Re: The Portrayal of Blacks in Popular Media

Just because MILLIONS werent killed there, doesnt make it any less of an evil.

And when I heard people say that, it sounded to me like they were saying.. since it wasnt like 'THIS'.. then it wasnt REAL..

Not necessarily--i know of no widespread failure to properly feed and house them. In regards to mere physical needs, those seem to have been adequately met. But their property and businesses were seized, and by the time they got out of the camps, their farms or their shops were in the hands of "white" owners.

Thomas, You're an ass.

That wasn't set that said "you're an ass."

a) How do you know that was an anti-black bias, not an anti-woman bias? b) Were the two events reported by the same person? If not, the reporters may just have drawn different boundaries between "looting" and "searching". c) From following the Katrina story on CNN.com, the one consistent bias I noticed was pro-black,with a twist I found rather patronising.

Several reporters pointed out that most people who couldn't make it out of towns were blacks, and what a shame that was for America. They didn't say that 2/3 of New Orleans' population was black, so most of the evacuees necessarily must have been black too. I'm not denying that race played a role in who managed to get out and who didn't. I have insufficient information to make that call.

But the story as reported mislead the listener, and the bias was in the direction of encouraging white guilt and black indignation.

I haven't checked if the underlying facts are correct, since those stories don't make it into the international editions of American news outlets such as CNN or Radio Free Europe. (And I am too indifferent to them to check them out on the web.) Assuming the facts are as you describe them, I would count that as a racial bias -- plus sex bias, plus age bias, plus prettiness bias.

a) How do you know that was an anti-black bias, not an anti-woman bias? b) Were the two events reported by the same person? If not, the reporters may just have drawn different boundaries between "looting" and "searching". c) From following the Katrina story on CNN.com, the one consistent bias I noticed was pro-black,with a twist I found rather patronising.

Several reporters pointed out that most people who couldn't make it out of towns were blacks, and what a shame that was for America. They didn't say that 2/3 of New Orleans' population was black, so most of the evacuees necessarily must have been black too. I'm not denying that race played a role in who managed to get out and who didn't. I have insufficient information to make that call.

But the story as reported mislead the listener, and the bias was in the direction of encouraging white guilt and black indignation.

I haven't checked if the underlying facts are correct, since those stories don't make it into the international editions of American news outlets such as CNN or Radio Free Europe. (And I am too indifferent to them to check them out on the web.) Assuming the facts are as you describe them, I would count that as a racial bias -- plus sex bias, plus age bias, plus prettiness bias.

A wordy, spineless waste of everyone's time. But thanks with gracing us with your 'wisdom'.

Well, Aidan, you make some very good points. Let's take them one by one, shall we?

I have heard the argument about relevant educational programs again and again and again.

Sometimes, they work. They don't work very often because the culture of the inner city does not accept most of the progams.

Would you address these points please?

l. The amount of money that has gone to the inner city since LBJ instituted the great society has been in the billions. The money was used to target those students who came from homes which fell under the POVERTY LEVEL. In a minutely detailed study of educational inequality published in 1995, Scott Miller, a scholar now affiliated with the College Board wrote that "Some STRATEGIES for investing resources in disadvantaged children are substantially more productive than others, this is little evidence that any existing strategy can close more than a fraction of the overall achievement gap separating children with low socioeconomic status from their wealthier largely suburban counterparts". The title of Miller's study is "An American Imperative"


The idea that school, by itself, cannot cure poverty is hardly astonishing but it is amazing how much of our political discource is implicitly predicated on the notion that it can.

THE TRUTH IS THAT EDUCATIONAL INEQUALITY IS ROOTED IN ACADEMIC PROBLEMS AND SOCIAL PATHOLOGIES TOO DEEP TO BE OVERCOME BY SCHOOL ALONE.

Hope you don't feel compelled to travel over there to that Caucasus land (or whatever it's called) Snood. I'm avoiding it just on principal because it's not nearly as amusing as everyone seems to find it and besides, seems like it'd be pretty boring and homogenized over there, but then that's just my opinion-to each his own I guess.

I really don't try to be such a trouble maker on this forum.

Somehow it just keeps happening- I can't explain it- someone expresses a feeling or thought and then I just have to express mine - only mine always seem to rub most of these people the wrong way-but I gotta right to stand up for what I believe just like anyone else, you know-and I'd hate myself if I didn't.

Anyway, that's what a2k is supposed to be about- an eclectic community of enlightened souls free to be and think and express themselves without fear of censure or ridicule, right? Whatever...

Hope you don't run away though-this place needs people like you. Take care.

snood, I've been known to challenge what I felt to be racially bigoted opinons on a2k too! We're on the same team.