Fight with Black Teens; News, Fight With White Teens; Not News

[PokerGuy]

That answer gave me a chuckle.

Yeah, concepts like "reality" must make you laugh a lot in your state of mind

 

[emperus]

Yeah, concepts like "reality" must make you laugh a lot in your state of mind

It actually does. Well, that's what white privilege is innit? You have a view of reality based on your being white and so everything that happens you can only see from a perspective of what would have happened to you being white.

So, when a black person gets pulled over, they must have been doing something illegal, because as a white person, you've probably never been pulled over just because of the color of your skin.

Different realities innit, and only one seems to be based on the truth.

 

[PokerGuy]

It actually does. Well, that's what white privilege is innit? You have a view of reality based on your being white and so everything that happens you can only see from a perspective of what would have happened to you being white.

So, when a black person gets pulled over, they must have been doing something illegal, because as a white person, you've probably never been pulled over just because of the color of your skin.

I know it's shocking, but many (most?) of us don't look at the world through the same racist lens that you do. When I see someone pulled over it doesn't occur to me to look at the color of their skin to determine if "they must have been doing something illegal" or not. The color of someone's skin is irrelevant to me other than as a descriptor (just like hair color, height, weight whatever). I just look at it and see that someone got pulled over, I make no assumptions based on race. But then again, I'm not a racist like you.

Of course, in the current world of the race warriors and race baiters, not viewing everything as somehow being based on race is considered a symptom of "white privilege".

Also, just another hint, you're making assumptions about the color of my skin.

Seek help.

 

[emperus]

I know it's shocking, but many (most?) of us don't look at the world through the same racist lens that you do. When I see someone pulled over it doesn't occur to me to look at the color of their skin to determine if "they must have been doing something illegal" or not. The color of someone's skin is irrelevant to me other than as a descriptor (just like hair color, height, weight whatever). I just look at it and see that someone got pulled over, I make no assumptions based on race. But then again, I'm not a racist like you.

Of course, in the current world of the race warriors and race baiters, not viewing everything as somehow being based on race is considered a symptom of "white privilege".

Also, just another hint, you're making assumptions about the color of my skin.

Seek help.

So, we as a society give words meaning so we can communicate effectively. It seems like people of your ilk have chosen to redefine what racism means or make it just an amorphous word to use at your pleasure as you seem to think it pejorative and want to use the strength of those ill feelings to strengthen your perceived victimhood. So, I have no clue what you are saying because I don't think you have a clue of what the word racism means.

That being said. Therein lies the problem. You aren't even aware that most people have a racial bias. It's unconscious. And like all things until you understand it's there you can't really address it, yet overcome it.

But don't take my word on it. You may find a white Republican FBI directors words more truthful.

A second hard truth: Much research points to the widespread existence of unconscious bias. Many people in our white-majority culture have unconscious racial biases and react differently to a white face than a black face. In fact, we all, white and black, carry various biases around with us. I am reminded of the song from the Broadway hit, Avenue Q: “Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist.” Part of it goes like this:
Look around and you will find
No one’s really color blind.
Maybe it’s a fact
We all should face
Everyone makes judgments
Based on race.
You should be grateful I did not try to sing that.
But if we can’t help our latent biases, we can help our behavior in response to those instinctive reactions, which is why we work to design systems and processes that overcome that very human part of us all. Although the research may be unsettling, it is what we do next that matters most.

http://www.fbi.gov/news/speeches/hard-truths-law-enforcement-and-race

 

[Hugo Drax]

It actually does. Well, that's what white privilege is innit? You have a view of reality based on your being white and so everything that happens you can only see from a perspective of what would have happened to you being white.

So, when a black person gets pulled over, they must have been doing something illegal, because as a white person, you've probably never been pulled over just because of the color of your skin.

Different realities innit, and only one seems to be based on the truth.

Are you Black?

 

[PokerGuy]

So, we as a society give words meaning so we can communicate effectively. It seems like people of your ilk have chosen to redefine what racism means or make it just an amorphous word to use at your pleasure as you seem to think it pejorative and want to use the strength of those ill feelings to strengthen your perceived victimhood. So, I have no clue what you are saying because I don't think you have a clue of what the word racism means.

Your posts make it obvious you have no clue what the word means, and you in fact embody racism yourself while pointing at everyone else being racist.

That being said. Therein lies the problem. You aren't even aware that most people have a racial bias. It's unconscious. And like all things until you understand it's there you can't really address it, yet overcome it.

Of course people have certain hard wired traits that can easily turn into bias. Humans evolved to quickly want to identify with those most like themselves as a survival mechanism. Being aware of that is perfectly fine. It is also undeniable that racism is alive and well with many people (such as yourself). They choose to define the world around them along racial lines instead of the merits and actions of the people.

But don't take my word on it. You may find a white Republican FBI directors words more truthful.

I don't disagree with him at all, but it's completely irrelevant.

 

[Exophase]

It's almost comical reading the responses here. Of course there are many other factors at play. The factors being that these people were white, the others were black and there it fits into the narrative of African Americans as animals and thugs.

So are you saying that no other differences could have possibly been relevant? There are several other things that seem potentially relevant to me..

1) The McDonalds incident involved minors, and people are more protective of and reactionary to violence involving minors. Especially the parents of the victim.
2) The McDonalds incident involved girls, and people are more protective of and reactionary to violence involving women and girls. On both sides, where it plays on people's sympathies more to see a teenager girl beat up (because society is more protective of women), and it shocks people more to see teenage girls beat up people (because in practice women commit less violence)
3) The family of the victim of the McDonalds incident pressed charges, no one pressed charges in the Manhattan incident. If the former hadn't pressed charges there wouldn't have been arrests. In the latter's case, charges tend to not stick when the charging party was willingly engaging in a fight which would be difficult to argue against in this case.
4) The McDonalds incident involved several people in a coordinated attack against a single target that couldn't possibly defend herself. This means it was most likely premediated to some degree. The Manhattan incident could have much more easily been spur of the moment. While he don't know that it wasn't, news doesn't get picked up because something may have been some way without any evidence.
5) The victim of the McDonalds incident tried to escape and shield herself, while her assailants kept attacking. Nothing like this happened in the Manhattan incident, where all parties seem to be reciprocating the violence until they were no longer able to, and I don't see anyone attacking people who are no longer capable of attacking back.

And yes, one involved black people and the other white people. I'm not saying that couldn't have also been a factor in how much these stories were published and arrest charges, but how can you say with confidence that it was the dominant or even only factor? You say that if the races were reversed things would have happened very differently, but without showing a story of a group of white teenage girls beating up another white teenage girl getting swept under the rug it's kind of hard to substantiate that. Or find videos of black people in similar brawls getting blown up on the news (I can at least find some videos like that on youtube that I'm pretty sure weren't)

Based on what you've said here I get the feeling you'll respond to this by saying I'm blinded by white privilege, so I guess I have to ask, would you respond differently if a black person were posting this?

 

[emperus]

Your posts make it obvious you have no clue what the word means, and you in fact embody racism yourself while pointing at everyone else being racist.

Of course I have no understanding what racism is, yet you do. I'm not going to even point out how utterly stupid that is. Why don't you begin by defining it (show me where you get the definition) for me and then telling me how your usage is derives from that definition.

So, you go from this

]
I know it's shocking, but many (most?) of us don't look at the world through the same racist lens that you do.

to this...

Of course people have certain hard wired traits that can easily turn into bias. Humans evolved to quickly want to identify with those most like themselves as a survival mechanism. Being aware of that is perfectly fine. It is also undeniable that racism is alive and well with many people (such as yourself). They choose to define the world around them along racial lines instead of the merits and actions of the people.

It would be shocking. But seeing you don't even have sense to learn the meaning of the word (racism) you're trying to use.. Not so much. Use those mental faculties of yours, it'll make life more interesting. Well, if you have them.

 

[cabri]

Based on what you've said here I get the feeling you'll respond to this by saying I'm blinded by white privilege, so I guess I have to ask, would you respond differently if a black person were posting this?

A black person would never question emperus
He is the shining example of a black man that knows everything on how people should think, react and be.

If a non-black challenges him; that person is wrong because there is no way in hell a non-black would know about racism.

 

[emperus]

So are you saying that no other differences could have possibly been relevant? There are several other things that seem potentially relevant to me..

1) The McDonalds incident involved minors, and people are more protective of and reactionary to violence involving minors. Especially the parents of the victim.
2) The McDonalds incident involved girls, and people are more protective of and reactionary to violence involving women and girls. On both sides, where it plays on people's sympathies more to see a teenager girl beat up (because society is more protective of women), and it shocks people more to see teenage girls beat up people (because in practice women commit less violence)
3) The family of the victim of the McDonalds incident pressed charges, no one pressed charges in the Manhattan incident. If the former hadn't pressed charges there wouldn't have been arrests. In the latter's case, charges tend to not stick when the charging party was willingly engaging in a fight which would be difficult to argue against in this case.
4) The McDonalds incident involved several people in a coordinated attack against a single target that couldn't possibly defend herself. This means it was most likely premediated to some degree. The Manhattan incident could have much more easily been spur of the moment. While he don't know that it wasn't, news doesn't get picked up because something may have been some way without any evidence.
5) The victim of the McDonalds incident tried to escape and shield herself, while her assailants kept attacking. Nothing like this happened in the Manhattan incident, where all parties seem to be reciprocating the violence until they were no longer able to, and I don't see anyone attacking people who are no longer capable of attacking back.

And yes, one involved black people and the other white people. I'm not saying that couldn't have also been a factor in how much these stories were published and arrest charges, but how can you say with confidence that it was the dominant or even only factor? You say that if the races were reversed things would have happened very differently, but without showing a story of a group of white teenage girls beating up another white teenage girl getting swept under the rug it's kind of hard to substantiate that. Or find videos of black people in similar brawls getting blown up on the news (I can at least find some videos like that on youtube that I'm pretty sure weren't)

Based on what you've said here I get the feeling you'll respond to this by saying I'm blinded by white privilege, so I guess I have to ask, would you respond differently if a black person were posting this?

Those are all interesting points except the fact that the DA pressured the family in the McDonalds video to press charges after the video surfaced and even then that took a while.

I thought about those before I posted it and then I thought, in this country of ours, is it only black children who brutally beat up other children? And if not, why haven't any of those videos made it on the news?

And to the white privilege. I would say that possibly. There is no objective way to figure out why one tape was and the other wasn't made a big deal of. And being so, can you really say that the reasons you listed aren't because of white privilege (your desire to make rational sense of it)?

 

[Exophase]

Those are all interesting points except the fact that the DA pressured the family in the McDonalds video to press charges after the video surfaced and even then that took a while.

I didn't know that, sorry. Technically that would also make these events incomparable in another way, since the Manhattan incident only happened two days ago so there hasn't been a window for charges that could take a while. Not that I think this would result in charges, or should result in charges.

I thought about those before I posted it and then I thought, in this country of ours, is it only black children who brutally beat up other children? And if not, why haven't any of those videos made it on the news?

I don't know. I would really need to see cases where similar incidents with members of different racial background are buried. Stories like this one aren't exactly common, regardless of race. But it's hard to believe that such a story would really be buried nearly universally given how progressive and race-sensitive a lot of the media is right now. Getting less coverage, maybe. Getting nearly no coverage, it's hard to see.

And if you're going to look at bias in reporting violent crimes, you have to look at it from two sides: favoring exposing the assailants and favoring supporting the victim. In this case both sides were black. Do you think that if the attackers were white but the victim were still black that it would have gotten less attention? Personally I think it would have gotten more, and a lot of the article writers would have questioned a possible racial motivation. The HuffPo writer you linked (and HuffPo has a pretty significant platform) may well have.

There are news reports of more severe things like school shootings, where the perpetrator is virtually always male. I don't think that this means that incidents of women involved in shootings are uninteresting to the news, I really think it means they aren't happening. But I also don't think this is some kind of reflection on men as a group, because there are complex factors outside of anyone's control driving this but it still only influences a tiny tiny number of people. But you still see people blaming it on exclusively on being a man or blaming it on how society trains men, and that's wrong. In the same way, you see comments for the stories like the McDonalds one where people take that as a blight against black people or black culture at large, and that's unfair and racist. I'm sad that this is how people process such a thing, but I also kind of wonder if your reaction is more to them than it is to someone like me.

Let's be realistic here, yes, there are factors that could make a black teen more likely to engage in something like this than a white one (same way there are factors that could make men more likely to engage in whatever violence than women, or poor people vs wealthy people, etc). That's not a statement that black people are intrinsically more predisposed to this kind of behavior, that would be a very wrong thing to say, as would it be to start looking at all black people differently if their very small minority of people doing this is larger than another group's very small minority. There are very complex reasons for this; we can't really deny that black people are more likely to be in poverty and less likely to have stable families, and there are a lot of reasons of shitty historical behavior and societal precedents that contribute to this. It sucks if this is the case and it sucks more that this fuels people's bigotry further, but unpleasant as it is it can't strictly be discounted.

And to the white privilege. I would say that possibly. There is no objective way to figure out why one tape was and the other wasn't made a big deal of. And being so, can you really say that the reasons you listed aren't because of white privilege (your desire to make rational sense of it)?

Who can say what my motivation was for making the points, but why is that in question when the legitimacy of the points should be all that matters? I don't think that I'm trying to rationalize or ignore racism, I'm just trying to look at it from all angles, and I'm saying that there are a ton of variables that makes it hard to really evaluate without more information. That seems a little more balanced than what you did in this thread, which is saying outright that the only difference is skin color.

I don't have some kind of stake in denying racism, and I don't feel guilty or accountable for other people who are being racist. I think it's important to identify racism where it exists, however I also think that hastily assuming racism and labeling and blaming groups based on that assumption can hurt things more than it helps.

 

[emperus]

Who can say what my motivation was for making the points, but why is that in question when the legitimacy of the points should be all that matters? I don't think that I'm trying to rationalize or ignore racism, I'm just trying to look at it from all angles, and I'm saying that there are a ton of variables that makes it hard to really evaluate without more information. That seems a little more balanced than what you did in this thread, which is saying outright that the only difference is skin color.
.

Interesting. Should the supposed legitimacy of your points be all that matters? The question I would ask is do you believe it is possible to find "legitimate" reasons for anything that happens? And if so should those legitimate reasons be all that matter when there is a greater context to those issues happening?

Wouldn't that be akin to a cop arguing that he pulled over a black driver because he was driving suspiciously when he drove slowly through a predominately white neighborhood. Or a neighbor who didn't recognize a black person running in the rain in their neighborhood when they called the police. Very legitimate reasons to pull over and stop the person, right? But if you looked closer at the scenario and saw that there were 10 cars with white drivers who drove through the neighborhood at the same speed and the cop only pulled over the black driver, would you still agree that a legitimacy of your point is all that matters? Or in the case of the neighbor that there were 3 other people, all white, unknown to the neighbor, running through the neighborhood, who they didn't call the police on. Would you still believe legitimacy of your point is the only thing that matters?

 

[Exophase]

When talking about something online the legitimacy of your point should be all that matters, yes. That's what we're talking about here. You shouldn't respond differently to my post depending on the color of my skin, just as I don't think anyone should respond differently to yours. Dismissing someone's argument on the basis of nothing more than their the privilege you say they have is deflective and unfair and not at all conducive to useful discourse.

 

[emperus]

When talking about something online the legitimacy of your point should be all that matters, yes. That's what we're talking about here. You shouldn't respond differently to my post depending on the color of my skin, just as I don't think anyone should respond differently to yours. Dismissing someone's argument on the basis of nothing more than their the privilege you say they have is deflective and unfair and not at all conducive to useful discourse.

Well we are going to disagree. I want to know why people make their points. How do those points change depending on situations. Everyone has a bias and I'd like to understand that bias to breathe depth into their point. And you can't by treating this type of discussion as one discrete point.

So what do you make of this?

A second hard truth: Much research points to the widespread existence of unconscious bias. Many people in our white-majority culture have unconscious racial biases and react differently to a white face than a black face. In fact, we all, white and black, carry various biases around with us. I am reminded of the song from the Broadway hit, Avenue Q: “Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist.” Part of it goes like this:
Look around and you will find
No one’s really color blind.
Maybe it’s a fact
We all should face
Everyone makes judgments
Based on race.
You should be grateful I did not try to sing that.
But if we can’t help our latent biases, we can help our behavior in response to those instinctive reactions, which is why we work to design systems and processes that overcome that very human part of us all. Although the research may be unsettling, it is what we do next that matters most.

http://www.fbi.gov/news/speeches/hard-truths-law-enforcement-and-race

 

[shortylickens]

I predict a thread closing. It's getting too racial in here.

So long as we just bad-mouth whites, we'll be OK.

 

[cabri]

I predict a thread closing. It's getting too racial in here.

Not as long as the mods are willing to allow his racial bigotry here.
If they were to close it; then he would throw a fit in that they have a racial bias.

 

[Exophase]

Here's another case where a group of six teenage girls brutalized a seventh girl while filming her (and where two boys sat guard).

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/12/us/12florida.html?_r=0

As far as I can tell, all involved were white. It was reported by several major news sites and the assailants were arrested.

Well we are going to disagree. I want to know why people make their points. How do those points change depending on situations. Everyone has a bias and I'd like to understand that bias to breathe depth into their point. And you can't by treating this type of discussion as one discrete point.

So what do you make of this?

I think that there's something to that and it's interesting and maybe insightful to consider what motivates people and what biases they have. I don't mind if we talk about what biases I may have and what biases as you may have here if you want.

What I do however mind is when the assumption of biases is used to dismiss someone's argument or point of view without giving that argument fair consideration. The person, their motivations, and their argument can (and should) be viewed separately.

 

[mizzou]

Media will serve up whatever the soup dejour' is. Right now it's racisim. Find anything that involves black people and serve it up. Once people are full of racism news, they will then be served with whatever dish is next. What is next? Who knows, maybe it's white college men behaving badly. It seems like people had the appetizer for the SAE scandal and they may be served more.

 

[BUTCH1]

You should probably understand the definition of the word before you actually use the word. But, it seems like the new go to word for Caucasians who want to play victim.

It's almost comical reading the responses here. Of course there are many other factors at play. The factors being that these people were white, the others were black and there it fits into the narrative of African Americans as animals and thugs.

How do you know this wasn't a gang attack? (Or are white people not in gangs?). The guy in this incident was seriously hurt, someone hit him over the head with a bottle and he was on the floor unconscious. But it wasn't news.



Just another day and another instance of white privilege.

The only thing "comical" is your not understanding why these two incidents are so totally different, it's St. Patty's day and a bunch of young people are drunk and a fight breaks out vs a vicious 6 on one gang attack. There have been plenty of coverage of stories of white people getting involved in gang attacks too but anyone with an IQ above 5 can easily see that it was a routine alcohol-fueled brawl, if you can't see the difference between that and a gang attack so fierce a tiny 15yr old was getting stomped in the head while she was completely defenseless then your an idiot.

 

[werepossum]

Different scenario, this was a free-for-all brawl outside a bar whereas the Mcdonalds incident had 6 girls beating the shit out of one smaller kid.

Well, we've already established that he feels a black man attacking a non-black man and breaking his nose is simply a fight. This is simply six fights that happened to occur in the same place, with one greedy kid being in on all six. Nothing to see here you racist bastards, just good clean fun.

 

[Fern]

Fight with Black Teens; News, Fight With White Teens; Not News

Things that make you go hmm....

Your whole premise is utterly destroyed by the weekly black on black shooting deaths in big cities that go unnoticed in the media.

Fern