DawgTalkers.net Forums The Archives 2015 NFL Season NFL Post Season 2015 Beyoncé references Black Panther Party at Super Bowl halftime show

War on drugs really put many black and Latinos in jail. Jails are privatized which means the more people who go to jail, will make money for corporation. Data says that poor people go to jail at pretty much the same rate no matter what race, however there are more blacks and Latinos who are in poverty which means more of them go to jail.

Education is linked to high paying jobs, data proves that kids in poverty won't perform well in school. So these kids will not have the same education opportunity then others. More Black and Latinos are in poverty which means they have less opportunity to get a high paying job.

I have provided links for all of these issues in the past to support this argument.

A list of minorities does not mean that all of those minorities are current elected officials which means this is completely irrelevant to the discussion.

Currently in 2015 there are 46 black congressmen(roughly 10%) out of 435 total congressmen. So collectively politically they have no power on their own.




source

That is as far from the truth as possible!

Look..........I don't wanna get into this race war y'all have going on, but you are dead wrong about that. The opposite is true. I taught in all types of schools and the Title One schools get TONS MORE MONEY THAN OTHER SCHOOLS. IT IS NOT EVEN CLOSE!!!!


BTW: It is "than," not "then." Then addresses time rather than a comparison.

Money to the school doesn't solve education problems. If kids go to sleep hungry or are babysitting their siblings because their parents work 2 jobs than they will not do well in school. Those are the facts.

No race war here, I step out from the shadows to inform when there is too much nonsense and misinformation going on.

There are a lot of facts, Lurker. I've lived it. I've seen it. I have tried to be part of the solution. I just do not like when misinformation is presented.

Here are some facts, please let me know what you think, especially if this is misinformation.



linky

If you can't afford to take care of, educate and spend time with your children STOP making babies. Don't blame others!

Money doesn't necessarily equate to quality one way or another, Vers.

There's tons of title one support programs, but idiots in the school systems mismanage it.

We have bureaucrats enacting policy in high risk education areas, and these individuals enact an unequal opportunity. They don't understand what these community needs. So therefore, yes we still have a separate but unequal problem.

If you walk into a room I would see a man. Would I notice you were black, sure. I would also notice if you were wearing browns gear or steelers gear. I would notice if you had hair or were bald. If you were short or tall, skinny ir fat, wore glasses or not. Had any earings, or tatoos. I would notice if you had any large burns or scars. Had a beard, or a mustache. You see I would notice many things about you. However I would still see you as just a man.

You can pull up studies to say pretty much anything you want. For example there is published research out there that says IQ correlates strongly with wealth/success, and that the average IQ is different among different races. That last bit has been shown to hold even after adjusting for economics, education, researchers have done all sorts of interesting things like using info from adopted households etc. and the conclusion is that the economics/education aspect of it makes up only a part of the difference (half or less). So I think you have to be careful drawing conclusions from research-- anybody could derive dangerous conclusions from that depending on their motivation and biases and such.

If you take a worldly view, honestly, the situation is not pretty. Look at predominantly black/African areas anywhere in the world, it is pretty much the same thing-- lower income, high crime, poor education, high rates of disease, etc. This is the part that is making me sick and tired of hearing about how the plight of African-Americans is the fault of whites, and that most Americans are racist. At best it's just wrong; at worst it's a friggin' lie.

You can't say that the populations of all countries are racist against blacks. Take a look at the predominantly black countries themselves, there's no way you could say that African countries are racist against blacks; I wouldn't take you seriously if you did. Yet it's the same thing there-- low income, high crime, high rates of infectious diseases especially AIDS, etc. Actually as far as I can tell, the situation is worse in every Sub-Saharan country than it is for African-Americans in inner cities. And we can point out that there's greed/corruption/poverty there, but Africa also has the most abundant natural resources of any continent in the world. Humanity also happened to begin there, so ancestors of Africa had a head start of literally hundreds of thousands of years over the rest of civilization. What is going on there? I'm actually genuinely curious. This would actually be a very valuable explanation as well as corporations and governments around the world have spent a lot of money trying to apply the European models of economic growth to African countries and it just does not work.

Are you deliberately trying to fight? You really did not know that I was talking about how much funding is allocated to the various schools?

The statistics you provided have to do more w/the people involved than the government and/or schools. I know it is tough to escape poverty, but it can be accomplished. I was poor. My brother and I do fine.

I have told the story of my wife [who is Hispanic] several times on here. She didn't have heated water, shared a bathroom w/eight other families in a tenement building, actually wore newspapers as shoes, etc..........and she makes over $300,000 a year.

The key is to motivate the children of similar families to "want to" escape poverty rather than enabling them to "stay" impoverished. While they do have legitimate excuses for their plot in life, allowing those excuses to hinder success is an even bigger problem.

As a teacher, I left the "white schools in suburbia" for the inner city schools and have helped turn many lives around. Now, I am entering a challenging, yet exciting, endeavor to help reach and assist even more kids escape poverty.

Excuses and enabling are not helping our poor. Hope and hard work will!!!

That the way it always seems to go here. I also wonder why a poster claims victory in a thread debate when no one wins those.

I am not going to get too detailed but the simple answer is technology, resources don't really mean anything if you don't have the technological advances in order to use/sell them. People who have the technology will come in use/sell them in a way that benefits them.

Europeans were able to dominate the world with the invention of the firearm a huge technological breakthough. They used the firearm to colonize the world.

You can only "lose" in threads like these.

Modern humans have lived in Africa for 200,000 years. There are 54 countries and it is the second most populated continent in the world. Why isn't the technology better?

FWIW the firearm was actually invented in China but that really doesn't change much here. Maybe there is something to the whole, 'Asians are smart thing'? If we are talking about technology, think about any of the East Asian countries really. There is a lot of technological progress that comes out of China, South Korea, Japan, etc. There's also a ton of technological progress in the U.S. and some in Europe as well.

Think about Japan... that is an archipelago of awfully placed (earthquakes, tsunamis) islands with very little in the way of natural resources. And they're doing just fine. This might be a sensitive subject for some Americans but they were able to fight major wars against major powers in WWII. Think about the attack on Pearl Harbor, while nobody has to like anything about it, the technological prowess and planning needed to pull off an attack like that were incredible. Yet here we are, 75 years later, and no African country has ever built an aircraft carrier.

Why is it in the United States, we factor race into who gets into colleges? Why can African-Americans get into colleges with lower scores than Asian-Americans? I really don't have any vested interest in this; I just think it's wrong (I'm neither African nor Asian) and that we should treat everybody the same. Nobody should have an advantage or disadvantage based solely on their race. It just seems that Asians (really meaning people of East Asian descent) do well everywhere. The flipside is that African descendants don't do well anywhere (at least by most of the objective measures-- wealth, crime rate, technology). Hey if I'm wrong, I'm wrong, and I hope that you will tell me why I'm wrong if that's the case. But like I said, I'm tired if being told that it's the fault of white Americans. It's just inaccurate.

Yet even with some disadvantages (past discrimination, they look different, even discriminated against in affirmative action which is supposed to help minorities) Asian-Americans have managed to exceed the prosperity level of white Americans by a significant margin, so it can be done after all. Do you know what I say about that? Good for them. It doesn't bother me in the slightest.

We can treat everyone "the same" when institutionalized racism is extinguished against minority groups. Not everyone gets treated the same in this country, and a lot of that is due to deep rooted fears in "the other".

I love when people talk about "what about Asians?! They're the prefect model minority!" Want to know why that is? It's because they are submissive by nature, and they rarely, if ever, challenge the paradigm of the majority in America.

How many times have you heard an Asian person whine about why they couldn't get ahead in life? Let me guess, none. Why is that such a bad thing? Asians get ahead because (speaking in generalities/averages here) they are smart, they work hard, and there is a culture of excellence and taking action. I view all of those as major positives. In fact, I hold everybody to that standard. I will not make excuses for anybody (some exceptions could perhaps be made for those with mental and/or physical handicaps).

I know the 'institutionalized racism' argument; I just don't agree with it. Some minorities get a large amount of welfare, affirmative action, lowered standards for college admittance, companies go out of their way to be more diverse (this is not necessarily the same thing as hiring/promoting the best person), etc etc. There is actually a lot of institutionalized racism that goes against whites and Asians. Does that cancel out some of the bigotry and such that is still out there? We can go in circles about that but I'd rather not.

I will say that in modern day America, I strongly believe that anybody who is smart, works hard, and makes good decisions (especially financially) will do well. I also think that once you start indoctrinating people with how they are treated so unfairly, it's such and such's fault, and that they are generally entitled to things that you are setting them up for failure. I know from past experience having some very high highs and very low lows, that my successes were the result of my attitude changes, not the other way around.

I think this is very true, but the "majority" doesn't want to hear it......so, be prepared to be labeled.

So Asians are smart, work hard.

I, as a black guy, am not smart nor do I work hard in your eyes then?

Your post is really bothering me.

So intelligence is based off race. Ok.

You are a smart guy. You work hard. I'd consider you successful-- you've posted about how much money you have stacked, you have a beautiful family, and I admire how you 'think big.'

Same with Lurker. You guys have had some discussions on here about how you guys grew up in rough areas on the East Side of Cleveland. Lurker has also posted on here about how has a nice car, a few houses, whatever (I forget the exact details). He has a tech startup he's working on. I don't know if that will take off but he will hit it big, either on that or some future project.

Clem, same thing, right? He seems like he's doing pretty well? Smart, hard worker, right? See where I'm going with this?

As I wrote in that post, the comment about Asians was averages and generalities and yes I think that in general Asians are smart and work hard and that has a lot to do with why they are a different-looking minority in the United States that has exceeded white wealth and prosperity. Do you have another explanation?

i have a few.

here at Cleveland State, all the students are required to take a US Diversity class. i wasn't really down for it, but mandatory is mandatory, so i took intro to black studies.

we was watching clips and documentaries about the civil rights movement.

they did interviews with white students, and one of the recurring statements that seem to always be repeated was "it just easier to accept hispanics and jews because they look like us, blacks just look so different".

as far as asians go, they have the great stereotypes. they ALL are smart, and work hard. hell, the only two negative stereotypes i ever hear about them are their terrible driving skills and the guys small, uh...genitals.

my mother is puerto rican. have you ever been there? they range from blond hair blue eyed to nigerian black.

but a lot of hispanics...sometimes you have to really look to tell if they are hispanic or not. it's also why on applications you have white-non hispanic and white-hispanic.

have you ever been to spain? if not, you need to go, barcelona and Ibiza are amazing party spots. anyway, i can't tell bro. especially northern spain, they just look like white guys.

also, asians and hispanics(for the most part) don't have the added consequence of not only being enslaved, but they also didn't have to do with Jim crow laws. the jim crow laws were specifically written for blacks.

hispanics didn't have the problem because a lot of them can routinely pull of being and looking white. as far as us? good luck, Tyrone.

now, people are already jumping down the rafters with the slavery comment, but the fact is that our history has a lot to do with race relations today. take out slavery, still have the jim crow laws, take our jim crow laws, still have the civil rights movement.

people also seem to forget that relatively speaking, segregation wasn't that long ago.

anyway, as i have said a ton on EE, yes, we have a lot of things we need to fix within ourselves in the black community, but what bothers is me is when whites act like their majority had zero to do with the reasons we are in the hole.

as far as intelligence goes, this is why your comment really infuriated me.

dude, my first two years of high school was in the hood. we didn't have enough books to take home to school and do homework. if the teacher was absent, we didn't have a substitute, we just sat there in class with no adult there to watch us. our computers didn't work, and the few that did were old as dirt. even our lockers were busted.

so yes, i'm absolutely making excuses for some blacks with regards to intelligence, because if i grew up in a white dominated area, i bet my test scores will be comparable to everybody else.

when my parents finally have enough bread to put me in private school, i was so far behind, it was amazing i was able to catch up, because they were talking about holding me back a grade. but my SAT scores were trash, my ACT scores were trash, because all the kids, even in the public schools on the west side, actually knew the material. i'm 28, and i'm college just now starting to understand all this stuff. i joined the military because in a sense, i had no other choice. i wasn't smart enough to do anything else. i would've had to take a lot of remedial courses.

there's a host of other things. but you're not gonna get an argument from me and lurker with regards to crime, or people acting ghetto or such.

but when people are downgrading our ability as if we had the same opportunities growing up as the average white person, i feel the need to speak up. it just simply isn't true.

and that isn't me making you guys have "white guilt". screw that. be proud to be white. be proud of what you got. be proud that you get to start at ground zero, instead of in the hole like minorities do. hell i'm proud of you guys. my wife is german, it's been a cake walk for her in this country so far.

but with regards to this thread, don't get mad at us black people for trying to encourage each other to do better. cause that's all we're doing. so when you guys are complaining about beyonce paying homage to the black panthers of the 60's, who helped protect blacks from getting smacked in the heads with bricks by whites, who helped keep those german shepards that the police let loose on us, then it makes it seem as if you DON'T want us to succeed in this country.

thats it bro.

Beyoncé Makes SHOCK Announcement About Her “Racist” Super Bowl Dance

Link

There were plenty of things to get infuriated about during Beyoncé’s Black Panther-themed Super Bowl 50 halftime show. Arguably the most egregious, however, is the Black Panther salute being given by several of Beyoncé’s dancers as they posed with a sign saying “Justice 4 Mario Woods.”

Woods, it turns out, was a thug who was killed by police after stabbing a man and then refusing to put the knife down when confronted by cops. A pretty cut-and-dry case, but something Bey’s dancers decided needed to be paid attention to.

Now, according to the U.K. Daily Mail, Beyoncé’s camp is denying all knowledge of the “Justice 4 Mario Woods” sign, with the media blaming the whole incident on — get this — two women who won a radio call-in contest to go to the Super Bowl.

Really.

Rheema Calloway and Ronnishia Johnson, both 25, say that they somehow managed to sneak the sign past guards at Levi’s Stadium in their panties and bras, managed to get to the dancers, then managed to give the sign to the dancers and take a picture of them, which just so happened to go around the world, all without Beyoncé’s knowledge. I’ll take “(Im)plausible Deniability” for $200, Alex.

Beyoncé’s dancers in an X formation — a tribute to Malcolm X — and the dancers who held up the Mario Woods sign.



“We did not know Beyoncé was going to have a Black Panther theme to her performance even though she had dropped the ‘Formation’ video the day before which has a lot of black culture references,” Calloway said.

When she saw the dancers in the Black Panther outfits, she said, “That was confirmation that we needed to do what we came to do there.”

“After the halftime show we were rushed off and our group was headed in another direction. I said to Rheema we had to go and we started running after the dancers,” Johnson said. “There were a couple of dancers walking out with their fists up so I tapped one of them and asked her initially if she would be willing to take a photo and she said yes.

“As we were taking a photo, I asked he if she had heard about the case of Mario Woods. Other dancers came around us and from the expressions on their faces it seemed as if they had already heard about Mario’s case and were empathetic,” she continued. “They agreed to hold the sign and say ‘Justice for Mario Woods’ and we filmed it on my iPhone.”

Neither Calloway nor Johnson — nor anyone in Beyoncé’s camp — seemed particularly concerned with the man Woods stabbed, identified by the media as “Jacob.”

“He tries to open my car door and out of defense I already knew he had a knife on him,” Jacob said about Woods’ attack. “After a few blows were exchanged between him and me, I got stabbed in the arm.”

As for the activists who overlook what Woods did to get killed, Jacob said, “I acknowledge what they’re doing trying to get justice and everything, but at the same time you have to realize there are victims of black-on-black crimes that I don’t feel they acknowledge.”

And this was hardly Woods’ first rodeo in terms of lawbreaking. Seven years ago, San Francisco law enforcement officials described Woods as an “active gang member” whose rap sheet included “armed robbery and attempted armed robbery; shooting incidents; weapons possession offenses; and driving a stolen car.”

Sorry, Bey. Your excuses for your halftime show are almost as despicable as the show itself. Instead of dedicating it to Mario Woods, why not dedicate it to the man he stabbed? Or, perhaps you could have dedicated to the police officers who gave you a ride to the stadium that Sunday?

Think about this for a minute-- Vers made the comment that I might get labeled based on my posts in this thread. Now I was aware of that going in, but here's the thing, I don't think I have written anything too inflammatory in here. Actually it's pretty benign, about the most controversial stuff is just comparisons between how different races are doing relative to each other around the country and around the world in historical contexts. And it's all pretty much accurate.

Yet if someone important were to go on record with the exact sentiments in my posts, they would get hammered. I'm an anonymous poster on the internet so I can get away with it, and it doesn't really matter because nobody would care what I had to say anyway. Yet if the average white guy went on record saying any of this, he would be lucky to remain employed and with his reputation intact. A politician could never do it although Donald Trump seems to be the exception. I actually think his candidacy is the result of people like me, good honest people who are so sick of the narrative that it's white guys who are the cause of all problems in this country.

Why should it be so controversial to point out that Asians are pretty smart? If you think that's wrong, and that they are no smarter than any other race, then it should be pretty easy to show that. But I think most of our experiences have been that Asians indeed are pretty smart (i.e. smarter than average), and their test scores (including IQ testing) are consistently above those of other ethnicities and that holds true even when adjusting for economics, education, upbringing, etc. That is a fact, albeit a politically inconvenient one for many. And yes the economics/education aspect of it *does* count for a lot, but how much more can we really do about that? We are already pouring money into bad school districts, there's no shortage of entitlements, affirmative action, etc.

What else should be done? Or maybe another way to look at it, what else should white Americans do so that kids in inner cities can get a better education? I think you will find that the best and easiest improvements actually come from the black community-- fathers helping to raise their kids, reduction in violent crime, a change in attitude from rebellion/entitlement to *gasp* fitting in, education, working hard, etc.

About your diversity class: Was that the same class where the professor said that slavery is the reason that black men and black women don't trust each other today? That there's some kind of genetic memory thing going on where whites are actually at fault for why black fathers don't stay with their kids? I believe I'm accurately recalling one of your posts where you said that is what your college professor taught the class. If it's the same educator, how can you even take anything in that class seriously? Is that the kind of drivel we are teaching our kids?

I realize the history in this country is ugly with slavery, Jim Crow laws, segregation and all that but man, that was all before my time. What more can be done about that? I hate to say, 'get over it', I know it is not that simple, but I guess I do not understand what more can really be done about that beyond welfare, entitlements, affirmative action etc. and eventually some of those things have to go away. Keeping in mind that I had nothing to do with any of those things and that I think they are despicable, how much responsibility do I have for that stuff?

Also, please use the phrase 'we were' instead of 'we was'. Nobody will ever take you seriously if you continue to use 'we was'. Crappy school or not, you're 10 years out of high school and you should know better by now. Keep learning. Honestly the vast majority of things that I know are things I learned after being out of formal schooling.

And for the record, I don't get mad at you encouraging each other (meaning blacks?) to do better. I encourage everybody to do better. The truth is that I've always been the type to root for the underdog. It's as true in sports as it is in life. Please don't take my posts as being anything different. I want everybody to succeed. What makes me mad is whites being blamed for many black problems that whites today have virtually nothing to do with (black on black crime, the deterioration of inner-city public schools due to crime and insubordination, single parent black families, etc.) It's also annoying at best to have to constantly watch what I type because I know that a white guy can easily slip up and be labeled with the 'r' word even with an innocuous and well intentioned post. I've seen it happen countless times. It might even happen to me here. oh well.

i don't think anybody on this board is racist, for the record.

i think some people either don't want to understand the racial dynamics, or really haven't dealt with it in their lives to know.

as far as not being a part of it, you also need to understand, we aren't talking about you, as an individual white male. we are talking about the system.

you, Has, isn't the reason why we get 4 times more likely to get shot by the cop, or 21 times more likely to get charged and convicted for the same crime as whites, with the same criminal history.

but whether you want to or not, you support that system. just like myself, a black dude, support the system whether i like it or not, because our taxes fund this kinda stuff. and we don't have much of a say.

so just understand that. for me to blame you as an individual, is me blaming my wife for the same thing.

she's german, she didn't have crap to do with what happened here. she's been in this country all of 3 years.

so i just hope you get where i'm coming from, because i absolutely get where you are coming from.

It's all good between you and me Swish. I don't have the day to day experience with racial dynamics. I'll give you that. In fact I think that one advantage that I have is that I don't have to spend any time or energy thinking about it. Heck even thinking about and posting in this thread has taken up a good deal of my time today.

There are a couple funny things from my perspective. One is about education. Honestly I think the educational system in this country is so screwed up and that applies across the board. Even the kids that go to good schools don't really learn much useful stuff. So they learn more Revolutionary War facts or how much annual rainful there is in Brazil or whatever. Who cares. I mentioned this before-- the world is changing at an exponentially increasing rate; the best way to get ahead is to constantly adapt and learn new things, but I digress.

Another funny thing has to do with my physical appearance and my success (or lack thereof) in the real world. I'm tall, blonde hair, blue eyes, muscular, strong brow and jaw, etc. I don't think I get discriminated based on looks very often. Yet when I had done sales in the past, I was terrible at it. I was too soft, let the customers bully me around too much, and probably just didn't have my life in order enough at the time. If I could do that type of career over again I'm sure I would do better, but the fact is that hardly anybody would buy from me face to face.

Almost all the money I've made in my life is mostly anonymously (various web design/online marketing things) where nobody ever knew what I looked like. So there's no way I could have ever gotten an advantage there from being a tall blonde dude (I have been told on multiple occasions in real life that this had a lot to do with it. It always makes me chuckle.)

When you say that blacks are 21 times more likely to get charged and convicted of the same crime as whites, I don't believe that. There's no way that is true unless somebody is mincing words somewhere.

How could that possibly even be known? Like you can't just take the output and say everything is unfair about it. Take a hypothetical where blacks are convicted of a crime 21 times more than a white person for the same crime, but blacks are actually committing that same crime 10 times more often. In that case the more intellectually honest descriptor would be that blacks are twice as likely to get charged for the same crime. That would still be wrong of course but not nearly to the same extent. What exact crime are you talking about?

For what it's worth, I have shared my experiences on here with having an Indian girlfriend and the gist of it was that people on average were not as welcoming of her. I'd imagine that a black man has it worse in that regard than an Indian woman although that's not really a slam dunk-- she was a Christian adopted and raised in a white family but a lot of people thought she was Muslim based on appearance. And in my experience people are more likely to be discriminated against based on religion (Atheists and Muslims taking the worst of it in this country) than ethnicity although I'm sure there are a lot of people who won't agree with that either.

And when people act with fear, people become fearful of them. It's a shame. A different set of letter patterns, skin color and a multitude of other, small, meaningless, differences divide us from one another as we become fearful. It's a tragedy that we allow fear to create enemies for us. Kind, gentle, would-be-friends turned to enemies, all because of perceptions of the mind. Tragic.

Fear is generated from ignorance.

It's my hope that we can evolve and work towards an understanding of acceptance and comradery. [Why is that underlined as a misspelled word? I spelled it correctly, right?]

Anyway.......the blame game only fuels more hate. I pray that we can unite.

I wanna run something by you guys. It was brought up earlier and please consider it before automatically blowing it up because it doesn't "fit."

I'll need to start by telling a bit of history to set the stage. There was a time in the United States that a white man could be put in jail and a black man would be whipped in public if the white man was caught trying to teach the black man how to read. That's so powerful! It shows that the whites wanted to keep the blacks uneducated because knowledge is power.

Moving forward, I TRULY believe that excuses and enabling are the new ways of how some try to keep the poor down. It's like an opiate. You give them just enough to make them feel good. They become complacent and settle for far too little.

I suggest a movement where minorities not settle for handouts. They don't rely on excuses. Instead, they decide to dedicate themselves to the pursuit of excellence and prove to their detractors that they are capable of greatness and do not need excuses or enabling acts that only prove to hurt their own cause!!!!

How would you combat institutionalized racism? I get the keep on keeping on, but what do you do about those folks who get constantly pulled over just because of their skin color. Shouldn't instances like that get fixed instead of wringing hands of blame?

I didn't even watch the show. I could tell by the name I wouldn't like her.

What kind of name is that?

I don't care if she is a racist. Her choice.

True who cares racist, rapist, murder, terrorist or drug dealer their choice who cares?

Not liking someone due to their name? Really, Peen?

In fairness, it sounds kinda French .... and who likes the French?

Seriously, though, these kind of stunts are for publicity, not to try to accomplish anything.

I don't like Beyonce's music. It's just not my thing. However, she is a very popular singer, and she could start a real conversation about race if she wanted to. Instead she pulled this stunt ...... and made sure that such a conversation cannot be begun by her. Further, what kind of message does she give her White fans, people who have supported her, bought her music, attended concerts, and so on?

All but one of those is a crime. Like I said, if one chooses to be racist, that's their problem. In fairness, I don't know that she is..It was just another stupid halftime show at the Super Bowl.

Nothing is ever going to be perfect, Rocket. I am talking about each individual trying to be the best they can be.

Again... [and I am going to leave this hanging there for people to think about w/out a lot of other narrative getting in the way]

...Excuses and enabling are like an opiate on the people in question.

Michael Lombardi or Joe Banner ?

A racist usually ends up committing one or more of those crimes.