I got this e-mail the other day from a family member. It was a forward that has been going around talking about how awesome Pat Buchanan is. I disagree. The e-mail was peices of his retaliation toward one of Obama's speeches about race. The gyst of his speech is about how America has been "the best country on earth for african americans" and that the thanks they have given white people is shooting them.
This is the e-mail:
This is the e-mail:
SPOILERS! (Click to view)
Barack says we need to have a conversation about race in America . Fair enough. But this time, it has to be a two-way conversation.. White America needs to be heard from, not just lectured to.... This time, the Silent Majority needs to have its convictions, grievances and demands heard. And among them are these:
First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known.. Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American.
Second, no people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than white Americans. Untold trillions have been spent since the ' 60s on welfare, food stamps, rent supplements, Section 8 housing, Pell grants, student loans, legal services, Medicaid, Earned Income Tax Credits and poverty programs designed to bring the African-American community into the mainstream. Governments, businesses and colleges have engaged in discrimination against white folks -- with affirmative action, contract set-asides and quotas -- to advance black applicants over white applicants.Churches, foundations, civic groups, schools and individuals all over America have donated their time and money to support soup kitchens, adult education, day care, retirement and nursing homes for blacks.
We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude??
Barack talks about new 'ladders of opportunity' for blacks. Let him go to Altoona ? And Johnstown , and ask the white kids in Catholic schools how many were visited lately by Ivy League recruiters handing out scholarships for 'deserving' white kids...? Is white America really responsible for the fact that the crime and incarceration rates for African-Americans are seven times those of white America ? Is it really white America 's fault that illegitimacy in the African-American community has hit 70 percent and the black dropout rate from high schools in some cities has reached 50 percent?
Is that the fault of white America or, first and foremost, a failure of the black community itself?
As for racism, its ugliest manifestation is in interracial crime, and especially interracial crimes of violence. Is Barack Obama aware that while white criminals choose black victims 3 percent of the time, black criminals choose white victims 45 percent of the time?
Is Barack aware that black-on-white rapes are 100 times more common than the reverse, that black-on-white robberies were 139 times as common in the first three years of this decade as the reverse?
We have all heard ad nauseam from the Rev. Al about Tawana Brawley, the Duke rape case and Jena . And all turned out to be hoaxes. But about the epidemic of black assaults on whites that are real, we hear nothing.
Sorry, Barack, some of us have heard it all before, about 40 years and 40 trillion tax dollars ago. This needs to be passed around because, this is a message everyone needs to hear!!!
Barack says we need to have a conversation about race in America . Fair enough. But this time, it has to be a two-way conversation.. White America needs to be heard from, not just lectured to.... This time, the Silent Majority needs to have its convictions, grievances and demands heard. And among them are these:
First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known.. Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American.
Second, no people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than white Americans. Untold trillions have been spent since the ' 60s on welfare, food stamps, rent supplements, Section 8 housing, Pell grants, student loans, legal services, Medicaid, Earned Income Tax Credits and poverty programs designed to bring the African-American community into the mainstream. Governments, businesses and colleges have engaged in discrimination against white folks -- with affirmative action, contract set-asides and quotas -- to advance black applicants over white applicants.Churches, foundations, civic groups, schools and individuals all over America have donated their time and money to support soup kitchens, adult education, day care, retirement and nursing homes for blacks.
We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude??
Barack talks about new 'ladders of opportunity' for blacks. Let him go to Altoona ? And Johnstown , and ask the white kids in Catholic schools how many were visited lately by Ivy League recruiters handing out scholarships for 'deserving' white kids...? Is white America really responsible for the fact that the crime and incarceration rates for African-Americans are seven times those of white America ? Is it really white America 's fault that illegitimacy in the African-American community has hit 70 percent and the black dropout rate from high schools in some cities has reached 50 percent?
Is that the fault of white America or, first and foremost, a failure of the black community itself?
As for racism, its ugliest manifestation is in interracial crime, and especially interracial crimes of violence. Is Barack Obama aware that while white criminals choose black victims 3 percent of the time, black criminals choose white victims 45 percent of the time?
Is Barack aware that black-on-white rapes are 100 times more common than the reverse, that black-on-white robberies were 139 times as common in the first three years of this decade as the reverse?
We have all heard ad nauseam from the Rev. Al about Tawana Brawley, the Duke rape case and Jena . And all turned out to be hoaxes. But about the epidemic of black assaults on whites that are real, we hear nothing.
Sorry, Barack, some of us have heard it all before, about 40 years and 40 trillion tax dollars ago. This needs to be passed around because, this is a message everyone needs to hear!!!
Utter bull crap. This was my response that I sent back.
SPOILERS! (Click to view)
"I have a feeling that if Pat Buchanan grew up black, he would feel differently.
The main issue I have with forwards like these is that they are designed to breed resentment toward other races (I'm not going to say minorities because I am including all other races so they in fact are the majority) which in itself is an act of racism. Another general issue I have is that white people are reffered to as whites. We in fact are made up of different races as well. I myself am 3/4 German and 1/4 Serbian (yup that's all). There is also Irish, Sweedish, Polish, English, French, etc. I feel that to lump us all into one catagory "white" is ignoring our unique heritage.
These are the more specific issues I have with this forward.
"America has been the best country on earth for blacks."
Any one who has taken basic high school history should understand why this is insulting. I understand that they meant to say something to the effect of how much America has helped blacks flourish in regards to population and more recently fincanially. However wording it like this is like brushing the 1800's through the 1970's under the rug.
The entire second paragraph
Those programs were not created specifically for blacks. There are millions of white people who use those scholarships and food stamps. I know that there are some black specific scholarships, but there are also white ones. There are many scholarships that are akin to a specific minority. Minorities include African American, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, Female, Mixed Race, LGBTQ, etc. The reason they were created was to give someone a chance to pay for college who might not have been able to afford it before.
"Is it White America's fault that the African American drop out rate is 50%?"
In 2009-2010 school year, only 58% of (all race) students in America's 50 largest cities made it to graduation. In the suburbs the percent increases greatly. First of all, just by knowing this one fact, the claim that 50% of blacks drop out is disproved. If 58% graduate, then the remainder is 42% of ALL RACES do not graduate. It is mathematically impossible for blacks to have a 50% drop out rate (or for any race for that matter) Nationally, 10% of 16 - 24 year olds do not have a diploma. It seems that big cities and dropout rates correlate, and race isn't as much of a factor. This is an example of correlation not proving causation. I'll use an example to illustrate the point. In the summer, the sale of ice cream increases as well as motorcycle accidents. Does this mean that ice cream causes motorcycle accidents? Unless you're eating ice cream on a Harley (what would you do for a Klondike bar?), the answer is no. Both are caused by the change in seasons. More people buy ice cream to stay cool and more people take the bike out since it's warm enough to do so.
Now we just apply that prinicple to the issue here. Drop out rates increase as the size of the city does. When a city increases in size, so does population. This includes minorities and the majority. With so many people, there tends to be disagreements, leading often times to violence. It is increases violence that often leads to increased drop out rates. Race plays a factor when it comes to the job market. Often times it is easier to get a job if you're white, making it more likely you'll move to the suburbs (because they have better schools, right?). So this leads, natually, to a greater percentage of blacks dropping out than whites, just because there are more of them to drop out. Proportionally, the drop out rates are within 6%. The most recent figures I could find are for 2008-2009 when 4.8% of whites dropped out compared to 9.9% of blacks (source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics).
Interracial Crime
Interracial crime is not in and of itself racism. It should be obvious that there is a huge difference between crime that happens to be interracial and crime that is racially motivated (a hate crime).
First, while it is true that murder offenders are disproportionately black, it is also true that murder victims are disproportionately black. It is an undisputed fact that if avoiding murder is your number one goal, you are far better off being white in America than being black.
Second, if you look at stranger-on-stranger murder, it does turn out that there are a little more than 3 times as many whites killed by blacks are there are blacks killed by whites. Now, Pat Buchanan would see this as racism, but let's step back for a second.
Assume for a moment that the distribution by race of murder offenders were to remain constant, that is, assume that a little over half of all murders are committed by whites and a little less than that by blacks. (whites includes white Hispanics.)
If you do the math, in a color-blind society, about 37% of all murder victims would be whites killed by blacks. Why? Because there so many more whites than blacks! Simple math. The reality is however that in stranger-on-stranger murder, just 17% are whites killed by blacks and overall just 9% are. In other words, the murder victimization rate of whites by blacks is far lower than you'd expect.
Indeed, if you happen to be a white non-Hispanic man, you are far more likely to be murdered by yourself (i.e., commit suicide) than by a black man. The suicide rate among white men is about 22 per 100,000. The homicide victimization rate is about 4 per 100,000, and maybe about 1 of those are committed by blacks. So simply put, if you're a white man like Pat Buchanan freaking out about black men trying to kill you, you should be aware that you are 22 more times likely to be killed yourself than to be killed by a black man. And I'll bet if you worried a little less about getting murdered, you 'd be less likely to harm yourself.
I hope that made sense to everyone, and I hope everyone did in fact read it.
I understand that he was basically trying to say be proud of your ethnicity and that things need to be more fair across the board for everyone, but don't take everything at face value. Do a little digging and research and think. I really do hate it when I come across e-mails like this or hear someone spout these statements as fact.
Brain Power!"
"I have a feeling that if Pat Buchanan grew up black, he would feel differently.
The main issue I have with forwards like these is that they are designed to breed resentment toward other races (I'm not going to say minorities because I am including all other races so they in fact are the majority) which in itself is an act of racism. Another general issue I have is that white people are reffered to as whites. We in fact are made up of different races as well. I myself am 3/4 German and 1/4 Serbian (yup that's all). There is also Irish, Sweedish, Polish, English, French, etc. I feel that to lump us all into one catagory "white" is ignoring our unique heritage.
These are the more specific issues I have with this forward.
"America has been the best country on earth for blacks."
Any one who has taken basic high school history should understand why this is insulting. I understand that they meant to say something to the effect of how much America has helped blacks flourish in regards to population and more recently fincanially. However wording it like this is like brushing the 1800's through the 1970's under the rug.
The entire second paragraph
Those programs were not created specifically for blacks. There are millions of white people who use those scholarships and food stamps. I know that there are some black specific scholarships, but there are also white ones. There are many scholarships that are akin to a specific minority. Minorities include African American, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, Female, Mixed Race, LGBTQ, etc. The reason they were created was to give someone a chance to pay for college who might not have been able to afford it before.
"Is it White America's fault that the African American drop out rate is 50%?"
In 2009-2010 school year, only 58% of (all race) students in America's 50 largest cities made it to graduation. In the suburbs the percent increases greatly. First of all, just by knowing this one fact, the claim that 50% of blacks drop out is disproved. If 58% graduate, then the remainder is 42% of ALL RACES do not graduate. It is mathematically impossible for blacks to have a 50% drop out rate (or for any race for that matter) Nationally, 10% of 16 - 24 year olds do not have a diploma. It seems that big cities and dropout rates correlate, and race isn't as much of a factor. This is an example of correlation not proving causation. I'll use an example to illustrate the point. In the summer, the sale of ice cream increases as well as motorcycle accidents. Does this mean that ice cream causes motorcycle accidents? Unless you're eating ice cream on a Harley (what would you do for a Klondike bar?), the answer is no. Both are caused by the change in seasons. More people buy ice cream to stay cool and more people take the bike out since it's warm enough to do so.
Now we just apply that prinicple to the issue here. Drop out rates increase as the size of the city does. When a city increases in size, so does population. This includes minorities and the majority. With so many people, there tends to be disagreements, leading often times to violence. It is increases violence that often leads to increased drop out rates. Race plays a factor when it comes to the job market. Often times it is easier to get a job if you're white, making it more likely you'll move to the suburbs (because they have better schools, right?). So this leads, natually, to a greater percentage of blacks dropping out than whites, just because there are more of them to drop out. Proportionally, the drop out rates are within 6%. The most recent figures I could find are for 2008-2009 when 4.8% of whites dropped out compared to 9.9% of blacks (source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics).
Interracial Crime
Interracial crime is not in and of itself racism. It should be obvious that there is a huge difference between crime that happens to be interracial and crime that is racially motivated (a hate crime).
First, while it is true that murder offenders are disproportionately black, it is also true that murder victims are disproportionately black. It is an undisputed fact that if avoiding murder is your number one goal, you are far better off being white in America than being black.
Second, if you look at stranger-on-stranger murder, it does turn out that there are a little more than 3 times as many whites killed by blacks are there are blacks killed by whites. Now, Pat Buchanan would see this as racism, but let's step back for a second.
Assume for a moment that the distribution by race of murder offenders were to remain constant, that is, assume that a little over half of all murders are committed by whites and a little less than that by blacks. (whites includes white Hispanics.)
If you do the math, in a color-blind society, about 37% of all murder victims would be whites killed by blacks. Why? Because there so many more whites than blacks! Simple math. The reality is however that in stranger-on-stranger murder, just 17% are whites killed by blacks and overall just 9% are. In other words, the murder victimization rate of whites by blacks is far lower than you'd expect.
Indeed, if you happen to be a white non-Hispanic man, you are far more likely to be murdered by yourself (i.e., commit suicide) than by a black man. The suicide rate among white men is about 22 per 100,000. The homicide victimization rate is about 4 per 100,000, and maybe about 1 of those are committed by blacks. So simply put, if you're a white man like Pat Buchanan freaking out about black men trying to kill you, you should be aware that you are 22 more times likely to be killed yourself than to be killed by a black man. And I'll bet if you worried a little less about getting murdered, you 'd be less likely to harm yourself.
I hope that made sense to everyone, and I hope everyone did in fact read it.
I understand that he was basically trying to say be proud of your ethnicity and that things need to be more fair across the board for everyone, but don't take everything at face value. Do a little digging and research and think. I really do hate it when I come across e-mails like this or hear someone spout these statements as fact.
Brain Power!"
I know that was a lot to read, but I felt it was important. It is sickening to have someone who can out and out lie and have millions of people not think twice about what they are saying.
On a different note, does anyone have a pink bean bag chair I can borrow?...
burntsolace:
ROCK ON! THAT WAS AMAZING! I have been trying to get people think about what they read and take for granted, and its hard. I work and deal with people who take the "information" from the opinion time slots of Fox News, and take it was fact... so I think is amazing!