Black people in Japan speak about how they feel freer in Japan than in the USA - Page 4 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15269100
ckaihatsu wrote:
You're going off on a tangent -- the original subtopic was about *racism*, which is an *institutional*, top-down social dynamic that has historically had government backing, including the genocide of Native Americans.



wat0n wrote:
No, it's not simply institutional or top-down.



Yes, it *is*:



The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws introduced in the Southern United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that enforced racial segregation, "Jim Crow" being a pejorative term for an African-American.[1] Such laws remained in force until the 1960s.[2] Formal and informal segregation policies were present in other areas of the United States as well, even if several states outside the South had banned discrimination in public accommodations and voting.[3][4] Southern laws were enacted by white Southern Democrat-dominated state legislatures to disenfranchise and remove political and economic gains made by African Americans during the Reconstruction era.[5]



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws



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wat0n wrote:
You don't get to define the terms we'll use in this debate.




'The terms we'll use in this debate.'



The terms used in *any* debate are *also* the debate itself.


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wat0n wrote:
So is redlining, one of the reasons redlining existed at all was that white residents would riot if they found out they'd have Black neighbors.



ckaihatsu wrote:
You're *defending* white residents' potential to riot, which is *very* problematic.



wat0n wrote:
I'm not justifying anything, I'll let justifications of violence to your camp.



Look at what's happened *historically*, with this inclination of yours:



In the 1870s, Democrats gradually regained power in the Southern legislatures[17] as violent insurgent paramilitary groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan, White League, and Red Shirts disrupted Republican organizing, ran Republican officeholders out of town, and lynched Black voters as an intimidation tactic to suppress the Black vote.[18] Extensive voter fraud was also used. In one instance, an outright coup or insurrection in coastal North Carolina led to the violent removal of democratically elected Republican party executive and representative officials, who were either hunted down or hounded out. Gubernatorial elections were close and had been disputed in Louisiana for years, with increasing violence against black Americans during campaigns from 1868 onward.[19]



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wat0n wrote:
I'm simply pointing out the historically accurate fact that white hostility to the idea of living with black people motivated redlining, and that hostility was bottom-up, not simply top-down.

Politicians willing to avoid trouble would just take the path of least resistance, and that was redlining until the second half of the 20th century. From then onwards, those who didn't want to have Black neighbors could simply pack up their stuff and leave, and many did.



You're striving to be a *white historian* here, wat0n -- ?

Also, race / desegregation is unavoidably a *social* issue:



The desegregation of Boston public schools (1974–1988) was a period in which the Boston Public Schools were under court control to desegregate through a system of busing students. The call for desegregation and the first years of its implementation led to a series of racial protests and riots that brought national attention, particularly from 1974 to 1976. In response to the Massachusetts legislature's enactment of the 1965 Racial Imbalance Act, which ordered the state's public schools to desegregate, W. Arthur Garrity Jr. of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts laid out a plan for compulsory busing of students between predominantly white and black areas of the city. The hard control of the desegregation plan lasted for over a decade. It influenced Boston politics and contributed to demographic shifts of Boston's school-age population, leading to a decline of public-school enrollment and white flight to the suburbs. Full control of the desegregation plan was transferred to the Boston School Committee in 1988; in 2013 the busing system was replaced by one with dramatically reduced busing.[11]



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_de ... ing_crisis
#15269105
late wrote:And he will keep repeating it..

Interesting thing about Japan, is that they are quite racist, they are just very polite about it.


And I will keep repeating the basic idea that institutions are themselves shaped by the actions of individuals as long as it is necessary, and in the case of state institutions that they are also shaped by public opinion, which I don't think should be controversial. It is only when a majority of individuals agree that some conduct needs to change that institutions react to it, and this is particularly true for the government as governmental bureaucracy is rigid by design even in the most flexible and/or efficient states. The whole point of a bureaucracy is to be able to provide a systematic solution to repeated problems
or procedures governments have to deal with so it's not strange for governments to be particularly slow to adapt.

As for racism in Japan, it is not simply "polite" (I like the word "benevolent" more) but most importantly it's not so much based on skin pigmentation but simply on whether you're Japanese or not. From what I've heard, most don't really make too many distinctions between black and white (although there may be some who do distinguish between the Gaijin), what they really care about is whether you're Japanese or not. Furthermore, that distinction too is the result of more fundamental characteristics of Japanese society as it is itself a lot more rigid in its application of tradition and hierarchy than most Western societies in all walks of life and they don't expect foreigners to want or be able to conform to Japanese traditions i.e. they don't think cultural integration can happen.

Tainari88 wrote:Late, the Japanese were an Empire. And they have invaded various nations in Asia seeking control and power and gain. They got two A bombs dropped on them, partially for being imperialistic. The youth of Japan post WWII if you speak to them or study how they have been raised were raised to be totally against war and invasions. Japan suffered a lot and learned a lot from all that horror.


They are not the same generations. The Japanese are not having as many children as before. There are more foreigners accepted in Japan. The USA has to accept that the way African Americans have been treated in the USA is unacceptable and it is systemically racist. Unlike Japan it has not had two atom bombs dropped on it. It has not been defeated in a war and it has not had to modify its military ambitions and imperialistic endeavors and goals. If the USA does not change its constant love of warring for profit it is going to get the karma that all these ex Empires got to get in the end.

All of these wars and racist practices and wasting money, time and energy on control from afar is not something you can keep up indefinitely.


I'd say Japan's neighbors would strongly disagree with this assessment.

Firstly, because the issue of article 9 of Japan's Constitution (the one that forbids it from having an offensive army) is one under constant discussion there due to the rise of Chinese military power and occasional North Korean missile tests and its neighbors know that. This in turn hurts Japanese deterrence, doing away with it would work as a deterrent.

But more importantly, because many Chinese and Koreans (from both Koreas) don't believe Japan has gone through the process of truly apologizing over what the empire did in WWII and also before the war. Have you read about the Yasukuni shrine? It honors those who died fighting for the Japanese Empire, and it includes people who were convicted for war crimes in WWII. This is regularly criticized by Japan's neighbors, while the Japanese contend that they have the right to exercise their religion and that includes honoring all those who died fighting for the Emperor (himself important religiously) and that this is not an endorsement of their actions during the war.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controver ... uni_Shrine

Tainari88 wrote:I think the USA is a diverse nation, with a great democratic tradition and a lot of positives to work on. But it is allowing fear of sharing power to destroy everything it has that is an advantage. If the glaring contradictions do not get reconciled it is not going to get better.

The worst part of all this is that the majority of Americans agree that MAGA supporters are not the majority.

But, the system has been so corrupted that it has locked out almost every possibility of rectifying the corruption. If it does not rectify in time? The fallout is going to be irreversible. Once that train leaves the station it spells the end of American response to disaster. It will be about internal collapse. That happened to the Soviets in the early nineties. It will happen to the Americans because they refuse to correct the reality that the USA in the next generations requires sharing real power with African Americans, Latinos, and Asians and other people in the society that are needing more power and more investment. If that is marginalized? Along with huge groups of white people who also are shut out of the system? It all spells disaster.


So you think Japan is not beyond redemption but the US is?

But if this was true, why are Americans even having these conversations? Why is there a constant and active effort to root racial discrimination out, especially when it's clear and overt but also when merely suspected, be it by individuals or by institutions?

I'll reiterate what I previously said: The most overt examples of racism I've personally seen since arriving here have been by other foreigners, not by the locals, and never in English. This is not because there is no racism among the Americans, but simply because the social punishment for being racist in public is often harsh and most relatively well adjusted locals fully understand it. Being racist in public isn't usually illegal here (although there are instances where it is in practice) and it honestly doesn't need to be at this point, civil society itself does punish it accordingly in the same way it punishes all sorts of undesirable behavior even if it's not necessarily illegal.

Pants-of-dog wrote:Can anyone provide an example of bottom up racism?

I would love to have someone explain how a poor black person is able to deny opportunities to a rich white person because of race.


No one said poor Black people deny opportunities to rich white people, just like poor white people don't deny opportunities to rich Black people either. Poor people in general don't deny opportunities to the rich, regardless of race.

But I did point to a historical example of how poor white people can and have pressured institutions to discriminate against poor Black people (or more generally Black people who are of the same or lower social stratum), even where I live.

Or are you saying that being brazen enough to riot because you don't like the skin color of your new neighbors in the government owned housing project you are allowed to live in is not an example of bottom up racism? Note that if you are dependent on the government for housing then you're most definitely not at the top, and if the government is trying to racially integrate the project to the point of having a permanent police presence to deal with the rioters you can't say those at the top are not at least trying to deal with racism. And of course, this wouldn't have happened if the majority of people (particularly the upper and middle classes, and the intellectual elites) hadn't agreed that it was at least a good thing to desegregate, regardless of whatever those living in the public housing project at hand, those at the bottom of the chain, thought.

ckaihatsu wrote:Yes, it *is*:


ckaihatsu wrote:Look at what's happened *historically*, with this inclination of yours:


You do realize those laws were to a large extent motivated by the fact that most whites in the South, including the poor southern whites, wanted to discriminate against African Americans, right? They would even vote for the constitutions that would implement Jim Crow after the Reconstruction Era ended, even if they would lose the franchise for being too poor to vote.

ckaihatsu wrote:The terms used in *any* debate are *also* the debate itself.


Exactly, and because of that you don't get to decide those terms.

ckaihatsu wrote:You're striving to be a *white historian* here, wat0n -- ?

Also, race / desegregation is unavoidably a *social* issue:


Yet another example of bottom up racism. Note that in Boston, too, it was those at the top who took up the decision to enforce federal law by force if necessary.

I will note that the very movement towards school desegregation and Brown v Board of Education was itself largely motivated by the political and intellectual elite of the 1950s US for both Cold War politics and the legitimate belief (specially in the post-war intellectual elites) segregation was morally wrong and that separate but equal was an oxymoron, and that it was shared by most of the middle class outside the South as well, at least in theory.

Like other social issues necessitating government action, too, racism originates on decisions made or situations faced by individuals. So saying that racism is merely systemic is just wrong, racism is practiced by individuals and it will become a social problem if widespread or severe enough.
#15269113
@wat0n you have a pattern here. Distortion, lying and twisting and repeating the same bad concept or theory or invalid premise.

I really have to make a decision about that. It is up to you. You refuse to let go of lying, distortions and bullshit? One has to stop debating with you.

I need someone who is actually able to have minimal integrity in debating where they acknowledge something that is agreed upon fact.

An example was Blackjack21. He was a racist and believed in segregated schools. For him Blacks had lower IQs and were less intelligent. But what kind of argument would he use with me? He never denied that African Americans were slaves, that it was an economic system and that Blacks were cowed into not voting by White Supremacy groups and Jim Crow laws. He dealt with facts. And then went from there to deal with his argument.

I can deal with that. You on the other hand, lie and distort willingly and refuse to do any real fact acceptance.

Can't do that for debate Wat0n. You can lie on someone else. I will never respond to you ever again. A waste of time.
#15269114
Tainari88 wrote:@wat0n you have a pattern here. Distortion, lying and twisting and repeating the same bad concept or theory or invalid premise.

I really have to make a decision about that. It is up to you. You refuse to let go of lying, distortions and bullshit? One has to stop debating with you.

I need someone who is actually able to have minimal integrity in debating where they acknowledge something that is agreed upon fact.

An example was Blackjack21. He was a racist and believed in segregated schools. For him Blacks had lower IQs and were less intelligent. But what kind of argument would he use with me? He never denied that African Americans were slaves, that it was an economic system and that Blacks were cowed into not voting by White Supremacy groups and Jim Crow laws. He dealt with facts. And then went from there to deal with his argument.

I can deal with that. You on the other hand, lie and distort willingly and refuse to do any real fact acceptance.

Can't do that for debate Wat0n. You can lie on someone else. I will never respond to you ever again. A waste of time.


Where did I lie?

You did however insinuate stuff I have never said. I did in fact say Blacks were enslaved, for example. I don't feel like saying it for the n-th time, just because you don't like what I'm saying.

Maybe you could bother to quote whatever part you disagree with, since this looks like a tantrum and not an actual argument.
#15269121
Godstud wrote:
@late Polite racism is always easier to take. That said, I have begun to doubt claims of systemic racism. I know racism exists but there are no policies for it, so it's not ingrained in any system. That doesn't mean that individuals in the system aren't racist, however.



There was a study that just came out that showed upper income Black women had higher mortality than poor White women in childbirth. Studies like that come out from time to time, it's not just in medicine.

This is an example to make a point. The policy may be gone, but the damage remains... There is a city in the South where the mass transit goes around the very poor Black area. So do most of the roads. There are many thousands of people, and a handful of buses. Not much matters if you can't even get to where the opportunities are.
#15269129
@late no, I'm just realistic. I'd not tag people I don't want to debate with, and if I didn't feel like discussing with people who don't think like I do I wouldn't be here. If you tag me in a post I will likely see it if I'm active.

What I would like to know though is why doesn't @Tainari88 elaborate on where exactly have I been lying or denying historical facts like slavery. Just because she doesn't like that I am a Latin American who thinks the US has in fact changed from having racism codify under its laws and that the problems of poor African Americans have to do more with the issues afflicting the poor regardless of their race, and consequently that addressing them should be part of a broader social policy directed at the poor in general, it doesn't mean I am somehow unaware of the history of how they ended up like they did.
#15269140
@late when you debate someone who has a defined profile what does that mean to you? Have I ever hid the fact about what international socialism is about? Never once.

If you are intelligent, you know what that means. What does international socialism advocate?

Definition(s):

The doctrine that socialism ought to come by international revolution. Marx and Engels called for ‘Workers of all countries’ to ‘unite!’ in 1848. The International Working Men's Association (First International) was founded by Marx in 1864 and dissolved in 1876 when he moved its headquarters to New York in order to prevent it falling into the hands of his opponents. The Second International was founded in 1889. It embraced both Marxists and non‐Marxist socialists, but fell apart in 1914 when the majority of the socialists in all the combatant countries in the First World War embraced their country's war effort. The Third (communist) International was founded in 1919 and dissolved in 1943. Official doctrine in the Soviet Union promoted international socialism at some times, and socialism in one country at others, according to the perceived needs of the USSR. Trotskyists founded a rival ‘Fourth International’. Groups calling themselves International Socialists in capitals are therefore Trotskyist.

A simpler definition:

What is the definition of socialism in simple words?
Socialism is an economic and political system where the workers or the government own the buildings and tools that make goods and services like farms and factories. This can be achieved through decentralized and direct worker-ownership, or through centralized state-ownership of the means of production.

What is humanistic socialism?
Socialist humanism is an example of one particular attempt to synthesise personal and political change perspectives (Cooper, 2006; Fromm, 1965). This is a form of Marxist thinking which rejected both the 'state socialism' of twentieth century Eastern Europe; and a mechanistic understanding of Marx's writings

I am an Erich Fromm Socialist as well. What does this mean?

Was Erich Fromm a socialist?
Image result for Erich Fromm socialist humanism
Erich Seligmann Fromm (/frɒm/; German: [fʁɔm]; March 23, 1900 – March 18, 1980) was a German social psychologist, psychoanalyst, sociologist, humanistic philosopher, and democratic socialist.

So, @late what does this mean?

It means that people who debate me and question what kind of Marxist I am and don't get the basics of what I am talking about? Assume wrongly that all Marxists agree on Marx. No, we don't. We don't agree. There are all kinds of socialists. That some can't understand that as socialist we are about the working class of every color, creed and nationality and religious and political background is really about IGNORANT fools who don't know how to deal with someone else's well thought out political philosophy. Too used to sellout liberals and sellout conservatives who rarely have any real differences in fundamental philosophies.

Fromm was a democratic socialist. He was not an authoritarian or a Stalinist either. Or a Maoist. He was anti authoritarian.

But some folks prefer not to study the people they debate and instead fall into sheer lies and bullshit.

If I debate you for example @late I know you are from Maine, from the East Coast and you are a liberal and a Stigler adherent. Compassionate capitalism. You like Elizabeth Warren. Etc.

Do I waste time trying to make you out to be a Democrat like Sinema or Manchin, or some semi conservative foolish person? No. I do not waste time on that because I did my homework in political science.

Why waste time on debate if you can't figure out what the hell people are?

You ask questions. Period.

@ckaihatsu asks questions. He wants to flesh out the person's politics.

He does diagrams and graphs and so on because he is also a socialist and likes seeing visually power structures and relationships as correlating to results of that mindset or principles in action.

It makes sense to me. It is not silly charts at all. He is seeing if there is a workability factor to a position. Most computers also follow a series of instructions to be able to see if it fits a paradigm or a set of instructions.

He is not against technology. He is pro-technological advancement.

QatzelOk is another guy with another set of thoughts.

What I find interesting is the total lack of understanding who people are in this place? They do not even give serious effort at all to understanding who or what they are debating. They waste time on shit that anyone who knows a minimum amount about that political philosophy would not waste time on.

It is frustrating. :roll:
#15269142
If the argument is that institutional racism is still individual racism because institutions are created by individual behaviour, note that individual behaviour is also caused by institutions.

If we accept these two things, we end up confusing individual and institutional racism.

While this may be of benefit for people who (dishonestly or simply ignorantly) wish to confuse the two, it will not do for anyone who wishes to have a nuanced and realistic view of racism.
#15269151
@Tainari88 if you say so.

Some of us don't forget the socialist left, including the Marxist left, thought races are a silly social construct and that we should be above such concepts invented by the bourgeoisie to split the working class. The fact that some are introducing postmodern identity politics into their ideology just shows the magnitude of the dumpster fire Marxian theory is.

And @ckaihatsu's charts add little of value when they lack much explanation. The visualizations are unnecessarily complex and rarely include much explanation for the uninitiated reader.

So, do you have anything to add about the topic at hand @Tainari88? I mean, beyond telling me I can't think straight because I am a Latin American immigrant who does not agree with you.

Pants-of-dog wrote:If the argument is that institutional racism is still individual racism because institutions are created by individual behaviour, note that individual behaviour is also caused by institutions.

If we accept these two things, we end up confusing individual and institutional racism.

While this may be of benefit for people who (dishonestly or simply ignorantly) wish to confuse the two, it will not do for anyone who wishes to have a nuanced and realistic view of racism.


Just because institutional racism can perpetuate and sustain individual racism doesn't mean the latter was caused by the former.

I provided you with the historical example of the racial integration of Trumbull Park Homes by the Chicago Housing Authority and how hard it was, in practice, to achieve it as many of the residents resisted the idea by force. I doubt integration would have been an issue had no residents been racist, and I also doubt there would have been redlining in that case since it would have been cheaper to just not consider race when setting up public housing projects.
#15269166
late wrote:There was a study that just came out that showed upper income Black women had higher mortality than poor White women in childbirth. Studies like that come out from time to time, it's not just in medicine.
Correlation does not equal causation. Have you considered the likelihood of stress of being upper income earner being a factor? Most upper income earners deal with more stress and women of higher incomes tend to feel it more than men in a similar situtation, simply due to biological and societal pressures.

Did they do this with white or lower income women, too? Most people in upper oncome jobs have a higher mortality rate, and "poor white women in childbirth" isn't much of a deal because of the level of medical care in the USA, that even poor BLACK women can access. Did they also do a study on upper income white women?

Poverty is the largest problem for the USA and the claims of systemic racism, and it's true that due to historic reasons black communities have larger problems when it comes to this, and that, in turn, leads to higher crime, etc. Most would argue that most policing is not done with racism as an foundation, and that systemic(institutional) racism isn't actually systemic, but law dealing with the fallout of a larger poverty problem.

That the USA is dealing with the problems of PAST racist policies, cannot be denied, but there is little to no evidence that there are current racist policies in place that would support claims of systemic racism. That there is more black poverty cannot be denied, and this correlates with higher criminality rate in these poor areas. Culture also affects this, and black culture within communities can increase problems, as gang lifestyles are romanticized in media. Note: As of 2015, at 77.3 percent, black Americans have the highest rate of non-marital births among native Americans. In 2016 29% of African Americans were married, while 48% of all Americans were.

Another problem is that they normally measure "systemic racism" by OPINION polls, too.

To address the OP, poor black people are not going to Japan, so is the lack of racism simply a by-product of that?
#15269175
Godstud wrote:Correlation does not equal causation. Have you considered the likelihood of stress of being upper income earner being a factor? Most upper income earners deal with more stress and women of higher incomes tend to feel it more than men in a similar situtation, simply due to biological and societal pressures.

Did they do this with white or lower income women, too? Most people in upper oncome jobs have a higher mortality rate, and "poor white women in childbirth" isn't much of a deal because of the level of medical care in the USA, that even poor BLACK women can access. Did they also do a study on upper income white women?

Poverty is the largest problem for the USA and the claims of systemic racism, and it's true that due to historic reasons black communities have larger problems when it comes to this, and that, in turn, leads to higher crime, etc. Most would argue that most policing is not done with racism as an foundation, and that systemic(institutional) racism isn't actually systemic, but law dealing with the fallout of a larger poverty problem.

That the USA is dealing with the problems of PAST racist policies, cannot be denied, but there is little to no evidence that there are current racist policies in place that would support claims of systemic racism. That there is more black poverty cannot be denied, and this correlates with higher criminality rate in these poor areas. Culture also affects this, and black culture within communities can increase problems, as gang lifestyles are romanticized in media. Note: As of 2015, at 77.3 percent, black Americans have the highest rate of non-marital births among native Americans. In 2016 29% of African Americans were married, while 48% of all Americans were.

Another problem is that they normally measure "systemic racism" by OPINION polls, too.

To address the OP, poor black people are not going to Japan, so is the lack of racism simply a by-product of that?


Very interesting take, what made you change your views on this matter?
#15269182
wat0n wrote:
I don't think someone like Oprah should have much trouble getting a $1m loan.



With *this* line you're implying that money / finance is color-blind, and that even 'purple' people would be getting million-dollar loans, given million-dollar collateral on hand.

This line / approach is always *myopic*, though -- sure, everyone knows what a *transaction* is, but what abstracted 'transactions' themselves can't tell us is what socio-material *culture* emerges from these mechanistics, including the whole of society *using* such transactions / exchanges.


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Potemkin wrote:
Maybe not racially, but they are certainly being culturally discriminated against.



wat0n wrote:
It's definitely racial, too. It's a sort of reverse discrimination, and I don't mean positive discrimination but more like "oh, so you're white and also poor? Well, that's definitely not because you were a victim of institutional racism so it's your fault, loser".



Here's from colonial history, showing the material situation faced by non-aristocratic whites:



In 1676, seventy years after Virginia was founded, a hundred years before it supplied leadership for the American Revolution, that colony faced a rebellion of white frontiersmen, joined by slaves and servants, a rebellion so threatening that the governor had to flee the burning capital of Jamestown, and England decided to send a thousand soldiers across the Atlantic, hoping to maintain order among forty thousand colonists. This was Bacon's Rebellion. After the uprising was suppressed, its leader, Nathaniel Bacon, dead, and his associates hanged, Bacon was described in a Royal Commission report:

He was said to be about four or five and thirty years of age, indifferent tall but slender, black-hair'd and of an ominous, pensive, melancholly Aspect, of a pestilent and prevalent Logical discourse tending to atheisme... . He seduced the Vulgar and most ignorant people to believe (two thirds of each county being of that Sort) Soe that their whole hearts and hopes were set now upon Bacon. Next he charges the Governour as negligent and wicked, treacherous and incapable, the Lawes and Taxes as unjust and oppressive and cryes up absolute necessity of redress. Thus Bacon encouraged the Tumult and as the unquiet crowd follow and adhere to him, he listeth them as they come in upon a large paper, writing their name circular wise, that their Ringleaders might not be found out. Having connur'd them into this circle, given them Brandy to wind up the charme, and enjoyned them by an oath to stick fast together and to him and the oath being administered, he went and infected New Kent County ripe for Rebellion.



https://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/zinnvil3.html
#15269184
wat0n wrote:
cases of anti-Black racism by Hispanics




George Michael Zimmerman (born October 5, 1983) is an American man who fatally shot Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old black boy, in Sanford, Florida, on February 26, 2012. On July 13, 2013, he was acquitted of second-degree murder in Florida v. George Zimmerman.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Zimmerman



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Tainari88 wrote:
They got two A bombs dropped on them, partially for being imperialistic.



The nuclear bombings were *mostly* to forestall possible / potential Russian strategic movements at the time, kicking off the postwar 'Cold War'.



Decision-making lay with four permanent Security Council members264—Britain, the US, France and Russia—and between them these dominated, oppressed and exploited the rest of the world.

They were already falling out behind the scenes by the time of San Francisco. Churchill discussed drawing up plans for the ‘elimination of Russia’, arming defeated German troops for a surprise attack ‘to impose on Russia the will of the United States and the British Empire’265—a suggestion which, it seems, his own generals would not take seriously. The US did more than just talk: its decision to use the nuclear bomb against Japan in August 1945 was clearly motivated, at least in part, by a desire to show Stalin the enormity of the destructive power at its disposal.



Harman, _People's History of the World_, p. 543



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Tainari88 wrote:
the majority of Americans agree that MAGA supporters are not the majority.

But, the system has been so corrupted that it has locked out almost every possibility of rectifying the corruption. If it does not rectify in time? The fallout is going to be irreversible. Once that train leaves the station it spells the end of American response to disaster. It will be about internal collapse.



Jordan Klepper Takes on a Handful of Trump Arrest Protesters | The Daily Show




Sen. Lindsey Graham - On Trump, the War in Ukraine & Immigration Reform | The Daily Show




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wat0n wrote:
state institutions [...] are also shaped by public opinion


wat0n wrote:
The whole point of a bureaucracy is to be able to provide a systematic solution to repeated problems or procedures governments have to deal with so it's not strange for governments to be particularly slow to adapt.



If *governments* can be 'particularly slow to adapt', then that fact indicates an *institutional* culture -- that government has 'a-life-of-its-own' that has to be analyzed *institutionally*.


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wat0n wrote:
article 9 of Japan's Constitution (the one that forbids it from having an offensive army) is one under constant discussion there due to the rise of Chinese military power and occasional North Korean missile tests and its neighbors know that. This [article 9] in turn hurts Japanese deterrence, doing away with it would work as a deterrent. [geopolitically]



'Geopolitical ombudsman', wat0n -- ?


= /


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wat0n wrote:
poor white people can and have pressured institutions to discriminate against poor Black people (or more generally Black people who are of the same or lower social stratum), even where I live.



Example?


wat0n wrote:
You do realize those laws were to a large extent motivated by the fact that most whites in the South, including the poor southern whites, wanted to discriminate against African Americans, right? They would even vote for the constitutions that would implement Jim Crow after the Reconstruction Era ended, even if they would lose the franchise for being too poor to vote.



https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/false_consciousness


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ckaihatsu wrote:
The terms used in *any* debate are *also* the debate itself.



wat0n wrote:
Exactly, and because of that you don't get to decide those terms.



*You* don't get to be *authoritarian* about it since this is a *discussion board* and we're just two people talking -- you're indulging in *bickering*.


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wat0n wrote:
Like other social issues necessitating government action, too, racism originates on decisions made or situations faced by individuals. So saying that racism is merely systemic is just wrong, racism is practiced by individuals and it will become a social problem if widespread or severe enough.



And, conversely, the same bottom-up dynamic applies to *anti-racism* as well:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_rights_movement
#15269187
ckaihatsu wrote:With *this* line you're implying that money / finance is color-blind, and that even 'purple' people would be getting million-dollar loans, given million-dollar collateral on hand.

This line / approach is always *myopic*, though -- sure, everyone knows what a *transaction* is, but what abstracted 'transactions' themselves can't tell us is what socio-material *culture* emerges from these mechanistics, including the whole of society *using* such transactions / exchanges.


But it's an important one, as it shows income trumps race in this context.

ckaihatsu wrote:Here's from colonial history, showing the material situation faced by non-aristocratic whites:


So the poor working class white kids in 2023 are indeed responsible for their situation since their ancestors were treated better than Black slaves 350 or so years ago in the colonial era. Right?
#15269188
Most Eastern societies don't give a damn on foreigners (not just Africans, frankly) as long as they don't "pester" the locals, but that doesn't mean they (or in some sense, we) don't discriminate against them.

In Japanese and / or Korean comics, for example, Africans are often typecast as either hit-men (for larger gangsters) or sexually adapt people.


Meanwhile, there are also Africans in China and Hong Kong, of course. I saw a few, and generally I think Africans in Hong Kong are quite honest and hard-working, and on top of that, they don't cause trouble like South-Asians or Mainland Chinese do.
#15269191
wat0n wrote:
But it's an important one, as it shows income trumps race in this context.



Again, that's *myopic* -- here's the 'big picture':



Racial disparities

The wealth gap between white and black families nearly tripled from $85,000 in 1984 to $236,500 in 2009.[79]

A Brandeis University Institute on Assets and Social Policy paper cites the number of years of homeownership, household income, unemployment, education, and inheritance as leading causes for the growth of the gap, concluding homeownership to be the most important.[79] Inheritance can directly link the disadvantaged economic position and prospects of today's blacks to the disadvantaged positions of their parents' and grandparents' generations, according to a report done by Robert B. Avery and Michael S. Rendall that pointed out "one in three white households will receive a substantial inheritance during their lifetime compared to only one in ten black households."[80] In the journal Sociological Perspectives, Lisa Keister reports that family size and structure during childhood "are related to racial differences in adult wealth accumulation trajectories, allowing whites to begin accumulating high-yield assets earlier in life."[81]



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_in ... isparities



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Also, please recall *your own* particular treatment of *government*, historically:


wat0n wrote:
The whole point of a bureaucracy is to be able to provide a systematic solution to repeated problems or procedures governments have to deal with so it's not strange for governments to be particularly slow to adapt.



viewtopic.php?p=15269105#p15269105



ckaihatsu wrote:
If *governments* can be 'particularly slow to adapt', then that fact indicates an *institutional* culture -- that government has 'a-life-of-its-own' that has to be analyzed *institutionally*.



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[1] History, Macro Micro -- Precision

Spoiler: show
Image



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wat0n wrote:
So the poor working class white kids in 2023 are indeed responsible for their situation since their ancestors were treated better than Black slaves 350 or so years ago in the colonial era. Right?



'Kids' equals *one* particular social-minority status, and 'poor' equals *another* particular social-minority status, so 'poor working class white kids in 2023' does *not* equate to 'privileged whites using cultural imperialism', as you seem to be insinuating.
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