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Does "institutionalized racism" actually exist or is it just another excuse for minorities to throw out there when they are expected to work and support themselves?
Does it exist? Of course. It exists in many parts of the world without a question. But I assume you're talking about a specific country. The US maybe?
(But it's not really an Is It Normal question, is it?)
How is it defined? By not giving opportunity to certain individuals based on race?
I'd argue that will never fully go away.
it doesn't exist on purpose, but I think that companies keep hiring friends and family and then their children's spouse's friends and family, etc... It statistically looks like racism, but most of the time it's not. I think people are way too hard on black single moms especially black people seem to be complaining the most about girls getting pregnant over and over just to scam the system. I think that employment will be easy to find again as soon as we make outsourcing of jobs illegal. Welfare should actually be easy to get and given generously and pay for housing and electricity,etc.
You're totally discounting human nature. If you give someone something for free that they don't have to earn you are taking away their self sufficiency and removing the burden of being responsible for themselves.
This is exactly what welfare is.
Sure on paper welfare looks great, we can help people who need some help. In reality its totally abused by people who are perfectly capable of being responsible for themselves but have had the burden of doing so removed by the system.
No, welfare is a safety net to prevent people falling into abject poverty.
What you support is Somalian order. Every man for himself or die. Unfortunately when people are near the bottom, those above do not want their position threatened so these individuals are prevented from bettering themselves.
That's what "welfare" is on paper. What it is in real life is a very real excuse to not be productive and assume responsibility for yourself.
The difference between how something should work and how it does actually work are sometimes very different.
The idiotic excuse of the people above me are holding me down doesn't really work. You work a job, pay your bills, enjoy life where you can.
"The idiotic excuse of the people above me are holding me down doesn't really work. You work a job, pay your bills, enjoy life where you can."
These two sentences are not mutually inclusive. In fact, the latter sentence is generally that said by those doing the oppressing.
No, I think that you don't want to lose your job harrassing and trapping people all day.
Assuming you're American, you're sitting in a country where (disproportionately) black people are gunned down by the police over trivial shit, given longer jail sentences for drugs than wealthy white men get for rape, and where the government take that bit too long to intervene when a natural or human-caused disaster hits a majority-black city.
And we're questioning if institutionalized racism is a thing?
So, you're saying a city that has a natural disaster is owed help because they choose to stay and "live through it"?
Hurricane Katrina was a disaster beyond predicted proposal, people choose to stay there. Responsibilities seem to be lost on those same people.
Well for starters it's funny that you knew exactly what I making reference to, even though I never explicitly said it. That says a lot.
Anyways that's a damn stupid and shallow viewpoint
You're working on the assumption that these people had the money to just uproot and relocate. That's not a privilege everyone has.
And then the cognitive dissonance. If Hurricane Katrina was, as you say, so unpredictable, then likely most people actually got trapped there instead of "choosing to stay". You're making conflicting viewpoints just to justify the delayed response.
And how would you feel? It's easy for you to sit comfortable, having never been in that situation. If a hurricane or earthquake came and swept away everything you know, and then you saw a lack of urgency in how your government responds to it, you'd be pissed off too.
Why don't they have the money to "relocate"? Who's to be held accountable for their own needs if not each individual?
Hurricane Katrina was predicted to be a catastrophic hurricane. 5 days preceded landfall in which sunny skies and 80 degree days were the weather. Plenty of time to get out of the danger zone.
If someone CHOOSES not to. That's their own stupid fault. I choose hurricane Katrina because it's a good example of the never ending plight of the black man. They just can't get their act together and it's everyone's else's fault but their own.
Much of institutionalized racism is the sad result of well-intentioned yet poorly thought out and executed initiatives. The war on drugs, which forced a generation of black children to go without fathers. Welfare reforms, which encouraged dependence on the system, reduced work ethic and a sense of direction and fulfillment.
Some of institutionalized racism is the simple result of racial differences. Notice how we're not having a discussion on Asians, Indians, or Native Americans—their cultures better meld and identify with American culture (founded by white people) in a positive way. We're talking about blacks.
Black culture is cancer for the young black boy or girl who wants to improve him/herself, to study harder and have a chance at a better life. If they try hard, they are picked on and despised for 'acting white'. Can black culture change? How much of black culture is simply racially-dependent, and not influenced by outside factors? It's an important discussion I don't think society will ever have.
The war on drugs is the reason black people die. The people making these drug laws are the same people who sell them. these agencies need to be destroyed.
It isn't the "war on drugs" fault that generations of black children have gone without fathers. Its just the drugs in general which is the choice of the individual to use or not use. Black culture is riddled with individuals who randomly procreate and simply do not take responsibility for what they do and than the system steps in to take responsibility. These people aren't a byproduct of the system, these are people abusing the system.
Because the system may allow for abuses to happen does not in any way mean that each individual who chooses to do such should not be held accountable (or looked down upon) for making the choice to abuse the system. Where is the personal accountability anymore? Its not "cool"? It's too "tough"? Bullshit.
Can black culture change? That's a great question. It better change fast because pretty soon white America is not going to sit idly while these people continuously destroy their own environments and than play the race/racism card.
The war on drugs is just one initiative, and it's hardly the only reason so many black kids lack a father figure. A simple way to see how the war on drugs is bad is to consider how Prohibition was bad: it lead to an increase of lucrative smuggling by thugs and gangs. Drug dealing provides a chance at wealth and the feeling of having a family that these black boys wouldn't have otherwise.
Your talking points focus on personal accountability, the freedom of choice and generally downplaying federal programs. While I agree we are each ultimately held accountable for abusing or not abusing a system, you argument comes from an idealistic sense of justice. You won't find a solution there, if a solution is what you're looking for.
Consider this: if you could make it on $800 a month, survive off that while living in your mommy's basement, while doing nothing at all besides watching tv and surfing the internet all day, would you? Would you instead work 40 hours a week for $2,500 a month? Can we just blame people for being lazy when there is a system set up that allows for such laziness to exist?
We can curse these people as lazy and wasteful and useless all we want, but leeching can only happen when they are given something to leech on.
Yes, yes we most certainly can blame people that have the capacity to be responsible for themselves and CHOOSE to not be.
If I am the one making $2,500 a month, working 40 hours a week and say $80 from the taxes of each paycheck (and the other people making $2,500 a month) I get go towards this moron sitting in his mommy's basement collecting $800 doing absolutely nothing than I can and will look down upon that same person who is doing that.
The whole problem today is people saying "the system this and the system that". People ARE the system. Once there are enough idiots sitting in basements doing nothing the whole thing will collapse. And I personally won't be happy if that does happen. And the idiots sitting in the basements won't enjoy my tolerance very much.
I don't have an idealistic sense of justice. I have a very realistic sense of what life actually is. It's the "idealists" that have put us in this mess to begin with.
As an aside about the basement-dwellers: forget race, consider the near future when robots replace truck drivers and low-income jobs become more and more automated. I think we both agree the current system can't account for this, since it's already failing as is.
I agree that it is morally wrong to take the $800 and do nothing, as opposed to working for your $2500 and paying taxes. That isn't my point. My point is that it makes logical sense that people will lack a desire to work when all their needs are met. To fix this problem, in my opinion, requires significant reform to social security and welfare programs, reform that will never win you a political election.
No one wants to bite that bullet, the buck is passed and eventually, sometime, the system will collapse. It has to. I am curious if you have any ideas as to how to fix the problem with low-income blacks leeching off the system.
The problem is exactly what you said in a nutshell. Nobody will ever get elected espousing the reforms that you are talking about. The buck has been continually passed until its not even recognizable anymore.
I wish I had ideas of how to force people to be productive. Unfortunately each person has to choose to be that. The inner cities have already started to collapse.