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Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting! NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
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On May 31 2018 21:08 Jockmcplop wrote:Show nested quote +On May 31 2018 19:35 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 31 2018 18:36 Jockmcplop wrote:On May 31 2018 09:13 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 31 2018 08:58 ShoCkeyy wrote:
The good ole bullying, the schools don't help either. I recall when I tried to stop a fight that was started through bullying, and I got in trouble as well. So there needs to be a better system started at the school. I also grew up in a FL school, and I can attest that bullying here is done at all levels. From teachers, parents, to students. It's not like he didn't like bullying though. He just didn't like people pointing out he was an idiot racist, the few people who knew of him anyway. I mean obviously we need better conflict resolution/human decency taught at every level, but this isn't just an unfortunate outcast who got bullied. He was a shitty person who people didn't like and he felt entitled to them liking him despite being a shitty person. Given I believe his shittyness is largely a result of our society rather than specific personal defects.When they didn't, he decided he should shoot random people that represented stand-ins for them. It's a frequent enough occurrence that it speaks to something more specific than "bullying". It's also fair to presume that this often manifests in less dramatic/tragic ways than mass shootings. Outcast cliques (namely white supremacist groups) are scooping these people up wherever they can and they are being emboldened everywhere, all the way up to the President. In all likelihood it was both. The approach we use for schooling in most of the Western world isn't really fit for purpose. Throw a bunch of kids together with nothing in common other than age and hope the results are good. Sure, you can educate them that way (I don't see why we should) but its unsurprising that the results leave some minority of these kids completely messed up. Obviously any individual case of school shooting is the shooters responsibility and no-one else's, but when you add them all together and then look at other factors like the mental health of school leavers its pretty obvious that the current system is very damaging for some kids. The fact that there is no way out of that system, it can be like 10 years of mental torture. Its a shame that there is no political benefit for reforming or it would have been done years ago. I definitely think it was both and a confluence of other factors. It's our society at large, manifested in it's own uniquely American ways. If this was strictly a bullying thing we would see more black mass school shooters. Across practically every facet of life we're seeing a shift. In order to perpetuate the extraction of wealth from the bottom of society the billionaire class has had to squeeze more poor white people. The overall trend is that the traditional place of superiority for lower income white people is being increasingly disrupted. They see rich rappers, sports stars, actors, and so on everywhere (despite still making up a small minority of roles/wealth). They see representations of black people on welfare eating lobster driving escalades with 24's, and see minorities get 'preferential' treatment in colleges, jobs, etc... They see the decriminalization of existing while Black as an affront to civility and order, the mere presence of Black people in spaces they don't approve of (despite being rightfully there) encourages such fear in white Americans they call an emergency response number where they are well aware the responders kill hundreds people annually.
There's additional aspects for Muslims, immigrants, First Peoples, Basically any non-white people, and to a lesser degree/different way marginalized groups that are reflected more diversely demographically. Like disabled, LGBTQ..., ESL, and so on. All of this feels like a direct assault on them. Their revered place in society (even the lowliest of white Men) is being challenged, dismantled, guilted, devalued, and generally replaced with a social debt they don't feel or want to feel obligated to pay. It's no coincidence so many of these shooters have had affinities for Trump, white supremacy groups, and/or outright hatred for various minority groups (as was the case with this dickbag). Trump very much speaks to this. You've seen it wherever you interact politically. These people feel attacked and Trump is 'standing up' to the army of SJW's, Feminazis, WokerThanThous, Anarchists, ANTIFA, Communists, Tree Huggers, and all the other radicals hell bent on destroying what they have all worked so hard to steal build and feel they would be just as exploited as everyone else without. There has to be a real reckoning with this nations history and what that means for this nations future and the people in it. Most importantly a real reckoning for white America about why they feel like they do and what it's going to take to stop feeling that way. This is all very different in the US to how it is playing out in the EU+UK. In the UK, there's very little white vs black racism. There's very small localised pockets where you get concentrations of black people from certain areas of the world, and it turns polarized between black people and white racists, but throughout the vast majority of the country the racism is far less overt than in America (from what I can gather, I've never been to the US). The same movements of white racists feeling insulted that they might not get their birthright are happening, regardless of who the enemy is. In the EU its very much muslims who are on the receiving end, but as you can see from the recent outpouring of support for Tommy Robinson (a habitual criminal who got put in prison for breaking the law, leading to 'freedom of speech' protests) the far right white nationalist movement is almost exactly the same in tone, just with a different enemy. It seems bizarre to me anyway, its not the black people/muslims/whoever that are making life miserable for the white working class - Its the white elite. The misdirect is so completely obvious and yet so effective. Its sad to see kids getting dragged along with it but its also inevitable I suppose.
I did a post a few pages ago about the vastly different ways slavery played out in US/UK cultures and the impact that's had on how we perceive the black community as a whole.
It's impossible to properly calculate how important it was that we never allowed slavery to come to British shores. In fact it was never officially legalised in the UK at any point, and even at the heights of colonialism there were cases of black slaves winning cases against their owners in British courts.
The US had generations and generations of white men who believed that black men were inferior beings, taught by their parents, lived by themselves, preached from the pulpit, spread from the top of society to the bottom. In the UK it was really only those involved in mercantilism or active in the colonies who knew all that much about slaves or slavery. They might see the odd cartoon in a paper if they were a city-dweller, but most people probably never even saw a black person, or if they did they were some noble's trusted servant brought back from the indies. And that meant they were better than the average joe on the street.
So once slavery collapsed and entire families of black people had come over to the UK, or been freed, or challenged their slave status in the courts and become free people, nobody had any particular opinion about them. They were the queen's servants, like everybody else.
If the US had been able to develop the way it naturally should - i.e. expanding influence, conquering and colonising, eventually collapsing as all Empires do - it's very likely the same process would have played out in some form, as it has through most of the rest of history. Unfortunately the days of Empire have passed, so the US has to play out all the messy process of growing, learning and collapsing within its own borders.
Consequence of being such a young but powerful nation, born at just the wrong time, really.
On May 31 2018 10:09 zlefin wrote:Show nested quote +On May 31 2018 07:26 iamthedave wrote:
Kim might not know much about prison... but what the fuck did Dennis Rodman know about North Korea?
I'm all for public personalities using the immense wealth and influence they are given/earn to try and do some lasting good. Good on Kim if she's trying to make some positive change. what did dennis rodman actually try to do in North Korea?
He's been trying to get them to talk to the west for ages. For some reason Kim Jong Un really likes him, so he's been trying to use that influence to help things over there.
Not sure he's any good at it or has actually helped, but full credit for making the attempt.
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5930 Posts
On May 31 2018 22:21 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On May 31 2018 22:14 zlefin wrote:On May 31 2018 22:08 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Trump to impose total ban on luxury German cars: report
President Trump wants to impose a total ban on the imports of German luxury cars, according to a new report from CNBC and German magazine WirtschaftsWoche.
Several U.S. and European diplomats told the news outlets that Trump told French President Emmanuel Macron about his plans last month during a state visit.
Trump reportedly told Macron that he would maintain the ban until no Mercedes-Benz cars are seen on Fifth Avenue in New York.
Shares of Daimler, Porsche and Volkswagen were lower on Thursday, shortly after the weekly German business magazine published the report.
The Hill has reached out to the Trump White House for comment.
The report comes a week after Trump ordered Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to investigate auto tariffs and probe whether car imports are a danger to national security. A similar national security argument was used when Trump placed steep tariffs on aluminum and steel imports in March.
Trump and congressional Republicans are preparing to clash over the proposed tariffs, which could be as high as 25 percent. http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/390009-trump-to-impose-total-ban-on-luxury-german-cars-report I don't understand why he would ban German luxury cars. Is it to get back at Angela Merkel for having a backbone and standing up to him? Does he think cars are a threat to national security? Does he want to force Americans to buy fewer foreign cars? I don't know why either; and his proposals certainly wouldn't make sense in a conventional way. but I think your guesses are the likeliest reasons, given his past history. I'd also add the possibility of it being part of a backroom/corruption deal from someone who'd benefit from such a tariff. My guess is that it's retaliation for the EU planning tariffs on Harleys, Levis and Tennessee Whiskey, in retaliation for the steel tariffs... Did someone say trade war yet?
That’s exactly the reason. Though why he’d include Canada when the entire North American metal industry around the Great Lakes region is so interconnected and dependent on each other I dunno. There’s a reason why supply chains around that area work like they do and it isn’t because dirty Canada was taking advantage of a bad trade deal lmao.
All it does is make it harder for everyone who is dependent on these suppliers. Like Harley Davidson lol. It’s a pretty terrible piece of protectionist policy, it isn’t close to being well targeted like Reagan’s tarrifs on Honda motorcycles.
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On May 31 2018 19:35 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On May 31 2018 18:36 Jockmcplop wrote:On May 31 2018 09:13 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 31 2018 08:58 ShoCkeyy wrote:
The good ole bullying, the schools don't help either. I recall when I tried to stop a fight that was started through bullying, and I got in trouble as well. So there needs to be a better system started at the school. I also grew up in a FL school, and I can attest that bullying here is done at all levels. From teachers, parents, to students. It's not like he didn't like bullying though. He just didn't like people pointing out he was an idiot racist, the few people who knew of him anyway. I mean obviously we need better conflict resolution/human decency taught at every level, but this isn't just an unfortunate outcast who got bullied. He was a shitty person who people didn't like and he felt entitled to them liking him despite being a shitty person. Given I believe his shittyness is largely a result of our society rather than specific personal defects.When they didn't, he decided he should shoot random people that represented stand-ins for them. It's a frequent enough occurrence that it speaks to something more specific than "bullying". It's also fair to presume that this often manifests in less dramatic/tragic ways than mass shootings. Outcast cliques (namely white supremacist groups) are scooping these people up wherever they can and they are being emboldened everywhere, all the way up to the President. In all likelihood it was both. The approach we use for schooling in most of the Western world isn't really fit for purpose. Throw a bunch of kids together with nothing in common other than age and hope the results are good. Sure, you can educate them that way (I don't see why we should) but its unsurprising that the results leave some minority of these kids completely messed up. Obviously any individual case of school shooting is the shooters responsibility and no-one else's, but when you add them all together and then look at other factors like the mental health of school leavers its pretty obvious that the current system is very damaging for some kids. The fact that there is no way out of that system, it can be like 10 years of mental torture. Its a shame that there is no political benefit for reforming or it would have been done years ago. I definitely think it was both and a confluence of other factors. It's our society at large, manifested in it's own uniquely American ways. If this was strictly a bullying thing we would see more black mass school shooters.
So, one thing I've learned in my time in school in Miami, growing up around Haitians, Bahamians, African Americans, etc, is that if one of them were bullied, the bully then has to deal with all of his friends. I think having good minded friends, and family have a lot to deal with how you view the world, and react to it.
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On May 31 2018 22:32 Dangermousecatdog wrote:Show nested quote +On May 31 2018 22:24 Silvanel wrote:On May 31 2018 22:14 Dangermousecatdog wrote:On May 31 2018 21:40 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On May 31 2018 21:35 Dangermousecatdog wrote:On May 31 2018 20:14 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On May 31 2018 16:19 Silvanel wrote:
Is school bullying in US really the way they depict it in movies? I mean there are "cool kids" and some amount of bullying everywhere but shit they depict in movies would never fly in Poland, at least not when i was going to school. Can you elaborate on what you mean by this? There are a vast number of ways students can be bullied and that bullying can manifest itself... sometimes it's private or more subtle, sometimes it's blatant or public; sometimes it's physical, sometimes it's psychological, sometimes it's verbal; sometimes (most of the time) it's between students, sometimes it's between a student and a teacher; etc. Actually I have always wondered about that myself. But I always assumed that it was just really exaggerated but somehow embedded itself as a popular cliche that you'll see everytime a school is featured in American movies and TV. A kind of "jock" bullying "nerd" stereotype. The whole cool kids physically bullying nerdy kids and everybody laughs it off at the expense of the bullied kid dynamic that you always see in American movies and tv series. It doesn't even have to be a school. It appears to be really imbedded into American movie/TV culture. Like one time I was wacthing an American show where a physically powerful colleague eats an autistic colleague's work lunch, and I was expecting that he would be told that isn't acceptable but instead, everybody at work acting like the nerdy autistic guy is just being annoying moaner, as opposed to an action for an immediate termination of contract. That sort of thing. There's a bullying problem in schools in the UK, but it rarely gets physical and when if does, it is serious business. Also in my school all the coolest kids hung out in different groups and weren't friends at all. Yeah all that happens, unfortunately. Even blatant physical bullying like pushing a kid into a locker or tripping someone or eating someone else's food occur and students around them either laugh it off because they don't want to get involved, think it's legitimately funny and just a harmless prank, or fall victim to the bystander effect or the idea that surely *someone else* will step in if it's an issue. Huh? So what you saying is that it isn't an exaggerated American trope, it's real. I did not expect that. That's really fucked up you know that? It's practically there to a class system. Yeah. I was thinking the same, i was hoping its just exaggaration. I cant fanthom those things happening to me in school. Fighting among kids? Sure. But hitting someone that cant defend himself? Just no. Same with taking someone else things or lunch. The latter would end with calling parents to school and if that didnt help with police intervention (In my school days in Poland). Yeah exactly. It's unimaginable. I always just assumed that it was purely just some sort of overdone American trope. In my school, this tall pupil tripped a small pupil over and a fight broke out when the small pupil retailiated, bystanders got involved, teachers broke it up, statements were taken and the tall pupil got suspended for a week. It's unimaginable that someone would push someone into a locker. It's such a basic lack of respect, it's like something in pre-modern world or you'll see in societies that has recently industrialised.
I mean no offence but this makes me wonder what other aspects of American life you guys have distorted perceptions of. Here's one I heard about earlier this year.
"Yesterday I received a call from my youngest daughter screaming and crying on the phone, for me to come and get her from school.
Apparently, some boys had taken a $5 bet about pulling her wig off in front of everyone. Lulu has a scalp condition that causes severe dryness and hair breakage and loss, and had been so ashamed of her appearance that she had taken to wearing wigs in an effort to still feel beautiful. We all know how easy it is to feel insecure at age 16.
These kids not only tore her wig off in the middle of school, but video taped it. They followed her to the bathroom as she screamed and cried and proceeded to tape her OVER the stall as she cried and begged for her wig.
Later I had to take her to the hospital for abrasions and whiplash. The wig was glued and pinned to Lauren's scalp, she was left with chunks of her hair missing."
www.newschannel5.com
This kind of stuff happens more than anyone would like to admit. Typically it's brushed off as 'boys being boys' when the bullies are white and 'their inevitable criminality coming to the surface' when they aren't. "Toughen up", "You need to grow some thicker skin", "Don't let them bother you", "They're just being dumb boys/mean girls", and so on are some of the common refrains for victims from those in power who don't want to do anything about it.
The power dynamics are real too. Powerful/popular/wealthy bullies and victims get different treatments than their opposites.
Our country/society really is a mess.
On May 31 2018 23:15 ShoCkeyy wrote:Show nested quote +On May 31 2018 19:35 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 31 2018 18:36 Jockmcplop wrote:On May 31 2018 09:13 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 31 2018 08:58 ShoCkeyy wrote:
The good ole bullying, the schools don't help either. I recall when I tried to stop a fight that was started through bullying, and I got in trouble as well. So there needs to be a better system started at the school. I also grew up in a FL school, and I can attest that bullying here is done at all levels. From teachers, parents, to students. It's not like he didn't like bullying though. He just didn't like people pointing out he was an idiot racist, the few people who knew of him anyway. I mean obviously we need better conflict resolution/human decency taught at every level, but this isn't just an unfortunate outcast who got bullied. He was a shitty person who people didn't like and he felt entitled to them liking him despite being a shitty person. Given I believe his shittyness is largely a result of our society rather than specific personal defects.When they didn't, he decided he should shoot random people that represented stand-ins for them. It's a frequent enough occurrence that it speaks to something more specific than "bullying". It's also fair to presume that this often manifests in less dramatic/tragic ways than mass shootings. Outcast cliques (namely white supremacist groups) are scooping these people up wherever they can and they are being emboldened everywhere, all the way up to the President. In all likelihood it was both. The approach we use for schooling in most of the Western world isn't really fit for purpose. Throw a bunch of kids together with nothing in common other than age and hope the results are good. Sure, you can educate them that way (I don't see why we should) but its unsurprising that the results leave some minority of these kids completely messed up. Obviously any individual case of school shooting is the shooters responsibility and no-one else's, but when you add them all together and then look at other factors like the mental health of school leavers its pretty obvious that the current system is very damaging for some kids. The fact that there is no way out of that system, it can be like 10 years of mental torture. Its a shame that there is no political benefit for reforming or it would have been done years ago. I definitely think it was both and a confluence of other factors. It's our society at large, manifested in it's own uniquely American ways. If this was strictly a bullying thing we would see more black mass school shooters. So, one thing I've learned in my time in school in Miami, growing up around Haitians, Bahamians, African Americans, etc, is that if one of them were bullied, the bully then has to deal with all of his friends. I think having good minded friends, and family have a lot to deal with how you view the world, and react to it.
That's all they got, it's not like the system would protect them. That's part of what confuses these 'victims' of bullying. They literally don't understand why the system is siding against them after yelling racial slurs, insults, 'jokes' or whatever at another student.
They are genuinely confused. So many signs in society tell them it should be okay, it's not only okay but celebrated at home, work, activities, church, by the president, etc... they are shocked. Some aren't shocked and do it explicitly as some twisted protest of social decency.
Friends don't just happen for anyone either, you have to earn friends. That's part of what a lot of white people don't understand. For a couple hundred years white men could treat people basically however the hell they wanted and everyone just had to put up with it. People responding offensively, or the system punishing them for it is literally a novel and still developing reality for many of them.
Add to that it not being unacceptable for other white people to call them on their bullshit and suddenly they feel lonely, oppressed, and angry at everyone. When really all that happened was people were like "Uh you're a weirdo/asshole/racist/bigot/sexist/creep and I don't like you" and they didn't think it was fair to label them sexist asshole just because they made some rape jokes about a girl in a short skirt.
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5930 Posts
On May 31 2018 23:15 ShoCkeyy wrote:Show nested quote +On May 31 2018 19:35 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 31 2018 18:36 Jockmcplop wrote:On May 31 2018 09:13 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 31 2018 08:58 ShoCkeyy wrote:
The good ole bullying, the schools don't help either. I recall when I tried to stop a fight that was started through bullying, and I got in trouble as well. So there needs to be a better system started at the school. I also grew up in a FL school, and I can attest that bullying here is done at all levels. From teachers, parents, to students. It's not like he didn't like bullying though. He just didn't like people pointing out he was an idiot racist, the few people who knew of him anyway. I mean obviously we need better conflict resolution/human decency taught at every level, but this isn't just an unfortunate outcast who got bullied. He was a shitty person who people didn't like and he felt entitled to them liking him despite being a shitty person. Given I believe his shittyness is largely a result of our society rather than specific personal defects.When they didn't, he decided he should shoot random people that represented stand-ins for them. It's a frequent enough occurrence that it speaks to something more specific than "bullying". It's also fair to presume that this often manifests in less dramatic/tragic ways than mass shootings. Outcast cliques (namely white supremacist groups) are scooping these people up wherever they can and they are being emboldened everywhere, all the way up to the President. In all likelihood it was both. The approach we use for schooling in most of the Western world isn't really fit for purpose. Throw a bunch of kids together with nothing in common other than age and hope the results are good. Sure, you can educate them that way (I don't see why we should) but its unsurprising that the results leave some minority of these kids completely messed up. Obviously any individual case of school shooting is the shooters responsibility and no-one else's, but when you add them all together and then look at other factors like the mental health of school leavers its pretty obvious that the current system is very damaging for some kids. The fact that there is no way out of that system, it can be like 10 years of mental torture. Its a shame that there is no political benefit for reforming or it would have been done years ago. I definitely think it was both and a confluence of other factors. It's our society at large, manifested in it's own uniquely American ways. If this was strictly a bullying thing we would see more black mass school shooters. So, one thing I've learned in my time in school in Miami, growing up around Haitians, Bahamians, African Americans, etc, is that if one of them were bullied, the bully then has to deal with all of his friends. I think having good minded friends, and family have a lot to deal with how you view the world, and react to it.
Minority groups generally have very good social equity. In times of strife, like a natural disaster, there’s generally a trend shown in every human geography study that they’re more resilient for that reason. When things get rough or tough, there’s generally a willingness to help each other out and there’s generally no shame to accept said help. You can really see this at any ethnic cookout.
Generally this is less so in white middle class communities. I can’t remember what disaster (Saint Helens?) but there was an instance where a lot of middle to upper middle class women actively refused charity from groups like the Red Cross until the situation was absolutely dire because they wanted to save face. Due to a whole host of factors, it’s just easier for white people in trouble to isolate themselves and feed into the whole self loathing bullshit like that incel movement that’s encouraging kids to run vans into crowds of people.
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Children can have an amazing capacity for cruelty. Empathy is not something that develops at the same rate or instantly for children. It doesn’t mean children are sociopaths, but their ability to harm their classmates should never be underestimated.
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Norway28559 Posts
I've long maintained that the degree to whether people are unhappy with their life is not just dependent on how their reality 'objectively' is, but how their reality compares to their expectation. (basically, happiness equation = reality minus expectation. Simplified, of course, but there's a very strong correlation.)
I think this reasonably well explains why minority kids are better at 'dealing' with an objectively shitty situation - it's more in line with their expectations. Their parents and grandparents all had to deal with strife and hardship. They, in turn, grow up expecting some degree of strife and hardship. The current white parent generation, much less so.
As somewhat of an aside, but because I already started, I think the issue that poor white people have with the concept of 'white privilege' can be viewed through this lens too - because white people are privileged, being poor and white ends up being something that reflects poorly upon them as individuals. Poor and black on the other hand isn't as damning for the individual poor and black person, as systematic injustices made it so that he never really had a chance in the first place. (Appearing so inwardly, and to some degree outwardly). I mean, in reality, the poor white person will usually have had damning elements about his or her socioeconomic background too, granting them real personal opposition to the idea that they are privileged, but it's not internalized to them, and it's not obvious from looking at them.
Basically, being part of a maligned group can be strengthening to maligned individuals, whereas being a maligned individual without any group identity ends up seeming like an even more hopeless and desperate situation.
Then you couple these factors with two other facts; the US places more emphasis on designating winners (and by extension, on losers) than any other western country. So white american 'losers' perceive themselves as bigger losers than minority american losers (because it is to a bigger degree perceived as their own fault), and bigger than white european losers (because the degree to which we designate kids as winners or losers is a bit less of an element here. I'm sure there are differences between european countries too here though, but this is definitely true from a scandinavian perspective. Could be much less so for the UK, for example. ) Add to it that white american losers, who personally feel a degree of hatefulness rarely matched in other countries also have access to guns, and you're starting to get somewhere in explaining the huge difference in school shooting ratios between the US and other comparable countries.
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On May 31 2018 23:48 Liquid`Drone wrote:
I've long maintained that the degree to whether people are unhappy with their life is not just dependent on how their reality 'objectively' is, but how their reality compares to their expectation. (basically, happiness equation = reality minus expectation. Simplified, of course, but there's a very strong correlation.)
I think this reasonably well explains why minority kids are better at 'dealing' with an objectively shitty situation - it's more in line with their expectations. Their parents and grandparents all had to deal with strife and hardship. They, in turn, grow up expecting some degree of strife and hardship. The current white parent generation, much less so.
As somewhat of an aside, but because I already started, I think the issue that poor white people have with the concept of 'white privilege' can be viewed through this lens too - because white people are privileged, being poor and white ends up being something that reflects poorly upon them as individuals. Poor and black on the other hand isn't as damning for the individual poor and black person, as systematic injustices made it so that he never really had a chance in the first place. (Appearing so inwardly, and to some degree outwardly). I mean, in reality, the poor white person will usually have had damning elements about his or her socioeconomic background too, granting them real personal opposition to the idea that they are privileged, but it's not internalized to them, and it's not obvious from looking at them.
Basically, being part of a maligned group can be strengthening to maligned individuals, whereas being a maligned individual without any group identity ends up seeming like an even more hopeless and desperate situation.
Then you couple these factors with two other facts; the US places more emphasis on designating winners (and by extension, on losers) than any other western country. So white american 'losers' perceive themselves as bigger losers than minority american losers (because it is to a bigger degree perceived as their own fault), and bigger than white european losers (because the degree to which we designate kids as winners or losers is a bit less of an element here. I'm sure there are differences between european countries too here though, but this is definitely true from a scandinavian perspective. Could be much less so for the UK, for example. ) Add to it that white american losers, who personally feel a degree of hatefulness rarely matched in other countries also have access to guns, and you're starting to get somewhere in explaining the huge difference in school shooting ratios between the US and other comparable countries.
While I personally agree with the causes of being poor and X, a lot of people seem to see it the other way around. Being poor and white is often rationalized as the result of externalities, while being poor and non-white is supposedly explained by a lack of drive, bad parenting/ culture or something racially-tinged.
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Speaking of unfairness, another conservative who admitted to committing a crime will be pardoned by Trump. Ted Cruz is cheering it on.
For reference, Dinesh D'Souza admitted he committed the crime, plead guilty and apologized. The only reason he is being pardoned now is he is a friend to the ruling party of conservatives and they can get away with it.
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On June 01 2018 00:01 Plansix wrote:https://twitter.com/nprpolitics/status/1002195818365911041Speaking of unfairness, another conservative who admitted to committing a crime will be pardoned by Trump. Ted Cruz is cheering it on. For reference, Dinesh D'Souza admitted he committed the crime, plead guilty and apologized. The only reason he is being pardoned now is he is a friend to the ruling party of conservatives and they can get away with it.
Ughhhhh. Back in college, when I was in full-on Evolution vs. Creationism debate rage mode, DD was one of my least favorite people, period. And that was *before* he came out as a conservative douche bag who broke the law. He's such a smug tool. /rant
And on topic: There's zero justification for Trump to pardon him.
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This is not about how "others" see the situation someone is in, its about how the persons themselves see their situation and why they are in it.
I can imagine that the stereotype/insult of the "lazy/struggling/opressed/stupid/whatever insult black/latin/woman(whatever non white male" in some weird way probably helps people of these groups to come to terms with their poverty, no matter why they actually ended up in their situation.
While a poor white guy is just a loser and on top of that is told that he is/was privileged his entire life.
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On May 31 2018 23:48 Liquid`Drone wrote:
I've long maintained that the degree to whether people are unhappy with their life is not just dependent on how their reality 'objectively' is, but how their reality compares to their expectation. (basically, happiness equation = reality minus expectation. Simplified, of course, but there's a very strong correlation.)
I think this reasonably well explains why minority kids are better at 'dealing' with an objectively shitty situation - it's more in line with their expectations. Their parents and grandparents all had to deal with strife and hardship. They, in turn, grow up expecting some degree of strife and hardship. The current white parent generation, much less so.
As somewhat of an aside, but because I already started, I think the issue that poor white people have with the concept of 'white privilege' can be viewed through this lens too - because white people are privileged, being poor and white ends up being something that reflects poorly upon them as individuals. Poor and black on the other hand isn't as damning for the individual poor and black person, as systematic injustices made it so that he never really had a chance in the first place. (Appearing so inwardly, and to some degree outwardly). I mean, in reality, the poor white person will usually have had damning elements about his or her socioeconomic background too, granting them real personal opposition to the idea that they are privileged, but it's not internalized to them, and it's not obvious from looking at them.
Basically, being part of a maligned group can be strengthening to maligned individuals, whereas being a maligned individual without any group identity ends up seeming like an even more hopeless and desperate situation.
Then you couple these factors with two other facts; the US places more emphasis on designating winners (and by extension, on losers) than any other western country. So white american 'losers' perceive themselves as bigger losers than minority american losers (because it is to a bigger degree perceived as their own fault), and bigger than white european losers (because the degree to which we designate kids as winners or losers is a bit less of an element here. I'm sure there are differences between european countries too here though, but this is definitely true from a scandinavian perspective. Could be much less so for the UK, for example. ) Add to it that white american losers, who personally feel a degree of hatefulness rarely matched in other countries also have access to guns, and you're starting to get somewhere in explaining the huge difference in school shooting ratios between the US and other comparable countries.
Greenhorizons is also very right to constantly emphasise economics. And this even sides into an old Conservative whinge: the collapse of traditional family values, which in turn sides into a comment I made in the gun thread about how our economic system is destroying those things.
Think about it. American kids are often times growing up within a low income household where one or both parents must work to feed them, and often have two jobs. And what is the 'reward' for this? Depressed, worn out parents going through the same grind day in and day out. The kids aren't seeing a bright future ahead of them, they're seeing a future of becoming the same depressed, worn-out adults their fathers and oftentimes mothers as well currently are. Their parents aren't working their arses off to make a great home with a pool and two cards and a white picket fence, they're doing it just to survive.
Even in the UK where I am - and I know it's waaaaaaay worse in a lot of parts of America - I see around me a generation who will likely never own their own home. I know several people in their twenties who still live with their parents because even with full time employment it isn't financially viable for them to rent a flat in the city.
How does that compare to the generationally developed idea of whiteness, linking to GH's point?
And of course these same white people are going to be outraged when they're told about white privilege. Some wishy washy college liberal telling them how privileged they are when they're working 50, 60 hour weeks just to put food on the table and a tiny bit in savings, probably lost when a health crisis comes (hurray for stress to bring that on)?
So yes, black families have it 'easier' in this regard. They go home to their parents who pretty much always remind them that they come from a history of struggle, and that anything they have they'll have to work for and/or take. It's a trend you often hear when black celebrities talk about their parents, and is pretty much the movie 'standard black parent' trope.
Of course, the flipside of the privilege discussion is that it is misused by a lot of liberals as a weapon to browbeat people they disagree with, instead of a framework through which to look at imbalances in society.
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On May 31 2018 23:48 Liquid`Drone wrote:
I've long maintained that the degree to whether people are unhappy with their life is not just dependent on how their reality 'objectively' is, but how their reality compares to their expectation. (basically, happiness equation = reality minus expectation. Simplified, of course, but there's a very strong correlation.)
I think this reasonably well explains why minority kids are better at 'dealing' with an objectively shitty situation - it's more in line with their expectations. Their parents and grandparents all had to deal with strife and hardship. They, in turn, grow up expecting some degree of strife and hardship. The current white parent generation, much less so.
As somewhat of an aside, but because I already started, I think the issue that poor white people have with the concept of 'white privilege' can be viewed through this lens too - because white people are privileged, being poor and white ends up being something that reflects poorly upon them as individuals. Poor and black on the other hand isn't as damning for the individual poor and black person, as systematic injustices made it so that he never really had a chance in the first place. (Appearing so inwardly, and to some degree outwardly). I mean, in reality, the poor white person will usually have had damning elements about his or her socioeconomic background too, granting them real personal opposition to the idea that they are privileged, but it's not internalized to them, and it's not obvious from looking at them.
Basically, being part of a maligned group can be strengthening to maligned individuals, whereas being a maligned individual without any group identity ends up seeming like an even more hopeless and desperate situation.
Then you couple these factors with two other facts; the US places more emphasis on designating winners (and by extension, on losers) than any other western country. So white american 'losers' perceive themselves as bigger losers than minority american losers (because it is to a bigger degree perceived as their own fault), and bigger than white european losers (because the degree to which we designate kids as winners or losers is a bit less of an element here. I'm sure there are differences between european countries too here though, but this is definitely true from a scandinavian perspective. Could be much less so for the UK, for example. ) Add to it that white american losers, who personally feel a degree of hatefulness rarely matched in other countries also have access to guns, and you're starting to get somewhere in explaining the huge difference in school shooting ratios between the US and other comparable countries.
I think you're missing the mark. Because poor whites are told they're privileged, they don't enjoy the sympathies (verbal or otherwise) usually afforded to a struggling economic class. You won't find sympathy because your skin color means you're not as bad off as other poor families. Your community is portrayed by the media as a group of isolated, uneducated hicks. Your parents probably voted for Trump because they were driven by anger, race, and nationalism. Your struggles aren't important. Your concerns don't matter--remember, you're white and privileged, so your opinion isn't as valuable as others on problems affecting poor communities.
Oh, and by the way, your skin color gave you higher expectations than you should've had for yourself, and that's why you're unhappy. I think the racial privilege bit does more harm to those at the bottom rungs of society, than good.
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On June 01 2018 00:04 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2018 00:01 Plansix wrote:https://twitter.com/nprpolitics/status/1002195818365911041Speaking of unfairness, another conservative who admitted to committing a crime will be pardoned by Trump. Ted Cruz is cheering it on. For reference, Dinesh D'Souza admitted he committed the crime, plead guilty and apologized. The only reason he is being pardoned now is he is a friend to the ruling party of conservatives and they can get away with it. Ughhhhh. Back in college, when I was in full-on Evolution vs. Creationism debate rage mode, DD was one of my least favorite people, period. And that was *before* he came out as a conservative douche bag who broke the law. He's such a smug tool. /rant And on topic: There's zero justification for Trump to pardon him.
Gotta leave it to Trump, though. He clearly points out all the holes in the system that can be abused in the most blatant way by someone that just doens't give a fuck.
There is no law against placing your family in places of power? I guess Jared will fix the middle east.
The president can pardon people? Pardon all the corrupt assholes, so my corrupt assholes know that i got their back!
Can't prosecute the president for crimes unless you convince his whole party that it is worth it? That means i can be as corrupt as i want to!
No fixed work schedule for the president? That means that i don't have to work at all, take all weekends off!
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The loathing between urban and rural communities is mutual. Rural folks give as good as they get. Having grown up in one of those rural communities, they enjoy smug superiority to people who live in the urban centers. It is completely unearned and they act like no one in the cities knows how to do anything for themselves. That working on your house is a magical skill that only rural people have. Urban people hire someone every time something breaks and those contractors magically appear in the city and then disappear once the job is done. One of the floor workers I worked asked if my wife drove a car because “most people from Boston don’t drive.” That doesn’t mean they deserve to be mocked, but claims of victimization by the mean people talking about racism in the US are overblown.
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On June 01 2018 00:35 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2018 00:04 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On June 01 2018 00:01 Plansix wrote:https://twitter.com/nprpolitics/status/1002195818365911041Speaking of unfairness, another conservative who admitted to committing a crime will be pardoned by Trump. Ted Cruz is cheering it on. For reference, Dinesh D'Souza admitted he committed the crime, plead guilty and apologized. The only reason he is being pardoned now is he is a friend to the ruling party of conservatives and they can get away with it. Ughhhhh. Back in college, when I was in full-on Evolution vs. Creationism debate rage mode, DD was one of my least favorite people, period. And that was *before* he came out as a conservative douche bag who broke the law. He's such a smug tool. /rant And on topic: There's zero justification for Trump to pardon him. Gotta leave it to Trump, though. He clearly points out all the holes in the system that can be abused in the most blatant way by someone that just doens't give a fuck. There is no law against placing your family in places of power? I guess Jared will fix the middle east. The president can pardon people? Pardon all the corrupt assholes, so my corrupt assholes know that i got their back! Can't prosecute the president for crimes unless you convince his whole party that it is worth it? That means i can be as corrupt as i want to! No fixed work schedule for the president? That means that i don't have to work at all, take all weekends off!
That's very true. He is quite good at exploiting holes and loopholes in situations like these.
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On May 31 2018 23:48 Liquid`Drone wrote:
I've long maintained that the degree to whether people are unhappy with their life is not just dependent on how their reality 'objectively' is, but how their reality compares to their expectation. (basically, happiness equation = reality minus expectation. Simplified, of course, but there's a very strong correlation.)
I think this reasonably well explains why minority kids are better at 'dealing' with an objectively shitty situation - it's more in line with their expectations. Their parents and grandparents all had to deal with strife and hardship. They, in turn, grow up expecting some degree of strife and hardship. The current white parent generation, much less so.
As somewhat of an aside, but because I already started, I think the issue that poor white people have with the concept of 'white privilege' can be viewed through this lens too - because white people are privileged, being poor and white ends up being something that reflects poorly upon them as individuals. Poor and black on the other hand isn't as damning for the individual poor and black person, as systematic injustices made it so that he never really had a chance in the first place. (Appearing so inwardly, and to some degree outwardly). I mean, in reality, the poor white person will usually have had damning elements about his or her socioeconomic background too, granting them real personal opposition to the idea that they are privileged, but it's not internalized to them, and it's not obvious from looking at them.
Basically, being part of a maligned group can be strengthening to maligned individuals, whereas being a maligned individual without any group identity ends up seeming like an even more hopeless and desperate situation.
Then you couple these factors with two other facts; the US places more emphasis on designating winners (and by extension, on losers) than any other western country. So white american 'losers' perceive themselves as bigger losers than minority american losers (because it is to a bigger degree perceived as their own fault), and bigger than white european losers (because the degree to which we designate kids as winners or losers is a bit less of an element here. I'm sure there are differences between european countries too here though, but this is definitely true from a scandinavian perspective. Could be much less so for the UK, for example. ) Add to it that white american losers, who personally feel a degree of hatefulness rarely matched in other countries also have access to guns, and you're starting to get somewhere in explaining the huge difference in school shooting ratios between the US and other comparable countries.
I think this is very good analysis. I think many school shootings basically come down to implosion of the ego. The US has extremely rigid definitions of what it means to be successful, especially for men. It is very easy to end up feeling like your entire existence is completely fucking useless as a teenage male. Add in a generous sprinkle of racism and emotional issues, a father's gun and you've got yourself a school shooting.
Another component of this cultural deficiency is the implicit masculinity of weapons. Guns are designed with a masculine aesthetic in mind and many men see guns the same way they see nice cars and other similar status symbols. Guns end up acting like an emotional/ego crutch and also allow these trouble youths a way to establish dominance through force. They are able to "prove" their worth by physically overwhelming their own peers.
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On June 01 2018 00:04 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2018 00:01 Plansix wrote:https://twitter.com/nprpolitics/status/1002195818365911041Speaking of unfairness, another conservative who admitted to committing a crime will be pardoned by Trump. Ted Cruz is cheering it on. For reference, Dinesh D'Souza admitted he committed the crime, plead guilty and apologized. The only reason he is being pardoned now is he is a friend to the ruling party of conservatives and they can get away with it. Ughhhhh. Back in college, when I was in full-on Evolution vs. Creationism debate rage mode, DD was one of my least favorite people, period. And that was *before* he came out as a conservative douche bag who broke the law. He's such a smug tool. /rant And on topic: There's zero justification for Trump to pardon him. The justification is sending signals to people caught in Mueller's investigation that he will pardon them if they don't turn on him.
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On June 01 2018 01:02 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2018 00:04 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On June 01 2018 00:01 Plansix wrote:https://twitter.com/nprpolitics/status/1002195818365911041Speaking of unfairness, another conservative who admitted to committing a crime will be pardoned by Trump. Ted Cruz is cheering it on. For reference, Dinesh D'Souza admitted he committed the crime, plead guilty and apologized. The only reason he is being pardoned now is he is a friend to the ruling party of conservatives and they can get away with it. Ughhhhh. Back in college, when I was in full-on Evolution vs. Creationism debate rage mode, DD was one of my least favorite people, period. And that was *before* he came out as a conservative douche bag who broke the law. He's such a smug tool. /rant And on topic: There's zero justification for Trump to pardon him. The justification is sending signals to people caught in Mueller's investigation that he will pardon them if they don't turn on him.
Touche. That's a good point.
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Norway28559 Posts
On May 31 2018 23:56 ticklishmusic wrote:Show nested quote +On May 31 2018 23:48 Liquid`Drone wrote:
I've long maintained that the degree to whether people are unhappy with their life is not just dependent on how their reality 'objectively' is, but how their reality compares to their expectation. (basically, happiness equation = reality minus expectation. Simplified, of course, but there's a very strong correlation.)
I think this reasonably well explains why minority kids are better at 'dealing' with an objectively shitty situation - it's more in line with their expectations. Their parents and grandparents all had to deal with strife and hardship. They, in turn, grow up expecting some degree of strife and hardship. The current white parent generation, much less so.
As somewhat of an aside, but because I already started, I think the issue that poor white people have with the concept of 'white privilege' can be viewed through this lens too - because white people are privileged, being poor and white ends up being something that reflects poorly upon them as individuals. Poor and black on the other hand isn't as damning for the individual poor and black person, as systematic injustices made it so that he never really had a chance in the first place. (Appearing so inwardly, and to some degree outwardly). I mean, in reality, the poor white person will usually have had damning elements about his or her socioeconomic background too, granting them real personal opposition to the idea that they are privileged, but it's not internalized to them, and it's not obvious from looking at them.
Basically, being part of a maligned group can be strengthening to maligned individuals, whereas being a maligned individual without any group identity ends up seeming like an even more hopeless and desperate situation.
Then you couple these factors with two other facts; the US places more emphasis on designating winners (and by extension, on losers) than any other western country. So white american 'losers' perceive themselves as bigger losers than minority american losers (because it is to a bigger degree perceived as their own fault), and bigger than white european losers (because the degree to which we designate kids as winners or losers is a bit less of an element here. I'm sure there are differences between european countries too here though, but this is definitely true from a scandinavian perspective. Could be much less so for the UK, for example. ) Add to it that white american losers, who personally feel a degree of hatefulness rarely matched in other countries also have access to guns, and you're starting to get somewhere in explaining the huge difference in school shooting ratios between the US and other comparable countries. While I personally agree with the causes of being poor and X, a lot of people seem to see it the other way around. Being poor and white is often rationalized as the result of externalities, while being poor and non-white is supposedly explained by a lack of drive, bad parenting/ culture or something racially-tinged.
I agree with this - but I think there's a difference between internal and external explanations here. I agree that the external society is more likely to point to external factors outside individual control while explaining white poverty than what the case is for black poverty. (Or being a failure at school, or socially, or whatever else someone fails at.)
However I think that to the individual student who struggles, the minority student him or herself is more likely to perceive this hardship as something they have to, and which they will, get through, because they will have been more surrounded by stories of people overcoming hardship. They've seen their parents encounter and deal with abuse without them breaking down. They feel less alone than the white bullied kid does. Their shitty situation, while just as bad as if not worse than of white people in shitty situations, isn't experienced as equally shitty because they are less alone in sharing it. (I am of course speaking in general terms, so there might be a plethora of individual experiences that go against what I'm saying. )
I guess the incel community might kinda go against my theory cause there it's like, white losers bond together, embracing their absolute loserdom, and then going on killing sprees. But meh. I still think there's something to it!)
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EPT
