The Virginia Society for the Preservation and Appreciation of High-Quality Posts

[JA]

The war against improving the standard of living outside the cosmopolitan major urban areas, waged by socially liberal laissez-faire capitalists (or corporatists) that views Everytown, USA as a blighted uncultured wasteland because they don't have a mosque or tax breaks for tech start ups or a tesla charging station or whatever - thus deserving to fall into ruin and drug addiction.

Bernie derangement syndrome is real on this board because the wealthier members resent being called the villains of society, and this board skews wealthy.

Yeah, that's a damn good post indeed.

This.

Agreed and QFT.

[JA]

Behold the privileged white dude, heroically deciding what other people's identities are allowed to be.

Oh yeah, definitely me the privileged one who drives a one year old Lexus instead of a decade old economy model car and lives in a spacious luxury apartment instead of what's basically a small concrete box that doesn't even have air conditioning in a squalid inner city slum, yep that's me.

I mean I'm so privileged I have so much money I can easily afford to fly out to my girlfriend at least once a month instead of having to save up each time to go visit her, and it's not like I'm making these posts while downing some rum because I'm so upset that she probably can't afford to make it here in October and I don't know if I can help her out and am in f ucking tears. Super-privileged me. Those snowflakes at those private college that cost five figures a semester in tuition could never have it this good.

I don't usually like BTRD's posts, but damn.

BRTD's post belongs in the thread of ignorant posts. Leave it to you of all people to post it here.

[JA]

Behold the privileged white dude, heroically deciding what other people's identities are allowed to be.

Oh yeah, definitely me the privileged one who drives a one year old Lexus instead of a decade old economy model car and lives in a spacious luxury apartment instead of what's basically a small concrete box that doesn't even have air conditioning in a squalid inner city slum, yep that's me.

I mean I'm so privileged I have so much money I can easily afford to fly out to my girlfriend at least once a month instead of having to save up each time to go visit her, and it's not like I'm making these posts while downing some rum because I'm so upset that she probably can't afford to make it here in October and I don't know if I can help her out and am in f ucking tears. Super-privileged me. Those snowflakes at those private college that cost five figures a semester in tuition could never have it this good.

I don't usually like BTRD's posts, but damn.

BRTD's post belongs in the thread of ignorant posts. Leave it to you of all people to post it here.

Wow, you're one great guy. As we know, I am the most ignorant person on this website. Not Krazen and others, but I, Admiral President, am the most ignorant person of all the people on this website.

At least you admit it. Kudos!

[JA]

Thinking black people and other minorities should have equal rights is condescending, but assuming someone you disagree with is not contributing to society, and dogwhistling that poor black people don't work, don't pay taxes, and are lazy, sexually loose, socially-deviant criminals is not condescending? Personal experience tells me that these tired, disgusting, and borderline libelous stereotypes are false.

So what accounts for the disparity in crime statistics by demographic categories?

I'm listening.  Perhaps if folks will respond earnestly to THIS question, it might lead to a solution to THIS problem.

I actually laughed out loud when I read this.

Slavery turned into Jim Crow, which included redlining, which systemically prevented most African-Americans from accumulating wealth (the average white family STILL has over 10x the wealth of the average black family, 80 years after redlining began). The War on Drugs was explicitly began with the intention of locking up hippies and black people, and thrived under every single President from Nixon through Trump (Obama's the only one who even tried to stop it, and he failed, for the most part). Unchecked police violence and LAW AND ORDER rhetoric coming from the government, along with a long, long, long history of horrible things the government has done to black people, leads to no small amount of distrust against the government and the police.

So! You're poor, in part because some rich guy from NY in the '30s told HOLC not to give home loans to your great-grandparents because they had a certain level of melanin in their skin, which made them high-risk, for some reason (hint: Social Darwinists believed that black people were frail and going to "go extinct;" the "strong primal beast" stereotype didn't begin until after Jesse Owens and other black athletes started excelling). You're looked down upon by those who have never had to walk a millimeter in your shoes (the kind of people who cry victim about how bad they have it and how much they have to work but also have over 5,000 posts on an online political forum) for not magically fixing your situation because of the American Dream mentality some people have about America. If you decide you want to walk to a convenience store in your neighborhood, or drive a car, or read a book in a car, or play outside with a toy gun while being 12 years old but also black, you get shot by police officers who apparently get scared too easily and shouldn't be in policing (but they get off anyway!). The government uses property taxes to fund schools, and your property is worth little for aforementioned reasons, so your local schools get little money, so they can't afford to actually teach you very well, which keeps you from getting a good job, and keeps you poor. Society tells you that the way to succeed is one way, but that way is not accessible to you because of systemic forces older than the country itself. So you decide to forge your own path because that's the only way you can support yourself. You're not proud of it, but it's all you can do to support your family and yourself. You have to take matters into your own hands, because the government has never supported (and often actively worked against) you, and the law and those who enforce it are not on your side 99 times out of 100.

But at least we elected a black President, so racism can't exist anymore... right?

(This is hopefully obvious, but maybe not: most African Americans don't experience this set of circumstances, but every single one of them has been affected by racism to one extent or another)

Just because a demographic does something more often than another demographic doesn't mean it's because it's inherent to the biology of that demographic. Correlation doesn't equal causation.