First: I never once mentioned white people in my post. Discrimination and racism is not a "white" problem, it's a societal problem and it still exist and is as rampant as ever except it is just not as blatant as it once was. Why do you think that child's mother was addicted to drugs? First ask yourself what drugs do...Many work on Dopamine and Serotonin neurotransmitters right? So the overall affect is to make you happy. This suggests that people who use drugs do so to feel happy because they feel depressed. WHY do they feel depressed? Well things obviously are not working out well in their lives? WHY are things not working out well in their lives? And why are these problems so heavily concentrated in communities that have been notoriously discriminated against? Please do not tell me that you cannot see the correlation here. Please do not forget that the civil rights movement was only a few decades ago. Just because it is not popular/ acceptable to be openly racist, doesn't mean that people are not racist. Case in point, a study came out recently that people applying for jobs with black sounding names were significantly less likely to be called in for an interview DESPITE having the exact same qualifications of those with more white sounding names. They proved this. These people STILL face HEAVY discrimination. And its completely ignorant to deny that they do. Yes, there is a cultural problem with these people, but it is constantly being reinforced by discrimination.
I think that you're making a very typical response to something that you'll never fully understand. I never fully understood it until I took the time to immerse myself into it. I'm speaking as an insider. Sure Asian children face discrimination, but there is still the stereotype of the "Smart, Asian", "yellow fever" not to mention the fact that culturally there is a strong emphasis on family. Asians are always depicted in a positive light. Not to mention the fact that they were never made to be slaves. I think that it's a very typical response to blame these people for their own short comings instead of realizing that there is a giant trend....Rising alcoholism and obesity and crime among native americans...who conveniently enough were also heavily discriminated against...hmm It certainly does make me wonder. But then again I study this, have read many articles about it, actually have black friends and know what I'm talking about.
Please tell me all the positive stereotypes you know about black people in terms of education and achievements
Then I'll shut up.
First of all, correlation doesn't equal causation. You should know that as an educated person. I just wanted to point that out.
You seem to be one of those people who just blames every single problem on discrimination. You're telling me the only possible reason the mother is hooked on drugs is because she's unhappy because she was discriminated against. That's a crazy assumption to make since you know absolutely nothing about this person at all. No matter what you believe, everything doesn't tie back into discrimination. There are a lot of reasons why someone might get hooked on drugs that have nothing to do with their race. One of those is living in a culture where drug use is common and drugs are easily obtainable. Also, there are a lot of people who are unhappy for a lot of reasons, and they aren't all on drugs. The instant connection you made between a drug-addict and discrimination, knowing nothing about her, just proves my point about the way you think.
I never denied there was discrimination, so don't call me ignorant. I agree that there is. But it's not the biggest problem right now. It's so much less of an issue today. Most people in our country are not racist. If they were as racist as you say they are, half of our country wouldn't be supporting a black man for president right now for the second time. Seriously. Discrimination is as rampant as ever? Are you crazy?? The biggest problem is the CULTURE in these communities. Yes, that culture developed (partly) because of hte history of discrimination. However, the solution to the issues TODAY is not to blame them on society, but to work from the inside and change the culture. You just want to paint these people as victims and put all the blame on society. By doing that, you're actually propagating and strengthening the effects of discrimination. People like you reinforce the idea that the poor black kid is stuck in a never ending cycle of poverty caused by racism which he is powerless against. I don't do that. I tell them that it doesn't matter what society thinks, they have the ability and the strength inside them to bring about change. This is what brought about the achievements of the civil rights movement in the first place. It happened because many (awesome) black people didn't just keep blaming society for discriminating against them, they actually stood up for themselves and made change. That's the only way that these communities will ever improve and people like you are holding them back by over-exaggerating the effect of discrimination in all this and portraying them as powerless victims, which they're not. The civil rights movement itself proves that they do have the power to bring about change. The fact that we have a black president, and black people in many positions of power also proves it. This is what I reminded my inner city students of. Most people are NOT racists- it's just the fact- and teaching these kids to look at everyone in society as a racist who thinks they are low IQ criminals is just plain wrong and inaccurate, but that's precisely what these kids are taught in their communities.
I don't care how many studies you can pull out to show that discrimination exists. I know that it exists. My point is that you're blowing it way out of proportion, and you're letting these people use it as a crutch.
You are telling me I shouldn't blame these people for their shortcomings. I'm not blaming them. But I'm also not going to tell them to sit back and put all the blame on society. Everyone has difficulties in their life. Some people have mental and physical handicaps, others are discriminated against, others are poor, etc. Life just isn't fair. If you want to be a success, you don't sit back and blame society for all your problems. You stand up and fight. I'm not blaming them for their short-comings- I'm trying to inspire them and get them to realize that they have the power to change. You, on the other hand, are telling them they can't because it's not them it's society, it's discrimnation, it's everything except them. That's just the wrong message to give anybody.
By the way, you're really asking me to prove to you that black people have achievements when the president of the United States is black? When we have so many black people in high positions of government? Do you want me to give you a whole list of successful black entrepreneurs, artists, scientists, athletes?
A black person is leading our country and you're telling me that there is no positive image for blacks, and there's crippling racism. Ok, sure. Any negative stereotype of black people being unintelligent or incapable of success can be immediately dismissed by taking a look around, and taking a look into the white house (for one out of a thousand examples).
The more these inner city communities keep blaming discrimination and people like you support that, the longer they will stay the way they are while everyone else takes matters into their own hands and solves their problems.
