Posted on 12/09/2014 5:44:07 AM PST by SeekAndFind
In a heated exchange, PBS host Tavis Smiley told Sean Hannity that“racism is still the most intractable issue in this country, it's a part of everything we do still.” He made this claim while discussing the incidents surrounding the police handling of Michael Brown and Eric Garner. Mr. Smiley also stated, in refuting President Obama’s remarks on BET that we cannot compare what is happening now with what happened fifty years ago, “It is open season on black men, and it is in many ways as bad as it was fifty years ago.”
The meme that Mr. Smiley and other prominent black Americans keep repeating is that police officers have such a negative view of black males (which Smiley and others attribute to racism) that they place less value on their (black males’) lives. That in turn causes the police officers to set out from the get-go to shoot to kill.
Now, there is no evidence that supports that claim. However if that is the case, how did the police officers come to view black males so negatively in the first place?
My parents always taught me that people would view me in the way that I presented myself. In other words, if I do not respect myself in the way that I dress, speak, or act, people will not show me any respect. I have never once been taught that the way I am viewed is the fault of others.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Am I biased against a black thug? Yep. Am I biased against a white male wearing his pants below his crotch? Yep. Am I biased against a black man wearing a suit downtown at 2 PM? Nope. What about 6 young black males outside a bar at 11pm (on the rare times I’m not in bed by 10 pm)? Yep. A black guy in uniform? Nope.
“I don’t think it’s prejudice. It’s street smarts.”
Like most people, I do what I can to reduce my chance of being robbed, beaten or killed. Black males between the age of 15 & 35 are about 2% of the US population. They commit about 50% of the murders. That is all anyone needs to know to explain my bias. It is prudent risk reduction: “street smarts”.
As Polonius says in “Hamlet” - “the clothes make the man.”
In the end its not about skin color but about character.
With the latter, people have it or they don’t.
I suppose, to a degree, but we are still responsible for our choices - at least we used to be.
Exactly.
Street smarts means not being out in a certain area at a certain time and not being around people you don’t know very well.
That’s not racism; that’s survival. Your odds increase when you don’t get involved with people who don’t have good character.
I believe this whole the-cops-are-at-fault thing started with Obama proclaiming in the Gates-Cambridge police case, that, "It's pretty clear that the cops acted stupidly", before he knew the facts of the case. That telegraphed his mind set on law enforcement and set the pace for the cops being blamed for everything bad that happened to blacks.
Those words mattered, but Obama, being the intellectually dishonest man that he is, would never admit that. He and Holder have spent a good amount of time during the last six years dividing this country into opposing sides. And in this case, they have successfully pitted the cops as being against the blacks.
Sad day for our country when it is our own president and his attorney general, who are the racist bigots, and not the American people or law enforcement.
I have had three times where I was targeted for crime.
First - downtown Milwaukee. A young black man tried to wrestle my briefcase away from me on the street. He was unsuccessful.
Second - LA Airport. A young black man grabbed my wife's bag off the baggage carousel and ran for the door. He was unsuccessful.
Third - my home. A young black man broke my car window and stole electronics from my car. I caught him on my video system and the police identified him and tracked him down.
These are the facts. It has nothing whatsoever to do with racism. It has to do criminals trying to steal from me.
They are.
Back in the late 70s and 80s, I never remember seeing the type of gutter culture among blacks. In fact you look at TV ads with blacks of all ages during that time, and you see people that were as all-American as anyone else.
But somewhere around 1988 hip-hop music joined up with black militants and inner-city gangs and became this ethnocentric/thugged-out trash that made black culture go right into the crapper. And it has been digging down ever since. Toss in the trash movies by Spike Lee, along with gangsta rap and it likely will never recover from that change.
I was walking down the street (many years ago) and a black kid on a bike ride over to my side and grabbed my purse. I knew what he was going to do and held on tight. He didn’t get it. A white guy has never tried to grab my purse. Just sayin...
There will always be something to "justify" whatever negative one chooses to focus their attention on, just as there is always something to justify being grateful.
Unfortunately, it's easier for most of us to focus on the "bad" rather than the "good" and easy for many to then get stuck in the rut of self-fulfilling prophecies of how life sucks no matter what you do and how other people are against you because you're "_______".
As such, in many a mind "bad" is easy to spread around to cover all a person sees in their world, much more so than "good" is.
It's also easy to find others who share that "bad" view, as well as those exploit it for their own purposes, such as race pimps and race hustlers and other assorted politicians, as well as family, friends, co-workers, etc.
If your thoughts are saying that white people or cops hate you 'cause you're black, the music and people on the radio you choose to listen to say the same thing, the Sharptons and Jacksons are saying the same thing, the stuff you choose to read on the 'net says the same thing, what are your thoughts telling you when you come face to face with a white cop or a random, lone white person or white potential employer or white teacher or any white authority figure or etc.?
Change your thoughts, change your world.
Nothing changes until the stuff you tell yourself changes.
Reminds me of what happened to me back in 1959 at Artesia NM. There was an ice cream and soda shop across the street from the school. One day I decided I wanted a soda so when the bell rang I outran all the kids to get there first and put in my order.
Then I heard it.
“You better hurry up you little M********r! You better hurry or I’ll f*** you to death!”
I turned around and there was the ugliest black girl I had ever seen in my life.
She continued to rage on me as the soda jerk took his sweet time getting my order.
Finally my soda came, I paid and as I was leaving she gave me another blast! “It”s about time you little M**********, I was about ready to f*** you to death RIGHT HERE!”
I was 12 years old. I never went back for another soda. In all my years in the oil camps I never heard anyone talk like that.
They have, indeed. I cannot say I am proud to be white; but I'd be embarrassed to be black.
It's definitely a part of everything Travis does.
Misspelling intentional.
“Take a white guy and have his car break down in an all-black neighborhood and have a black guy break down in an all-white neighborhood and see which one gets a tow truck and which one gets an ambulance.”
Here is something that is sad in its own way:
In the mid-60s, my Dad slid off the road and into a ditch on a back road in Alabama. We kids got out to look. While he was trying to figure out what to do, 6 black guys walked up the dirt road. Without a word, all 6 guys joined my Dad and lifted/shoved the car back on the road.
Dad offered them some money as thanks, and they laughed and turned him down...and gave him directions on how to get back to the main road. Rural Alabama, 1966.
It might still happen in RURAL Alabama. It sure would not happen in East St Louis.
Answer 1-Black males who PROVE the stereotype that causes the generalization.
Answer 2- Black culture that excuses and celebrates said black males who reinforce the ‘thug’ image.
Answer 3- Black mothers who raise children to BE the very same kind of black men who use and abandon them; who teach their sons to ‘get theirs’ and reject any kind of blame or responsibility.
Answer 4- Greater society that tolerates all of the above because it is paralyzed by PC.
Read into this event what you will.
A Black man who appears to be civilized suffers NO diminution of respect or rights. In fact, he might even have an advantage.
Thugs on the other hand are treated like thugs.
Black Americans need to recognize that the thugs among them deserve what they get.
Same thing happened to me at a Hannaford the day after the MB Grand Jury decison was made. I was pushing a shopping cart and walking into the store. There was this 300lb black man talking out loud to everyone. I moved around the store getting what I needed but he seemed to be everywhere I was. Nothing came of it. Whites are non-confrontational.
Not anymore!
Wow.
Can't blame that on gangster rap, hip-hop music, political correctness, Fat Albert, $hakedown Je$$e, the '60s, or any of the usual cultural scapegoats. That's just a nasty, evil, violent, bigoted individual who was brought up wrong and trained to do worse.
They have no idea what “open season” will actually look like.
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