Seems that for some reason, I can't post in a thread I started.
The question is asked why am I asking whites to help solve the race problem.
"Why do you keep turning to white people for solutions to America's racial problems?"
How did you avoid these problems and overcome them? Seems as though you took advantage of opportunity? No? He mostly just whined.
www.usmessageboard.com
Whites created the problem and continue perpetuating it. So why do some whites think we are responsible for cleaning up a mess they made?
Reparations have been paid to other groups who have been harmed by government policy so the right wing opposition to reparations is simply based on a distorted racist belief. Whites are responsible for ending racism in the white community. Once that ends or is reduced to irrelevance the barriers and obstacles created by whites who have racist beliefs will be eliminated and groups of color will be able to reach their potential. You don't start a fire in your house the tell your neighbors how they need to put the fire out.
I do believe you ignored some of the other things you were given in that other thread. Of course, white America has to solve racial animus within itself. That doesn't address, however, some of the other things that were stated. For example, I agree with you that police officers treat black suspects differently, I've seen it happen personally, but it's not just white officers who do it. People with black sounding names are redlined when they go after home loans, but there's no evidence that it's just white loan officers who are doing it.
Here's a dirty little fact, racial profiling saves lives. Taken too fair, it results in discrimination, but is not only natural but necessary. When investigators want to develop a picture of a serial killer, they usually say it's a white male around 30 years old. Not because they are biased against 30-year-old white males, but because the majority of serial killers are white males around 30 years of age. I don't expect them to develop a picture of an elderly black man just to make me feel better. If the TSA wanted to actually be effective in stopping a repeat of 9/11, they would pay extra attention to young males carrying Korans and speaking Arabic. Again, not because they are biased against Muslims, but because 9/11 was carried out by just such people. Be honest, does it do anyone ANY good to randomly pick out an elderly white woman in a wheelchair for a search because we want to be "fair"?
Yes, there is lingering racism in White America. Only an idiot (you know who you are) would say otherwise. The law makes discrimination illegal, but we all know it's not going to do anything to attitudes.
Yes, there is white privilege, by which anyone with eyeballs can see that products aimed at the black American market are not advertised nearly to the extent that products aimed at white Americans are. Where's black Barbie, for example? Ever see shaving products geared toward the black male advertised? No, I get it, America has had a majority white culture for most of its existence so it's natural that the culture is built around them. Hate to tell you this, but in about 50-100 years, the American culture will probably lean more white and Hispanic than black, and you'll still be marginalized.
Now, let's talk reparations. There is a case to be made for reparations, but there are a lot of difficulties associated with such. We've talked about it before, and I've heard no good answers for my questions. You say descendant of slaves should get reparations money because of slavery. Okay, here's the problem.
Black immigrants arrive here after slavery is abolished. None of them have ever been slaves here. Should they get reparations? I say no.
A freed slave who is himself mixed race because his white master bred one of his African slaves has children with a white woman. Those descendants have children with other white people until today they are as fair skinned and straight haired as any European, yet are descendants of slaves. Should they get reparations? I say yes. This, of course, means that there would be black people not getting money and white people getting it.
But, but, you say, black Americans have suffered discrimination since slavery ended. Yes, they have, but if you want to make discrimination the standard instead of slavery, you're going to have to open that net quite a bit wider. Chinese and Irish immigrants, for one example, suffered a great deal of discrimination as well in our nation's history.
We're going to have to do a lot better than just keep yelling "reparations". There needs to be an effort to make things right, but it needs to be fleshed out more than just the bumper sticker level.