A response to a Columbus Dispatch letter-to-the-editor ("Racism claims exaggerated by 'progressives')"
On Monday, Nicholas Kristof wrote an article which delved into the Ferguson, Missouri shooting, as well as racism in this country, entitled, "Even people who support racial equality show bias." If curious, you can read the article at this link: http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/editorials/2014/09/01/even-people-who-support-racial-equality-show-bias.html
To save you some time, I'll condense the article by pointing out a few of the highlights:
- "Scholars have found that blacks and Hispanics treated by doctors for a broken leg received pain medication significantly less often than white patients with the same injury. School administrators suspend black students at more than three times the rate of white students. Police arrest blacks at 3.7 times the rate of whites for marijuana possession, even though surveys find that both use marijuana at roughly similar rates."
- "Two scholars sent out nearly 5,000 resumes in response to help-wanted ads, randomly alternating between stereotypical white-sounding names and black-sounding names. They found that it took 50 percent more mailings to get a callback for a black name. A white name yielded as much benefit as eight years of experience, according to the study, published by the National Bureau of Economic Research."
- "Joshua Correll of the University of Colorado at Boulder has used an online shooter video game to try to measure these unconscious attitudes. The player takes on the role of a police officer who is confronted with a series of white or black men variously holding guns or innocent objects such as wallets or cellphones. The aim is to shoot anyone with a gun while holstering your weapon in other case.
Ordinary players (often university undergraduates) routinely shoot more quickly at black men than at white men and are more likely to mistakenly shoot an unarmed black man than an unarmed white man."
- "One finding is that we unconsciously associate 'American' with 'white.' Thus, in 2008, some California college students - many who were supporting Barack Obama for president - unconsciously treated Obama as more foreign than Tony Blair, the former British prime minister.
Likewise, Americans may be factually aware that Lucy Liu is an American actress and Kate Winslet is British, but the tests indicated that Americans considered Liu as more foreign than Winslet."
- "There's some evidence that training, metrics and policies can suppress biases or curb their impact. In law enforcement, more cameras - police car cams and body cams - create accountability and may improve behavior. When Rialto, Calif., introduced body cams on police officers, there was an 88 percent decline in complaints filed about police by members of the public."
Keeping all of those quotes and numbers in mind, I'll now share with you a response to the before-mentioned article, which was written by Steve Lisak, and entitled, "Racism claims exaggerated by 'progressives')."
Lisak starts his "piece" with this:
"Nicholas Kristof showed his progressive credentials in his Monday op-ed column 'Even people who support racial equality show bias.' He provided the usual kinds of statistics to support his claim."
Yes, the usual kinds of statistics... Please continue...
"Mark Twain once said that to a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Progressives with a guilt complex and minorities with a persecution complex see racism as their proverbial hammer. I could claim that the National Basketball Association is anti-Caucasian. I would confidently use the same statistical analysis that progressives you."
You're kind of mistaking apples for semi-trucks, but go on...
"During the 2008-09 season, almost 82 percent of NBA players were black. In the United States, 13 percent of the population is black. Is this incontrovertible proof of racism? Of course not. It's a ridiculous oversimplification to promote a political agenda."
Yes, because comparing how African-Americans are treated more poorly by police, doctors, employers (9-to-5 jobs), and are seen as more suspicious looking than whites is identical to more black men playing a game professionally where the ultimate goal is to place a circular orange ball through a hoop ten feet above the ground than white men. Anything else you'd like to add, skippy?
"But it is a standard method constantly used by progressives to support their simplistic claims. Even black people are afraid of groups of young black males because of what they have experienced and what they have witnessed.
Their caution is based on something older than racism. It's call self-preservation."
It appears as if Mr. Lisak is attempting to defend and excuse his own, perhaps subtle, racist tendencies by claiming that Mr. Kristof and the like-minded are exaggerating their claims of racism. Let's compare Mr. Lisak and Mr. Krisof's numbers, shall we?
Mr. Kristof:
1) "Scholars have found that blacks and Hispanics treated by doctors for a broken leg received pain medication significantly less often than white patients with the same injury."
2) "School administrators suspend black students at more than three times the rate of white students."
3) "Police arrest blacks at 3.7 times the rate of whites for marijuana possession, even though surveys find that both use marijuana at roughly similar rates."
4) "Two scholars sent out nearly 5,000 resumes in response to help-wanted ads, randomly alternating between stereotypical white-sounding names and black-sounding names. They found that it took 50 percent more mailings to get a callback for a black name. A white name yielded as much benefit as eight years of experience, according to the study, published by the National Bureau of Economic Research."
5) "Joshua Correll of the University of Colorado at Boulder has used an online shooter video game to try to measure these unconscious attitudes. The player takes on the role of a police officer who is confronted with a series of white or black men variously holding guns or innocent objects such as wallets or cellphones. The aim is to shoot anyone with a gun while holstering your weapon in other case.
Ordinary players (often university undergraduates) routinely shoot more quickly at black men than at white men and are more likely to mistakenly shoot an unarmed black man than an unarmed white man."
6) "One finding is that we unconsciously associate 'American' with 'white.' Thus, in 2008, some California college students - many who were supporting Barack Obama for president - unconsciously treated Obama as more foreign than Tony Blair, the former British prime minister."
7) "Likewise, Americans may be factually aware that Lucy Liu is an American actress and Kate Winslet is British, but the tests indicated that Americans considered Liu as more foreign than Winslet."
8) "There's some evidence that training, metrics and policies can suppress biases or curb their impact. In law enforcement, more cameras - police car cams and body cams - create accountability and may improve behavior. When Rialto, Calif., introduced body cams on police officers, there was an 88 percent decline in complaints filed about police by members of the public."
Mr. Lisak:
1) "During the 2008-09 season, almost 82 percent of NBA players were black. In the United States, 13 percent of the population is black. Is this incontrovertible proof of racism? Of course not. It's a ridiculous oversimplification to promote a political agenda."
Yeah, that's exactly the same thing, Mr. Lisak! While we're at it, let's try and compare how 34% of those executed via the death penalty since 1976 have been black, just 14.9% of the victims in such cases were black, and 76.3% of victims in such cases were white, with the fact that blacks comprise 67% of NFL players.
I find it quite funny that in most every case where I've come across a person whom believes that claims of racism, sexism, homophobia, or xenophobia are exaggerated, the individual winds up being a white, Christian, heterosexual male. "Those claims are exaggerated, I tell you!" Yeah, just try telling that to an African-American, Muslim, lesbian woman...
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/editorials/2014/09/04/1-racism.html
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/race-death-row-inmates-executed-1976
http://www.swimtownpools.com/racial-breakdown-of-mlb-nba-nfl-a/271.htm
To save you some time, I'll condense the article by pointing out a few of the highlights:
- "Scholars have found that blacks and Hispanics treated by doctors for a broken leg received pain medication significantly less often than white patients with the same injury. School administrators suspend black students at more than three times the rate of white students. Police arrest blacks at 3.7 times the rate of whites for marijuana possession, even though surveys find that both use marijuana at roughly similar rates."
- "Two scholars sent out nearly 5,000 resumes in response to help-wanted ads, randomly alternating between stereotypical white-sounding names and black-sounding names. They found that it took 50 percent more mailings to get a callback for a black name. A white name yielded as much benefit as eight years of experience, according to the study, published by the National Bureau of Economic Research."
- "Joshua Correll of the University of Colorado at Boulder has used an online shooter video game to try to measure these unconscious attitudes. The player takes on the role of a police officer who is confronted with a series of white or black men variously holding guns or innocent objects such as wallets or cellphones. The aim is to shoot anyone with a gun while holstering your weapon in other case.
Ordinary players (often university undergraduates) routinely shoot more quickly at black men than at white men and are more likely to mistakenly shoot an unarmed black man than an unarmed white man."
- "One finding is that we unconsciously associate 'American' with 'white.' Thus, in 2008, some California college students - many who were supporting Barack Obama for president - unconsciously treated Obama as more foreign than Tony Blair, the former British prime minister.
Likewise, Americans may be factually aware that Lucy Liu is an American actress and Kate Winslet is British, but the tests indicated that Americans considered Liu as more foreign than Winslet."
- "There's some evidence that training, metrics and policies can suppress biases or curb their impact. In law enforcement, more cameras - police car cams and body cams - create accountability and may improve behavior. When Rialto, Calif., introduced body cams on police officers, there was an 88 percent decline in complaints filed about police by members of the public."
Keeping all of those quotes and numbers in mind, I'll now share with you a response to the before-mentioned article, which was written by Steve Lisak, and entitled, "Racism claims exaggerated by 'progressives')."
Lisak starts his "piece" with this:
"Nicholas Kristof showed his progressive credentials in his Monday op-ed column 'Even people who support racial equality show bias.' He provided the usual kinds of statistics to support his claim."
Yes, the usual kinds of statistics... Please continue...
"Mark Twain once said that to a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Progressives with a guilt complex and minorities with a persecution complex see racism as their proverbial hammer. I could claim that the National Basketball Association is anti-Caucasian. I would confidently use the same statistical analysis that progressives you."
You're kind of mistaking apples for semi-trucks, but go on...
"During the 2008-09 season, almost 82 percent of NBA players were black. In the United States, 13 percent of the population is black. Is this incontrovertible proof of racism? Of course not. It's a ridiculous oversimplification to promote a political agenda."
Yes, because comparing how African-Americans are treated more poorly by police, doctors, employers (9-to-5 jobs), and are seen as more suspicious looking than whites is identical to more black men playing a game professionally where the ultimate goal is to place a circular orange ball through a hoop ten feet above the ground than white men. Anything else you'd like to add, skippy?
"But it is a standard method constantly used by progressives to support their simplistic claims. Even black people are afraid of groups of young black males because of what they have experienced and what they have witnessed.
Their caution is based on something older than racism. It's call self-preservation."
It appears as if Mr. Lisak is attempting to defend and excuse his own, perhaps subtle, racist tendencies by claiming that Mr. Kristof and the like-minded are exaggerating their claims of racism. Let's compare Mr. Lisak and Mr. Krisof's numbers, shall we?
Mr. Kristof:
1) "Scholars have found that blacks and Hispanics treated by doctors for a broken leg received pain medication significantly less often than white patients with the same injury."
2) "School administrators suspend black students at more than three times the rate of white students."
3) "Police arrest blacks at 3.7 times the rate of whites for marijuana possession, even though surveys find that both use marijuana at roughly similar rates."
4) "Two scholars sent out nearly 5,000 resumes in response to help-wanted ads, randomly alternating between stereotypical white-sounding names and black-sounding names. They found that it took 50 percent more mailings to get a callback for a black name. A white name yielded as much benefit as eight years of experience, according to the study, published by the National Bureau of Economic Research."
5) "Joshua Correll of the University of Colorado at Boulder has used an online shooter video game to try to measure these unconscious attitudes. The player takes on the role of a police officer who is confronted with a series of white or black men variously holding guns or innocent objects such as wallets or cellphones. The aim is to shoot anyone with a gun while holstering your weapon in other case.
Ordinary players (often university undergraduates) routinely shoot more quickly at black men than at white men and are more likely to mistakenly shoot an unarmed black man than an unarmed white man."
6) "One finding is that we unconsciously associate 'American' with 'white.' Thus, in 2008, some California college students - many who were supporting Barack Obama for president - unconsciously treated Obama as more foreign than Tony Blair, the former British prime minister."
7) "Likewise, Americans may be factually aware that Lucy Liu is an American actress and Kate Winslet is British, but the tests indicated that Americans considered Liu as more foreign than Winslet."
8) "There's some evidence that training, metrics and policies can suppress biases or curb their impact. In law enforcement, more cameras - police car cams and body cams - create accountability and may improve behavior. When Rialto, Calif., introduced body cams on police officers, there was an 88 percent decline in complaints filed about police by members of the public."
Mr. Lisak:
1) "During the 2008-09 season, almost 82 percent of NBA players were black. In the United States, 13 percent of the population is black. Is this incontrovertible proof of racism? Of course not. It's a ridiculous oversimplification to promote a political agenda."
Yeah, that's exactly the same thing, Mr. Lisak! While we're at it, let's try and compare how 34% of those executed via the death penalty since 1976 have been black, just 14.9% of the victims in such cases were black, and 76.3% of victims in such cases were white, with the fact that blacks comprise 67% of NFL players.
I find it quite funny that in most every case where I've come across a person whom believes that claims of racism, sexism, homophobia, or xenophobia are exaggerated, the individual winds up being a white, Christian, heterosexual male. "Those claims are exaggerated, I tell you!" Yeah, just try telling that to an African-American, Muslim, lesbian woman...
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/editorials/2014/09/04/1-racism.html
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/race-death-row-inmates-executed-1976
http://www.swimtownpools.com/racial-breakdown-of-mlb-nba-nfl-a/271.htm
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