Hodad

^^ This is complete nonsense. You set out to demonstrate cause and effect, but the data you provided showed the opposite. It specifically showed that the Black/white unemployment gap existed BEFORE the social programs you tried to blame, and had been more or less steadily at 2x for as long as we've been tracking it. The data you provided showed that there was no correlation to the advent and escalation of the social safety net. It's there for everyone to see. Why are you pretending otherwise?

?Yes, the data is quite clear. The unemployment disparity between Blacks and whites has beep persistent and relatively steady since long before the Great Society. You made a number of claims to the contrary, trying to tie unemployment to social programs. Obviously, that's pure bunk. But instead of revising your thinking, you simply pretend that night is day. Fascinating. And, yes, the political parties reversed polarity over the course of the civil rights movement. That's all well documented. It why overt, unrepentant racists like Strom Thurmond moved to the Republican party, the South turned red, why even today, Neo-Nazis show up to wave flags at Republican events and why Black Americans vote overwhelmingly for Democrats.

Nah, Blacks are welcome to be conservative, but when one starts minimizing, rationalizing and justifying policies like racial profiling, stop and frisk and even slavery it's pretty clear what's going on. Ask Black Americans what they think of Sowell. No offense, but you think Sowell is brilliant because he puts a thin intellectual facade over arguments that you want to hear and accept. You are his target audience. He's more pop-culture ideologue than a real thinker, not trying to investigate, but rather to justify. Perhaps he could be-- or could have been brilliant --had he put his intellect to honest work, but at some point very early he embraced the allure of heterodoxy. Maybe because of the Chicago School? Maybe being "different" is somewhat addictive? At any rate, that's all he is now: a man who plays devils advocate, occasionally for the most atrocious stains on human history and on this society.

How in the hell are you satisfied with your explanation when it was wrong top to bottom--as is apparent in the data that you shared? What you're saying here is that you don't care about facts, or reality at all. That it's your feelings that matter.

A few points worth making here. 1. This is a sort of loose associative history as you see it rather than an explanation of the mechanism by which the safety net causes unemployment, dissolution of relationships etc. Still waiting on that. 2. You've badly misread and misinterpreted the data. You've noted a dramatic increase in Black unemployment around 1972. Well, sort of.?‍♂️ They didn't START independently tracking Black unemployment until 1972. So you do see it appear on the graph at that time. 3. What the data actually shows is that unemployment rates for non-whites, and later for Blacks independently, has been roughly double that of white unemployment, going back to the 50s. The numbers follow the economy and down, but track at nearly 2x throughout. However, economic turbulence-- recessions, like the Reagan recession (peak Black unemployment)or the 2008 crash, appears to hit non-whites a little harder. And in 2019, the low point for Black unemployment, it was still about double that of whites. From your cite: 4. So the correlation you want to spin as causation in your narrative history is definitively not causal. The data you shared directly contradicts that story. And indeed, because they interpreted the data correctly, the conclusion of the authors is quite the opposite of yours: "This blog takes a step toward communicating what many may have already suspected: due to systematic exclusion and discrimination of Black people in the labor market, racism in the education system and throughout U.S. society, Black men and women have endured double the unemployment rates of white men and women since at least 1954." So with you narrative thoroughly debunked, would you care to posit a new theory, or are you prepared to consider that your assumptions were incorrect?

So you can't explain it, but you have your feels. Okay.

Yes, there are problems. You are arguing that those problems are caused by the existence of safety nets. You think people are splitting their relationships and jobs etc, to chase a few dollars a month. Essentially giving up on life in exchange for abject poverty and bare subsistence. I'm asking why you think that. If it doesn't appeal to your (and it shouldn't) why do you think it is irresistible to Black folks? I think the entire premise is or nonsense. Safety nets don't cause poverty any more than airbags cause car crashes. They are there for when shit doesn't work out. But you explain to me why you think otherwise. By what mechanism?

Nope. But for some reason you think others will find those options incredibly attractive So again, why do you imagine something that holds no appeal for would be so irresistible to Black folks that they're ending relationships and leaving jobs to live in subsidized miserable poverty?

So what amazing social safety net opportunities are you taking advantage of? The proof is clear as day?

Of course. What more can be said about a man who make his money rationalizing the mistreatment of Black Americans. He's done quite well for himself, built a lucrative career of making white people feel better about being shitty to Black people. And if he had to shit on Black people to do it, hey, it's just business. He makes shallow, specious arguments that are prime for the internet era. They don't have to be compelling enough to withstand the intellectual rigor of the academic world. Just superficially academic enough to embolden the dogmatic conservatives looking for any flimsy reason to cast whites as the heroes and blacks the villains in the story of American racial disparity.

Sure, just like how you tried to get fired so you could collect unemployment. And how you stopped making your mortgage payment to get subsided housing. And how you didn't feed your kids because they could get meals at school. Wait, none of that happened? Well no shit. That's because nobody chooses a shittier life to score baseline benefits. You wouldn't, so why would you assume Black people do? Do you believe they are somehow less than you? The social safety net is there to catch people who fall. It doesn't knock them down.

Nothing to apologize for. And I'm not sure it's the only reason. There are lots of people who feel conflicted, as you do. And the fact is that non-discrimination IS a trade-off. Freedoms are often in conflict with one another. We just decided a half century ago that the right of minority people to exist and function was more important than the right to mistreat and exclude them from places of public accommodation. The law was clear: if you choose to operate a business that serves the general public, you can't exclude protected classes from service. No one was forced to work for others, but if they wanted to operate a public service business, that was a condition of doing so. As it's now done many times, this compromised court has discarded both precedent and decency to reach tortured conclusions that unravel decades of maturation to drag us back to an uglier time.

Well, your two hands are headed for a fist fight.??

Black men are disproportionally denied property, jobs, wealth respect and liberty, and now you'll complain that they struggling or absent? And it is and always had been bullshit to claim that "welfare" is breaking up families. You're as eligible as the next guy. Has it ever tempted you to divorce? Ever even give it a thought? -- That's simply not how safety nets work.

It's not an attack. That's just reality. There's no mystery. The country has already lived through it. That's simply what life was like before protected classes were protected.

Nah, his nephews and nieces are right about him.

Sure, why should a restaurant have to serve Blacks? Or gays, or Jews? Why should a hospital? Why should an apartment owner like Trump's father? Why shouldn't a little Black girl pee herself outside of a gas station because the proprietor "disagrees" with the fundamental humanity of Blacks and chooses not to "work" for them. Sorry, but we've HAD the country you're advocating for, and it was a miserable place full of heartache and abuse for anyone not white, straight and Christian. You can keep your apartheid. No thanks.

No, you can refuse service to an individual. If someone is an arsehole, don't serve them. But you, or anyone else, shouldn't be able to refuse service to an entire protected class. This isn't the 1950s. At least it wasn't until this backward-ass court decided that was "society goalz!"

Nah, I didn't assume that you were defending the decision. My point was that once you break it down, the argument doesn't hold. And worse, the decision does set a precedent that could affect any target for any reason. One vendor might serve that's under some circumstances, others might serve none, and others still might not serve blacks or Jews or whomever else--and it's all equally protected.

I know that the person in the article says that they would serve gays, but it's a segregated service. If you will make a cake for one class of customer, and then refuse to make the exact same cake for another class of customer you are not discriminating based on the nature of the work, but upon the nature of client. That's the point of the rainbow cake example. To put it in another context, imagine that a client shows up and orders 3-tier wedding cake with "Pat & Chris Forever" stenciled on the top. If a man and a woman show up to pick up that cake, great. But if two men show up to pick up that cake the baker throws it in the trash? See, the work is the work. It doesn't affect the baker in any way, shape or form how the cake is used afterward. They aren't discriminating against different types of work. They are discriminating against types of clients. For all we know, hetero Pat and Chris are buying a sheet cake because it's their turn to bring snacks to the swingers orgy. There's no such thing as a gay wedding cake. There are just cakes people eat at weddings. And it doesn't affect the baker one way or another.

Consider that the baker would make a rainbow cake for a straight person, but won't bake a rainbow cake for a gay person. That is indeed discriminating against gays. If they said that rainbow cakes were outside the scope of their service, that's another matter. But that isn't the case. These "religiously oppressed" plaintiffs don't have any problem making the deliverables. They simply don't want to serve gay people. Which extends to any other class of people. It really does rewind our society to the legally segregated lunch counter. Might not be a burden on someone with the options available in NYC, but try being gay in small town America and it starts to look pretty grim.

This is a really weird question. Do you not know what it means? It's not a newly invented term or anything and it's not hard to find a definition. Nor is it hard to find examples. Blacks are not the only demographic affected by systemic racism, but they are the most affected. Generation after generation, Black people were denied full and fair participation in this society--much of that time legally. It's a stain that permeates every facet of American life. And though there are still plenty of hardcore racists today, the more pernicious form of racism is that which remains structurally. There is massive history around poverty, the war on drugs, and Black incarceration and the effect it has had on Black families and communities. But to cite just one micro example, consider the differences in mandatory minimum sentencing for crack cocaine vs powdered cocaine. Powdered cocaine is more expensive, and was consumed by movie stars, stock brokers and car salesmen. Crack cocaine was cheaper and consumed by depressed poor people and distributed in poor urban neighborhoods. They are functionally the same, but if a person got caught smoking crack the state would imprison them FAR longer than someone snorting cocaine. Why? And regardless of why, what effect do you think this disparity caused? Honestly, there are books and books filled with these scenarios. You don't need me to or anyone else on this board to lay out a comprehensive history. That work is done. Just go read it. If you're actually curious or interested, that is.

Are you like this IRL? Wandering about, muttering obscure musings indecipherable to those outside your head?

Orientals? Jeebus. The backpack is filled with the various burdens of systemic racism. For a very basic example adjacent to admissions, consider the intensive tutoring, test prep and essay assistance that middle and upper class kids are afforded. Scoring an extra 50 points on the SAT with all that help does not make them more meritorious than someone who scored 50 fewer without help. It doesn't make them a better prospective student either. You can quibble over the details, but the point remains that "merit-based" admissions as you'd define them don't exist. Let schools figure out what makes the best students and the best environments. They are, after all, the ones who know both best.

The person who climbs 30 flights is stairs is not more meritorious than the person who climbs 29 flights with a 40 pound backpack. The person second to cross the line is not less meritorious than the first across if the "winner" had a 10% head start. And more importantly, diverse environments are better for institutions and everyone in them. It's worth taking deliberate steps to create them.