Rolling 2014 Thread on Race

It's a complicated thing because everyone SHOULD lock their cars, but...

do I need to read these leaked Hollywood executive emails w/ Obama "jokes"?

Nope

the apologies are running everywhere, so i feel out of balance

Of all the things ppl should get mad about re: American race relations in 2014, a couple of Sony executives privately joking about whether they should ask the President his opinion on Django Unchained, The Butler, Think Like a Man, 12 Years a Slave and Ride Along is pretty fucking far down the chain.

ok, i'm sure you're right.

It's just... everyone has had a conversation or 2 with their friends which, if presented to the world, would make you look like a terrible person, and on that spectrum joking about asking a black President his opinion on black movies is a lot less offensive to me than, say, Donald Sterling begging his girlfriend not to come to basketball games with black men because it makes him look bad in front of his friends.

good times:

http://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/davidbadash/teaparty_protestors_at_white_house_hang_the_kenyan_traitor_video

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/get-there/wp/2014/12/12/white-people-have-13-dollars-for-every-dollar-held-by-black-americans/

When I read that 'thirteen times' number I thought surely its a typo and meant to be percent.

jesus

damn.

the gap is completely insane
worse yet is the assertion that the median net worth of the black american family is 11k

Well, if you don't own a home or a car and you don't have savings and you maybe do have credit card debt, it's not that hard to see how you come in around there (or easily lower). The number doesn't seem shocking to me. What does is that there aren't a large enough # of Black families in better circumstances to bring that number up. By a hell of a lot.

exactly, hence the median

I mean my net worth is 0. A lot of people's probably is, if they live paycheck-to-paycheck, which most people I know more or less do?

I wonder how much of that gap is accounted for by home ownership alone.

well also the multi-millionaires and billionaires

Yeah, curious to see what it looks like ex-1%

Indeed.

I mean this is insane: http://www.forbes.com/forbes-400/list/#tab:overall

Oprah Winfrey is the 209th-richest person in the United States.

$3 billion does not even get you in the top 200.

wonder how much of that gap is accounted for by home ownership alone.

― Orson Wellies (in orbit), Friday, December 12, 2014 6:02 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well also the multi-millionaires and billionaires

― the farakhan of gg (DJP), Friday, December 12, 2014 6:03 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

if i understand correctly, since they're using the median to determine the net worth, the magnitude above (or below) the median doesn't make much of a difference. in other words, 300 black bazillionaire families would be offset by 300 black families that were completely broke.

300 black billionaire families would drastically increase the overall median net worth due to the discrepancy in population between white Americans and black Americans.

It would drastically increase the mean. The median is what the family in the middle of the ranked list has, so 300 black billionaire families would have no different effect than 300 black families with 20k

ugh, right

fukkin stats, how do they work

i got confused when we moved away from the standard bazillionaire unit. anyway, the point still stands, obviously, that the disparity is disturbing.

I strive to keep my net worth close to 0 -- property is theft and just a pain to maintain -- but I realize that's cuz i have relatives who could support me if it came to that.

Doesn't this board have a 'is this racism'-thread? I need to vent about a danish example.

rolling "Is This Racist?" thread

Thanks!

2 Mississippi women admit hate-crime role in running over, killing black man

http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2014/12/2_mississippi_women_admit_hate.html

Anderson's death outside a Jackson hotel in 2011 sparked a broader investigation into reports that young white men and women were driving from mostly white Rankin County into majority-black Jackson to assault African-Americans.

Can't imagine why we heard less about this in 2011 than we've heard about "the knockout game."

ugh. i think there was some talk about this upthread a few months ago, but

Ruled a suicide, black teen’s hanging death in North Carolina raises specter of lynching

On Saturday, protesters marched through the heart of town to call for a thorough examination of what happened to Lennon Lacy, who was found hanging by two belts from a playground swing set near his home Aug. 29. The case had appeared to stall for months, but in recent days the demand for answers and suspicions that local authorities allowed the case to founder have grown. It was announced Friday that the FBI would look into the case.

“We know it was a hanging,” NAACP state chapter president the Rev. William Barber II said before Saturday’s march. “But the question is, ‘Was it self-inflicted? Was it a staged hanging? Or was it a hanging or lynching homicide?’"

...The state NAACP launched its own investigation, including hiring an independent pathologist to review the state’s examination. The NAACP said several details raised questions about how the police investigation was conducted and how the finding of suicide was reached. Lacy, who was to start a new high school football season the day he died, was found hanging from a black belt and blue belt tied together — items that his mother said she did not recognize as his. She also said the Nike shoes her son had been wearing were missing. The NAACP said he was found wearing unfamiliar sneakers two sizes too small.

Ten years for election fraud (mayoral recall)...no material evidence...all-white jury.

http://michigancitizen.com/rev-ed-pinkney-sentenced-to-maximum-10-years-in-prison/

Some things going right, for a change; some healing and power-building among young Black activists.

Black Brunch, they said, was not about grabbing the public by the throat, so much as nurturing solidarity from within. It was about taking the pain and suffering of so many wrongful deaths and airing them out, in the light of day, in plain view of those who can easily avert their gaze. It was about reclaiming a space and demanding that black voices cease to be ignored. And undeniably, it was about staying safe. "I'm of the belief that there is most definitely a place for property destruction — for raging and all that," said Wild Tigers, another Black Brunch organizer, graduate student, and longtime activist, "but the reality is that, as black people, it's very different for us to be out there on the streets smashing windows at Starbucks. Because, if I do that, I could get a bullet. For white people out there, doing that is a privilege."

http://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/news-media-ignores-black-protests/Content?oid=4145294

protests in berkeley/oakland that don't include violence won't make national news because 'protest happens in berkeley/oakland' is not actually a news story

'a bunch of yuppies who already agreed w/ the protesters on literally everything and who were having pizza at zachary's in oakland were slightly inconvenienced today'

In all frankness, having been involved with Global Justice actions, there are some types who make annoying, ignorant comments about the black community. They just didn't think black people did "that stuff". Which is shockingly ignorant of history, for one thing. I was a little upset that older activists didn't use their position to teach about the Civil Rights Movement, and how it is the godmother of all activist movements. They should teach it's role in the anti-Vietnam War movement, for starters.

http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/us/2014/12/18/pkg-breathe-easy-shirts-sale-soar.wndu.html

I really hate people

Indiana

this is a level of tastelessness i can't even comprehend

really? come on

you should comprehend it

I can comprehend it, I just hate it

what DJP said

i'll never get used to the mixture of snideness and paranoia in that older white woman saying she "doesn't feel like she has a voice in these things". always makes my blood boil.

The unexamined assumption that breaking the law gives the police carte blanche to kill you, REGARDLESS OF THE ACTUAL LAW YOU ARE BREAKING, is particularly enraging.

xp It's easier if you translate for her to "I refuse to live in a world where my viewpoint isn't the ONLY one represented. Challenges to my worldview may result in your death and I'm fine with that."

"easier"

I mean on a scale of "I'm so outraged that I can't comprehend how you and your viewpoint can even exist" to "I see what you did there."

I'm not sure if people are wearing that to be tasteless - I think they mean it.

How racist are you that you hope someone sees that on your chest?

They should go back to their confederate flag gear - no shortage of that in Eastern Indiana.