When whites just don't get it, part 3

[gollygee]

I posted at least the second part of this when it came out. Here's number 3!

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/12/opinion/sunday/nicholas-kristof-when-whites-just-dont-get-it-part-3.html

Likewise, research suggests that blacks and whites violate traffic laws at similar rates, but blacks are far more likely to be stopped and arrested. The Sentencing Project, which pushes for fairer law enforcement, cites a New Jersey study that racial minorities account for 15 percent of drivers on the turnpike, but blacks account for 42 percent of stops.

THE greatest problem is not with flat-out white racists, but rather with the far larger number of Americans who believe intellectually in racial equality but are quietly oblivious to injustice around them. Too many whites unquestioningly accept a system that disproportionately punishes blacks and that gives public schools serving disadvantaged children many fewer resources than those serving affluent children. We are not racists, but we accept a system that acts in racist ways.

Some whites think that the fundamental problem is young black men who show no personal responsibility, screw up and then look for others to blame. Yes, that happens. But I also see a white-dominated society that shows no sense of responsibility for disadvantaged children born on a path that often propels them toward drugs, crime and joblessness; we fail those kids before they fail us, and then we, too, look for others to blame.

Today we sometimes wonder how so many smart, well-meaning white people in the Jim Crow era could have unthinkingly accepted segregation. The truth is that injustice is easy not to notice when it affects people different from ourselves; that helps explain the obliviousness of our own generation to inequity today. We need to wake up.

[YoungDemCA]

1. Maybe because white people in general don't want to accept responsiblity for a racist society?

While simultaneously taking advantage of the benefits that being white has in American society.

In other words, they want to have it both ways.

[hfojvt]

6. maybe because white people in general

don't have any responsibility for a society they have about zero control over. Neither I, nor 300 of my nearest white friends and family made society the way it is. We have very little control over it.

[yeoman6987]

7. School districts

Aren't schools budgeted on property taxes? Every district can raise or lower taxes based on needs of budgets. It is done all the time. If schools need more funding raise the property taxes. They certainly do that in Anne Arundle County where I live in Maryland. And we are hardly the riches district in America, but have the best schools in the United States.

[gollygee]

12. There's a huge history of housing discrimination

that plays into this.

This might interest you: http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2013/12/01/248039354/a-battle-for-fair-housing-still-raging-but-mostly-forgotten

Since property taxes fund local services, places with high property values tend to have much better school systems and public amenities. What the TAL episode expertly illustrated was the many ways that those property values have been deliberately racialized. Beginning in the 1930s, the federal government actually refused to back loans if black people lived nearby, and builders actively and openly prohibited black people from moving to new suburban developments. The net effect was that black people of all incomes were clustered in poorer urban centers, where they also received egregiously inferior public services, and where there was downward pressure on their abilities to create wealth.

But this kind of discrimination isn't some practice from a darker, bygone era — it just looks different today. According to a study we wrote about recently, when white folks and people of color went to inquire about buying or renting homes, they got different treatment. Whites were shown more units and were offered lower rent. Everyone said they were treated courteously. There were no "Negroes Need Not Apply" signs on the doors. No real estate agents slammed doors in brown folks' faces. They simply offered them fewer choices at higher prices.

Hannah-Jones' reporting on the Fair Housing Act, which was meant to correct this kind of discrimination, found that it had been mostly toothless and ineffective since it went into effect and that there's little political momentum behind bolstering it. (Here's a recent report from Hannah-Jones on the moves that have been made over the past year.)

[Louisiana1976]

2. It's all about white privilege. White privilege is like global warming. Some will deny it exists--

but it exists.

[hfojvt]

3. I just don't get

how all white people are the same.

"The truth is that injustice is easy not to notice when it affects people different from ourselves;"

Kinda funny. It seems to me that every person on this planet who is not ME, myself or I, is "different from" myself. Mike Brown and Trayvon Martin are not me, but then again, Chris Lane is "different from" me as well and so is Christopher Jones.

"But I also see a white-dominated society that shows no sense of responsibility for disadvantaged children born on a path that often propels them toward drugs, crime and joblessness;"

Really? I tend to see a Republican-dominated society where a lot of white people are trying pretty hard to create and support programs that help disadvantaged children (and maybe disadvantaged adults too). But since the 1980s we've kinda been consistently out-voted by the "I got mine and want even more" crowd.

[nomorenomore08]

4. "we've kinda been consistently out-voted by the 'I got mine and want even more' crowd."

True. The "I got mine" crowd are a huge part of the problem.

[Comrade Grumpy]

5. Oh, those white people!

[morningfog]

9. First post, huh?

Enjoy your short stay, super white man.

[arcane1]

10. I coulda sworn they were black a few trolls ago

Perhaps bleach was involved

[BlueJazz]

11. It's not the White people who are the problem. It's the sociopaths who happen to be white.

They're the ones who happen to have the phony personalities that belong to most right-wing Politicians.

[gollygee]

16. This column suggests the opposite

that the problem is more that the bulk of white people buy into racist myths (like that most people on food stamps are black, or that black people don't value education, or that young black men are inherently scary, or a million others) and then vote in a way that propagates racism. The Republican leadership exploits this, and that's their fault, but the fact that it's available for exploitation in the first place is not.

[BlueJazz]

19. Perhaps my perception is colored (no pun entended) by the people and friends that I know.

In my world, there's fairly little discrimination and anger toward other people (Ok..except people like Rick Scott)
I don't HEAR very much talk with words like lazy, or crooked or nasty. (again...except right-wingers)

[Behind the Aegis]

13. Soft racism

THE greatest problem is not with flat-out white racists, but rather with the far larger number of Americans who believe intellectually in racial equality but are quietly oblivious to injustice around them. Too many whites unquestioningly accept a system that disproportionately punishes blacks and that gives public schools serving disadvantaged children many fewer resources than those serving affluent children. We are not racists, but we accept a system that acts in racist ways.

BAM!

The problem is many whites, including those of us with good intentions, sometimes miss what is right in front of us, because it doesn't directly affect us. It comes down to, "white people have to look for racism; but for black folk, racism looks for them!"

[Solly Mack]

14. Well said!

[gollygee]

17. !

Yeah I think that's a good way to explain the column.

[Solly Mack]

15. K&R