World is Falling Apart Thread (Locked forever)

[marurun]

This sounds so much to me like the complaints about Black History Month. Why isn't there a White History Month? There are 11 White History Months. If we hadn't tried to carve out BHM in February (the shortest month, you might notice) there would be 12 White History Months.

[Blu]

There are no words. HBCU's rose because whites wouldn't admit them to white colleges and universities. There's a reason why HBCU's serve purpose in society (HBCU's (although founded to educate black citizens) are increasingly diverse in contrast to other public institutions, even without affirmative action), why they receive federal funding (albeit less than their predominately-white institutions, alleging a separate and unequal system), and why white's don't have a white caucus (Hint: They control the bulk of most governmental positions and are operating from a place of societal power and privilege.)

You're failing to see any nuance of systemic and structural racism, but instead saying something is unfair when LITERALLY the Black Caucus and HBCU's were born out of AND are responses to the systemic power structure of slavery, Jim Crow, and racism. You can dance around it (the uncomfortable truth and outcomes of slavery) all you want, but that is the bottom line. You cannot move the goalposts on this one. I simply cannot allow a whitewashing of history or cry foul of some horrible injustice about not having a white caucus or how HBCU's are discriminatory, CRT. That is absolute bollocks.

[prfsnl_gmr]

Unlike the fired Attorney General Yates who went by her beliefs, Judge Neil Gorsuch who is known as a Textualist has done what ALL judges should be doing, FOLLOW THE LAW.

Yep...It's that easy! You just open a really, really big book with "THE LAW" written on the cover and do what it says in there! Why did I spend so much money on law school?!

Cases proceeding to the U.S. Supreme Court have been extensively argued by incredibly intelligent lawyers, decided by incredibly intelligent lower court judges, re-heard by a panel of even more incredibly intelligent judges, and then sent to a panel of nine of the world's most intelligent jurists...who often do not agree on the outcome. Deciding issues of U.S. constitutional law is not as easy as "following the law" or "calling balls and strikes." Moreover, the perception that textualism - a method of constitutional interpretation by which you use magical time travel powers to divine the "original intent" of the founding fathers or the "original meaning" of words written 200+ years ago - is somehow less subjective that other methods of constitutional interpretation is completely false. Amazingly, it always gets the judge to his or her desired result, and I have yet to read an opinion where a textualist judge wants a certain outcome but the "original intent" of the founders or the "original meaning" of the words used in the U.S. Constitution won't let him or her get there. (This is particularly true of Second Amendment cases.)

BTW...Neil Gorsuch is a fine judge and a respected jurist. He deserves to be considered for the Supreme Court just as soon as the Senate has held a vote on Merrick Garland and just as soon as he is appointed by a President that won both the electoral college and popular vote.

Too many Judges want to deviate from the law and create their own rules. It is why numerous propositions approved by the voters get overruled. If a proposition is illegal it should not even be put on a ballot!

Hmmmmm...Not sure where you're going here. Judges don't put propositions on the ballot. Citizens and politicians do that, and they do not need pre-approval from a judge before voting on them. If the proposition is ultimate unconstitutional that is the citizens' or politicians' fault, and I am not sure how you can fault a judge for "deviat[ing] from the law" and "creat[ing his] own rules" when he or she holds that a proposition violates either a state constitution of the U.S. Constitution.

President Trump is finding money for Infrastructure, as a savvy shrewd businessman already knew where to raise the money? I wouldn't doubt it, he had that new judge in mind back in May 2016. The Billions coming from withholding funds from Sanctuary Cities.

Donald Trump was a horrible businessman. His public company lost money during his entire tenure, and it declared bankruptcy twice. Moreover, he would be personally wealthier today if, rather than using his daddy's money to play businessman, he has simply invested his daddy's money in index funds and sat on the beach all day. He's a showman, a carnival barker, and a snake oil salesman through and through - he even had to announce his Supreme Court pick during prime time television for the RAZZLE DAZZLE! - but he's not a businessman, much less a savvy one.

Minority Democrat leader Nancy Pelosi had the nerve to say this to a mother who lost her son.

The logic here fails spectacularly. Crimes are committed by all sorts of people, and in the absence of evidence regarding propensity, the fact that a particular crime was committed by a particular person does not justify a change in policy affecting all similarly situated people.

[foxhound1022]

Shouldn't a more appropriate question be, "Why is black history limited to 1 month?"

[Sarge]

I view race much as Ravi Zacharias does: that a person's race and ethnicity are sacred. They are something to be celebrated! So I believe all of us should be able to celebrate our ethnic heritage without being branded as racist.

Shouldn't a more appropriate question be, "Why is black history limited to 1 month?"

I agree with this sentiment. Of course, black history month is less a constraint and more a special emphasis on black history for a month of time, so I don't necessarily see it as problematic.

[Ack]

I view race much as Ravi Zacharias does: that a person's race and ethnicity are sacred. They are something to be celebrated! So I believe all of us should be able to celebrate our ethnic heritage without being branded as racist.

Ethnicity perhaps, but not race. Race is at best a nebulous concept that can be manipulated and changed to fit whatever worldview one wants to keep.

For me, my race would generally be considered "white." But there's a slight problem with this, because of my ethnicity:

I'm predominantly Irish(specifically Northern Irish, with all roots from County Antrim), followed by English, German, and French...but then also slightly Native American due to a "white" woman who married a Cherokee man over 150 years ago. It's so small, I don't say I'm Native American, but it's still in my blood; therefore, I'm not wholly white because 1/64 of my heritage is not.

What is "white" has at times included and excluded Italians, various Eastern Europeans, Slavs, Greek, etc. African Americans in the US are considered "black," despite the likelihood that there are "white" people somewhere in their family tree within the last few centuries. This is further complicated by old laws regarding what is "black" versus "white" in the US, where people with any trace of ancestry coming from an individual determined to be "black" were therefore "black" for so many generations.

Also, and this may surprise you, not all black people living in the US are African American.

Therefore, I say throw out the entire concept of race. If you wish to celebrate your ethnic heritage, fine...though definitely do some research into what your heritage actually is, to ensure you're celebrating the right one. And learn about and celebrate others' heritage too, because they're just as interesting, exciting, and wonderful as yours.

[Sarge]

I can't really disagree with that, Ack. And yes, "race" in and of itself is a nebulous concept. I think it all has to do with what your internal definition of race is. It's stifling to just throw it all into a single category. I'd clearly be considered "white", but that's not the entirety of my lineage. My race would technically be Scots-Irish/French/Native American, although that last category isn't a huge one (1/16). And I don't like to claim the French. It may be smaller than the Native American component. Or that's what I tell myself.

I still think race is special, in that it's part of my genetic makeup, but there's no question in practical terms that ethnicity and culture are far more important from a practical standpoint.

(And yep, I'm very aware that many blacks here aren't African-Americans. College town and all that. )

(Also, agreed with learning about other cultures. I find them fascinating, and often times, there are things that can be learned and incorporated to improve one's own culture, or just your own self.)

[marurun]

It would be awesome if we could toss "race" as a concept, but it has existed in American society and history for so long and there's so much left to untangle before we can do that. As is stands now, perception that someone is black results in negative consequences in the larger white-dominated and white-controlled society. And because humans are so inclined to cling to in-group order, abandoning race would simply result in it being replaced with something equally shallow and based on easy initial visual or behavioral perception.

Even ethnicity, or perceived ethnicity, can carry these consequences here and in other countries. Europe particularly struggles with this. I know some Scandinavian countries like Norway have gone through nationalistic periods where they discriminate against folks who they perceive to have non-Scandinavian origins. I knew someone who was half-Slavic (I think) and half Scandinavian who legally changed his name from something more Slavic sounding to something more Scandinavian sounding because he was worried about discrimination, even though he was a native son of a Scandinavian. It would be like someone in the US of half-Arabic descent changing their name from Yusuf Mohammad Johnson to Robert Joseph Johnson (and going by Bob) in the years immediately following 9/11 for fear of being attacked by American nationalists (or doing the same now for fear of being harassed by rabid Trump supporters).

[TSTR]

"Race" can be considered a "concept," but skin tone and ethnic background are biologically determined, coded into DNA. So "race," as a lot of people view it, is never going to go away. There will always be people of different skin tones and ethnic backgrounds (at least until we get to where we all look exactly alike, like in that one South Park episode).

I wish we could reach a point where instead of denigrating others about it or pretending that we're above it all, we can celebrate all the variety and difference that individual racial/ethnic/whatever-you-wanna-call-it experiences and cultures have to offer the world. I think that's what they call "diversity."

But I'm just a "privileged" white guy, so what the fuck do I know?

[dsheinem]

"Americans believe in the reality of ‘race’. . .But race is the child of racism, not the father. And the process of naming ‘the people’ has never been a matter of genealogy and physiognomy so much as one of hierarchy. . . [whiteness] has no real meaning divorced from the machinery of criminal power” - Ta-nehisi Coates