Privilege - its not the problem

Response to:
http://andrea366.wordpress.com/2013/08/14/the-problem-with-privilege-by-andrea-smith/



I absolutely love its general premise, and could not agree more - though perhaps for slightly different reasons.

I have long questioned the entire idea of "privilege", and especially the focus on it.  If you are lucky enough to be middle class, its fairly easy to see inequality in terms of having some privileges or not.  One of those privileges is being able to (pretend that you) live in an insular world where an individual being culturally insensitive to another individual is one of the worst aspects of racism.

As a African American, who has lived most (but not all) of his life in poor, high crime, high minority urban areas, the entire sub-culture of race activists has always looked very shallow and meaningless to me.  It has always seemed much more about being able to say "I, in contrast to all those other (white) people, am enlightened."

What, exactly, does white people or men or straight people or whoever, acknowledging their privilege actually accomplish?

Lets say every single European American was fully aware, fully acknowledged, and fully internalized that they have privilege relative to other people.

Would that somehow instantly, magically, cause wealth and income inequality to disappear, so that whites were proportionately represented among the extremely poor (and I'm not talking "can't make car payments" or "home foreclosure" poor - I'm talking "can't afford a halfway decent bicycle" or "choose between rent and food" poor) - or better yet, make it so that everyone who has the ability and desire to work could live (what we currently consider) a middle class lifestyle?

Would it end the dramatically different levels of violent crime victimization?  For all the talk about police brutality, young black men are murdered by young black men somewhere on the order of 100 to 1000 times more often than they are shot by cops.  If enough white people acknowledged their privilege, would that stop?

Even from within this essay - its a great suggestion to make a point of having a non-college educated person speak for every college educated person.  Of course, given the context of the essay, doesn't that take it as a given that college graduates will be disproportionately white?  Of course that is true - why not work on changing it?  How would inviting non-college educated people to speak help to equalize the education gap?  That's a much bigger problem, one that effects many more people, much more profoundly, than who gets a chance to give a talk to a room full of people.

The entire concept of privilege, of race awareness, of cultural sensitivity, it is all the masturbation of activism: it feels good for the people doing it, but it doesn't accomplish anything.

So, overall, I'm glad this was written, glad it is saying what it is saying.  I fully agree with and support the basic premise.

That said, there are some particular things that stand out to me that I disagree with.

It is repeating / reinforcing the nearly universal assumption (among activists) that inequality today is caused by "structural forms of oppression" and "systems that enable these privileges".

My response to that is much the same as my response to the idea of privilege - how would dismantling any current system actually make anyone's life better?  More over, exactly what "systems" and "structures" would those be?  This is not 1900.  This is 2014.  Racist and colonial systems have ALREADY been dismantled.  And yet race disparity still exists.
That racism is explicitly illegal does not end the problem.  But it does change the problem - yet so many people are stuck thinking in terms that are no longer relevant.
Thinking that disabling oppressive structures will solve problems is like ending slavery (with not even the meager restitution which was initially promised) and expecting former slaves and their children will simply catch up via hard work.  It would take specific pro-active steps.  If every single boss and teacher became color blind, if every prison were closed, if every nation-state were dissolved, there would still be a culture of drugs and violence in the poor black community.  There would still be massive wealth and education inequality, and it would continue to go from one generation to the next. 

There was a time when activists realized this, which is why the Panthers created preschools, economics classes for adults, free medical clinics, and drug rehab programs; its also why, more recently, the program to try to at least begin to address education inequality was called "affirmative action".  Unfortunately, now that name has been taken, but its what we need - not reactionary and destructive dismantling of existing structure, but affirmative action

Much of the specifics are concerning not racism, but colonialism.  I find the portrayal of young American's returning from foreign lands with their "insights" as absolutely spot on.  But I find the suggestion that there is no clear way to deal with it rather odd - it's simple: leave other cultures alone.  Give them access to the knowledge of technology IF they want it, and otherwise leave them the hell alone.  You don't need to go and have your personal profound experience, any more than they need you to come in and save them from their lifestyle and choices.

The portion on nation-states strikes me as having an anarchist ideology at root which makes assumptions about what a nation-state is, which are not necessarily true.

Assuming that without them there would be less violence, less fighting over land, less oppression of one group by another, shows a profound lack of knowledge of history.  The nation-state has only existed for a few hundred years, but those problems have been far worse for most of history than they are today.  This is not to say that the specific methods of action discussed are not absolutely wonderful, positive developments.  Its more that, if the community movements talked about were to expand, and eventually make the state irrelevant - that means they have become the state.  And that's ok.  In fact, it is amazingly positive, because it would have meant a peaceful revolution, which brought (real!) democracy in from the ground up.  That is what needs to happen, all over the world (including America) - actual democracy.  Not what the US calls "democracy", which really means "open markets", but the kind where the people make the decisions of how the state will run and how economic structures will be organized.  That can happen just as easily within the model of a nation as it can without discrete borders.

As far as "safe spaces", my suggestion is this: get over yourself.  These issues are way way bigger than whether your feelings get hurt.  This is stuff that actually impacts millions of peoples lives in very tangible ways, and in order to address problems, sometimes people need to be real and direct and to the point.  Sometimes that means not being "politically correct" and sometimes it means not being "culturally sensitive".  Its not about you.  Deal with it. 

The essay is right to point out that being in an oppressed group does not automatically make you incapable of doing wrong, and a structure designed by an oppressed group is not automatically "oppression free".  People are people, and if you want to form something free from inequality or harm, you have to start out admitting you are not perfect, and then make a conscious effort to recognize and correct for your own biases and assumptions.  No one is immune to them, regardless of race or sex or personal experience.

Again; "as the rituals of confessing privilege have evolved, they have shifted our focus from building social movements for global transformation to individual self-improvement."

Yes.  This is true. And it is a problem, because it distracts people who are aware from doing anything useful.

Overall, my criticisms are relatively minor compared to how much I support the overall point.

Privilege - its not the problem

Response to:
http://andrea366.wordpress.com/2013/08/14/the-problem-with-privilege-by-andrea-smith/



I absolutely love its general premise, and could not agree more - though perhaps for slightly different reasons.

I have long questioned the entire idea of "privilege", and especially the focus on it.  If you are lucky enough to be middle class, its fairly easy to see inequality in terms of having some privileges or not.  One of those privileges is being able to (pretend that you) live in an insular world where an individual being culturally insensitive to another individual is one of the worst aspects of racism.

As a African American, who has lived most (but not all) of his life in poor, high crime, high minority urban areas, the entire sub-culture of race activists has always looked very shallow and meaningless to me.  It has always seemed much more about being able to say "I, in contrast to all those other (white) people, am enlightened."

What, exactly, does white people or men or straight people or whoever, acknowledging their privilege actually accomplish?

Lets say every single European American was fully aware, fully acknowledged, and fully internalized that they have privilege relative to other people.

Would that somehow instantly, magically, cause wealth and income inequality to disapear, so that whites were proportionately represented among the extremely poor (and I'm not talking "can't make car payments" or "home foreclosure" poor - I'm talking "can't afford a halfway decent bicycle" or "choose between rent and food" poor) - or better yet, make it so that everyone who has the ability and desire to work could live (what we currently consider) a middle class lifestyle?

Would it end the dramatically different levels of violent crime victimization?  For all the talk about police brutality, young black men are murdered by young black men somewhere on the order of 100 to 1000 times more often than they are shot by cops.  If enough white people acknowledged their privileged, would that stop?

Even from within this essay - its a great suggestion to make a point of having a non-college educated person speak for every college educated person.  Of course, given the context of the essay, doesn't that take it as a given that college graduates will be disproportionately white?  Of course that is true - why not work on changing it?  How would inviting non-college educated people to speak help to equalize the education gap?  That's a much bigger problem, one that effects many more people, much more profoundly, than who gets a chance to give a talk to a room full of people.

The entire concept of privilege, of race awareness, of cultural sensitivity, it is all the masturbation of activism: it feels good for the people doing it, but it doesn't accomplish anything.

So, overall, I'm glad this was written, glad it is saying what it is saying.  I fully agree with and support the basic premise.

That said, there are some particular things that stand out to me that I disagree with.

It is repeating / reinforcing the nearly universal assumption (among activists) that inequality today is caused by "structural forms of oppression" and "systems that enable these privileges".

My response to that is much the same as my response to the idea of privilege - how would dismantling any current system actually make anyone's life better?  More over, exactly what "systems" and "structures" would those be?  This is not 1900.  This is 2014.  Racist and colonial systems have ALREADY been dismantled.  And yet race disparity still exists.
That racism is explicitly illegal does not end the problem.  But it does change the problem - yet so many people are stuck thinking in terms that are no longer relevant.
Thinking that disabling oppressive structures will solve problems is like ending slavery (with not even the meager restitution which was initially promised) and expecting former slaves and their children will simply catch up via hard work.  It would take specific pro-active steps.  If every single boss and teacher became color blind, if every prison were closed, if every nation-state were dissolved, there would still be a culture of drugs and violence in the poor black community.  There would still be massive wealth and education inequality, and it would continue to go from one generation to the next. 

There was a time when activists realized this, which is why the Panthers created preschools, economics classes for adults, free medical clinics, and drug rehab programs; its also why, more recently, the program to try to at least begin to address education inequality was called "affirmative action".  Unfortunately, now that name has been taken, but its what we need - not reactionary and destructive dismantling of existing structure, but affirmative action

Much of the specifics are concerning not racism, but colonialism.  I find the portrayal of young American's returning from foreign lands with their "insights" as absolutely spot on.  But I find the suggestion that there is no clear way to deal with it rather odd - its simple: leave other cultures alone.  Give them access to the knowledge of technology IF they want it, and otherwise leave them the hell alone.  You don't need to go and have your personal profound experience, any more than they need you to come in and save them from their lifestyle and choices.

The portion on nation-states strikes me as having an anarchist ideology at root which makes assumptions about what a nation-state is, which are not necessarily true.

Assuming that without them there would be less violence, less fighting over land, less oppression of one group by another, shows a profound lack of knowledge of history.  The nation-state has only existed for a few hundred years, but those problems have been far worse for most of history than they are today.  This is not to say that the specific methods of action discussed are not absolutely wonderful, positive developments.  Its more that, if the community movements talked about were to expand, and eventually make the state irrelevant - that means they have become the state.  And that's ok.  In fact, it is amazingly positive, because it would have meant a peaceful revolution, which brought (real!) democracy in from the ground up.  That is what needs to happen, all over the world (including America) - actual democracy.  Not what the US calls "democracy", which really means "open markets", but the kind where the people make the decisions of how the state will run and how economic structures will be organized.  That can happen just as easily within the model of a nation as it can without discrete borders.

As far as "safe spaces", my suggestion is this: get over yourself.  These issues are way way bigger than whether your feelings get hurt.  This is stuff that actually impacts millions of peoples lives in very tangible ways, and in order to address problems, sometimes people need to be real and direct and to the point.  Sometimes that means not being "politically correct" and sometimes it means not being "culturally sensitive".  Its not about you.  Deal with it. 

The essay is right to point out that being in an oppressed group does not automatically make you incapable of doing wrong, and a structure designed by an oppressed group is not automatically "oppression free".  People are people, and if you want to form something free from inequality or harm, you have to start out admitting you are not perfect, and then make a conscious effort to recognize and correct for your own biases and assumptions.  No one is immune to them, regardless of race or sex or personal experience.

Again; "as the rituals of confessing privilege have evolved, they have shifted our focus from building social movements for global transformation to individual self-improvement."

Yes.  This is true. And it is a problem, because it distracts people who are aware from doing anything useful.

Overall, my criticisms are relatively minor compared to how much I support the overall point.

If I Were Elected King of the Country

My new friend asked me a few weeks ago, "what would you change about the world, if you had the power to?"

She said she tried to ask all new people she met that question.

She said it was surprising how many people didn't have an answer because they had never thought about it.

I couldn't answer, but for a very different reason.

I just couldn't sum up, couldn't choose from the list what to say first.

I've been thinking about it ever since then, and I still can't find any way to tie all the various things together, so, instead of going into the detail about how and why for each one, I think I'll just list as many as I can think of.

(and if anyone wants elaboration on any in particular, ask me as a comment, and maybe I'll make that one its own post)

These are in no particular order:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Election day would be a national holiday.  No one could be forced to work more than a 4 hour day on election day. 

Anyone not registered to vote would pay a small annual penalty with their taxes.

Judges would be subject to recall by popular vote.

Congressional, presidential, and governor terms 6 years.

All term limits would be eliminated.

All elections would be instant run off type (or another equivalent to eliminate "lesser of two evils" votes).

Party, primary, and electoral college systems eliminated.

Voter initiative process on federal level, and all 50 states.

All campaign related ads would be banned from TV, radio, print, direct mail, and billboards, starting 1 year prior to any election.  Each candidate or initiative would receive expanded space in the official election guide.  All statements made that could not be verified by an independent 3rd party fact checker would be marked with an asterisk.

No individual could donate more than $500 to any campaign or political organization in a year.  No company or corporation could donate any amount to any campaign or political organization.  No union, church, or other group could donate without 100% unanimous consent of all members, and then no more than the equivalent of $100 per member.  For any amount an individual spent out of pocket for a campaign, they would have to contribute an equal amount to the public campaign fund. 
All of this would be less important, giving the ban on media ads.

Media (of any form) which reports any mistaken information or error as factual, would be required to report the correction with equal or greater prominence and length of time as the original mistake (if error was headline for 3 days, retraction must be headline for 3 days)

Public school would be paid at the national level, by number of students (regardless of performance).  Any outside income (gifts of cash or supplies by parents for example) would reduce funding by 50% of the amount of income (i.e. parent donates $100, then federal funding is reduced by $50), used for the pool, to benefit schools with less generous parents.

Teacher training and classroom curricula would be evidence based

No multiple choice test could be used for assessment.  Guiding principal should be teaching for understanding, not just retention of facts.

Preschool and kindergarten would both become mandatory and free.

2 and 4 year college / university would be voluntary, free for any family below median national income.

All college finals would be administered one semester after the end of the class (to test for long-term retention)

Public school teacher salaries would be cut by roughly 5-10% (approximately the amount private school teachers make), principals and administrators by 25-50% (to be within 25% more than teachers).  All of this extra money would go to hiring more teachers to reduce classroom size. 

Teachers would have at least 15min of prep time for each 55min of instruction.
They would be eligible for overtime after 112 hours per month(equivalent annual hours to other jobs, considering summer and other breaks - after reduced work hours, (see below))

Cognitive biases, logical fallacies, and predictable irrationality would be a required course in middle school, high school, and college (beginning, intermediate, and advanced, respectively).

Drug use would be decriminalized.  Selling without a license would not be.  Prostitution and gambling would also be legal, (though regulated and taxed).

No law or regulation could stay in effect unless it can be shown to tangibly benefit some individual or society as a whole.

No censorship of "indecency" (nudity, sex, language)

Sex ed would be taught in preschool, 5th grade, and 12th grade, each class more advanced and in-depth (the first would be similar to current Jr High level, the last would be equivalent to college Human Sexuality course).  It would be a graduation requirement, so no opt out.

It would be illegal to formally teach any child below the age of 18 any form of religion, (other than in a historical or sociological context).  This would include attending services.

Churches would no longer be tax exempt.

No government recognition of religion or God, even in a neutral, non-specific way (e.g. "...One Nation, Under God..." or "In God We Trust")

All pronouns would be replaced with gender neutral ones.

All restrooms and locker rooms would be unisex (with individual stalls, and/or separate areas of the room optionally)

Combat and infantry roles would be available to women in the military.

No government or business could mandate different dress codes by gender.

This would include that women could be topless anywhere that men could.

Public beaches and parks would be clothing optional.

All laws on sexual assault, age of consent, marriage, etc would be gender neutral (this would, among other things, inherently legalize gay marriage).

No cosmetic surgery (including circumcision and pierced ears) before the age of 18

All subsidies and price controls for feed crops would be eliminated.

Minimum standards for animal welfare would include daily access to outdoors and a diet resembling a "natural" one - i.e. herbivores could not be fed animal by-products, nothing would be fed manure, nor its own specie, nor a reciprocal specie (i.e. Animal A is fed animal B, and animal B is fed animal A)

All new cars would be governed to a maximum of 65mph, or to the maximum of the state is is sold in, whichever is lower.

Each lane on any highway with 2 or more lanes in each would direction would have specified lane speeds. A two lane would have a maximum speed of 65 and minimum of 55 in the left lane, and max of 55 and minimum of 40 in the right. 
For a 3 lane, from the left, the speeds to maintain would be 60mph, 50, and 40 (each +/- 5mph).  A 4 lane would be 60, 55, 50, and 45 (+/-5).  A 5 lane would be 60, 55, 50, 45, 40 (+/-5). 

Speeds on all highways would be monitored by randomly placed, (and periodically moved) radar machines - a combination of the radar systems that say "your speed is:" and the camera detection system that catch red light and toll violators.  Like the latter, they would look up registration by plate number, and mail you your ticket.

The first 2 violations would be warning.  The 3rd would be a $100 fine.  The 4th would be a $500 fine.  The 5th would be one week mandatory community service.  The 6th would be license suspension for a year.

No one could get a drivers license without an intensive driver's ed class (50 hours minimum).  It would cover all the basics, plus: changing oil, checking tire pressure / fluid levels, changing a wheel, and safety check - cone tests, parallel parking, driving in reverse - calculating speed, distance, and time, as well as braking distance and impact force at different speeds - fuel economy, basic hypermiling - safe and legal bicycle operation - auto crashes, causes and prevention - practical accident avoidance, using simulator - poor weather handling, rain, ice, snow, fog, and glare - driving with manual transmission.  The final test could not contain any multiple choice questions, and would cover all topics, some as hands on skills tests.

Driving class (as above) would have a 2-3 day mandatory refresher course every 10 years - every 5 years before age 25 and after age 60, as well as after every moving violation or accident

No communication device while driving (including hands free) except 2-way radios used in the course of a job which involves driving (truck and taxi drivers, emergency services)

Public safety tax based on weight for all motor vehicles, added to annual registration (i.e. one pays for the additional risk to everyone else caused by their choice to buy a 3 ton SUV rather than a 1 ton car) - based on the grand total public cost of all accidents, divided by the total number of registered cars, proportioned by weight.

Anyone found to be 1% or greater at fault in any auto "accident" would be automatically charged with criminal negligence.

Revoke mandatory airbags, seatbelts, crash rating standards.

Traffic lights would flash green before turning yellow (as in Mexico).  They would flash red before turning green (so you know to turn your engine back on)

Stop signs would be considered yield signs for bicyclists (as in Ohio)

All 4-way stop sign intersections would be converted to either a 2-way stop, a traffic circle, or a stop light.

All major one-way streets would have timed / synchronized stop lights.

50% tax on retail gasoline, money used to subsidize public transit.

At rush hour, instead of a carpool lane, the left most lane would be for commercial vehicles (being used for work, not for commuting), transit, emergency services, and people with permanent disabilities only.  On highways with 3 or more lanes, the next one over from the commercial / handicapped lane would be for carpools of 4+ people, plus toll road paid by electronic RFID tag

Upper limit of inheritance or gifts of $10,000.  The government income from estates would replace all (or at least most) of the income tax.

The rate for any remaining income tax would be at least half for earned income (wages / salary / commission) as for unearned income (dividends, capital gains, gifts, prizes).

The tax rate on unearned income would be steeply progressive, with a maximum rate of 99% after $100,000.

One may only own land which you personally live and/or work on - i.e. a maximum of two parcels (one for work, one for home) per person.  They can be any size, so long as they are a) continuous and b) actively and directly used by the owner in some way.

No one could have more than 2 households as tenants, and then only if the tenants share the same parcel that the landlord lives on.

Corporate charters would only be granted for very specific circumstances, where it is demonstrated that the product or service offered could not be provided by a privately held company, and that it is of overall benefit to society.  Any charter application which met those standards and was granted would be for a specific and limited time period - 1 year by default, 5 years with requested extension, 10 years considered with an explanation of the need for a longer time period.

Patents and copyright would be good for 10 years, or until a 25% return on investment was made by the patent/copyright holder, or until the applicant dies whichever came first.

Business licenses and fees would be by percentage of net income, not flat amounts.

Business insurance companies would be required to offer a broad range of coverage and deductible amounts, so that small scale and hobby businesses with low maximum potential risk could afford coverage.

Any form of business could be run out of one's residence unless a specific risk or harm to the neighbors could be demonstrated.  "Lowering property values" would not in-and-of itself be a valid form of harm.

Employers would not pay for the employees' payroll taxes.  The employee would cover the full amount of their own social security and medicare taxes.

Employers would also not cover medical insurance, but that would be irrelevant, because there would be nationalized, single payer, health care.

1/2 of company profit would be distributed equally among all employees, without regard for title or position.  Any increase in efficiency due to improved technology that were not passed on to the consumer would be distributed to employees either in the form of fixed hours and increased salary, or fixed salary and decreased hours.

No one could sue for loss of profit.

A company with more than zero profit could not lay off employees.

Overtime would be anything over 86 hours per month, would pay time and a half, no exceptions by profession, would apply to salary and commission as well.  Double time after 172 hours in one month.

No company or corporation could buy another.

No company could have more than one location, except in those cases where the nature of the company required multiple locations (such as delivery service).  Exception could be made on a case by case basis, if the expansion could be shown to benefit society as a whole enough to offset the anti-competitiveness.

Any company based in the US, or with a majority of US shareholders, or with 1% or more of product exported to the US, must follow all US wage, safety, and environmental laws and regulations, regardless of the location of production.  (For example, if a company builds a factory in China, they still must pay US minimum wage if they want to export the product into the US)

No US military protection of private property, on US soil or abroad.  For example, US oil companies would have to pay for their own private security to guard pipelines.  Private corporate interests could not be considered "national interests", even if the product they produce is of value to the nation.

Any action of military or CIA is automatically war, whether or not it is officially declared.

Any action longer than 5 days must be approved by congress.  Any action longer than 60 days must be unanimously approved by all 50 states (via senators and/or governors).  Any action longer than one year requires majority vote of all US citizens.

Military budget reduced by 90% (give or take).  It could never be increased to more than 10% less than whatever nation has the highest military budget.

Universal conscription of all citizens at 18, both genders, deferments for medical issues, but no other reason.  Everyone must attend bootcamp.  After that, choice of 2 years of either military service, or civil service.

In middle school, high school, and college, reversible long-term birth control would be provided at no cost to both genders (yes, the technology exists).  This would be voluntary, and either child or parent could choose to opt out for any reason, however it would be the default - everyone would get it unless they actively choose to opt out.

(Voluntary) permanent sterilization would be provided at no cost to all adults.

All forms of contraceptive would be covered in full through health care.

Child tax credits would be eliminated.

Welfare would provide a fixed amount per household - it would not increase with additional children.

Universal, single payer healthcare - however, in order to engage in certain high risk activities, you would have to opt out.  You would present your opt out card before buying cigarettes, and to get a registration sticker with a stripe which indicates you may drive a car without a seatbelt of ride a motorcycle without a helmet.  Possibly also for purchasing more than a certain quantity of alcohol at one time, and certain foods.  Anyone who opted out could be refused service at any hospital unless they pay in full in advance, even in emergencies.  They could still purchase private health insurance, if any private insurer wanted to cover them.



Citizenship would not be automatic:
At age 18, each person would need to pass the same citizenship exam that immigrants have to pass (this would be covered in high school). 
They would  have to go to military bootcamp, and then either serve in the military or in civil service for 2 years.  They would have to register to vote. 

Anyone choosing not to apply for citizenship would be considered a native resident. 

Native residents would not have to pay any taxes.

They also could not vote or run for office.  They would not be eligible for public assistance, including health care and (college level) education.  They could not drive motor vehicles on public roads, nor sue in court.  They would be responsible for the labor, fuel, and expenses if using emergency services such as police or firefighters. 

One could apply for citizenship at anytime, up to age 40, however, once revoked, you could not get it back for 15 years, and would have to begin the process from the beginning.

Awareness of white privilege VS actually working to change it

• Apr 28, 2010

Awareness of white privilege VS actually working to change it

A couple friends of mine are taking a class on being a "white ally" - race awareness and relations, power and privileged, and counteracting racism.

One of them mentioned to me some critical feedback she had offered and it got me to thinking in more detail what has always bothered me about those sort of discussions, but up until now never quite pinned down.

The following is not a commentary on that class in particular, as I know essentially nothing about it, but rather a critique of a few general ideas I have heard and read on the topic in the past:

1 There is no such thing as "people of color"
-The impact of past racism (including slavery) and present racism does not effect all races equally, nor all in the same way.
- A black american and a white american likely have more in common with each other than with a fresh-off-the-boat Vietnamese person. A white american whose family has been in the US for generations likely has more culture in common with a black american than with a first generation eastern european immigrant with whom they share skin color.
-The very term "people of color" encourages white people to think in terms of a false dichotomy of 'us' (all white people) and 'them' (everyone else). It not only homogenizes all other races, it also makes everyone not white into an "other".
-Lumping all non-white cultures into one category, while giving white an entire separate category in itself suggests a type of superiority.
-This dichotomy also discounts the existence of mixed race individuals (officially 2% of US society, but really much higher - most surveys, as well as society, force people to choose one identity, even if they are in fact mixed)

2 Historical racism is the single largest cause for modern black poverty, and poverty does generally correlate with crime. However no historical or sociological factors can excuse individual behavior. No matter what circumstances a person is born into, they have a choice about their own behavior. Apologizing for, ignoring, discounting, or explaining away black crime rates, drug rates, or general anti-social behavior (e.g. boombox on a crowded train) does nothing to increase equality, and does not bring less conscious white people about as allies.

3 Discrimination is explicitly illegal. Talking about "institutionalized" or "systemic" racism does not address the issues which are most relevant today. While there are still white supremacists in the US, their view has become as unacceptable in mainstream society as it once was only among civil-rights activists. The president of the US is 1/2 African. This does not mean that the conversation about race is over. However, it does mean it is time to change that conversation.

For example, talking about power hierarchies is mostly nonsensical today. If racism = racism + power (as is often claimed by race activists), this does not imply that only whites can be racist, because whites do not have any particular power over other races. There are minorities in the role of police officer, judge, congress person, boss, professor, etc. as well as whites in poverty, in jail, or otherwise powerless. If you ignore all individual circumstances and look only at the whole society, then no one can be racist, because society is no one person.

4 Rarely is it explicitly acknowledged how much - and in what way - individuals (primarily, but not exclusively, white) continue to benefit from past racism. This nation was taken by force from the American Indian, built largely by African slaves (as well as Asian indentured servants) and thanks largely to not only racism, but also inheritance and locally funded education, past disparities directly result in present disparities. Even if one's own ancestors never killed Indians or owned slaves, the mere fact of living in this country means you personally benefit from those who did.

5 Not all non-white people are poor. Not all white people are middle class or wealthy. Class and race are not interchangeable. To speak about them as if they were interchangeable represents a stereotype - it implies a universal truth based on a statistic. The implication itself is racist.

Replacing discussions of poverty, economics, and class with discussions of race is a tool those with power (white, yes, but a special subset of white people - wealthy conservatives) use to polarize the working class. They emphasize criminals and welfare recipients (read: blacks) or immigrants (read: hispanics) and leave unspoken as a given the unity between white Americans of different classes. This helps prevent what should be a natural alliance of the lower class against those who exploit them.

6 What keeps the racial status quo in our society is not a social issue, but rather an economic one.
What too few people talk about is the way in which the condition of one generation affects the next.
After slavery blacks were supposed to get land. This was not a hand-out, but merely a way to compensate, to allow them to begin to catch up. This never happened.
Since poverty is inherited just as surely as wealth, the only way to level the playing field short of paying reparations (with 145 years interest) today would be a strict inheritance tax on not only the wealthy, but the middle class. This would include not only cash, but things such as houses and family businesses.

The single largest factor in predicting an individuals success in life is their education. Pre-school is the best indicator of how well a child does in school. It will be impossible to ever have a equal society without universal, mandatory, publicly financed pre-school. Schools in America are funded 50% or more by local taxes. This system guarantees that schools in poor areas are underfunded and schools in wealthy areas have better resources and an easier time keeping good teachers. Locally funded public schools is an amazingly effective method of retaining the status quo, while appearing on the surface to be neutral and fair. To counteract generations of inherited poverty, ignorance, and a cultural mindset of being separate from society, America should be offering fully funded college for all low-income high-school graduates. And because poverty and ignorance are inherited no matter one's color, this should be extended to anyone who can't afford it.

Racism, in the sense of individual people with power holding stereotypes about a race and acting on that prejudice against individual members of said race, is a relatively small factor in modern America. Formally institutionalized racism is a thing of the past.
Were all of society, at all levels, to suddenly become "color blind", the trends set in motion hundreds of years ago would continue none-the-less. For this reason educating individuals about the existence of "white privilege" can not do much to change anything. If energy is going to be invested into change, it should be invested where it will do the most good.

Its one thing to be aware of culturally insensitive language. It is another all together to recognize that the economic system we take for granted perpetuates the impact of slavery, and that no matter how aware one is in their personal relationships, you directly benefit from the current system - and then work to change that system, even if it means undermining your own economic advantages.

This would mean advocating significant increases in middle class taxes, to fund more social programs. This would mean taking the time to counter the "tea-party" people, pointing out that true justice demands a redistribution of wealth. It would mean protesting to get colleges fees raised, in order to pay for scholarships. This would mean, instead of donating money / time / materials to your own children's school, donating that same time and money to the poorer district a few miles away.

Me personally, I have been called ni**er on more than one occasion. But (not counting by other black people who use it casually - that is whole different topic) it has been in each case by a meth addict (one disowned by her family, and the other evicted from a trailer park). These are people with no power, no influence. These are people so low on the social strata, all they have left to feel even mildly good about themselves is to find someone to hate, for any reason they can. As much as it roils the blood to hear it, they are harmless. The people and ideas that maintain the status quo - including associations of particular races with poverty, drug use, crime, etc - are not overtly racist; in fact, in most cases not even necessarily sub-consciously racist. Racism set up the status quo, but economics is what maintains it.

Capitalism, the free market, individualism, and the republic system of government (as opposed to true democracy) all play a part in maintaining the present as it was in the past. If we want a just society, those are the things that we need to look at first.

Flat Tax

• Mar 13, 2010

Flat Tax

The science essay I told everyone I was working on has been written, and is in the final editing stages.  It will still be a while before it is ready for prime time though.

In the meantime, here is a short thing I wrote a while ago to someone (don't even remember who anymore) about the concept of a flat tax:

----------------------------------------------------------

The standard arguments for a flat tax make a couple of giant - and totally false - assumptions:

1)That the money which the rich spend and invest creates economic activity, growth, and jobs

2)That the rich have earned and therefore are entitled to their money.

3)That taxing the working class would generate more total tax money because there are so many more of them to tax

1)The investments of the rich do not generate economic activity. If they were not hoarding it, that same money would still be around. Business could get capital from government and bank loans, and from the stock market. That is, in fact, the whole point of the stock market, that capital is obtained from many small sources instead of one giant one.
Its as if one person hoards all the hammers in town, and rents them out to people, then wants credit for the houses other people built with them. If they weren't hoarding the hammers, the hammers would still exist. If they were distributed equitably, no one would need to rent them, therefore building would be cheaper, therefore more would get built. In this way the fact that someone is hoarding and charging interest actually depresses economic activity, because those hoarding the cash skim a little off the top of every financial transaction thereby increasing its cost.

2)The super rich do not earn, and therefore are in no way "entitled" to or "deserve" the money they have. Extremely few of the top 0.1% of wealth holders got there from some brilliant invention, and even fewer of the top 0.01%, 0.001%, and so on. Those at the very top get their wealth primarily from inheritance, and then build on it by collecting dividends and capital gains. They do not actually go to a job and do useful productive work.
Those who do make a salary are not necessarily earning their money either. CEOs make multimillion dollar salaries plus bonuses even when they run their companies into the ground, as we saw just recently, with even companies that needed to be bailed out with tax dollars giving their CEOs multimillion dollar bonuses.

3)The bottom 40% averages about 20k a year. Total annual income is 2.4 trillion.
The top 0.1% averages 7 million a year. Total annual income is 2.1 trillion.
300k rich people have nearly the same total income between them as 120million working class people.

The top 1% averages over 1million a year. Total annual income is 3.3 trillion, far more than the sum of every working class person in the country.

You could tax the working class at a rate of 69% of income and still not bring in as much tax money as you would by taxing the rich at a rate of 50%.
You can't squeeze blood from a turnip.

Furthermore, if you did that, the rich are left with, on average, half a million a year.
Half a million which, remember, they didn't really earn.
The poor are left with $6200.

In order to make a flat tax even approach "fair", you would have to make several other large changes to level the playing field.

First off, you have to eliminate ALL inheritance.  That means 100% inheritance tax on everyone, from ultra wealthy to middle class.  You earn your money in your lifetime, and then it gets recycled back into society.  There is no justification to say that a person is entitled to money they did nothing to earn. 

Second, you have to make education both free and mandatory from pre-school to at least bachelor's degree, if not more.

Third, you have to distinguish between income that comes from doing productive work (wages) from un-earned income such as dividends, interest, and capital gains.  Someone who merely skims off the top of other peoples work should be taxed at a higher rate then someone who actually earns their pay by working for a living and positively contributing to society.

When libertarians and the wealthy begin to fight to level the playing field, then and only then can they claim that a flat tax is about "fairness"

A flat tax is both impractical and immoral.

The Wine Barrel (population and parenthood)

• Dec 4, 2009

The Wine Barrel (population and parenthood)

The Earth has been around about 5 billion years, life about 4 billion.
Half a billion years for animals, 200 million for mammals.
200,000 years of humans.
For the first 192,000 years or so, the human population was under 10 million people world wide.
Increasing 10 fold took 6000 more years.
We rocketed from 100 million to a billion in just over 2000 years.
The next billion only took 120 years.
And then 30.
And since the 1950s, we have added a billion people every 13 years or so.

We are at around 6.75 billion people now.

Its estimated that it will hit 9 billion in about another 30 years.

That new 2 and a quarter billion people will be our children.



We like to point to the 3rd world, to Asia and Africa, but in the measure that matters, the US is by far the most overpopulated country in the world, as well as one of the fastest growing.



Population is only an issue because of the finite resources the Earth can provide.  If we had unlimited resources there wouldn't be any reason not to keep increasing indefinitely.

If everyone used the same amount of water, land, and energy, and caused the same amount of pollution as the average person in the third world, we would all be ok for a long time to come.  Due to lack of ability, what we call poverty, people in the third world tend to use less than their share of world resources.
The average person in the first world uses 5 times more than the overall world average.
The average American uses 20 times more.  Each of us uses about 20 times more water, 20 times more fuel and electricity, 20 times as much land to produce our food, produces 20 times more waste and pollution. 
Which means that in the big picture, each of us counts for 20 people.

So our 305 million population may as well be 6.1 billion, far more than China's 1.3 billion.  They would have to increase some combination of actual population and consumption per person by far before we could legitimately point the finger at them.

It also means that each child we have counts as 20 people, turning our fertility rate of 2.1 (already above the replacement rate of 2) into the equivalent of 42 per woman, 6 times higher than the highest rate of any third world country - and almost 17 times higher than the world average.



In the US alone there are 200,000 children waiting to be adopted.



It is one of the most basic and universal desires to reproduce.  How could it be any other way? Because if that drive weren't passed along genetic lines, our ancestors wouldn't have bothered, and we wouldn't be here to think about it.

There has been a widespread assumption that just because it is natural and universal, therefore it should be considered a "human right".

Our modern world does not resemble the savanna we evolved on. 
We also have biological instincts to eat whenever food is available just in case there is no food tomorrow - and the result is rampant obesity. 
Violence is natural and universal, but we agree as a society that the costs are not acceptable and make the conscious decision to repress it, both as individuals and as communities.
A good number of us make the conscious choice to go against instinct and manipulate ourselves in ways that take into consideration the reality of our world.  We don't eat everything in front of us, we repress violent impulses - and we make a conscious choice not to breed.
Because, humans can do that, we can think and make choices.


To make wine or beer, you start with grape juice or grains and add microorganisms.
For them it is an incredible feast!  Sugar and carbs as far as the eye can see, no predators, no competition, perfect weather.  So of course they have a really good time, girl fungus meets boy fungus, there's plenty to feed the babies and things just couldn't be better.  And then after a while they literally die from drowning in their own waste products as the population gets completely out of control.
(And then we drink that waste product, but that's another topic entirely)

Human beings, in theory, are a lot more intelligent than yeast.  Yeast don't even have brains.  As individuals we can choose not to have children.  But as a whole, an outside observer would not see much difference between the two species.  As a whole, we continue to breed at a rate related only to the resources available today, with little or no regard to how sustainable those resources are.

A great many people - including liberals and environmentalists and those who are childless by choice - become indignant when this topic is brought up.  Reproduction is considered by many to be a fundamental (God-given?) right, and suggesting otherwise brings to mind eugenics programs, or the murder of female infants when China first instituted its one-family/one-child program when sons were the only form of social security the society had.  Those are not inevitable outcomes. 

As a specie all societies choose to discourage some of our natural instincts in such a way that slight personal restrictions result in a far happier society over all.  It may be perfectly natural for me to want to punch some annoying person right in the face, but the government isn't going to give me a tax break for doing it.
Just the same, it is only natural that I want to have my own kids, related to me by DNA, but if it is going to end up making life that much more difficult for all of the people who are already here, perhaps a tax penalty is more appropriate than a credit.

Average cost for fertility treatment is $12,000, and 12% of US couples seek it.  In about 1/2 the states this is covered by insurance.

Given the 200,000 existing children who need homes, I find this immoral.  Think what medical services could be provided to people who are already here with that $4 billion.


Governments could, at the very least, encourage people to have less children simply by removing tax breaks for kids. 
I don't actually think that is going to happen.

But you and I can still choose on our own to act, even if everyone else isn't likely to fall in line.  It's been calculated time and again that simply having a baby has greater impact than all the imported GMO processed food and single-person commutes in SUVs one could ever hope to have.  From an ecological standpoint, it would be better to drive a hummer and eat at Mickey Ds but adopt your child then to live the hippy lifestyle in a solar powered yurt with a grey-water garden and create 3 brand new babies of your own.

And now we get to the real crux of the matter:

Being aware of this, just how much personal sacrifice are we willing to make?  I want the experience of creating a child.  I also want to avoid being an amoral  hypocrite.  (A moral hypercrite? Yes.  I aspire to be a hypercrite someday.) 

Like most people, I have developed a defensive rationalization to allow me to not feel guilty about doing what I wanted to all along, even though I really know better.

The way I see it, I personally can't be expected to be held responsible for or make up for the excessive consumption of everyone else around me.  I couldn't if I wanted to.  I personally have a sustainable ecological footprint (i.e. if everyone on the planet used the same level of resources as me, we'd all be set indefinitely).  If me and my hypothetical future partner have 2 kids, once we die, overall, the population hasn't gone up.  If we have just one, its gone down by one.  That seems like a decent compromise to me.  I'd like to have one, and adopt one.  (As a bonus, I can choose to have one of each gender, and more precisely choose the age spread).

Many people object to ideas around population control as an emotional response to implied guilt about already having children, and feeling defensive about kids that are already here.  A potential person has nothing in common with a real human being who is actually here.  Acknowledging that resources have a finite rate of renewal is not a personal attack on you. No one is saying your child isn't wonderful or that you made any "wrong" choices. All I am saying is, however many blessings you have, stop now.

Similarly some people in these discussions suggest that any one who advocates population control should kill themselves if they really mean it.  This equates the mere idea of a person, a hypothetical, potential person, with an actual specific person who is here right now, thinking and breathing and feeling.  We aren't talking about abortion here.  Not having a kid is not killing by any definition.  Any discussion about who a person who does not exist but might possibly is equally ridiculous.  That kid who could someday be is no more likely to become the next president than it is to be a serial killer who enjoys torturing victims. 

Bottom line is, having less children today will be much less painful than wars of dwindling resources some number of decades in the future.

Race (Whites still winning)

• Jul 28, 2009

Race (Whites still winning)

Recently a friend of mine suggested the only topics I haven't addressed are racism and sexism.
As it happens, I did write on sexism not long ago ("...feminism is nothing more than the "radical" notion that women are people. Not that women are men. Not that women are capable of being men...Claiming that women are capable of doing anything men are is also the suggestion that men should be the standard by which people are measured.")
I had my own ideas of what to write about next, but in light of another recent conversation, it looks like he was right. Its time.



I have a few (white) friends who have complained to me on different occasions about how unfair it is that ...insert some random instance of perceived "reverse" racism here...
I am, perhaps, the friend that people can point to and say "I am not racist, some of my best friends are black", and being that friend apparently my word carries extra weight if I support them in their argument that 'such and such' is unfair.
(Never mind for now what it implies about me that such a disproportionate number of my friends are white...)



Well, first of all, you are racist. You, reading this right now. Just admit it. I'm not saying you don a white hood on the weekends, but in the very first fraction of a moment you see someone new, you make some assumptions about them based on what they look like, and skin color plays a factor in that. You may not ever act on it in any way. You might be totally willing to look past that initial assumption and give each person a fair chance to show who they really are. But it is part of how the human mind works to seek patterns, and living in our society it is impossible to not be at all racist. I know I am.
Some researchers at Harvard built a test to try to get at subconscious initial reactions, and put it online where you can try it.
https://implicit.harvard.edu/..implicit/demo/
If you are one of the exceptions, and score neutral, it really doesn't change anything overall. The issue is bigger than you; and the fact is that the majority of people make the same assumptions we expect. And so long as its true in society as a whole, every white individual in the country directly benefits from it.

A most simple example of what some could see as unfair is Affirmative Action.
When I was younger I saw it as just that. If we want to get past racism, we shouldn't be using race as a criteria, for anyone.
Thing is, pretending that there is equality doesn't make it true.
To call affirmative action (or whatever else) reverse racism is to ignore both history and the reality of today. Being color blind does not, can not, will never, solve existing problems, because we aren't starting from neutral.

First of all (and I wrote about this years ago, but before I had any significant readership...) reparations were never paid. This country has virtually unrestricted inheritance.
(I thought about trying to summarize, but I actually wrote pretty much exactly what I wanted to say here back then. So take a moment to read that one)
http://biodieselhauling.blogspot.com/2012/03/heading-14-in-which-reparations-are.html

Prejudice against blacks by whites has affected a dozen generations of people, and continues to have an enormous effect on millions of people right now, today. If we start from right now, and eliminate all racism, it would STILL have an enormous effect on us, because the effects are inherited.

If someone in your ancestry immigrated more recently the same issue of a non-level playing field applies, because the US generally does not admit immigrants who can't show some level of existing financial security. One way or another, they aren't starting from zero.

So suppose your own parents were drunks or gamblers and you got nothing from your family but food and shelter, left home at 15, had to fund your own education.
You then might get the mistaken idea that you didn't have any advantages.

But the truth is, although you would never notice it, you have had plenty.

You can't tell by just watching individual situations. Because it is more subtle than that.
But you can tell by looking at the overall trends.

You can see society wide racism in the fact that a black person is 5-20% (depending on the offense) more likely to be sentenced to prison time as a white person for the same crime.
(Many studies attempt to account for this by factoring in prior sentences, but this is a circular argument. If you are more likely to be convicted the first time, obviously you are more likely to be convicted the 2nd time too)
Once convicted, Blacks face 10-15% longer prison time.
For drug offenses:

"African Americans make up approximately 12 percent of the population and are 13 percent of the drug users, yet they constitute 38 percent of all drug arrests and 59 percent of those convicted of drug offenses...Nationwide African American males sentenced in state courts on drug felonies receive prison sentences 52 percent of the time, while white males are sentenced to prison 34 percent of the time...When sentenced for drug offenses in state courts, whites serve an average of 27 months and blacks an average of 46 months" - Justice on Trial: Racial Disparities in the American Criminal Justice System, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and Leadership Conference Education Fund, 2000

You can tell from college admission rates - with or without affirmative action
http://www.jbhe.com/news_views/56_race_sensitive_not_helping.html
http://www.jbhe.com/news_views/56_b_w_disparities.html
http://aad.english.ucsb.edu/..docs/op42.html

You can tell from the Black unemployment rate: consistently about twice the average for whites.
Or from the percentage of Black CEOs or congress people (1% of the Fortune 500 - the highest # ever; 40 out of 435 in congress and 1 out of 100 senators - these numbers in comparison to almost 14% of the general population.)

There are two ways to explain that difference. Either Black people as a whole actually are less capable and hard-working, or else the affects of society-wide racism are still as relevant today as they ever were.

If we can point to these examples and show statistically that, even accounting for individual intelligence and work ethic, Black people are overall at a disadvantage, another equally valid way to say the same thing is, all other things being equal, White people have an advantage.
Every college application. Every job interview. Every time you walk into a store. In that very first moment that someone takes a look at you, somewhere in the back of their mind is a prejudice in your favor. You will never notice it. You will have no way to know. But it's there.

Having a (half) Black president (who's African ancestry didn't descend from slavery but immigrated here) doesn't change anything of significance, so long as there is that fraction of a second of assumption that people make when they see someone new for the first time.

It's no different than if an Aboriginal American were to make some blanket statement about Americans taking the Indian's land. I am an American. I was born here. I worked for what I have now and am a generally good person. I never harmed an Indian American, never took anyone's land, never deliberately spread disease.
But the fact remains that every day I directly benefit from the people who did do those things.
I have no intention of giving up my own property or abandoning my home on the grounds that Oakland should rightfully be inhabited by Aboriginal Americans, but I certainly have no grounds to be indignant or self-righteous about the issue. As far as the actual effects go, I benefit just as much from Europeans having committed genocide against the people who lived here before them as someone directly descended from them. And merely by choosing to accept that benefit which I was born into, in a way, albeit small and indirect, I share in the responsibility for the fact that Aboriginal Americans today are by and large confined to reservations of land that no one else wanted, living largely in poverty.

We may not be directly at fault, but we are all complicit in receiving the benefits, which are at someone else's expense. So if an American Indian makes a blanket statement about Americans (which includes me) which may be technically unfair, all I can say is "your right, and I'm sorry". I have no counter-argument. I have nothing to complain about. I have no right to be indignant.

And so to, if someone makes a blanket statement such as "white people are racist" or "white people repress others", you don't get to be offended. You don't get to point out the logical flaws in generalizing. You don't get to call double standard or reverse racism.
It may be "unfair" that you are born into being seen as an oppressor, but it is even less fair that I have to prove myself just that much more than you do.
I have had friends "jokingly" say that I am not "really" Black, or not "that" Black because of how I talk and dress and act.  Those same associations, those stereotypes, they are racism, even if they aren't inherently negative, and accepting any one association implies all the others to be valid.  The fact that I can trace my own family lineage directly to American slavery on both sides of my family makes me Black.  The fact that every time I meet someone new, for at least an instant they will make certain associations and therefor assumptions about me makes me Black.

Have I experienced racism first hand? Not overtly. It would be hard to know for sure, since the person it was coming from is likely not conscious of it. Chances are, not so much. All it takes is a few minuets of talking to me and I can dispel any stereotypes pretty thoroughly, make a case for myself as an exception even with someone who is generally (subconsciously) racist, and I live in a place where it being overt is unacceptable (I learned in my travels that this is far from universal in this country).
But the point is I shouldn't have to.
Between being thought of as an oppressor and actually being oppressed, you have the better end of the deal. So suck it up and get over it.

Being color blind is not a solution. It is a cop-out. Pretending that slavery didn't happen, that racism has not been an enormous factor, and just focusing on the basic equality of man will not do anything to change things. If you need to here everything logical and fair, take a logic class, or a justice class, or a love everybody class. If you don't want to hear people say white people are racist and that's a bad thing, don't take a racial studies class.

Is it unreasonable for people to make blanket statements? Yeah, of course it is. But focusing on it isn't much different from telling a holocaust survivor that some Nazis didn't hate Jews, or stopping a conversation about rape because of improper grammar.


I don't want to end without offending everyone equally, so now is as good a time as any for another rant I have.

This one is directed to Black Americans.
Stop acting like jackasses.
We have centuries worth of stereotypes to put behind us.
Don't deliberately jaywalk extra slow just to make people wait for you.
Don't evade the fare on the train.
Don't drink or smoke weed in pubic.
Don't play music on the bus. When is the last time you saw a white person playing a boom box in the back of the bus?
Don't get into fist fights. People tried to make the shooting of Oscar Grant by BART police into a race issue. There were no white people involved in fist fights on the train. If he wasn't fighting on a crowded train, he wouldn't have gotten shot. Simple as that.
I have a 400watt stereo system with a separate powered sub-woofer behind the seat. I like my music loud, and to roll around with my windows down and my system bump as much as anyone. But when you are in a residential neighborhood at 11pm, turn that shit down. What the hell is wrong with you?
Years of oppression and poverty don't change the basic rules of being a decent respectful human being.
Remember earlier when I pointed out I have to prove myself each time I meet someone new? That's not because of a legacy of slavery. That's because of you.
People build impressions based on what they see, and each time you act a fool, it makes us all look bad.
Its true that Blacks are given disproportionate prison sentences, but it is also true that Blacks commit a disproportionate amount of (non-drug-related) crime
So when there is a statistic like 35% of the prison population is Black or 1/3 of black males between 18-29 has been, is, or will be imprisoned, part of that is systemic racism, but part of it is Black people committing crimes. It seems it has become un-PC to say so.
That's not OK. No amount of history or social issues can excuse individual behavior.
Obviously this behavior is the minority of the Black population, (although it is, inherently, a very visible minority). But if it isn't you, chances are its your friends, or your children, a family member or neighbor. And if you don't say something, no one else will. The single best way to change the perception of us is to eliminate unfavorable associations at the source.

I think its actually pretty simple and straight forward. We just need to eliminate all forms of inheritance, standardize education from preschool through university for everyone, make all hiring blind, and change young Black culture to emphasize respect of others. Those 4 steps and all this will become a non-issue in no time.
And when that happens, then we can finally have a purely logical and intellectual discussion on the subject.

In response to my last entry

·                     Dec 7, 2006

In response to my last entry

Thearticle in my last entry was written in 1932

74 years ago, and as accurate a portrayal of modern life today as it was then. 
Only the USSR he speaks of has fallen, adopting our system of "free market"
In the US production increases every year - an increase in per capitaGDP of over 7 times, or almost 10% per year; yet work hours have been constant ever since - slightly increasing for most, decreasing for some, balancing out to an average of... exactly the same: slightly more than the 40 hour week which was made standard not long before the essay was written.
Since productivity has increased 7 fold, while hours have remained constant, presumably median real income (after accounting for inflation) would presumably have also increased 7 fold.
In actuality, median pay has increased around 2.1 times from 1948 to 2004 (earliest data I can find).
The one thing this otherwise excellent essay misses is that, while the land holding privileged class of royalty has been eliminated, they have been replaced indirectly by the societal acceptance of virtually unrestricted investment returns and inheritance.
Through them the primary owners and controllers of major corporations have taken the place of a class which does not have to do any real work but can instead charge ordinary people for the privilege of living and working on their land or in their companies.
It is much more their choice than the workers themselves that, for example, when the pin making machine is invented and production per person doubles, the work force is halved instead of individual hours.
It is to the advantage of the company - or, more specifically the owners and investors - who do no actual work but keep a percentage of the earnings - to have fewer people with more hours, as there is always a per person cost in taxes and benefits above the cost of wages.
With the introduction of the labor saving device, the employing company couldchoose to have all employees work half as often with the same total pay.  The employees are only given the choice of cut hours at reduced pay or 50% lay offs.  Given that, they prefer to retain the 8 hour day.  Were the company to continue to pay the same weekly rate for less hours (or double the hourly rate and halve the hours) it would not lose any money.  It would be exactly where it had been all along.  If it had been sustainably profitable before, it would continue to be.
However, the assumption in our society is that the company gets to reap the full benefit of the new invention.
Thus the increase in GDP over the years is primarily concentrated in the hands of those who need it least.
It is not actually true in most years that "the poor get poorer while the rich get richer"
A more accurate statement would be "the poor get slightly richer while the rich get much much richer", which is really just as bad.



There are over 400 Americans with more than 1 billion dollars.
Few enough to fit in a large banquet hall or conference room.
Between the 400 richest individuals is personal ownership of 1.25 trilliondollars.
(worldwide there are 793 billionaires, with a total of 2.6 trillion - more than half are Americans)
The total GDP for the US is around 12.5 Trillion.
In other words, 400 people control 10% of all the wealth in the country.
Divided equally among the population, 12.5 trillion would mean $41,600 per person (including children and other non-workers)
These people, on average, have $3,125,000,000; or... 75,120 times the share they would have with equal distribution of wealth.
It may well be that some of these people, now or in the past, worked harder than the average person.
But 75,120 times harder?  Were they working a 3 million hour work week?  Do they contribute 75 thousand times more to society than average?
Draw your own conclusions:
(From Forbes Magazine)

"Developer John P. Manning used political savvy to build a $1.1 billion fortune in part by brokering low-income housing projects. Chesapeake Energy founders Aubrey McClendon and Tom L. Ward are two of the oil fortunes added to the list.

Pouring 40 million caffeinated drinks a week landed Starbucks honcho Howard Schultz on our list of America's 400 richest. Manny Mashouf placed his skimpy women's wear on TV shows like Party of Five and Ally McBeal; today he has a $1.5 billion fortune in Bebe clothing stores.
Also gracing our list for the first time are Lehman Brothers Chief Richard Fuld ($1 billion), hedge fund manager David E. Shaw ($1 billion), mutual fund guru Jonathan Lovelace Jr.($1.1 billion), Houston Rockets owner Leslie Alexander ($1.2 billion), leveraged buyout tycoon Leon Black ($2 billion), Google veteran Omid Kordestani ($1.9 billion), Colony Capital's Thomas Barrack ($1 billion), New York City real estate moguls Stephen Ross ($2.5 billion) and Tamir Sapir ($2 billion), and the husband-and-wife computer chip team of Weili Dai ($1 billion) and Sehat Sutardja($1 billion).
Black Entertainment Television founder Robert Johnson, who rebuilt his fortune with investments in real estate and restaurants, is among the 14 returnees to this year's list. Netscape pioneer James Clark is another retread; he reinvested his tech proceeds into Miami condos and construction outfit Hyperion Development Group following the burst of the tech bubble six years ago. Also returning is Little Caesar's founder Michael Ilitch ($1.5 billion), car dealership owner Robert Friedkin($1.2 billion), investors J. Christopher Flowers ($1.2 billion) and Alfred P. West ($1.2 billion), and banking and real estate maven Paul M. Milstein ($3.5 billion).
Once again the biggest gainer is casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, with a net worth up $9 billion. Adelson's Las Vegas Sands stock is up 125% since its public offering in December 2004. He has made almost $1 million an hour since the 2004 Forbes 400 list was published."
$1 million  an hour.

24; Taxes, and the contribution to society of the wealthy

·                     Sep 13, 2006

24; Taxes, and the contribution to society of the wealthy

Both in terms of justifying a flat tax and repealing inheritance taxes, Republicans, Libertarians, and all so-called conservatives, constantly say that the wealthy earn thier money, and produce the most in society, as though that were a given.

Simple Example.
Bill Gates, wealthiest man in the country.
Xerox invents the mouse as a computer interface.
Apple invented the user friendly "windows" environment for the personal computer, while IBM is still using things like BASIC and DOS.
Gates makes minor changes, is excellent at marketing, and makes enough deals with manufacturers to build a virtual monopoly.
Many of Microsoft's products are actually inferior to the competition (FireFox vs. Internet Explorer, for example), but by bundling products together, his company is able to corner the market on software - a practice which leads to major lawsuits in both the US and Europe.

None-the-less, he becomes the undisputed leader of computing.

His R&D team does the research and development.
His employees do the actual work.
He collects the checks.

Now consider his children.
They are born into billions of dollars.
What incentive do they have to contribute anything to society?

The same goes for any wealthy person.

They pay people to do their production for them.
The R&D team does the innovations, the workers do the actual production, and the CEO and board members run the business.
The owner/stock holders contribute little more than capital.
Capital which the most likely inherited.

If the concern is people being taxed on their hard-earned money, than why did a major tax cut go to stock dividends?
Why not apply the tax cuts to EARNED income. As in, someone goes to a job, produces something useful to society, and gets paid for it.

The wealthiest 0.1% of society contributes very little to society, except for taxes.

In considering the numbers of how much they pay, consider also how much they get to keep.

If a man makes 10,000 dollars, working minimum wage full time, and pays 10%, he keeps $9,000

If a man makes 1,000,000 dollars, and pays 90%, collecting interest on stock and bond investments from his billion dollar inheritance, he keeps $100,000

He contributes nothing to society or GDP (if he didn't have that money to invest, someone else would. He hasn't done any actual labor), yet he ends up with 100 times as much.

If you want to defend the notion that people keep what they EARN, you have to support ending the practice of inheritance, and tax unearned income at a much higher rate than earned income.

23; On immigration

·                                 Sep 12, 2006

23; On immigration

Imagine this:

A man wins the lottery. He hits the big jackpot, 23 million dollars.

Then, he gets taxed 1/3 of it, 7.6Million dollars.

This means he just got 15.4 Million, which he didn't earn, which he doesn't especially deserve, but which he gets to use on whatever he wants.

And he bitches and moans about having to pay that 7mil in taxes

"Its so unfair, why should everyone else get to profit off of MY money? Why should MY money pay for roads and health care and schools and firemen and police? I can afford those things on my own, I don't need the government!"

Who here thinks this man is not a selfish ass?

But, realize, that this man is every American bitching about illegal immigrants.

You didn't "earn" being an American
YOU GOT LUCKY BY BEING BORN HERE

You don't deserve to be an American anymore than anyone else in the world.

You still have it better than 99% of the illegals who do make it in. You have a better job. You have a better house. You have more money. You have a better future.

You say you work hard - but if you give them a SS#, they can get a real job and work hard too.
You say they don't speak English, but then you turn around and complain that they enroll in public schools
THAT'S HOW THEY FUCKING LEARN ENGLISH

You want them to learn the language, let them go to school.
How obvious is that?

You want them to work and pay taxes, let them get papers so they can.

You think the population is too big, don't have children,
and set up protest rallies for all the people from NY and OH and the rest who keep moving here.

Why does someone born in Kansas have any more MORAL right to move here than someone born in Baja Norte?

Not to mention that Europeans got this land largely by deliberately spreading disease to the people who were already here.  By whose standard is that "legal"?

If you want to distinguish between "legal" and "illegal", in all fairness we should require all American born individuals to take the standard citizenship exam, with deportation as the consequence for failure.

22; Wealth should be taxed

• Sep 11, 2006

22; Wealth should be taxed

Not all taxes have anything to do with working. There is sales tax, property tax, estate tax, taxes on non-earned income such as interest or stocks, corporate taxes on profit, on trade, etc. etc.

However, wealth is not taxed at all.

If a billionaire says "I have enough money to last a lifetime, I don't need anymore", doesn't work, doesn't invest, and rents a large house, he can live the rest of his life paying only sales tax.

The recent tax cuts were not all for earned income. Taxes on stock dividends and inheritance were lowered or eliminated, forms of income which a person does not earn, things which contribute nothing to society, (unlike actually working for ones money, as most of us do.)

The rich pay a lower percentage of their total wealth than does the poor.  (Note, I said wealth not income)

The taxes also affect them less.
Someone with 1 million dollars of income paying 90% taxes still has
$91,000 more than someone with 10 thousand dollars of income paying 10% in taxes.

The reason the rich pay the majority of the taxes, is because the rich have the vast majority of the wealth.

Since in the US the top 20% of the population controls 83% of the wealth, it is perfectly fair and reasonable that they should pay 83% of the taxes.

Since the top 1% controls 38% of the wealth, is it not reasonable that 1% of the population should pay 38% of the taxes?

Do we all honestly believe that those with amassed fortunes have been, and continue to be, that much more valuable to society that they shouldn't have to pay an equal percentage into society through taxes? Those who inherit their fortunes (which is at least half of the very wealthy), contribute little if anything to society, and never need do any real work. And yet many middle class, and even poor Americans feel those people are being treated unfairly.

We take this way of life for granted. Our level of income inequality is third highest in the 'developed' world after Turkey and Mexico. Every other 1st world country (if you can even consider those two to be 1st world) has a smaller spread between rich and middle and poor classes.
That's why the rich pay so much more.

heading 14; in which reparations are still due

• Aug 12, 2006

heading 14; in which reparations are still due

Imagine this:

Take two people: same age, same race, same education, same skills and intelligence, etc.  You give one $10,000 and set him out into the world.  You give the other nothing, and set him out in the world.  Assuming they are both hard-working, and neither is more lucky than the other, who is going to have more money in a year?  Who will have more in 50 years?  Who will have more to pass down to their children?

In no other time or place besides the United States were slaves considered live stock.  Slaves were historically usually prisoners of war.  In the US they were considered farm animals.

 Everyone should have learned this in high school history class:

The first permanent English colony, Jamestown: 1607
First African slaves brought to English colonies: 1619
Revolutionary war ends: 1783
Civil War ends: 1865
Desegregation of schools: 1955
Jim Crow / Civil Rights movement: 1950s-1960s

 From the time of the first colony, European Americans were able to earn and save money, and accumulate wealth which they could pass down via inheritance.  Certainly since the revolution ended European American's property was theirs, and their success was largely dependent on how smart they were and how hard they worked. 

The slaves which the vast majority of today's African Americans descended from were not allowed to keep property, and in fact were not even paid for their labor.  While they were legally "freed" after the civil war, segregation was legal, they could not vote, and few whites, (who already owned all the land and companies) would hire them.  Segregation was formally outlawed in 1955, and the civil rights movement of the 1960s was the first time they were fully allowed to have the same opportunities that whites had.

 So consider the dates above in another way:

 (assuming the average person starts a family at 20, which is young by today's standards, but not so strange for people in the 1800s)

time from Jamestown to present: 398 years (20 generations)
time from revolution to today: 222 years (11 gen)
time from end of civil war to today: 140 years (7 Gen)
time from civil rights movement to today: 40 years (2 Gen)

In other words, the difference in time for European Americans to accumulate wealth vs. African Americans is 358 years (18 generations)

When they were set free, they were supposed to each get 40 acres and a mule - this was specifically to make up for what I just pointed out. 
But for some reason that never happened...

For 246 years the United States got free labor from African Americans. 

This is more time than from the civil war to today.

The country never re-paid that debt. 
Thousands of employees, working 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 258 years. 

Today we have to pay it in other ways.  We have several choices as to how to repay it. 

We can pay for cops and prisons, because poor people are more likely to commit crime.  
We can pay for welfare.  
Or - we can pay for higher education, so that the poor have a chance to get the good jobs that will mean they don't need welfare or crime to get by.  
In fact, we do a little of each - but with a trend toward more of the former as a result of less of the latter.

There is, in fact, a very easy way to level the playing field for everyone, but no one will like it, even though it is entirely fair.

100% tax on UN-EARNED income.  If you did not EARN your money, you don't DESERVE it!
 Especially inheritance.  When your parents die and leave you money, you didn't do anything to earn that money, and yet we feel we are somehow entitled to it.  
Use that money, first of all, to make preschool and kindergarten universal.  Going to those early education or not has consistently been found to have a greater impact on future success than what particular district, schools or teachers, a child has.  Then use some to make the first two years of college free for everyone.  Re-distribute any left over wealth among every one.


If we tax all inheritance, re-distribute it equally, and equalize educational opportunity, then no one has any excuse for how they end up.  Success will be truly merit based.  
Then, it would be valid, if blacks are still poor, to say they are just lazy, or dumb, or whatever.  

Unfortunately, people think that taxing unearned income is immoral, so it'll never happen.  (of course, they do it in communist countries, but then, that has it's whole host of other problems). 
Earning money via interest from loans or the stock market is also not merit based, not based on how hard you work, but based solely on how much you already have (no matter how you got the capital in the first place). 

Jews, Christians, and Muslims should all know that the Bible forbids charging interest (as well as holding any debt more than 7 years, or holding back wages overnight) - although for some reason only the Muslims bother to follow that law...