US Politics Mega-thread - Page 234

On May 31 2018 21:08 Jockmcplop wrote:


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.

On May 31 2018 10:09 zlefin wrote:

what did dennis rodman actually try to do in North Korea?

On May 31 2018 22:21 Acrofales wrote:


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?

On May 31 2018 19:35 GreenHorizons wrote:


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.

On May 31 2018 22:32 Dangermousecatdog wrote:

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.

"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."

On May 31 2018 23:15 ShoCkeyy wrote:


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.

On May 31 2018 23:15 ShoCkeyy wrote:


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.

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.

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.

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.

On June 01 2018 00:04 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:


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.

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.

On June 01 2018 00:04 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:


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.

On May 31 2018 23:56 ticklishmusic wrote:


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.