Stop me if you’ve heard this before… If you’re black and you haven’t been successful in the last 50 years, it’s your own fault.
(Source: The Guardian)
I don’t expect Kathy Miller, Trump Campaign Chair in Ohio to read my blog, but if she did, she might have learned a bit from the example I posted from Robert Paul Wolff‘s “Autobiography of an Ex-White Man”
Here’s another illustration that might help her understand better:
Watch the interviewer’s face. He’s trying to choke back his disgust at this horrible person and her abysmal reasoning. She’s promoting a candidate who got his start in life with between $10 million and $100 million in capital from his father, and she’s saying that black people are not succeeding because it’s their own fault. What, it’s their fault they weren’t born with a silver spoon in their mouth?
Just World Fallacy: I was born rich, so obviously I deserve it.
Shiv@#1:
They deserve a free ride on my new “Tumbril World” amusement park.
She has now resigned (Discuss: Moments of Political Madness at Pharyngula).
blf@#3:
She has now resigned
If she’d stuck it out a bit longer, Trump probably would have praised her.
She said that it was a fact that there has been no racism for the past 50 years. This seems to contradict documented history, which included a number of famous class action lawsuits regarding pervasive racist conduct in businesses (Texaco in 1996 is before Obama). We’re also missing the whole ‘sun down towns’ and other means of avoiding integrated housing.
I also get sick of white people acting as if the fact that they didn’t hear black people complaining ‘back in the day’ meant there was no racism. No, it probably meant there was more.
Ten bucks says he does anyway.
He still might, albeit his campaign was reported to have said something to the effect of (this is from memory, as I’m not going to bother to look it up) “the comments were not appropriate”. A more detailed report, Trump campaign chair in Ohio resigns over ‘no racism before Obama’ remarks does not mention that, but does say: “Mark Munroe, the Mahoning chair for the GOP, said he immediately contacted the Trump campaign in Ohio asking for Miller to be dismissed over her ‘insane comments’.”
Broadly, it looks like some of the kooks surrounding teh trum-prat managed to act like sane adults for a few moments. I assume that will not last…
Rand Paul was opining today that this whole racism kerfuffle is Obama’s fault, he should have fixed it, what with being black and all, but he didn’t, so he wasn’t doing his job, or else we’d be past this racism business. Yep.
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/09/rand-paul-thought-obama-should-have-fixed-racism-by-now-but-somehow-its-worse-than-ever/
Johnny Vector@#6:
Not taking that bet.
Caine@#8:
Rand Paul was opining today that this whole racism kerfuffle is Obama’s fault, he should have fixed it, what with being black and all, but he didn’t, so he wasn’t doing his job, or else we’d be past this racism business.
He shoulda used his time machine to go back and cause a time paradox by kicking Thomas Jefferson’s ass. Natch.
Funny, how all these white guys think racism is over, but still blame it on black people, thereby (completely obliviously) making the point that they are the racists, and it is far from ‘over’.
@Marcus Ranum, #2
I was sort of thinking the same way this evening, except that the name for it would be the “Laffer Curve”. Let’s just say that the concept of a market crash would be a lot more exciting.
Just did. Wow!
He might as well have been shouting at the top of his lungs… remarkable.
There are still many ways in which the whole American system is rigged against African Americans– and some of them involve white people who don’t have a racist thought in their heads going along living their lives as best they can, completely unaware that the system is slanted in their favor. Just three points–
1. The most common way to accumulate wealth in America isn’t savings accounts or stocks– it’s home ownership. Not only is paying down a mortgage essentially a savings plan, but homes usually appreciate in value– except in Black communities, where prices tend to stagnate. So African Americans are at a huge disadvantage. Not only are they literally a numerical minority group, so there’s a smaller market of buyers for homes in segregated Black neighborhoods, but they still aren’t well protected by civil rights legislation. The civil rights laws outlawed red-lining and other obvious discrimination, but the laws aren’t well enforced, and they don’t prevent people from choosing houses in racially segregated neighborhoods. As a result, African Americans are still substantially disadvantaged in accumulating wealth by the most common method, regardless of the law.
2. Another common source of wealth is small businesses, especially retail stores. Again, African Americans are at a disadvantage. First, many small businesses are financed by selling an inherited home– so point #1 has a follow-on liability built in. Second, people of other races are often reluctant to use Black retail businesses. So the difficult route to a successful small business is even harder for Black owners. As a result, African Americans have tended to use government employment based on civil service exams rather than small business ownership as a route into the middle class.
3. Moving into the middle class through government employment, where there is at least some attempt to eliminate racial bias, has lifted many African Americans out of poverty. But it has a liability for the Black community as a whole built in. People who start small businesses often hire other members of their own ethnic groups. The jobs are never advertised, so they are never scrutinized for racially biased hiring. I suspect, in fact, that many small business owners would be shocked to realize they are racially discriminating. i.e., “Well, of course I hired my nephew. I’ve known him since he was born and he’s a good kid….” African Americans in government generally get their jobs through civil service exams. So they can’t just hire their nephew who’s a good kid when jobs open up.
Sorry for the long post. But the ways in which African Americans are facing a rigged system are often subtle. It’s easy to see Affirmative Action. It’s really hard to see built-in bias.
hoary pucoon@#14:
1. The most common way to accumulate wealth in America isn’t savings accounts or stocks– it’s home ownership.
Yes. You might want to check out the link I referenced in the OP. Robert Paul Wolff’s breakdown of inter-generational inequality is very clear.
2. Another common source of wealth is small businesses, especially retail stores.
Correct. And that’s also controlled by lending practices. Try getting a small business loan if you’re black.
3. Moving into the middle class through government employment, where there is at least some attempt to eliminate racial bias, has lifted many African Americans out of poverty.
Again, agreed 100%. The military used to be a way to break out of poverty. However, with today’s wars and procurement environment, that door is closing. The number of actual personnel in uniform has dropped while the expenditures continue to remain high: the defense contractors are taking an ever-growing slice of the pie.
John Morales@#13:
I was amazed that she completely missed the rather obvious signals he was trying to give. If he’d been screaming “SHUTTTTT UUUUPPPPP!!!” it probably wouldn’t have worked.
So.
None of the interviewer’s mugging was post-production editing?
How many cameras did they have?
Chigau@#17:
Usually interviews are done with 2 cameras, or just one on the speaker, and then later they edit in interviewer reaction shots. It could well be a performance on the part of the interviewer.
Marcus Ranum @ 15–
Yes, Black businesspeople have a harder time getting loans. That’s absolutely true. But it is often actual, illegal discrimination– as opposed to buying a house whose value doesn’t appreciate as much as you’d expect (or, sometimes, at all.)
I was specifically concerned that people who will disapprove of actual, illegal discrimination against Blacks are generally oblivious to disadvantages built into the system. Then they end up blaming some supposed lack or fault of character within the person for their problems getting ahead, instead of understanding that even with anti-discrimination laws– or even affirmative action– the system is still rigged against minority groups in subtle but important ways.