I just want you to show me where the systemic racism is. I'm black ( with some native ancestry apparently ), but for census purposes, I'm black and have brown skin and grew up in Detroit, MI. So as a young black man who grew up in virtually the same circumstances as every other young black man ( the difference being my parents and how they decided to raise me ), I did not end up as them. I was an exception to the rule. Statistics say that I should be dead or in jail by now, and neither has happened, so I want you to explain to me how this occurred.

If better parenting isn't the answer, if a change of perspective and mindset isn't the answer, if pushing yourself to achieve whatever it is you want in life isn't the answer, then why am I not 6 feet under? Where is my criminal record? Where is my bastard child that I don't take care of? By your logic, regardless of what I do, I'm fucked because the system is rigged against me. My fate as merely another dead black man on the east side of Detroit would've been inescapable. I was destined to become a violent drug dealing maniac because of how cruel the white supremacists in America are, but here I am sitting here talking to you on a game website instead of in prison sharing a 6x8 cell with Big Bubba. How did this all occur? You tell me because clearly you know more than I do about black lives.

For example, one common trait among people who are born into poverty and reach middle class is having two parents who work. Almost 3 out of every 4 black women raise their children alone, or in some cases, the man contributes but doesn't live in the same household ( I'm guessing paying child support counts as "contributing", but that's not actually "raising" ). So do you think it's crazy when I say "maybe there's something black people can do themselves to better their situation"?

This one is fairly simple. Black men can just start being responsible, or black women can stop having kids by black men who aren't responsible. If black men don't jump ship and stay apart of the family, work, and raise the kids, they've already begun to ensure a better future for their child. Furthermore, where is the systemic racism preventing black men and women from doing this? I get the impression you don't think that black men and women contribute to their own demise so I'm just curious as to why you think black men knock up black women unprotected and then disappear, or why black women are willing to bear children by these random lowlifes in the first place? Is the white man behind this and if so, elaborate, because I honestly don't think that if black men and women immediately, starting tomorrow, all got jobs and started raising their kids properly, that the racist white police would say "LOLNOPE" and ramp up their "hunting" of black men to keep blacks held back.

The only perk to having ADHD
is being able to express your emotions through art, something the average person cannot do. Born an autistic artist. Unfortunately I chose BYOND to channel my art with.
I had it all, ego, attitude, sadly, byond is under a rock on the internet. Learning how the engine works with this 'disorder' doesn't help, especially, how the helpers on the forums expect you to get it on your own never helping you fully. A-lot have could've came from this if I had help but nope, I find myself messing with any source I can get my hands on to try and channel what I'm feeling this isn't music I need others to pitch in, had I went the music path I probably could've been something not saying it's too late but my ego is around game developing not music.

Some nice white lady bought me a scholarship to goto the art college down town in fourth grade, parents never took me, just look at me now.

I could've been like, egoraptor
I could've been like, eminem
I could've been like, the weeknd(kinda was like him the homeless situation I went through)
I could've been like, drake.

People tell me all the time. You have a good head on your shoulders and seem to be very mature how didn't you graduate it's easy? I tell them over and over, you don't understand what I'm going through.

http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/dragonball/images/f/f8/ Launchgh.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/ 270?cb=20120114192656

In a nutshell.

He gets it

My grandfather, who was born before the Civil Rights movement, served in the military, worked for General Motors in Detroit and owned his own business. He was a black man born in a far more racist time than me and my millennial peers. If my grandfather, who was born and living in the south prior to all the great things people like MLK fought for and accomplished, who dealt with "white and colored" segregation, who dealt with being told "you can't marry a white person", lynchings, a KKK in their prime, peaceful protesters being attacked and spat on, despite all this, with the equivalent of a 6th grade education, my grandfather served in the military, came back, moved to Michigan, worked for one of the greatest automakers of all time, owned his own house, started his own business and raised his 5 children.

In 2016, we don't even face a fraction of the obstacles my grandfather had to put up with. I can't even imagine how much perseverance it would've taken that man to end up where he did and even when I say it myself, it sounds like a made up story, but I have his honorable discharge certificate, I have baby pictures of myself living in the house he bought which was right next to the store business he owned, it comes down to this: I truly believe that if I were to somehow resurrect my grandfather and tell him that despite the country being far less racist, segregated and discriminatory than it was when he was alive, despite having far more freedom to do whatever I want, despite having a better education and consequently access to better jobs, despite living in an era where we have this thing called the "internet" which opened an innumerable amount of doors for anyone to teach themselves anything, make money and become successful, despite living in a country that elected a man with brown skin to serve as its president TWICE, it's nearly impossible for me to make it out of poverty because the rich, white shadow government holds me back, he would disown me on the spot.

Nobody is denying that being born disadvantaged creates disadvantages. This is common sense and not even worth pointing out. However, another thing people shouldn't have to point out is that with hard work and determination, you will climb out of poverty and no one can convince me otherwise when I have a BLACK grandfather who defied all odds stacked against him and managed to thrive anyway, and a BLACK mother who was forced into homeless at 18 and still managed to get a job, get her own apartment, then her own house, then ran a computer business out of the basement of our house. The issue with BLM is their message. It's apart of the problem, not the solution, to tell young black kids "the system is against you, the racists will hold you back, if you don't have anything, blame the whites". Of course they will then grow up and hate the world. Of course they will then grow up and resort to crimes. All this does is keep the pot stirred, encourages resentment, disincentivizes hard work, BLM has not and will not solve anything. They are no different than the modern feminist movement. The "if I haven't succeeded yet, it's obviously because someone is working against me" mentality of our generation. The "I'm going to focus on everything outside of my control instead of focusing on the things I can actually change" generation. This is not the early 1900s. Blacks have more opportunity and freedom than they ever have in the past, yet they have exactly the same amount of excuses if not MORE.

I don't want to hear about poverty this and poverty that. I was raised in a city where I watched black people get their paycheck and spend it on 22 inch gold rims. You want me to believe they have money for 22 inch gold rims but no money to afford a vocational class or a computer and internet service to teach themselves? I watched dozens of blacks stand in line at night to get into clubs so they could party and drive home drunk ( I had a strip club literally 2 blocks away from my house and another regular club 4 blocks in the other direction where there were frequent shoot outs ). You want me to believe they have time and energy to get wasted and attempt to murder each other but they can't channel that time and energy into working overtime or searching for a better job? There are single mothers who get handout after handout after handout who complain more than my mother who was 18, homeless and was DENIED handouts because she "didn't have a child". The excuses stop here. I agree that changes need to happen, but those changes have to start with black people. I've lived and worked with mostly black people my entire life and there are those of us who work and aspire to change our situation, and there are those of us who bitch and moan expecting our situation to change itself or someone else to come rescue us. Which mindset do you think is more likely to succeed regardless if there's systemic racism or not?

And I would like to believe that somehow, my grandfather and mother overcame their challenges because they were special, because they had "luck" on their side, because God was just "looking out for them", because then I'd be able to agree with you and say "yeah, most people just can't do it, the people who climb out of poverty just got super lucky and experienced a miracle", but none of the above is true. I'm pretty sure my grandfather was flesh and blood like everyone else. I'm sure when he took a shit, it smelled awful. He was not an immortal, he wasn't a superhuman, he was a black, disadvantaged boy from the racist south who made it and he did it without reparations. He was a man, just like you and I, and there's nothing he did that most blacks today, including myself, cannot also do. I speak this way because I don't believe blacks are born retarded and helpless ( like Pixel suggested I believe ) who need to live on government assistance their entire lives. I believe we are just as capable of doing what any other group of people in this country have done. All that's necessary is for us to put our minds to it. There's a shit ton of work to be done, but it's not going to do itself.

With that being said, let's make America great again.

Sayaotonashis wrote:

I'm so done.. Emp with those frog pics..

I'm only using those because the left considers the Pepe frog meme to be a racist hate symbol. Based on the votes Hillary got, I'm going to have to assume we have a lot of people in this country who care more about a cartoon frog than WW3. Kind of troubling if you ask me.

Michigan life and everywhere you go will be hard. At least you are who you are, Emps =]

and I know the feels on the other memes lol.

I haven't said anything about racism once. Honestly I don't mind open and honest debate; not every Republican is an asshole, but you, specifically, are an asshole and it makes talking with you unpleasant.

OK. I think my biggest problem is your generalization of black America based on your own personal experiences. I grew up on Allison Hill in Harrisburg, PA - not quite as bad as Detroit, but when I was growing up and especially into my adulthood it was pretty consistently ranked among some of the top 20 worst cities in the United States (only #48 now -- moving up in the world). I've seen plenty of black people behaving exactly as you described: living on welfare, spending more money than they have, partying, killing each other, and blaming the establishment for all of it. My problem lies in the fact that I've also seen white people doing the same damn thing, the only difference being that they go to jail for nearly 20% less time (14.5% excluding probationary sentences). Does this excuse the behavior in the first place? Of course not, but it is certainly a racial bias. There are 2,207 black people in prison for every 100,000 alive, compared to 966 white people. I see this as unjust persecution; although certainly a good deal (if not most) certainly deserved to serve prison time, the disproportionate sentencing means that they'll be there longer, bolstering the number of black Americans in prison at any given time. One in nine (11.7%) black males between the ages of 25 and 29 are currently incarcerated. That is insane.

sys·tem·ic
adjective
of or relating to a system

ie the "prison system"

rac·ism
noun
the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races.
prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior.

ie the belief (that you are inadvertently perpetuating) that all black men are criminals. Systemic racism.

Now, I'm not saying that you're wrong. Certainly all change comes from within; if you don't want people to think you're a criminal, don't commit crimes. If you don't want to be stuck in the cycle of poverty for the rest of your life, then claw your way out. You yourself, along with your family, are clear examples that this is possible with enough grit and determination. My point is that it is harder for black Americans than their Anglo-Saxon counterparts.

And obviously all that riot bullshit is... embarrassing for the movement as a whole, to say the least. I agree that in certain communities it really is the logical end result of years of systemic racism and civil unrest. This does not mean that I, or that all members of the BLM movement, condone their actions. They are domestic terrorists, plain and simple.

edit: fixed link

Let's use traffic stops for example. Statistics have found no alarming disparity between how often blacks, hispanics, and whites gets stopped. It's virtually equal. The next question we ask ourselves is "why then are black people arrested more often during those stops" or even worse, "why are black people more likely to get killed by police" ( more whites have died but when you put the populations in perspective, a black person is more likely to die from a police officer than a white person ) and what you find ( after you realize most people die from police in an attempt to resist arrest ) is that, yes, blacks commit the most crimes.

It's very easy to find the correlation here. If all races get confronted by police equally, and blacks are committing the most crimes, it would make sense that on average, blacks are going to get arrested and add to the ridiculous number of incarcerated blacks ( because they are more often going to be guilty of a crime or resist arrest ) than whites and Asians. Yes, all races commit crimes and as you said, you can look out your window and see both a black and a white man breaking the law. Before I was sort of joking about white people getting on a boat and leaving Chicago but as it turns out, in an all-white Chicago, murder would drop 90%, rape would drop 81%, and robbery would drop 90%. So this addresses the notion that we're rounding up the blacks at random and throwing them in prison.

As far as sentencing goes, there's multiple things about prison that could use reform. Drug sentences being harsher than some violent sentences, minimum sentencing, solitary confinement, and when it comes to blacks getting harsher sentences, I don't believe this is largely due to with white prosecutors teaming up with white judges to destroy all the blacks. Statistics also prove that skinny attractive women on average get less harsh sentences than obese, unattractive women. Are the evil whites in control also trying to destroy all the fat people? Men ( regardless of race ) get 60% longer sentences than women do, women have a much higher chance of avoiding charges and convictions, and are twice as likely to avoid incarceration even if they are convicted. So it looks like the evil whites, in addition to killing off the black race, are also trying to kill fat ugly people and anyone who's a man in general. Should we make those assertions too? Yes, prison doesn't make sense and needs to be improved and is unfair for different people for stupid reasons, but once again, I find it very difficult after taking everything into consideration, that:

- We have a racist system put in place that's zeroing in on all blacks in attempt to ensure our demise ( I mean after all, your argument mainly focuses on what happens once someone reaches prison and not necessarily how they got there in the first place )

- Aforementioned system is the main reason blacks can't succeed

- Whatever bias that has indeed persisted to this day is somehow equal to or worse than it was in the early 1900s ( which once again, seems to mainly occur after the black has been arrested and found guilty of a crime )

So yes, anyone making the argument of "prison and sentencing needs to be fixed", yes, I'll agree with you. What I will not agree on however is that the main threat facing blacks today are white people in power. The idea that innocent blacks who did no wrong are facing oppression and violence from the evil white man the likes of which we've never seen before is largely an excuse and a derail from what's actually happening. If you show me men who are just randomly picked off by cops, yes, I will condemn the police. If you show me instances where police just decided to arrest black people for no reason, I will condemn the police. One of the things I saw people get arrested for at my school was weed, and I condemn that and find that ridiculous. Weed should not be illegal to begin with, and having a joint should not be grounds for a student to be arrested and removed from the normal public school system and put into one of those alternate education things. It's like a correctional facility and a school at the same time.

Basically what I'm saying is, sane people know stupid unfair shit that makes no sense goes on and don't deny that. However, another part of being sane is knowing when to draw a line and say "ok, wait, that's not actually true". It's kind of like religion - I mean, we can all agree that helping others and being honest are nice things, but when they start telling you to hate gay people, kill apostates, and make women walk around dressed like ninjas, that's when I have to call bullshit. That's how I feel toward BLM. When I first discovered it I said "Oh, that's cool. People are protesting unfair things happening to blacks."

And then they started protesting instances that weren't even racism, race baiting, spewing lies, attacking people at random and destroying property and I said "Ok, this is just a load of BS. This is no longer what I thought it was going to be. I'm not identifying with these people."

Another thing that's weird is that I was sitting here reading another study done on Manhattan ( https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/247227.pdf ) and after reading the first 17 pages or so, it's apparent that one thing no one is talking about are the races outside of blacks and whites, which makes sense because if you mention latinos and Asians and the disparities there as well, it becomes harder and harder to suggest that this is a system designed to benefit whites and destroy blacks.

This study reports:

- For felonies, 61% of blacks were held in custody before their trial, but it's actually ASIANS who had the least amount sitting at 28%, beating out whites at 43%.

- Black, asian, and latino defendants were more likely to have their case dismissed than whites

- For misdemeanors, 47% of blacks got custodial sentences while asians only got 8%, once again, beating whites at 22% ( so basically, asians got the bulk of the community service and whatnot ) and in this category, prior record was a better predictor than race, in other words, people who had done more crimes got custodial sentences offered to them more often than people who had a lesser or non-existent record, meaning they weren't just tossing blacks in jail and giving whites and asians free rides for no apparent reason

And the president of the institute concluded that "implicit bias" is a likely factor, which is the point I was trying to make earlier when I pointed out that attractive people get better sentences than unattractive people, which is something that happens not just in prison, but everywhere in life. Prettier people, on average, make more money. Taller men, on average, are considered more reliable and competent than shorter men. These are sub-conscious decisions we make on a daily basis. It does not prove that there's a conspiracy to rid the world of ugly, short people. Men getting longer sentences than women does not prove there's a conspiracy to rid the world men. When an employer has two potential candidates and they choose the one who is most attractive sub-consciously, it's not a conspiracy to keep less attractive people out of jobs. And the "white vs black" thing becomes even more hilarious when you take Asians into account. If you turn on the television or listen to BLM, it's oppression by white supremacists keeping blacks down. If you pull up a study, whites are getting treated worse than Asians, so if this system really is indeed run a bunch of racist white people, they're obviously not doing a very good job at preserving their own race considering the fact that ASIANS are getting treated the best.

The fact of the matter is, implicit bias means this guy



gets a better sentencing than this guy



White supremacy means they both get the harshest sentence possible because they're both BLACK. White supremacy means Asians would also be getting way harsher sentences, because they're NON-WHITE. You don't fix prison by saying "destroy white supremacy", because this is not a white supremacy issue. There's a multitude of issues and just trying to turn this into another "white vs black", "us vs them" situation is not helping. It's actually detrimental to everyone who has been wrongly arrested and sentenced to say "this is only a black lives" problem and "our lives matter more than yours". It's actually detrimental to suggest that every police officer and everyone in the criminal justice system are all a bunch of white evil racists. Back in July, registered voters were polled and only 10% of the participants said they felt BLM has improved anything. They are not focusing their efforts in the right places.