Damage already done move along nothing to see here

$10,000. Cash...

Seriously?  He wants video proof?  Have you ever tried to use a cameraphone to record something where it was extremely loud?  You can't make out what anyone is saying, much a single person shouting a single word.  You can even use the videos on his page to see this.  Barring the parts where everyone is changing in unison, can you pick out what one single person is yelling?  No?  I didn't think so.

I think both sides here are being stupid. The tea party people shouldn't be spending their time denying the racism thing as that just draws attention to it and plants the ridiculous idea in peoples heads, thus being counter productive. They should instead just devote their energy to informing people about why they're doing all that. As for the other faction here, they need to get over the fact that not everything is about race. Racism absolutely still exists and there are definitely people who don't like Obama or any other black person simply because of their race but that doesn't mean that anybody who challenges a black person is racist. There's a good chance that some of the tea party people were racist but that has nothing to do with the tea party thing. It's a lame attempt to discredit the protesters. The call for proof seems kind of stupid but honestly, if people are going to claim something like that to be true when there's no reasonable connection, they should back it with something. That said, calling for them to back it up is kind of silly. They obviously can't and anybody with half a brain can see how stupid that accusation is in the absence of proof.

My current required Multi-Cultural education class curriculum is dependent on similar arguements to those put forth by the anti-tea party types. Mainly the conclusions tha all white people, with the exception of those who activly persure social reforms which are indeistinguishable from socialism either are active or passive participants in a rasicst society. Education being funded at the state and local level is inherently racist because it allows people to decide what schools their children go to, and white parents are encouraged to move out of neighborhoods and move their children into prodominantly white school because there is an economic reward for teir children by doing so. Therefore, schools should be nationally funded and run on  national curriculum, and parents should have no say in what schools yheir children attend. Any whit person who is not a marxist or socialist is a racist.

While white-flight is  a legitimate historical phenominon, supposedley liberal educators, who should know from basic scientific reasoning that correlation does not prove causation, is based on wanting their children to attend the best performing schools. And since the worst performing scools are typically predominantly African-American, a white person not wanting to send their children there is automaicly primarily motivated by racism. the agenda behind this seems to be more federal control over education and less parental input over curriculum and what school their children are allowed to attend. I fully understand that there are wackos on both sides of the aisle, but you cannot ignore that the more socialist members of the left-wing think hey are winning, and are activley seeking to brand any opposition to their agenda is being racist, pretty much invoking Godwin immediatly. I can produce the articles that are required reading on demand by tomorrow if anyone wishes to read them. They do have their merrits, but the major conclusion of most of them seems to be that only a socialist politicl and econimc system can be non-racist/sexist, and that capitalism, western philosophy, and religion is inherently opposed to equality. The most ironic part of the required reading is that one of the major authors(who seems reaonable to me) believes that multi-culturl education should not be taught as a seperate subject but that different viewpoints should be adressed in class material, especially in the social studies curriculum. However, we are expected, s a major part of our grade, to summarize the readings  without and personal responses and for full credit must present the article's conclusions as indisputble facts. this class is required in the state of Massachusetts for all woud-be educators. I honestly have no problem with the instructor, the students, or even the reading material, but the method of assessment and the fact that it is required as a seperate course as both hypocritical to expressed ideals of the class as well as those ideals our country is founded upon. If you want any actual assigned readings for this class, PM me and I will copy-paste and cite sources. In the event I fail this class and need to tke it again next year in order to graduate, I will be happy to post video of any class, especially considering that from what I have heard from students, the professor who teaches the other section beleives that only whites can be racist (and that anywho are not as left wing as possible are part of the problem) and therefore grades them differently while automatically passing stusdents of color. I've worked with, lived with, gone to school  with, and been close friends with people of all races, and I can't think of anything that has made me more racially uncomfortable than this class. From what I've heard about the other professor (who wrote the syllabus) Evil Elvis is not actualy hispanic because he is not financially depedent on the governent, just like minorities who vote Republican are self-hating becaused they have been brain-washed by the majority culture.

Granted, I'm in one of the most liberally-influenced majors in one of the most liberal states in the union, and most, if not all of my fellow students beleive this is total bunk (including students of color) and that the point of the class may be to see another way of viewing racial issues and recognizing our own, usually latent racism,  rather than changing beliefs. Thi still is fuel for the ultra right wing, and for racists, and their reactions fuel the ultra-left. The more I learn about our education system, the more disturbed I am by the way things are going.

Eh, it's been white = racist for a long time, I've stopped caring.

Rather than attempt to prove that Im a not racist to the (predominately white) people who choose to classify me as such, I just respond with who cares? Racism is of itself an overly but rarely intelligently used word.

Edited by stratoaxe - 26 March 2010 at 8:04am

Oh, lookie, a sports writer sets America straight. (why is it that sports writers seem to be the quintessential liberal mouthpieces?)

FreeEnterprise wrote:       Well, guess we all know that Al Sharpton is a big liar...   "I've seen the tape"... Yeah, Ok, Al...       what a bunch of race baiters.

I'm not a fan of O'Reilly but I greatly dislike Al Sharpton. I really don't understand why he has any political influence whatsoever.

what is a load of bull is the way the media has repeated the lies. Watch the video. Count the video cameras, even one of the aids that walked with them was carrying TWO himself.

Its true, only the left lies.

Here's the elephant in the room. Is what inner city minorities are facing racism, or is it class-ism? I'm more inclined to believe it is the later rather than the former. Here are the reasons.

1) The color of ones skin has less to do today with first impressions than the style of dress and mannerisms. When people see a black/latino/asian man walking down the street holding a briefcase and wearing a suit and tie, they are far less likely to harbor feelings of prejudice than if the same person were walking down the street with his pants down around his knees with a long white t-shirt and a ball-cap perched sideways on his head. This has been proven time and time again in studies on racial perception by major polling companies and universities all over the nation. The reason that the perception is better for the man in the suit than the man with the droopy drawers is that people believe the man in the suit is better educated, holds a steady job, and provides for his family in a legal and legitimate manner. The perception is the opposite concerning the same subject when wearing the dropped pants, long white t-shirt, and ball cap. This perception can be applied to ALL races. The fact of the matter is that people consider "poor trash" to be "poor trash" whether they're white, latino, asian, or black. If you saw a white person wearing a business suit, briefcase, and tie and that same person wearing drooping pants, a long white t-shirt, and ball cap, you'd have the same perception that this person was trouble.

The same conclusions can be drawn from conversations with people. Education is highly regarded in our nation. Literacy, proper use of grammar, and etiquette are held in high regard and always have been. The same conclusions are drawn regardless of race when people use incorrect grammar or are rude. Y'all is just as bad as any grammatical error ingrained in the vernacular of inner city minorities. Regardless of the error or misuse, regardless of the manner in which the person is rude, the lack of education and etiquette is derogatory to the perception of the observer regardless of race.

2) Microcultures contribute to derogatory perception regardless of race. The microculture of inner city life is yet another factor which, regardless of race, makes people look down upon others. Inner city poor tend to place their priorities differently than more educated and more well to do microcultures in the suburbs and in the more affluent neighborhoods of the city. Whereas the priorities of the poor tend to be more focused on the basic necessities of life, the poor tend to not use any surplus of funds to start a savings account or purchase items which will appreciate in value making for good investments. The poor tend to live in the paycheck-to-paycheck mentality that promotes instant gratification because you never know when you'll be able to afford this particular perk/excess again. In the inner city this spending usually manifests itself in designer clothes, expensive cell phones, upgrades to vehicles, or expensive electronics. The rural poor tend to do the same thing with purchases on vehicle upgrades, expensive RVs, ATVs, firearms, and electronics as well. The difference between ghetto hood rat and poor white trash is simply the difference between low-income housing blocks and trailer parks or Sean-Jean versus Mossy Oak. This lack of planning for the future and expending resources for instant gratification goes against the very core of human nature and what we have instilled in ourselves as the "right" thing to do for thousands of years. We even teach it to our children in parables and fables such as the ant and the grasshopper. These are deep seated values that transcend racial boundaries and affect our perception of others regardless of skin color.

Now, these findings have been continually perverted by those wishing to claim racism is still very much alive and well in all sectors of our society for their own gain. People like Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson claim that racism still abounds because it brings people to their cause and their coffers. Groups like the NAACP claim that these socio-economic factors only exist because of inherent racism rather than the priorities which are expressed in these microcultures. These groups want racism to be very much alive because it brings members, and more importantly, money to them.

I will admit right here and now that I am not racist, but am very classist. I don't see the color of a person's skin, but I do see the image that they wish to project to the world, and if that image is of ignorance and self-generated poverty, then I'm less likely to give them a chance in this world. It doesn't matter if they're black, white, asian, latino, purple or whatever. If they can't bring themselves to the level of respectability that I require in my own life, then they're going to have that hanging over their heads. I think that this is the way the majority of people in this nation feel. They don't care what skin color you have, they care about how you conduct yourself and how you manage your business.

What really gets me is when people who want to cry "racism" defend the so-called "culture" of the ghetto. They claim that baggy pants, rap music, and long white t-shirts are a "cultural" phenomenon that is linked with the "black race" and thus discrimination against people in this attire is discrimination against blacks rather than against a class.