Posts by Pacopoolio

164

Was justice served fairly in the Micheal Brown tragedy, whats your opinion ?

by Finkelstein in

the michael brown tragedy has garnered a lot of attention in the media recently highlighted.

by the recent county court decision to not indict the lone officer who did the shooting which caused the death of micheal brown.. .. now after more information of the event has been released openly to the public, we can evaluate upon are self.

in are own opinion toward was the law handed out in this particular event proportionately fair or to a professional standard ?.

Pacopoolio

By your argument, black people are not the most disadvantaged. All the smaller groups are who make up a smaller proportion of the population.

1) Nobody mentioned a single thing about black people being the most disadvantaged, nor was that ever a subject in this thread.

2) Yes, minorities often suffer various disadvantages due to being minorities. That's the broad issue.

Privilege just determines where people are advantaged and disadvantaged in comparison. Again, it does not make a blame judgment on anyone in itself.

From that point, you try to determine the causes and see if those advantages/disadvantages can be evened out over time, because, if you're not selfish, you don't want to be advantaged over another human being in many aspects of life if at all possible.

Using dating, as an example, knowing how hard it is to find someone compatable in the first place, we shouldn't want people to have to work with 15% of the pool they're already working with if at all possible, so we can look at things like the science of attraction (specific attractors are learned behaviors, imprints are set when you're in developmental phases) to see if there's anything that society is doing to affect people's attractors (for instance, presenting Asian men as non sexual beings, but sidekicks and nerds in most media for years and years may have an effect on how "sexual" they are viewed in broad majorites of adults now).

Privilege needs to be pointed out only because so many people in a position of advantage refuse to see the advantages they have. As a male, there are still a TON of things I don't consider about what a woman deals with, for instance. Or being tall, or having the use of all of my limbs. Everyone has a ton of blind spots to where they have advantages.

164

Was justice served fairly in the Micheal Brown tragedy, whats your opinion ?

by Finkelstein in

the michael brown tragedy has garnered a lot of attention in the media recently highlighted.

by the recent county court decision to not indict the lone officer who did the shooting which caused the death of micheal brown.. .. now after more information of the event has been released openly to the public, we can evaluate upon are self.

in are own opinion toward was the law handed out in this particular event proportionately fair or to a professional standard ?.

Pacopoolio

Simon, she was not responding to the topic as a whole, she was specifically showing the poster the flaw in their own logic, of which there was a huge one that practically anyone reading it could see. Seeing that flaw could have helped the poster make progress in understanding a concept that they did not necessarily grasp at first. Distracting from that by switching the sbject of her response from precise to broad concept doesn't really help at all with the communication that she was attempting to establish.

164

Was justice served fairly in the Micheal Brown tragedy, whats your opinion ?

by Finkelstein in

the michael brown tragedy has garnered a lot of attention in the media recently highlighted.

by the recent county court decision to not indict the lone officer who did the shooting which caused the death of micheal brown.. .. now after more information of the event has been released openly to the public, we can evaluate upon are self.

in are own opinion toward was the law handed out in this particular event proportionately fair or to a professional standard ?.

Pacopoolio

So if 85% of the women in your area exclude you without looking, that doesn't mean you're disadvantaged? You have a much smaller pool to work with than other people relative to anything but race - that's the definition of "disadvantaged." Even if it only means you have to scroll through 8X more profiles as another person, it still means "disadvantage." It's the very meaning of a handicap (think of golf).

edit: Market forces are irrelevant when the subject is privilege. Privilege does not assign blame.

164

Was justice served fairly in the Micheal Brown tragedy, whats your opinion ?

by Finkelstein in

the michael brown tragedy has garnered a lot of attention in the media recently highlighted.

by the recent county court decision to not indict the lone officer who did the shooting which caused the death of micheal brown.. .. now after more information of the event has been released openly to the public, we can evaluate upon are self.

in are own opinion toward was the law handed out in this particular event proportionately fair or to a professional standard ?.

Pacopoolio

lisa, yes, you responded correctly to the post as the subject of the post you responded to was "the past."

164

Was justice served fairly in the Micheal Brown tragedy, whats your opinion ?

by Finkelstein in

the michael brown tragedy has garnered a lot of attention in the media recently highlighted.

by the recent county court decision to not indict the lone officer who did the shooting which caused the death of micheal brown.. .. now after more information of the event has been released openly to the public, we can evaluate upon are self.

in are own opinion toward was the law handed out in this particular event proportionately fair or to a professional standard ?.

Pacopoolio

White privilege does not apply to all whites and if you don't know that then you have never been poor and had whites consider you to be no better than blacks or mexicans. They like to call us poor white trash, basically we are white blacks.

This is the mistake a lot of people make; basically, "my life wasn't easy, so how can you say I was advantaged." It's not that any white person will have more advantages than any person of color by a default, it's that being a combination of a straight, white, Christian, tall, male (among other things) will give certain advantages just by the nature of being that particular thing, that other people do not have.

Let's use one of my examples as a case study:

A white guy goes on match.com to try to find a date in his area. He's short, makes under 40,000 income, and overweight (three other things that women also avoid in percentages). He hears about white people having an advantage on dating sites and reacts angrily, saying "it's near impossible for me to get a date on their as well and plenty of black people can get dates, how do I have an advantage?!"

The flaw in their reasoning is that they're conflating large percentages with their personal experience, and then not making the experience relative to their own. Yes, a tall, rich black man would probably be more successful than him on there, even with 80% of women rejecting him even before they look at a picture of him. However, a short, poor, overweight black man will most likely do worse than him because 85% of the women that would still consider him, even with those disadvantages, would still not search/allow him because he's black. It's just one more thing to add to the checklist, that -can- actually be fixed on a societal level, with time.

164

Was justice served fairly in the Micheal Brown tragedy, whats your opinion ?

by Finkelstein in

the michael brown tragedy has garnered a lot of attention in the media recently highlighted.

by the recent county court decision to not indict the lone officer who did the shooting which caused the death of micheal brown.. .. now after more information of the event has been released openly to the public, we can evaluate upon are self.

in are own opinion toward was the law handed out in this particular event proportionately fair or to a professional standard ?.

Pacopoolio

For one small example, if I work hard and get a very good job, no one will wonder if I do not really qualify for the job and was given the job because of the color of my skin.

I tend to use less controversial examples; just giving examples of all of the little annoyances in life that can add up for a minority, that people in the majority will not even consider.

For instance, being white means that if you were to join a dating site, you wouldn't be excluded from 85% of the women's searches because they completely and purposely exclude your race from a search (can provide citations). It means you don't have to jump to as many stores to find beauty products that match your skin/complexion/etc. It means that you can actually wear "flesh color bandages." Etc.

164

Was justice served fairly in the Micheal Brown tragedy, whats your opinion ?

by Finkelstein in

the michael brown tragedy has garnered a lot of attention in the media recently highlighted.

by the recent county court decision to not indict the lone officer who did the shooting which caused the death of micheal brown.. .. now after more information of the event has been released openly to the public, we can evaluate upon are self.

in are own opinion toward was the law handed out in this particular event proportionately fair or to a professional standard ?.

Pacopoolio

Neither are white people. So let's stop using phrases like 'white privilege'....it's a fallacy - an ideal trotted out, coined and spun and taught - aka 'white guilt'. A way to divide and never unite.

Yeah, uh, as pointed above, you don't really understand the concepts you're referring to.

EVERYONE has privilege in some manner relative to other people. "White" privilege just refers to the fact that, as a member of the visual umbrella that covers "white," a person has certain default advantages due to being born in a society in which "white" aligns with the majority, norm, and power structure.

That, and other similar terms exist because large numbers of people that are part of a privileged group are completely blind to the perspective of those as not part of the group due to the natural human tendency to extrapolate their own experiences onto everyone else as a default, and not consider how different experiences can affect other people in different ways. If such a large number of people weren't completely ignorant of the idea, or attempt to fight so hard against the fact that it's a definite thing that exists, the term would not even exist. If the majority is blind, then nothing can be done to fix the problem, so education has to be done.

As pointed out before, another example is "straight" privilege, where for instance, a straight person doesn't have to worry about what every other single person around them thinks or if they'll be harassed for simple actions like holding the person you love's hand in person. Or male privilege, where most men don't have to question whether every single man that they interact with does not have ulterior motives to have sex with them. Etc.

551

Officer Wilson not indicted in killing of Michael Brown

by Simon in

after a thorough investigation and weighing of the evidence the grand jury has decided not to indict the officer.. the reaction so far seems as predicted - people refuse to accept that the result represents justice despite claims that is what they wanted.. there is now violence and vandalism, including gunshots.

let's hope the police contain the troublemakers.. .

Pacopoolio

What level of "choice" do you think people have? "His fault" on what level are you referring to? That's why I aksed you the question that you avoided answering. I can't answer your question without defining what you mean by "fault" in the first place.

I'll reframe the question - supposing Michael Brown made the choice to not be "bothered with education," did he make this choice completely on his own, or were his choices guided by his circumstances and influences?

If the latter is the case, then when looking at these things, what is more important to focus on - the choice he made, or the types of influences that caused those choices?

Do we only stop at looking at direct influences (ie. parents, as some have done in this thread), or do we look further at the influences that created what THEY are?

-----

The branches of sociology being referred to look specifically at the deepest level of influences that have the most effects on the largest number of people that can actually be fixed. You look at instances like these and say "how do we fix this," not "what singular person's fault is this. It's about FIXING the underlying problem and finidng solutions, which is more important than anything ,really.

551

Officer Wilson not indicted in killing of Michael Brown

by Simon in

after a thorough investigation and weighing of the evidence the grand jury has decided not to indict the officer.. the reaction so far seems as predicted - people refuse to accept that the result represents justice despite claims that is what they wanted.. there is now violence and vandalism, including gunshots.

let's hope the police contain the troublemakers.. .

Pacopoolio

LoveUniHateExams, what is a person's decision making based on? (I'm showing you the point of sociology, and what you're missing when it comes to "personal responsibility.")

In other words, in day to day life, any decision you make, what causes you to make those decisions?

551

Officer Wilson not indicted in killing of Michael Brown

by Simon in

after a thorough investigation and weighing of the evidence the grand jury has decided not to indict the officer.. the reaction so far seems as predicted - people refuse to accept that the result represents justice despite claims that is what they wanted.. there is now violence and vandalism, including gunshots.

let's hope the police contain the troublemakers.. .

Pacopoolio

Simon,
This subject of my response (that you're responding to) was not "why Michael Brown attacked a cop." I specified the exact subtopic that I focused on in the response.

How did you get "diet is more of a factor than slavery" from me quoting your "being told to blame the past for their problems?" Being told to blame the past obviously does not equal "slavery." That's a ridiculously large, and obvious goalpost change. Why do you re-frame every response made with things that are not said?