"Racism" isn't merely a buzzword or an excuse if it's actually a historic and ongoing phenomenon.
We seem to be telling people of certain races that they are born disadvantaged, that they are somehow second-class citizens and not fully responsible for their actions or outcome of their life. We then distribute aid and provide services based not only on economic or educational status, but also on race, and we form organizations to benefit members of that race. We become outraged when their rights are violated (but no so much when the rights of members of another race are).
I don't think we'll truly eliminate racism in our society if we continue to focus on race the way we are. Instead we need to care just as much about the rights (or the violations of those rights) of a black man as we do a white man (or any other race). Race needs to not be considered when creating programs to benefit the poor or uneducated. After all, shouldn't a poor white man be just as entitled to our compassion and assistance as an equally poor black man?
Martin Luther King said "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." For me, that cuts both ways. Not only should we not be judged unfairly in a court of law or be treated different by police because of the color of one's skin. It should be a non-factor in determining any sort of benefit or assistance as well.
We should be focusing on helping someone because they are poor, because they are unjustly treated like criminals or because they have few opportunities to succeed, not because they are black or of a certain race.
Have you ever had to apply for any sort of public assistance? The process is tremendously slow, complex, and bureaucratic, driven largely by layers of demands for proof that the aid is actually necessary. The basic takeaway of this process for the person in need isn't feeling like a victim, but rather feeling like society assumes you're a lazy thief.
If a person is in the same circumstances, economic or otherwise, as another person, why should I only give aid to one of those people based on their race? How would restricting a scholarship to white students be less racist than restricting a scholarship to african-american students?
And sure, you can bring up some scholarship as an exception that proves the rule (I wonder how Daughters of the American Revolution scholarships fit?). But that's a very weak argument. I'm talking about the welfare state in general, and it is pointedly not about race.
Some quick googling shows results of what appears to be private organizations solely focused on providing assistance to african americans or people of african descent. [2]
[1] - https://www.scholarships.com/financial-aid/college-scholarsh... [2] http://www.diversitybestpractices.com/news-articles/20-afric...
There are excellent arguments that the welfare state structure is a significant cause of racial inequality. But your "teaches them to be victims" argument is not one of them.
A much more interesting and defensible argument would be that the welfare state in its current incarnation punishes people for getting off of welfare. If the "reward" for finding a job is to take away aid on a 1:1 basis, why would getting a job be a good idea? Another interesting angle is the fact that minimum wage is not sufficient to keep a family out of poverty - especially when you throw in the costs of transportation and child care associated with a job.
To find the racial problem, look at history. When the welfare state first came into existence, racism had kept the black community in deep poverty, so poverty was already unevenly distributed. Since the welfare system merely treats the symptoms rather than the causes of poverty, the disparity has continued. And the disparity is driven not by welfare, but rather by institutional racism.
There was a great photo by a trio of black artists at the Henderson protests. It was a black woman dressed as a slave, a shirtless black man wearing a noose, and a black man in an orange prison jumpsuit, standing together - the history of institutional racism in America.
If racism is _the_ problem, why does it produce perfectly antipodal outcomes for different "people of color"? i.e. Asians are economically ascendant (surpassing whites on most metric), while blacks, well... you get the idea.
Rubbing the amulet of "structural racism" so much has entirely debased the term.
Hint: one history includes codified discrimination until ~50 years ago and legal enslavement until ~150 years ago and the other one doesn't. Well, I'll give you that Asian Americans faced codified discrimination into the 20th century, but don't overlook the "antipodal" patterns of how each ethnic group came to be in America.
Hint 2: Asian Americans came over, at a minimum, in indentured servitude.
Quod Erat Demondstrandum.
...and if he is right, then the reason why he's right will be useful for solving the problem. It's pretty tough to solve a problem when you don't understand what caused it.
By the way, dismiss identity politics at your risk. It might be uncomfortable to talk about, but it underpins a lot of current affairs: crime, Russia, Gamergate, ISIS.
Recommend reading this. It's long, but worth every painful line: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/good-men-project/why-its-so-ha...
>Invective: Denunciatory or abusive expression or discourse
I vehemently disagree and think you insult the paper. It's well written, attempts to describe logical inconsistencies in how we approach our reasons for punishments, and what the legal profession might be able to do to fix it. It turned my brain up, not down, and it makes me think more about logical underpinnings of our justice system. I haven't been spoon-fed, and you also insult readers who might feel they got something honest out of the paper.
This is only true if you exclude from "the country" all the prisons where people are routinely raped and stabbed.
Also, even if it were true, the important question is: what caused it, and could that result be achieved with other means? How do other safe countries address the problem?
- [edit: I misread what you were saying here, the point about the death penalty is a non-sequitur on my part] Your second point isn't one I would disagree with but, but I don't think your example is a particularly good one: there is ample evidence indicating that the death penalty does not serve as a particularly strong deterrent. For example, murder rates in the US are actually lower in death penalty states, and have been since the 90s.
- "That means changes need to occur with the electorate, not elite legal minds." The author never asserts the legal profession is the only thing that can reform our broken criminal justice system. However he points out that the legal services we have now are vastly inadequate to the job of protecting the rights of most Americans caught up in the criminal justice system, and that part of the reason so many people are incarcerated is that they recieve little-to-no represenatation. Furthermore: "even apart from the millions of pending criminal cases for which people are not being provided a well-resourced and zealous attorney, every one of the thousands of unlawful stops, searches, home raids, beatings, taserings, shootings, and arrests that take place every day forms the basis for a freestanding constitutional civil rights suit. A quiet tragedy of the legal system is that these rampant daily violations are almost never litigated."
The broader point he is making is that the criminal justice system is only able to grind through tens of thousands of lives each day becuase those involved in it--and that includes lawyers and judges--are commited to keeping that system well-oiled and functioning. "Imagine a world in which lawyers stood ready, en masse, to use their skills and training and intellects to vindicate these constitutional rights every day. Such a social movement of lawyers would dramatically alter the nature of the legal system and our society. The system of modern policing, which depends on callous indifference to vindicating basic rights, would crumble at our simple willingness to hold it to its own formal rules. We can do it, but only through massive collective action to act on our professional and moral values."
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_Sta... [2] http://www.nber.org/papers/w13097.pdf
But guys, nothing is ever 100% one way or the other, no matter how much you support it. So you have to look at differing points of view -- unless the objective is just to have a good rant.
Here are the things that come to mind reading this:
- Yep, highest incarceration rates ever. Also violent crime has been dropping to unheard-of lows and the country is safer than it ever has been
- Prisons are not about justice or reform. [insert really long discussion here]. Political systems exist and function for political reasons. Therefore the prison system is made and maintained to keep society together. They don't put the guy who killed you friend in the electric chair because of justice. They do it so you don't kill him yourself, or have a lifelong vendetta against both him and the system.
- This piece is written by a lawyer. Do not expect it to fairly talk about all of the options. It's invective; well-written, emotional, powerful invective. The goal is to make you turn off your brain and feel a certain way. Treat it as such.
- Although this is targeted at lawyers, whatever failings there are? Most likely a result of judges and elected officials -- in other words, the public. If the public wants something, and it wanted harsher sentencing, it gets it. That means changes need to occur with the electorate, not elite legal minds
- If the system is broken, it's broken. Toss out all of that racism stuff, it's a red herring. People shouldn't have their civil rights abused because it's the wrong way to run a country, not because they're a member of an oppressed minority. If you want to win this fight and fix things, toss out every other issue aside from fixing the system. Sure, use various things like incarceration rates among blacks as an argument, but only very carefully. If this is a true problem affecting everybody (and I believe it is), then don't attach yourself to one particular cause or the other. That's just an easy way to lose the discussion.
We desperately need to fix things, but that's only going to happen if we make both impassioned and dispassionate arguments -- and only if we understand the terms at stake. I'm not sure this article helped any, but it damned sure made me angry at how broken things are.