LH - that was one of your best pieces; I enjoyed it.
Well done. 

Shi’ites and Sunnis kill each other because of different interpretaion over the status of Muhammeds son.

Ali was Muhammad’s son-in-law and cousin, actually.

If you compare married black families headed by college-educated parents to similar married white families, the black families actually make slightly more money.  Too bad that married black families are about as rare as hen’s teeth.
Too bad that married black families are about as rare as hen’s teeth.

Congratulations you when “prick of the year” award.

Just curious but just how many Blacks do you personally know? Or are you just basing that on what youy see on BET?

Personally from my experince, Blacks are no worse in terms of divource than Whites.

Congratulations you when “prick of the year” award.

Somebody had to steal it away from me sooner or later.

All pricks aside, an interesting article on the question of white and black marriage from the Washington Post: Marriage is for white people. Definitely worth reading.

Max: Just curious but just how many Blacks do you personally know? Or are you just basing that on what youy see on BET?

Personally from my experince, Blacks are no worse in terms of divource than Whites.

Oh, ok then.  I was going to use a more traditional source of information like the US Census Bureau.  But I guess if some guy named Max who I met on the internet says I’m wrong, I’ll just take his word for it. 

Max, your comment shows how completely out of touch you are with the breakdown of the black family unit.  Divorce?  DIVORCE???  ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?

Hell Max, you have to get married before you can get divorced.  7 out of 10 black children are born to parents who never married in the first place.  Divorce is the least of their worries.

“Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts.”—Daniel Patrick Moynihan.  Let’s look that the facts about black marriage and divorce.

African Americans have the lowest marriage rate of any racial group in the United States.

43.3 percent of black men and 41.9 percent of black women in America had never been married, in contrast to 27.4 percent and 20.7 percent respectively for whites.

African American women are the least likely in our society to marry.

In the period between 1970 and 2001, the overall marriage rate in the United States declined by 17 percent; but for blacks, it fell by 34 percent.

(source: US Census Bureau, via Joy Jones’ heartbreaking article in the Washington Post)

On the whole, Blacks or African Americans (hereafter called Blacks) have lower rates of marriage and marital stability than all other ethnic groups. They also have higher rates of single-headed families than other groups.

Black individuals are far more likely than Whites and Hispanics to be divorced (in 2002, 9.4% of Black males were divorced, and 13.3% of Black females versus 9.1 % and 11.3% respectively for Whites and 5.9% and 9.3% for Hispanics).

Black families are less likely to contain a married couple than all other groups (46.0% versus 81.0%). White families have an 81% chance of containing a married couple, AIAN families have a 67% chance, and Hispanics have a 67.4% chance.

(source: The US Dept of Health and Human Services)

These are the reasons why so many black children grow up in poverty.  Until black culture teaches its young men and women that sex and childbearing outside of marriage is wrong, nothing will change.

Until black culture teaches its young men and women that sex and childbearing outside of marriage is wrong, nothing will change.

I prefer pragmatism to morality.  Expecting kids to remain celibate from puberty until marriage in a society where marriage is not expected until the early to mid twenties, does not seem realistic.  A few manage it, to be sure, but you have to account for the majority who do not.

On the other hand, I have no problem with teaching kids that it is a very bad idea to have children outside of wedlock, and if you’re going to do it, you need to be in a relationship where both partners take responsibility for contraception.  This is all about responsiblity, is what I taught my own kids, and it pretty much rules out one-night-stands and promiscuity in general.

decrepitoldfool: “I prefer pragmatism to morality.”

With these or similar words, cultures begin the task of destroying themselves.

“For me, though, it is hard to neglect the history involved when considering the topic of racism.”

From my perspective, you would have to neglect the history involved to have:

“...sympathies [...] more with the historical (and still present) underdogs,”

If that means:

“It is worse for a White to call a Black a racial slur than vice versa.”

Don’t get me wrong --I don’t think any decent human being can be educated on the past or paying attention in the present without feeling disgust (at least). But from my perspective, because of the history involved and present-day issues, the above is clearly a seed --a potentially dangerous one, if not just perpetual.

When I was enrolled at the school I mentioned, I was harassed because of my skin color. I don’t know how many times a black person directed racial slurs at me, but it happened often enough that I would have trouble counting every instance. It escalated, too. I was 14 when I was standing in line in the cafeteria, and a black guy started using racial slurs right before he grabbed my buttocks and attempted to grab my breasts. (Remember, the situation in that school started with racial slurs, and then escalated to aggressive physical confrontations.) Do you really believe my pale skin color made what was happening to me less bad, or would have been “worse” if I were black and they were white? Would it make some difference if you knew I might only look the part of purebred white girl? You seem reasonable, and if I understand your point of view correctly, your answer to those questions would be “No.” So, when you say “underdogs,” I think you mean those underdogs who, when grouped together, make a larger number and longer history. That’s not fair; it’s an imbalance, and dangerous because it only strengthens the beast. Had I not come with all my experiences, I might have been ripe for the picking for some racist group to tell me it isn’t illogical to think white people will eventually become the minority, and to think of my own experience in that school to see where that will lead. (It is a perspective championed by recruiters.) There’s the extreme. More common, I think, is that imbalance leads to unfairness that leads to frustrations that lead to prejudices that lead to (wherever of many destinations.) The history of it is as horrible as it is crucial to understanding the problem, but if we can’t bring ourselves to look for solutions to current problems through a balanced point of view, then we’ll never fix those problems. An’ so it goes, I think.

I prefer pragmatism to morality.

But pragmatism is one kind of morality, is it not, DoF?

Until black culture teaches its young men and women that sex and childbearing outside of marriage is wrong, nothing will change.

Wrong, Daryl?  Having kids outside of a stable family is difficult for all concerned and should be avoided, certainly; but marriage is not necessary: just ask my kids.  And sex outside of marriage is wrong?  What antiquated source do you have for that?  Oh, yeah…

DC: “With these or similar words, cultures begin the task of destroying themselves.”

Zilch: “But pragmatism is one kind of morality, is it not, DoF?”

Yes it is.  I wrote an incomplete idea because MrsDoF was impatient to head out to the restaurant for a patty-melt on rye.  The complete idea is as follows: pragmatism is the consideration of consequences over the long haul before adherence to an ancient code that pretends to always be right regardless of what happens. 

Notice I did not say “Pragmatism” with a capital “P”.  This is not a grand Nietschian philosophy with supermen transcending mere human morality - it’s just parents teaching kids to think things through before they act. 

As for civilizations destroying themselves with pragmatism, Daryl is hauling out the old canard that God rewards theistic cultures over secular ones.  History suggests otherwise.

Daryl: With these or similar words, cultures begin the task of destroying themselves.

Oh, really? I was under the impression that real things destroyed cultures (i.e. disease, warfare, colonialism, etc.), not a lack of “morality.”

zilch said: Having kids outside of a stable family is difficult for all concerned and should be avoided, certainly; but marriage is not necessary: just ask my kids.

I don’t doubt that zilch.  Unfortunately, not all have the same wherewithal that you have.  In fact, I would venture to say that most, absent the carrot and stick of marriage, do not.  Accordingly, because of your exceptionality (meant as a compliment) you should not be held up as the model or a model for society at large.

My job brings me into contact with single parents, not because I am involved with one parent households, but because the nature of the subject is often caused by ‘house hold breakdown’- HHBD to use the jargon in the IT.  There is an anecdotal correlation that we are noticing between the type of the Change of Circumstance (CoC) and the socio-economic group.  Poor and/or educationally disadvantaged parents are the ‘serial monogamous’ type- multiple kids by different partners, but from with in a relationship that was exclusive at the time. Some of these single mothers can easily be filed under ‘Feckless’, suffering from poor sex education.

The Single Relationship (often marriage) leaving the mother with more than one child, all from the one (sometimes two) long term relationship(s). Parents in late 30s or older, kids often early to mid teen.  These are usually from professional/white collar groups.  There seems no correlation with race, except where certain groups are more prevalent in a certain financial background.

I would suggest Daryll what we have to do is not teach the Black sections

Until black culture teaches its young men and women that sex and childbearing outside of marriage is wrong, nothing will change

but teach the poor sections.  The poor sections of society are often unable to take advantage of the education needed to improve.

A ‘poor’ culture breeds a Macho culture, to which education is often an antithesis.  The media which is accessed by the poor is often (in Britain at least) right wing, and re-inforces the gap. The Sun (a Murdoch mouthpiece) is Britains highest selling paper, aim squarely at the working class, promoting a homophobic, racist and Xenophobic agenda.  It promotes division of the poor by the language it uses- Scientists are ‘Boffins’- their attainments not for the likes of you- the ruling class and social leaders are ‘toffs’ who ‘quaff expensive wines’. Liberals and critics are demeaned. They have made the concept of asylum equate to criminal illegal immigrants.  And it is courted by both ‘New’ Labour and the Tories as being influential. The headline after the 92 Tory Victory- ‘It was the Sun wot won it’ If it is true then a Australian Multi-millionaire with US citizenship effectively decided the General election. It does not matter if it is not true because it affects political policy by politicians who think it might be.

This paper, and those like it, have led to a culture of that produces the original email of this thread.  Trickle Down has patently not worked- money works more efficiently for the rich than the poor. They can take advantage of tax planning. Parents move to make sure their children are eligible for ‘better’ schools, so the disadvantaged send their children to schools rejected because, hey, thats where the disadvantaged go.

To solve these problems money has to be targeted at them.  This often means setting up organisations that target racial groups, because society puts them at the bottom, from where they can’t escape, instead being dragged into a vicious circle of underacheivement.

Last_Hussar: To solve these problems money has to be targeted at them.

Thank God we finally have someone who understands how to solve these problems.  All we needed this whole time was spend money.  If only we’d thought of this 30 years ago.  You, sir, are the very first person who’s ever suggested spending money to solve these problems.

Oh wait, I forgot: We’ve been throwing money at these problems for decades and they’re only getting worse.

If you wish to read the opinion of someone who knows more about the British underclass than you ever will, go to Amazon and buy “Life at the Bottom” by Theodore Dalrymple.  He’s a psychiatrist who’s worked with about 25,000 of them over the past 40 years or so.  He also happens to have a very scientific mind, and can see what the underlying problems of their squalor and misery are.

Here he describes the reaction of his residents, natives of third-world countries who spend a year working in Britain:

By the end of three months my doctors have, without exception, reversed their original opinion that the welfare state, as exemplified by England, represents the acme of civilization. On the contrary, they see it now as creating a miasma of subsidized apathy that blights the lives of its supposed beneficiaries. They come to realize that a system of welfare that makes no moral judgments in allocating economic rewards promotes antisocial egotism. The spiritual impoverishment of the population seems to them worse than anything they have ever known in their own countries. And what they see is all the worse, of course, because it should be so much better. The wealth that enables everyone effortlessly to have enough food should be liberating, not imprisoning. Instead, it has created a large caste of people for whom life is, in effect, a limbo in which they have nothing to hope for and nothing to fear, nothing to gain and nothing to lose. It is a life emptied of meaning.

“On the whole,” said one Filipino doctor to me, “life is preferable in the slums of Manila.” He said it without any illusions as to the quality of life in Manila.

Read the whole article for free, at City Journal.

As Walter Williams wrote in the column I linked to, “Since President Johnson’s War on Poverty, controlling for inflation, the nation has spent $9 trillion on about 80 anti-poverty programs.”

$9 trillion dollars. That’s five times the entire Gross Domestic Product of the UK, Last_Hussar.  Guess what: it’s only made things worse.  Not surprisingly, people like you don’t want the gravy train to end.  The underclass doesn’t benefit from government pork, but people working in the welfare industry certainly do.

Alright, all-knowing Daryl: we know that, as a “conservative,” you are averse to any kind of governmental spending aside from anything “faith-based” or military-related. Please enlighten us, then, on how we are to go about fixing poverty without the government spending money. I’m sure that, since you are ever-so-knowing and wise, you can explain away this little quandary with the greatest of ease.

But wait! There are a few caveats to keep in mind: don’t forget the existence of a little thing called the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. You know, the one that really grinds your gears (to quote Peter Griffin)? Also, human behavior is often pretty damned hard to legislate--you can wail all you want about “immorality” and people fucking outside the confines of legal marriage, but it’s pretty hard to get people to stop doing so. Even attempting to strangle people with your religion can only go so far when it comes to basic human instincts. And, Sage Cantrell, don’t forget about institutionalized discrimination, which is perhaps the primary reason that so many people have a hard time making it in America (and elsewhere).

Your explanation should be good for a laugh, at the very least.

Sexy Sadie:

The Cards are getting beat at the moment, so I’ll bite. 

...don’t forget about institutionalized discrimination, which is perhaps the primary reason that so many people have a hard time making it in America (and elsewhere).

But I thought you said earlier that discrimination for poor whites should be poo-pooed.

Somebody call the “Whaaaaaaaaaaaambulance!” Poor, poor whites such as myself are being so oppressed!

Poor, poor whites aren’t oppressed yet they are facing insurmountable hurdles from The Man in some form?  I’m not bright enough to tweeze this one. The tweezer obviously requires your gentle touch.

I had a discussion with a friend’s wife about whether food was more important than education.
She gave me a copy of One Hundred Sacks of Rice.
I suppose it’s like the Teach a Man to Fish cliché.
Then again, it’s hard to hear a teacher’s words over the sound of a rumbling stomach.
I do so wish there was a simple answer to this difficult problem.
It seems criminal that in this day of plenty, there’s not enough.

OK, so I have been gone for the weekend, and am just catching up.  I didn’t think I would create such a firestorm.

I also post on Bill Maher’s hbo site as Jericho 72, and I have had an argument all weekend with someone about a subject similar to this.  I speak more than one language; Spanish, Italian, some Portuguese, and, of course, English.  However, I said I got irritated when I was forced to speak a second language here because someone refused to learn English.

This is not a racist comment; my husband is Mexican, and he came here as an illegal immigrant 30 years ago.  However, he learned to read, write and speak English, and he is now an American Citizen.  I also live in dairy country, and frankly, a lot of white people won’t do the brutal physical work the dairies demand, regardless how much they pay.

I get torn on this subject; I truly believe that all people are created equal, regardless of race, religion, gender or color; however, I also believe we need to have a thread of commonality, which if we translate everything into numerous languages, we lose that thread.  We can have the richness of what other cultures bring to this country, but in the end, we are all suppose to be American.

As for being forced to speak Spanish, that is because I usually get caught behind someone who doesn’t speak English trying to do business with someone who doesn’t speak Spanish, and I just want to get my shit and go home.

I’m not going to go back and quote the whole children outside of marriage thing; however, there was a study done recently that I think you might find interesting.

It seems that girls in Europe are having premarital sex at the same rates and American girls; however, the incidence of teen pregnancy in Europe is far less than here.  Why?

Because the girls in Europe have adequate sex education and access to birth control.  They aren’t stigmatized because they had sex outside of marriage, and abstinence only isn’t the main line of defense against unwanted pregnancy.  In short, the girls are given the knowledge to use.  Not only that, in Europe, masturbation isn’t a bad thing, either, unlike here, where you are suppose to deny all sexual feelings until you have a wedding ring on your finger.

Consi: But I thought you said earlier that discrimination for poor whites should be poo-pooed.

Consi, I didn’t say that and you know it. As KPG analogized earlier, a gunshot wound to the leg is bad, while a gunshot wound to the head is lethal. You’re being patently disingenuous; did I strike some sort of nerve?

Discrimination takes all sorts of forms, but it’s especially disadvantageous for certain segmments of the population (i.e. Blacks). I would be utterly amazed if even you tried to claim otherwise.

Poor, poor whites aren’t oppressed yet they are facing insurmountable hurdles from The Man in some form?  I’m not bright enough to tweeze this one. The tweezer obviously requires your gentle touch.

Whites comprise a majority of this country’s population. Even if they become a numerical minority (which may in fact be the case in the next fifty years or so), they will likely continue to hold the dominant position (in the sense that they hold the most influence and power) as a group.

Individual Whites can and very often are subject to particular kinds of discrimination, but because as a racial group they occupy the dominant position in this society, such forms of discrimation are very rarely racial in nature. They may be related to sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, religious affiliation, etc. But they are not related to race.

This is not the case for Blacks (and other non-Whites in this society). The discrimination leveled against them is usually fundamentally racial in nature, although other factors may also be present.

By the way, don’t assume that I’m particularly gentle when it comes to tweezing. Just the other week, in fact, I was removing a splinter from my foot. Ouch! There was blood. 

SLJ: “I’m not going to go back and quote the whole children outside of marriage thing”

Not really necessary - just a reference or a little clip is enough to remind us what you’re referring to and helps limit the bulk of a thread.  We can always scroll up for the whole thing if we need it.

“It seems that girls in Europe are having premarital sex at the same rates and American girls; however, the incidence of teen pregnancy in Europe is far less than here.  Why? Because...” (then follows notes on sex ed, more open attitudes, etc.)

What? They’re pragmatic about it and it results in less suffering and a better outcome?  Shocking!  I should have thought it would destroy their civilization by now.  Daryl Cantrell, please take note.  (Thanks for the example, SLJ)

SexySadie,
I don’t know if you are a Bill Maher fan (I entertain a fantasy or two about him, but that’s for another thread ), but Lou Dobbs made a good point about racism.  He said to refer to someone as racist for wanting a form of unity in this country is dangerous.  If you make a comment about how English should be the official language, you are immediately branded a racist.

I don’t believe in the superiority of any race or religion over another.  I have dated people from every place under the sun...Black, Asian, Middle Eastern, and each had his positives and negatives; very rarely did it have anything to do with race.

Bill Maher has his moments--he’s often funny as hell--but let’s face it: he’s no Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert. 

If you make a comment about how English should be the official language, you are immediately branded a racist.

I actually think it’s a good idea for a country to at least informally have an official language. While it is certainly desirable for everyone to at least be familiar with the basics of English in this country, I also think it’s absurd when people become indignant when they hear Spanish being spoken (and let’s face it: there are quite a few people in this country who react this way). Plus, the idea of creating an amendment calling for a national language strikes me as needlessly belligerent and reactionary.

It doesn’t bother me to hear people speaking Spanish, but what passes for English these days does tend to piss me off.  Not only lazy speech, but (shudder!) student papers.  Occasionally one of them asks for my help and I burn up a lot of energy trying to be diplomatic when I really want to say; “Did you completely blow off junior high and high school?!” /peeve