Is there a race problem in America?

[Nepperhan]

Variance in treatment by law enforcement according to race

You may well have experienced such an incident, but there is no statistical evidence to suggest this is the norm.

Job candidates rejected because of race

I’m not suggesting this doesn’t happen, but I believe it also hasn’t happened when it’s been claimed to have happened. People also get rejected for various other unfair reasons, that aren’t related to race.

Legislation designed with a disparate impact on different racial groups

Could you give examples?

I know you were just giving examples based on your experiences, but I wanted to comment on a few of them.

There is statistical evidence for different treatment by law enforcement. Otherwise we would not have seen use of the term or laws against ‘racial profiling’.

Every hiring decision involves discrimination. Illegal job discrimination based on race or ethnicity in hiring and promotion remains a problem and complaints of such is 60% of the EEOC’s current workload.

Legislation designed with disparate impact? Federal judges in NC and FL have recently said, in effect, 'Who do you think you’re fooling?"

In FL the judge noted: “The issue is whether the Legislaure was motivated, at least in part, by race.
SB7066 passed on a straight party-line vote. Without exception, Republicans
voted in favor, and Democrats voted against.” The judge said that it could not be ignored that black voters overwhelmingly vote Democratic.

https://www.npr.org/2020/05/24/861776313/federal-judge-rules-florida-law-restricting-voting-rights-for-felons-unconstitut

IN NC: “A federal appeals court decisively struck down North Carolina’s voter identification law on Friday, saying its provisions deliberately “target African-Americans with almost surgical precision” in an effort to depress black turnout at the polls.”

Federal Appeals Court Strikes Down North Carolina Voter ID Requirement - The New York Times

 

[Polak]

There is statistical evidence for different treatment by law enforcement. Otherwise we would not have seen use of the term or laws against ‘racial profiling’.

Do you have a link to any of this statistical evidence? I wouldn’t mind seeing it. I don’t think a law being created against racial profiling is proof of anything.

Illegal job discrimination based on race or ethnicity in hiring and promotion remains a problem and complaints of such is 60% of the EEOC’s current workload.

So, many complaints have been made by people that they were not hired because of their race? Were these complaints proven to be true? Was there proof that someone that was more competent for a job was refused it because they had ‘the wrong color skin’? Or are people sometimes bitter when they don’t get a job, and give various reasons for why they were probably not given the job, other than just not being good enough for it?

Legislation designed with disparate impact?

Thanks for providing links to the legislative discrimination argument. Both of those however, restricting voting rights for felons and requiring people voting to have ID, firstly, don’t suggest racist, that’s just an assumption being made, and secondly, they both seem completely reasonable to me.

Republicans voted for not allowing felons to vote and Democrats voted against is predictable. Those votes were purely for political reasons, so I wouldn’t take them into account. Let’s just look at the issue in itself. Personally, I don’t seen any issue with not allowing felons to vote. If you break the law, you lose the right to vote. What’s wrong with that? It may well be that because a large percentage of black people are in prison, they wouldn’t be able to vote, but that’s just the situation. If 90% of prisons were white people, they wouldn’t be able to vote either.

Same with voter ID. I see no issue with requiring people to show ID before they vote. If a large number of African Americans don’t have voter ID, why not get some?

 

[phil3]

I removed it as your are correct. I shouldnt have used your handle.

The fact is, the left and groups like antifa, are willing to silence by any means necessary those that disagree with them.

 

[TULIPed]

You’re a good egg Phil. I don’t care what they say about you

 

[PennyinCanada]

Is there a race problem in America?
There is a sin problem in America. Bitterness, resentment and unforgiveness is part of the human equation. The way to overcome this battle is with the Gospel.

You are being prepared for the man of lawlessness. And everything is going to plan.

 

[TULIPed]

So, many complaints have been made by people that they were not hired because of their race?

So is the argument that because it happens rarely, it’s not an issue? Or is it that racism in the workplace only becomes an issue when it meets a certain threshold? As long as less than 100 black people are passed over because of race, we’ll let it go. That 101st one though - we’re going to really get serious!

(Ok - that’s slightly pejorative, but I did it more for humor and to ease tension than for snark. You’ll just have to take my word. I’m a Calvinist after all. I rarely make jokes.)

Interestingly, our entire criminal judicial system was designed so that it’s far more likely that a guilty person goes free than an innocent person gets convicted. Why wouldn’t we do the same thing with racism in the workplace?

 

[PetraG]

I think it’s probably more complex than “police are targeting black men” but there are certainly a lot of issues about police and use of force.

Yes. There is the problem of injustice in the criminal justice system and there is the problem that people experience different treatment in many sectors of society that are allowed to depend on their appearance. There are reasons to discriminate in the larger sense–that is, to legitimately recognize a distinction or to make a legitimate differentiation–but people are experiencing discrimination in the narrow and sinful sense, which is to say they are seeing favoritism without any basis in merit.

In other words: there are people getting treatment that nobody should get, and the most serious place this is happening is in the justice system as a whole. There is also too often bad treatment given to people based on factors that should not be allowed to make a difference. Neither thing is tolerable.

No one should be treated the way George Floyd was handled while in custody. Whatever needs to happen to prevent it, it needs to happen. For instance, those two officers who were in their first week should have felt confident about stepping in and stopping the dangerous mistreatment of the suspect by the senior officer as surely as a co-pilot should feel confident about correcting a pilot making a mistake that is going to crash their plane and just as a child should feel confident about telling an adult that the adult has crossed a line and made the child feel creepy.

 

[blackforest]

Why do you want me to give you examples of racism, and specifically of examples of it against ethnic minorities?

I told you racism is out there. It’s one of the sins people commit, isn’t that enough?

That’s what I’ve seen personally and recently.

I agree with @Nepperhan

The reason I asked @Polak is because I’m getting a little tired of this all-too-typical exchange, which I’ve been through twice in 24 hours on CAF.

The Right: Racism isn’t really a problem. It’s a false narrative and just a tool of the Left used to divide Americans.

Me: Our Church calls racism a sin. Are you saying there’s no such thing as this sin?

The Right: Of course it exists!

Me: I’m glad you can acknowledge it. Specifically where do you see it against minorities?

The Right: (Silence).

It’s like they want to play lip service to it because the notion that racism is non-existent is indefensible. They also want to deny it as much as possible. Around and around we go . . .

 

[PetraG]

It’s like they want to play lip service to it because the notion that racism is non-existent is indefensible. They also want to deny it as much as possible. Around and around we go . . .

I wouldn’t say this is just a problem of the right. If it were, Joe Biden wouldn’t make bone-headed comments like “If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.”

Nobody, whether white or black or any other color, ought to have the audacity to tell someone that they are bound to think a certain way because of the color of their skin. No one!

What is the difference between that and saying that someone ought to vote for a certain candidate or they’re not Catholic? Well, at least that is based on an analysis of moral law and Catholic teachings. I don’t usually agree with it, I think it is pretty repugnant to tell someone that their “not Catholic enough” or that they’re a “bad Catholic” based on a single judgement, but at least in that case it is a distinction made on making a value judgment based on a defined set of values.

 

[Nepperhan]

Thanks for providing links to the legislative discrimination argument. Both of those however, restricting voting rights for felons and requiring people voting to have ID, firstly, don’t suggest racist, that’s just an assumption being made, and secondly, they both seem completely reasonable to me.

Oh, come on! You can be more discerning than that! Voter impersonation (the only thing affected by the new voter ID rules) was found to have occurred in 31 incidents out of over a billion ballots cast! The new laws were a solution without a problem. Why would they be passed other than to hold down some legitimate votes? Then, based on the known disparate impact, two separate judges said there was a racially discriminatory aspect to the new laws.

Whether or not FL felons can vote is not the point – the state passed a law saying they could. Then the GOP legislature effectively set up a poll tax which discriminated against a bunch of folks who were minority and poor, in the majority. You want to take this result at face value? Discrimination law outlaws disparate impact-- rules neutral on their face which have discriminatory effect. Is there any good reason that stadium ushers need to be six feet tall? They were previously required to be so. More to the point, can you think that the rule had a disparate impact on some ethnicities or on women?

At the very least, new rules on voter ID and the FL money rules on felons voting, had a disparate impact on some select groups. Legislators were not blind in passing these laws. I believe the intent was clear and that it was invidious racism. Federal judges have ruled this was the case.

 

[Poet]

that video speaks for itself.

Actually, it doesn’t. We all know that videos (like so many things) look completely different from one angle to another, depending what part is left out, and what we couldn’t possibly see on the video.

For instance: We cannot SEE on the video that George Floyd has many drugs in his system. My understanding is that some of those drugs can give superhuman strength for short periods of time.

We can’t see on that video the strange coincidence (is it?) that these two men worked together for over a decade at the same nightclub. (This may in fact make Chauvin look even more guilty, depending what comes out about that–but the point remains, there are things we can’t ‘see’ on the video that do impact what we can surmise of the truth.)

We can’t see on the video that George Floyd has a history of criminality. No–I’m NOT saying he deserved to die. But if one of those cops knew about him putting a gun to a pregnant woman’s stomach, they may have had reason to believe he could be very violent.

We can’t see into the heart and mind of those cops. We DO NOT KNOW if they saw a black man and decided to kill him, if they saw a man fighting back, if they’re just bad cops who would have done that to anyone black or white, or if there was horrible misjudgment.

Most importantly to me, in the video I saw, we see George Floy against a wall in one frame and then it cuts immediately to him underneath the car. What happened in those missing frames matters. If he was going quietly, then the cops are far more guilty. If he was fighting every step of the way and had already injured one or more of them or someone on the street, that changes the picture.

 

[LilyM]

LilyM:

Really? Jesus expressed perfect Christian love to His enemies. He certainly didn’t manage to ‘conquer’ the hatred against Him so that it ‘disappeared’. The haters continued to hate Him, so much so that they KILLED Him !

We are taught to see our evil as having caused the crucifixion of Jesus.
Has He not conquered us?

Did He not conquer at last one thief crucified with Him?
Did He not conquer saint Paul who executed Christians?
Did He not conquer saint Peter who denied Him?
Did He not conquer the apostles who fled from Him and disowned Him?
Did He not conquer the first followers who repented and flocked to the early movement.
Did He not conquer the very empire who considered Him nothing?

Down through the Christian period did He not conquer the evil in many hearts so as to create the Christian civilisation that still stands today?

Evil has not disappeared everywhere but that is our ongoing vocation for those of us Jesus has already conquered, and those He conquers daily.

Our mission is.firat and foremost to conquer the evil within ourselves. Any conquering of others is, as you have said, up to Him. And He certainly neither needs nor relies on us for that - did He not send a.vision direct from.heaven to convert Constantine? Which of the crowd did He use to convert the good.thief? None.

 

[silentwitness]

Our mission is.firat and foremost to conquer the evil within ourselves. Any conquering of others is, as you have said, up to Him.

Were we not sent to evangelise others and bring them to Christ?
Is this not conquering evil?

2 Corinthians 5:20.

We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.

 

[Polak]

Forget about the media for a moment. How ready and willing are we to listen to our black friends? Are we open to believing their stories? How often have we listened to them one-on-one?

Unfortunately it isn’t as simple as forgetting about the media, because our black friends, just like many white people, have had their views on what is happening, shaped by the media.

If the media actually gave a damn about black lives, this is what they might do.

First, before even going into black people, they would cover incidents fairly, particularly with crimes. Whatever the crime is and whoever it’s committed by there must be fair and impartial reporting.

They would go into the statistics, which show that more crimes are committed by black people and that there are more black people in prisons in the USA than other races, even though they make up a tiny percentage of the population. Racism right? No, just facts, but you’ll still get shouted down as a racist for stating them.

Now, once those facts are established, they could try to understand why most crimes are committed by black people and why more black people are in prisons. They may find that a lot of this is caused by broken black communities and yes, perhaps also social inequalities stemming from racist systems that were in place in the past. Now, I don’t think you can give a pass to criminal acts and just say ‘well, they live in poor areas and have no prospects, so you can understand it’, but you can aim to make improvements to those poorer areas that are inhabited mostly by black people, and try to stop the cycle of crime. I understand there is a very high proportion of singles mothers in the black community. Why is this happening? Why are there not more stable black families? These are all issues raised by black conservatives who do want to help their own people, and they got shot down for it every time by the media and left wing politicians. Why? Because to them this isn’t about helping the black community, it’s about getting the black vote and winning elections. It’s easier on the ear when somebody tells you you’re being mistreated and if you vote for them they will help you, than it is to hear that the problem is more complex than that and that sometimes you have to take responsibility for your actions sometimes, at least in some cases.

If people stop brainwashing the public about what the problem is, perhaps we can tackle it.

 

[blackforest]

I wouldn’t say this is just a problem of the right.

I agree. This is a long thread, so it’s OK if you missed my first post in it:

The biggest obstacle to tackling the problem head-on is that racism is taboo. So the Right denies that it exists and the Left covers it up and pretends never to be guilty of it.

Members of the Right may process their racism differently than members of the Left, but people from both wings have been guilty to it.

Beyond being just racist, Biden’s comment was out there . . .

 

[PetraG]

Racism is, I think, something that comes from fallen human nature and our propensity to want to avoid anything unfamiliar or that we don’t feel like we understand. We try to make up answers or just to avoid confrontation with what we don’t know, and being fallen we make things easier on ourselves and don’t exert ourselves to get to know others.
Just look at what we might think we know about someone by their political affiliation! In truth, it tells us next to nothing for certain.
Prejudices are what we fall into when we don’t want the work of handling our ignorance about others with humility, don’t you think?
It is a short way from “I don’t know you” to adding on “and I don’t want to have to care, either…I am going to assume the work to do it isn’t worth it. Just stay away from me…”

 

[phil3]

Again I say No. We have no institutional racism in america. Now are there people who are racist? Yes, but go to any country, even Japan, that is one of the most if not the most homogenization country on the planet and you find find racist people.

 

[Paddy1989]

Hello Paddy, first tell me where you are getting your idea that the activists and journalists who support BLM have NOT been talking about crime within the black community for a long time? Why dont you prove that (false) accusation rather than assuming you know?

BLM are a Marxist, anti FAMILY, pro abortion activist, pro transgender activist organisation that are in a campaign at the moment to defund police and push their Marxist agenda, an action when used before cause homicides in these communities to rise 20% in a year but hey whatever makes you look good on Facebook. Also the fact was before Geroge Flyoyd 99% of people posting black hearts of facebook didn’t care in the slightest about the issues in these communities and guess what, they don’t even care now, they are just jumping on an issue their favorite celebrity has highlighted, don’t be so gullible

Black Lives Matter ‘What We Believe’ Page: ‘Disrupt The Western-Prescribed Nuclear Family,’ ‘Dismantle Cisgender Privilege’ | The Daily Wire

 

[RobertAdams]

Lol. Yes, I was aware of their platform, having read the “what we believe” section of their website years ago when they first put it up. Should they start a church I most likely won’t join, and should they become a political party I wont be donating, but I’m comfortable being a “fellow traveler” with their more rudimentary goal of opposing racism in the criminal justice system.

You may find this “gullible,” but considering they haven’t succeeded so far in getting everyone to recognize that there is “a race problem in America” I’m not fearful that they’ll get us all singing the Internationale and abolishing private property any time soon…

Also, didnt really answer my request, which was to prove that everyone you’re slamming right now didnt already care about issues before…

 

[Anicette]

Why don’t they ever cover it when black and white churches work together on community projects? How about when black and white neighbors share a neighborhood pool in peace like mine does and people get along well? That wouldn’t be as attractive to the news networks - is why.

Well, what I noticed, as an European, is that black and white separate churches and separate neighboorhoods exists.

We don’t have anything like that. I would be illegal to try to segrate people by their skin’s color on civil topics. And the Catholic Church would never made separate churches. Racial statistics are also illegal in France. We are also really modest in using vocabulary around “race” topic to design people

But on the fact we have clearly poor neigboorhoods which are almost ghetto (not in the geographical sense, they are not isolated for the rest of the city) with a concentration of drug dealing, migrants and sons of migrants, muslins populations that don’t succeded in raising themselves out of this block of flats.

Yet I am not naive. I know that in America the unofficially separate churches and so one is because of a different, historical and persistant culture. That create a difference in worship sensibilities.

That the geographical separation is also the ipso facto fact of the money division: “class”, poverty, wealth, family composition…