Why is it hard?

[LifeHiscost]

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Who is Jesus spoke this to? Please read and understand the story prior to quoting things like these.

He is talking to Scribes and Pharisees...

That is the primary reason the principles of the word are often failing. A result of, "that was meant for them, not me".

God cares! Jesus saves!

[CoAspen]

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The best way to learn and understand is to listen!

That is part of every relationship counseling.

That is almost to funny.(Bonnie)

If you find that too funny, then I can understand some of your difficulties with this subject.

Listening is one the most important parts of any relationship and understanding others. If we don't listen, we never learn. This is true for all aspects of life.

[bonnie]

If you find that too funny, then I can understand some of your difficulties with this subject.

Listening is one the most important parts of any relationship and understanding others. If we don't listen, we never learn. This is true for all aspects of life.

Is that true for all people? Is listening also a important part of the black race or just the white race.

When does it stop? We all acknowledge past actions cannot be undone.We can't give back family history.Will this be obtained by constant never ending venting? How many years? 75 years like Laz suggested.

[fccool]

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Excusing and accepting racism as a one way street is not working. It doesn't do anything to soothe the racist into a different mind set

. How's what you are doing working out so far? I'm sure you are getting plentiful positive results.

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I have a very up close and personal understanding of extreme poverty. There was one remedy for that and that remedy was in the hands of one person.

I also was privileged to work very closely for five years with black co-workers. A few had the mentality shown here. The few made it very difficult to work closely with them.Everything in their lives revolved around being black and being denied.They were angry when they didn't get the promotion they wanted or a bonus check every three months.

One middle aged black woman took a couple of them to task in a way that the rest of us would never have dreamed of.Ending my telling them they made her ashamed to be black and that she would never allow here children to associate with them. She didn't take guff from anyone but was a hard worker,didn't think she was owed because of past grievances.

And you base your views of the black people based on few negative examples you've encountered along the way? You realize there are law, science and stats that tell a predominantly dim story that validates as a FACT that people have some reason to be angry.

If my son went to jail for 10 years for 10 gram of crack possession and stupidity, while some rich kid got off for having 5 times more... you can bet I'd be outraged, and angry for the rest of my life.

You simply don't get the context of the anger. It has nothing to do with equal opportunity, or expectations. It has everything to do with ever-present issues like these... in which case, no matter how hard you work, and not matter how hard you fight... there will be a couple of old-school people at the top who will say:

"Let me tell you what I know about Negro"

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Tell me when does the venting stop,or is that to be a condition?

You'd make one exceptional counselor .

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All of their venting will not go back and change anything so it will always be a problem and reason.

You can't carry this conversation with "Forget the past, get off your butt and stop complaining".

Or "Don't complain about racism, when you do it too". It's very unproductive way to resolve any conflicts.

The anger and resentment among blacks isn't going to change. As a mature and responsible society, I think we should initiate the change, and show that we care... and carry calm discussion that doesn't resort to accusatory remarks which will invoke even more anger.

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When you direct that venting at people that are not responsible and are not racists and insist that it be brought up and examined again and again angers people as well.

No, what angers them is that you refuse to listen, understand and sympathize. You have this attitude of "tough luck, other people can do it, so should you"... but it's not productive in this case.

I highly doubt that you'd make any positive changes with such attitude.

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Like it or not,racism is despicable regardless of the mouth it comes out of.

You still haven't explained the majority of hardworking black families that don't wave the racist flag at every opportunity.Or the Jews that have suffered horrible treatment far longer.

What does this have to do with this discussion? Let's say that racism coming from the black is in fact ignored (which it's not ... that's what FOX NEWS is for) , does that justify ignoring racism? Do we just resort to "but you are doing it to!" discussions? Don't you find such attitude a bit childish and immature?

[fccool]

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BILL HAS GONE AND DONE IT AGAIN...

Bill Cosby is a bit out of touch with reality of structural violence. It's not a white or black issue.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structural_violence

The things he says is like walking up to a dying cancer patient and saying:

"look how pathetic you are, you are allowing those cancer cells growing in your body, and you are depending on drugs to alleviate your pain. Look how pathetic you are that you can't speak or remember like a normal human being. Just look at yourself"

That's exactly what he does. He is blaming the symptoms, and ignores the causes... and he should know much better as an educator, because the cause is exactly that - the lack of education due to poor socio-economic conditions that shift survival above education.

Once the cycle gets going, it's tough to break. The reason why people speak that way... is because of their lack of education, and that's how they learned to speak growing up. They don't choose to do that. That's all they know, given that's how people talk in that environment.

The reason they wear these clothes and blast that music, is because of the environment that shapes them to be so. The reason they grow up to lack certain perspective, is because they aren't getting any.

The way out of it is not blaming them for something they have little control over growing up. Children learn what they grow up with. The way out of it is shifting to different socio-economic standards, and it doesn't happen by mere criticism of the culture. It happens via proper intervention.

In any case, the intervention doesn't begin with "You are a pathetic piece of dirt"... no, intervention begins with relentlessly showing your empathy and care.

[bonnie]

. How's what you are doing working out so far? I'm sure you are getting plentiful positive results.

[bonnie]

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Bill Cosby is a bit out of touch with reality of structural violence. It's not a white or black issue.

Of course he is,he disagrees with you

[LifeHiscost]

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Of course he is,he disagrees with you

I shouldn't do this, but it's so hard to hold it in. Besides,

"

A merry heart does good, like medicine, But a broken spirit dries the bones."Proverbs 17:22 NKJV

And nobody likes dry bones except a paleontologist.

God cares! Jesus saves!

[fccool]

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I would be angry first of all and most importantly for my son that he was stupid enough to have 10 grams of crack.

Sure, but the crime is not fit the punishment in this case, and predominantly slanted towards "rich white" drugs of choice. That was my point. The racism today is not all up in your face. It's hidden in the laws that covertly punish poor black, in this case.

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I thought it had to do with lacking a past. That will always be,and not just for the black man. You seem to think there is something so special about being black that it is all reserved for you and everyone else slides thru life easily.

No... but there's something particularly special about poor blacks, because they needed up at the bottom of the post-discrimination barrel, in drug-drive economies and lack of proper education or local role models... or family for that matter.

What you are saying is akin "What's so special about women and children that they have to get into the lifeboat first".

You are addressing a completely different subject here... that's why you refuse to understand. We are not talking about able people conning the system. We are talking about legitimately hurt people who need support and help.

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That is not quite what I said. If you claim you are opposed to racism,you can't pick and choose and be honest about finding racism objectionable.

Again, it's like saying, if you value life... you can't pick and choose children and women over able men to go into lifeboats first.

There's a gradient of tolerance for certain offenses, because as a society we tend to relate to those issues with a degree of empathy. Sure, tough love is necessary in some cases... but screaming "Why aren't you treating all racist alike" in case of Stirling... it's just obscene.

There's a perspective, in which racial anger is understandable. If a bullied kid punches the hole in the wall in frustration, there's a difference between him and a vandal who does the same with intent to damage property.

That's the part you seem to ignore completely. Yes, as a society we can excuse a certain behavior given a context of empathy and understanding. We don't punish mentally disabled people or children who commit crimes the same way as able people who do the same with full understanding of what they are doing.

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You are free to make all the racists comments to me you choose,doesn't really bother me.It is when the dishonesty begins and the claim to hate racism.

Really, that's what this hoopla is all about? You don't see how this is a bit immature way of fighting a fight that doesn't solve anything at all?

You are married, right? In any relationship, you don't resolve the conflicts by screaming "you do it too". It just aggravates the situation even more. You do it through listening, and sympathizing... in any situation... even when people are dead wrong.

Race is a sensitive subject for that very reason. Someone who actually experienced racism will look at life with such perspective, because different assumptions are at play. Essentially, you have to be able to prove people wrong in their assumptions.

What you are doing... isn't proving them wrong. From their perspective, you are a white lady with no direct experience of racism screaming "get over it" or "you are not being consistent". You are not going to turn angered people with such attitude.

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Of course, a small segment of the black race is more special than all others that have had to deal with extreme adversity.

They are not more "special" in global scope, but they are different in local scope of generational racism and discrimination policies that contributed to their present situation...

It's not a leveled playing field. It's now educated vs uneducated, poor vs rich... Racism maybe passed, but the effects remain, along with lingering anger for people who do blame the past... rightfully so.

Sure, blaming the past is not the way out, but saying that "the field is leveled now for everyone" is an insult given these circumstances.

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Try one more time. Because some black person makes a racial slur and it is accepted,it does not mean that I should do same.

By the same token if a white person makes a racial slur,it does not mean a black person has to do so.

No, it doesn't. But blacks didn't start this whole thing. They didn't perpetuate it, and they didn't write the laws that put them at disadvantage for larger part of US history.

From their perspective, it's not an individual matter. That's what you fail to understand here. It's a matter of collective societal benefit that gave comparative and competitive advantage of one race over the other... in terms of education, generational wealth, and family history.

If you are naive enough to think that the field is leveled given these factors... there's no conversation here. You demand fairness in a country, where historically there was none until very recently.

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What it does mean if I don't have a problem with white on black racism,yet make a fuss when it is black on white racism,I am lying when I claim to be opposed to racism

No. In the same way you are not lying opposing male death when you put women and children in lifeboats. We give preferential treatment to those who are afflicted or at disadvantage.

How long is it going to take? I have no idea, but it doesn't mean that we should stop now and dish out "the fairness".

[fccool]

Quote:

Of course he is,he disagrees with you

No, because he reaped millions of dollars satirizing ebonics of his contemporary black culture, only to turn around and point out the turn it took 30 years down the road.

That's what makes his comments so out of touch - not because he isn't right about the reality of the issue, but because he ignores the history behind it... as though it's something that's just dropped out of the sky. A black baby is born... and just decides to use swear language, blast music, sell crack, and wear loose clothes.

There's a distinct chain of events that lead to these circumstances, and given the circumstances... the statistical outcome is rather predictable. Playing the "captain obvious" doesn't exactly help in this case... what helps is helping kids get proper education, and keep parents out of jail, and provide positive role models that don't bounce a ball or scream misogynistic obscenities into microphone.

[bonnie]

Sure, but the crime is not fit the punishment in this case, and predominantly slanted towards "rich white" drugs of choice. That was my point. The racism today is not all up in your face. It's hidden in the laws that covertly punish poor black, in this case.

[bonnie]

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No, it doesn't. But blacks didn't start this whole thing. They didn't perpetuate it, and they didn't write the laws that put them at disadvantage for larger part of US history.

From their perspective, it's not an individual matter. That's what you fail to understand here. It's a matter of collective societal benefit that gave comparative and competitive advantage of one race over the other... in terms of education, generational wealth, and family history.

You really need to spend a little more time reading history.

I hate to tell you but the blacks did have a big part in starting it. However that does not absolve the behavior of the white race in the least,but you want to go to who started it. This was not gathering slaves to build churches. You like to make this a institution of the evil white man. There were evil white men involved in slavery,side by side with the evil black man all for greed and profit. Without a seller there isn't a buyer,without a buyer there is no seller.

There are many more links with this information

It's Time to Face the Whole Truth About the Atlantic Slave Trade

serves as a monument to the millions of souls that were broken or lost as a result of the insidious Transatlantic Slave Trade. The vessel offers an important message for all Americans about our collective history and future.1

Website readers must understand that this terrible traffic in millions of human beings had been, as affirmed by the PBS Africans in America series, a joint venture: “During this era, Africans and Europeans stood together as equals, companions in commerce and profit. Kings exchanged respectful letters across color lines and addressed each other as colleagues. Natives of the two continents were tied into a common economy.”2

Incomplete depictions of the Atlantic slave trade are, in fact, quite common. My 2003 study of 49 state U.S. history standards revealed that not one of these guides to classroom content even mentioned the key role of Africans in supplying the Atlantic slave trade.3 In Africa itself, however, the slave trade is remembered quite differently. Nigerians, for example, explicitly teach about their own role in the trade:

Where did the supply of slaves come from? First, the Portuguese themselves kidnapped some Africans. But the bulk of the supply came from the Nigerians. These Nigerian middlemen moved to the interior where they captured other Nigerians who belonged to other communities. The middlemen also purchased many of the slaves from the people in the interior . . . . Many Nigerian middlemen began to depend totally on the slave trade and neglected every other business and occupation. The result was that when the trade was abolished [by England in 1807] these Nigerians began to protest. As years went by and the trade collapsed such Nigerians lost their sources of income and became impoverished. 4

In Ghana, politician and educator Samuel Sulemana Fuseini has acknowledged that his Asante ancestors accumulated their great wealth by abducting, capturing, and kidnapping Africans and selling them as slaves. Likewise, Ghanaian diplomat Kofi Awoonor has written: “I believe there is a great psychic shadow over Africa, and it has much to do with our guilt and denial of our role in the slave trade. We too are blameworthy in what was essentially one of the most heinous crimes in human history.”5

In 2000, at an observance attended by delegates from several European countries and the United States, officials from Benin publicized President Mathieu Kerekou’s apology for his country’s role in “selling fellow Africans by the millions to white slave traders.” “We cry for forgiveness and reconciliation,” said Luc Gnacadja, Benin’s minister of environment and housing. Cyrille Oguin, Benin’s ambassador to the United States, acknowledged, “We share in the responsibility for this terrible human tragedy.” 6

A year later, Senegal’s president Abdoulaye Wade, “himself the descendant of generations of slave-owning [and slave-trading] African kings,” urged Europeans, Americans, and Africans to acknowledge publicly and teach openly about their shared responsibility for the Atlantic slave trade. 7 Wade’s remarks came months after the release of Adanggaman, by Ivory Coast director Roger Gnoan M’bala, “the first African film to look at African involvement in the slave trade with the West.” “It’s up to us,” M’Bala insisted, “to talk about slavery, open the wounds of what we’ve always hidden and stop being puerile when we put responsibility on others . . . . In our own oral tradition, slavery is left out purposefully because Africans are ashamed when we confront slavery. Let’s wake up and look at ourselves through our own image.”8 “It is simply true,” declared Da Bourdia Leon of Burkina Faso’s Ministry of Culture and Art, “We need this kind of film to show our children this part of our history, that it happened among us. Although I feel sad, I think it is good that this kind of thing is being told today.”9

Several television productions of the last decade have acknowledged these facts: Africans in America (PBS, 1998), Wonders of the African World (PBS, 1999), and The African Trade (History Channel International, 2000). The latter begins with the visit by a group of African-Americans to the infamous slave castle and Door of No Return on Goree Island off the coast of Senegal. “Appalled by the cruelties of the Europeans,” the narrator relates, “the visitors become curious as to how Africans fell into their hands.” Their African guide admits that “this history is difficult to tell and hard to believe” but pulls no punches about African complicity in kidnapping and selling millions of African people: “All the tribes were involved in the slave trade—no exemptions.” The African-Americans were staggered: “So we really can’t blame the Europeans,” one declares, “We sold our own. It takes two.” Another visitor declares, “That’s right—money and greed.” The program concludes that “white guilt can never be erased”—but cautions that it is also important to remember that “black participation lets no one off the hook.”

The historical record is incontrovertible—as documented in the PBS Africans in America series companion book:

The white man did not introduce slavery to Africa . . . . And by the fifteenth century, men with dark skin had become quite comfortable with the concept of man as property . . . . Long before the arrival of Europeans on West Africa’s coast, the two continents shared a common acceptance of slavery as an unavoidable and necessary—perhaps even desirable—fact of existence. The commerce between the two continents, as tragic as it would become, developed upon familiar territory. Slavery was not a twisted European manipulation, although Europe capitalized on a mutual understanding and greedily expanded the slave trade into what would become a horrific enterprise . . . . It was a thunder that had no sound. Tribe stalked tribe, and eventually more than 20 million Africans would be kidnapped in their own homeland. 10

Historians estimate that ten million of these abducted Africans “never even made it to the slave ships. Most died on the march to the sea”—still chained, yoked, and shackled by their African captors—before they ever laid eyes on a white slave trader. 11 The survivors were either purchased by European slave dealers or “instantly beheaded” by the African traders “in sight of the [slave ship] captain” if they could not be sold.12 Of course, the even more horrific and inhuman middle passage—the voyage of a European (and later American) slave ship from Africa to the Western Hemisphere—still lay before those who had survived the forced trek to the coast.

Failure to educate young Americans about the whole story of Atlantic slave trade threatens to divide our nation and undermine our civic unity and belief in the historical legitimacy of our democratic institutions. Education in a democracy cannot promote half-truths about history without undermining the ideal of e pluribus unum—one from many—and substituting a divisive emphasis on many from one. The history of the slave trade proves that virtually everyone participated and profited—whites and blacks; Christians, Muslims, and Jews; Europeans, Africans, Americans, and Latin Americans. Once we recognize the shared historical responsibility for the Atlantic slave trade, we can turn our attention to “transforming the future” by eradicating its corrosive legacy.

No one is well served when “old myths of African barbarism” are replaced by “new myths of African innocence.”13 There are some encouraging signs. A recent middle school textbook, for example, tries to explain—

how Africans could have sold other Africans into slavery. The answer is that [African] slaveholders didn't think of themselves or their slaves as 'Africans.' Instead they thought of themselves as Edo or Songhai or members of another group. They thought of their slaves as foreigners or inferiors. In the same way, the Spanish, the French, and the English could massacre each other in bloody wars because they thought of themselves as Spanish, French, or English, rather than Europeans.14

Similar candor can also be found in a current college textbook co-authored by three African-American historians. Europeans and eventually Americans—

did not capture and enslave people themselves. Instead they purchased slaves from African traders [who]…restricted the Europeans to a few points on the coast, while the kingdoms raided the interior to supply the Europeans with slaves. ... The European traders provided the aggressors with firearms, but they did not instigate the wars. Instead they used the wars to enrich themselves. Sometimes African armies enslaved the inhabitants of conquered towns and villages. At other times, raiding parties captured isolated families or kidnapped individuals. As warfare spread to the interior, captives had to march for hundreds of miles to the coast where European traders awaited them. The raiders tied the captives together with rope or secured them with wooden yokes around their necks. It was a shocking experience, and many captives died from hunger, exhaustion, and exposure during the journey. Others killed themselves rather than submit to their fate, and the captors killed those who resisted.15

A concise version of this textbook prepared for a new required course on African-American history in Philadelphia high schools has retained all of this material—giving these students the opportunity to learn the full story of the Atlantic slave trade.16

It is also encouraging that the AMISTAD America Sankofa College Program courses to be offered during the Amistad’s visits to Sierra Leone and Senegal include study of the “West African slave trade” and “African slavery and the transatlantic slave trade”— presumably to be discussed candidly and accurately. Only by facing the whole truth can we free ourselves from the burden of our shared, tragic past and reinvigorate our commitment to what AMISTAD America rightly calls, “our collective history and future.” As Martin Luther King, Jr. dared to dream at the 1963 March on Washington, we can then join hands and affirm together in the words of the African-American spiritual: “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

NOTES

1 AMISTAD America website www.amistadamerica.org.

- See more at: http://hnn.us/article/41431#sthash.LpBBtmU6.dpuf

If you are naive enough to think that the field is leveled given these factors... there's no conversation here. You demand fairness in a country, where historically there was none until very recently.

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What it does mean if I don't have a problem with white on black racism,yet make a fuss when it is black on white racism,I am lying when I claim to be opposed to racism

No. In the same way you are not lying opposing male death when you put women and children in lifeboats. We give preferential treatment to those who are afflicted or at disadvantage.

How long is it going to take? I have no idea, but it doesn't mean that we should stop now and dish out "the fairness".

[lazarus]

There are millions of legitimately hurt people. That is not unique to the black race.You can nurse and feed that hurt,keep it polished so it never goes away,but that isn't very productive for anyone.

This is a perfect example of why it is hard.

[lazarus]

How not to derail the dialogue on race

1. Talking about race isn't racist. Don't say that. Vilifying people who discuss race and point out racism — making them the bad guys — is one of the ways racism is maintained.

2. Yep, sometimes there are different standards for black and white stuff.

3. African-Americans are not monolithic. There is no one black experience nor black point of view.

4. Remember that while "race" itself isn't real, racism is, and our country's long and well-documented history with racism has very real, lasting effects.

5. Black people shouldn't have to fit your definition of what's respectable to deserve equality or justice.

6. Don't defer to people like Bill Cosby about their theories about black people, any more than you would defer to a miscellaneous white celebrity about how white people are doing.

7. Individual racism and systemic racism are two different things.

8. Don't give the word "racism" so much power that you can't speak rationally after you hear it.

9. Resist the urge to believe and regurgitate myths about black people, even when they're promoted by black people.

10. Finally, stop thinking about and discussing racism as something that's the problem of black and other nonwhite people.

Read more: http://host.madison.com/news/opinion/col...l#ixzz31RqYKm7m

[bonnie]

How not to derail the dialogue on race

1. Talking about race isn't racist. Don't say that. Vilifying people who discuss race and point out racism — making them the bad guys — is one of the ways racism is maintained.

[bonnie]

6. Don't defer to people like Bill Cosby about their theories about black people, any more than you would defer to a miscellaneous white celebrity about how white people are doing.

Bill Cosby is black but what he said applies to all. Maybe you missed this when I posted that

This is something that should be drilled home to all ,black white or anyone else.

If there was anything that had that much common sense written by a white anybody I would also have used that.

The problems that affect poor black also affect poor white or any other non white. To you poor blacks are special,to others they are not more or less than anyone else.The same rules of personal responsibility apply.

If any of my grandchildren needed what Bill Cosby wrote, they would get a copy.

Different wording but most is what my own kids grew up with.

[Tom Wetmore]

Moderator note:

Arguing about and disputing every point made by others is not talking about or discussing the topic. Never being willing to seriously consider another's POV is not either. Nor is acting and speaking as if your own experience and knowledge is sufficient to understand that of others.

The question posed in this topic is why is it so difficult to talk about race issues. That is a significant reason why.

And some that have posted a lot in this thread have demonstrated that fact, repeatedly. Almost all of those posts simply do nothing to answer the topic question directly other than to serve as examples of why so many conversations about race issues fail and often just makes matters worse by simply reinforcing the negative attitudes and prejudices the were at the heart of the need to talk about it OT begin with.

Several frequent flyers to this topic that fit this profile need to take a breather. You should know who you are. If you do not, I will be happy to assist your comprehension.

[joeb]

Hi fccool,

Quote:

Sure, but the crime is not fit the punishment in this case, and predominantly slanted towards "rich white" drugs of choice. That was my point. The racism today is not all up in your face. It's hidden in the laws that covertly punish poor black, in this case.

I don't agree that drug laws,(crack laws specifically) are racist laws for a couple of reasons. Crack absolutely destroys those who use it. It destroys them mentally, emotionally, and physically. It burns out the pleasure center in the brain so badly that the addicts often never recover from that need for crack to replace it. It's an extremely dangerous drug, and it harms society as a whole just as much as it harms the individual.

Because of the harm to the addict the only way many of them can/will get help is to get busted and face jail time. This is especially true with crack addicts. Thus crack must be outlawed and with significant penalties for those who get caught with it whether that person is a user or a dealer. Obviously the dealers must face much, much stiffer penalties. (In my eyes crack dealers are murderers and ought to face the same penalty as someone who is convicted of murder.)

I have one last argument against your position. Let's lay the blame where it really belongs. It's those who, no matter what their race, are willing to destroy their fellow man for the money they get from selling drugs. They are the ones destroying all the lives.

Saying laws created to fight them and the results of the evil they unleash on society are racist seems very wrong-headed to me. Laws are subject to the "law of unintended consequences" and it seems much more logical to me to blame that than accuse those who are trying to fight a very bad, very complex, situation, of racism. Laws are, by their very nature, a "one size fits all" solution to a problem and any time there is a "one size fits all" solution to something somebody is bound to get the short of end of the stick.

To say that the people who wrote all the drug laws sat down said they were going to target black people seems to me to reach into fantasy world of conspiracies gone mad. There's too many people, including a lot of black people, involved in the process of creating laws in our country for such a conspiracy to succeed.

[joeb]

I found BLACK LIKE ME to be a very meaningful book.

I also found the death of the author to be meaningful. In order to darken his skin color for his travels, he used certain drugs that changed his skin color.

Following the publication of his book, he was hanged in effigy.

He also moved to Mexico for the safety of he and his family.

John Howard Griffin paid a price.

It is of interest that he smuggled Jews to safety during WW II.

He died in 1980

I'll have to see if my local library has this as I don't recall ever hearing of this book before. It sounds like a good book.

[joeb]

I never wrote that, and I'd appreciate it if you'd refrain from attributing things to me that I never wrote.

I'm sorry, rudywoofs. That was my paraphrase of what I understood you to be saying. From your response I see that I misunderstood you. I wasn't deliberately trying to misrepresent what you said, but you certainly have my apology for offending you.

[lazarus]

I don't agree that drug laws,(crack laws specifically) are racist laws for a couple of reasons. Crack absolutely destroys those who use it. It destroys them mentally, emotionally, and physically. It burns out the pleasure center in the brain so badly that the addicts often never recover from that need for crack to replace it. It's an extremely dangerous drug, and it harms society as a whole just as much as it harms the individual.

Saying laws created to fight them and the results of the evil they unleash on society are racist seems very wrong-headed to me.

Quote:

To say that the people who wrote all the drug laws sat down said they were going to target black people seems to me to reach into fantasy world of conspiracies gone mad.

In 2002, the United States Sentencing Commission "found that the ratio was created based upon a misperception of the dangers of crack cocaine, which had since been proven to have a less drastic effect than previously thought."[5] In 2009, the U.S. Sentencing Commission introduced figures stating that no class of drug is as racially skewed as crack in terms of numbers of offenses. According to the data, 79% of 5,669 sentenced crack offenders were black, while only 10% were white and 10% were Hispanic. The figures for the 6,020 powder cocaine convictions, in contrast, were as follows: 17% of these offenders were white, 28% were black, and 53% were Hispanic. Combined with a 115-month average imprisonment for crack offenses, compared with an average of 87 months for cocaine offenses, the sentencing disparity results in more African-Americans spending more time in the prison system.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Sentencing_Act

[lazarus]

Tim Wise, author of Between Barack & A Hard Place: Racism & White Denial in the Age of Obama, discussed white America's struggle to talk about race. Only 1:47.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IV3m-2utW10

[M. T. Cross]

Maybe the reason its hard to talk about race is we never know if we are talking about race as in a global issue or racial tensions in the U.S. (which of course all things must revolve around)

So no-one wanted to possibly answer this, but it has been answered none the less, so maybe should this thread not be in the U.S. political forum where you can continue to self implode without the rest of us having to watch?

[fccool]

Quote:

Crack absolutely destroys those who use it. It destroys them mentally, emotionally, and physically. It burns out the pleasure center in the brain so badly that the addicts often never recover from that need for crack to replace it. It's an extremely dangerous drug, and it harms society as a whole just as much as it harms the individual.

I don't think it's a fair description of the most people who use it. Generally, drugs have only a part to play triggering the "addictive personality", that has more to do with addiction than drugs themselves.

Given addictive personality, any drug will do... be it crack, cocaine, or alcohol, or even sugar.

Actually, alcohol is rated as the most damaging drug, and it doesn't land the users or vendors in jail for years, banning them from voting and humiliating experience post-"rehab".

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/39938704/ns/he...s/#.U3GA8lchnvY

Likewise the disparity in punishment assumes the intent and abuse, and releases those in possession of pure form from responsibility... especially given that pure form cocaine can be used via injection, which is far more dangerous and damaging, or can be used to be converted into crack. If we go by mere "it's more dangerous", then it's quite presumptuous to punish the use pure form of the drug less than that of a diluted one.

5 grams of crack would land one in jail for minimum of 5 years, which it took 500 grams to do the same for pure cocaine. The irony here is that 500 grams of pure cocaine can be turned into 625 grams of crack in a matter of hours.

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Because of the harm to the addict the only way many of them can/will get help is to get busted and face jail time. This is especially true with crack addicts.

This is quite a stretch, considering that law doesn't merely target the addicts, and most of the people using crack don't get addicted. About 10-20% do.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/17/scienc...ed=all&_r=0

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Thus crack must be outlawed and with significant penalties for those who get caught with it whether that person is a user or a dealer. Obviously the dealers must face much, much stiffer penalties. (In my eyes crack dealers are murderers and ought to face the same penalty as someone who is convicted of murder.)

Again, alcohol is responsible for more violence and health damage than crack. It's legal, and we only penalize people for the actual damage that they do under influence. The other get interventions and rehab, most of the time as a choice they have to make.

The drug laws have more to do with the marginal hysteria, and politicians who use it to get elected by providing "sweeping solutions". People generally respond positively to "let's be hard on crime" type of promises, but they seldom consider what it means.

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I have one last argument against your position. Let's lay the blame where it really belongs. It's those who, no matter what their race, are willing to destroy their fellow man for the money they get from selling drugs. They are the ones destroying all the lives.

This is a rather narrow argument, considering that most of the people locked up for crack use are not dealers... especially given the fact that legal drugs do much more damage to society with us not throwing the dealers into the "murderers" category.

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Saying laws created to fight them and the results of the evil they unleash on society are racist seems very wrong-headed to me. Laws are subject to the "law of unintended consequences" and it seems much more logical to me to blame that than accuse those who are trying to fight a very bad, very complex, situation, of racism. Laws are, by their very nature, a "one size fits all" solution to a problem and any time there is a "one size fits all" solution to something somebody is bound to get the short of end of the stick.

Here's the thing. It's very strange that given the fact that black people comprise smaller segment of US population, and whites have near identical percentage of use (7.2% vs 7.4% black people)... the incarceration rate for black people can be as high as 25-57 times higher in some states. It would seem to be strange, given that white users and dealers vastly outnumber the black in this area.

What do you attribute this disparity to? Statistically, it simply doesn't make sense. It's not the case of someone getting the short end of the stick. It's the case of the majority of lawbreakers don't get the statistically probable end of the stick, and the minority get the most of it.

What would you attribute this phenomenon to?

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To say that the people who wrote all the drug laws sat down said they were going to target black people seems to me to reach into fantasy world of conspiracies gone mad.

Sure, but that's not what I said, and it obviously doesn't work like that... and I'll clarify...

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There's too many people, including a lot of black people, involved in the process of creating laws in our country for such a conspiracy to succeed.

There's a difference between individual views and collective societal psyche that societal segments inherit and follow rather selectively. There's a reason why police doesn't stop and frisk rich white kids who look like model citizens... even though statistically they comprise bigger in number segment of drug users... and that reason is - because that particular segment of society holds the power structure together.

Thus, many middle class white kids get the free pass... even as dealers. The drug dealing on college campuses is almost expected as a part of college experience.

In terms of the the ghetto, there is much more stopping, frisking, searching, suspicion... thus the larger number of these people get caught and imprisoned. Since they don't hold any significant power in the society - they don't get a free pass... mainly because they are scapegoat of the societal problems.

There's individual racism, and there's structural racism that remains even when individual is hidden or gone.

Structural racism - a system of societal structures that work interactively to distribute generational and historic advantages to groups of people based on race and that produces cumulative, race-based inequalities.

[fccool]

The difficulty with talking about the racial issue is exactly due to the prevalent misunderstanding of these issues as these relate on the global scale as opposed to individual views, mainly due to lack of similar experience of existing power structure slanted towards giving advantage to a very specific segment of society that the rest of the society tend to sympathize with.

Here's a good example of what I'm talking about: