I guess I was thinking of Chinese immigrants who have been here since the 1980s and who have integrated very well into US society. I knew that the Chinese were the defacto slaves of the railroads.

On a parellel note, I remember my Grandmother telling me stories about how my Sicilian great grandfather was treated like crap and considered less than others when he came to the US in 1919.

Oh stop the excuses, slavery hasn't been around in 150 years, there is no one currantly alive that has been affected by it.

Escuses can walk.

Stop digging up the past to make excuses for today. The British burned the White House 200 years ago, maybe we should still be angry at them?:rolleyes:

Eric, thanks for the links.

I checked the stats. I think that hte person who parsed the stats that you quote was playing a little too fast and loose with those numbers. (Which is a common malady.)

As a whole, white may commit more crimes than blacks. You have to, I am sure, see how those numbers play out in terms of population percentages. In other words, you have to look at the raw numbers and see how those numbers play out in terms of population percentages.

For example, if you take a dog population of 1500 dogs, 1000 pit bulls and 500 cocker spaniels. If there are 500 reported cases of bites on humans by pit bulls and only 250 reported bite incidents by cocker spaniels, you are likely to assume that that pit bulls attack twice as many humans. In fact, however, given the population numbers pit bulls attacks are the same, percentage wise, as cocker spaniel attacks.

I think that some who is familiar with the use of stats and pouplation trends (say someone like a botanist :) ) may be able to give the numbers that you posted (and the numbers posted on the FBI website) some real meaning.

As for the family thing, we both agree that intact families are important to raising productive, law-abiding children, right?

Where you and I disagree, however, is in the source, or reasons, for the destruction of black families.

You claim that it was slavery that destroyed the black family.

I disagree.

In you look at black families in the 30s, 40s and 50s you will see strong family units--fully intact wiht a mom and dad. I wish I remember the study, it has been a while back since Iread those studies.

Where you begin to see a falling apart of black families is during the 60s and 70s. Welfare policies placed an incentive on large, fatherless families. Big families, with lots of kids, and no father, got the most money.

I don't entirely blame blacks, but I DO blame politicos who for their own political gain instituted policies that led to the destruction of the black family unit that we now see.

You and I are not far in identifying one of the root causes of the problem.

We differ, however, in what conditions gave growth to those roots.

Let's keep talking, perhaps we can together find a solution that will make America a stronger country and a better place for all of its people to live in.

Frigging toothless limeys!!! :eek: :D :eek:












PS: Not quite 200 years ago yet.

Well, but those Chinese paved the way (or laid the tracks, in a manner of speaking) for the Chinese of today!

Sicilians, and Jews and Irish and Germans and everyone who is not a WASP has suffered the slings and arrows of unjust racism (to borrow a phrase from that waspy WASP, Bill Shakespeare).

You integrate into the system and move on and up.

That is why I am angry at some of the most recent Hispanic arrivals. They still wish to maintain their past identity and not integrate into American life. They want the English speaking world to cater to them (i.e., ballots printed in Spanish).

¿Coño, carajo, que mierda es esa?

Ever since we sold you that silly-ass little do-nothing island for $26 you guys have been running-down the neighborhood. If you don't straighten-up I'm telling your mothers.

Bot

toothless, they can sure whistle "Dixie."

Cuban bumper sticker: Mamasita iz coming and boy is che mad....

Let's forget the stats and focus on the family issues, since I appear to have been snoozing on that one.

It's true that the "Amos & Andy" era was, in fact, a healthier time for Black families, black business and thus black communities. How ironic that the social policies and programs that were supposed to "help" actually did more harm.

Integration, in practice, already existed. The emphasis and pressure for Blacks to be more represented in the mainstream was well intentioned, but was done at the expense of social values and structures that were already intact. Where the Civil Rights movement failed was, in 1965, not recognizing that the legal battle had been won, and it was now up to the individual(s) to protect those rights. No one else could, or should, do it. Seeing more Black faces on TV would make people happy, and inspire many, but would not solve the core problems of Black communities.

The energy and resources expended on many social programs was simply useless since it instilled sense a dependency, or reinforced a sense of weakness and inadequacy, rather than creating confident independence. The time and money would have been better spent on local/community business development, school/education improvement, and other practical endeavors that build a sustainable capital base.

Today, many people (Jackson, Sharpton et al) think economic prosperity can be achieved politically, and they are plainly wrong because they put the cart before the horse. Economic power begets political power, not vice versa, the Jews being a perfect example.

Obviously, a shift in focus from politics to business is required, and is occurring. Where many people see hopelessness in segments of the Black community, I see boundless opportunity, as that is where new business/economic development, geared to correct many deficiencies, will be rooted.

¿Coño chica, tu eres Cubana o que?

I'm with you so far.

When I was a kid a mixed race couple would have been in great danger in the towns where I had lived in the USA. Nowadays, in the exact same towns and cities I see lots of mixed race couples and there is seldom, if ever a second glance. In about 50 years we have changed from murdering people who mixed racially to hardly giving a damn.

Unfortunately, there are still a lot of people, especially men, in my age group who still see race issues through their daddy's eyes. Both black and white. I don't believe this absurd racial crap is going to resolve in the USA until the majority of my cohort is dead and gone. Our kids, born from the 1960's onward, grew-up in a different world and have been thoroughly exposed to racial equality. It is propaganda to be sure. Hopefully it is benign and helpful to polity. My grandchildren will have the perspective to make that determination.

Bot

PS I loved Amos n Andy on the radio and on TV. I hope I live long enough to see it return. I was just a kid and didn't see it in racial terms and I don't recall it as bigoted. Maybe it was. I'd like to see. It sure made me laugh every afternoon after school. Kingfish getting into real estate was my absolute favorite, followed closely by the invisible glass.

EricSilver wrote:

>> 98% of white-collar criminals (you know, the Enrons and others) that steal billions of dollars every year from the common citizen in the US are white.
>> 67% of all people on welfare are white. <<

Perhaps so. But the vast majority of white-collar employees are probably white, too.

As for the majority of people of welfare being white, perhaps so. But look at the much larger numbers of white people than black people in the country. A far larger *percentage of the black population* is on welfare than the percentage of whites who are.

The social programs (aka "handouts") of the '60s and '70s, as someone else pointed out, are probably to blame for that. Daniel Patrick Moynihan pointed this out way back as the edifice was being constructed (in 1965), and was called a racist for his efforts.

But he was dead right. . . .
.

Well said.

And now, from the folks at Wiki:

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Harlem renaissance)
Jump to: navigation, search
The Harlem Renaissance was a flowering of art, literature and music in the United States led primarily by the African American community based in Harlem, New York City.

Literary historians and academics have yet to reach a consensus as to when the period known as the Harlem Renaissance began and ended. It is unofficially recognized to have begun in 1919 and ended during the early or mid 1930s. The zenith of this “flowering of Negro literature,” as James Weldon Johnson instead preferred to call the Harlem Renaissance, is placed between 1924 when Opportunity magazine hosted a party for black writers where many white publishers were in attendance and 1929, the year of the stock market crash and the resulting economic Great Depression.

Most of the participants in this African American literary movement were descendants from a generation whose parents or grandparents had witnessed the injustices of slavery and the gains and losses that would come with Reconstruction after the American Civil War as the nation moved forward into the gradual entrenchment of Jim Crow in the Southern states and in its non-codified forms in many other parts of the country. Many of these people were part of the Great Migration out of the South and other racially stratified communities who sought relief from the worst of prejudices against them for a better standard of living in the North and Midwest regions of the United States. Others were Africans and people of African descent from the Caribbean who had come to the United States hoping for a better life. Uniting most of them was their convergence in Harlem, New York. They would make Harlem the most famous center of African American life in the United States at that time and one that would have far reaching influence on people of Africa and people of African descent across the world as well as American culture in general.

Characterizing the Harlem Renaissance was an overt racial pride that came to be represented in the idea of the New Negro who through intellect, the production of literature, art, and music could challenge the pervading racism and stereotypes from the larger white community of that era to promote progressive or socialist politics and racial integration and social integration. The creation of art and literature would serve to “uplift” the race. This became known as racial political propaganda. There would be no set style or uniting form singularly characterizing the various forms of art coming out of the Harlem Renaissance. Rather, there would be a mix of contradictory styles embracing European standards, celebrating a Pan-Africanist perspective, “high-culture” and the “low-culture or low-life,” the traditional form of classical music to the blues and jazz, traditional and new experimental forms in literature like modernism and in poetry, for example, the new form of jazz poetry. This duality would eventually result in a number of African American artists of the Harlem Renaissance coming into conflict with conservatives in the black intelligentsia who would take issue with certain depictions of black life in whatever medium of the arts.

The Harlem Renaissance was one of primarily African American involvement and an intrapersonal support system of black patrons, black owned businesses and publications, and so on. But, on the peripheral it was supported by a number of white Americans who through genuine altruistic generosity, paternalism, and perhaps a degree of liberal guilt provided various forms of assistance to these black artists and opened doors for them which otherwise would have remained closed to the publicizing of their work to a larger audience outside of the black American community. This support often took the form of being a patron, a publisher, or another artist of some variety. Then, there were those whites interested in so-called “primitive” cultures, as many whites viewed black American culture at that time and wanted to see this “primitivism” in the work coming out of the Harlem Renaissance. Other interpersonal dealings between whites and blacks can be categorized as exploitational because of the desire to capitalize on the “fad,” and “fascination” of the African American being in “vogue.” This vogue of the African American would extend to Broadway, as in Porgy and Bess, and into music where in many instances white band leaders would defy racist attitude to include the best and brightest African American stars of music and song. For blacks, their art was a way to prove their humanity and demand for equality. For a number of whites, preconceived prejudices were challenged and overcome.

The Harlem Renaissance would help lay the foundation of the Civil Rights Movement. Moreover, many black artists coming into their own creativity after this literary movement would take inspiration from it.

This is what I am talking about.

Private initiative and private enterprise ALWAYS trump government involvement, however well intentioned it might be.

here's how one conservative writer looks at the race issue
 

Race and Conservatism

by John Derbyshire (Sept. 2006)

Race and conservatism? Yes, that was the title of the panel discussion I’d signed up for, at the Robert A. Taft Club in Arlington, Va. I’d signed up without much thought, being of an insecure and self-deprecating nature (ask anyone), and always flattered to be invited to events at clubs and institutions with impressive-sounding names. Once I did start to think about it, mild panic set in. Race and conservatism? What on earth can one say?

In order to say anything, it helps to start with a simplistic view of race, a view that regards Americans as belonging to two races only: black, and nonblack. This is an over-simplification, of course—a first approximation—and I reserve the right to add more detail as I go along, should I find it helpful.

That established, I suppose the first thing one can say is that conservatives—I mean, mainstream, respectable conservatives, the type who edit magazines, or run for office, or get hired to write speeches for Congresscritters and Cabinet officers—are race-shy. That is, in fact, to put it very mildly indeed. While a certain amount of lampooning of the more egregious kinds of black race hustlers—the Sharptons and Farrakhans—is permissible in mainstream conservative circles, and the crazier manifestations of racial guilt, like affirmative action or bans on “racial profiling,” can be gently criticized, race as an abstract topic is out of court. You could break wind in a mainstream-conservative gathering and be forgiven, Elizabeth the First style*, but if you were to try to get a conversation about race going, the well-known kitchen-light-switch-and-roaches metaphor would kick in, and your invitations to such gatherings would fall off dramatically thereafter.

The reasons for this race panic on the Respectable Right are, I think, pretty well understood. When, in the late 1950s, race became a national issue, and great numbers of white Americans became aware of the injustice of racial segregation, the activist movement for reform was led by Leftists. When not (as was rather often the case) members of far-Left fringe groups, these people belonged to the northern, urban, egalitarian wing of the Democratic Party. Thus—with assistance from a sympathetic, and largely Leftist, media establishment—the equation “racial justice = Democrat” became lodged in the public mind, and generated an obvious converse: “racial injustice = Republican.”

This was all horribly unfair. As Pat Buchanan notes in his latest best-seller: “Democrats had bedded down with segregationists for a century without censure.” When Congress voted on the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Republicans in both House and Senate said yea by about 80 percent to 20; among Democrats, the votes went more like 60-40.

Alas, there is no justice in politics. Republicans got stuck as the party of racial discrimination. Since racial discrimination soon came to be seen as the most unspeakable of all evils, and since, from the 1970s on, most conservatives were Republicans, it is not very surprising that conservatives don’t want to talk about race.

I think we should, though. Our current silence keeps us out of present trouble, I’ll grant; but I believe it stores up future trouble. Let me try to explain.

* * * * *

I am 61 years old. That’s old enough to have a clear memory of the Civil Rights movement. To be sure, I watched it from a distance, growing up in England. I followed it with keen interest, though, wishing it well. Racial segregation was an obvious injustice, and we had all heard lurid tales of life in the American South. Like most intelligent teenagers, I was sensitive to injustice, and wanted to see it corrected.

I can tell you a thing that has been considerably forgotten now, flushed away down the memory hole. Here’s the thing. At that time, everyone who supported the Civil Rights Movement—everyone, absolutely everyone—assumed that the Movement would, if it succeeded, lead to a more harmonious society, a society in which the races mingled freely as equal citizens, a society in which race mattered to nobody but the manufacturers of cosmetics. They, we, all assumed that if the shackles of legal discrimination were removed, black Americans would swiftly distribute themselves across America’s class, income, and status structure in the same proportions as their white fellow-citizens. Why should they not? Human beings form a single biological species. Given a level playing field, any group should perform as well as any other, in any kind of endeavor, shouldn’t it?

What a terrible disillusioning there has been! Things did not happen in the least as we expected. True, there has been much improvement. Our nation now has a flourishing black middle class. There is now no obstacle to a capable black American, from any part of the country, rising to any level, in any sphere or profession. The casual mocking and insulting of black Americans by nonblack Americans has been shamed out of our social life.

Yet the numbers did not come out right, not at all. With black people at thirteen percent of our population, we should, if the dreams of the Civil Rights Movement had come true, find that thirteen percent of our engineers and airline pilots, thirteen percent of our storekeepers, contractors, and entrepreneurs, thirteen percent of our prisoners and unwed mothers, are black. This is not, of course, what we find; and the numerical discrepancies are not of the kind called “statistically insignificant.” Not at all. Not at all.

Worse yet, and even setting aside issues of class and status, black and nonblack Americans have drifted apart, and in many respects are further from common citizenship now than they were fifty years ago. We do not, for example, watch the same TV programs and movies. The producers of a middle-class domestic comedy movie—one with someone like Meg Ryan or Tom Hanks in it—can leave black people out of the movie altogether if they feel like it, confident in the knowledge that black Americans don’t watch that kind of movie anyway. Similarly, sitcoms like Cheers and Friends could field all-white casts with a clear conscience, knowing that the black audience was off somewhere else, watching some different sitcom with an all-black cast.

We don’t even name our kids the same way any more. Black Americans were always somewhat more adventurous than nonblacks in choosing names for their children—H.L. Mencken has an interesting section on this in The American Language. It is none the less the case that black and nonblack Americans of 100 years ago for the most part chose their children’s names from the same stock. This is no longer the case. More than forty percent of black girls born in the state of California in 2004 got a name that was not given to a single one of the 100,000 nonblack girls born that year.

(In this context, I note something a doctor in New York City once told me. Among Ob-Gyn practitioners in America’s inner cities, he said, one chore that has to be performed at pretty regular intervals is dissuading illiterate teenage black mothers from naming their infants “LaTreen.”)

Meanwhile, among nonblack Americans, a rigorous and intolerant ideology of “anti-racism” has grown up. The opinions a nonblack American has, or more precisely voices, about race are now a major in-group (I mean, among fellow nonblacks) status marker.

remainder here: http://www.newenglishreview.org/cust...91&sec_id=3891

"We???" :confused: