6 ms·

Not everything is racially motivated. Eventually speculation like yours crosses a boundary from legitimate social concern to conspiracy and seeing racist boogey

Not everything is racially motivated. Eventually speculation like yours crosses a boundary from legitimate social concern to conspiracy and seeing racist boogeymen in every shadow.

Bud 5y ago
"Eventually"? Yeah, except when it doesn't. You're right: not everything is racially motivated. Except for the things that so plainly and obviously are. Also: please do not implicitly label my concern as being not legitimate. I'm not really that into clumsy gaslighting.
- MathCodeLove 5y ago
  I think you're legitimately concerned, but I think your concerns are about as well grounded in reality as that of most conspiracy theorists. What proof (not tweets or opinion pieces) do you have to support your claim? "There are a lot of black people therefore any adverse action to the region is because of racism" is not proof. California's demographic makeup isn't predominantly white. Why are they a state?
  - pseudalopex 5y ago
    Indigenous people didn't count when California became a state. 99% of the rest were white.[1] [1] https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1850/1850a/1850a-47.pdf#page=8 https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1850/...
    - selimthegrim 5y ago
      cf. "Indians not taxed" in the Constitution
shkkmo 5y ago
It's funny how the two major regions of the US that clearly deserve statehood (DC and Puerto Rico) but have been denied that right for decades, seem to be areas with lots of poor non-whites. Racism is not the only factor in play here (political balance of power is a huge factor), but to deny that racism has played a significant role in creating this situation is ridiculous. I place that racism squarely in the laps of both parties since they both deserve that blame.
- dnautics 5y ago
  You might have an argument about DC, but Puerto Rico has not been "denied" the right. There have been many plebiscites on the issue and the status quo has been maintained each time.
  - dwhit 5y ago
    They voted to become a state in 2020 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Puerto_Rican_status_referendum https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Puerto_Rican_status_ref...
    - dnautics 5y ago
      Oh wow! I didn't notice that. These things take a while, I see some bills to act on that congrss-side have started
  - shkkmo 5y ago
    You mean the 5 plebiscites out of which only the first from over 60 years ago favored remaining a territory? Those plebiscites only provide wiggle room because of issues with which and how many options were presented. The last one though, presented a straight yes or no on statehood and statehood won by a significant margin. Officially, both political parties tend to say they support self determination for Puerto Rico, but still nothing has happened.
- MathCodeLove 5y ago
  On what ground do you claim that DC and PR clearly deserve statehood? I think to take an incredibly complex economic, social, and political decision and assume its outcome is influenced in any significant capacity by the demographic makeup of those regions is ridiculous.
  - shkkmo 5y ago
    What is complex about it? That sounds like an excuse for not making an actual argument. There are lots of excuses when it comes to not granting statehood but they are invariably self-serving. They pay taxes but their votes don't count. We had a revolution once where that was a major factor. Puerto Rico is near the median in terms of state population. For over two down decades it has been clear that a majority of Puerto Ricans do not want to remain a territory.
x86_64Ubuntu 5y ago
It's the US, it's safe to assume that anomalies concerning political power are due to maintaining the racial hierarchy. Just because it's ugly and interferes with the American myth of equality doesn't mean it's not true. "One reader wrote to the Washington Evening Star, saying: “If you get rid of the 90,000 negroes residing in this city I am in favor of suffrage. As long as they are here I am opposed to it,” according to the report."[1] [1]https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/04/14/dc-black-voters-disenfranchised-statehood/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/04/14/dc-black-v...
- MathCodeLove 5y ago
  No, it's not safe to assume. It's ridiculous to assume that there's even some intrinsic "racial hierarchy" to begin with. Some demographics do better on average than others, much like how Asian-Americans have a higher average household income than White-Americans, but despite what twitter says that's largely not due to any deeply rooted systemic issue. I don't think a single readers letter to some local news organization is really any proof of your claim.
  - jyounker 5y ago
    > It's ridiculous to assume that there's even some intrinsic "racial hierarchy" to begin with Yea, it is ridiculous to assume that there is an intrinsic racial hierarchy. That doesn't mean that that US doesn't have one though. If you need evidence, just look at incarceration rates, police shooting rates, property ownership rates, intergenerational wealth, representation in government, hiring disparities, educational disparities, medical treatment disparities, etc. There are clear disparities that break down along racial lines, and from the numbers it looks like african americans and native americans are at the bottom. > despite what twitter says that's largely not due to any deeply rooted systemic issue Who needs to consult twitter to know about the US's history of racial oppression targeted at black people, and its lingering intergenerational effects? * Redlining: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining * GI Bill restrictions for black soldiers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.I._Bill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.I._Bill * Block busting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockbusting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockbusting * Racially based deed restrictions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covenant_(law)#:~:text=In%20the%20United%20States%2C%20deed,Kraemer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covenant_(law)#:~:text=In%20th.... And then you can get into things like urban renewal of the fifties, sixties, and seventies. Frequently the "renewed" areas were thriving black neighborhoods. And then the US, as a country, ignores that these things happened. It's really comforting to imagine that today's problems aren't a result of things in the past that our ancestors (or even just parents) were complicit in, but that isn't the world we live in.
imgabe 5y ago
I generally agree that not everything is racially motivated, but it's pretty well documented that this is, or at least was, historically. Dream City[1] is a good book about the history of DC. Part of the reason there is such a large Black population is that a lot of freed slaves moved there after the Civil War. In later years, Congress, which is effectively charged with governing the District, and of course included representatives and Senators from former Confederate states, definitely considered that when deciding whether DC should be able to manage its own affairs. DC wasn't granted Home Rule and its own city government until 1973. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Dream-City-Power-Decline-Washington/dp/0786755938/ref=sr_1_1 https://www.amazon.com/Dream-City-Power-Decline-Washington/d...
- MathCodeLove 5y ago
  Wow thanks! I did some quick googling and it seems there is something to it historically. Though how much of a role (if any) racial division currently plays as opposed to economic and other political motivation is unclear. I'm not inclined to read heavily politicized novels by a single author, typically they're too partisan and don't present things without bias, but I am open to learning more from less bias sources and it does seem that at least in DC's earlier years it as a factor.
  - imgabe 5y ago
    I don't know if you googled Dream City and came up with something else, but it's not a novel. It's a nonfiction history book written by two DC journalists.
    - MathCodeLove 5y ago
      TIL Novel only refers to fictional books. I've gone my whole life just believing it was determined by length and nothing else. Regardless, the same holds. 'Non-fiction' can still come with heavy biases, especially on politically sensitive topics.
      - deleted 5y ago
FooBarBizBazz 5y ago
It's a little of both. Nowadays, opposition to DC statehood tends to come from Republicans, who are motivated purely by electoral considerations, and who know that DC, now being a largely Black city, will vote Democrat. (Not considered: adjusting the Republican platform to be more appealing to Black voters. I digress.) But when it was originally decided that DC would not be a state, this had nothing to do with race. First of all, DC's demographics were different at the time; second, enslaved people couldn't vote anyway; and third, the founders were concerned that a national elite would form in DC that would tyrannize the rest of the country, so the point was to weaken that (hypothetical) faction. So it's ahistorical to blame DC's original non-statehood on racism -- it was a reasonably principled choice -- but the current reality (going back at least to, say, the '20s -- sometime post-Civil-War) does contain a lot of racial motivation. Ironically, the current situation is the inverse of what the Founders worried about: They thought a powerful elite would settle in DC and rule the rest of the country in an unrepresentative way. Instead, the people who live in DC are largely from an underclass in need of representation. So DC statehood now makes sense. But they couldn't have known that when they were setting things up.

Not everything is racially motivated. Eventually speculation like yours crosses a boundary from legitimate social concern to conspiracy and seeing racist boogeymen in every shadow.

Bud 5y ago

"Eventually"? Yeah, except when it doesn't. You're right: not everything is racially motivated. Except for the things that so plainly and obviously are. Also: please do not implicitly label my concern as being not legitimate. I'm not really that into clumsy gaslighting.

MathCodeLove 5y ago
I think you're legitimately concerned, but I think your concerns are about as well grounded in reality as that of most conspiracy theorists. What proof (not tweets or opinion pieces) do you have to support your claim? "There are a lot of black people therefore any adverse action to the region is because of racism" is not proof. California's demographic makeup isn't predominantly white. Why are they a state?
- pseudalopex 5y ago
  Indigenous people didn't count when California became a state. 99% of the rest were white.[1] [1] https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1850/1850a/1850a-47.pdf#page=8 https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1850/...
  - selimthegrim 5y ago
    cf. "Indians not taxed" in the Constitution

shkkmo 5y ago

It's funny how the two major regions of the US that clearly deserve statehood (DC and Puerto Rico) but have been denied that right for decades, seem to be areas with lots of poor non-whites. Racism is not the only factor in play here (political balance of power is a huge factor), but to deny that racism has played a significant role in creating this situation is ridiculous. I place that racism squarely in the laps of both parties since they both deserve that blame.

dnautics 5y ago
You might have an argument about DC, but Puerto Rico has not been "denied" the right. There have been many plebiscites on the issue and the status quo has been maintained each time.
- dwhit 5y ago
  They voted to become a state in 2020 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Puerto_Rican_status_referendum https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Puerto_Rican_status_ref...
  - dnautics 5y ago
    Oh wow! I didn't notice that. These things take a while, I see some bills to act on that congrss-side have started
- shkkmo 5y ago
  You mean the 5 plebiscites out of which only the first from over 60 years ago favored remaining a territory? Those plebiscites only provide wiggle room because of issues with which and how many options were presented. The last one though, presented a straight yes or no on statehood and statehood won by a significant margin. Officially, both political parties tend to say they support self determination for Puerto Rico, but still nothing has happened.
MathCodeLove 5y ago
On what ground do you claim that DC and PR clearly deserve statehood? I think to take an incredibly complex economic, social, and political decision and assume its outcome is influenced in any significant capacity by the demographic makeup of those regions is ridiculous.
- shkkmo 5y ago
  What is complex about it? That sounds like an excuse for not making an actual argument. There are lots of excuses when it comes to not granting statehood but they are invariably self-serving. They pay taxes but their votes don't count. We had a revolution once where that was a major factor. Puerto Rico is near the median in terms of state population. For over two down decades it has been clear that a majority of Puerto Ricans do not want to remain a territory.

x86_64Ubuntu 5y ago

It's the US, it's safe to assume that anomalies concerning political power are due to maintaining the racial hierarchy. Just because it's ugly and interferes with the American myth of equality doesn't mean it's not true. "One reader wrote to the Washington Evening Star, saying: “If you get rid of the 90,000 negroes residing in this city I am in favor of suffrage. As long as they are here I am opposed to it,” according to the report."[1] [1]https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/04/14/dc-black-voters-disenfranchised-statehood/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/04/14/dc-black-v...

MathCodeLove 5y ago
No, it's not safe to assume. It's ridiculous to assume that there's even some intrinsic "racial hierarchy" to begin with. Some demographics do better on average than others, much like how Asian-Americans have a higher average household income than White-Americans, but despite what twitter says that's largely not due to any deeply rooted systemic issue. I don't think a single readers letter to some local news organization is really any proof of your claim.
- jyounker 5y ago
  > It's ridiculous to assume that there's even some intrinsic "racial hierarchy" to begin with Yea, it is ridiculous to assume that there is an intrinsic racial hierarchy. That doesn't mean that that US doesn't have one though. If you need evidence, just look at incarceration rates, police shooting rates, property ownership rates, intergenerational wealth, representation in government, hiring disparities, educational disparities, medical treatment disparities, etc. There are clear disparities that break down along racial lines, and from the numbers it looks like african americans and native americans are at the bottom. > despite what twitter says that's largely not due to any deeply rooted systemic issue Who needs to consult twitter to know about the US's history of racial oppression targeted at black people, and its lingering intergenerational effects? * Redlining: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining * GI Bill restrictions for black soldiers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.I._Bill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.I._Bill * Block busting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockbusting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockbusting * Racially based deed restrictions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covenant_(law)#:~:text=In%20the%20United%20States%2C%20deed,Kraemer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covenant_(law)#:~:text=In%20th.... And then you can get into things like urban renewal of the fifties, sixties, and seventies. Frequently the "renewed" areas were thriving black neighborhoods. And then the US, as a country, ignores that these things happened. It's really comforting to imagine that today's problems aren't a result of things in the past that our ancestors (or even just parents) were complicit in, but that isn't the world we live in.

imgabe 5y ago

I generally agree that not everything is racially motivated, but it's pretty well documented that this is, or at least was, historically. Dream City[1] is a good book about the history of DC. Part of the reason there is such a large Black population is that a lot of freed slaves moved there after the Civil War. In later years, Congress, which is effectively charged with governing the District, and of course included representatives and Senators from former Confederate states, definitely considered that when deciding whether DC should be able to manage its own affairs. DC wasn't granted Home Rule and its own city government until 1973. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Dream-City-Power-Decline-Washington/dp/0786755938/ref=sr_1_1 https://www.amazon.com/Dream-City-Power-Decline-Washington/d...

MathCodeLove 5y ago
Wow thanks! I did some quick googling and it seems there is something to it historically. Though how much of a role (if any) racial division currently plays as opposed to economic and other political motivation is unclear. I'm not inclined to read heavily politicized novels by a single author, typically they're too partisan and don't present things without bias, but I am open to learning more from less bias sources and it does seem that at least in DC's earlier years it as a factor.
- imgabe 5y ago
  I don't know if you googled Dream City and came up with something else, but it's not a novel. It's a nonfiction history book written by two DC journalists.
  - MathCodeLove 5y ago
    TIL Novel only refers to fictional books. I've gone my whole life just believing it was determined by length and nothing else. Regardless, the same holds. 'Non-fiction' can still come with heavy biases, especially on politically sensitive topics.
    - deleted 5y ago

FooBarBizBazz 5y ago

It's a little of both. Nowadays, opposition to DC statehood tends to come from Republicans, who are motivated purely by electoral considerations, and who know that DC, now being a largely Black city, will vote Democrat. (Not considered: adjusting the Republican platform to be more appealing to Black voters. I digress.) But when it was originally decided that DC would not be a state, this had nothing to do with race. First of all, DC's demographics were different at the time; second, enslaved people couldn't vote anyway; and third, the founders were concerned that a national elite would form in DC that would tyrannize the rest of the country, so the point was to weaken that (hypothetical) faction. So it's ahistorical to blame DC's original non-statehood on racism -- it was a reasonably principled choice -- but the current reality (going back at least to, say, the '20s -- sometime post-Civil-War) does contain a lot of racial motivation. Ironically, the current situation is the inverse of what the Founders worried about: They thought a powerful elite would settle in DC and rule the rest of the country in an unrepresentative way. Instead, the people who live in DC are largely from an underclass in need of representation. So DC statehood now makes sense. But they couldn't have known that when they were setting things up.