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I think you've hit on the true issue. The majority of people have only leared on a superficial level of of the intertwined racism of America's past - often tim

I think you've hit on the true issue. The majority of people have only leared on a superficial level of of the intertwined racism of America's past - often times mostly the light touches they learned in elementary school. And what's taught in elementary school is intentionally simplified to something deemed appropriate for children. Some summary of slavery is bad, MLK, Rosa Parks, sit-ins... Most people don't actually learn anything about American's history and ties with racism at an adult level. So instead people think they know the history of it, and as a result think (based on what they've learned) it's overblown. Anyone I know who has actually taken time as an adult to read about American history and its relationship with racism, comes away with a very different view point. It's so intertwined it's incredible.

dsohn0 6y ago
Black people want their victimhood to last 1000 years. Let's not pretend American racism is somehow exceptional. Africans have been committing ethnic cleansing as a continental pastime for centuries and no one cries a river about that.
- aksss 6y ago
  I often think the people who talk loudly and overly-much about the US’s endemic racism have never travelled abroad much to witness what the rest of the world is really like (looking at you, Japan). It’s a product of an education curriculum that is hyper-focused on the misdeeds of the US. While the misdeeds need attention the view completely lacks an honest accounting of how amazing the state of this 325m culturally heterogenous society is compared to.. throw a dart at the world map.
  - kelnos 6y ago
    Serious question (because I don't know the answer, or how to find out): are there many other places in the (first) world where people of a minority race are singled out for harassment by law enforcement, to the point where police are routinely murdering people of that race with little to no consequences? If not, then I think a focus on the US's particular brand of racism is warranted. I do agree with you that it is fairly remarkable that the US is as stable as it is given the large mix of cultural views and values... but that doesn't let us off the hook for the problems we do have.
    - hombre_fatal 6y ago
      But your claims aren’t back by data either. Your first paragraph is made up. https://samharris.org/can-pull-back-brink/ https://samharris.org/can-pull-back-brink/ (I link Sam Harris because of his bigger point about people echoing talking points completely divorced from the data, as you have done. You can check his data sources.)
      - kelnos 6y ago
        Wow, that was a lot of meandering I had to read through before Harris actually got to the point I think you're referencing. But I don't see him present any evidence. He starts by hand-waving away people who believe the opposite of what he believes, and then just basically says "only about 1000 people in total are killed by cops in the US every year, so this is a non-problem". Which... no, sorry, that's not how it works. And the thing he links to literally has a section heading titled "Black Americans are killed at a much higher rate than White Americans". ... and then he goes on for many paragraphs about several police shootings of black men, and how awful and unjustified they are, so... he seems to agree after all that this is a problem? Finally, he tries to muddy the waters by essentially claiming black people seem to "deserve it" more, because apparently black people are involved in more crime than white people? Which, again, doesn't seem to be very well supported by data. So... I don't really get why you're using this link to try to refute what I said, because it does not do that, at least not in a logically consistent, evidence-based manner. > But your claims aren’t back by data either. I believe they are. Let's look at some actual data that we can easily read, rather than attempting to extract something useful from a meandering 15,000 word podcast transcript that rambles on forever. This[0] shows that out of all US police shooting deaths from 2107 through now, 27% were of black people, and 49% were of white people. But black people only make up only 13% of the US population, while white people make up 60%, so that sounds pretty disproportionate against black people to me. But this data is only for shooting deaths; likely someone like George Floyd, for example, wouldn't be counted in that data as he wasn't shot. So let's take a look at this study[1] from last year (reported on here[2]) that suggests blacks are 2.5 times more likely to be killed by police than whites. I could go on, but I'll let you educate yourself further if you're so inclined; "police killings statistics by race" is the search I used. > people echoing talking points completely divorced from the data, as you have done. I don't believe that's what I've done; Harris' own views seem completely divorced even from what little data he presents, if one can be expected to actually find data in that nightmare of a transcript. [0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-race/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-de... [1] https://www.pnas.org/content/116/34/16793 https://www.pnas.org/content/116/34/16793 [2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-06/race-and-police-shootings-what-new-research-says https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-06/race-and-...
  - wpietri 6y ago
    Just to put your mind at ease, I've lived on 4 continents, so I'm reasonably aware of how things can work elsewhere. And I also agree that America, imperfect as it is, is amazing. That is no reason at all to erase the deep endemic racism or the harm it causes daily to people. "You would be even more fucked in Japan" does not make anything better.
wpietri 6y ago
That was certainly my experience. What I learned about racism up through high school was basically, "This stuff happened, but long ago and far away, unconnected to what's going on around you." And it's no coincidence that I learned this in a suburban school with a student body that was 1% black. In a state that was 14% black. And that had a long history of racial exclusion and white flight. I'm shocked now at how one-sided my initial education was on this. Shocked, but not surprised.

dsohn0 6y ago

Black people want their victimhood to last 1000 years. Let's not pretend American racism is somehow exceptional. Africans have been committing ethnic cleansing as a continental pastime for centuries and no one cries a river about that.

aksss 6y ago
I often think the people who talk loudly and overly-much about the US’s endemic racism have never travelled abroad much to witness what the rest of the world is really like (looking at you, Japan). It’s a product of an education curriculum that is hyper-focused on the misdeeds of the US. While the misdeeds need attention the view completely lacks an honest accounting of how amazing the state of this 325m culturally heterogenous society is compared to.. throw a dart at the world map.
- kelnos 6y ago
  Serious question (because I don't know the answer, or how to find out): are there many other places in the (first) world where people of a minority race are singled out for harassment by law enforcement, to the point where police are routinely murdering people of that race with little to no consequences? If not, then I think a focus on the US's particular brand of racism is warranted. I do agree with you that it is fairly remarkable that the US is as stable as it is given the large mix of cultural views and values... but that doesn't let us off the hook for the problems we do have.
  - hombre_fatal 6y ago
    But your claims aren’t back by data either. Your first paragraph is made up. https://samharris.org/can-pull-back-brink/ https://samharris.org/can-pull-back-brink/ (I link Sam Harris because of his bigger point about people echoing talking points completely divorced from the data, as you have done. You can check his data sources.)
    - kelnos 6y ago
      Wow, that was a lot of meandering I had to read through before Harris actually got to the point I think you're referencing. But I don't see him present any evidence. He starts by hand-waving away people who believe the opposite of what he believes, and then just basically says "only about 1000 people in total are killed by cops in the US every year, so this is a non-problem". Which... no, sorry, that's not how it works. And the thing he links to literally has a section heading titled "Black Americans are killed at a much higher rate than White Americans". ... and then he goes on for many paragraphs about several police shootings of black men, and how awful and unjustified they are, so... he seems to agree after all that this is a problem? Finally, he tries to muddy the waters by essentially claiming black people seem to "deserve it" more, because apparently black people are involved in more crime than white people? Which, again, doesn't seem to be very well supported by data. So... I don't really get why you're using this link to try to refute what I said, because it does not do that, at least not in a logically consistent, evidence-based manner. > But your claims aren’t back by data either. I believe they are. Let's look at some actual data that we can easily read, rather than attempting to extract something useful from a meandering 15,000 word podcast transcript that rambles on forever. This[0] shows that out of all US police shooting deaths from 2107 through now, 27% were of black people, and 49% were of white people. But black people only make up only 13% of the US population, while white people make up 60%, so that sounds pretty disproportionate against black people to me. But this data is only for shooting deaths; likely someone like George Floyd, for example, wouldn't be counted in that data as he wasn't shot. So let's take a look at this study[1] from last year (reported on here[2]) that suggests blacks are 2.5 times more likely to be killed by police than whites. I could go on, but I'll let you educate yourself further if you're so inclined; "police killings statistics by race" is the search I used. > people echoing talking points completely divorced from the data, as you have done. I don't believe that's what I've done; Harris' own views seem completely divorced even from what little data he presents, if one can be expected to actually find data in that nightmare of a transcript. [0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-race/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-de... [1] https://www.pnas.org/content/116/34/16793 https://www.pnas.org/content/116/34/16793 [2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-06/race-and-police-shootings-what-new-research-says https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-06/race-and-...
- wpietri 6y ago
  Just to put your mind at ease, I've lived on 4 continents, so I'm reasonably aware of how things can work elsewhere. And I also agree that America, imperfect as it is, is amazing. That is no reason at all to erase the deep endemic racism or the harm it causes daily to people. "You would be even more fucked in Japan" does not make anything better.

wpietri 6y ago

That was certainly my experience. What I learned about racism up through high school was basically, "This stuff happened, but long ago and far away, unconnected to what's going on around you." And it's no coincidence that I learned this in a suburban school with a student body that was 1% black. In a state that was 14% black. And that had a long history of racial exclusion and white flight. I'm shocked now at how one-sided my initial education was on this. Shocked, but not surprised.