Talking About Race with White People

I’ve decided to stop talking about racial issues with most white people.

This endeavor of attempting to get people to see things from your point of view is the most tiring, frustrating exercise imaginable. It’s like describing color to someone who was born blind, or using sign language to explain sound to someone who was born deaf. They have absolutely no frame of reference, so therefore the concept is completely abstract.

When someone tells me they disagree with my views on race in America today, and I ask what they disagree with, the typical answers go something like this. “Yes, racism exists, but it’s not that bad anymore and black people and white people are basically treated the same now”; to which I usually respond with statistics and studies to prove why that is false. What are some of those statistics you ask? Here they go:

• In the 2015 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, about 17 million whites and 4 million African Americans reported having used an illicit drug within the last month.

• African Americans and whites use drugs at similar rates, but the imprisonment rate of African Americans for drug charges is almost 6 times that of whites.

• African Americans represent 12.5% of illicit drug users, but 29% of those arrested for drug offenses and 33% of those incarcerated in state facilities for drug offenses.

This is from https://www.naacp.org/criminal-justice-fact-sheet/.

• In the United States today approximately 12.8 million students—or 27 percent of all those in school—attend school in a district in which over 75 percent of students are non-white. In a new report, researchers at EdBuild, a non-profit that analyzes school-funding issues, calculate that these students are getting dramatically shortchanged on the school-funding front.

• The majority of racially concentrated, non-white districts are also low-income. Poor, non-white districts educate about 20 percent of American students. By contrast, while 26 percent of American students attend school in a district where more than 75 percent of students are white, only 5 percent attend school in a racially concentrated, white, poor district.

• The researchers at EdBuild calculated that racially concentrated non-white districts receive, on average, only $11,682 of funding per student, in comparison to $13,908 for racially concentrated, white districts. Collectively, this means that, as EdBuild notes, "nonwhite school districts receive $23 billion less than white districts, despite serving the same number of students."

• Gaps between racially concentrated white and non-white districts persist even among high-poverty schools. On average, nationwide, high-poverty white districts receive approximately $1,500 more per student than high-poverty non-white districts (although they still receive less funding than wealthier white districts). Additionally, even low-poverty non-white districts receive less per-student funding than high-poverty white districts.

This was from https://psmag.com/education/nonwhite-school-districts-get-23-billion-less-funding-than-white-ones.

You can read this article from the Economistexplaining the wealth gap between blacks and whites (hint, it has nothing to do with who works harder or has better morals, but more about accumulated wealth over a long period of time). You can read about the Fair Housing Act of 1968, which was the first year (on paper) black people were legally allowed to purchase homes wherever they wanted. Read about redlining here, but if you’re not gonna click it, I’ll just give you the definition:

Redlining is an unethical practice that puts services (financial and otherwise) out of reach for residents of certain areas based on race or ethnicity.

What could that be? That could be charging higher interest rates for non-white customers, relocating business from areas where non-white people live, making predominately black areas all in one voting district rather than spreading them to ensure that the voting block is limited, etc.

And lastly, the sentencing disparity. “Well why do so many black people do crimes and get arrested?” Good question. The answer is…the same reason anyone of any other group does crime. However, in the case of black and brown people:

• Blacks pay a higher "trial penalty" than comparably-situated whites;

• Whites receive a larger reduction in sentence time than blacks and Latinos for providing "substantial assistance" to the prosecution;

• Blacks and Latinos with a more serious criminal record tend to be sentenced more severely than comparably-situated whites;

• Blacks are more likely to be jailed pending trial, and therefore tend to receive harsher sentences;

• Whites are more likely to hire a private attorney than Latinos or blacks, and therefore receive a less severe sentence.

• Black defendants who victimize whites tend to receive more severe sentences than both blacks who victimize other blacks (especially acquaintances), and whites who victimize whites.

• Latinos and blacks tend to be sentenced more harshly than whites for lower-level crimes such as drug crimes and property crimes;

• However, Latinos and blacks convicted of high-level drug offenses also tend to be more harshly sentenced than similarly-situated whites.

• In the vast majority of cases, the race of the victim tends to have an effect on the sentence outcome, with white victim cases more often resulting in death sentences;

• However, in some jurisdictions, notably in the federal system, the race of the defendant also affects sentencing outcomes, with minority defendants more likely to receive a death sentence than white defendants.

This reflects literally every level of criminal “justice”. We get arrested more often, sentenced more harshly, and receive the death penalty more often than white people for the SAME CRIMES THEY COMMIT.

But when I bring ALL THESE FACTS AND NUMBERS UP, the response from most white people I talk to about these issues is “Well, I don’t know, I just don’t feel like it’s that bad anymore.” Usually followed by a shoulder shrug, and my inner voice telling me “Some things white people just won’t understand.” Sorry to break it to you so publicly white people, we still cool. But don’t talk to me about an issue I have to live with every day and I KNOW the reality of it. I would never tell a woman “Yo, it’s not that bad out here for women anymore” after she tells me about all the various types of sexual harassment she has to deal with daily. I would never tell a gay person “Hey man it’s 2019, nobody hates gay people anymore” after he’s told me about how many times people shun him simply for being himself. If I don’t live your experience, how can I tell you the reality of that experience? I can’t. And neither can you white people.

So we won’t talk about it anymore. You want my thoughts? Follow me.

Unpopular Opinion About Syria

                                   

Here I go with the unpopular opinion of the day. 

I agree with Donald Trump pulling our troops out of Syria. 

I know, I know. He’s such a trash President that it is really reallyeasy to find something wrong with anything that he does. However, in THIS instance? He is correct.

Why is it a good thing to remove our troops from Syria? Simply put, we don’t need to be involved with wars going on in the middle east, ESPECIALLY WHEN WE WERE ORIGNALLY ON BOTH SIDES OF THE SYRIAN CIVIL WAR with the CIA backing one side, and the Pentagon backing their enemies. How can we honestly say that our involvement in a CIVIL WAR makes sense? Sending OUR troops to go die overseas because…..I’ve got nothing.

Why is it a bad thing for us to bounce? According to Splinter.com: 

“Late on Sunday night, the Trump administration made a surprise announcement that it would pull back its remaining forces in Northern Syria and allow Turkish troops to commence a long-planned “operation” in the region. This operation is almost certainly going to look more like an invasion, as critics of Trump’s foreign policy say it gives Turkey carte blanche to wage war on its political enemies, namely the Syrian and Turkish ethnic Kurds who have controlled the region with U.S. support for years.” 

Will this be really tough for the Kurds? Yes. Is that sad? Yes. Do I feel bad for them as human beings? Absolutely. What I don’t feel however, is that this conflict is in any way OUR responsibility to solve. This is between THEM. I truly go by the ‘non-interventionist/defensive violence only’ philosophy, so under that ideology, name a country that we are currently engaged in war with (Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Niger, Somalia, Pakistan and Yemen) that threatened us or attacked us first? You are correct if your answer was zero. The only attack we faced was from Al-Qaeda, which isn’t a country, but an organization that has ties to several Middle Eastern countries. The people from Al-Qaeda who were on the plane? Saudi Arabian. Yet, they (Saudi Arabia) are one of our biggest allies, so out of all the countries we’re currently bombing, the one who ACTUALLY had the most ties to the attackers is still getting our backing. The whole reason we are supposed to be there was to murk Bin Laden and Sadaam. Mission accomplished. So…..what does Syria have to do with all this?

The PetroDollar. Per GlobalResearch.ca:

“The details are emerging of a new secret and quite stupid Saudi-US deal on Syria and the so-called ISIS. It involves oil and gas control of the entire region and the weakening of Russia and Iran by Saudi Arabian flooding the world market with cheap oil. Details were concluded in the September meeting by US Secretary of State John Kerry and the Saudi King. The unintended consequence will be to push Russia even faster to turn east to China and Eurasia.”

So, this is what it’s REALLY all about. The pipeline and the petrodollar. Big shock right? The U.S.A was/is involved with all these oil rich countries because money. So, if anyone who acts like we were there to help the Kurds and be humanitarians, is simply naïve. 

So yeah, even though ultimately there will be hard times for the Kurds in the near future, if we don’t get out now, we’ll be there 18 years later….

Bernie Sanders Chest Pains

So I can already see this whole ‘Bernie Sanders Had Blocked Arteries’ talk is about to be all anyone who is trying to smear the Sanders campaign will talk about for the next few cycles, so I wanna jump ahead of this and see what the different scenarios are that could possibly unfold. 

By the way, before we get into it, just know that he didn’t have a heart attack, he didn’t have open heart surgery, none of that. He complained about chest pain and had some stints inserted to unclog his arteries. It’s a relatively common procedure. He cancelled upcoming campaign stops, because he’s been going 100 miles an hour and hasn’t slowed down. He’s getting some rest. It’s healthy.

With all that said, this is going to be reported in a few ways, and the results could play out in a few ways as well. The main thing I see is a shift in the voters who haven’t completely decided on a candidate yet. I think voters who may have already been concerned about Bernie’s age will use this as more evidence to back up their claim that he isn’t healthy enough to be President. I totally disagree with this, however there is enough talk about this I’ve heard to concern me, as an avid Bernie guy. He doesn’t comb his hair and he doesn’t have great posture, so for optics purposes, this isn’t good at all. Many of those voters who aren’t sure who they like yet will swing from Sanders to Warren, or even Yang. We just have to hope that there aren’t that many people who think like this.

The news is going to continue to cast doubt in everyone’s mind as to the well-being of Bernie, so rather than ‘attack’ him like they’ve been doing, they will feign concern and act as if they care so much about Bernie’s health that dropping out of the race is what is best for him. This is one thing that could possibly connect, on account calling him a socialist hasn’t, calling him old hasn’t, saying he hasn’t done anything as a Senator hasn’t, calling him sexist hasn’t, and they never try to explain why his policies don’t work with any detail. And unfortunately, since we know many voters aren’t as well researched as others, the mostly A-political types who basically vote along party lines will see this as a big deal. 

We know Trump is going to go after Bernie in a vicious way using this as an area of attack. This is basically the ONLY area Trump could do any damage in my opinion. Debating literally ANY other topic, Sanders gives Trump the Stone Cold Stunner, Tombstone Piledriver, and Sweet Chin Music all over the stage. Go to physical wellbeing? We know Trump is an overweight dufus who binge eats fast food and never sleeps, but he has doctors who will blatantly lie to us about his health being phenomenal, he can win this aspect of the race, which as much as I wish it wasn’t, is indeed major. 

Bottom line, I think Elizabeth Warren is somewhere rejoicing as her poll numbers have been rising and she knows that realistically amongst the progressive wing of the party, Bernie is her only competition. As much as we all acknowledge that Liz is NO Bernie, she is the second most progressive candidate with a realistic chance of getting the nomination. There are other candidates that are more progressive in other areas (TulsiGabbard is more progressive on foreign policy, Andrew Yang is more progressive on drug policy), but when it comes to the total package of progressive ideology AND having a realistic chance to win the primary, Warren is the second best option. Is she too corporate and willing to play nice with the establishment for my liking? Absolutely. We have to seriously hope this minor setback for Bernie doesn’t lead to the disastrous consequences I laid out above.