The politics of hoodie wearing

@snood,

Nod.

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@ossobuco,

[nodding]

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@djjd62,

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and Canada is very glad too

That's good - then we're all happy.

ehbeth wrote:

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I suspect that a 1% difference in the level of urbanization isn't a factor.

Now it could be that the U.S. does have a higher rate of crime in its urban areas. I'm sure someone has researched that.

I made a mistake here when I said, 'urbanization'. I meant to refer to the fact that the urban centers of the US are so much more populated than the urban centers of Canada - instead of seeming to compare what percentage of the respective populations of each country live in urban centers - which is what I did- sorry for the confusion.

Parados wrote:

Quote:

But guns are more readily available in the US than they are in Canada. Surprisingly, the availability of guns can NOT be the reason for the difference.

Myself, I DO attribute it to the fact that guns are more easily and readily available in the US . I'm not the one who asked the question as if there's something in the DNA of the people who are born in and come to live in America that makes us more violent.
Because you know, I'm looking hard at the issue and I do have to admit that I DO think there's an issue of past and unresolved enmity (and understandably so) between blacks and whites in America that isn't present in either Canada or England or Australia.
What? Am I supposed to ignore our own history?

The gun laws in America are exactly one of the reasons I feel it's safer for me and my children here in England.- I can assure you it's not because all my family, friends, students, colleagues etc. in America have proven themselves to be genetically more prone to violence!

You know it just makes me laugh...the other day I was in the pub and this woman came in with a North American (not Mexican) accent looking for a bed and breakfast and so I thought I'll be friendly and polite and speak to her and said, 'Are you American?' .
God forgive me - I didn't include Canadian and she just looked at me like I was insulting her and said, and I quote, 'NO - thank God! I'm Canadian,' and whirled away from me to find a more suitable person to talk to.
And Sam, my friend who's Spanish said, 'Well, I guess she put you in your place - right down there with the blacks, Irish and dogs...' and we just laughed and laughed.
And I said, 'Yeah - now can you imagine if someone asked me if I was Mexican or native or any other minority and I said, 'Ewww...no, thank God I'm not Mexican!'
I just think it's funny - this supercilious attitude toward 300,000,000 people. I'm glad I'm American - cause I don't have to have that.
I wouldn't even had made the cut to make it in Canada, (violent, prissy, PMS suffering fool that I am) how can I look down on anyone else?

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@ossobuco,

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I'm still interested re who gets to wear what and be ok at some time in some place, with points for skin color or lack of it.

In England, regardless of race, since the riots last summer, shop owners have the right to ban anyone wearing hoodies from their store.

But to me, as I said, it's the fact that this man can shoot this unarmed young man and not be charged with anything that's so disturbing.
I was looking at my son the other day standing there wearing his baseball cap under his sweatshirt jacket with the hood up and thinking, 'It could have been him'.
And that has to do with the gun laws in the US moreso than anything else.

Did Zimmerman have a broken nose? Is that a fact?

Also, make no mistake that even among hispanics they separate themselves into black and white.
I know two Portuguese fellows - one has an Moroccan mother and is darker skin tone and the other is the offspring of two typically olive skin toned parents.
Silvio is considered black by his own people and has suffered racism in his own country and here in England due to that fact, whereas Chico is considered white European - and states that he hasn't.
The actual 'color' of someone's skin does have an effect on how they're treated and perceived - regardless of their actual ancestry.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

Have you heard the tape on which he allegedly speaks the racial epithet?

I ask because, I haven't and if you have a link to it I would be appreciative. If this allegation is provable then it is important evidence.

I have heard it. And it is certainly not difficult to find.

Google "zimmerman ******* coons" and you will find a vast array of clips and analyses.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002449632

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@aidan,

I hope you are not lecturing to me.

1 Reply

@ossobuco,

I'm not. I was just answering your question. I have more questions than answers about this whole thing myself. I can't lecture to anyone about this.

It just makes me incredibly sad for this young man and his parents and I can understand why black people (and anyone else of any other race who cares about equality and justice under the law) are feeling that here's just one more young black man whose life is being treated as less valued than what the life of his white counterpart MIGHT have been.

I don't really care about the race of the perpetrator. But the response of law enforcement to this incident DOES seem to me to devalue the life of this particular victim.
And it is a recognizable pattern that is disturbing.

That's not a lecture - that's my response to this situation.
I feel the only political question here is in relation to the gun laws and this whole stand your ground thing.

(the thing I wrote about black/white/hispanic - was in response to the other posts about that particular issue).

1 Reply

@aidan,

Quote:

It just makes me incredibly sad for this young man and his parents and I can understand why black people (and anyone else of any other race who cares about equality and justice under the law) are feeling that here's just one more young black man whose life is being treated as less valued than what the life of his white counterpart MIGHT have been.

It is more likely that he is dead because he appeared to Zimmerman to be hostile street scum....what liberals who constantly yak about race never notice is that where the rubber hits the road class matters in American much more than does genetics.

1 Reply

@hawkeye10,

Yeah - except that it seems to also be a pattern that many people view ALL people with darker skin as 'lower class' citizens- so many, many people don't separate the issues of race and class- they generalize about class based solely upon a visual assessment of someone's perceived race.

Who was that professor who was going into his own house a few years back and was apprehended because one of the neighbors thought he was breaking into his own house (because he was black and didn't seem to fit the profile of someone who'd live in that neighborhood)?
Oh yeah - Henry Louis Gates - who taught at Harvard...yeah - low class street scum - yeah.

Give me a break Hawkeye - as if you don't think race is a visual and perceptual indicator of class in America - and in many other countries as a matter of fact.
Let's be real.

1 Reply

@aidan,

Quote:

Yeah - except that it seems to also be a pattern that many people view ALL people with darker skin as 'lower class' citizens

A black man in America is very likely to be lower class, even if he is not one of the many in jail he is very unlikely to have much legal employment. Stereotypes got to be Stereotypes because they are a good predictor of the truth of particular cases. What nobody wants to admit that the hunches that Zimmerman likely reached are the exact same hunches that any good cop would have reached. The fault of Zimmerman "stalking" this black man was not the stalking, it was that it was a citizen doing the "stalking", not a cop.

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@hawkeye10,

There is nothing morally nor legally rong with FOLLOWING anyone,
unless the follower has been judicially enjoined against it.

David

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@DrewDad,

Good lord, that's your evidence that he said "******* coons?'

You have to be kidding.

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@FreeDuck,

And you know this how?

It amazes me how many people think they know what happened that night when there is nothing available to them but an incompleted set of facts, wild allegations and deliberate falsifications.

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@hawkeye10,

Quote:

A black man in America is very likely to be lower class, even if he is not one of the many in jail he is very unlikely to have much legal employment. Stereotypes got to be Stereotypes because they are a good predictor of the truth of particular cases.

Another one of your gross generalizations. Unemployment figures for African-American men are at around 20% which is, yes, twice as high as the national average, but still doesn't bear out your assertion that he is 'very unlikely to have legal employment'.
I don't know about you, but my basic math skills tell me that a 20% unemployment rate means that 4 out of 5 ARE employed - and so actually a black man walking the street is MUCH MORE likely to be employed than unemployed.
See below for the facts Hawkeye.

Quote:

The unemployment rate for blacks surged to 16.7% in August, its highest rate since 1984, the Labor Department reported Friday.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The August jobs report was dismal for plenty of reasons, but perhaps most striking was the picture it painted of racial inequality in the job market.

Black unemployment surged to 16.7% in August, its highest level since 1984, while the unemployment rate for whites fell slightly to 8%, the Labor Department reported.

Print
"This month's numbers continue to bear out that longstanding pattern that minorities have a much more challenging time getting jobs," said Bill Rodgers, chief economist with the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University.

Black unemployment has been roughly double that of whites since the government started tracking the figures in 1972.

Economists blame a variety of factors. The black workforce is younger than the white workforce, lower numbers of blacks get a college degree and many live in areas of the country that were harder hit by the recession -- all things that could lead to a higher unemployment rate.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

And so when he called for racial harmony he meant in economic terms?

Please spare me your perceived expertise and smug ownership of King.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

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It amazes me how many people think they know what happened that night when there is nothing available to them but an incompleted set of facts, wild allegations and deliberate falsifications.

I'll ask again because I have to depend upon what I read over here and on the one hand I'm reading that Zimmerman appeared to be unharmed and on the other hand I'm reading that his nose was broken.

Now, a broken nose would seem to be fairly easy to ascertain either as having happened or not having happened in actual FACT.

Does Zimmerman have a broken nose or does he not?

1 Reply

@aidan,

Quote:

Another one of your gross generalizations. Unemployment figures for African-American men are at around 20% which is, yes, twice as high as the national average, but still doesn't bear out your assertion that he is 'very unlikely to have MUCH legal employment'

your failure to get the quote correct is telling.

Quote:

I don't know about you, but my basic math skills tell me that a 20% unemployment rate means that 4 out of 5 ARE employed

No it does not, because in America "unemployed" means that one is not employed, is able to work, and is ACTIVELY LOOKING for work. All of those who are not looking because they know that they dont have a chance in hell of getting employeed conveniently disappear. And even being employed does not always mean employed in a reasonable sense, as WFT good is a "job" were you work less than 20 hours and get $7 a hour???

For a person who claims to be an American you are very ignorant of how America works.

1 Reply

@hawkeye10,

Quote:

For a person who claims to be an American you are very ignorant of how America works.

Yeah - ignorant or out of touch - yep that's true as I've only lived there for one of the past eight years.
That's why I ask questions instead of making assumptions- and have to rely on what I read instead of what I see for myself.
But I do have a general background knowledge of race relations in the US - at least how they used to be.
Everything seems to be falling apart now - and that makes me sad.
I was hoping things were getting better - not worse.

But yeah - in terms of where I get my information and what I believe - you probably wouldn't be my first and most trusted source.
You devalue all sorts of people of various abilities, genders and races too consistently for me to feel comfortable looking to you for an accurate overview.
Thanks anyway for trying to help 'educate' me.

But I'll ask even you - IS THERE IRREFUTABLE PROOF THAT ZIMMERMAN'S NOSE WAS BROKEN BY TRAYVON?

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@aidan,

Falling apart now? I thought we were looking at something on the order of a racial civil war in the early 70s.

Civil war looks oddly oxymoronic when I write it, but that's what it was called.

1 Reply

@roger,

I'm talking about where it is now as opposed to where it was when I left in 2004.

And I can admit that maybe even that's only my perception, based on my own experiences with the successes of the black people I lived, worked and went to school with at that time as compared to what seems to be the situation now.

I mean, I know there was still inequality and injustice, but it seemed to me to look to be less divided then than it is now.
But again, that could be because then I was experiencing it and living it instead of reading of only the negatives about it as I do now.
I mean, there hasn't been much positive to read about black/white relations in the US lately, has there?
And for me, it's helped me understand why people who don't live there develop such a one-sided and negative view of America- I mean that's pretty much all I get too, now that I can only read the news don't live there and experience everyday life there for myself.

Roger - do YOU know if Trayvon broke Zimmerman's nose? Does anyone? Or is that just another red herring being thrown around by his (Zimmerman's) defenders?

2 Replies

The politics of hoodie wearing

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