jj, I just think that the people who are attempting to be the voice for whom they perceive to be the voiceless aren't really listening to those they are apparently trying to speak for, and that's where I get hung up.

When I say there are things that don't make a whole lot of sense, I'm talking about things like professors talking about "inherent racism" and other things. I'm sure you have seen this image:



I've seen it, and similar, held up as proof that voting is keeping minorities out. The problem is that it is clearly statistically / graphically impossible.

So, I used to do political canvassing in South Los Angeles, Compton, Long Beach, etc. I would have to walk door-to-door, get signatures, and sign people up to vote if they weren't already registered. I can assure that "institutional racism" was the not reason very few people were interested in registering to vote or partaking in the politics. The data is there, but it's just too brutally honest for people to either look up or accept. If you really want to know the data, feel free to contact your local petition driver.

And here's the thing I'll also share with you.

In California, the supposedly liberal state, a few ballots come up year in and year out. This means the people actually vote on it:

-- Leniency on 3 strikes. California is one of few states, and among the toughest, in the US.

-- House rezoning, creation of low-income housing.

-- Weed decriminalization / legalization (until this year).

-- various laws dealing with ex-cons, such as allowing them to vote, leniency on the job market, etc.

-- additional funding / restructuring public school districts

This a short list, but I'm guessing these fall under the notion of "institutionalized racism," where the "institution" is the various governments, and it seems to assume this "institution" goes against the will of the people.

The people of California are actively voting against these laws. Seems to me that after all the marching, when the curtain is drawn at the voting booth, their true opinions show.

Oh god, remember gay marriage? How liberal of the California voters!

I don't care about whatever people talk about. I expect action. No action is, I'm sorry, is vapid talk and bull****.

SCIENCE

Also dave it kinda seems like you're unfamiliar with...everything you're talking about

Making that law more lenient passed in 2012, in addition to increasing access to parole for nonviolent offenders (2016) and reduction of some nonviolent crimes from felonies to misdemeanors (2014)

California voted to increase funding to schools twice in 2016 (here, and here to extend the same increase they also voted for in 2012)

Please educate yourself.

I'm not attempting to be the voice of the voiceless. I'm adding my voice to the voices of the people that are raising real issues. You can live in your bubble all you want, but it's obviously a bubble. And you've shown no desire to learn since you claim statistics are false and go right back to your personal experiences.

Contacting a local petitioner is NOT science. It's pretty hilarious that you're a walking example of what TheGodson tried to frame the left as.

This is kind of interesting. I was in a politics internet war with someone and we ended up meeting face-to-face over food and coffee. I was more-or-less painted as a hard-core racist conservative, or deplorable, as it may be.

We actually hung out a few times. Turned out I was probably more liberal than he is, though we didn't really discuss too much about politics. The main thing we agreed on was that a) hypocrisy sucks, and b) changes are, if you meet someone face to face, they are probably much more centrist than what you would think when they dig their heels in online.

I think that, you have to know that people have different background. You may not like their background, but that's the way it is. If I can talk to you face-to-face w/ respect, then that's all the matters. This is the point I'm trying to make about how things are dealt with in a working class world.

A company that is paying people $25 / hour to knock on doors, has heat maps, and works with government officials to win elections don't have data?

Well, that's just beautiful logic there. Sorry, the data as it's presented by liberals or conservatives is nothing but goal-post shifting and wrong on many levels. You aren't going to find real data on a twitter feed.

or in a daveT post (oh, but he's seen it, he assures us, just trust him, he knows the real data but can't tell us)

How many failed attempts did it take to do that? I was passing those petitions back in 2004.

I did leave CA for 2 1/2 years, so I'm not quite on the pulse of the political goings-on these days. The point is that it shouldn't have taken 10+ years for this stuff to go through.

Dave, let's actually just ask the million dollar question.

Why is there such a discrepancy between whites and blacks for things like voter ids?

Oh I see. You have this data but won't share it?

I mean for ****s same you keep saying **** like this but haven't posted any data. Why would any of us believe you when you just post bull**** and allude to evidence that exists somewhere else?

Kinda sad to see your bar for CA liberal hypocrisy drop from "THEY'RE VOTING AGAINST THESE LAWS" to "WELL FINE THEY SUPPORT THEM BUT THEY DIDN'T 10 YEARS AGO"

Even the mother jone's shows it perfectly... it's not "racism" per se.

The truth is that poor people don't vote. I'll break down some of the reasons:

1- Poor people tend to move around more often than usual. It isn't unusual for them to move around every 6 to 12 months, due to break ups with SOs / roommates, bad landlords, week-to-week hotel arrangements, and so on. They likely misplace or never receive their voter cards, move too far from their registered voting area, etc.

2- Voting adds the risk of jury duty. When you are living paycheck to paycheck, losing a few days means disaster. Poor people simply can't afford it.

3- Voting on Tuesday or any weekday is rough on working-class people. Taking an extra bus trip to get to a voting station before / after work can be time-consuming.

4- General apathy.

it happens that minorities are, due to whatever reasons, are more likely to be included in the poor group, but the dividing line is poverty, not race. Middle class people don't have the same concerns, regardless of race.

Then why do politicians aim there voter registration rules directly at black people instead of poors? Why are more black people murdered by cops than poors? Why do black names get negative job results over white names? Why is the percentage of people in poverty twice as high for blacks than whites? Why do nearly twice as many whites own houses than blacks? Maybe, just maybe your theory is incorrect.

An ex-con can't vote, regardless of race. I never understood the need for an ID to vote. Sounds like it should be a minimum requirement to vote. I mean, if you can't get a job w/o an ID, what gives?

This is the issue I have. If you are to suggest that something like 25% of whatever race can't vote w/o an ID, then why are there no other numbers that match that, like unemployment records, tickets for driving w/o a license, no insurance, etc? (if there is, please present them)

I'm not taking a side here. I'm truly fascinated by this whole topic because I believe that a data model should have something else to confirm it, and I'm open to whatever side is correct. I just haven't been convinced either way yet.

WaPo article (first hit on Google):

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.94e111f96fa3

I'm not sure about this question. If you are too assume that some percentage of poor black / poor white, I'd gather the subset of poor people murdered by cops is higher than rich people, regardless of race.

Because birds of a feather flock together. Give a white guy a strange name and he will, statistically, struggle over his life. Girls don't suffer this as much.

There is an old story I heard about a country boy who wanted to go to NYC to become a stock broker. He was told to drop the accent, and I suppose that's what he did to get by. How many Asians do you know that go by American names? They understand the rules. It sucks, but that's the way it is for now.

We can only hope that people will change, but this, once again, goes back to my statement about actually going to the hood and seeing how it is for yourself. Racism, sexism, classism, and so on, is based on ignorance (dictionary definition), and it's up to the people who don't know any better to learn about others. One day, someone will say to me "I love Chinese food!" and I won't roll my eyes at them (suzzer knows the legit stuff, I think).

This is a complex question, but I'd like to give you a tidbit you may not have knowledge of.

I went to a bottom 10 school district. The school didn't have clean bathrooms, heat, A/C, enough books for the students, you couldn't wear jackets in class, and the teachers... well, if half them taught at all, I'd be shocked. The school district had over 50% year-over-year drop out rate, and of those who did graduate, weren't really literate. I think my 9th grade class had about 500 students. 70 graduated, and maybe 10 of those went to college, including community college. A "high" SAT / ACT score for us was 1200 / 1600. A 1300 guaranteed you a partial scholarship, which honestly, the Straight-A and AP students didn't even score that, as far as I know.

Here's the thing. I was in my 30s before I ever heard of Stanford, Caltech, MIT, NYU, UPenn, Carnegie Mellon, and so on. The world that you'd grow up in those areas is very small and isolated, the learning resources for much of anything simply isn't there at all.

Our "career day" consisted of listening to military recruiters chat up how great the Navy, Marines, and Army was, and how that's the best chance for our future (no, the Air Force didn't show up). You know... they were probably right on this. This was the days before easy college loans, so you needed a scholarship or Dean's List to go to college, since there was no real federal grants and LOL at the idea of your parents helping with either money or cosigning. (I specifically recall that ITT tech came by)

Add the schools with the constant danger, missing fathers, food islands, the need to start working a 30 hour per week job at 16, and the need to find a "real" job at 18, getting the GF pregnant because the free condoms they give out don't work, etc. After all of this, you have to go the burbs to land a job that isn't McDonald's, and it's no wonder that the cycle of poverty never ends.

Why specifically to black people? I would say white flight was a major thing. Many now-day ghettos were actually millionaire rows. I think that the whole structure of how schools are financed need to change, just to even out the odds a bit, but even that will only work so well because there are really many more issues that will have to work themselves out.

I have a feeling this is going to change in the near future.

It's about stability and the desire to go out and vote. Basically:

Rich is more likely to vote than poor.

Home owners / renters are more likely to vote than apartment renters.

Car owners are more likely to vote than bus riders.

Etc.

DaveT are you aware that a lot of the poverty issues are directly related to historical and current race issues?

http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswit...single-parents

So to say it's just a socioeconomic issue is obviously not true. Also there is some data to support that racism really isn't going away as people tend to think.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.3be4a5a0ca4b

Have you actually asked yourself what the reasons are?

You seem to KNOW its not racism. So, what is it then? We'd all love to hear your answer.

So much gold here. You think the numbers are made up... except you have no evidence of that... except the lack of extra corroborating evidence... except you haven't actually looked for any of that.

And you have the balls to call me uninformed.

Feel free to read something like: https://www.theatlantic.com/business...no-job/486653/

See Dave, the issue here is that poverty is a big factor in these issues. You're right. BUT minorities face extra road blocks. Get stopped more often -> Get more tickets -> Get more suspended/revoked licenses -> Vote less (and work less, and have less money, and stay in poverty longer - HEY! MAYBE **** LIKE THIS IS WHY MORE MINORITIES LIVE IN POVERTY!!).


Bull****. You've choosing to stay ignorant. Someone shows you a statistic and it indicates racism and you just ignore it or demand a second statistic to corroborate it. You'll always want more. Unless of course some random black guy just says racism isn't a problem anymore - then you're happy to accept it as absolute truth... :eyeroll:


THIS IS A TEXTBOOK DEFINITION OF RACISM. It's not even the sort-of-complex institutional racism definition. It's straight up racism.

I don't even...

Just because you can show something negative also happens to some other small subset of non-minority people doesn't change the fact that its still racism.

Seriously, what the ****. Stop saying racism doesn't exist then.

Um... that's not the dictionary definition at all. You're just making **** up.

I'm sorry, did you really pull up David Clarke? There aren't many sheriffs that have a wikipedia article, but I suggest you read all of it. Eh, I'll just copy / paste some for you!

In 2015, Clarke received criticism for his statement on his podcast: "Let me tell you why blacks sell drugs and involve themselves in criminal behavior instead of a more socially acceptable lifestyle: because they're uneducated, they're lazy and they're morally bankrupt. That's why."

Clarke is a frequent and vociferous critic of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, referring to it as "Black Lies Matter" and describing the movement as a hate group. Clarke denies that police officers are more willing to shoot black suspects than white suspects, has labeled BLM activists "subhuman creeps", and has called for the targeted eradication of the movement "from American society"

The reason black people living in the ghetto would get pulled over more should be fairly obvious. Not sure what else to say about that.

I also never claimed that racism doesn't exist, I said that dramatic overtures about racism attracts ignorant drama queens who have no notion of the complexities involved. For those who aren't hiring for racist reasons, well, you only have yourself to blame, and until I see a long list of names fired and demoted over racism, the entire conversation around workplace racism and sexism is bull****. If these idiots wouldn't last a week at a $10 / hour job, then they shouldn't last at a whatever else pay job.

Here's a few vids for you:

Wiener Circle (def not safe for work). I bring this up because the resume study was, if I recall, done in Chicago. That's a hyper-segregated city.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vo1LPf9mnyU

Morgan Freeman on racism:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOiQgleiRtU

Li'l Wayne talks racism:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhfB_QWy4DA

I suspect Wayne is clowning on them, but he is doing exactly what Morgan Freeman is suggesting here.

I'd rather not have a lot of talk on this issue. It's boring, getting old, and isn't getting anywhere. The real problem is the same as any other discussion like this: the people who it needs to reach never hears a word of the message.

Dave, you're the ignorant one with no notion of the complexities involved.

And it's 100% willful. You want to claim its all poverty, but you have NO IDEA why minorities are much more likely to be poor. (Interesting that you avoided my question about this).

You discount studies and examples demonstrating clear racism demanding more proof. Hell, you posted multiple examples of significant and relevant racism happening without even realizing it's ****ing racism to not hire people because they're not like you.

Yet, you continually post the opinions of a single black man and take his opinions as gospel truth with no extra questioning.

You'd rather not talk about this anymore because the more we talk the more obvious it becomes that YOU are part of the problem. You are one of the people that needs to hear our message.

Finally, it's typically crazy Dave to think it's logical to think that racism isn't a problem until people start being fired for racism. It's just nonsense.

Dave, if you respond to a single thing I would please ask that it be: "What are some reasons you think minorities have a significantly higher percentage of people living in poverty?"

I guess my description of my **** school system didn't resonate with you at all.

If you had teachers who don't teach, no learning resources, lived in a dangerous neighborhood, have no family to depend on, have to work a full-time job when you are 16, you are likely on welfare, your entire family is on drugs / alcohol, your "future" according to your guidance counselor is going into the military, etc, what are the odds that you get out of this?

One of the problems was already linked by my video and by the npr article just_grining linked to. It was a combination of red-lining, white flight, low property taxes, the crack epidemic, and poverty being cyclic. If you grow up next to factories pumping out chemicals, don't have grocery stores near you, and so on, it's very difficult and soul-crushing.

There are so many elements... Have you ever stepped into a project housing? Have you ever seen a crack home? Did you go to a terrible school system? Did you ever look down the barrel of a gun? Have you ever been jumped by 5+ more people? Have you ever been hit with a baseball bat? Did your family kick you out while you were a teenager and did you end up homeless, sleeping on your friend's couches? Have you ever thought that joining a gang was a way out of poverty?

If the answers to these are "no," then you really don't understand why the odds are stacked against people in those neighborhoods. The above is the experience, and fwiw, there isn't much that programmers or others can really do about all of this.

On the flips side, you can read 1M times on HackerNews "why doesn't that single mother working at McDonalds go home and learn JavaScript?" Maybe she can't afford a computer, but maybe she does, but when it comes down to it, no one will ever hire her, and you know that's the truth.

Do you now understand why I say the conversations make no sense to me?

And this...

Is not what I said at all. I said that you can't claim that racism is a problem in the industry then not take action over it. You can't claim you care when your (lack of) action speaks louder than words. Pretending you care when you clearly don't is lying and being a hypocrite, full stop. How can I make that more clear?

So in Dave world you acknowledge that racism is still a problem. But you think:

Taking action against racism > ignoring racism > just informing people like TheGodson that racism is still a problem?

lol lil wayne video is great. ya dave, since he did a concert that was almost all white fans, "theres no such thing as racism" (yes, thats a quote that he said, word for word)

anyway, its really hard to glean a point from those tons of words and examples you have been throwing up. I mean, you start out saying its not about race, and rather its class. then you go on to explain some of the more destructive results of systemic racism.

like this:

everyone agrees is terrible and one of the main reasons why non-whites stay in poverty. but it is a result of segregation and systemic racism. so I am not sure what your point is.

heres a segment that is related: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/rad...-all-live-with

jesus that weiner circle video is disgusting

Looks like a RL incarnation of an internet chatroom, and a case study in crowd psychology. Remove the normal social restrictions of public decency and the vile starts pouring out.

But I'm confused what the point of the segment is. At first they set it up like its great for business. Then they show the dark side of how the employees are treated. But then Ira says: "The tips are great, everyone says that. People stay here 10 years, 20 years. One woman raised 3 kids with the money she raised here. Got her daughter into NW."

If you last 20 years in a job, how bad can it be?