Black People

[andywend]

Tolbiny:

It doesn't matter what the underlying cause is. If you commit the crime, you do the time and it doesn't matter what color your skin is.

You pinning the blame on racist legislation supported by a white majority is utterly ridiculous.

Your reply was truly worthless in every respect.

[siegfriedandroy]

are you a 'mild bigot'? i dont think u r, just curious what that means. what were the unpleasant events of the last few year?? i respect ur thinking. u have taught me to play decently. but i disrespect ur general philosophy. u r old and will likely die sometime within the next millenium. u wrote a nice chapter in doyles book. he believed in god. have u ever debated with him?

[siegfriedandroy]

u r an atheist. why do you despise 'intolerance'?

[Insp. Clue!So?]

[ QUOTE ]
Wow. I am quite surprised at the responses in this forum. Lots of obviously racist remarks; but beyond that, the quality of responses can be characterized as less than thoughtful.

Here are some facts based on, oh I dunno, scientific evidence:

1) Racism is real in America.

2) The number of criminal acts of discrimination (behaving in a way towards a person of another race that is unfair or harmful, simply because of his or her race) has been gradually decreasing.

3) One reason for this decrease is due to an increased stigmatization against racists.

4) The increased stigmatization against racists has resulted in an increase in a) covert racist (see my earlier post) and b) reverse racism (see my earlier post).

5) Because of this trend towards covert racism and reverse racism, the number of acts of discrimination has been reduced; However, this has not reduced the level of racial prejudice and racial stereotyping in this country (see my earlier post).

6) Someone mentioned that it is human instinct to be racist. That is yet to be identified, however, science has shown that it is human instinct to have an increased liking for those similar to you. Which isn't very different.

7) David's hypothesis isn't totally wrong either. Science has also shown that people tend to join together when faced with a common enemy. However, I just don't think his hypothesis explains as much of the variance (in decreased discrimination) as do my earlier points.

For a forum which prides itself on facts (though often mathematically derived), this particular post has an absolute lack of factual evidence presented. I found it shocking.

R. Sherman
Ph. D. Student Personality/Social Psychology

[/ QUOTE ]

You haven't mentioned any "facts" either...just someone's hypothesis--no citation, and I seriously doubt there is some massive body of research verifying a widespread phenomenon known as "reverse racism".

That's why so much of psychology is known to be mushy dreck...you guys get all excited over practically any half-baked notion that sounds like it MIGHT be plausible. A physicist of my aquaintance makes the point when he says that psychologists get all excited when one some study shows a 2 standard deviation anomaly whereas physicists don't even bat an eye until they get an experimental result that's 4 SD from the norm.

Which is why physicists build things like nuclear bombs, while decades later psychologists are still fighting off Sigmund Freud.

[Sherman]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Wow. I am quite surprised at the responses in this forum. Lots of obviously racist remarks; but beyond that, the quality of responses can be characterized as less than thoughtful.

Here are some facts based on, oh I dunno, scientific evidence:

1) Racism is real in America.

2) The number of criminal acts of discrimination (behaving in a way towards a person of another race that is unfair or harmful, simply because of his or her race) has been gradually decreasing.

3) One reason for this decrease is due to an increased stigmatization against racists.

4) The increased stigmatization against racists has resulted in an increase in a) covert racist (see my earlier post) and b) reverse racism (see my earlier post).

5) Because of this trend towards covert racism and reverse racism, the number of acts of discrimination has been reduced; However, this has not reduced the level of racial prejudice and racial stereotyping in this country (see my earlier post).

6) Someone mentioned that it is human instinct to be racist. That is yet to be identified, however, science has shown that it is human instinct to have an increased liking for those similar to you. Which isn't very different.

7) David's hypothesis isn't totally wrong either. Science has also shown that people tend to join together when faced with a common enemy. However, I just don't think his hypothesis explains as much of the variance (in decreased discrimination) as do my earlier points.

For a forum which prides itself on facts (though often mathematically derived), this particular post has an absolute lack of factual evidence presented. I found it shocking.

R. Sherman
Ph. D. Student Personality/Social Psychology

[/ QUOTE ]

You haven't mentioned any "facts" either...just someone's hypothesis--no citation, and I seriously doubt there is some massive body of research verifying a widespread phenomenon known as "reverse racism".

That's why so much of psychology is known to be mushy dreck...you guys get all excited over practically any half-baked notion that sounds like it MIGHT be plausible. A physicist of my aquaintance makes the point when he says that psychologists get all excited when one some study shows a 2 standard deviation anomaly whereas physicists don't even bat an eye until they get an experimental result that's 4 SD from the norm.

Which is why physicists build things like nuclear bombs, while decades later psychologists are still fighting off Sigmund Freud.

[/ QUOTE ]

A couple of points:
1) In another post I clearly cited the book: "Prejudice and Racism" by James M. Jones. And no, I did not provide citations in the post b/c no one here is gonna go look them up anyway. But most of that post can be found in the aforementioned book. The citations in the book can lead you directly to the research articles validating the aforementioned claims. You can get the book on Amazon for under $12.00 if you are so inclined (although I'd wager that you won't)

2) Your friend is a physicist? That's great. Science is very important. However, because there is very little variability in physics it only makes sense that they would be concerned with things that are 4 SDs from the norm. In psychology, the measuring tools are imperfect and we attempt to measure something much harder than physicists do, one of the most variable objects in the world, HUMAN BEINGS.

When the object of measurement is quite variable, which causes the measuring tools to be somewhat imperfect, of course we should get excited about something 2 SD deviations away from the norm. Outside of 2 SDs is approximately the top and bottom 1% of people. Don't you think that there must be something interesting about them?

I'd sure want to know who was in the top 1% of "most likely to committ murder" wouldn't you? (note. example is hypothetical).

R. Sherman
Ph. D. Student Personality/Social Psychology

[Buccaneer]

Skippy - You just do not get it. [ QUOTE ]
I'd sure want to know who was in the top 1% of "most likely to committ murder" wouldn't you? (note. example is hypothetical).


[/ QUOTE ] You say your measuring tools are imprecise so what would you do with this information if you did find someone that was very likely to commit murder? Lock them up before they commited murder? Yea I can the headlines now: OJ SIMPSON IMPRISIONED FOR BEATING EX WIFE FOR THIRD TIME AND ENTERING SKIPPYS 1%. OJ CLAIMS THE REAL POTENTIAL KILLER IS STILL OUT THERE.

Speaking of OJ there Skippy, what type of racism was it that allowed a black jury to release him free and clear? What type of racism was it when the mobs of black people cheered the verdict of inoccence, thus freeing a black man for the murders of two people. I doubt that you will find the answer in your little book your instructor made you read (all though the read the instructors reading list and vomit it all back at him is usually good for a +1 on the grades). Maybe another new form of racism could be called, "negros ignoring crime by colored folk". If you look real hard you will be able to find that in your little book under plain old racism. There will be examples of white people being racist towards black people. You won't find black people being racist towards white people, but if you read your text with a color blind eye then you may be able to see that it is there.

[Sherman]

[ QUOTE ]
Skippy - You just do not get it. [ QUOTE ]
I'd sure want to know who was in the top 1% of "most likely to committ murder" wouldn't you? (note. example is hypothetical).


[/ QUOTE ] You say your measuring tools are imprecise so what would you do with this information if you did find someone that was very likely to commit murder? Lock them up before they commited murder? Yea I can the headlines now: OJ SIMPSON IMPRISIONED FOR BEATING EX WIFE FOR THIRD TIME AND ENTERING SKIPPYS 1%. OJ CLAIMS THE REAL POTENTIAL KILLER IS STILL OUT THERE.

Speaking of OJ there Skippy, what type of racism was it that allowed a black jury to release him free and clear? What type of racism was it when the mobs of black people cheered the verdict of inoccence, thus freeing a black man for the murders of two people. I doubt that you will find the answer in your little book your instructor made you read (all though the read the instructors reading list and vomit it all back at him is usually good for a +1 on the grades). Maybe another new form of racism could be called, "negros ignoring crime by colored folk". If you look real hard you will be able to find that in your little book under plain old racism. There will be examples of white people being racist towards black people. You won't find black people being racist towards white people, but if you read your text with a color blind eye then you may be able to see that it is there.

[/ QUOTE ]

Just because the tool is imprecise in it's measurement doesn't mean it is invalid for prediction.

For example, (this is hypothetical I don't care to look up the real data but the numbers are representative) the inter-item reliability of the modern racism scale might be .80. Which is pretty good by psychological standards, but far from perfect. Compare this to the inter-measure reliability of a thermometer. The reliability of this tool is probably closer to .999.

Thus, if two people make a reading on the thermometer they are more likely to agree than Items 1 and Items 2 on the Modern Racism Scale. In fact, the reliability of the thermometer is so high that we often only make 1 reading.

Unfortunately, psychological phenomonon can't be measured as reliably as biological phenomenon (i.e. body temperature). So in psychology, we make multiple measures.

Why? Because it improves the validity. Reliability, or in other words the preciseness of the measure, has little to do with validity.

Validity is concerned with ability to predict actual outcomes. Just because the measurement tool is imprecise does not mean it is not valid. For further reading on this topic might I suggest Essentials of Behavioral Research: Methods and Data Analysis by Rosenthal and Rosnow (1991). Thus far I have recommended two books for you totalling over 1100 pages. Let me know when you finish.

Might point is that your own life experiences and beliefs are a poor substitute for decades of scientific research.

FWIW, I never insisted that white people in general are racist against blacks. I personally attended a talk which specifically cited many examples where blacks were racist against whites (unfortunately this event may be said to have ruined the speaker's career).

Regardless, my original points still stand.
1) Racism exists.
2) Being overtly racist has become very stigmatized in our culture.
3) This stigmatization has led to fewer act of racism (discrimination); yet the evidence indicates that feelings of racial dislike (prejudice) and thoughts of racial dislike (stereotypes) are still pervasive.

I'll even give you a page number: Jones, J. M. (1997) Prejudice and Racism. 2nd ed. pg. 100-102.

[contortionist]

now we hate middle eastern people. yes, it does suck to be black, but i think that the anti-middle eastern thing has taken some of the hatred off of the blacks.

[dragon14]

If the acceptance of black people has accelerated then why do middle class income and above white families in every major American city either send their children to private school or move from the public school district to avoid attending school with blacks? For instance Manhattan, the most liberal place in the most liberal city in America finds all the liberal white democrats sending their children to private school.

Also, since black neighborhoods in big cities are far cheaper to live in, why do virtually no whites even liberal whites move into these neighborhoods when they are young and/or struggling? When we hear that a neighborhood is a city is revitalizing what does this mean? It means that whites are moving in to a neighborhood that used to be black. Check out a guidebook to any American city sometime. The black areas are barely mentioned and if they get a mention like Harlem, there is always a disclaimer to avoid the area after dark.

Whites, even liberal whites are very aware of color, yet they are conditioned not to put out signals that they are aware. However, if a shopping mall or movie theatre becomes popular amongst blacks, in every city I've lived in the whites start going to another place for shopping or entertainment. If the Bellagio had a 60% black clientele every weekend, then the Bellagio would see that whites would virtually disappear from their casino in a matter of years.

So the notion of America as colorblind is not correct in any major American city. There is less discussion of racism and racial issues on television since 9/11 but the migration of whites away from black areas as blacks move into them continues to this day and I've yet to see northeastern liberals attempt to buck this trend.

So until northeastern liberals start acting colorblind, I can't imagine anyone else acting this way.

Finally, I guarantee you that any white liberal would feel more comfortable walking through an Arab neighborhood at night than a black neighborhood.

[andywend]

Liberal eliteist white democrats are extreme hypocrites and always the most racist. I would say that democrats on average are more racist than republicans. However, liberal democrats speak with their actions instead of their words.

They preach equality among the races but don't want to go near minorities and it shouldn't be surprising to anyone that they don't want their children to go to the same school as black children.

As far as whites NOT wanting to move into places like Harlem, that's pretty easy to understand. They will be the target of violent crime due to their skin color.