What it's like to be Black in America.
How segregated school districts
keep black children in poverty
Black People More Likely to Be Stopped
by Cops, Study Finds
What part or parts of any of this seems remotely fair or just or right?
Keep in mind, too, this is just a small portion of all the many, many statistics on America, Americans and how Blacks are treated in our nation and have been since the nation's inception.
This isn't "Black History" so much as what has been going on for the past 300 years and what's still going on and why we need to change it. Why we need to change all of it.
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13 comments:
In most places if you want a better school for your kids, you have to pay for a good neighborhood, or give up the money that is supposed to pay for your kids and pay the entire cost yourself. Education funding should go with the children as long as they are getting a comparable education to the public school...even if there's religion involved. I'm an atheist--but the only alternatives where I live are fundamentalist Christian and Catholic. Where there's meaningful choice, everyone does better--even the public schools. In an awful lot of inner city neighborhoods, there's enough population density to support many different schools...and the good ones will succeed and expand.
The logic of drug laws--we will protect people from themselves by locking them up and giving them a criminal record if they take recreational drugs other than the ones rich white men like. (I'm talking about alcohol) Instead lets take away many or most of the excuses for police to stop and frisk and otherwise violate the rights of nonviolent people by letting adults choose. I'm pretty sure that blacks are victimized by civil asset forfeiture more than whites...without drug laws almost all of that goes away too. (Meanwhile even if we can't legalize drugs, let's at least require a relevant conviction for asset forfeiture)
I don't want drug legalization for myself--I don't do drugs and rarely drink. I'd give up my own right to take alcohol and all other recreational drugs to make drugs legal for other adults. I don't think it will make addiction worse, even if it does it's still better than locking up so many people and ruining their chances of most jobs "for their own good".
Drive drugged? Go to jail.
Neglect your kids? Go to jail.
Carry a gun drugged? Go to jail.
Steal to pay for drugs? Go to jail.
Steal to pay for tires? Go to jail.
Work drugged? Fired. (unless your boss is OK with it)
Get high and disturb the peace? Same as disturbing the peace sober.
Get high and don't bother anyone? Same as not bothering anyone while sober.
To take money from public schools and from the public school system for "charter schools" is to make "separate but equal" the law of the land again.
We all know that separate is never equal.
Charter schools make for a small, more privileged group, away from those who can't afford or just do the charter schools. It's wrong. It's deeply wrong. It shouldn't be what we're about, what America is about. No way.
"Stop and frisk" by the police is used, dependably, discriminatingly, against Blacks and minorities, period. It shouldn't even have a place in our laws or society, let alone in any drug or drugs program with the police and law enforcement.
It seems legalization of at least marijuana makes it far more controllable and lowers the price of the drug because it is, then, available, and not on any "black market."
Separate but equal isn't when you are given choices, it is when you are NOT given the choice to go to the same schools because of race. The current system is far more racist, where a kid in Detroit can't get a better school. Charter schools properly done are a step in the right direction, but many still suffer at least partially from the same bureaucracy as public schools. Instead of equally taking choice away from everyone, how about we equally give choices to as many as possible?
If finding drugs doesn't give cops an excuse for an arrest, a lot of the incentive for stop and frisk is gone.
Legalizing only pot is a step in the right direction, but it misses the point. It is still the government deciding what recreational chemicals are OK, and which ones are worthy of violence and imprisonment to stop. I think marijuana is a bad idea...but that doesn't mean I should enforce my opinion on others. Is there a logical line between the drugs that are OK and the ones where jail is a better alternative?
Taking money from public schools, to give to charter schools when not all can attend sets up a system for the privileged and against those without more funds, more money. It's back to a segregated world of those with vs. those with less. Surely you get that.
Stop and frisk programs are racist and biased, statistically.
Stop-and-frisk: 'Form of racial profiling'
http://www.bbc.com/news/37480903
Legalizing marijuana I can see, sure. But heroin? Methamphetamines? Cocaine? Others?
No. Societies must draw lines somewhere and these are easy ones to draw. The damage and damages they can do are legion, through generations, if not centuries, of human history.
"when not all can attend" is a key here. Done right, everyone who wanted could attend a better school than what is offered-If funding is available (and will remain available), someone will offer the services. Education funding should be for the benefit of the students, not for the benefit of teachers and their unions. We can set up the finances so it doesn't cover elite private schools, so that after a threshold every dollar of tuition above a certain amount is half a dollar less government funding. I'm certain that with enough freedom we can find ways to provide better education for all, for the same or less money.
Stop and frisk is racist. No argument there. But take it further, drug laws are racist and cause more damage than drugs themselves.
The line should be based on the amount of harm to others, not the amount of harm to yourself. Especially when the argument is "we're going to harm you so you don't harm yourself...especially if you're black". Drugs are bad for you--but I don't believe that they as bad as government sponsored propaganda says they are, or worse than prison and a record.
Your quote saying "Education funding should be for the benefit of the students, not for the benefit of teachers and their unions" is just absurd. There is not one teacher nor one teacher's union who thinks that any school should or even does exist for the benefit of the teacher OR the Union. That would only be laughable if people didn't take that seriously, as though that exists anywhere in this nation.
You and your "I'm certain that with enough freedom..." What utter nonsense. If we were any more "free", we'd fly. Wingless, we'd fly.
Drug laws aren't racist. The implementation of our drug laws in this nation are racist. It's the use of them to detain, arrest, charge and try minorities that's racist.
And here's another great line of yours: "we're going to harm you so you don't harm yourself..." You seem to think that laws are intrinsically a "harm." You don't seem to recognize that humans need limits. And those limits are societally agreed upon and they're called laws. We all need boundaries. We found that out all too well around 2008 with the financial collapse. Bankers needed oversight. They needed limits. They needed laws and regulations. Now, with Republicans in power, we're about to do away with them by killing the Dodd-Frank legislation. Brilliant. We learn nothing.
It is notoriously hard to fire a tenured teacher. That's not for the benefit of the students. If a school is bad or even just not the best, just like if a store is not the best, parents should be able to easily pick a different school. Instead of one or two organizations running all the affordable schools, let's have 5 or 6 within reach of most families, both economically and geographically.
If it were possible to have a choice of 5 or 10 lightly regulated schools financially and geographically available to most families-would you consider that an improvement, or something to be avoided?
There's not enough benefit from prohibition to be worth the harm, the excused racism, the loss of our rights. We figured that out with alcohol. I'm willing to let junkies kill themselves (note the word themselves) if it means people with legitimate pain can get the drugs they need, if doctors can give these drugs to their patients without fear, if drugs aren't funding violent gangs worldwide, if the government wasn't stealing money and making tie victims prove it isn't drug related, etc, etc.
We need limits in what I am allowed to do to you against your will, what you are allowed to do to me against my will. When we decide that voluntary acts without a victim can be made illegal, we wind up with society enforcing arbitrary, usually religious morals not shared by all, or sometimes not even a majority. We wind up banning gay sex, gay marriage, mixed race couples, gambling, (unless it's run by the state or an approved church) alcohol (or only on Sunday), certain plants, topless dancing, dancing without a license, birth control, abortion, etc.
Putting someone in jail harms them. Sometimes it is necessary, but we should make sure that it isn't a greater harm than we are trying to prevent. Same with other regulations--Dodd-Frank has nearly killed small, community lenders while doing little to prevent actual harm by megabanks, they can afford the lawyers and extra recordkeeping. Judging a law by its title or intent rather than its results is far too common.
Do you know any teachers? Honestly? Because every one I ever knew only got into it because they loved and wanted it, in the first place, and secondly, it's not an easy job, it is a position extremely exposed to favoritism, at minimum, and being overlooked or taken advantage of my principals or administration, worse. Further, honest to God and hand to heart, I don't know that many bad teachers. I mean bad and really bad. It's a tough job, very demanding and it requires them to perform, really, with all their students and the staff and administration, daily. For them to achieve, finally, tenure in no way creates a system of people "cruising through their jobs." That entire idea is just a myth and stereotype. Sure, it could and maybe does exist for some teachers. Somewhere. But the numbers of them are extremely, extremely small, at best.
"...a choice of 5 or 10 lightly regulated schools financially and geographically...?
What does that even mean?
I get the sense you are a strict if not extreme Libertarian and that you think any and all government is inherently bad, first, and that the less and less "regulations" there are, the better.
Less regulations got us the Chesapeake Bay fire in the 70's.
Less regulations got us the 2008 financial debacle which, because of that less regulations--taking off the Glass-Steagall Act which served us from the Great Depression until it was done away with---doing away with it got us that 2008 collapse which we then inflicted on the rest of the world.
Less regulations got us the Great Depression and that was also done by Republicans and the Republican Party which, from that time to this, has been working for the already-wealthy and corporations.
Finally, your claim that "Dodd-Frank has nearly killed small, community lenders..." is patent nonsense, utterly unprovable and an opinion held only by Right Wingers, Republicans and Libertarians. Anyone who doesn't think we need limits on our financial system is completely ignoring and/or forgetting the 2008 financial collapse, at our, the nation's peril. Doing away with it now--and it's not even that strong in legislation--is a chance I and a lot of us don't want to take and that this nation shouldn't take.
We are a nation of now more than 325 million people. How Right Wingers and Republicans and Libertarians think we can effectively and positively function as a nation with either fewer or far less or really, nearly no regulations is beyond reality, belief and comprehension. Government isn't the solution to everything, no, certainly not. But far too little rules for us all but especially for the greedy and corporations and multi-national corporations and the already-wealthy is an invitation to go into the abyss.
I know a lot of teachers, including my parents. Most of the ones that were friends with my teacher parents loved and wanted it. All of them knew teachers who shouldn't be teaching. My kids had some excellent teachers and some that shouldn't be teaching, but had been doing it too long to be fired.
Not surprising that you can't even comprehend my question, it's so foreign to someone who thinks that almost all problems are best solved by the federal government. I'll make one more attempt. If we could manage for almost every parent to have a meaningful, affordable choice of schools for their children--would that be better than only the wealthy having the option to choose something besides government provided education?
I can't steal from you, defraud you, trick you for profit, threaten you or use force on you. We need those kinds of laws. If I want to sell you unpasteurized milk or European standard eggs, I should have to disclose that fact, but leave the choice to you.
Government uses fear to increase power. "We can't take the risk" of freedom. So we deport, deny visas, bomb the middle east, build a wall, control the financial sector, require temporary farmer's markets and food trucks to have flush toilets. We've got the banking regulators who will punish banks that provide ordinary services like credit card processing to unfavored business--gun shops, gambling, marijuana dispensaries among others, without regard to financial risk.
We've got 325 million people. We aren't all alike, we don't want the same things from life. If I'm not interfering in someone else's life, I should be allowed.
And to bring it back around to the original topic, all these laws get unevenly enforced, and I'm more likely to get a break in enforcement than a young black man. I don't want that. I don't want families tricked into mortgages they can't afford because banks will be punished if they don't loan to enough minorities, to make up for FHA-enforced racist redlining that persisted as official policyuntil 1968. I don't want lives ruined because a young black man smoked the wrong thing.
Good God. I didn't see that coming. It's getting around to where, the more you write and respond, the more we finally, finally agree on some things.
First, a clarification. I patently do not think "...almost all problems are best solved by the federal government." You and Republicans and Right Wingers and people like you rewrite and redefine my position and people like me. As I said earlier and as you now agree, we do, in fact, need government to prevent the most base but very human traits like the fact that, again, as you said, people shouldn't "steal from you, defraud you, trick you for profit, threaten you or use force on you. We need those kinds of laws."
Thank God you at least recognize that.
What's ironic is that it is the Repubicans and their entire political party and the Right Wing who, from at least Dick Cheney in the George W. Bush administration to now, with Trump's nearly insane one, that they're using fear to increase power. How do you think Dubya' and Dick and his administration and the Republicans at the time got their precious but extremely unnecessary and oh-so-wasteful Department of "Homeland Security."
That didn't come from the Left and Liberals.
Agreed, if you're "not interfering in someone's life", you should be allowed.
I've never, ever, not once said or written otherwise. You extrapolated because you demonize me because I don't, in fact, think identically like you. I get so tired of Right Wingers and Republicans and yes, Libertarians who demonize the Left like this, take statements to extremes--absurd extremes and either redefine or try to redefine what another says but yes, especially those of us more on the Left, or Democrats or Liberals.
And yes, "laws get unevenly enforced" because, first, we're human but second, far too many of us are racist, as well. Why you would think I would want "live ruined because a young black man..."---or anyone else, for that matter--"...smoked the wrong thing", I can't imagine.
And dang, on your school question:
"If we could manage for almost every parent to have a meaningful, affordable choice of schools for their children--would that be better than only the wealthy having the option to choose something besides government provided education?"
You say I don't "get you" and you lament it. I lament same of you.
If you, in fact, siphon funds away from the main, public school system, it will naturally and inevitably create a two-tiered system of schools, schooling and education. One will inevitably be better, one will be worse and guess where the children and families with less money are going to end up? Inevitably. It would create, again in our American nation and history, a very separate and very unequal system of schools. To repeat, inevitably.
Instead of siphoning off those funds and families and students, why would we not try to simply strengthen our schools and school systems, to make them--and the students--better, instead of, really, giving up, walking away and putting more hope in those schools and students that break away?
It makes no sense whatever.
What Homeland Security powers did Obama give up?
I don't expect Trump to voluntarily give up any of Obama's power.
If someone is arrested for smoking crack or meth their life is severely impacted if not ruined, beyond what the drugs did. Based on what you've said earlier, you're unwilling to legalize anything but pot. Maybe you don't want lives ruined, but you are unwilling to advocate changing the laws that ruin them.
If virtually everyone had access and could afford private school why does it matter if the funding is going with the students, if public schools get less money for educating fewer students? There are two separate arguments here--basically "can we" and "should we". If we could give *all* families a choice should we? Not If we can give only the rich, if we can give choice to ALL.
I think we probably can, or very close to it. The exceptions are going to be based on low population density, not income or race. Public schools are a means to an end--the goal should be the best education for the most people, not the best public schools.
Drugs and drug laws are a far, far bigger issue for you than me, first. And second, I am all about legalizing marijuana use but making meth or crack and/or other forms of cocaine legal? No, not a chance, There is nothing constructive to be gained there in any form.
You live in a dream world about schools, it seems. "In a perfect world", if "virtually everyone had access and could afford private school...", sure, it would be great. But that is fantasy at its finest. That's not the world we live in nor is it the world we have ever lived in. Again, charter schools just suck money away from the public school system and make a very uneven, two-tiered system for the "haves" and "have nots." Don't kid yourself. The goal and goals should, in fact, be the best schools. That they are public is a side issue.
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