more often.
2
Mr. Blow is right to say we are already in the midst of a conversation on race, and he adds an important voice. Other positive voices emerging in this broad discussion are those of artists. Hollywood is obviously the high profile player, but what is happening in communities across the country is encouraging (and doesn't get the headlines that violence does). Dancers, musicians, writers and actors are engaging (and interrogating) issues with extraordinary passion, creativity, and yes, beauty. Their commentary on brutality, education, identity, poverty, war and other topics crucial to all of us is very often enlightening as well as inspiring. The arts provide a way to participate (converse) by way of attending an opening (perhaps even buying a painting and taking it home to live with); listening to a local musician or poet; contributing comments to a live talkback after a play. Many local museums and community art centers have programs that take art directly into the classroom (where the lack of funding often makes such programs impossible) and it is impressive what kids will express when given the chance, and when there is someone there to say, “that’s wonderful.” Yes, we’re in the conversation and there’s an upbeat strain within it to be heard, supported and appreciated.
2
I was struck by Mr. Comey's statement that he had no statistics on how many people, presumably of any race, have been killed by the police, at any level of government. No wonder the default mode seems to be to shoot, no matter what the circumstances, when there are no consequences, as we have recently seen, nor any records kept. I find this appalling in this data-driven age.
5
I fail to see much racism by police in the United States. Over 50% of violent crime is committed by young black men yet all blacks make up only 13.1% of our population. No wonder police are on guard, with guns drawn for even the most innocent transgression. To stop police from killing black men when they are confronted on suspicion of committing is crime is for the black men to not resist arrest or try to fight the police. Director Comey either just does not "get it" or he is purposely ignoring the truth for political reasons.
14
I'm not an expert on police enforcement but I did live in New York through the 70's as a white female member of a prey species. We don't have the resources to treat everyone exactly the same as we now do at airports. If Mr. Blow and Al Sharpton want the police to start pussyfooting around young, black men who commit a disproportionately large amount of crime, the increase in crime will disproportionately affect people of color.
13
I agree, conversations on race are happening right now. But unfortunately, having been drawn into some of these conversations, I have found no vocabulary or conversational strategy to enter these conversations, which pretty much deny the existence of structural or institutional racism and concentrate on the trait or character flaws of African - Americans. My attempts to move the conversation into directions suggested in this article leave me quickly alone in the corner sipping my Merlot.
7
When you do find the vocabulary or conversational strategy to engage, you find that the ones you are talking to haven't a clue as to how the problems can be resolved or, for that matter, what they actual problem is.
The advocates of the "race conversation" are as devoid of solutions as everyone else. And to make matters worse, they haven't a clue as to what the objective of the conversation might be, so one might be just as well talking to a snow bank.
Mr. Blow, with his repetitive reliance upon the "victim" analogy, is a fine example of these less-than-forthcoming conversationalists.
The advocates of the "race conversation" are as devoid of solutions as everyone else. And to make matters worse, they haven't a clue as to what the objective of the conversation might be, so one might be just as well talking to a snow bank.
Mr. Blow, with his repetitive reliance upon the "victim" analogy, is a fine example of these less-than-forthcoming conversationalists.
2
Mr. Blow says "The discussion is not about police officers being a “root cause of problems” in a given neighborhood, but rather that they shouldn’t be a problem at all, anywhere". Nor should the citizens of any neighborhood (white, black, mixed, young, old), anywhere be a problem then, right? We could make an argument that we "shouldn't" need police or policing, because it shouldn't be necessary.
6
You realize what police "being a problem" means, right? Don't we have enough examples by now?
I believe that our discussions on race are a very good idea. However, I do not believe racism will ever be over in this country until a white person can walk through a black neighborhood without fear.
8
Or a black person can walk through a white neighborhood without fear. (Even when he lives there)
3
Never hear lack of role models, lack of education, lack of decent employment used to categorize rural white kids hooked on meth, do you? Not exactly on the front burner, in fact, is it even on the stove at all?
10
Actually, the FBI director said, "Too many young men of color become part of that officer’s life experience because so many minority families and communities are struggling, so many boys and young men grow up in environments lacking role models, adequate education, and decent employment—they lack all sorts of opportunities that most of us take for granted. A tragedy of American life—one that most citizens are able to drive around because it doesn’t touch them—is that young people in “those neighborhoods” too often inherit a legacy of crime and prison. And with that inheritance, they become part of a police officer’s life, and shape the way that officer—whether white or black—sees the world. Changing that legacy is a challenge so enormous and so complicated that it is, unfortunately, easier to talk only about the cops. And that’s not fair." This is what Charles Blow means when he accuses the director of moving" perilously close to a racial pathology argument."
1
Excuse me, but this is ignorance masquerading as opinion. The meth scourge has been repeatedly identified with each of the factors you cite. We are certainly well aware of them here in Maine.
The Ferguson Movement is effecting change and discussion in police depts around the country because "Black Lives Matter" has shamed much of the country. What if the same level of protest occurred every time a young black man were shot by another young black man? Could consistent "Black Lives Matter" protests shame gang members, and affect violent neightborhoods? The political correctness of this question is irrelevant. There's only one question I have. Would it work???
6
Enlightenment and civility are hardly the realm of the higher reaches of "polite" white society; far from it. If we define "civility" in major part as "equal justice under the law," we seem to be moving away from, and not toward, our "more perfect union."
www.endthemadnessnow.org
www.endthemadnessnow.org
1
"One doesn’t have to possess the certitude of gospel to have a positive impact on this discussion — for oneself and others. Just an earnest desire for insight and mutual understanding. This is more than one can say of the hard of heart, those resistant to engagement and, therefore, beyond enlightenment. The stone cannot absorb no matter how much you drench it."
Words of truth, but we must also take note that the hard of heart are not silent like a stone. Their role in the conversation does not seek enlightenment. They are rigid in their stony beliefs and active in pursuing them. They are organized and entrenched. They have a grand old party of the hard of heart that speaks in code. A national conversation that seeks enlightenment on race relations must not ignore the stones; it must shine a light upon them, call them out for their ignorance. That will not change the stones, but it will keep the national conversation honest and its ultimate goal of enlightenment productive.
Words of truth, but we must also take note that the hard of heart are not silent like a stone. Their role in the conversation does not seek enlightenment. They are rigid in their stony beliefs and active in pursuing them. They are organized and entrenched. They have a grand old party of the hard of heart that speaks in code. A national conversation that seeks enlightenment on race relations must not ignore the stones; it must shine a light upon them, call them out for their ignorance. That will not change the stones, but it will keep the national conversation honest and its ultimate goal of enlightenment productive.
1
Whenever black communities are spoken about the poor educational resources are mentioned. Why are these schools not getting the job done? Are the teachers there less educated than those of the neighboring suburban ones? Are the students treated more harshly than those in other schools?
Studies show that the staff does not lag educationally in comparison to schools not many miles away. I would like to pose another question. Why are there students in inner city schools who flourish? Why are there more students who revile education? From having spent my career in education there have been students who do not come to school to be educated. Though matter how many conferences are held there is little change in behavior. Many of these students have had a great deal of attention since early elementary school. It's very difficult to get things done in the classroom if there is a group of unruly students. A generation or two ago they simply dropped out. Now there are no jobs for them so they stay and cause problems for others. What is the solution? Blaming the teachers is not one.
Studies show that the staff does not lag educationally in comparison to schools not many miles away. I would like to pose another question. Why are there students in inner city schools who flourish? Why are there more students who revile education? From having spent my career in education there have been students who do not come to school to be educated. Though matter how many conferences are held there is little change in behavior. Many of these students have had a great deal of attention since early elementary school. It's very difficult to get things done in the classroom if there is a group of unruly students. A generation or two ago they simply dropped out. Now there are no jobs for them so they stay and cause problems for others. What is the solution? Blaming the teachers is not one.
7
Mr. Blow how difficult is it for you to take ownership of the reality that poverty and hopelessness
IS NOT JUSTIFICATION for the lack of motivation, perseverance and personal responsibility, like the
10% NATION
THEY POSSESS GREAT WEALTH
USE IT TO REBUILD BLACK COMMUNITIES
WHERE ARE THEY
IS NOT JUSTIFICATION for the lack of motivation, perseverance and personal responsibility, like the
10% NATION
THEY POSSESS GREAT WEALTH
USE IT TO REBUILD BLACK COMMUNITIES
WHERE ARE THEY
3
Winning the 'extreme peacock' contest in a local population is also a way to draw the extra attention of law enforcement.
Inadvertent profiling does not have to be racial; it can be cultural or stylistic, as well. There was a time when young men with dark hair embellished with more than 'a dab' of Brylcreem or another unguent were called "greasers" and received a good deal more police and school-disciplinary attention than those, black or white, with less elaborate coifs.
How a person wears his clothes, adds accessories like body piercings or tattoos, practices the verbal language or body language of some sex-appeal role model, or wears his hair can make just as much (or more) of an impression on the designated keepers of law and order than race alone can.
It seems to be a pretty fixed law of human life that adolescent males will adopt particularly striking modes of self-presentation in order to try to make themselves attractive to females, and will very often imitate the looks and behavior of other males who are seen to be attractive to young women. To get the effect they wish to have, those adolescent males must also have a differentiated look from competitors trying to make similar impressions on the girls. Trying to be more James Dean than James Dean in 'Rebel Without a Cause' is a pretty surefire way to get "profiled".
The crazy, mixed-up world and hormone-hyped behavioral patterns of adolescent males already create a volatile mix for law enforcement.
Inadvertent profiling does not have to be racial; it can be cultural or stylistic, as well. There was a time when young men with dark hair embellished with more than 'a dab' of Brylcreem or another unguent were called "greasers" and received a good deal more police and school-disciplinary attention than those, black or white, with less elaborate coifs.
How a person wears his clothes, adds accessories like body piercings or tattoos, practices the verbal language or body language of some sex-appeal role model, or wears his hair can make just as much (or more) of an impression on the designated keepers of law and order than race alone can.
It seems to be a pretty fixed law of human life that adolescent males will adopt particularly striking modes of self-presentation in order to try to make themselves attractive to females, and will very often imitate the looks and behavior of other males who are seen to be attractive to young women. To get the effect they wish to have, those adolescent males must also have a differentiated look from competitors trying to make similar impressions on the girls. Trying to be more James Dean than James Dean in 'Rebel Without a Cause' is a pretty surefire way to get "profiled".
The crazy, mixed-up world and hormone-hyped behavioral patterns of adolescent males already create a volatile mix for law enforcement.
2
Race, simply put, is of our cynical creation, if used to separate the human race into different categories with the purpose of domination or abuse. It has been a problem since the inception of the U.S.A., and contravening its foundational principles of equality for all...for the pursuit of happiness; hence, a subject not easily relegated to oblivion, as it should. We have a long way to free ourselves from the shackles of willful ignorance; and that includes the police force when called for duty. This is extensive to anybody with the power to control and potentially subjugate ordinary citizens...where some become prey to abuse. A Gordian knot, as I see it.
3
Comey's speech not only was the first real attention given to rational conversation on police/race issues. Most of the noise in this past turbulent year from officials was either apologetic or defensive. I was particularly impressed with one section of the speech...the part about unconscious bias. And that appears on all sides of the color spectrum. My white daughter suffered during her high school years from both verbal and physical abuse from black females. And was removed from a celebratory art project by the black school principal when he discovered that she was not black. It was shocking to her because I had raised her not to "see" people with her eyes, but with her heart. In some ways, it seems that continually trying to find ways to reach the "other side", we instead reinforce the wall. I don't know if we are capable of the conversation going as deep as we need it to....and the problem is NOT the police, but rather individual reactions under pressure that cause us to react consciously or unconsciously to biases. The biases can be the result of our teachings when we were children, or events that have happened in our lives....we might not be able to change them, but we can learn not to let them rule our lives. And rational attention such as Comey expressed in his speech may be a sane way to approach the destruction of the wall.
3
A thoughtful analysis that sharpens our focus on what really matters, Mr. Blow. Thanks for shining the light of hope on a gray morning in my world fresh from a debate with a roomful of white people over adding a 3-credit racial issues requirement to our 120-credit undergraduate degrees. The kinds of issues you recount here should be woven through our whole curriculum in the 21st century, but at least we finally agreed to the three credits. That's in no small part thanks to people like you who wisely, courageously, and constructively keep the conversation going and call us to our best selves.
1
According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2013 poverty estimate, 29.9 million whites and 11 million blacks live below poverty level. There are nearly three times as many poor whites as poor blacks. (The news media obscures this fact by reporting that blacks are disproportionately poor.) So, if poverty alone is the cause of crime, we would expect whites to commit three times as many murders as blacks. Yet the FBI Uniform Crime report shows that in 2013 black , who make up 13 percent of the population, committed 5,375 murders while whites (including Hispanics, who make up 77 percent of the population, committed 4,396. A similar disproportionality exists in other violent crime categories. So, in our discussion on race, we need to ask what factors beside poverty contribute to the racial disparity in crime rates.
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/data/incpovhlth/2013/table3.pdf
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/data/incpovhlth/2013/table3.pdf
12
I can feel in these comments that if a day of atonement were to come there would be plenty to go around for blacks and whites. The truths of our merged history is that both sides have blood on their hands, and there will be no true peace until all parties own it. The savagery in Africa and Muslim nations to this day echoes a brutal past. And the white mans tacit sense of superiority over this savagery while guilty of similar acts pushes this dialogue ever further apart.
1
Actually, interracial murders are relatively rare in the United States. This is why they make headlines when they do occur. The FBI Uniform Crime Report (Expanded Homicide Data Table 6) shows that 409 blacks murdered whites while 189 whites (including Hispanics) murdered blacks in 2013, the most recent year for which data is available. However, there were 12,966 murders in 2013, so only about five percent of murders are interracial murders.
30
Dear Mr. Blow,
Indeed, the admissions by Mr. Comey are welcomed especially given the "legacy" of J. E. Hoover and the FBI.
Will it "change" anything? Having just finished reading Jill Leovy's book "Ghettoside", the country's law enforcement community has an immense distance to go (Along with the rest of the discriminatory white population). In essence, there exists an entire underworld of another "America". In Los Angeles, these communities are given little or no "police" protection. It's not that the police are the "killers" but, outside of a handful of dedicated homicide detectives, the inattention of police to even try to find perpetrators of "black on black" murders is appalling. Part of the "gang system" is self protection as the police do not provide either the protection or the follow up investigations to arrest the felons responsible for the violence. As Ms. Leovy points out, early on in the ghetto related murders, the police used the shorthand "NHI" to indicate "black on black" shootings, NHI meaning "No Human Involvement".
It will stay this way as long as the country gives "lip service" to it's less fortunate citizens and keeps them "penned up" in ghettoes; ghettoes, perhaps, without walls, but ghettoes in every other sense.
The kind of change the country needs will come only when we have defeated poverty and inequality; yeah, a big order but if we can make an A-Bomb why not a "Manhattan Project" addressing poverty?
I know, there's the GOP/TP who brook no handouts.
Indeed, the admissions by Mr. Comey are welcomed especially given the "legacy" of J. E. Hoover and the FBI.
Will it "change" anything? Having just finished reading Jill Leovy's book "Ghettoside", the country's law enforcement community has an immense distance to go (Along with the rest of the discriminatory white population). In essence, there exists an entire underworld of another "America". In Los Angeles, these communities are given little or no "police" protection. It's not that the police are the "killers" but, outside of a handful of dedicated homicide detectives, the inattention of police to even try to find perpetrators of "black on black" murders is appalling. Part of the "gang system" is self protection as the police do not provide either the protection or the follow up investigations to arrest the felons responsible for the violence. As Ms. Leovy points out, early on in the ghetto related murders, the police used the shorthand "NHI" to indicate "black on black" shootings, NHI meaning "No Human Involvement".
It will stay this way as long as the country gives "lip service" to it's less fortunate citizens and keeps them "penned up" in ghettoes; ghettoes, perhaps, without walls, but ghettoes in every other sense.
The kind of change the country needs will come only when we have defeated poverty and inequality; yeah, a big order but if we can make an A-Bomb why not a "Manhattan Project" addressing poverty?
I know, there's the GOP/TP who brook no handouts.
3
"The kind of change the country needs will come only when we have defeated poverty and inequality; yeah, a big order but if we can make an A-Bomb why not a "Manhattan Project" addressing poverty?" Wasn't Johnson's Great Society poverty programs supposed to be the "A Bomb" that was supposed to eliminate poverty? $24 Trillion later and not only has nothing changed but it's gotten worse.
2
Dear NYHuguenot,
Perhaps you missed my "lip service" part of the comment. As I recall, Ronald Reagan's "trickle down" didn't do much better. What I'm suggesting is that "flinging money" AT poverty doesn't work. A well planned, serious attempt to "eliminate" poverty would need a nationwide effort to identify the causes of poverty, attack those causes in a cogent manner and to try and make the "American Dream" an equal possibility for all.
If not, what is your suggestion as I see you propose nothing in your comment?
Perhaps you missed my "lip service" part of the comment. As I recall, Ronald Reagan's "trickle down" didn't do much better. What I'm suggesting is that "flinging money" AT poverty doesn't work. A well planned, serious attempt to "eliminate" poverty would need a nationwide effort to identify the causes of poverty, attack those causes in a cogent manner and to try and make the "American Dream" an equal possibility for all.
If not, what is your suggestion as I see you propose nothing in your comment?
Contends Blow: "But in seeking to offer context, he mentioned “environments lacking role models, adequate education, and decent employment.” Here he moves perilously close to a racial pathology argument, as if there were something inherent in blackness and black culture that predisposes one to criminality. This, too, is a “lazy mental shortcut."
But this conveniently overlooks the de facto racial subcultures that feed and perpetuate alienate the prevailing standards and norms regulating American life for most - most (not merely a simply majority) of its inhabitants and citizens.
But this conveniently overlooks the de facto racial subcultures that feed and perpetuate alienate the prevailing standards and norms regulating American life for most - most (not merely a simply majority) of its inhabitants and citizens.
2
#1. Is it safe? or is it dangerous?
Cold? or Hot?
A friend? or foe?
The brutal reality is this..........prejudice is necessary for survival. And prejudice is a learned behavior.
#2. Profiling is prejudice applied by our law enforcement. It is not illegal. And how do the Law Enforcement Officers learn the profiles??? Real world experience.
#3. Racism. This is different than prejudice. Racism, to me, is the institutional, societal practice of segmenting society by identification of various "ethnic" factors.......black, white, something called "hispanic" which be either black or white, or even sometimes "asian" which is yet another racist classification used by the US Census dept , various Advertising Agencies, and the DNC. Slavery being the most extreme form of racism employed in American Society, tho not nearly as extreme as the Indian caste system or the overwhelming use of slavery in Brazil.
Cold? or Hot?
A friend? or foe?
The brutal reality is this..........prejudice is necessary for survival. And prejudice is a learned behavior.
#2. Profiling is prejudice applied by our law enforcement. It is not illegal. And how do the Law Enforcement Officers learn the profiles??? Real world experience.
#3. Racism. This is different than prejudice. Racism, to me, is the institutional, societal practice of segmenting society by identification of various "ethnic" factors.......black, white, something called "hispanic" which be either black or white, or even sometimes "asian" which is yet another racist classification used by the US Census dept , various Advertising Agencies, and the DNC. Slavery being the most extreme form of racism employed in American Society, tho not nearly as extreme as the Indian caste system or the overwhelming use of slavery in Brazil.
2
I would like to take this opportunity to thank Mr. Blow for continuing his discussion of race with the readers of the New York Times. Given the many obtuse comments on his column, I suspect it must be difficult for him to take the courageous stand he takes day in and day out to explain to uncomprehending readers the reality of black life in the United States. His immense courage and wisdom are an inspiration to all concerned with truth and justice.
19
It's not just the comments but the number of recommendations they get that is disheartening to me. If it's like this here, I have to wonder what's it like over at the WSJ. 'Culture,' appears to be the new code word of choice.
3
And the stubborn refusal to acknowledge that the 400-year-old history of slavery and Jim Crow continues to affect the daily lives of whites and blacks in this country in terms of opportunities and distribution of violence. One race is reaping all the benefits and the other all the negatives. From the responses here, one could see how those whose ancestors benefited, and who are benefiting from the structural inequities find it so difficult to understand the other side. It's a human condition, this denial.
2
The WSJ doesn't do stories like this or entertain us with essayists who want to place blame for every social ill on the majority culture. Nor does it do bleeding heart stories about illegals being deported or unable to get a drivers license. I've never seen a story blaming chronic pain patients for the number of people who OD on prescription drugs either.
Maybe it's because they print the news?
Maybe it's because they print the news?
2
C.B. states that geography doesn't confine people to neighborhoods,but that skin color does. Economic circumstances are a significant confining factor and our history establishes that skin color has been used to steer economic benefit away from one group and into the pockets of another group. I blame greed and a capitalist economic system that exalts competition and dimishes cooperation as the key factors driving this result. Skin color has been a convenient mechanism for distinguishing one group from another for purposes of putting greater wealth in one person's pocket at the expense of another.
6
Mr. Blow, in your national conversation on race, will the African Americans be acknowledging any obligations or responsibilities - to themselves, their community or society at large?
Or will the conversation you envision follow the usual format - long on 400 year old histories and the obligation for people living today to atone for the sins of others long dead, while scrupulously denying the reality of what people living today have been up to?
Or will the conversation you envision follow the usual format - long on 400 year old histories and the obligation for people living today to atone for the sins of others long dead, while scrupulously denying the reality of what people living today have been up to?
66
Rico, surely you jest. Blow is little more than a better dressed Al Sharpton.
9
Comey in large part tells you "what people living today have been up to." Blow acknowledges what they see in common, disagrees with the categorization of the police as "the root cause of problems," and tells you why. Which word did you not understand? Or did you read the piece using “lazy mental shortcuts”?
2
Well, yeah, but there are *two* sides to this. Should someone like Mr. Blow be subjected to harsh policing merely because his skin color is the same as that of those irresponsible young men?
Good article, CB. I don't agree with every one of your views on modern America, but you now come close to a monster proposition that's actually been hiding in plain sight for centuries: "...those resistant to engagement and, therefore, beyond enlightenment." Your use of “enlightenment” recalls what Voltaire, a giant of the Enlightenment, said of the mass of people—they are not worthy of enlightenment. They were more fitted, he said, to the yoke, the goad, and a pile of hay.
This view of the “lower-classes” underpinned European society for centuries, and is nicely parodied in Downton Abbey. It was unfortunately absorbed by the White lower classes, many of whom came to America and found themselves no longer on the lowest rung of the social ladder. Their offspring now form the hard core of White American Evangelicals. And their philosophy, imbibed largely from British gentry, underpins GOP policies on the poor, whether regarding government aid, education, or the right to vote.
On the other hand, the metaphor of the “stone” was used differently by Yeats—he applied it to those who’d undergone too long a suppression: “Too long a sacrifice/ Can make a stone of the heart.” For the suppressed, there are various remedies, but a fuller remedy depends on the political leaders who exploit ignorance and promote fear among congenital racists. Can anything be found to open their eyes?
This view of the “lower-classes” underpinned European society for centuries, and is nicely parodied in Downton Abbey. It was unfortunately absorbed by the White lower classes, many of whom came to America and found themselves no longer on the lowest rung of the social ladder. Their offspring now form the hard core of White American Evangelicals. And their philosophy, imbibed largely from British gentry, underpins GOP policies on the poor, whether regarding government aid, education, or the right to vote.
On the other hand, the metaphor of the “stone” was used differently by Yeats—he applied it to those who’d undergone too long a suppression: “Too long a sacrifice/ Can make a stone of the heart.” For the suppressed, there are various remedies, but a fuller remedy depends on the political leaders who exploit ignorance and promote fear among congenital racists. Can anything be found to open their eyes?
2
While "The stone cannot absorb no matter how much you drench it" is true, careful observation shows some other things. Although long-lived, stones are broken down into the finest sand. Furthermore, there is no known limit to the power of water in the form of a glacier to move any stone whether a huge chunk of granite or that finest grain.
The arc of history indeed bends toward justice and it is this movement, however slow, we need to revere and nurture.
The arc of history indeed bends toward justice and it is this movement, however slow, we need to revere and nurture.
1
I am a white woman having graced a multitude of "neighborhoods" and situations - I have seen the layers of discrimination and predatory behavior on the part of white people to the point of embarrassment - this conversation needs to continue to go deeper in continuing to shift the consciousness buried in institutional behavior and systems which are run by a dominant culture.
3
What's the conversation you're looking for exactly?
5
"We can move in and out of high-crime neighborhoods."
You can if you are of reasonable financial means and live in a city where affordable housing can be found in a neighborhood that accommodates your other needs (transportation to work, etc.). But for some they can no more do this than they can move out of their own skin.
You can if you are of reasonable financial means and live in a city where affordable housing can be found in a neighborhood that accommodates your other needs (transportation to work, etc.). But for some they can no more do this than they can move out of their own skin.
5
"Lazy mental shortcuts" -- in other, more honest words: please blind yourselves, white America, to the horrific shortcomings that stubbornly persist in black behavior.
12
"We need to stop calling for the conversation and realize that we are already having it."
Thank you, Charles. And like many conversations, there are multiple viewpoints and not everyone will remain civil or be amenable to an ever-so-slight shift in position. But talking is better than not talking. Always.
Isn't that the point of every tough discussion, from diplomacy, to political compromise, to union arbitrations, and even how Europe deals with the economy of Greece. You can't solve a problem if you don't consider all its aspects.
I was amazed at Comey's comments last week. It seemed a welcome relief from the pitched battle between DeBlasio and the police union. It recognized the wrongs on each side of the argument, and it spoke obvious truths that were feared to be said.
But I agree with your basic premise that it's overly simplistic to just tell the entire class of African Americans that the need to stop using the past to justify the present. That's too convenient for white Americans, and insulting to the black community. Our national stain--and it is a stain--isn't something that can be erased from historical and institutional memory, when so many examples of the stain still permeate our culture and our laws.
So, let the conversation continue. Let the views be aired. And hope that gradually, over time, views and "blame-games" knee-jerk attitudes can be exposed for what they are.
Thank you, Charles. And like many conversations, there are multiple viewpoints and not everyone will remain civil or be amenable to an ever-so-slight shift in position. But talking is better than not talking. Always.
Isn't that the point of every tough discussion, from diplomacy, to political compromise, to union arbitrations, and even how Europe deals with the economy of Greece. You can't solve a problem if you don't consider all its aspects.
I was amazed at Comey's comments last week. It seemed a welcome relief from the pitched battle between DeBlasio and the police union. It recognized the wrongs on each side of the argument, and it spoke obvious truths that were feared to be said.
But I agree with your basic premise that it's overly simplistic to just tell the entire class of African Americans that the need to stop using the past to justify the present. That's too convenient for white Americans, and insulting to the black community. Our national stain--and it is a stain--isn't something that can be erased from historical and institutional memory, when so many examples of the stain still permeate our culture and our laws.
So, let the conversation continue. Let the views be aired. And hope that gradually, over time, views and "blame-games" knee-jerk attitudes can be exposed for what they are.
5
I wonder how many ills of troubled black communities would vanish if they followed three rules: (1) work hard, (2) stay in school, (3) get married.
14
What a great idea! Maybe it would work with troubled white communities, too! And troubled Hispanic communities, etc., etc. Why limit it to one ethnic group?
4
Yes. Blow should concentrate on advocating (1) wok, (2) education, and (3) marriage...rather than his long-since-stale regularly repeated rant on racism and reparations.
4
Robert, the country I live in, the USA, has a rate of about 50% divorce. Many of the inhabitants don't marry at all and the trend is increasing, particularly among the "white" middle class....
What country are you living in?
What country are you living in?
I witnessed NY police officers stop amd frisk a black man after stopping his car. The man appeared to be cooperating. It was the dead of winter and the officers jerked the mans pants down to his ankles as they conducted their search and had him remain standing like that in the freezing cold while they appeared to run his information. It is the daily disregard for the dignity of people that needs to stop. Instead of noting the lazy thinking behind this sort of treatment, the police need to hold each other accountable to a higher standard of policing and top law enforcement officials like Mr. Comey need to hold them accountable as well. As long as there is zero accountability for the daily infractions and abuses that take place, the encounters between the police and black men will continue to be corrosive.
28
No hard truths acknowledged here. Not a single one.
Until the intelligent voices of Black America, like Blow's, face up to the uncomfortable realities of their culture, Black America will lag behind.
It will eventually catch up, because the damage inflicted on them by the White Guilt Tripped Liberal can't alter the reality that these Black humans are in no important degree different than any others. How long will Black America take to catch up will be largely dependent on how long Black America, its leaders, and the media cling to the idea that essential personal growth can be gifted.
Until the intelligent voices of Black America, like Blow's, face up to the uncomfortable realities of their culture, Black America will lag behind.
It will eventually catch up, because the damage inflicted on them by the White Guilt Tripped Liberal can't alter the reality that these Black humans are in no important degree different than any others. How long will Black America take to catch up will be largely dependent on how long Black America, its leaders, and the media cling to the idea that essential personal growth can be gifted.
13
Until our law enforcement ranks become more integrated it is unlikely that needed meaningful discussions which lead to change will occur. I believe that this need has been identified, however, the discussion regarding how to facilitate this change is in its early stages at best.
Due to the cultural divide that exists in our society many have never had a chance to experience, much less work with people from different cultures. The lack of diversity in the work place negatively affects to us all but is very harmful when it affects those in law enforcement as it lends itself to profiling as well as other difficulties as a result.
Perhaps if we can bring the discussion forward focusing on law enforcement, and work towards integrating this sector of our workforce it could lead us to a point where we begin to focus on other facets of our workforce and society so that we may effectively embrace our diversity and reap the resulting benefits.
Due to the cultural divide that exists in our society many have never had a chance to experience, much less work with people from different cultures. The lack of diversity in the work place negatively affects to us all but is very harmful when it affects those in law enforcement as it lends itself to profiling as well as other difficulties as a result.
Perhaps if we can bring the discussion forward focusing on law enforcement, and work towards integrating this sector of our workforce it could lead us to a point where we begin to focus on other facets of our workforce and society so that we may effectively embrace our diversity and reap the resulting benefits.
1
When Irish and Italian Roman Catholics and European Jews started coming to America in greater numbers between 1880-1920 they were discriminated against in every phase of civil secular life by the native white American Protestant majority from North and West Europe. They were not accepted as being "white". Many of them turned to crime which became increasingly organized and violent in the wake of prohibition and depression. One response to this was too enact quota immigration laws which limited their ability to legally enter America. Those laws lasted until mid-1960's and LBJ led immigration reform legislation.
And for decades more than twice as many whites have been arrested for all categories of crime as compared to Blacks and for each specific type of crime as well except for robbery and gambling. But our prisons are disproportionately full of Blacks because whites get a pass and Blacks are persecuted. Particularly poor non-violent illegal drug users and those possessing illegal drugs. That has been a bipartisan political truth since Reagan but it got worse under Clinton through Obama. "The New Jim Crow" Michelle Alexander. Except for Wall Street corporate suites the white criminals also tend to be poor.
No matter what Comey says the FBI building is still named after the corrupt criminal bigot John Edgar Hoover. And the FBI has not totally repudiated it's past indiscretions nor significantly changed it's racial practices or attitudes.
And for decades more than twice as many whites have been arrested for all categories of crime as compared to Blacks and for each specific type of crime as well except for robbery and gambling. But our prisons are disproportionately full of Blacks because whites get a pass and Blacks are persecuted. Particularly poor non-violent illegal drug users and those possessing illegal drugs. That has been a bipartisan political truth since Reagan but it got worse under Clinton through Obama. "The New Jim Crow" Michelle Alexander. Except for Wall Street corporate suites the white criminals also tend to be poor.
No matter what Comey says the FBI building is still named after the corrupt criminal bigot John Edgar Hoover. And the FBI has not totally repudiated it's past indiscretions nor significantly changed it's racial practices or attitudes.
7
Good points. Reminds me of the Englishman's quip: the Irish make good soldiers if led by a White man.
1
And we have put a profit motive into this by enabling towns across the country to fatten their operations budgets on the backs of their poorest citizens with what are essentially debtors' prisons. See -- as one of many examples! -- Ferguson & Jennings, MO:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/09/us/ferguson-one-of-2-missouri-suburbs-...
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/09/us/ferguson-one-of-2-missouri-suburbs-...
3
Changing one's perspective is pretty difficult especially in light of media presentation of confrontations. WE really don't have available to us decent and unbiased news reporting. Maybe we never will.
We are a country that right now, can't even tell itself the truth.
We are a country that right now, can't even tell itself the truth.
5
Is it just me or do Mr. Blow's 'conversations about race' come across as 'lectures about race'?
35
He's an Op-ed writer.
1
Mr. Blow is not lecturing, he is responding to specific comments made by the F.B.I. director. Mr. Blow is very effectively offering a different view of situations presented by Mr. Comey, which makes it very definitely a conversation.
3
It may be you. It's hard to hear painful truth. You know that. I read his columns as op-ed pieces consistently hitting at deep issues in our society that must not be avoided or abandoned. He opens the door with his column. The rest of the conversation is up to us. I don't hear it as lecture at all, but rather as statements meant to further the conversation.
3
The crux of the matter is when Comey says:
“ One reason we cannot forget our law enforcement legacy is that the people we serve and protect cannot forget it, either. ”
Begging the 2 questions:
Whom does law enforcement think they are serving ?
and the follow-on corollary:
Why does law enforcement not think their place is just enforcing the law, with the question about whom is being ' served ' totally beside the point ?
Comey reveals the defacto cultural mind-set which needs adjusting :)
“ One reason we cannot forget our law enforcement legacy is that the people we serve and protect cannot forget it, either. ”
Begging the 2 questions:
Whom does law enforcement think they are serving ?
and the follow-on corollary:
Why does law enforcement not think their place is just enforcing the law, with the question about whom is being ' served ' totally beside the point ?
Comey reveals the defacto cultural mind-set which needs adjusting :)
5
The sorry truth is that years of white racism, white disrespect and white-created lack of economic opportunity has created a culture of despair within the black community. The answer is to do whatever is needed to change this culture, to improve circumsatances; it is not to blame the members of that culture.
To me the saddest aspect of this story is the loss of those distinctive elements of the African American culture that gave ongoing hope to this group. The slight, and apparently almost meaningless opening of the door towards equality has somehow removed a kind of "we are ourselves, and we are cool people" sense from the culture. And this element is central to who we are as Americans... ALL of us. It is seldom heard these days: Black Pride.
WGBH World had a film about a young African American on a crusade to end Black History Month. He believed that it is all ONE history, black and white. His journey on this quest and his discoveries at the end are worth seeing. It is NOT simple.
To me the saddest aspect of this story is the loss of those distinctive elements of the African American culture that gave ongoing hope to this group. The slight, and apparently almost meaningless opening of the door towards equality has somehow removed a kind of "we are ourselves, and we are cool people" sense from the culture. And this element is central to who we are as Americans... ALL of us. It is seldom heard these days: Black Pride.
WGBH World had a film about a young African American on a crusade to end Black History Month. He believed that it is all ONE history, black and white. His journey on this quest and his discoveries at the end are worth seeing. It is NOT simple.
6
This is the best comment I've seen on this mess in a long time. It's easy to say the problem is discrimination OR the problem is a culture of lawlessness and irresponsibility in the Black community. So few seem to say that PART of the problem is indeed a "culture of despair" CAUSED by centuries of abuse and injustice. I think it's what LeRoy Jones (later Amiri Baraka) meant when he had a character in a play say "Every Black man in America is insane." Thank you, Mr. Hadley.
2
Mr. Blow brings up the issue of reparations.
A quick review of the World Bank figures for average GDP per person indicates that, for most countries in Africa, the average GDP per person ranges between $500 and $2,000 per year. In the USA, it is over $50,000 per person. Should African-Americans pay a reparation for living in a country where they are better off than in their country of origin?
I don't think so. But if this is what Mr. Blow is suggesting, then he should come out and say so specifically. He should look at the non-monetary aspects as well and compare the civil rights of blacks in places like Zimbabwe and contrast them with the civil rights of blacks in the United States. Mr. Blow can also look at the number of people (of all colors) trying to get into Zimbabwe compared to the number trying to get into the USA.
This is not intended to pre-judge the situation, but Mr. Blow may find that the USA, while not perfect, is a better place to be - in the real world. By the standards of perfection - to be found nowhere - the USA is of course a disappointing place.
A quick review of the World Bank figures for average GDP per person indicates that, for most countries in Africa, the average GDP per person ranges between $500 and $2,000 per year. In the USA, it is over $50,000 per person. Should African-Americans pay a reparation for living in a country where they are better off than in their country of origin?
I don't think so. But if this is what Mr. Blow is suggesting, then he should come out and say so specifically. He should look at the non-monetary aspects as well and compare the civil rights of blacks in places like Zimbabwe and contrast them with the civil rights of blacks in the United States. Mr. Blow can also look at the number of people (of all colors) trying to get into Zimbabwe compared to the number trying to get into the USA.
This is not intended to pre-judge the situation, but Mr. Blow may find that the USA, while not perfect, is a better place to be - in the real world. By the standards of perfection - to be found nowhere - the USA is of course a disappointing place.
23
Not a very useful approach: comparing life in Africa and the USA and unhelpfully using income per capital as the only indicator of wellbeing. I was born and bred in Africa, did not own a pair of shoes until I was almost a teenager, had one meal a day, and I had very few books that I devoured and ultimately wound up at a prestigious university in the USA. The crucial difference between life of a poor black fellow in Africa and the USA is affirmation or lack thereof. I was poor in objective terms but never knew it and never felt it. I was affirmed by just about anyone in my community. I developed into a confident being assured on their place in the world and unbothered by racism I encountered when I arrived on these shores. The same cannot be said of a poor African child born and bred in the inner city with all the vast strictures of control, condescension and disaffirmation confining them. In a nutshell, man does not become fully human on bread alone. And I thought this is a Christian nation!
1
Alex, the country of origin for African Americans is the U.S.A. Many Black Americans trace their heritage back to the Revolutionary War and before. Their families of origin include people from countries in Africa, as well as countries in Europe, and for some, people from the Americas, Native Americans. Many white people have lineages more recently arrived in this country. Yet we consider our country of origin, our home, to be here, the U.S.
The question of reparations is more relevant to our current state, here in the U.S. It has to do with acknowledging the grotesque oppression, the violence, perpetrated toward a particular group of our own citizenry, continuing through and after slavery ended to the present day, in numerous forms. Considering reparation as an idea brings with it a clearer focus of what has been, continues to be, our terrible legacy. Comparing what the pay would be in another country vs. ours is meaningless. Which country do you chose? And to imply that we somehow have it better here and thus African Americans should be satisfied, only continues the problem, the blindness. The suffering here is real, and perpetuated for generations. It is time for white people to stop excusing.
The question of reparations is more relevant to our current state, here in the U.S. It has to do with acknowledging the grotesque oppression, the violence, perpetrated toward a particular group of our own citizenry, continuing through and after slavery ended to the present day, in numerous forms. Considering reparation as an idea brings with it a clearer focus of what has been, continues to be, our terrible legacy. Comparing what the pay would be in another country vs. ours is meaningless. Which country do you chose? And to imply that we somehow have it better here and thus African Americans should be satisfied, only continues the problem, the blindness. The suffering here is real, and perpetuated for generations. It is time for white people to stop excusing.
2
“unconscious racial bias” Being White and 69 years old I can tell you it is an environment one grows up in at from my age. I hope to god that our sons and daughters wake up to this problem.
4
The great democracy and defenders of equality fighting Islamist and terrorists in Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and Yemen yet with the greatest burden of practicing racism in its country. A disease that has spanned over four centuries. How will the United States reconcile this? An endemic disease needs serious attention.
4
An off the beaten path perspective regarding how to improve race relations is reflected in this quote by Adam Smith: "The first thing you have to know is yourself. A man who knows himself can step outside himself and watch his own reactions like an observer." This quote reflects a huge but necessary step that would automatically improve race relations. Namely personal growth and raised awareness which naturally turns "a stone that cannot absord no matter how much you drench it" into a sponge. It speaks to the old adage "Let their be peace on earth and let it begin with me". Or as Maya Angelou stated: "When we know better we do better." Improved self-understanding through introspection can take lots of hard work. But it means that we can finally be in control of our actions and reactions rather than the other way around. And that can make all the difference in race relations and just about everything else.
10
Blacks are not asking for a pity party from white Americans. I've grown tired of this old, hackneyed refrain: "Black people, you need to look inward at yourselves. It's not us white people who are responsible for your pain and suffering." The truth is, Black Americans have been looking inward at themselves and their communities for the better part of four centuries. The reality of fractured families, absent fathers, rampant crime (inflicted by our own) in black communities doesn't change the reality of structural racism in employment, education, and housing. We didn't make that up! Those experiences are real and pervasive. It is high time that white Americans do some self-relfection of their own, and stop asking us to do what we have done as an ethnic minority for four-hundred years. Maya Angelou was talking about you! Not us. Time to look at yourselves, and ask what in the world you are doing to your fellow Americans, but that would lead to some troubling conclusions. Wouldn't it?
2
A Elliott, Your anger is apparent. Sorry you missed the point of this comment which was basically that enlightened growing humans who know themselves aren't biased or bigoted. (Thus overall expanded consciousness is really the only way to permanently fix race relations.) Or if biases are present, an introspective growing person chooses to not act out their biases but act instead in ways that are healing, peaceful and good for the whole. Maya Angelou was an enlightened person herself who was speaking a truth about everyone, regardless of race, in any situation. For example, people who know better do better at improving race relations. Also, if you had paid attention to the comment about the "stone" which was directly from Charles Blow's piece and referred to the hard hearts of some who are unable to be part of the conversation or solution regrading race, it would have been apparent who my comment was referring to. I regret that it was taken the wrong way. Peace.
4
I prefer not to talk to whites about race. It's never honest. These conversations ooze with condescension and pity, misunderstandings and ignorance. Most white people are relieved they and their children (especially) are not black, and often they'll let you know this with such comments as, "I don't know what I'd do if I had to have 'the talk' with my son." (This actually happened.) I'd be satisfied if they spent some time reading a few Gerald Horne books, watched "Selma," and looked at the Library of Congress's archive of slave and lynching photos. And then talked amongst themselves.
17
Who would want to chat with you? Your comment oozes racism, condescension, and bitterness.
8
Another carefully wrought, nuanced column from Mr Blow! Well done! Comments reveal, however, how nervous nuance makes some people today. It's the New York Times, people! Not the Washington Times! Everybody stay warm!
14
"We need to stop calling for the conversation and realize that we are already having it."
Agreed. Whenever I hear someone call for a conversation on race, I immediately look for an exit. The conversation has already been going on for a long time, is still proceeding and, in my lifetime, has made enormous progress. The major obstacle that still lies ahead is the persistent belief among liberals of all races, colors and creeds that government is the answer to everything and by the stroke of a pen or the printing of money can bring racial justice about in the blink of an eye.
Agreed. Whenever I hear someone call for a conversation on race, I immediately look for an exit. The conversation has already been going on for a long time, is still proceeding and, in my lifetime, has made enormous progress. The major obstacle that still lies ahead is the persistent belief among liberals of all races, colors and creeds that government is the answer to everything and by the stroke of a pen or the printing of money can bring racial justice about in the blink of an eye.
16
The real problem is poverty. Lyndon Johnson started the "War on Poverty" fifty years ago. It didn't work.
But conservatives have had the same 50 years. Ronald Reagan gave us the "War on Government" which has made poverty worse.
The riches 400 Americans have the same wealth as the bottom 50% - 150 million Americans (from Forbes).
We are the richest country on the planet and rank 17 in education.
I will vote for anyone who really fixes poverty. At least the liberals are trying. Conservatives keep giving us trickle down an "tax cuts for the job creators."
Mitt Romney paid 15% on $20 million of investment income. I paid 30% on less than $100K from going to work everyday and producing a product.
But conservatives have had the same 50 years. Ronald Reagan gave us the "War on Government" which has made poverty worse.
The riches 400 Americans have the same wealth as the bottom 50% - 150 million Americans (from Forbes).
We are the richest country on the planet and rank 17 in education.
I will vote for anyone who really fixes poverty. At least the liberals are trying. Conservatives keep giving us trickle down an "tax cuts for the job creators."
Mitt Romney paid 15% on $20 million of investment income. I paid 30% on less than $100K from going to work everyday and producing a product.
4
When did you poll Liberals? I don't know anyone who thinks we can legislate thoughts and prejudices. I do know many who have serious prejudices--and I avoid them like the plague.
2
Who said law enforcement is to blame? Jackson, Sharpton, Brown's step father. The list goes on. Mr Blow sets parameters that don't exist. There is one answer that covers a good portion of the inner city problem: look inward.
62
Dear Charles Blow - did you write the headline of your piece today, "A Kaffeeklatsch" on Race? Or did some headline-writer at the Grey Lady write it? "Kaffeeklatsch" is a German word dating from pre-World War I and derides the activities of women gathering for a "gossip" (klatsch) and coffee. Much too burdened a word to describe today's conversation on race. Those who don't listen can't converse. Productive conversation is an oxymoron. Conversation is only a preamble to action. Racial bias has been alive and well in our United States since the Year Dot when our first President owned slaves at Mount Vernon (see Erica Dunbar's piece in today's Times about the slave woman, Ona Judge, who escaped Martha Washington and GW's slave catchers back in the time and became a free woman, wife and mother in Portland, NH, the north of the US). The racial dysfunction that has always defined slavery - ownership and arbitrary disposition of human beings by their white "Massas". has seeped down into our demented behaviour today towards all but "the elect" (the white folks who "elect" themselves as "holier, smarter, more blessed, less cursed, entitled to carry arms, stand their ground, and execute whomever they will). Hard truths from Mr. Comey, the Director of the FBI, don't take into account poverty, hopelessness and despair. Enlightenment of those persons ignorant of the history and mentality of slavery, is impossible.
8
"Enlightenment of those persons ignorant of the history and mentality of slavery, is impossible." Really? I always believed that one of the main purposes of education was to reduce ignorance so that students would develop a better understanding of the world around them. I think what Mr. Blow is trying to do is to encourage that process, on the assumption that the vast majority of people are capable of enlightenment. The alternative is despair, never productive of anything positive.
1
My assumption is, the title was written by one of the headline writers. Op-Ed writers have little or no say in what headline gets slapped on their writing, even though they are burdened with the consequences. I know one writer (from another country) who actually lost his job, not because of anything he wrote but because of the insensitive headline that the Times ran over it.
Mr. Blow's position on the "conversation about race" screams out in his various columns: "I talk, you listen." As long as this attitude is prevalent in the media and minority communities most whites (including very many otherwise liberal ones) simply will not get on board.
I live in central Baltimore, where muggings, armed robberies, and homicides are as common as they are in any other city in the country. I can't tell you the last time alleged suspects were anything other than black. State what excuse you want, all you want, but that fact breeds fear in the white populace. Fear leads to support for a strong arm of the law, right or wrong. Until we acknowledge and address in a straightforward fashion the legitimate fears of whites I am very skeptical that policing policies will change much across the country.
I live in central Baltimore, where muggings, armed robberies, and homicides are as common as they are in any other city in the country. I can't tell you the last time alleged suspects were anything other than black. State what excuse you want, all you want, but that fact breeds fear in the white populace. Fear leads to support for a strong arm of the law, right or wrong. Until we acknowledge and address in a straightforward fashion the legitimate fears of whites I am very skeptical that policing policies will change much across the country.
173
Tom,
Do you consider simple statistics 'an excuse'? Baltimore is what, two-thirds African-American? And that would be the poorer part of the population?
I guess since most muggings in Dublin are done by Irish people, we 'whites' should cross the street when we see someone with red hair and freckles?
Incredible.
Do you consider simple statistics 'an excuse'? Baltimore is what, two-thirds African-American? And that would be the poorer part of the population?
I guess since most muggings in Dublin are done by Irish people, we 'whites' should cross the street when we see someone with red hair and freckles?
Incredible.
7
Baltimore? Lord Baltimore! From the Gaelic: Baile an Ti Mor--town of the big house. And there you have it, the legacy of the British big house.
2
First I'll address your "I talk, you listen" view of Mr. Blow.
1 He's paid to write his views. It's his job to write about current social issues.
2 You're wrong. It's a discussion and you're a part of it. Just by replying to his opinion you've shown that you're wrong. Thanks for joining us.
Now about public views of crimes only or mostly being committed by blacks. This ridiculous belief by the public is fueled by a bias in law enforcement coupled by social bias against blacks and other minorities rooted in ignorance.
This white, fifty year old male doesn't fear blacks. I am however concerned about criminals of all colors.
1 He's paid to write his views. It's his job to write about current social issues.
2 You're wrong. It's a discussion and you're a part of it. Just by replying to his opinion you've shown that you're wrong. Thanks for joining us.
Now about public views of crimes only or mostly being committed by blacks. This ridiculous belief by the public is fueled by a bias in law enforcement coupled by social bias against blacks and other minorities rooted in ignorance.
This white, fifty year old male doesn't fear blacks. I am however concerned about criminals of all colors.
4
Excellent column. I live in a racially mixed area of a majority black county here in Georgia. Anybody here with half a brain doesn't need to have 'the conversation.' It's pretty obvious. One of my sons (we're white) had a couple of felony convictions as a teenager and ended up serving some time in the County jail. He said it was common knowledge among all the inmates that white men we're going to get significantly lesser sentences than their black counterparts for exactly the same crime.
A couple of years ago that same son happened to be at my house when the house next door was broken into. He walked out into the front yard and dialed 911 while staring at the two guys breaking in and they took off. Then he called the neighbor who is a young white recent college grad. The neighbor got there before the police and my son went into his house with him. He took one sniff of the air and told him, "hide your weed." The neighbor did not do that and when the officer arrived he saw the fairly obvious 'can' sitting on a counter and made the young man flush the contents down the toilet. My son told me that if he'd just put it away in a closet that they wouldn't have bothered to look, despite the odor.
When I asked him how he was so sure the neighbor couldn't have gotten in trouble for it he said, "they don't arrest white people for marijuana in this county." Probably a slightly over-exaggerated generalization, but statistics suggest it's awfully close to the truth.
More in a reply.
A couple of years ago that same son happened to be at my house when the house next door was broken into. He walked out into the front yard and dialed 911 while staring at the two guys breaking in and they took off. Then he called the neighbor who is a young white recent college grad. The neighbor got there before the police and my son went into his house with him. He took one sniff of the air and told him, "hide your weed." The neighbor did not do that and when the officer arrived he saw the fairly obvious 'can' sitting on a counter and made the young man flush the contents down the toilet. My son told me that if he'd just put it away in a closet that they wouldn't have bothered to look, despite the odor.
When I asked him how he was so sure the neighbor couldn't have gotten in trouble for it he said, "they don't arrest white people for marijuana in this county." Probably a slightly over-exaggerated generalization, but statistics suggest it's awfully close to the truth.
More in a reply.
19
Concentrations of poverty breed crime. That's true for people of any race. Early batches of immigrants to this country had exactly the same issues and we semi-glorify them with films like 'The Godfather.' It generally took those immigrant populations a couple of generations to move up and move out of that and escape it. But they had the huge advantage of looking like everybody else.
Segregation was rigidly enforced for most of our history and remains a fact of life for a large portion of the black community both in the north and south. Poverty was also, for all practical purposes, rigidly enforced for that same community and it takes time to break out of that, especially with the disadvantages that the African-American population faces. And in the end, there's a whole lot of justifiable anger in the mix which creates a vicious cycle.
Take some white kid of average intelligence from an an upper middle class family. Maybe he manages to eke his way through college with a B minus average (all paid for by his family) and then gets a job as a middle manager at a business owned by one of his dad's friends, where he will probably end up making a couple hundred thousand a year (or more). And then he shakes his head at the plight of the black community - suggests it must be something in their 'culture' and why don't they just pull themselves up like he did. And probably gets suspicious if he sees a black man walking down his street. And wonders why 'they' are so resentful.
Segregation was rigidly enforced for most of our history and remains a fact of life for a large portion of the black community both in the north and south. Poverty was also, for all practical purposes, rigidly enforced for that same community and it takes time to break out of that, especially with the disadvantages that the African-American population faces. And in the end, there's a whole lot of justifiable anger in the mix which creates a vicious cycle.
Take some white kid of average intelligence from an an upper middle class family. Maybe he manages to eke his way through college with a B minus average (all paid for by his family) and then gets a job as a middle manager at a business owned by one of his dad's friends, where he will probably end up making a couple hundred thousand a year (or more). And then he shakes his head at the plight of the black community - suggests it must be something in their 'culture' and why don't they just pull themselves up like he did. And probably gets suspicious if he sees a black man walking down his street. And wonders why 'they' are so resentful.
15
According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2013 poverty estimate, 29.9 million whites and 11 million blacks live below poverty level. There are nearly three times as many poor whites as poor blacks. http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/data/incpovhlth/2013/table3.pdf
2
That doesn't just happen to black kids. White kids from poor families face the same thing in getting decent jobs and trying to move into the middle class after working their way through college. The doors into the middle class are generally open only to middle class. White kids have to struggle to try to get in because they don't have the "connections".
2
I wonder if anyone has thought about the Chapel Hill shootings, and most important, the descriptions of the shooter's previous actions.
This person would walk around the parking lot confronting people while openly carrying a firearm, both handguns and long gun. Funny thing-- there was no stop-and-frisk going on; a creepy white guy with a gun is just an OK part of the 'culture', I guess?
Look, as Larry L points out over and over, there's no such thing as "race". And yes, as soon as you start quoting statistics about 'the black race', that makes you a racist.
Police are correct to be cautious when they are patrolling high-crime areas, but I have to wonder: What would have been the reaction in Chapel Hill if a young black male were seen armed and confronting people?
Would it be 'rational' to be afraid then?
This person would walk around the parking lot confronting people while openly carrying a firearm, both handguns and long gun. Funny thing-- there was no stop-and-frisk going on; a creepy white guy with a gun is just an OK part of the 'culture', I guess?
Look, as Larry L points out over and over, there's no such thing as "race". And yes, as soon as you start quoting statistics about 'the black race', that makes you a racist.
Police are correct to be cautious when they are patrolling high-crime areas, but I have to wonder: What would have been the reaction in Chapel Hill if a young black male were seen armed and confronting people?
Would it be 'rational' to be afraid then?
68
Cliven Bundy and his gun brandishing trash talking allies were Fox News conservative Republican American heroes until Cliven decided to offer us the benefit of his insight into "the Negro".
George Zimmerman and Michael Dunn are both white.
George Zimmerman and Michael Dunn are both white.
6
So, if it is racist to "start quoting statistics about the black race," then what is it when you speculate about young black males going about armed and confronting people?
I find it inconsistent and self serving to deny the existence of race when discussing the prevalence of negative attributes, but all to quick to categorize by race when demanding payoffs over race-based grievances.
I find it inconsistent and self serving to deny the existence of race when discussing the prevalence of negative attributes, but all to quick to categorize by race when demanding payoffs over race-based grievances.
3
Yes, and it should have been rational to be afraid of Hicks. Not sure why the "good guy' with a gun gets a pass on this, not just from the police but even more so from his neighbors who never complained to the police. He had a concealed weapons permit which might have given him the legal right to just walk around with his gun and imply he could hurt you over parking. There is an imbalance there.
5
I guess we take such a speech as an opportunity and remain vigilant that its flaws do not limit the part of the conversation to follow. How much people are willing to change I guess we can't know in advance -- human free will can be a pesky thing.
2
How free is the will of a White congenital racist?
Des Johnson,
The free will of someone burdened with fears, anger, or other ego-driven emotions is impacted by those fears, etc. That's true for all of us, I think, the differences are a matter of degree. If we learn to pull back the ego, and the free will, we all get on the same page, I think, and I think that's how human society works optimally.
The free will of someone burdened with fears, anger, or other ego-driven emotions is impacted by those fears, etc. That's true for all of us, I think, the differences are a matter of degree. If we learn to pull back the ego, and the free will, we all get on the same page, I think, and I think that's how human society works optimally.
There are obviously special challenges to policing in black high crime neighborhoods. Mr. Blow believes the fact that there are stems only from racism. He objects to Mr. Comey's statement about police officers not being a "root cause of problems".
As long as we agree that it's a problem only of racism, Mr. Blow will allow the discussion to proceed. The problem is that he doesn't get to decide which topics are in or out. It's too important that all viewpoints get heard on this one.
No one said it was acceptable for "lazy mental shortcuts". Just that they happen based on behavior seen day in and day out.
As long as we agree that it's a problem only of racism, Mr. Blow will allow the discussion to proceed. The problem is that he doesn't get to decide which topics are in or out. It's too important that all viewpoints get heard on this one.
No one said it was acceptable for "lazy mental shortcuts". Just that they happen based on behavior seen day in and day out.
91
That racial profiling is based on behavior seen "day in and day out" does not change the fact--as documented in the stats on "stop and frisk" in NYC that the overwhelming majority of targets of profiling are not criminals. They just look like what many police believe to be the face of crime. Racism isn't the only problem, but too many police officials deny its a problem at all.
7
The criminal problem is one of poverty coupled with discrimination for Blacks. For whites criminality is linked to both poverty and wealth. But only the white poor are typically sent to prison
We do need to talk also about the ugly enduring problem of white family pathology in America. Crime as a human race problem.
There are way more white baby daddy baby momma welfare dependent immoral lazy ignorant violent criminal whites than there are Blacks. While the portion of Blacks is higher there are 5x as many whites. And the current portion of whites is identical to that of Blacks when a "sage" dismissed the Black family " as a tangled web of pathology that would benefit from a period of benign neglect".
We do need to talk also about the ugly enduring problem of white family pathology in America. Crime as a human race problem.
There are way more white baby daddy baby momma welfare dependent immoral lazy ignorant violent criminal whites than there are Blacks. While the portion of Blacks is higher there are 5x as many whites. And the current portion of whites is identical to that of Blacks when a "sage" dismissed the Black family " as a tangled web of pathology that would benefit from a period of benign neglect".
3
Jmbelan:
NYC police use CompStat to target their resources. What they "see" is substantiated by statistics in high crime areas.
Stop and frisk was never designed to literally stop more criminals than innocents. It was meant as a deterrent, to prevent crime, gun carrying, etc. The stops are used to justify charges of racism, but the charge should really be harassment of civilians. The police are there because of CompState figures not because the neighborhoods are black.
The policy was put in place because people in those neighborhoods implored the mayor to do something about the extreme danger they were in just walking on the street. It was a tradeoff.
NYC police use CompStat to target their resources. What they "see" is substantiated by statistics in high crime areas.
Stop and frisk was never designed to literally stop more criminals than innocents. It was meant as a deterrent, to prevent crime, gun carrying, etc. The stops are used to justify charges of racism, but the charge should really be harassment of civilians. The police are there because of CompState figures not because the neighborhoods are black.
The policy was put in place because people in those neighborhoods implored the mayor to do something about the extreme danger they were in just walking on the street. It was a tradeoff.
5
Excellent article by Mr. Blow; one in which I agree on most points. The only part I take issue with is the fourth hard truth:
"...but in seeking to offer context, he mentioned "environments lacking role models, adequate education, and decent employment." Here he moves perilously close to a racial pathology argument, as if there were something inherent in blackness and black culture that predisposes one to criminality."
The wording here leads me to interpret the existence of a correlation between black culture and the aforementioned descriptors of black neighborhoods used by Mr. Comey. Obviously, that wasn't the intent of Mr. Blow, but it could certainly be taken out of context and used as reference for those that do view those descriptors as accurate portrayals of African American "culture." As Mr. Blow so rightly points out afterward, those circumstances arise from a systemically engineered effort of oppression and degradation going back hundreds of years. They are, in no way, qualities that the African American community view as excellent - using the true definition of culture - as so many (Bill O'Reilly) are prone to expound at every given opportunity. That opinion is the same as all republican opinions regarding the struggle of the non-privileged: life circumstances are a matter of choice. If the black community lives under those mentioned, it's because they value those qualities.
Each of these columns provides a conversation starter; thank you Mr. Blow!
"...but in seeking to offer context, he mentioned "environments lacking role models, adequate education, and decent employment." Here he moves perilously close to a racial pathology argument, as if there were something inherent in blackness and black culture that predisposes one to criminality."
The wording here leads me to interpret the existence of a correlation between black culture and the aforementioned descriptors of black neighborhoods used by Mr. Comey. Obviously, that wasn't the intent of Mr. Blow, but it could certainly be taken out of context and used as reference for those that do view those descriptors as accurate portrayals of African American "culture." As Mr. Blow so rightly points out afterward, those circumstances arise from a systemically engineered effort of oppression and degradation going back hundreds of years. They are, in no way, qualities that the African American community view as excellent - using the true definition of culture - as so many (Bill O'Reilly) are prone to expound at every given opportunity. That opinion is the same as all republican opinions regarding the struggle of the non-privileged: life circumstances are a matter of choice. If the black community lives under those mentioned, it's because they value those qualities.
Each of these columns provides a conversation starter; thank you Mr. Blow!
7
Are you suggesting all Republicans are privileged, or that the affluent all started out that way? Or that the poor are doomed to remain impoverished, regardless of their own efforts? Or that the poor may be excused for a lack of morals? Or that the life prospects of the typical African American depend more upon the good favors of strangers than upon the responsible exercise of free will?
I am afraid the conversation you envision will remain a fantasy so long as you remain as ignorant of the people you wish to converse with.
I am afraid the conversation you envision will remain a fantasy so long as you remain as ignorant of the people you wish to converse with.
8
FBI Director James Comey did say that “At many points in American history, law enforcement enforced the status quo, a status quo that was often brutally unfair to disfavored groups.” However, was referring to slavery in antebellum America. Charles Blow distorts the director’s comments because he seems unable to confront the “hard truth” that in his widely applauded speech Director Comey said that “racial bias isn’t epidemic in law enforcement any more than it is epidemic in academia or the arts.” The director said some police officers develop cynical attitudes toward black males because “police officers on patrol in our nation’s cities often work in environments where a hugely disproportionate percentage of street crime is committed by young men of color. Something happens to people of good will working in that environment. After years of police work, officers often can’t help but be influenced by the cynicism they feel. So why has that officer—like his colleagues—locked up so many young men of color? Why does he have that life-shaping experience? Is it because he is a racist? Why are so many black men in jail? Is it because cops, prosecutors, judges, and juries are racist? Because they are turning a blind eye to white robbers and drug dealers? The answer is a fourth hard truth: I don’t think so.”
26
Black lives matter. Evidently you haven't read #crimingwhilewhite where whites acknowledged lenient and preferential treatment by law enforcement. The most notable case being Mark Wahlberg who is a felon and guilty of racial violence but received a slap on the wrist long before he became a Hollywood actor. He only spent 45 days in prison for viciously beating a man. Many whites feel Mike Brown deserved death for strong arming a shop keeper and tussling with a police officer. So yes the system does turn a blind eye to #crimingwhilewhite. There are statistics to support police, juries, judges, and prosecutors are far more lenient in convictions, severity of charges, time served if the criminal is white. George Zimmerman was allowed to hunt and murder Trayvon Martin. A jury found he did nothing wrong and the prosecution lacked a serious effort. A black woman who claimed stand your ground fired a warning shot to stop an abusive husband, killed no one, yet she received 20 years in Florida. It is a hard truth that this country blames the black community as if these murders of black men and women is a parenting, poverty or lack of education issue, but as Mr. Blow writes some people are beyond enlightenment.
4
The data shows that blacks are much quicker on the interracial trigger finger than whites. The FBI Uniform Crime Report (Expanded Homicide Data Table 6) shows that 409 blacks murdered whites while 189 whites (including Hispanics) murdered blacks in 2013, the most recent year for which data is available.
2
Until people like Mr Blow are willing to acknowledge the prevalence of black racism, nothing will change. For a refresher course, watch footage from race riots, where common black attitudes ("kill whitey") rise to the surface. Take a bus ride through Bed-Stuy (but don't take a window seat, unless you like having stones thrown at your white face. If you do enter the conversation, be prepared for what I was told: "The only thing you got on us is population. Man, if it was 50-50, we'd massacre y'all."
90
When was the last time you took a bus ride through Bed-Stuy?
20
Blow wants a conversation on race, but a one sided one. Any horrible experiences that whites may have had in dealing with blacks will not be heard in his conversation. Racism runs both ways, but Blow will never acknowledge that. There can be a conversation on race, but both sides need to be heard without one side, in perpetual victimhood, screaming 'racism!' at the top of their lungs.
12
If you live in a historical vacuum, this is a great month to read Langguth ' After Lincoln. The lengths to which white southern Democrats and their northern confederates went to reclaim power lost after the Civil War is the pretext for the racial dynamics of today. The truth is that the end of slavery did not end the subjugation and disenfranchisement of black Americans but set in motion an evolving institutionalized form of oppression that transformed from Jim Crow into our current law enforcement system of mass incarceration. Don't be a stone.
4
Mr. Blow’s points are succinct and well put, but he makes an error when he quotes Comey saying that cynicism “becomes almost irresistible and maybe even rational by some lights.” Mr. Blow says that Comey is wrong because they “aren’t rational in any light.” I think Mr. Blow forgets the fact that if someone truly believes something, no matter how irrational, to them it is rational. Did Mr. Blow take a “lazy mental shortcut?”
11
So if I believe I can fly & jump off the Brooklyn Bridge in consequence, my death was a rational choice? Beliefs are only beliefs, sometimes held despite all reason & evidence. They do not change the truth. It's a long lethal fall off the Brooklyn Bridge.
3
Irrationality is not to be excused simply because a deluded individual believes the thought or actiion is rational.
One thing that would help enormously would be for all of our schools to include African American history as a natural and essential part of all American history. For example, my daughter's private high school teacher used the Letter from a Birmingham Jail to teach students in his Rhetoric class how the tools of rhetoric had been so brilliantly used by Dr. King to get his points across. The context came naturally along with the lesson in structuring a powerful English essay. So much African American history -- Tulsa's successful Greenwood economic district that was destroyed, for example -- is just not known by most white Americans in our still-far-too-segregated society. Unless you seek out African American friends ask them which books you need to read, you can go an entire lifetime in the US with misconceptions based on the distorted images we get from most of our media. Thank you for this article, and thank the NYT for the other op-ed today on George Washington's slaves. We desperately need this national conversation to continue, and we all need to take part in it.
80
African American history is a standard part of the American school curriculum. History and social studies textbooks chronicle the African American experience just as it does that of other racial and ethnic groups.
5
As I have been watching PBS specials about American History from an African American perspective, I find myself shocked when I realize how little I learned in school. I have been so naïve because I have not known the truth about what African Americans in this country have been through. Just now, I see in your comment that something happened in Tulsa. I learned a little from the internet just now. What books what you recommend for the unknowing European Americans to read? I'm catching up and gaining a world of understanding. Please help!
5
Not sure which schools you are familiar with but kids get as much black history as they get anything in school these days. Not much of anything is known by too many people. But I greatly doubt that reading black history books is the answer.
I don't get distorted images from the media. I get images from daily life.
The columnist's complaint "as if there were something inherent in blackness and black culture that predisposes one to criminality" is odd. Isn't black celebrities celebrating the criminal lifestyle part of black culture?
I don't get distorted images from the media. I get images from daily life.
The columnist's complaint "as if there were something inherent in blackness and black culture that predisposes one to criminality" is odd. Isn't black celebrities celebrating the criminal lifestyle part of black culture?
Recently the article below was mentioned in the NY Times as 'proof' of the impact of firearm ownership rates in the US.
The authors looked at the relationship between gun ownership and age-adjusted firearm homicide rates in the US over a 30-year period, accounting for age, gender, race/ethnicity, urbanization, poverty, unemployment, income, education, income inequality, divorce rate, alcohol use, violent crime rate, nonviolent crime rate, hate crime rate, number of hunting licenses, age-adjusted non-firearm homicide rate, incarceration rate, and suicide rate. The results indicated a relationship between firearm ownership rates and firearm homicide rates, but the authors used suicide with firearm as a proxy for firearm ownership rates and the resulting estimated firearm ownership rates are much higher than the accepted rates based upon surveys.
The article was perhaps mistitled as the most significant predictor of firearm homicide rates was the percentage of blacks in the population, a predictor which was almost six times higher than rates of firearm ownership. Again, this is when accounting for the variables mentioned above.
Race relations have a lot of opportunity for improvement, which won't be done until all sides acknowledge some aspects of race that most choose to ignore.
http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/pdf/10.2105/AJPH.2013.301409
The Relationship Between Gun Ownership and Firearm Homicide Rates in the United States, 1981–2010
The authors looked at the relationship between gun ownership and age-adjusted firearm homicide rates in the US over a 30-year period, accounting for age, gender, race/ethnicity, urbanization, poverty, unemployment, income, education, income inequality, divorce rate, alcohol use, violent crime rate, nonviolent crime rate, hate crime rate, number of hunting licenses, age-adjusted non-firearm homicide rate, incarceration rate, and suicide rate. The results indicated a relationship between firearm ownership rates and firearm homicide rates, but the authors used suicide with firearm as a proxy for firearm ownership rates and the resulting estimated firearm ownership rates are much higher than the accepted rates based upon surveys.
The article was perhaps mistitled as the most significant predictor of firearm homicide rates was the percentage of blacks in the population, a predictor which was almost six times higher than rates of firearm ownership. Again, this is when accounting for the variables mentioned above.
Race relations have a lot of opportunity for improvement, which won't be done until all sides acknowledge some aspects of race that most choose to ignore.
http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/pdf/10.2105/AJPH.2013.301409
The Relationship Between Gun Ownership and Firearm Homicide Rates in the United States, 1981–2010
4
Diminishing people who commit suicide with a gun is the result such analysis. Is someone's life worth less because they chose to kill themselves with a gun? I find such analysis demeaning.
4
A powerful essay that stirs our assumptions. That Black residents want to live free from fear of criminals....and police is most telling.
When our Black President is routinely disrespected who can imagine that this is not an illustration of deliberate "southern strategy" politics? Even if a Black man becomes President he can anticipate the use of racism as a "legitimate" tool of political opponents.
When our Black President is routinely disrespected who can imagine that this is not an illustration of deliberate "southern strategy" politics? Even if a Black man becomes President he can anticipate the use of racism as a "legitimate" tool of political opponents.
28
If only Obama were white, we racists (what else to call someone who opposes our President?) would love his moves toward higher debt, greater taxation, greater welfare for more people, military weakness, amnesty for illegal alien invaders, appeasement of Putin and the Iranian Mullahs and so on.
5
Name one president that wasn't disrespected.
mmpack: Name one president who was *more* disrespected, one who received more threats against himself and his family, one who was criticized abroad by so-called fellow Americans, etc.
Each and every conscious Black person in this country is aware of the blatant race-based contempt for President Obama and knows that if he, the leader of the free world, is so maligned and hated then there is little room for hope of full equality and acceptance for the rest of us.
Each and every conscious Black person in this country is aware of the blatant race-based contempt for President Obama and knows that if he, the leader of the free world, is so maligned and hated then there is little room for hope of full equality and acceptance for the rest of us.
1
Each person, black or white, creates their own world based on their beliefs and actions (or lack of action). That is also a hard truth and a conversation most don't want to have. We as individuals are responsible for the condition we find ourselves in. Hard to accept in a culture where nothing is my responsibility. No matter one's circumstances we as individuals can choose to live with integrity and civility. That's the choice we all should do our best to make.
14
dre notes, "We as individuals are responsible for the condition we find ourselves in. Hard to accept in a culture where nothing is my responsibility."
He/she seems to be using this reasoning to imply that black people don't bother to take responsibility for their situation, and just blame whites.
However, to me dre's statement summons up the oft-heard comments of some Caucasian individuals that the concept of "white privilege" doesn't apply to them. After all, they themselves have never owned slaves, their parents came to the US after the official end of slavery, and so on.
Theirs is a culture in which the white privileges they cheerfully take for granted (and which people of color lack) are not their responsibility.
He/she seems to be using this reasoning to imply that black people don't bother to take responsibility for their situation, and just blame whites.
However, to me dre's statement summons up the oft-heard comments of some Caucasian individuals that the concept of "white privilege" doesn't apply to them. After all, they themselves have never owned slaves, their parents came to the US after the official end of slavery, and so on.
Theirs is a culture in which the white privileges they cheerfully take for granted (and which people of color lack) are not their responsibility.
3
Mr. Blow is a promoter of a "national conversation on race" but when that reveals "hard truths" such as the high crime rate,poverty, and poor education in many communities, he is uncomfortable.
He expects that "policing" communities with high rates of felons and crime, shouldn't " be a problem at all".
That is unrealistic.
His " conversation on race" ironically increases racial divisiveness and animosity by viewing Black Americans, as a group, as different than other Americans when the goal should be the opposite.
He expects that "policing" communities with high rates of felons and crime, shouldn't " be a problem at all".
That is unrealistic.
His " conversation on race" ironically increases racial divisiveness and animosity by viewing Black Americans, as a group, as different than other Americans when the goal should be the opposite.
67
As Mr. Blow partially excavates, the concession that police officers are affected by the communities of color they patrol is deeply racist. The concession suggests that it is understandable that a police officer, or anyone else, might absorb some racial bias as a collateral effect of being in high crime neighborhoods of color. Really?
I have spent some time in deeply dysfunctional racist areas in the rural south and never developed a subconscious mistrust of all white people as a result. Goodness, I've even hobnobbed with titans of Wall Street and that experience didn't soil my overall perspective on white folks.
The implication that this extrapolation is reasonable is racist on its face.
I have spent some time in deeply dysfunctional racist areas in the rural south and never developed a subconscious mistrust of all white people as a result. Goodness, I've even hobnobbed with titans of Wall Street and that experience didn't soil my overall perspective on white folks.
The implication that this extrapolation is reasonable is racist on its face.
30
You don't have a police officer's job and it's wrong to suggest that what you experience is even remotely equivalent to what they do. If we are to stop racist behavior on the part of police officers, we have to be honest about what leads to that behavior.
2
Charles, A fine start to a needed conversation, personal or otherwise.
Here's where I get stuck: "What too few people mention when discussing crime is the degree to which concentrated poverty, hopelessness and despair are the chambermaids of violence and incivility."
60-80 years ago, and many of those folks are still alive, black and non-, we all lived in a world of greater poverty than today. What was different back then, in the minds of many, including blacks, was we had hopefulness and we didn't despair. Those years gave us the hopes of JFK and MLK, and to a great extent everyone's boat is floating on a higher economic tide than those years.
Yet, we are far, far as a people from where we need to be. What message do all young children need to hear from those who love them, over and over? "Make things better in your life by making yourself better."
Let's applaud those who come from meager beginnings and work hard to make their lives better. Just as you did. If we let others give us all our needs, it will never be enough, and our discontent will show it.
We are on this earth to leave the world better for our being here, doing for one another what we can (as JFK urged), and seeking tolerance and love through peace (as MLK did).
Here's where I get stuck: "What too few people mention when discussing crime is the degree to which concentrated poverty, hopelessness and despair are the chambermaids of violence and incivility."
60-80 years ago, and many of those folks are still alive, black and non-, we all lived in a world of greater poverty than today. What was different back then, in the minds of many, including blacks, was we had hopefulness and we didn't despair. Those years gave us the hopes of JFK and MLK, and to a great extent everyone's boat is floating on a higher economic tide than those years.
Yet, we are far, far as a people from where we need to be. What message do all young children need to hear from those who love them, over and over? "Make things better in your life by making yourself better."
Let's applaud those who come from meager beginnings and work hard to make their lives better. Just as you did. If we let others give us all our needs, it will never be enough, and our discontent will show it.
We are on this earth to leave the world better for our being here, doing for one another what we can (as JFK urged), and seeking tolerance and love through peace (as MLK did).
12
Emmet Till, and all of those lynched and all of those who witnessed it do not agree. The good old days were not good.
25
No days are all good, Mr, Huben. But some are better.
That's what we are charged with....find the better, instead of focusing solely on the failures of the past.
That's what we are charged with....find the better, instead of focusing solely on the failures of the past.
2
You have swallowed the Reagan ideology. Stacked decks are stacked because the give those in control the very advantages against which you argue " if we let others give us all our needs."
What do you think that the rich are doing for their sons and daughters? That the Koch brothers are doing in politics to keep the deck stacked in their favor? What do you think Wall Streeters were doing during the bubble and after?
Goodness. My head is just shaking in disbelief that anyone could have just lived through this recent era and still hold that Reagan ideology as true.
And I agree with Joseph, Emmet Till and those who were lynched would not agree with your "good old days." What on earth do you think the civil rights movement was about?
And no, we did not all live in an era of greater poverty than now. Progress happens, and material progress (if we can call it that) has happened in the intervening years. That is not a measure of wealth or impoverishment.
What do you think that the rich are doing for their sons and daughters? That the Koch brothers are doing in politics to keep the deck stacked in their favor? What do you think Wall Streeters were doing during the bubble and after?
Goodness. My head is just shaking in disbelief that anyone could have just lived through this recent era and still hold that Reagan ideology as true.
And I agree with Joseph, Emmet Till and those who were lynched would not agree with your "good old days." What on earth do you think the civil rights movement was about?
And no, we did not all live in an era of greater poverty than now. Progress happens, and material progress (if we can call it that) has happened in the intervening years. That is not a measure of wealth or impoverishment.
8
It is not racial pathology to speak the truth about "environments lacking role models, adequate education, and decent employment." Speaking about the dysfunctional environment of the concentrated poor does not mean that there is "something inherent in blackness and black culture that predisposes one to criminality." Mr Blow is right that "concentrated poverty, hopelessness and despair are the chambermaids of violence and incivility."
The dysfunctional culture exhibited by young men of color is an outcome of the concentrated poverty in which they live. Both the culture and the poverty must be addressed for America to benefit from the wasted talents of young men of color.
We have had decades of affirmative action policies. They have contributed to a lessening of overt white racism. They haven't eliminated it completely. They won't, as Mr Blow indicates in his metaphor of the stone. We need more progress on the family and culture front.
It has been decades since Daniel Patrick Moynihan's treatise on the linkage of pervasive poverty to the rise of single parent, matriarchal black families. He was right then and his warnings have proven accurate for white families as well since then. It's not racial pathology to note that both blacks and whites exhibit the same dysfunction when the nuclear family breaks down.
Until we have stable families, the concentration of poverty which fertilizes the violence and incivility of young men of color will continue to reign in America.
The dysfunctional culture exhibited by young men of color is an outcome of the concentrated poverty in which they live. Both the culture and the poverty must be addressed for America to benefit from the wasted talents of young men of color.
We have had decades of affirmative action policies. They have contributed to a lessening of overt white racism. They haven't eliminated it completely. They won't, as Mr Blow indicates in his metaphor of the stone. We need more progress on the family and culture front.
It has been decades since Daniel Patrick Moynihan's treatise on the linkage of pervasive poverty to the rise of single parent, matriarchal black families. He was right then and his warnings have proven accurate for white families as well since then. It's not racial pathology to note that both blacks and whites exhibit the same dysfunction when the nuclear family breaks down.
Until we have stable families, the concentration of poverty which fertilizes the violence and incivility of young men of color will continue to reign in America.
127
There are countless poor people in the US and around the globe who are not dysfunctional. Stop blaming idiocy on poverty.
87
Until we have enough employment at decent wages, we're going to have dismal marriage rates. Between automation and globalization, we are going in the opposite direction.
12
What about white poverty? Many of the families I work with are white, and they are experiencing all of the problems related to poverty that you mentioned in your comment. Family instability is not endemic to "people of color". To conflate the two is inherently biased.
20
Abandon thinking in terms of "race". Provide more nearly equal education, health care access, and jobs higher minimum wage. That is what other countries do.
If done, perhaps skin color will have to be registered so we have a uniquely American variable for research use.
Final comment.
If done, perhaps skin color will have to be registered so we have a uniquely American variable for research use.
Final comment.
40
You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. Society has done it's duty. It is time for personal responsibility to be the demand of the day.
25
Larry Lundgren:
Strip away race from these recent high profile cases, and we should be even more distressed by the basic lack of respect for other individuals, property, laws and authority.
Our law enforcement has become dangerously aggressive, but our civilians have also shown a complete disregard of others, property and the law. Police are enforcing laws in neighborhoods of civilians who have grown up without family structures teaching them basic values like discipline and respect for authority. It's a recipe for disaster.
In the US, invoking racism has been a way to get government to step in and provide justice and assistance on a grand scale. It's a plea for help, in my opinion.
Strip away race from these recent high profile cases, and we should be even more distressed by the basic lack of respect for other individuals, property, laws and authority.
Our law enforcement has become dangerously aggressive, but our civilians have also shown a complete disregard of others, property and the law. Police are enforcing laws in neighborhoods of civilians who have grown up without family structures teaching them basic values like discipline and respect for authority. It's a recipe for disaster.
In the US, invoking racism has been a way to get government to step in and provide justice and assistance on a grand scale. It's a plea for help, in my opinion.
2
When did Sweden have slavery? In the 14th C? Jim Crow laws? Never!
Waiting to have a meaningful conversation about race could take another 100 years if it's continued to be approached with morals and statistics. That's just simply boring and confusing to too many to change the muscle memory of discrimination. A more practical approach would be to educate our children about the unbiased scientific equality of all people as discovered with the findings of the Human Genome Project some dozen years ago. From their website:
"DNA studies do not indicate that separate classifiable subspecies (races) exist within modern humans. While different genes for physical traits such as skin and hair color can be identified between individuals, no consistent patterns of genes across the human genome exist to distinguish one race from another."
Teach this along with some other related science, that talking about "race" is like arguing for a flat earth, and change will come about more by behavioral modification than bludgeoning.
"DNA studies do not indicate that separate classifiable subspecies (races) exist within modern humans. While different genes for physical traits such as skin and hair color can be identified between individuals, no consistent patterns of genes across the human genome exist to distinguish one race from another."
Teach this along with some other related science, that talking about "race" is like arguing for a flat earth, and change will come about more by behavioral modification than bludgeoning.
19
Education, agreed. But public discourse is largely controlled by those who have decided that bad-mouthing America is good for their businesses and political futures. If a Democrat says something, it must be wrong and must be used as a weapon against anything Democratic. There can be no conversation about education that is not tainted by this hyper-destructiveness.
4
Good idea. Unfortunately a great chunk of the USA population is scientifically illiterate.
2
Acvtually, the human genome project totally validated the concept of race and of racial differences based on race. It is not clear which race is "superior" in some or another absolute or moral sense. But Races are certainly significantly different from each other, the evolved by different pathways and under different sorts of selective pressures. And they thus have different strengths and weaknesses. These are the true scientific facts well know to anyone who has studied the science. Naturally these facts are also evident to anyone who has eyes in their head. Anyone but a liberal that is.
4
The speech was commendable, but there was nothing about accountability for law enforcement. At this time, police virtually to kill without being afraid of being held accountable. If a police officer is put on trial, they get an all white jury and are let go as the perceptions of whites and African American to police are different.
Comey spoke to how police react in the situation of tow African Americans walking down the street and tow white male walking on the other side of the street. Police stopped the two males of color and not the two white males. How do they know the two white males are not in procession of drugs? That is called racial profiling, which should not be allowed.
Comey spoke to how police react in the situation of tow African Americans walking down the street and tow white male walking on the other side of the street. Police stopped the two males of color and not the two white males. How do they know the two white males are not in procession of drugs? That is called racial profiling, which should not be allowed.
20
I love how Charles exposed Comey's "straw man" argument.
He has never pointed out Obama and Holder's "straw man" arguments. Every time they speak they use "straw man" arguments and the media never call them out.
He has never pointed out Obama and Holder's "straw man" arguments. Every time they speak they use "straw man" arguments and the media never call them out.
20
Cjmesq0: You claim that "every time" Obama and Holder speak they employ strawman arguments. Since this happens so frequently, please list at least five such arguments made by each speaker, and state precisely why you hold that the argument is a strawman. Why not begin with the 2014 pardon of a Thanksgiving turkey?
23
Would you care to point out and discuss one or two of the straw man arguments you feel Mr. Blow should address?
19
You kidding, right? Look at any of their speeches involving race, their battles with the GOP, their scandals, equating the Crusades with what ISIL is doing today, "income inequality", "climate change", class warfare, Obamacare...I can go on but I'm running out of room here.
5
The biblical notion of causing that children pay for the sins of fathers unto the last generation is a religious premise that never really took off ... anywhere. So the idea of direct reparations is pretty much dead, except in the minds of the Reverend Al and a few other proponents.
But for gross discrimination based on race to be largely extinguished as a secondary effect in America, a massive transfer IS required: not a direct one, but a transfer from richer neighborhoods to poorer ones, to transform the quality of education in America. For this to work, education itself would need to be transformed as well, since we spend more per pupil than just about any other society already and with pedestrian results at best.
If through dramatically better education of our poorest children, of ALL races and ethnicities, we can cause that all boats rise, we'll see far less discrimination of blacks specifically as we mainstream elements of our society long kept from prosperity. Only when almost all Americans can look at almost all other Americans and see the same values, aspirations and life outcomes, can we truly rid ourselves of the legacy of racial hatred and distrust that our fathers imposed on the nation.
Treatment of American blacks and ethnic minorities by police needs to be moderated by laws and better training; but, in the end, police always will be more defensive of the desperate poor.
So, bypass the endless kaffeeklatsch on race and, finally, get to root causes.
But for gross discrimination based on race to be largely extinguished as a secondary effect in America, a massive transfer IS required: not a direct one, but a transfer from richer neighborhoods to poorer ones, to transform the quality of education in America. For this to work, education itself would need to be transformed as well, since we spend more per pupil than just about any other society already and with pedestrian results at best.
If through dramatically better education of our poorest children, of ALL races and ethnicities, we can cause that all boats rise, we'll see far less discrimination of blacks specifically as we mainstream elements of our society long kept from prosperity. Only when almost all Americans can look at almost all other Americans and see the same values, aspirations and life outcomes, can we truly rid ourselves of the legacy of racial hatred and distrust that our fathers imposed on the nation.
Treatment of American blacks and ethnic minorities by police needs to be moderated by laws and better training; but, in the end, police always will be more defensive of the desperate poor.
So, bypass the endless kaffeeklatsch on race and, finally, get to root causes.
22
That is what Kenneth Prewitt, Dorothy Roberts, and I argue supporting you. Get to the root causes. Well said RL. Larry
5
Larry:
It's not particularly well-understood on the left, but we Republicans, just as do Democrats, want solutions that bind Americans effectively and eliminate meaningless distinctions so that men and women might distinguish themselves naturally. You can't do that by artificially keeping whole segments of populations perpetually marginalized. Good to hear that more and more people are looking to solutions and not just placebos.
It's not particularly well-understood on the left, but we Republicans, just as do Democrats, want solutions that bind Americans effectively and eliminate meaningless distinctions so that men and women might distinguish themselves naturally. You can't do that by artificially keeping whole segments of populations perpetually marginalized. Good to hear that more and more people are looking to solutions and not just placebos.
5
Richard Luettgen:
One root cause is the democratic party but that is too difficult an acknowledgement to face. So much yelling about their well-being yet so few real results.
In the meantime it is left entirely to individual parents whose aspirations for their kids direct them away from their mediocre public schools to charter schools, which have not yet been stolen from them by the democratic party and unions.
Hopefully, they'll make it to and from these schools safely, protected by public safety officials whose interests are theirs and not unions seeking to protect only its members.
The democratic party protects its unions, which protects its members. Somewhere down the road it eventually gets around to the people.
One root cause is the democratic party but that is too difficult an acknowledgement to face. So much yelling about their well-being yet so few real results.
In the meantime it is left entirely to individual parents whose aspirations for their kids direct them away from their mediocre public schools to charter schools, which have not yet been stolen from them by the democratic party and unions.
Hopefully, they'll make it to and from these schools safely, protected by public safety officials whose interests are theirs and not unions seeking to protect only its members.
The democratic party protects its unions, which protects its members. Somewhere down the road it eventually gets around to the people.
6
Blow demonstrates how poor a participant he is in the "national conversation" on race. He refuses to acknowledge the legitimacy of any view contrary to his own. As his analysis of the Comey statement shows, the only views that Blow will ever accept as even partly legitimate are his own.
69
Actually, Charles Blow agreed with much of Comey's statement. You may want to reread the column after removing your own biased lens.
63
sart - What bias do you speak of? Bias against lectures couched against conversations? Hopefully, you are not doing as Blow does and ascribing some form of racial bias, but as NYT commenters tend to view all who disagree with them as racists, I cant rule that out. Interesting to note how many of the folks who beat their chest about how tolerant and intellectual they are so frequently and quickly resort to ad hominem attacks.
That said, yes, Blow was good enough to signal his approval for those parts of the speech which dovetailed with his pre-existing views. Nothing too impressive about. It was when Comey dared to disagree with every of one of his beliefs that Comey was subjected to the standard accusations of dishonesty and deception that invariably hurled at any and all who do not adhere to NYT dogma.
Some people are capable of disagreeing with someone without attacking their character. Blow and many commenters here are not.
That said, yes, Blow was good enough to signal his approval for those parts of the speech which dovetailed with his pre-existing views. Nothing too impressive about. It was when Comey dared to disagree with every of one of his beliefs that Comey was subjected to the standard accusations of dishonesty and deception that invariably hurled at any and all who do not adhere to NYT dogma.
Some people are capable of disagreeing with someone without attacking their character. Blow and many commenters here are not.
11
For the person who is basically America's top (white) cop to even admit to cynicism and racial bias in law enforcement struck me as a substantial breakthrough in "the conversation". Listening to Comey speak, I felt a thrill absorbing his theme and it didn't occur to me to parse his words. Then again, I was listening from my perspective of a privileged white male.
Perspective is what matters here. I have been somewhat horrified throughout recent events to hear cold-hearted justifications of very deep-seated biases from many other privileged whites. People I've always perceived as caring, inclusive, enlightened have shocked me with a vigorous, reflexive defense of law enforcement, defaulting to the red herring of black-on-black crime and focusing only on the thuggish bad apples in the ranks of protesters, and refusing to consider nuance. That color still runs so very deep in even enlightened psyches has been a depressing discovery for me.
So when someone as consequential as Comey speaks out with sincerity and good intent, I hesitate to deconstruct his choice of words. I like to think that I understand your perspective, Mr. Blow, and I fully appreciate and admire your integrity. I do think, however, that in this terribly fraught discussion there are moments when one should be thankful for small favors and leave it at that.
Perspective is what matters here. I have been somewhat horrified throughout recent events to hear cold-hearted justifications of very deep-seated biases from many other privileged whites. People I've always perceived as caring, inclusive, enlightened have shocked me with a vigorous, reflexive defense of law enforcement, defaulting to the red herring of black-on-black crime and focusing only on the thuggish bad apples in the ranks of protesters, and refusing to consider nuance. That color still runs so very deep in even enlightened psyches has been a depressing discovery for me.
So when someone as consequential as Comey speaks out with sincerity and good intent, I hesitate to deconstruct his choice of words. I like to think that I understand your perspective, Mr. Blow, and I fully appreciate and admire your integrity. I do think, however, that in this terribly fraught discussion there are moments when one should be thankful for small favors and leave it at that.
298
We've left it at that for far too long. Leaving it at that is why we are where we are today, with people being brutalized with impunity. While it's nice that Comey spoke up and admitted that there is a racial bias issue, that isn't all he had to say but it is all the media reported on.
Thanks to Charles' excellent op-ed, we now know a lot more about the other things in the speech.
The lives of millions of people shouldn't be left up to small favors. The debate should be about equality and respect.
Thanks to Charles' excellent op-ed, we now know a lot more about the other things in the speech.
The lives of millions of people shouldn't be left up to small favors. The debate should be about equality and respect.
20
Rima, I understand your point, really I do, and part of me agrees. I was speaking from the context of having pushed back on the very points Charles makes only to see the pushback cause supposedly enlightened people retreat even further into their irrational views.
Yes, the debate should absolutely be about equality and respect. But it's not a fully rational one; all I'm saying is that there are moments when equality and respect can be gained by strategically holding back, and that the debate can be helped along by using sub-optimal bedfellows to good advantage.
I certainly don't have all the answers and you may well be right. I'm simply observing through the lens of my own experience. And I'm perfectly happy for you to disagree, as it's all part of the debate.
Yes, the debate should absolutely be about equality and respect. But it's not a fully rational one; all I'm saying is that there are moments when equality and respect can be gained by strategically holding back, and that the debate can be helped along by using sub-optimal bedfellows to good advantage.
I certainly don't have all the answers and you may well be right. I'm simply observing through the lens of my own experience. And I'm perfectly happy for you to disagree, as it's all part of the debate.
7
@HeyNorris: A well articulated comment. I share some of your thoughts about the surprising but very welcome words from FBI Director James Comey, who clearly has a grasp on the reality African-Americans face in their dealings with the police. The fact that Charles Blow also welcomes it, but with some specific reservations, reminds me it's not any easy exercise for a white man, without real conversation and listening, to think himself inside the skin of a black man. I also had the reaction that Charles' criticisms don't seem quite as necessary to me as they do to him. But the fact that he's not content to "leave it at that" tells me that we still have a ways to go in reaching mutual understanding.
4
Mr. Blow, this average man commends the reality that you have used
your presence and person to express the depth of your awareness
from beneath "your skin". Indeed, the "discussion" is in process partly because you, particularly, have persisted in its public discussion. Because of a few, like you....and Rima Regas, there is an arena for us to search for our Soul. Somewhere in within us, there is a civil Soul of Humanity, including, but also beyond Policing and Politics. The quieter....and average of us can be grateful for your words and your wisdom.
your presence and person to express the depth of your awareness
from beneath "your skin". Indeed, the "discussion" is in process partly because you, particularly, have persisted in its public discussion. Because of a few, like you....and Rima Regas, there is an arena for us to search for our Soul. Somewhere in within us, there is a civil Soul of Humanity, including, but also beyond Policing and Politics. The quieter....and average of us can be grateful for your words and your wisdom.
39
Thanks so much, R.deforest! Charles Blow is the Times' best and a great inspiration.
3
I'm on your side, but the more you parse this issue with words, the more you dilute it. Even though you are correct people get numb to any conversation over 90 seconds long.
Boycott, embargo, whatever you want to call it. Hit people, the country, political parties in the wallet. This is America, that they'll understand and that they'll respond to.
Collectively, the police need to be profiled (watched and harassed needlessly and shamefully) for awhile.
And who cares what Comey says? He's part of the bureaucratic problem, which in no way shape or form resembles the solution.
Boycott, embargo, whatever you want to call it. Hit people, the country, political parties in the wallet. This is America, that they'll understand and that they'll respond to.
Collectively, the police need to be profiled (watched and harassed needlessly and shamefully) for awhile.
And who cares what Comey says? He's part of the bureaucratic problem, which in no way shape or form resembles the solution.
2
I’m tired of hearing we have to have a conversation about race, end of story, as if that fulfills official’s public duty. They keep resisting admitting the scope of profiling and police brutality. We need to hear specific concrete steps to take. And more than cameras---Garner's death was on video.
What are the positive role models? Look at cities in the US and other countries with lower police violence and analyze exactly what they’re doing, and then do it.
You say cops should have an “equitable modicum of discernment”? That’s unusually pedantic for you, Charles. But what attitudes to minorities do many cops bring to policing? How are they tested for these attitudes and personality traits, before accepted into the force?
Let’s trace the start of our racial problems to, guess what—jobs. Not too long after racial equality was achieved, it seems the process of job offshoring by the millions began, and increased over years. Poverty, insecurity and instability and segregation increased.
In a more racially integrated n. hood, the cops would have to use more “equitable discernment” to evaluate who to frisk, arrest or kill. In all- minority n. hoods, the cops can just drive over and start to harass anyone, meet quotas, and escalate confrontations.
Also they can lie in wait on highways and pick off drivers for anything, ticket them, and start the sequence--tickets, fines, bail, jail, accumulating of police records---and revenues for the towns.
What are the positive role models? Look at cities in the US and other countries with lower police violence and analyze exactly what they’re doing, and then do it.
You say cops should have an “equitable modicum of discernment”? That’s unusually pedantic for you, Charles. But what attitudes to minorities do many cops bring to policing? How are they tested for these attitudes and personality traits, before accepted into the force?
Let’s trace the start of our racial problems to, guess what—jobs. Not too long after racial equality was achieved, it seems the process of job offshoring by the millions began, and increased over years. Poverty, insecurity and instability and segregation increased.
In a more racially integrated n. hood, the cops would have to use more “equitable discernment” to evaluate who to frisk, arrest or kill. In all- minority n. hoods, the cops can just drive over and start to harass anyone, meet quotas, and escalate confrontations.
Also they can lie in wait on highways and pick off drivers for anything, ticket them, and start the sequence--tickets, fines, bail, jail, accumulating of police records---and revenues for the towns.
36
Charles I applaud Comey's efforts, but focus immediately on your satement that he moved perilously close to a racial pathology argument as if there were something in “black” culture that predisposes.
Charles, it is worse than that. As long as the entire black population of America is seen as belonging to a “race” this population is also seen as being genetically, not just culturally predisposed. We see this stated openly in NY comments.
Kenneth Prewitt, former US Census Bureau Director, is going to propose a change that you, Charles Blow, must discuss in this column to deal with the “racial pathology” argument. Prewitt wants the USCB 2020 Census to have no race-ethnicity designations and in their place to describe every American in terms of his/her economic situation, living conditions, education, health, and national origin if first or second generation immigrant.
If we do that we become a 21st Century country that like others focuses on the social and medical care conditions that shape many but not all of the problems that Comey was speaking about.
Do not wait, Charles Blow, start that conversation, please.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Charles, it is worse than that. As long as the entire black population of America is seen as belonging to a “race” this population is also seen as being genetically, not just culturally predisposed. We see this stated openly in NY comments.
Kenneth Prewitt, former US Census Bureau Director, is going to propose a change that you, Charles Blow, must discuss in this column to deal with the “racial pathology” argument. Prewitt wants the USCB 2020 Census to have no race-ethnicity designations and in their place to describe every American in terms of his/her economic situation, living conditions, education, health, and national origin if first or second generation immigrant.
If we do that we become a 21st Century country that like others focuses on the social and medical care conditions that shape many but not all of the problems that Comey was speaking about.
Do not wait, Charles Blow, start that conversation, please.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
23
Larry, I read the other day that France was having difficulty addressing the social problems among its Islamic citizens because the French government *doesn't* collect this kind of statistic.
We need that information. Without it, we are sociologically blind.
Also, while I'm all in favor of a better safety net, Europe has the same darn problems we do. Look at the Muslims, look at the Gypsies, increasingly, look at African immigrants. You'll see much the same self-reinforcing mix of social exclusion, crime, and poor performance in school that we have here. And as here you'll see groups that outperform others when given half a chance, e.g., Asians and Ashkenazi Jews.
We need that information. Without it, we are sociologically blind.
Also, while I'm all in favor of a better safety net, Europe has the same darn problems we do. Look at the Muslims, look at the Gypsies, increasingly, look at African immigrants. You'll see much the same self-reinforcing mix of social exclusion, crime, and poor performance in school that we have here. And as here you'll see groups that outperform others when given half a chance, e.g., Asians and Ashkenazi Jews.
Right before he gave his speech on race, James Comey traveled to Mississippi to urge people to listen to their rudimentary limbic brains and report incipient terrorists lurking in basements. He also complained that the FBI is being thwarted in its campaign of spying on ordinary citizens. In the open-ended Permawar on Terror, everybody is a suspect, everybody a potential ISIS recruit, everybody is a potential victim.
Oh, and let's have a conversation on race.
The instillation of fear into the American psyche is necessary for control by the police state. It's also necessary to soften us up for more wars, more relinquishment of our basic civil rights, and above all, more profits for the voracious military industrial complex.
That James Comey of all people is now the official designated facilitator of a national conversation on race, even as he instructs us to see danger lurking in every corner, is creepily reminiscent of Weimar Germany.
The only thing we have to fear is a touchy-feely FBI director sending mixed messages.
http://kmgarcia2000.blogspot.com/2015/02/paranoia-inc.html
Oh, and let's have a conversation on race.
The instillation of fear into the American psyche is necessary for control by the police state. It's also necessary to soften us up for more wars, more relinquishment of our basic civil rights, and above all, more profits for the voracious military industrial complex.
That James Comey of all people is now the official designated facilitator of a national conversation on race, even as he instructs us to see danger lurking in every corner, is creepily reminiscent of Weimar Germany.
The only thing we have to fear is a touchy-feely FBI director sending mixed messages.
http://kmgarcia2000.blogspot.com/2015/02/paranoia-inc.html
26
Karen thanks for the truth about what worries Comey most. He wants us to fear many but perhaps not ordinary white guys who are free to bear arms whatever their personal pathologies. I have in mind one who felt free to kill 3 muslims. Wonder where he fits in Comey's world of fear. Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
9
Jill Leovy, the homicide reporter for the Los Angeles Times, pointed out some hard truths about policing and race in a recent NPR interview:
http://www.unz.com/isteve/reporter-jill-leovy-lapd-should-arrest-more-bl...
http://www.unz.com/isteve/reporter-jill-leovy-lapd-should-arrest-more-bl...
10
Thanks, that was very interesting link. She spoke sympathetically and fairly about a real problem in policing. My problem with profiling is it can't tell the victims from the criminals.
3
This was an excellent article. I'd like to add a personal memory. I grew up in very segregated St. Louis and when I was about 12 my parents were talking with a St. Louis city official. He spoke about "colored" neighborhoods. I have remembered what he said for 63 years and I quote: "We don't send the police in there. We don't care if they kill each other." Black neighborhoods were unpoliced for decades after the Civil War. American Blacks in some areas were wantonly killed and/or lynched by whites without any law enforcement. Black Americans have lived in fear for centuries: as slaves they were at risk of physical/sexual abuse every day. In Jim Crow they were afraid of every white person: one uppity comment and they were in trouble. Some humans respond to fear by hiding. Some humans respond to fear with aggression. Black fear predates the collapse of the nuclear family. We have to get rid of the fear that all American Blacks feel before we can change the statistics. What we need is more effective policing and more black cops. IF a neighborhood has a lot of murders, there should be more police there. Neighborhood policing can be effective.
The collapse of the nuclear family has more than one cause. No jobs is a big one.
Cities like LA have lots of work that needs to be done. We just don't want to pay for it. FDR built parks to keep folks working. Why can't we do that again?
The collapse of the nuclear family has more than one cause. No jobs is a big one.
Cities like LA have lots of work that needs to be done. We just don't want to pay for it. FDR built parks to keep folks working. Why can't we do that again?
11
Very interesting article. Murders left unsolved. Everyone knows who did it. Killers free to terrorize witnesses, who are afraid to testify. Resentment against the police for not putting them away. Instead police go after minor offenders. Stop and harass innocent people.
Witnesses remind me of victims of domestic violence, before laws were tightened to protect them.
Witnesses remind me of victims of domestic violence, before laws were tightened to protect them.
1
I've made it my habit to read, rather than only listen to speeches. It makes a tremendous difference. Parts of the speech are commendable for the reasons Charles lists, but there are many parts that highlight fundamental flaws in thinking. Those are what we all need to keep the focus on.
"A mental shortcut becomes almost irresistible and maybe even rational by some lights."
Logic dictates that if you work in a predominantly poor, predominantly Black neighborhood, you will predominantly be exposed to predominantly Black criminals. That should not, predominantly, change your view of all Blacks. The notion that this exposure engenders cynicism is a false one. It doesn't explain the behavior of police officers with middle class Blacks wherever they encounter them. 25 Black officers recently said in an interview with Reuters that they feel threatened by fellow white officers. I submit that such officers are racist to begin with.
"Hardest hit neighborhoods," as Comey called them, are not war zones and the people who live in them are not the enemy. Police officers are city and state employees who are hired and trained for their skills. "Enormous courage and integrity" are part and parcel of what's expected of public servants. Certain jobs come with risks that don't exist in other professions. More than courage and integrity, compassion and understanding of the human condition are the requisite qualities to serve the public well.
We must keep talking. Lives depend on it.
"A mental shortcut becomes almost irresistible and maybe even rational by some lights."
Logic dictates that if you work in a predominantly poor, predominantly Black neighborhood, you will predominantly be exposed to predominantly Black criminals. That should not, predominantly, change your view of all Blacks. The notion that this exposure engenders cynicism is a false one. It doesn't explain the behavior of police officers with middle class Blacks wherever they encounter them. 25 Black officers recently said in an interview with Reuters that they feel threatened by fellow white officers. I submit that such officers are racist to begin with.
"Hardest hit neighborhoods," as Comey called them, are not war zones and the people who live in them are not the enemy. Police officers are city and state employees who are hired and trained for their skills. "Enormous courage and integrity" are part and parcel of what's expected of public servants. Certain jobs come with risks that don't exist in other professions. More than courage and integrity, compassion and understanding of the human condition are the requisite qualities to serve the public well.
We must keep talking. Lives depend on it.
179
This speech is worthy of several columns, each examining one of the truths Comey spoke about. In this one speech, Comey touched upon a universe of issues. All these issues are burning. All of them are complex and involve multiple components.
I found myself going back to the transcript of the speech off and on this week, so I wrote about it here:
http://www.rimaregas.com/2015/02/comeys-truth-about-policing-and-race/
I found myself going back to the transcript of the speech off and on this week, so I wrote about it here:
http://www.rimaregas.com/2015/02/comeys-truth-about-policing-and-race/
6
Rima I agree and one of the essential changes that must happen in America, individual by indivual, is that each individual recognizes that each of us must learn what should be obvious but is not. What is that?
The answer is so simple. In elementary terms, do not generalize. Get to know people who are different from you. You will discover that the person in front of you, black, brown, beige, muslim, jew, atheist is unique. The fact that a subset of people having something in common with the person in front of you has engaged in unacceptable behavior tells you nothing about that person in front of you and should not affect your view of that person.
As you know, one of the best things I have experienced as a result of retiring to Sweden about 20 years ago is that I have close friends who are Sunni, Shia, Somali, Kurd, Iranian, Ethiopian, Burundian and on and on. Once an individual has the chance that Sweden gave me that individual will be freed from "race-racist" thinking. I never had that chance in America.
Takes time, but try.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
The answer is so simple. In elementary terms, do not generalize. Get to know people who are different from you. You will discover that the person in front of you, black, brown, beige, muslim, jew, atheist is unique. The fact that a subset of people having something in common with the person in front of you has engaged in unacceptable behavior tells you nothing about that person in front of you and should not affect your view of that person.
As you know, one of the best things I have experienced as a result of retiring to Sweden about 20 years ago is that I have close friends who are Sunni, Shia, Somali, Kurd, Iranian, Ethiopian, Burundian and on and on. Once an individual has the chance that Sweden gave me that individual will be freed from "race-racist" thinking. I never had that chance in America.
Takes time, but try.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
22
Rima....."I've made it my habit to read, rather than only listen to speeches. It makes a tremendous difference." That is an excellent idea. Just the facts please. Comey's expression, tone and sincerity were impressive and he said a lot of good things, but I did have some negative reactions also. I didn't hear every word though. I think I will read it.
4