[Tanada]

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/05 ... 1-million/

Officer passed over for promotion due to race wins 1.35 Million award in Long Island, New York.

A New York police officer was awarded $1.35 million dollars this week after he successfully sued the village of Freeport, alleging he was passed over for a promotion because of his race.

A Long Island jury sided with Lt. Christopher Barrella after he claimed that then-Mayor Andrew Hardwick overlooked him to become chief of police so that he could name a Hispanic candidate to the position instead.

“I am very gratified that the jury ruled that I deserved to be chief of police. Throughout this entire process, I have tried to maintain a positive attitude and do my best for the department and the village of Freeport and will continue to do so,” Barrella said in a statement. “It has been a long and trying process, but I always had faith that if we could present our case to a jury of my peers they would see that I was discriminated against.”

More details at the link.

[dsula]

A Mexican as police chief? You could as well just hire the mafia to do the job. Mexicans can't keep Mexico safe and clean. Why would they do a better job here?

[Paulo1]

What does this have to do with energy and growth?

[Tanada]

What does this have to do with energy and growth?

Cultural standards for right and wrong are strongly influenced by the wealth of the people who live in that culture. The poorer a group/population/civilization is the harsher its punishments for those who flaunt authority and the more likely it is to be inward looking rather than outward looking. Racism is essentially an inward looking phenomenon, the more restrictive your culture the more likelihood it will develop or express racism.

As we go down the energy slope I expect to see a lot more of racism rearing its ugly head in our culture and cultures around the world. It will be one of the many little expected but relevant effects of peak oil into the future.

[ezrydermike]

well, this post gives dsula another opportunity to display her/his bigotry and ignorance. no need to look into the future. my cultural standards include calling that kind of display what it is. bs.

[Pops]

The poorer a group/population/civilization is the harsher its punishments for those who flaunt authority and the more likely it is to be inward looking rather than outward looking. Racism is essentially an inward looking phenomenon, the more restrictive your culture the more likelihood it will develop or express racism.

?

The poor oppressed white Jersey cop? LOL

Freeport is about 23% white, 42% hispanic and 30% black. The police department in 2006 was 86% white and zero hispanic.

Ironic isn't it that "Reverse Racism" is a buzzword used by the privileged group to prolong and extend their privilege while excusing the effects of past discrimination? SEE?, minorities are more racists than whites!

I don't know any more than reading a couple of links but I would say there is a clear public interest in the police department reflecting the face of the town.

http://php.pressconnects.com/police/sea ... &submit=Go
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeport,_New_York

[Pops]

well, this post gives dsula another opportunity to display her/his bigotry and ignorance. no need to look into the future. my cultural standards include calling that kind of display what it is. bs.

That shows how open minded we are and how much we respect free speech

/

[Tanada]

The poorer a group/population/civilization is the harsher its punishments for those who flaunt authority and the more likely it is to be inward looking rather than outward looking. Racism is essentially an inward looking phenomenon, the more restrictive your culture the more likelihood it will develop or express racism.

?

The poor oppressed white Jersey cop? LOL

Freeport is about 23% white, 42% hispanic and 30% black. The police department in 2006 was 86% white and zero hispanic.

Ironic isn't it that "Reverse Racism" is a buzzword used by the privileged group to prolong and extend their privilege while excusing the effects of past discrimination? SEE?, minorities are more racists than whites!

I don't know any more than reading a couple of links but I would say there is a clear public interest in the police department reflecting the face of the town.

http://php.pressconnects.com/police/sea ... &submit=Go
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeport,_New_York

Personally my goal is the same as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; a color blind society where the guy or gal with the best test scores is the one who gets promoted. All this percentage this or that affirmative action crud has been distorting the system for 50 years and we are no further along than we were the day Dr. King was assassinated. Promote the best candidate, not the one you think deserves a shot because his/her ancestors were treated unfairly. One of my Great Grandfather's served in the Union Army and died a decade after the war from Tuberculosis caught while living in an Army camp during the war. I don't expect to get credit for what he did, but I sure don't think I should be punished for what other peoples ancestors did to African Americans or Hispanics or Irishmen or Chinese immigrants either. Stop the quota BS and promote the person most competent to do the job. Make sure the testing in honest and it would be best conducted by an uninterested third party to ensure fairness.

Can you imagine that world Pops, where everyone is judged by the Content of their Character, not the Color of their skin? Or will you always count off people based on their appearance instead of their ability?

[Pops]

So we're gonna be all fair and square now, eh?

Isn't that convenient?

It's easy for me, a white male with half a brain to pretend that everything is just hunky-dory. It's easy to ignore the fact that people still struggle under the baggage of generation upon generation of systemic discrimination and oppression.

Easy to let myself off by saying 'I didn't do anything' when the fact is I didn't have to do anything except go with the flow.

[Fishman]

Pop, I thought white guilt had about dried up with 5 plus years of a black president. See his presidency was not supposed to happen with "the baggage of generation upon generation of systemic discrimination and oppression " but it did (and what a disaster it has been) because we failed to follow MLK's advice

[PrestonSturges]

Pop, I thought white guilt had about dried up with 5 plus years of a black president.

Well there will be people talking about "white guilt" as long as there are white supremacists, because "white guilt" is their fallback explanation for all sorts of things. IIRC it was mentioned repeatedly in The Turner Diaries.

[PrestonSturges]

Anyway, local hiring has always been all politics, patronage, and nepotism.

[ChilPhil1986]

Personally my goal is the same as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; a color blind society where the guy or gal with the best test scores is the one who gets promoted. All this percentage this or that affirmative action crud has been distorting the system for 50 years and we are no further along than we were the day Dr. King was assassinated. Promote the best candidate, not the one you think deserves a shot because his/her ancestors were treated unfairly. One of my Great Grandfather's served in the Union Army and died a decade after the war from Tuberculosis caught while living in an Army camp during the war. I don't expect to get credit for what he did, but I sure don't think I should be punished for what other peoples ancestors did to African Americans or Hispanics or Irishmen or Chinese immigrants either. Stop the quota BS and promote the person most competent to do the job. Make sure the testing in honest and it would be best conducted by an uninterested third party to ensure fairness.

Can you imagine that world Pops, where everyone is judged by the Content of their Character, not the Color of their skin? Or will you always count off people based on their appearance instead of their ability?

While I applaud the nobility of this sentiment, ensuring honest testing is all but impossible. So long as inequality amongst men and women, whether it stem from a racial bias, or a disability bias, or a gender bias, or whatever kinds of bias I'm forgetting to mention, there will be resentment that gets expressed through racism (reverse or forward, it's all the same), able-ism, or sexism of some kind.

In my own instance, I was born with a severe hearing loss. There are many times daily which I have to bite my tongue or risk getting chewed out for the biases that I would love to spout about. It's not something people can see like someone's skin color, but it's something that makes me different/not equal to the majority of people I meet during the day. Most of the very expensive and dare I say needless stuff done to attempt to 'correct' it was done at an age when I had no legal say in the matter either.

In conclusion, I'm in agreement with you about trying to make up for what happened centuries ago. Rooting out present day bias is a challenge enough in and of itself. Finding the disinterested third party is always the crux of the issue. What do you do? Find someone who's half-Hispanic and half-Caucasian? Half-deaf? Trans-gender? Asexual? All of the above?

[Outcast_Searcher]

Can you imagine that world Pops, where everyone is judged by the Content of their Character, not the Color of their skin? Or will you always count off people based on their appearance instead of their ability?

Tanada, I'm with you.

Funny how with liberals, if they are excited about income differences, then it is a big deal and they insist on new taxes and programs to "fix it". OTOH, if people are discrimminated against, it's only a big deal if they are in the correct politically protected group. Nice. (NOT).

I lived in a rainbow neighborhood for the 31 years after I left school because the rent was cheap and it was 5 minutes from work.

The first decade or so, a white guy in that neighborhood was so rare it drew surprised remarks from the neighbors. Generally, they asked me why I didn't mind being around black people.

I always responded: "I only judge people one way. How do they behave?" (I consider this a far less eloquent reflection of Dr. King's "content of their character" aspect of his great speech).

In EVERY case, the basic feedback I got was along the lines of "Hey, this white dude is pretty cool. If you ever have any problems with someone bothering you, let me know -- I'll intervene." To which I'd reply "Thanks a lot, but thus far, aside from conversations like this -- everyone pretty much just treats me like a person, which works for me".

I could be wrong -- but just like the recent fight over LBGT rights -- I think this is a GENERATIONAL thing. I think that most kids today will be like "What? How could that happen?" when they hear about things like slavery and Jim Crow laws.

Open racism is already deeply frowned upon in educated society. I can only see it becoming more so over time.

Too bad people can't see the general pattern of "just respect people, and deal with them based on what they do", and we have to fight the battles one at a time. But so it goes. We're just apes with big brains.

[Fishman]

Since Preston's view of white guilt is so warped by his reading of The Turner Diaries (truely a disgusting book, and a disgusting example to bring in the discussion), here's wiki's definition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_guilt
Ah, lawsuits, the way we resolve things in America. Wonder how long they'll last as we power down?

[Subjectivist]

In conclusion, I'm in agreement with you about trying to make up for what happened centuries ago. Rooting out present day bias is a challenge enough in and of itself. Finding the disinterested third party is always the crux of the issue. What do you do? Find someone who's half-Hispanic and half-Caucasian? Half-deaf? Trans-gender? Asexual? All of the above?

Interesting question. The famous statue of justice wears a blindfold and weighs the facts on a balance scale. Using that as a guide how about using a fact list for each candidate for a position with age, gender, race, religion, sexual orientation all expunged. You get to see test scores and years on the job and not much else? Admitedly this would give an advantage to a candidate with ten more years on the job, but if the younger candidate scores better on the testing that should even things out. As soon as the older candidate starts mentally slowing down their test scores would reflect that. Test via multiple choice and true/false questions in random order so that nobody can memorize the answer pattern.

It isn't a perfect system, but it would be better than what we have today, IMO.

[PrestonSturges]

Since Preston's view of white guilt is so warped by his reading of The Turner Diaries (truely a disgusting book, and a disgusting example to bring in the discussion), here's wiki's definition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_guilt
Ah, lawsuits, the way we resolve things in America. Wonder how long they'll last as we power down?

Basically a page about Shelby Steele, a black guy who makes a nice living regurgitating GOP talking points. Like Jon Stossel, 20 years ago he was winning awards before climbing on the Wingnut Welfare Gravytrain (Fox). Steele wrote a book in 2007 about how Obama could not win because he has some black blood and that meany he can never really assimilate into American society. Various right wingers have made that case (D'Souza), which is exactly how the Jews were portrayed back in the 1930s at the international height of antisemitism.

[Sixstrings]

It's interesting that race is coming up on this forum lately again, as a topic.

I don't want to get into details of my personal life, but recently I ran into some shocking overt racism. I think I forgot just how bigoted people are.

So I'm standing there, hearing the "N" word and blacks this and blacks that, and after a while it becomes suspicious that while I'm listening and having a conversation -- I'm not using that kind of language. So the one fellow asks me, "you don't have any black in your family do you?" Meaning, if I'd said yes, he probably would have apologized, and he was sensing I was uncomfortable with that kind of language and was just wondering why. Lol.

So now I sit and think about it.. and you know, my entire extended family is also bigoted. It's just not *public*. They say it to each other, and to other white people.

Here's my view on it all:

I think it's really just about *culture*. If a white person goes into a minimart that has all black people, and the white person is nervous, it's probably because it's a bit of a ghetto area. That's a culture thing. That's not genes or race.

I can think about Latino neighborhoods -- I can just tell the difference, there are some places I'd feel okay at and some I wouldn't feel safe in. It's about *hoodlums* and *gangbangers*, Latino or black, or as another poster from California said -- they've got Korean gangbangers too, etc.

Secondly, the races do tend to segregate themselves, going both ways. From what I've heard, apparently in jail it is always separated into all the racial cliques. Oddly, church is like this too in general, and Sunday is called America's "most segregated hour."

Personally, I don't give a sh*t. I just don't want to be mugged or robbed or my house broken into, that's all I care about.

This may be controversial to say, but, it is true that minorities do most of the violent random crime. So yes, if I go into a certain gas station and it's people of color and they look like the gangbanger type, than yeah I'm nervous about it. Does that make me a racist?

If they dressed a different way, then I wouldn't be nervous. *Nobody deserves to be shot like happened to Trayvon Martin, just walking around with a hoody isn't grounds to get shot*. BUT. It is also true that some of minority culture is wrapped up in criminal culture, and prison culture. The responsibility for racism goes both ways, and minorities would do well to stop identifying with that violent criminal / gangbanger culture and then maybe white folks wouldn't be scared you know?

Ok so now maybe everyone thinks I'm a racist, for saying these things. I've only been almost mugged one time in my life, and it was a black man in a dark parking lot. It is what it is. Then in my foreign travels, a skanky Turkish drug addict actually sprayed me with frickin' mace after I refused to hand over my wallet. (I got away, he didn't get my money and I'm lucky it wasn't a gun, or a knife).

So there you go, we just have experiences in life, and they stick with us whether we like it or not.

But I'm not a racist -- because I'll tell you something else about black folks, *other than the gangbanger thing that makes me nervous*, in personal interactions, I actually find people of color to be nicer. Whites tend to be more uptight and neurotic (me included ).

I know there are white drug addicts too, etc., but for some reason I don't get that "fear factor" from a white guy dressed up in thuggish clothes with a thug swagger. Sometimes you get that little inner warning about someone, for whatever reason you can't pinpoint it's just trouble. This is our gut instincts talking to us, it's about street smarts and keeps you safe.

All I can say is that yes, there are some white folks that set off my trouble alarm, but I have to admit that black folks with the hood culture always set it off. Does that make me a racist? Can you ever really know when your "gut" is wrong and it's "racism?" Where is the line between fear of the violent underclasses in general, versus racial "racism."

Don't people of color probably use their "gut instinct" too? I've heard black folks talk about "hood rats," a lot of black folks probably don't like this ghetto culture either.

What I'm really talking about in this post is classified as racial tensions. "Racism" is actually an explicit act of discrimination against a job or housing or not doing business with someone when all the information you're going on *is just skin color*.

What we're really talking about here are CULTURES. Racism is from the past, signs saying all people of color have to use a separate bathroom, etc. That's all been gone for a long time, but we still have cultural differences in this country.

I think it's just difficult for white folks to discuss race, we are very sensitive to not being "racist" because of all the bad that's happened to black folks in our history.

I can think about other minority groups and know I'm not a racist, and it's just cultural differences. Like -- it really is true that a lot of Mexican immigrants will pack a one bedroom apartment with 8 people. It just is what it is. And if you're a landlord, you can probably ask some questions and figure it out, going on other factors besides their ethnicity.

It's just how it is, there are middle class Latinos and then the migrants are sweet people but you also know there's a chance they're going to pack a whole bunch of people into that apartment. I think people become *racist* because it takes too much thought and insight to sort out the subcultures within a culture and so, a landlord may just see a Latino and say to himself "no I won't rent to a Mexican he'll have 12 people living in here," whereas a more insightful person would go on a lot more information than just that.

Every culture and subculture and immigrant group have genuine cultural differences. I guess I'll conclude that as long as you try to not generalize those cultural quirks to ALL people from that culture, you're not a racist, if you do what King said and look at the individual and content of their character (though everyone's character is crap these days, the top 1% are the worst though at least they won't mug you physically).

Okay I'm rambling. Three topics I've got to stay away from: climate change, Russia, and race.

[noobtube]

It's threads like this that remind me that this whole experiment called the United States has always been a failure.

A bunch of European invaders, commit genocide against the original inhabitants, so they can set up a slave state based on kidnapping Africans (to avoid the hard work, mind you), to create an oppressive world empire based on greed, hatred, and fear of those not considered racially superior.

That is America in a nutshell.

But, all of that is based on violent force, which the United States is losing fast. And once oil goes... so will 'Merica.

Anyone who tolerates intolerance will soon find all that is left is intolerance.

[Sixstrings]

It's threads like this that remind me that this whole experiment called the United States has always been a failure.

If we fail, it's because we offshored all our jobs. And that's what's hit the minority groups so hard, too. The jobs are gone. But the best ideals of America did not fail. It's the frickin' globalism that did it. We needed to be smart like Germany and keep our jobs for cyring out loud.

That's another thread, but if America has failed, I'm just telling you why. It's the globalism, oligarchs, and tech-enabled extreme efficiency and automation (harder problem to do anything about).

A bunch of European invaders, commit genocide against the original inhabitants, so they can set up a slave state based on kidnapping Africans (to avoid the hard work, mind you), to create an oppressive world empire based on greed, hatred, and fear of those not considered racially superior.

Not quite true. The North detested slavery. America was always deeply religious, from the beginning, and that was our success. That we could take in all of these disparate persecuted religious groups and everyone comes here and their common bond is that they all want freedom to live their lives and be happy and respect their neighbors' right to be different, and they in turn have their rights to be who they want.

That's the best of the American dream -- that's what we mean by cherishing our freedom and individuality and it allows different groups to get along and be who they want so long as they don't step on other groups' rights.

We've always had these racial and immigrant group tensions, and yet in the end it works out better here than in any other place in the world.

Anyone who tolerates intolerance will soon find all that is left is intolerance.

Are you European? Europe actually has a lot of trouble with their immigrants. Europe is not America. Our muslim immigrants do great over here, while the Euro nations want to be open like that but they just aren't, and places like France do immigration yet pass laws to "protect French culture" at the same time.