- Thread starter
- #521
Who asked the following:
So, in your world, your way of 'debating' is to ask a question, and when people answer your question, you claim it's a red herring? Wouldn't that make you the author of the red herring, that by your own admission, no one should bother responding to?
Aside from the incompetence of your 'argument' (as if asking questions and declare any logical and intelligent answer to be a red herring, was an argument), the answer directly relates to this discussion.
Certain groups in our society, actively try and integrate into society, and are therefore successful. Such as the Asians, which routinely come here and succeed, with a higher standard of living than white Americans.
Other groups in our society, actively try and be different than society, and rebel against the societal norms. As such these groups tend to live in the lower class.
The truth is, all people who engage in rebelling against societal norms, face consequences. I can't tell you the number of times I've seen people at the drive through, with nose rings, tattoos, and black eye shadow. And I live in a middle class area.
Why these people working there, instead of a corporate office, or bank, or some other place? Because they have a nose ring, tattoos, and black eye shadow.
The only difference from these white people rebelling and ending up flipping burgers, and the black guys rebelling and ending up flipping burgers, is that black people can blame "white privilege" for the results of their choices.
Again, the black people that act, work, talk, and dress like the cultural norms are not at the whooper flooper place. They are up in engineering.
In fact, I have a perfect example right now. There's a black guy who is in engineering, and he just got demoted. Why? He smells. He doesn't take showers, and instead sprays himself with smelly crap. The other engineers can't stand working with him, so they sent him down stairs to test broken stuff. Because they can't stand working with him. He stinks.
You can't succeed when you refuse to abide by the cultural norms. Has nothing to do with race, or white privilege.
It is pertinent to re-emphasize from your post, that the guy who was demoted was not demoted because he was black. He was demoted for poor personal hygiene. The same thing would have happened had he been white.
The rules mostly work identically for people of any race:
People born into poor/bad circumstances may have to work harder, but they can and do succeed. People born into much better circumstances can fail badly if they don't do what is necessary for success.
Again a solid prescription for success is:
--Stay in school and educate yourself.
--Stay away from illegal substances and activities.
--Don't have kids before you marry a stable, responsible mate.
--Clean yourself up, practice good English, and dress for success. People with poor hygiene, who dress like hookers or somebody spending the day at the beach or who expose their butts above baggy pants, who look like gang bangers, and/or who cannot speak in the language of business aren't going to be attractive to employers.
--Learn how to be courteous and respectful of others.
--If you can't get the job you want immediately, take whatever entry level job you can get, develop a work ethic, acquire skills and references that will qualify you for promotion and/or better jobs.
Anybody who presents himself/herself as a parent or role model for kids, no matter what the race, should be teaching those principles every step of the way.
And meanwhile, the rest of us should be working on the 'white privilege' angle McWhorter presented and not keep pushing that certain people in society are victims, oppressed, disadvantaged, mistreated until they believe their situation is hopeless or they see violence and misbehavior as the way out for them.
I don't understand why you keep repeating this public service announcement. No one's confused about how to succeed in life. No one doubts that SOME people born poor and disadvantaged succeed, and SOME people born into privilege can fail.
While I'm able to admit to those true (but incredibly boring and inconsequential statements, vis a vis the "debate") you seem chronically unable to admit that, in America, circumstances of birth (including race) give some people a head start, and others a delayed start, or not start at all.
Have I more or less summarized your position: "White privilege doesn't exist"?
Or put another way, do you think the outcome will be the same for two people of equal IQ, and and equal professional proclivities born into very different circumstances?
I was born into serious poverty--my father had essentially abandoned us for most of the time I was very young. My mother paid the black nanny she hired to watch us kids more than she was able to keep for herself working 10-hour days, six days a week. I grew up with hand me downs and clothes my Mom was able to make for us using whatever material was available. My father was back in the picture later on but he was an abusive person--not a happy childhood. By the age of 10, I was working for my own money taking any work I could get.
There was no money for college--my father was making pretty good money by then but he never seemed to have anything left over for the rest of us--so again I took whatever jobs I could get to pay for tuition, room and board.
My husband, also born into serious poverty, and I married young and on the day of our marriage we were collectively $21 overdrawn at the bank and were making monthly payments on our aging car and the modest furniture purchased for our small rent house..
And no, it wasn't easy but we made a very good life for ourselves, worked our way up squarely into the middle class, were able to start and successfully run our own business. Our kids are well educated professionals earning very good six-figure salaries.
Two of my black friends as well as several Hispanic friends in my town that I kept track of all these years both worked their way into professional positions or started their own businesses paying better than my immediate family was able to earn And they did it without affirmative action or any other government help. Their kids almost all are also professionals earning very nice incomes. We all did okay.
I don't know if their IQ was higher than mine.
