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Why do we (USA) have so many prisoners?
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While my school was not heavily gang-populated, each year we had a few students who we knew to be in gangs, and others who were attracted to gangs...primarily Latino students who lived in a couple of neighborhoods along US-50 in Fairfax County. Here's one point where I disagree with what you wrote -- some percentage of teenaged boys in those neighborhoods were in gangs, while others were on the fringes. Yet most were not. So, it seems, at least in many cases to be a choice. Every actual gang kid that I can think of in our school had a father, usually one that worked damn hard at multiple jobs. To be honest, I think you're unintentionally stereotyping.
And this statement: "A lot of these people have good hearts, but as they have said themselves, when they need to, they can turn into animals." This is bizarre thinking, Tom.
Sorry, you and I are often in agreement on lots of things...but not this.
Tom , In the USA, the most successful group of immigrants is Nigerians. They attend elite universities and create business at an incredible rate. They come here without the belief that they cannot succeed . How do we instill this belief in the black population here?
People like Bill Crosby, whom speak of such things (as did Obama initially) are often vilified in the black community.
By the way, have you watched any hip hop videos in the past ten years ? Very poor role models for the youth , black or white, preaching a sorry and sad lifestyle (bitches and money) to young impressionable minds locked in a can't win prison of their own creation.
I agree about hip hop. The lyrics are a disgrace. Every generation has its own music, but the degrading of women (just for starters) ought to be a wake-up call.
I apologize to those I mislead by my clumsy commentary.
There, I've said it.
'70% of prisoners in the United States are non-whites.'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States#Prison_population
It's part of their culture. You just have to listen to primarily black music - hip hop & rap etc. They like it and they want it a lot of the time. We can whine about socio economic problems all we want, but the fact of the matter is that's the lifestyle they want to lead a lot of the time. Most of our gang members a pretty young, teens to mid twenties, they look up to those people, want to be like them, and they all love gang culture.
So I don't think it's fair to say white people are just scared of black people. I cross the street whenever I see anyone, regardless of their color, obviously into that culture and mentality. I don't want to be anywhere near them.
It's the culture that is the problem, not the color of their skin.
I used to live in Chicago. Know what the youth in lower SES areas are fond of? Forming packs of ~20 teens, going up to the "middle/higher" SES areas, and beating people up. Just because. And/or they would go into stores and steal everything they can get their hands on, knowing no one can stop them due to massive power in their higher numbers.
It undoubtedly stems from culture. No twelve year-old kid is born and decides they want to join a gang, beat people up, and rob stores through intimidation. Many people who associate with this culture are not only indifferent to such violence, but condone it.
I would argue that they do want to though. If that's what the people they look up to are doing it makes sense to me that they would want to follow in their footsteps.
'It's the culture that is the problem, not the color of their skin.'
mynameisuntz:
'It undoubtedly stems from culture.'
I see.
Do cultures arise in isolation, or co-dependently?
RebeccaS:
'I cross the street whenever I see anyone, regardless of their color, obviously into that culture and mentality. I don't want to be anywhere near them. '
Do you think that on some level they know that?
Not only did we see them as lesser people, but even today, we seek to assimilate them into our culture, all but completely erasing their own culture. While today most of us realize this is wrong, racisim exists on levels even in people who declare themselves non-racist. I have a very close friend who lives in Ottawa and is an Ojibwe First Nations, and we have discussions about this stuff all the time. My discussions with her and her family have lead me to believe racism and oppression exists very much today, and even in the people who believe they are not racist. The cultures are very different, but the divide between them in the US has mostly been caused by white people, and there is no denying that.
Some people make an argument that it's time to move on, to get over the past, to live with what we have today. But I don't think one single white person has an idea of what it's like for your entire generations of people, your language, your spiritual beliefs, your way of life to disappear at the hands of others who insist you will learn their way. I don't think without being part of one of those groups, you can say you have even an inkling of how it affects people individually or as a cultural group, to still today be told "you don't matter and we don't value you" as we continue to break promises and hold beliefs that allow some people to control other people's basic human rights.
When you see someone's heart, it's impossible to fear them, whatever they do to you.
"Being brave doesn't mean you go looking for trouble" (yeah I just quoted the lion king)
I don't look at things in terms of poor little victim and big bad perpetrator. That viewpoint serves nobody.
Yes. They are.
Because we're living in it, all you seem to see is a White culture attempting to dominate non-White cultures. Guess what..it's a big world out there, and other cultures -- non-White -- have attempted to dominate other cultures -- also non-White -- for long periods of time in the world.
For example, all I hear is about how the Whites dominated the North American Indian populations. It's all but unknown to read about how certain Plains Indians cultures, continually dominated -- through death and destruction -- other Indian cultures. To be more specific, some Indian cultures (particularly Puebloan Indians) in what is today New Mexico at first welcomed Spanish/Mexican incursions into the area, because they hoped that the Spanish/Mexican presence would keep the Plains Indians at bey.
In Southeast Asia, as time passed, dominant cultures changed, but were always there -- at various times the Khmer (ancestral Cambodians) were dominant for centuries, the ancestral Burmese were dominant, and the Thais were dominant. And not that far away, Pakistanis and Indians are still fighting for dominance in that sphere. In the Far East, Japan has long tried to dominate its neighbors (and at one point the world), and what exactly do you think China is attempting to do in our historical period?
I could go on. But suffice it to say that one culture attempting to dominate another culture has gone on for centuries, and is not limited to White against non-White cultures.
I think greed is co-dependent with ignorance.
If you see yourself as incredibly vulnerable, what is there to do but build a fortress, and if you can't do that, storm the fortresses of others. That goes for the rich as well as the poor in this world.
It's just that the rich have the castles. The street kids have whatever they can find.
It's just stupid if you ask me.
It's just stupid if you ask me.
Overall, I agree with you, Rebecca.
Just depending on what era of American history you want to look at, there's been a lot of prejudice against White subgroups. Take a look at how the Irish were once treated...and the Italians...and that's just for starters.
White guilt, I guess.
I mean, on average a woman makes $0.77 for ever $1.00 a man makes for the same qualifications, education, training, and job - controlling for variables such as state/county wage, cost of living, etc.
Discrimination absolutely exists.
My great great grandparents came from Ireland, probably during the potato famine. Ended up in western New York. Based on the time frame and location, were probably canal diggers. Poor as dirt. Became farmers. Struggled. Were looked at as the "poor Irish"...
...and it had nothing to do with me. Didn't know them. Didn't exist when they existed. Never even saw a picture of them or knowingly touched or saw anything they had ever possessed.
Furthermore, to illustrate what I am saying, most all health insurance plans provide coverage to men for hormonal treatments. These plans do not provide the same to women for their hormonal treatments because said treatments are often forms of birth control (despite their utility in being prescribed for hormonal treatment). Even though many birth controls are prescribed for estrogen/progesterone treatment, people do not want these covered under health care solely because they are classified as birth control.
I call that sexist.