What to Do with Continuing Evidence of Race Discrimination

Setanta wrote:

I can't speak for Lash, but my sense of what she wrote was that the motive for targetting minorities was green, i.e., money. She had asked the question of why someone would target a minority group member, and answers it with money.

It seems like a distinction without a difference to me. It's racial discrimination. I don't see why pointing out that they get a monetary payoff for racially discriminating is relevant. It's not mitigating, so why is "why" important?

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Phoenix32890 wrote:

dyslexia- I believe that you too are mixing apples and oranges. No one is forcing those folks to go to the payday loan shops. I would expect that those shps charge similar rates, no matter who the customer is. That is NOT the same as charging people with equal credit ratings a different rate, based solely on their race and ethnic group.

To the contrary Phoenix, I see that these shops are specialy opened in those areas of the city that are frequented by the poor, the less educated and the more financially deperate. The find themselves flat broke on thursday, need gas to get to work in the morning, a quart of milk for the babies and a load of bread and peanut butter to feed the adults, and right around the corner is "easy cash" along with perpetual debt. I suppose you are making the case that because they are ignorant they find themselves in these situations, where I find that unethical businesses find these people who are ignorant and abuse them.

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snood wrote:

Setanta wrote:
I can't speak for Lash, but my sense of what she wrote was that the motive for targetting minorities was green, i.e., money. She had asked the question of why someone would target a minority group member, and answers it with money.

It seems like a distinction without a difference to me. It's racial discrimination. I don't see why pointing out that they get a monetary payoff for racially discriminating is relevant. It's not mitigating, so why is "why" important?

I suspect that your dislike of Lash is shining through here. She asks, rhetorically i suspect, what the motive is for this particular instance of racial discrimination--and answers that the motive is money. That's a perfectly reasonable exercise--"distinction without a difference" is meaningless. It is not asserting a distinction, it is inquiring into motive.

It would help if you reacted to the content, and not the screen name.

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Thanks, Set. You understood exactly what I was trying to say.

There is a group of people, snood, who find it valuable to know why things happen, regardless if it's a thing they like, or a thing they don't like. Although you may not be one of them, I am almost sure I'm not the only person here who is also interested in that aspect of this problem.

Isn't the first step in finding a solution asking why. On the other hand, I wonder what the benefit is in criticising those who ask why, toward the purpose of maintaining focus on the result.

I can't understand why anyone would want to focus 100% of the attention of this issue on the racial aspect, when that seems to be the result of a greedy policy, rather than the cause of a racial policy.

That's why.

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dyslexia-Oh, I agree that the people who open these "payday shops" prey on uneducated, ignorant people. But I believe that those shops are a completely separate issue from the one that Snood posited.

As an aside, if these folks desperately need the money, it is probably better that they get it from the payday shops, than from the local wiseguy!

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A business can not operate without customers.

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Setanta wrote:

snood wrote:
Setanta wrote:
I can't speak for Lash, but my sense of what she wrote was that the motive for targetting minorities was green, i.e., money. She had asked the question of why someone would target a minority group member, and answers it with money.

It seems like a distinction without a difference to me. It's racial discrimination. I don't see why pointing out that they get a monetary payoff for racially discriminating is relevant. It's not mitigating, so why is "why" important?

I suspect that your dislike of Lash is shining through here. She asks, rhetorically i suspect, what the motive is for this particular instance of racial discrimination--and answers that the motive is money. That's a perfectly reasonable exercise--"distinction without a difference" is meaningless. It is not asserting a distinction, it is inquiring into motive.

It would help if you reacted to the content, and not the screen name.

You "can't speak for" Lash, and you "suspect" what my reasons are for my reply, and you "suspect" what her rhetorical motives are...

you also obviously assume she replies not to the author, but to the subject matter.

Ok. I'm going to forego further comment on your comments, in the hopes I don't give you two any further excuse to derail this thread.

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You are a piece of work. Both Lash and i came in and commented on the topic, but you could not forebear to get snotty about Lash.

Your nastiness toward other members sucks, and therefore your lame threads suck. I'll not bother to darken your thread again. I will observe that you badly need to grow up.

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Setanta wrote:

You are a piece of work. Both Lash and i came in and commented on the topic, but you could not forebear to get snotty about Lash.

Your nastiness toward other members sucks, and therefore your lame threads suck. I'll not bother to darken your thread again. I will observe that you badly need to grow up.

And you are a nasty, childish man, with nasty childish egotistical motives for most eveything you barf onto these threads. You were defending a stupid, empty point from someone whom you yourself has said has bigotted tendencies.

What she said made as much sense as if I made the "point" that the voting irregularities carried out against minorites for decades (literacy tests, etc.) were motivated by winning elections. It doesn't make it any less dirty, any less wrong, any less anything. A distiction without a difference.

And you're an inveterate liar. Everyone knows you well enough to know you can't keep yourself from "darkening" this thread - you think you have too much oh-so-relevant schitt to add.

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snood wrote:

Lash wrote:
Slappy--thanks for that explanation. When someone says "blacks and Hispanics are charged higher rates"--you sort of wonder why the hell anyone would want to arbitrarily make life harder for people because of their skin color.

But, as usual lately, it's not the brown or the black--it's the green.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean - so, blacks and hispanics are not being targeted gor higher interest mortgage loans? Or, is it your contention that they may be getting targeted, but it's not because they're black and hispanic, but that their money is green?

Snood, did you read Slappy's post?

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Set, I'm sorry. I appreciated you translating for me in my absence, and I'm sorry for the attack it drew.

EhBeth--

Thank you. Smile

General note to the peanut gallery--

I can't imagine why snood would take issue with my post. I was mindful of the words I chose, because he thinks I'm bent on picking at him, and I wanted to avoid any room for another misinterpretation. I've fulfilled my quota for multicolored diatribes through September. Well,... it's in plain view. Read it yourself. I am going to continue to address the subject, and will let the words on the screen--mine and his--speak for me.

And, back to the topic--

From what's been said, the banks seem to be first profiling, due to assumed poor credit (black/Hispanic/ and probably poorly dressed whites) because they have to take deals wealthier people don't have to accept. It's like survival of the fittest. I had a client (MI/MR, but high functioning) who did one of those Title Loan things, and I called the company and bluffed that I was going to sue them for exploitation of a disabled person--because no one in their right mind would agree to that crazy interest they charge. I still can't understand how I got him out of it.

One thing I don't understand----if the blacks and Hispanics in question have good credit, why do you think they aren't shopping around for better rates?

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Geesh, why bother.

Snood, BM.

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I am going to post this before reading any other reactions, in part, because it is late and I am tired, but also, because I want my say to be my words only. I can't speak for every part of the country, because I have lived in the Houston area most of the past forty years. That racism is as strong as ever seems self evident. We just do a better job of masking it. I am not in a position to see the higher rates charged these people, but it rings true, just by my personal experiences. They also raise the rates for the poorest people, regardless of color. I have confronted a number of businessmen doing it to me. They are unapologetic and very cold.

When a minority person comes to work at the apartments, as they often do, the residents hunker down. They ask fearful questions. "Is he going to be here permanently?" "Where will he be working?" "He's doing a wonderful job," I tell them. They don't pursue it much farther, but their eyes tell the story.

I work with a staff that is not predjudiced. I feel priveleged in that respect. I am an old-time civil rights demonstrator, and I would find myself in trouble if they were otherwise.

In many ways, the races are more equal, if still largely separated. Now, a black or Mexican can speak out and be heard in many situations, where they could have gotten lynched for a lot less not so many years back. Law enforcement still targets them unfairly.

And, I'm too tired to go on. Good night, all.

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snood, you didn't evsn have to post a link, just say, as Set posted "red-line" and it would have said mouthfuls.

race? yes, 50 years after Selma and Birmingham, (which boycotts were economic btw) the issue of class and race intermingle

are blacks generally poorer because they are economically descriminated due to racism or does color play a minor role in poverty and simple economics reinforce the results of racist behavior towards people of color?

racism is the crazy aunt in the upstairs attic no one wants to talk about and everyone wishes would go away.

But until we confront it, we will never be a whole nation. and anyone who thinks it is getting much better should check US poverty and penal code statistics.

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edgar and kuvasz-
thanks for your (as usual) thoughtful posts...

I have to prepare a two hour lesson plan, and I'll get back to this later...

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Book

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BookII

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Quote:

One thing I don't understand----if the blacks and Hispanics in question have good credit, why do you think they aren't shopping around for better rates?

And why don't they just move into better neighborhoods?
and why don't they just get better paying jobs?
what the hell's WRONG with 'em?

...Jeez Louise.

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OK Chip.

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AN-yway,

I am still interested in hearing some of the members comments about how they react when they hear (from a source they consider reputable) that racial discrimination is still happening in America.

The reason this is interesting to me is that I always hear such a variety of approaches to the problem - ranging from sheer denial that it exists (this is the most disconcerting - I always wonder why some people can't admit that the ugly practice of taking negative action toward someone solely based on their ethnicity still exists), to very clearheaded ideas about realistic steps that can be taken.

The last time I had the same kind of 'Dammit- how far have we really come?' feeling (and they don't last - I know I have to pretty much return to business as usual right away) was after watching an Oprah show a couple of years back. On the show, they had hired people to take similar sets of credentials (credit ratings, jobs, upwardly-mobile appearance, etc.) to car dealers and apartments for rent. They secretly video taped as overwhelmingly the white person got offered better deals, vacancies, etc.

The reaction from her audience members that day were fascinating. Even faced with video evidence, some whites still quibbled about extraneous things and squirmed in their denial.

I ask "What do you do with the evidence?" because I honestly want to know from your point of view. I have no investment in just sitting and whining about it. I don't live that way, and I don't want to post for that either.

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What to Do with Continuing Evidence of Race Discrimination

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