10 Things NEVER to Say to a Black Coworker

[M.Dancer]

rather, reporters get picked and chosen according to what a media outlet wants to put out.

Also, most journalism schools today breed journalists to be egalitarian left wing irreconcilables... most of the "infotainment" hacks out there, Katie Couric, Keith Olbermann, Deborah Norville, were all raised red...

Sorry, I was talking over your head to someone smarter....

Edited November 14, 2009 by M.Dancer

[kimmy]

In a previous discussion on the issue of "hate crimes", someone (DogOnPorch, I believe) mentioned one of the most shocking crimes you've never heard of. This occured in Wichita Kansas in 2000, and at the time there was no national coverage of it either, or of the resulting trials a couple of years later. It had a lot of elements that seem to make for big news items-- shocking details, a lurid sexual aspect, grisly deaths-- but was not carried by national media. The mainstream media took criticism from bloggers as a result.

In 2007, in Knoxville Tennessee, another horrific crime took place, and also went completely unnoticed outside of local media. Like the Wichita case. The media was much more concerned with the Duke Lacrosse Rape case (the one with the fake victim) than the Knoxville double rape/murder (which had real victims). Like the Wichita case, this one had shocking details, a lurid sexual aspect, grisly deaths, but like the Wichita case, it went completely unnoticed in the national media. The mainstream media only picked it up later, when their own honor had been challenged by bloggers.

The MSNBC navel-gazing is difficult to take seriously. It's like an "electronic Internet megaphone" that people are using to "throw brickbats at the media". Look at what those bloggers did to poor Dan Rather. Look what happened when they caught Reuters posting doctored photos of Gaza. Woe is us, to endure such criticism!

But the article does eventually get to the question of whether the criticism is warranted:

Glenn Reynolds, a University of Tennessee law professor who operates Instapundit, a current events blog, said he was branded an apologist after he wrote that he had seen no evidence the killings were a hate crime.

However, he said: "I think it is totally true if the races of the perpetrators and the victims were reversed, the press would make a bigger deal about it. I think some people have been hanging back for fear of inflaming things."

Another observer disagrees:

Ted Gest, president of the Criminal Justice Journalists group, a national organization of reporters who cover crime, courts and prisons, said interracial crime tends to get more coverage than when the criminal and victim are of the same race.

"But I can't say that this one would have had any more coverage if five whites had been accused of doing these things to two blacks, absent a blatant racial motive," he said. "As bad as this crime is, the apparent absence of any interest group involvement or any other `angle' might also explain the lack of coverage."

Well, of course he's going to say that. He's the president of the Criminal Justice Journalists. What's he going to say? "Of course we're biased, we suck"? Of course he's going to say that. But the key phrase he uses is "...absent a blatant racial motive".

Because as the coverage of the Vancouver torched hobo case illustrates, story-hungry journalists see a blatant racial motive wherever a white guy attacks a brown guy.

-k

Edited November 14, 2009 by kimmy

[Michael Hardner]

Argus

What people are concered about is that they or someone they care for might become victims of violent, brutal, vicious crimes like these. To suggest they are more concerned with a hateful, vicious murderer because he killed someone due to their race, as opposed to another hateful, vicious murderer who killed a person just because he was a hateful, vicious murderer is sophistry.

I completely disagree. That type of crime challenges us to work together to eliminate it. These are horrors that speak to the baser instincts (towards xenophobia) inside all of us and so they represent a type of violence that deserves particular attention. We have become the country we are because we developed institutions that raised us above our worst selves, and we should be proud of that fact and strive to support this attitude.

This is just how I feel, and I don't think there's anything you could say to change my mind frankly.

[Michael Hardner]

Lictor,

omg! diabolical! you find the one other source that talks about the subject (ignored by the mass media) to try to get me on the run and associate me with what the ADL calls "neo-nazis"...

I don't care if you're a neo-nazi or not, frankly. If you're a neo-nazi, though, why not admit it ? Because you're afraid to be called names ? I'd rather not debate with a neo-nazi who won't admit to it, though.

So are you one ? Again, I don't care either way.

[M.Dancer]

Lictor,

Stop that.

[charter.rights]

Lictor,

I don't care if you're a neo-nazi or not, frankly. If you're a neo-nazi, though, why not admit it ? Because you're afraid to be called names ? I'd rather not debate with a neo-nazi who won't admit to it, though.

So are you one ? Again, I don't care either way.

Yes Lictor...why not just come out of the closet and get it over with?

[M.Dancer]

Yes Lictor...why not just come out of the closet and get it over with?

He doesn't consider himself a neo nazi, he sees himself as a fascist. Two years before he saw himself as a fireman and the year before that, he wanted to be subway driver.

[charter.rights]

He doesn't consider himself a neo nazi, he sees himself as a fascist. Two years before he saw himself as a fireman and the year before that, he wanted to be subway driver.

He is a regular "Village People" person...isn't he....?

[M.Dancer]

He is a regular "Village People" person...isn't he....?

Ummmm...yeah I guess playing dress up in uniform would be consistant.

[lictor616]

Lictor,

I don't care if you're a neo-nazi or not, frankly. If you're a neo-nazi, though, why not admit it ? Because you're afraid to be called names ? I'd rather not debate with a neo-nazi who won't admit to it, though.

So are you one ? Again, I don't care either way.

well because its not an apt description of what I am... and the title is festooned with embedded negative connotations. people call other people neo-nazis to end discussions not encourage them...

if you want to cease talking to me, then simply stop addressing comments my way.

Edited November 14, 2009 by lictor616

[lictor616]

Ummmm...yeah I guess playing dress up in uniform would be consistant.

lol, more abstract, emotional arguments... that's all I expect from you M.dizzle.

your seething hatred sustains me.

[Michael Hardner]

well because its not an apt description of what I am... and the title is festooned with embedded negative connotations. people call other people neo-nazis to end discussions not encourage them...

if you want to cease talking to me, then simply stop addressing comments my way.

Lictor, I don't want to cease talking to you, but if you don't even believe that races are equal, then why should we waste time quibbling about the details of the media. Let's go after the big fish, hmmmm ?

After all, if all humans didn't have the same rights, and if all humans aren't born equal then that should be a main plank of any of your arguments on race, and you haven't overtly made it so.

Why not just explain it to us ? Why do you care about 'negative connotations' or being called names ? You have nothing to discuss with such people anyway.

If you're not brave enough to tell us what you really feel about things, if you censor yourself in this way then aren't you being sort of 'politically correct' ?

[Argus]

...and Canada had neither....the point that you obviously missed, as usual.

You say that like I missed the point, but, as with most of what you say, there really is no point to it.

[Argus]

Most reporters don't pick and choose what they cover. That is decided in a much higher snack bracket for much less prosaic reasons.

The freedom you have to choose your story depends on your seniority, which goes hand in hand with the importance of the stories you get assigned and how much play they get. You also get more leeway in how to cover those stories, and there is enormous freedom for manipulation in that. You get to choose who you interview, for example, and that means you can shop around to get the kind of quotes you want to support your own beliefs.

And I would suggest that all the prominent stories are in the hands of senior reporters. Besides, who says editors - invariably former reporters - are any more free of bias or the desire to shape opinion? Yes, senior people want the stories to be watchable/readable and snappy, something people will want to read/watch, but as I said, that doesn't mean they can't choose NOT to give huge play to a gang of Blacks sexually abusing a white girl - despite the obvious public interest in such a story.

[lictor616]

Lictor, I don't want to cease talking to you, but if you don't even believe that races are equal, then why should we waste time quibbling about the details of the media. Let's go after the big fish, hmmmm ?

if refusing to believe in human equality automatically means that someone is a neo-nazi and some sort of socially defective idiot... then there are many more neo-nazis then you'd like to think. And most of them, i'm sorry to say, aren't white.

If the only way to be "a good person" is repudiating Darwinian evolution and believing in an absurd concept of Equality (as liberals fancy) ....

then I am a "neo-nazi" and that is that.

If wanting to preserve Western civilization and salvaging a future for my posterity, and wanting to see our ill-starred ethnicity continue to exist makes me some right wing extremists, then I am a right wing extremist...

And what "human rights"? How can there be universal rights, without a universal code of law? the fiction about "human rights," would need to be ordained by some sort of god, without which there can be no rights except those a society, whether a family unit, a nation, or a country, bestows on its members.

if you really believe that people who don't believe in the concept of human equality are basketcases and bloodthirsty extremists that should be labelled and dehumanized and presumable stripped of their rights... then that is YOUR problem... not mine. In any case, I certainly don't see the point of carrying on a conversation with you.

You obviously see people who dare to see differences between Wesley Snipes and Scarlet Johansson as somehow "evil"... so why bother talking to such an ogre?

Edited November 14, 2009 by lictor616

[Argus]

Argus

I completely disagree. That type of crime challenges us to work together to eliminate it

That's a political response of someone who is very political and left of centre. I'm speaking about the vast public, the herd, as it were, and their emotional and instinctive reactions to this type of violence. And they don't care about being "challenged" to eliminate racism in matters like this. They only care about the horrific nature of the violence and feel an instinctive fear for themselves and others that such violence happens.

These are horrors that speak to the baser instincts (towards xenophobia) inside all of us and so they represent a type of violence that deserves particular attention.

Are you kidding? Again, this is a very political sort of answer. The crimes that Lictor and Kimmy cite are as horrific as crimes get, and speak to the basest instincts any human being is capable of. I defy you to attempt to postulate how and why three white guys disliking a black man enough to beat him - or lynch him are somehow responding to a baser, lower, more evil instinctive calling than the Black men who brutally tortured, raped and murdered the young men and women in those stories.

Most people are simply not very political on subjects like these. The response is visceral, a community snarl of rage and anger directed at the offenders and an instinctive highly emotional desire for violent retribution. That is why such stories are headline grabbers, and why the stories Lictor and Kimmy cite would be just as huge an attention grabber as stories of Black men being lynched by White men.

Edited November 14, 2009 by Argus

[Michael Hardner]

if refusing to believe in human equality automatically means that someone is a neo-nazi and some sort of socially defective idiot... then there are many more neo-nazis then you'd like to think.

If the only way to be "a good person" is repudiating Darwinian evolution and believing in an absurd concept of Equality (as liberals fancy) ....

then I am a "neo-nazi" and that is that.

If wanting to preserve Western civilization, and wanting to see our ill-starred ethnicity continue to exist makes me some right wing extremists, then I am a right wing extremist...

if you really believe that people who don't believe in the concept of human equality are basketcases and bloodthirsty extremists that should be labelled and dehumanized and presumable stripped of their rights... then that is YOUR problem... not mine. In any case, I certainly don't see the point of carrying on a conversation with you.

You obviously see people who dare to see differences between Wesley Snipes and Scarlet Johansson as somehow "evil"... so why bother talking to such an ogre?

Wow. I thought I was going out of my way to allow you to safely state your views, but you seem to be charging towards the exit ready to accuse me for labeling and dehumanizing you. I have not done that. Actually, I have no desire to label you - just to understand where your arguments are founded. You see, you're still not being clear on what you believe. Instead, you label yourself as a "neo-nazi", I suspect as a tactic to draw out people who would tag you as such in revulsion.

I just want to know how you stand: you don't believe in liberal views on equality - do you believe that humans, from the perspective of race, are born pretty much biologically equal ? That is, although humans are born racially different, there's nothing biologically that prevents them from succeeding pretty much as others do, cultural factors aside ?

If you don't believe that the races are born (basically) biologically equal, then just say so and we can move on with clarity. Don't be afraid that I will shush you away, I just don't like arguing in the dark.

[M.Dancer]

The freedom you have to choose your story depends on your seniority,

Which leaves most reporters out.

And I would suggest that all the prominent stories are in the hands of senior reporters.

More or less true. National news, politics, big business stories, cause celebres....

Besides, who says editors - invariably former reporters -

While quite a few editors used to be beat reporters, the senior and finally senior editor ((john stackhouse for example...I've known him since his second job)...many more have been editors first a foremost in their career..starting out as copy editors.

are any more free of bias or the desire to shape opinion?

Everyone has bias. How they deal with their bias is the mark of a great writer.

Yes, senior people want the stories to be watchable/readable and snappy, something people will want to read/watch, but as I said, that doesn't mean they can't choose NOT to give huge play to a gang of Blacks sexually abusing a white girl - despite the obvious public interest in such a story.

Not that there is

any evidence of someone avoiding a high profile story to satistfy bias

[Michael Hardner]

That's a political response of someone who is very political and left of centre. I'm speaking about the vast public, the herd, as it were, and their emotional and instinctive reactions to this type of violence. And they don't care about being "challenged" to eliminate racism in matters like this. They only care about the horrific nature of the violence and feel an instinctive fear for themselves and others that such violence happens.

That's not the politcal response of someone who is left-of-centre. Look at the remarks of George W. Bush after 9/11. Is he left-of-centre ? If you answer in the affirmative, then maybe it's a better idea for you to look where you stand vis-a-vis the centre.

"They feel an instinctive fear for themselves and others". Yes. I fear for my community when racial supremacists target others for extermination. That sort of crime has a significant probability of perpetuating itself and harming the fabric of our society and our social relations.

Are you kidding? Again, this is a very political sort of answer. The crimes that Lictor and Kimmy cite are as horrific as crimes get, and speak to the basest instincts any human being is capable of. I defy you to attempt to postulate how and why three white guys disliking a black man enough to beat him - or lynch him are somehow responding to a baser, lower, more evil instinctive calling than the Black men who brutally tortured, raped and murdered the young men and women in those stories.

I'm not going to answer because you're misrepresenting what we're talking about - what a race crime is - and you're blurring what a media describes as race crime and what the authorities describe as race crime.

If we're talking about people not liking each other then there's no conversation here. Race crime deserves special attention, and you don't need to know more than 50 years of history to understand why.

Most people are simply not very political on subjects like these. The response is visceral, a community snarl of rage and anger directed at the offenders and an instinctive highly emotional desire for violent retribution. That is why such stories are headline grabbers, and why the stories Lictor and Kimmy cite would be just as huge an attention grabber as stories of Black men being lynched by White men.

I don't think political is as apt a word as civic.

It seems to me that there are a few different questions being discussed here at once. One is why so-called "hate crimes" achieve wide news distribution, especially national distribution. Another is why certain crimes don't receive local attention. There may be similar answers to why in both cases, but they also can be different.

I'll address the former question: Klan-type lynchings are a strange crime that attract special attention for a host of reasons. When they happen, there is a national interest in them. Local black-on-white or white-on-black crimes that aren't identified as being so-called "hate crimes" won't get that kind of attention because they're not special enough.

[lictor616]

Wow. I thought I was going out of my way to allow you to safely state your views, but you seem to be charging towards the exit ready to accuse me for labeling and dehumanizing you. I have not done that. Actually, I have no desire to label you - just to understand where your arguments are founded. You see, you're still not being clear on what you believe. Instead, you label yourself as a "neo-nazi", I suspect as a tactic to draw out people who would tag you as such in revulsion.

I just want to know how you stand: you don't believe in liberal views on equality - do you believe that humans, from the perspective of race, are born pretty much biologically equal ? That is, although humans are born racially different, there's nothing biologically that prevents them from succeeding pretty much as others do, cultural factors aside ?

If you don't believe that the races are born (basically) biologically equal, then just say so and we can move on with clarity. Don't be afraid that I will shush you away, I just don't like arguing in the dark.

My belief was stated over and over in these boards, you're simply being willfully obtuse and throwing around muck words such as "neo-nazi" for reasons anyone can see...

The concept of evolution denies any equality, evolution is a process of differentiation, it is the opposite of equality, evolution is animated by the iron law of INEQUALITY.

There is no such thing under the sun as equality (either human or otherwise), two ants are never exactly the same, even less similar are two different species or clines of ants, the difference between any two dogs is even greater... and the greatest genetic variation is found among humans... and these differences are genetic... they are based in genes...

What of human races you ask? The concept of human races is an imperfect but useful taxonomic classification of humans: and again here, no such concept as equality can be permitted. You can use the concept of human clines (which operates on the same basis).

You say that we humans all have the same rights? But this too is empty piffle and nonsense. Where were the human rights of the stoned afghan women when they were killed for showing a little too much flesh? There is no such thing as universal rights.

Do I think one race is superior to another? no... merely different. Human perceptions of superiority vary vastly, and are subjective anyways...

all that counts is survival of a cline or specie... that's all that matters in darwinian evolution.

Edited November 14, 2009 by lictor616

[Michael Hardner]

My belief was stated over and over in these boards, you're simply being willfully obtuse and throwing around muck words such as "neo-nazi" for reasons anyone can see...

Sorry, but you're the one who started "throwing around" those words. I did quote them from a Wikipedia page about Dr. William Luther Pierce. And you used it first earlier on this thread:

"but to go from there and call me a neo-nazi... I mean I suppose if you found a quote of Pierce that suggested he believed in gravity, you'd call me a neo-nazi for also believing in gravity."

Would you prefer that I quoted the introductory sentence of Dr. Pierce's Wiki article:

William Luther Pierce III (September 11, 1933 – July 23, 2002), was the leader of the white separatist National Alliance organization, and a principal ideologue of the white nationalist movement

And two other points here:

Firstly, don't assume you know my motives, specifically that they're different from what I've stated here. As I've said, I've given you the benefit of the doubt and I have good reason to ask you these questions.

Secondly, I don't believe you've expressly indicated your beliefs on the equality of race as I have asked. You have posted here and there little insights into your thoughts, but if I quote them back without knowing the complete picture of your philosophy I will undoubtedly err and misrepresent your views.

The concept of evolution denies any equality, evolution is a process of differentiation, it is the opposite of equality, evolution is animated by the iron law of INEQUALITY.

There is no such thing under the sun as equality (either human or otherwise), two ants are never exactly the same, even less similar are two different species or clines of ants, the difference between any two dogs is even greater... and the greatest genetic variation is found among humans... and these differences are genetic... they are based in genes...

What of human races you ask? The concept of human races is an imperfect but useful taxonomic classification of humans: and again here, no such concept as equality can be permitted. You can use the concept of human clines (which operates on the same basis).

But the important question isn't whether or not we're different - clearly we are - but as to whether those differences represent anything significant enough for us to change our individual or group behavior to acknowledge that.

Your answer ?

You say that we humans all have the same rights? But this too is empty piffle and nonsense. Where were the human rights of the stoned afghan women when they were killed for showing a little too much flesh? There is no such thing as universal rights.

Do I think one race is superior to another? no... merely different. Human perceptions of superiority vary vastly, and are subjective anyways...

all that counts is survival of a cline or specie... that's all that matters in darwinian evolution.

Those women do have human rights, in the opinion of many people.

And again, we know there are differences but are they significant enough for us to alter our group and individual behavior to account for that ? What differences do we have ? Saying that races are different isn't informative, although your belief in Darwinian evolution doesn't seem to apply to humans in the modern world - does it ? Humans evolve so slowly, that I would think our collective understanding of who we are negates the dumb force that evolution tries to apply to our biology over time.

What do you think ?

[Guest TrueMetis]

all that counts is survival of a cline or specie... that's all that matters in darwinian evolution.

Stop using the term "Darwinian" evolution, it sounds to much like social Darwinism (and when that was thought up I'm sure Darwin turned in his grave). It just evolution, people don't teach "Einsteinian" physics.

[lictor616]

But the important question isn't whether or not we're different - clearly we are - but as to whether those differences represent anything significant enough for us to change our individual or group behavior to acknowledge that.

Your answer ?

Those women do have human rights, in the opinion of many people.

And again, we know there are differences but are they significant enough for us to alter our group and individual behavior to account for that ? What differences do we have ? Saying that races are different isn't informative, although your belief in Darwinian evolution doesn't seem to apply to humans in the modern world - does it ? Humans evolve so slowly, that I would think our collective understanding of who we are negates the dumb force that evolution tries to apply to our biology over time.

What do you think ?

So you concede that we are different... the only difference is your absurd claim that the differences amount to zero....

Differences between humans of the same cline or race are very noticeable and yeild measurable results... likewise (and even more so) ACROSS racial lines.

Different races have different susceptibility to specific disease, different types and degrees of intelligence, different skeletal structures, craniometry, facial angles, different maturation rates, different maturity ages, different muscle composition, hormonal secretion, on top of that, races produce vastly differing societies, produce different language systems, different "ways of viewing the world"... only a madman would say that these differences are ZERO and insignificant... even the difference between two identical twins IS significant...

What you propose amounts to reducing everything to the lowest common denominator, reducing everything the their basest simplicity so as to lessen or efface (or buff out) the inequalities. This type of discounting doesn't impose on anyone who is willing to consider this objectively.

Second, the opinion of many people didn't account for anything...

what you're saying is that you HOPE that many people would have these rights...

but in reality, they do not... they simply DO NOT HAVE THEM... ergo there is no such thing as "universal human rights"...

Edited November 14, 2009 by lictor616

[Michael Hardner]

So you concede that we are different... the only difference is your absurd claim that the differences amount to zero....

Differences between humans of the same cline or race are very noticeable and yeild measurable results... likewise (and even more so) ACROSS racial lines.

Different races have different susceptibility to specific disease, different types and degrees of intelligence, different skeletal structures, craniometry, facial angles, different maturation rates, different maturity ages, different muscle composition, hormonal secretion, on top of that, races produce vastly differing societies, produce different language systems, different "ways of viewing the world"... only a madman would say that these differences are ZERO and insignificant... even the difference between two identical twins IS significant...

What you propose amounts to reducing everything to the lowest common denominator, reducing everything the their basest simplicity so as to lessen or efface (or buff out) the inequalities. This type of discounting doesn't impose on anyone who is willing to consider this objectively.

"ZERO and insignificant" are two different things. I have said that the differences are not zero, but that they are insignificant when compared to cultural factors.

For example, do you think that 'craniometry' (?) provides a basis showing that certain races have significantly more difficulty with learning for example ? I'll put cultural factors (such as wealth, emphasis on learning, reading) up against biological factors any day.

Because you've jumped ahead and accused me of reducing everything to lowest common denominator, I'm thinking that you believe that biological factors mean that certain races (Asians perhaps ?) are better at certain things (math perhaps ?). Again, you should explain yourself, lest I do so incorrectly.

[lictor616]

"ZERO and insignificant" are two different things. I have said that the differences are not zero, but that they are insignificant when compared to cultural factors.

For example, do you think that 'craniometry' (?) provides a basis showing that certain races have significantly more difficulty with learning for example ? I'll put cultural factors (such as wealth, emphasis on learning, reading) up against biological factors any day.

Because you've jumped ahead and accused me of reducing everything to lowest common denominator, I'm thinking that you believe that biological factors mean that certain races (Asians perhaps ?) are better at certain things (math perhaps ?). Again, you should explain yourself, lest I do so incorrectly.

different cultures, are a byproduct of different human stock and human communities... so cultural factors are side effect of sorts... To say that a person's biology is not SIGNIFICANT in determining weather a person will have certain attributes is absurd. Cultural and environmental factors only go so far... besides nurture... there's a little thing called nature, you cannot make a genius out of someone with Downs no matter how great your teaching technique is. Emphasis on reading, will not change the biology of a person and give him "cerebral potency" he did not have in his genes.

To say that human stocks with different hormonal levels, different IQ's and types of intelligence have "INSIGNIFICANT" effects on the type of societies humans create, is simply as outrageous and brazenly ridiculous as anything I've ever heard from liberal egalitarians.

There is no such thing as a "debate" on nature vs. nurture... it's 50/50. and one's nature is not insignificant... sorry, it just isn't.

Edited November 14, 2009 by lictor616