Profiling, Races & Racism in America (SPLIT from Freedoms...)

[PeterG]

I've never known any white people to discriminate against a person because of a person's color or ethnicity.

I have, unfortunately. I'm glad that you have not.

And as long as there are those of a liberal mindset that are willing to perpetuate the lie that racism is the cause of the majority of those in prison being black, then that racism and violence against whites and other groups will continue.

I'm not aware of anyone specifically who claims that racism is the cause of the majority of black imprisonment (although I'm sure someone somewhere does claim that). That is certainly not what John Piper and Prison Fellowship's Zoe Erler are claiming in the articles that I linked to. (And both Piper and Prison Fellowship are generally considered to be conservative, for what it's worth.) Piper specifically says,

Beware of thinking that, because structural racism is pervasive, it is the decisive cause of all injustice or all inequalities. The pervasive presence of one type of cancer cell in the body does not make it the cause of every malady. Therefore, it is seldom helpful to wave the flag of structural racism without putting the finger on specific manifestations. The likelihood may be high that it played a part. But a good physician does his tests.

It is indeed wrong to deny the role of personal responsibility in the things people experience. But racism is real, and it is also incorrect to deny its role.

[Bootstrap]

I tutored a woman for two years in college. Her school had passed her along one year after another until she graduated, but she read on a third-grade reading level. When she got to college, she worked hard, but she was so far behind that she couldn't really perform on a college level. She improved a LOT during the time I knew her, she may well have caught up, but if she did, it must have been extremely difficult.

Most blacks didn't go to schools this bad, but a surprisingly large number of schools really are pretty terrible.

I think everyone should have schools that are safe enough and good enough that we would send our own children to them.

[Josh]

PeterG, and many of those Native Americans (or First Nations peoples) in turn acquired that land by force from a different Native American people. Nobody anywhere on earth really has “clear title” to land if use of force in the past is taken as disqualifying.

Correct. And neither is it justifiable to steal that which has been stolen. It's all bad.

Acquiring land title is not "stealing", however.

[Josh]

I think everyone should have schools that are safe enough and good enough that we would send our own children to them.

Is this possible if the parents or the culture the children & parents are a part of do not support what is needed to make schools that are safe & good enough?

[Josh]

I'm not aware of anyone specifically who claims that racism is the cause of the majority of black imprisonment (although I'm sure someone somewhere does claim that).

This is a common and fashionable opinion in much of the left these days. Regardless, I wouldn't view John Piper or Zoe Erler as being leftists.

Beware of thinking that, because structural racism is pervasive, it is the decisive cause of all injustice or all inequalities.

John Piper has indeed embraced the modern thinking that basically sees racism (or sexism, or homophobia, etc.) at the root of all evils.

Jennifer Yoder, who would be a good example of a modern-day leftist and a Christian progressive, holds the viewpoint that sin is actually oppression, not other things. Any time there is an oppressive system or an oppressor, that is sin. Every relationship between someone more powerful than the other person is an oppressor and an oppressed person. A straight, white male is automatically an oppressor merely by their membership in several "powerful" groups.

It's a troubling viewpoint to me because it effectively assigns straight, white men to being sinners, but not people of various minority groups. I don't think it's rooted in scripture at all. The origin of this kind of thinking was Foucalt in the 1980s, and it's troubling to see Christians embrace Foucalt's anti-Christian worldview.

[Jennifer]

I tutored a woman for two years in college. Her school had passed her along one year after another until she graduated, but she read on a third-grade reading level. When she got to college, she worked hard, but she was so far behind that she couldn't really perform on a college level. She improved a LOT during the time I knew her, she may well have caught up, but if she did, it must have been extremely difficult.

Most blacks didn't go to schools this bad, but a surprisingly large number of schools really are pretty terrible.

I think everyone should have schools that are safe enough and good enough that we would send our own children to them.

I agree!
But why are those schools terrible? It's because the students themselves are destroying their own schools. It's because parents and teachers are no longer allowed to physically punish disruptive children.
Everyone should have safe schools to send their children to.
Unfortunately they're not safe because we make excuses for not doing anything about the problem. Law abiding citizens do not want to live near thugs and murderers that would kill a person for the pleasure they get from it. They don't want to live near an ethnic group that they know look at other races as prey. And we have a national media that takes the side of that violent ethnic group and portrays them as victims. They're not victims of anything. They're the victimizers. Its political correctness and the media that keep people from standing up and saying exactly what needs to be done and keeps the police from doing their job. Violent people need to be segregated from the rest of society and punished. Children who are born into a culture where violence against others is encouraged should be removed from that environment. Those children should not be bused into non violent neighborhoods where they can disrupt schools and terrorize non violent students. They need physical punishment in order for them to learn to respect authority and others. Its liberals and political correctness that are preventing the justice from coming about that would end the violence.

[PeterG]

PeterG, and many of those Native Americans (or First Nations peoples) in turn acquired that land by force from a different Native American people. Nobody anywhere on earth really has “clear title” to land if use of force in the past is taken as disqualifying.

Correct. And neither is it justifiable to steal that which has been stolen. It's all bad.

Acquiring land title is not "stealing", however.

Generally speaking, acquiring title is indeed not stealing. When did I say otherwise?

To be clear, I am not saying that it is wrong to possess land that was wrongly taken from others generations ago.

[Bootstrap]

Everyone should have safe schools to send their children to.

But why are those schools terrible? It's because the students themselves are destroying their own schools. It's because parents and teachers are no longer allowed to physically punish disruptive children.

I disagree.

A year ago I spent some time looking at data on this, and what I saw convinced me that the one thing that makes schools safe is to integrate them across socio-economic lines. If you have upper-middle-class parents in a school, they will manage to get school supplies, policies to get rid of bullying, better teachers, etc. They will make sure the schools are safe for their children, and the children from lower socioeconomic layers will be safe too. The data I saw was pretty convincing on this front.

Our schools have become more and more segregated over time.

[PeterG]

Beware of thinking that, because structural racism is pervasive, it is the decisive cause of all injustice or all inequalities.

John Piper has indeed embraced the modern thinking that basically sees racism (or sexism, or homophobia, etc.) at the root of all evils.

Piper explicitly and repeatedly says the opposite, including in the quotation above. His entire point is that racism springs from the root of human sinfulness and the work of Satan in a fallen world. You're not addressing what he (let alone Erler) actually says.

[Bootstrap]

Jennifer Yoder, who would be a good example of a modern-day leftist and a Christian progressive, holds the viewpoint that sin is actually oppression, not other things. Any time there is an oppressive system or an oppressor, that is sin. Every relationship between someone more powerful than the other person is an oppressor and an oppressed person. A straight, white male is automatically an oppressor merely by their membership in several "powerful" groups.

It's a troubling viewpoint to me because it effectively assigns straight, white men to being sinners, but not people of various minority groups. I don't think it's rooted in scripture at all. The origin of this kind of thinking was Foucalt in the 1980s, and it's troubling to see Christians embrace Foucalt's anti-Christian worldview.

I agree.

So far, I don't think anyone in this thread comes from that perspective.