USWNT and race

But many of the problems, maybe most of them, have at their root the discrimination faced by black people in the not very distant past. The discrimination in many ways caused the socioeconomic distinction you speak of.

I have seen, first hand around the world, just how much earlier discrimination and/or repression can directly effect current socioeconomic status and how hard it is for the previously oppressed peoples to change the cycle that put them there in the first place.

Most people, black, white, brown or green with orange spots (OK those last only show up after several shots of rum) simply want a chance but it is hard to win a race when you start from the back and you are carrying extra weight.

There are a few great success stories but all they prove is that it takes great effort or great luck or both. That is not the case for the dominate race in any country. It takes effort, sometimes great effort, for black people just to get even with whites in this country.

I had a friend, now dead, who was one of the few black men I knew well but until one night over drinks and a chess match did I find out just how hard it was for him to get away from the socioeconomic group he started in and attain his success. That night, for the first time, he trusted me enough to tell me the full story of his early life and what he had to do to get to where he was. The effort he put out and the sacrifices he made just to get to where he had a shot at a good military career was astounding. I, on the other hand, never really had to sacrifice or work excessively to end up in nearly the same spot.

I am often astounded by how people disassociate race with socioeconomic standing but I believe they have a strong relationship. While there are people that cross that socioeconomic boundary in both directions too much of the time race does indicate where a person falls on the economic scale.

Ignoring race when assessing general socioeconomic status is like ignoring age when assessing athletic performance.

 

I stopped after a couple paragraphs of one of your usual tl;dr rants but being born into poverty holds people back whether they are white or black. There are a lot of pathways in place to help black people and even give them an edge over similarly situated whites... affirmative action, lower interest loans for african americans, mandatory hiring quotas from HR - especially in government agencies, etc. The federal agency I used to work at was like 40% black. Many companies will bend over backward to hire black people with a college education. That's overrepresentation based on population % if anything.

 

The last exchange reinforces what I have been thinking about this: No number of laws and so called good deeds are going to change our fundamental problem, which is something that is inside people. Until people change their inner selves and maintain the discipline to nurture and grow that change, we are going to see the same thing over and over -- perhaps wearing different costumes, but always the same people underneath doing the same thing.

 

Posts like that just show how blind people can be when they look at race issues. Those paths you mention are only there because our society is beginning to wake up a little bit. Yes poverty presents problems but based on percentage there are way more back people in poverty than whites and they have to jump through a lot more hoops to get out of the poverty cycle. Black people were pushed so far down the socioeconomic ladder that they need to climb a long way just to get level with the average white person.

As long as we do not take steps to really make the playing field level black people will continue to be in greater poverty than whites.

As far as I can tell most black people do not want the free ride that most whites are trying to give them but what they want seems to be just to have an equal chance at all levels of society.

The fact that things are a little better simply serves to show how far we need to come just to get the level playing field we need.

Bigoted viewpoints often hide behind apparent rationalism and our government is not helping by the free gifts and quotas and such you mention. Those only serve to push people down not raise them up.

The fault lies in our teaching:

From the musical "South Pacific"

As long as we teach our children to hate and fear others the cycle cannot be broken and we are teaching hate a LOT more than we are teaching acceptance.

BTW: There is at least one "minority" that overall is ever more oppressed than blacks and that is the so called "American Indian." But that really could be said to be their fault:

 

So you are saying BLM doesn't want the programs I listed, which are literally designed to level the playing field, anymore? lol. The entire movement is designed to create division and guilt politicians into giving them more handouts. Meanwhile the biggest problem in black communities is not white people. Plenty of high profile black people have talked about this.

And very few teach their kids to hate. That's just another gaslighting comment. White supremacists are few and far between and mostly a media boogeyman.

 

Not teaching that we are all basically the same is teaching hate. It is not the overt hate that is the big problem it is the subtle hate and avoidance that we ave throughout society that causes hate. Hate is at its worst when it is not openly displayed. That works both way whites don't accept blacks so blacks don't accept whites and then it becomes just a small step to white do not trust backs and blacks do not trust whites and from there it is a very easy stem to hate both ways. People tend to hate what they do not trust and once the distrust goes one way it get reciprocated.

There is a cycle of hate in this country that can only be broken by leadership at all levels and the Trumster is hating so strongly that his minions are spreading the hate everywhere.

 

I agree with most of what you have written about this, but not this particular statement. The cycle of hate can only be broken by individuals changing, one at a time. And, one can not force another individual make the needed kind of change. Ultimately, the individual must decide to make the change within himself or herself. Leadership can help create the environment for change, but cannot do more than that.

 

What I was trying, I guess badly, to say was that leadership reinforces behavior and much of our current top leadership is making the problem worst by encouraging the hate.

That is you are correct in that leadership cannot cure the problem but what I was trying to say was that leadership can make it worse and that is what is happening right now.

Living outside the country so much caused me to sour on our government and I quit voting or in any way participating for a long time. The last three+ years has convinced me to change that and I will be voting in the next election and doing whatever I can to change our government.

 

But ... most people are not taught that we aren't the same. I'm not a fan of trump just because he is so inarticulate and seems to thrive off gaslighting, so even when he has good ideas it's lost in his lack of diplomacy. but he passed a major criminal justice reform bill. Politics in this country have left me completely jaded. It's toxic and no one can reach across the aisle. It's just become a slugfest of cancel culture and anyone not agreeing with the left being deemed a racist.

 

thats exactly the claim their attorney made at trial in 1770, which was only of Captain Thomas Preston, the commander of the detail, who languished in jail for 8 months awaiting trial. The rest were indicted but not tried.

for the record, the attorney was John Adams and Preston was acquitted by a Jury that did not include a Boston resident.

 

I read about this a couple of weeks ago. I hope they continue to try to make themselves heard. I know how difficult that could be, since they don't have the sheer numbers of people who are truly connected to that location and demographic required to force listening from the majority culture.

Another thing is, the current administration creates so many problems --literally one after the other-- that the media can't cover them in depth over the long periods of time necessary for all to hear about them.

 

Or even more challenging, a firehose.

 

I was sure there was something wrong but, as a non native-speaker, I shut up!

 

When I was in college before the flood we used to do a lot of drinking from firehouses. Volunteer departments rented them out for parties.

 

lol@this account. Calling for people to contact the players' agents and sponsors if they didn't post exactly what they wanted them to and in the right quantity. Mob rule is officially here. Don't outwardly support them? Lose your job and livelihood. Scary as hell.

 

Rapinoe must be smirking. US Soccer tried to get rid of her by keeping her on the bench for a year -- but finally realized they had noone who could replace her and brought her back -- and she goes from being an outcast to perhaps the most famous woman soccer player in the world.

That's a plot for a movie!

 

604-1, huh? I wonder who the one was.