White Privilege

[Danoff]

What do you think about making education and especially higher education more accessible to everyone would help reduce the wealth gap? Increasing funding for schools and better wages for teachers?

I'd like to do away with all public education.

 

[Dotini]

that's ok Dotini, we know you're not interested in a discussion.

On the contrary, I'm very interested in having a discussion. A polite, respectful and civilized discussion.

In 6 years of fencing I have learned that to have a conversation one party must take an action, and, in time (think of dancing or music), the other party makes a response, such as a parry or counter thrust. This give and take may go on to form a phrase or a conversation. You don't just jump around like a wild animal making wild thrusts and slashes. There is form and etiquette required to do this well.

When you make a barrage of multi-quotes, you are being impolite and uncivilized, acting like a wild, charging animal, IMHO. It is like making half a dozen spastic dance moves out of time with your dance partner, or playing off key and off beat in a duet.

If you are sincere about having a conversation with me, I advise everyone to be polite and not multi-quote more than once or twice.

 

[VFOURMAX1]

Why are you stating these things next to each other? You're trying to tie together a cause and effect.

Because what I state are things I have observed over many decades in the area where I live anyway. If I look at the sky and the sky is blue then the sky is blue, I am not going to pretend that it is green.

but there is still a hole in the wealth gap that historically in part was created by taking back the 40 acres

I can just say that my parents married very young, they had no inheritance of wealth and pretty much started their life at ground zero, they both worked, bought their house and raised their family and through the years increased their assets through making decent choices. They had no wealth to to start with so in their case they made their own wealth. Also my parents bought me one bicycle as a kid, all the 10 speeds and dirt bikes I had I worked and earned the money to buy, taught me young there was no free lunch in this world.
My moms parents grew up in the depression and their family lost a family farm, they started out being married and did not have a pot to piss in. But again they worked hard, saved their money and bought a house. The only thing my grandparents ever financed was their house, no car loans, no credit accounts they saved for what they wanted. They did okay as well, never rich but quite comfortable.
So my experiences even though I am white do not coincide with a "wealth gap" being the magic sauce to success rather hard work and determination..

When I started out on my own I had a car, which I paid for and a job which supported me, I did not have family wealth and actually I felt my parents had raised me, fed me and put a roof over my head as a kid they did not owe me a damn thing.

The notion that all ethnicities do well except black people do well is kind of a stretch. Is that really accurate?

It apparently is not as much of a stretch as you make out, it seems the only race that people keep saying need more of this or more of that program to get out of poverty is the black race, no other races are discussed in the same manner so I would take that as they are doing well or because they are not black they do not matter apparently.

I tried to avoid it, but you have many racist views.

I have more racist views right now than at any point in my life and the reason for that is if you are black there is always an excuse and how can we give more to this race of people when we have been giving, money, housing, affirmative action and plenty of other advantages not offered to other races in this country for over 50+ years but a half a century later I still hear about my white privilege or my wealth gap that I had as the reason I too am not on welfare or myself or my kids did not do worse in school.

Black people over the past hundred of years did not have the same opportunities as people of the dominan ethnicity.

I can only speak to personal experience and within this post is my answer, hard work and smart choices seem to be what always put a roof over my head and I am older now, my roof although not fancy is paid for and I have not had a loan or credit card or owed any debt for close to twenty years. That my friend has nothing to do with skin color and anybody can accomplish the same if they put forth the effort and make decent choices.

 

[Famine]

If you are sincere about having a conversation with me, I advise everyone to be polite and not multi-quote more than once or twice.

If you are sincere about having a conversation with anyone stop looking for excuses to get out of doing so.

@Danoff's responses were to sequential sentences from a single post of yours, not a multiquote. If you don't want people to respond to multiple points, stop making them and restrict yourself to one point per post. Although for most of your posts that would be an extra point rather than a reduction.

 

[Dotini]

The worst thing you can do for somebody is to convince them that they are not responsible for their lives. Nobody is more responsible for your life (at least while you're alive) than you are.

Absolutely agreed. And responsibility is 100% synonymous with meaning and purpose.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=responsibiity+meaning+purpose

 

[Danoff]

In 6 years of fencing I have learned that to have a conversation one party must take an action, and, in time (think of dancing or music), the other party makes a response, such as a parry or counter thrust.

We're not fencing.

You don't just jump around like a wild animal making wild thrusts and slashes. There is form and etiquette required to do this well.

You think that was wild? I consider it to be rude to not respond to points made (unless it can be reasonably inferred from the rest of the response). If you make a point, I'll respond to the point, out of courtesy. Rude is when you disregard someone when they took the time to respond to what you have written - as you have been doing.

When you make a barrage of multi-quotes, you are being impolite and uncivilized, acting like a wild, charging animal, IMHO. It is like making half a dozen spastic dance moves out of time with your dance partner, or playing off key and off beat in a duet.

We're not dancing and we're not fencing. We're discussing.

If you are sincere about having a conversation with me, I advise everyone to be polite and not multi-quote more than once or twice.

As @Famine said, if you want people to address only one point in a post of yours, make only one point. What you are attempting to do here is prevent people from responding to you. You want to make a post with many points, and force them to leave many parts of it unaddressed. You're doing this with bad analogies to fencing or dancing, and trying to frame yourself as being more sophisticated or polite.

You're explicitly trying to make points without being responded to. You can do that more easily by typing things up and then just deleting them instead of hitting "post reply".

Because what I state are things I have observed over many decades in the area where I live anyway. If I look at the sky and the sky is blue then the sky is blue, I am not going to pretend that it is green.

Sometimes the sky is white. Sometimes it is black.

 

[VFOURMAX1]

Sometimes the sky is white. Sometimes it is black.

But regardless you call it what you see it to be at the time whether everyone agrees or not.

 

[Danoff]

But regardless you call it what you see it to be at the time whether everyone agrees or not.

Try a little harder not to see skin color.

 

[VFOURMAX1]

Try a little harder not to see skin color.

I have been trying to do that my whole life but it seems here lately that this society is pulling out the race card as an excuse for just about everything and if you do not align with their point of view or agenda you are labeled a racist and/or a white supremacist.
I really could care less what a persons skin color is if they would quit using that to try to gain an advantage or an excuse. Our laws do give everyone a level playing field where skin color or race is disregarded completely and that is all I want to see, I do not care if you are purple under that scenario.
But wanting equality for all with no advantage given for anyone if you are white seems to make you a racist unfortunately.

.

 

[Danoff]

I have been trying to do that my whole life but it seems here lately that this society is pulling out the race card as an excuse for just about everything and if you do not align with their point of view or agenda you are labeled a racist and/or a white supremacist.

But wanting equality for all with no advantage given for anyone if you are white seems to make you a racist unfortunately.

You're straw-manning again. I did not call your statements racist because they don't align with mine, or because you want equality. I called them racist because you were making sweeping generalizations (and unfounded ones) based on skin color. I called them racist because they were racist. Don't deflect, address the issue head on. You say you just call it like you see it, I'm asking you to try harder not to see race as an underlying factor for behavior or outcome.

I really could care less what a persons skin color is if...

Don't qualify that statement.

 

[VFOURMAX1]

You're straw-manning again. I did not call your statements racist because they don't align with mine, or because you want equality. I called them racist because you were making sweeping generalizations (and unfounded ones) based on skin color. I called them racist because they were racist. Don't deflect, address the issue head on. You say you just call it like you see it, I'm asking you to try harder not to see race as an underlying factor for behavior or outcome

You have your opinion and I have mine and they mostly do not align but I will not change my viewpoints or what I strongly believe and am passionate about to satisfy you or anybody else.

We will continue to agree to disagree.

 

[Danoff]

You have your opinion and I have mine and they mostly do not align but I will not change my viewpoints or what I strongly believe and am passionate about to satisfy you or anybody else.

Always a good starting point, refusal to change in light of information presented to you.

"Racist" has a definition. Let me see if I can find it: "the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races."

Your opinion is that this:

Then do the same with white run and governed countries with majority white populations then lets discuss which model apparently is superior or which race between the two seem to have a better grasp on making a country be a successful place people want to live.

...doesn't fit that description? You even used the word "superior".

 

[VFOURMAX1]

Life is what it is!

 

[Joey D]

You have your opinion and I have mine and they mostly do not align but I will not change my viewpoints or what I strongly believe and am passionate about to satisfy you or anybody else.

We will continue to agree to disagree.

You don't have to change your viewpoints, but be prepared to be called a racist (and apparently a passionate one at that) for making racist statements. You can have an opinion on how things work in the world without being a blatant racist about it.

Saying X race just goes in and ruins a particular area is pretty much quintessential racism. I also don't care what X race is either. If a black person says white people ruin everything they run, then that's a racist statement. Even if a white person says white people ruin everything, then that too is a racist statement.

 

[VFOURMAX1]

You don't have to change your viewpoints, but be prepared to be called a racist

Difference is I was raised in a time frame where a popular saying was...................
Sticks and Stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.

Call me what you wish, I guess that I am one of the resident White Supremacist, Trump supporting conservative racist on this board that is mainly filled with left leaning liberals!
But I am okay with that!


MAGA!

edit:

I almost forgot to add in a NRA supporting gun owner and 2nd Admendment supporter as well! CANNOT LEAVE THAT OUT!

 

[Danoff]

 

[Joey D]

Difference is I was raised in a time frame where a popular saying was...................
Sticks and Stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.

Call me what you wish, I guess that I am one of the resident White Supremacist, Trump supporting conservative racist on this board that is mainly filled with left leaning liberals!
But I am okay with that!


MAGA!

You do realize most of the outspoken members in the Opinion Forums are some sort of libertarian right? We've had this discussion before, even though you're not quite sure what a libertarian even is.

And if you're not worried about being called a racist for saying racist things, then that is pretty concerning. The reason racism continues to exist is that people make it exist by spouting garbage.

 

[PocketZeven]

Because what I state are things I have observed over many decades in the area where I live anyway. If I look at the sky and the sky is blue then the sky is blue, I am not going to pretend that it is green.
I can just say that my parents married very young, they had no inheritance of wealth and pretty much started their life at ground zero, they both worked, bought their house and raised their family and through the years increased their assets through making decent choices. They had no wealth to to start with so in their case they made their own wealth. Also my parents bought me one bicycle as a kid, all the 10 speeds and dirt bikes I had I worked and earned the money to buy, taught me young there was no free lunch in this world.
My moms parents grew up in the depression and their family lost a family farm, they started out being married and did not have a pot to piss in. But again they worked hard, saved their money and bought a house. The only thing my grandparents ever financed was their house, no car loans, no credit accounts they saved for what they wanted. They did okay as well, never rich but quite comfortable.
So my experiences even though I am white do not coincide with a "wealth gap" being the magic sauce to success rather hard work and determination..

When I started out on my own I had a car, which I paid for and a job which supported me, I did not have family wealth and actually I felt my parents had raised me, fed me and put a roof over my head as a kid they did not owe me a damn thing.

It apparently is not as much of a stretch as you make out, it seems the only race that people keep saying need more of this or more of that program to get out of poverty is the black race, no other races are discussed in the same manner so I would take that as they are doing well or because they are not black they do not matter apparently.


I have more racist views right now than at any point in my life and the reason for that is if you are black there is always an excuse and how can we give more to this race of people when we have been giving, money, housing, affirmative action and plenty of other advantages not offered to other races in this country for over 50+ years but a half a century later I still hear about my white privilege or my wealth gap that I had as the reason I too am not on welfare or myself or my kids did not do worse in school.

I can only speak to personal experience and within this post is my answer, hard work and smart choices seem to be what always put a roof over my head and I am older now, my roof although not fancy is paid for and I have not had a loan or credit card or owed any debt for close to twenty years. That my friend has nothing to do with skin color and anybody can accomplish the same if they put forth the effort and make decent choices.

You do understand the playing field isnt level right? I dont know which period your parents lived in, but they did provide a solid position for you to earn your own money. Did you go to college by the way? Or learn a certain skill/trait? Without proper education well payed job opportunities also decrease significantly. Like I adressed earlier, the socio economic environment you are born in will influence your opportunities. Being born in detroit or new york will influence the ease to find a job, your education etc.

Difference is I was raised in a time frame where a popular saying was...................
Sticks and Stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.

Call me what you wish, I guess that I am one of the resident White Supremacist, Trump supporting conservative racist on this board that is mainly filled with left leaning liberals!
But I am okay with that!


MAGA!

edit:

I almost forgot to add in a NRA supporting gun owner and 2nd Admendment supporter as well! CANNOT LEAVE THAT OUT!

I am actually a right leaning centrist.

 

[Famine]

Call me what you wish, I guess that I am one of the resident White Supremacist, Trump supporting conservative racist on this board that is mainly filled with left leaning liberals!

Do yourself a quick favour and look up the usernames of the people you've addressed this to in this thread:
https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/threads/left-wing-or-right-wing-take-pop-quiz-in-op.288475

I suspect you'll be... disappointed in your assessment.

 

[VFOURMAX1]

You do realize most of the outspoken members in the Opinion Forums are some sort of libertarian right?

Yeah, that is what you said before. But actually any party can have liberal and conservative factions within the same party.

I never actually stated the party affiliation!

But here on this board the Liberal factor seems more dominating.


So claiming to be Libertarian is a much closer alignment in beliefs with the Democratic Party than the Republican party.

"The party favors minimally regulated markets, strong civil liberties (including LGBT rights, with the party supporting same-sex marriage), the liberalization of drug laws, separation of church and state, open immigration, non-interventionism and neutrality in diplomatic relations, free trade and free movement to all foreign countries and a more representative republic.[54] The party's position on abortion is that government should stay out of the matter and leave it to the individual, but recognizes that some "good-faith" opinions on this issue are different.["

 

[Famine]

So claiming to be Libertarian is a much closer alignment in beliefs with the Democratic Party than the Republican party.

Lol, no.

Here are the "right wing" - or conservative - things in what you quoted from Wikipedia:

minimally regulated markets, free trade

Here are the "left wing" - or socialist - things in what you quoted from Wikipedia:

...

Hardly left leaning, is it?

I suspect the issue is that you're mixing up social policies with fiscal policies and creating a left/right scale where to champion social freedom (liberal) is left and to champion fiscal freedom (conservative) is right. It's not. Left/right is fiscal, with socialism on the left and conservatism on the right. Social policies are authoritarian or liberal.

Libertarian is liberal conservatism. That means social freedoms and fiscal freedoms. Libertarians are not close to either of the USA's two major parties, but are fiscally closer to the Republican Party.

Go read the thread I linked you to:
https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/threads/left-wing-or-right-wing-take-pop-quiz-in-op.288475

 

[Danoff]

So claiming to be Libertarian is a much closer alignment in beliefs with the Democratic Party than the Republican party.

I guess if you're counting racism as being a Republican party position, then arguing against racist statements counts as aligning with the democrats? It's funny because I argued exactly the opposite against @Dotini while he was taking the democrat position (pro-reparations).

You effectively said that black people make the places they're in worse, and I argued against that - apparently Democrat.
Dotini said that white people make the places they're in worse, and I argued against that - apparently... wait... which one is this... Republican?.

I'd like to think that arguing against both of those statements is a non-partisan position.

 

[PocketZeven]

I guess if you're counting racism as being a Republican party position, then arguing against racist statements counts as aligning with the democrats? It's funny because I argued exactly the opposite against @Dotini while he was taking the democrat position (pro-reparations).

You effectively said that black people make the places they're in worse, and I argued against that - apparently Democrat.
Dotini said that white people make the places they're in worse, and I argued against that - apparently... wait... which one is this... Republican?.

I'd like to think that arguing against both of those statements is a non-partisan position.

@VFOURMAX1

Ironically it is the republicans that ended slavery. I view claiming superiority of an ehtnicity is more a authoritarian trait and not political left or right leaning.

Communist socialist countries can be very racist. Think China, N-korea, Russia etc.

edit: removed comment, because I misread the chart.

 

[Imari]

Ironically it is the republicans that ended slavery. I view claiming superiority of an ehtnicity is more a authoritarian trait and not political left or right leaning.

And we're all well aware how the democratic and republican parties have swapped positions since their inception.

 

[CopperySinger]

Difference is I was raised in a time frame where a popular saying was...................
Sticks and Stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.

Call me what you wish, I guess that I am one of the resident White Supremacist, Trump supporting conservative racist on this board that is mainly filled with left leaning liberals!
But I am okay with that!


MAGA!

edit:

I almost forgot to add in a NRA supporting gun owner and 2nd Admendment supporter as well! CANNOT LEAVE THAT OUT!

MAGA!?! America has only been in the path towards greatness imo. A land mass invaded and taken over by generations of immigrants, America has never been 'great'. I don't think Trump is that stupid, he used the 'MAGA' slogan for certain people to take that idea and run with it. According to studies, the correct definition of 'MAGA' means 'Misguided Americans Gone Astray', decendants of former southern democrats who have been kicked out of their own party for similar radical beliefs. VFOURMAX, what are your views on the Democratic rebel flag?

 

[Danoff]

"It is estimated that the United States alone benefited from a total of 222,505,049 hours of forced labor between 1619 and the abolition of slavery in 1865. Valued at the US minimum wage, with a modest rate of interest, that is worth $97 trillion today."

Here's what it bought. This is Petersburg, Atlanta, Charleston, and Richmond. I won't bother trying to capture all of the destroyed railroads, ransacked and burned homes, and smaller cities that were laid to waste. Also 620,000 dead.

 

[PocketZeven]

Here's what it bought. This is Petersburg, Atlanta, Charleston, and Richmond. I won't bother trying to capture all of the destroyed railroads, ransacked and burned homes, and smaller cities that were laid to waste. Also 620,000 dead.

What are you conveying? I presumed you were for reparations, if it was during their lifetime. I do very much respect that point of view. This post however seems to suggest they did not deserve reparations for all that unpaid labor?

 

[Danoff]

What are you conveying? I presumed you were for reparations, if it was during their lifetime. I do very much respect that point of view. This post however seems to suggest they did not deserve reparations for all that unpaid labor?

On the whole, if you try to argue that the US as a nation benefited from slavery monetarily, I think you'll find that the ledger is highly in the negative. Cities, towns, homes, populations were wiped out. If that's the whole argument, you're right to conclude that I would be against reparations.

I do wish that reparations had been made immediately following the war. But, and here is the critical point, it's not for unpaid labor. It is for unjust law. The moral argument is not "the US got an unfair benefit and so owes". The moral argument is "the US is complicit in wrongdoing by standing behind unjust laws up to the civil war".

The US did not steal from the slaves. Slaveowners did. The US did not benefit from slavery, some slaveowners did. Try collecting from them, they died in the war and had their homes burned to the ground and their possessions stolen, destroyed, or eaten.

The debt to the soldiers of the war and to the people enslaved before it could never be repaid. They could never be made whole. But I think the reason that reparations were offered to the freed slaves is because there was a recognition that they had nothing, the reason they had nothing was prior US law, and that they could use something to get started. No amount of reparations would ever make up for their loss. But even a small gesture would have helped. The country owed them more than just to set them free, but what it owed them could never be repaid. This is no less true of the dead and maimed soldiers, who were also in some cases essentially enslaved themselves. Draftees were paid, but that does not make up for their loss of freedom.

Again, it's not for labor. The fruits of their labor was consumed in the war, and the fruits of their labor was less because of slavery than it would have been otherwise. It was for the role of law in destroyed lives and families.

 

[PocketZeven]

On the whole, if you try to argue that the US as a nation benefited from slavery monetarily, I think you'll find that the ledger is highly in the negative. Cities, towns, homes, populations were wiped out. If that's the whole argument, you're right to conclude that I would be against reparations.

I do wish that reparations had been made immediately following the war. But, and here is the critical point, it's not for unpaid labor. It is for unjust law. The moral argument is not "the US got an unfair benefit and so owes". The moral argument is "the US is complicit in wrongdoing by standing behind unjust laws up to the civil war".

The US did not steal from the slaves. Slaveowners did. The US did not benefit from slavery, some slaveowners did. Try collecting from them, they died in the war and had their homes burned to the ground and their possessions stolen, destroyed, or eaten.

The debt to the soldiers of the war and to the people enslaved before it could never be repaid. They could never be made whole. But I think the reason that reparations were offered to the freed slaves is because there was a recognition that they had nothing, the reason they had nothing was prior US law, and that they could use something to get started. No amount of reparations would ever make up for their loss. But even a small gesture would have helped. The country owed them more than just to set them free, but what it owed them could never be repaid. This is no less true of the dead and maimed soldiers, who were also in some cases essentially enslaved themselves. Draftees were paid, but that does not make up for their loss of freedom.

Again, it's not for labor. The fruits of their labor was consumed in the war, and the fruits of their labor was less because of slavery than it would have been otherwise. It was for the role of law in destroyed lives and families.

It did benefit immensely. To suggest otherwise is factually wrong. Although slavery was one of the catalists of the civil war, you cant just cross away the cost of war with the free labor the slaveowners received all those years.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/1/how-slavery-helped-build-a-world-economy/

 

[Danoff]

It did benefit immensely. To suggest otherwise is factually wrong.

I've gone into great detail on this one. Great detail. This amounts to plugging your ears.

Although slavery was one of the catalists of the civil war, you cant just cross away the cost of war with the free labor the slaveowners received all those years.

Yes I can. It was the slaveowners that received that labor, and many of them lost everything (property, families, and their own lives) in the war. Northern families, where slavery was abolished, paid for the war on the side of the Union... they did not get reimbursement from the south.

Where would you move the abolition of slavery to. 10 years earlier? 20 years? the entire history of the nation? It doesn't matter where you move it to, we'd have benefited from having gotten rid of it at that time. If it had been 10 years sooner, the US would have done better as a nation. 20 years? Even better. There was no point in our nation's history where we'd have been worse off for having gotten rid of it.