The only way to truly solve the race problem in America is to narrow the wealth gap

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The only way to truly solve the race problem in America is to narrow the wealth gap

Post #1

Post by otseng »

From Market Watch:

The unrest in cities across the U.S. this week is just the latest manifestation of a struggle that will continue until the wealth gap between white people and black people is addressed, black economists said.

What is the wealth gap? It is the stark divide between how much capital white people and black people control.

By one estimate, the typical white family has wealth of $171,000. This is nearly ten times greater than the $17,150 for an average black family.

Put another way, the typical black household remains poorer than 80% of white households.

This stunning wealth gap between the races has persisted, in good times and bad, for the past 70 years. It did not get better after the civil rights era legislation was passed in the 1960s or during the Obama administration.

And it will continue to fuel unrest, economists said.

“As long as we have racial wealth gap, we’re going to have a problems with race,” said Patrick Mason, an economics professor at Florida State University.

“The wealth gap is one of the reasons there are protests today,” said Linwood Tauheed, a professor of economics at The University of Missouri-Kansas City and the president of the National Economics Association.

“I don’t necessarily want to use the phase it was the straw that broke the camels back...but we have lots of evidence that this economic system is not benefitting the majority of the population,“ he said.

“African Americans are dissatisfied with the way things are — that’s not new for us— but now you find young college students dissatisfied with their future.”

See: Protesters support Floyd, Black Lives Matter on 3 continents

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the fact that African-Americans have a lack of income to buy necessary health care, food and medicine and are suffering in greater numbers than white Americans.

Since the 1960s, the wealth gap has been largely ignored by the economics profession, black economists say.

For years, black economists struggled in the American Economics Association to even study the subject of wealth disparity between the races, black economists said. Universities and think tanks also didn’t support the work.

Black economists formed their own association, the National Economics Association, in 1969 to study the economic situation of black Americans.

“It was very difficult for a black economist to present a paper at an AEA conference that was questioning whether mainstream economists were understanding the economic disparity between the white and black community,” Tauheed said.

So called “mainstream” economists were really interested in more efficiency. “The wage gap is a question of equity or how to expand the pie,” said Karl Boulware, an economics professor at Wesleyan University. “The best way to think of wealth is to think of it as power,” he said.

In a statement to her membership Friday, former Federal Reserve chairman Janet Yellen, who is the president of the AEA, said her organization has “only begun to understand racism and its impact on our profession and our discipline.”

Image

The causes

Black economists say one historical cause of the wage gap is slavery.

“I don’t want to offend anybody, and don’t want to be labeled a radical but the wealth gap has its roots in the starting of America,” said Samuel Myers, an economist at the University of Minnesota.

JIm Crow laws put in place shortly after the Civil War also kept black people impoverished.

A more recent and complex cause was the systemic exclusion of black people from the U.S. housing market beginning in the 1920. Housing is one of the main engines of accumulating wealth in America.

Restrictive covenants were put on houses that limited where black people could live, said Tauheed. These covenants, combined with discriminatory credit policies, kept black people from building wealth.

At the same time, government policies were put in place to assist whites to build wealth through housing.

For instance, in Minneapolis, where the current protests began after the death of George Floyd while being detained by police, white Americans first benefitted from the Homestead Act.

Then white soldiers coming home from World War II were given cheap loans to buy homes in the surrounding suburbs. These neighborhoods were off limits to black people, said Myers.

And the only prosperous black community in the city was razed to the ground to build a highway to St. Paul, he added.

“My feeling is until and unless white people acknowledge that their wealth holdings and therefore the wealth gap is attributable to unearned entitlements from public policy, then we’re not going to even have a conversation” about solutions to the wealth gap, Professor Myers said.

The solutions

Black economists think that reparations — the direct payment to descendents of former slaves — would narrow the wealth gap.

But they are under no illusion that this policy could be easily become law as blacks make up 12% of the population.

Reparations “run into conflict with the American mythology of how you get ahead, which says that it’s all individual effort,” said Professor Mason from Florida State.

Sen. Cory Booker, the black U.S. Senator from New Jersey, pushed for “baby bonds” during his brief run for the presidency last year. The accounts, presented at birth, would be seeded with $1,000 and receive up to $2,000 extra every year depending on family income. They could only be used once the child reached the age of 18, with the funds limited for paying college, a home, or to start a business.

This idea is race-neutral and poor whites would benefit the most from such a program, Professor Myers noted.

“I don’t really think in the final analysis baby bonds are going to dramatically narrow the wealth gap but I’d be really happy if I’m wrong,” Myers said.
(Note: this post does not necessarily represent any views of any posters on this forum, but is posted to provide one person's perspective.)

koko

Re: The only way to truly solve the race problem in America is to narrow the wealth gap

Post #31

Post by koko »

Mithrae wrote: Sun Jul 19, 2020 7:48 pm

As you probably already knew (and I learned from a couple of minutes googling), according to the LAPD this man is a convicted felon who was in possession of a loaded firearm, punched a police officer in the face and then tried to steal one of the officers' batons. The video you posted clearly shows the attempt to grab a baton at least (at 11 seconds in this YouTube clip), and also shows what might be a swing at the officer's face at 3 seconds.

Claiming that others have no principle at all unless they agree with you that the officers' actions constituted criminal misconduct doesn't seem to be justified; in fact it seems like the kind of rhetoric which contributes a great deal to the charged atmosphere. Reality is rarely black and white - not even something as specific as this incident, let alone the broader societal issues being protested - and the kind of attitudes which insult and demonize anyone who doesn't share the same perspective as oneself are exactly the sort of thing which firstly encourage not even bothering to really listen or communicate with one another at all, and eventually escalating rhetoric and potentially violence against one another. What else would those 'racist, heartless unprincipled conservatives' deserve?

People there give a very different viewpoint:
https://www.latimes.com/california/stor ... nt-account

The guy is crippled, surrounded by something like 8 cops who are bashing him, while destroying his wheelchair. What else was he supposed to be doing? They are attacking him, not the other way around for goodness sake.

Right wingers are the first ones to demand 2d Amendment rights and claim it is supposed to be there to protect against government abuses. Well, this is the perfect time to employ those rights. It is not insulting or demonizing to challenge people to stand up for the principles they supposedly hold. Ask yourself, how can an idea be "principled" if it is applied on a selective basis? It cannot and will never be so. People of principle stand up and do so on a consistent basis whatever the situation. Selectively employing principles (just like selectively enforcing the law) is what makes such a mess of society. Unprincipled people do not have the character to be consistent. This invalidates their principles and which is why they always lose every debate on forums such as this one.

By the way, it was YOU who used the term "racist" in regard to those unprincipled conservatives. It was not me who did so. Please be very sure not to engage in such insulting projections.

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Re: The only way to truly solve the race problem in America is to narrow the wealth gap

Post #32

Post by Mithrae »

koko wrote: Sun Jul 19, 2020 8:36 pm
Mithrae wrote: Sun Jul 19, 2020 7:48 pm As you probably already knew (and I learned from a couple of minutes googling), according to the LAPD this man is a convicted felon who was in possession of a loaded firearm, punched a police officer in the face and then tried to steal one of the officers' batons. The video you posted clearly shows the attempt to grab a baton at least (at 11 seconds in this YouTube clip), and also shows what might be a swing at the officer's face at 3 seconds.

Claiming that others have no principle at all unless they agree with you that the officers' actions constituted criminal misconduct doesn't seem to be justified; in fact it seems like the kind of rhetoric which contributes a great deal to the charged atmosphere. Reality is rarely black and white - not even something as specific as this incident, let alone the broader societal issues being protested - and the kind of attitudes which insult and demonize anyone who doesn't share the same perspective as oneself are exactly the sort of thing which firstly encourage not even bothering to really listen or communicate with one another at all, and eventually escalating rhetoric and potentially violence against one another. What else would those 'racist, heartless unprincipled conservatives' deserve?
People there give a very different viewpoint:
https://www.latimes.com/california/stor ... nt-account

The guy is crippled, surrounded by something like 8 cops who are bashing him, while destroying his wheelchair. What else was he supposed to be doing? They are attacking him, not the other way around for goodness sake.
What do you suppose would be the motive for LA police to assault a peaceful man in a wheelchair, knowing that their actions would almost certainly be captured on camera?

For a convicted felon who'd aligned himself with an anti-police protest movement focusing on police brutality, the possible motive to provoke that kind of confrontation seems rather obvious, especially knowing the sympathy which he could rely on his disabled status to elicit. But in the case of the police, every imaginable moral, political, career/financial and pragmatic angle would seem to suggest that they would be highly motivated to be careful with the guy in a wheelchair, if at all possible. Your own video does not show a single instance of him being struck or "bashed" by police that I can see. Quite the opposite, they back away briefly when he falls from his chair (it's not clear whether that was due to the officer behind his chair or to due to him leaning backwards and pushing the wheels out forwards from under him), they only re-engage with him when he lunges for one of the officers, and once he's subdued (sitting and with one arm mostly free, rather than prone with both arms secured as would be more normal) there's even more obviously no "bashing" going on! Which timestamp did you see this "bashing" occur?
koko wrote: Sun Jul 19, 2020 8:36 pm Right wingers are the first ones to demand 2d Amendment rights and claim it is supposed to be there to protect against government abuses. Well, this is the perfect time to employ those rights. It is not insulting or demonizing to challenge people to stand up for the principles they supposedly hold. Ask yourself, how can an idea be "principled" if it is applied on a selective basis? It cannot and will never be so. People of principle stand up and do so on a consistent basis whatever the situation. Selectively employing principles (just like selectively enforcing the law) is what makes such a mess of society. Unprincipled people do not have the character to be consistent. This invalidates their principles and which is why they always lose every debate on forums such as this one.

By the way, it was YOU who used the term "racist" in regard to those unprincipled conservatives. It was not me who did so. Please be very sure not to engage in such insulting projections.
  • koko wrote:
    The narrator is moved to tears over the racial division that we have in the USA. A problem clearly exacerbated by Trump.

    koko wrote:
    On the contrary, the limp wristed treatment of the southern traitors was political correctness at its very worse. The hanging tree for criminals like him, the firing squad for the likes of Robert E Lee. This would have ended the type of treasonous hate so many far right delusionals have inherited and practice today.

    Thankfully, people are waking up to the proper solution to this problem of right wing hate, racism and treason - and that is to march fully armed like these patriots did when they marched against those same monuments you are defending

koko

Re: The only way to truly solve the race problem in America is to narrow the wealth gap

Post #33

Post by koko »

I have previously presented videos of police slashing tires, shooting tear gas in order to get people to disperse while other cops shoot tear gas from the opposite side of the street in order to make people run back into the direction they came from. Police are not shy about abusing people.

Robert E Lee was a traitor whose forces killed over 600,000 Americans. That is more than Hitler, al-Qaeda, and ISIS combined. Yet, he is called a "hero" by those who worship the idols put up in his name. That is not only racist, it is unamerican. This is quite different from those right wingers who uphold the 2d Amendment on a selective basis. That is not a matter of racism but a manifest lack of principle.

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Re: The only way to truly solve the race problem in America is to narrow the wealth gap

Post #34

Post by Mithrae »

koko wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 9:33 am I have previously presented videos of police slashing tires, shooting tear gas in order to get people to disperse while other cops shoot tear gas from the opposite side of the street in order to make people run back into the direction they came from. Police are not shy about abusing people.
You don't seem to dispute the facts that the video you posted possibly shows the man taking a swing at a cop, definitely shows the cops backing away from him when he falls from his wheelchair and only re-engaging when he lunges for another officer, shows him trying to grab a weapon off yet another officer after that and, once he is finally subdued in a relatively comfortable/respectful posture shows even more clearly than the rest of the video that he is not being "bashed" by anyone at all. But instead of acknowledging that your claim seems to have been inaccurate emotive hyperbole, instead you're going to try smearing a whole group with the actions of a few? Isn't there some kind of principle which (in other circumstances) suggests that's not a good thing to do?

koko

Re: The only way to truly solve the race problem in America is to narrow the wealth gap

Post #35

Post by koko »

Mithrae wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 9:46 am
koko wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 9:33 am I have previously presented videos of police slashing tires, shooting tear gas in order to get people to disperse while other cops shoot tear gas from the opposite side of the street in order to make people run back into the direction they came from. Police are not shy about abusing people.
You don't seem to dispute the facts that the video you posted possibly shows the man taking a swing at a cop, definitely shows the cops backing away from him when he falls from his wheelchair and only re-engaging when he lunges for another officer, shows him trying to grab a weapon off yet another officer after that and, once he is finally subdued in a relatively comfortable/respectful posture shows even more clearly than the rest of the video that he is not being "bashed" by anyone at all. But instead of acknowledging that your claim seems to have been inaccurate emotive hyperbole, instead you're going to try smearing a whole group with the actions of a few? Isn't there some kind of principle which (in other circumstances) suggests that's not a good thing to do?


Ever wonder why juries award MILLIONS in damages to innocents like that poor cripple on the wheelchair? For years the LA police acted as if they were Holy Angels on a mission from Above to quell all manner of evil and to preserve all that is good for the USA. Hollywood was especially generous in projecting an image of holiness for decades. Heck, even I was fooled by this image when I watched Dragnet and other tv cop shows during the late 1950s up to the 1960s. Only later did I learn what a phony image this was. Evidently, you are still fooled by this pretense. Very well, if you want to believe yet another LA cop fairy tale, so be it. I won't argue it any further.

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Re: The only way to truly solve the race problem in America is to narrow the wealth gap

Post #36

Post by AgnosticBoy »

Mithrae wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 9:46 am
koko wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 9:33 am I have previously presented videos of police slashing tires, shooting tear gas in order to get people to disperse while other cops shoot tear gas from the opposite side of the street in order to make people run back into the direction they came from. Police are not shy about abusing people.
You don't seem to dispute the facts that the video you posted possibly shows the man taking a swing at a cop, definitely shows the cops backing away from him when he falls from his wheelchair and only re-engaging when he lunges for another officer, shows him trying to grab a weapon off yet another officer after that and, once he is finally subdued in a relatively comfortable/respectful posture shows even more clearly than the rest of the video that he is not being "bashed" by anyone at all. But instead of acknowledging that your claim seems to have been inaccurate emotive hyperbole, instead you're going to try smearing a whole group with the actions of a few? Isn't there some kind of principle which (in other circumstances) suggests that's not a good thing to do?
This is why I am very critical of any claims of injustice by police involving Black men. In a lot of cases highlighted by the LEFT-wing media, you tend to find the suspect resisting. This is why I request that any study purporting to show that Black people are shot more by cops first FACTOR in if resisting arrest was involved.

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Re: The only way to truly solve the race problem in America is to narrow the wealth gap

Post #37

Post by Mithrae »

koko wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 2:52 pm
Mithrae wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 9:46 am You don't seem to dispute the facts that the video you posted possibly shows the man taking a swing at a cop, definitely shows the cops backing away from him when he falls from his wheelchair and only re-engaging when he lunges for another officer, shows him trying to grab a weapon off yet another officer after that and, once he is finally subdued in a relatively comfortable/respectful posture shows even more clearly than the rest of the video that he is not being "bashed" by anyone at all. But instead of acknowledging that your claim seems to have been inaccurate emotive hyperbole, instead you're going to try smearing a whole group with the actions of a few? Isn't there some kind of principle which (in other circumstances) suggests that's not a good thing to do?
Ever wonder why juries award MILLIONS in damages to innocents like that poor cripple on the wheelchair? For years the LA police acted as if they were Holy Angels on a mission from Above to quell all manner of evil and to preserve all that is good for the USA. Hollywood was especially generous in projecting an image of holiness for decades. Heck, even I was fooled by this image when I watched Dragnet and other tv cop shows during the late 1950s up to the 1960s. Only later did I learn what a phony image this was. Evidently, you are still fooled by this pretense. Very well, if you want to believe yet another LA cop fairy tale, so be it. I won't argue it any further.
- So you're not going to retract or correct your demonstrably false claim that this man was "surrounded by something like 8 cops who are bashing him."
- You're not going to acknowledge the clear fact from the video that the man was lunging at the officers and trying to grab their weapons.
- You're not going to retract or correct your insulting and needlessly divisive rhetoric that people who don't agree with your accusation of criminal misconduct lack "any principle at all."
- But you ARE going to double-down on the tactic of smearing all members of a group with the actions of others (much like many bigots do against black Americans).
- And in the absence of any better argument you are going to throw insults at anyone who questions your stance.

All I wanted to do was to point out that we should be careful of the kind of rhetoric we use, that all 'sides' can be prone to using divisive or destructive language at times rather than communicating constructively. But in addition to causing division directly, it's worth noting that when discussion begins in an accusatory or combative manner it becomes harder for both the recipient and the accuser to change their views even if and when valid points are communicated; it puts people's backs up against the wall, so to speak, put them in a kind of fight or flight mindset (a point which I've raised several times in the context of religious discussion in the C&A forum). And in fact it's arguably not quite so difficult for a recipient to recognize validity in claims which she might be averse to on merely ideological grounds, compared with it being potentially much harder for the accuser to acknowledge any error in what they have personally claimed about others!

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Re: The only way to truly solve the race problem in America is to narrow the wealth gap

Post #38

Post by Mithrae »

AgnosticBoy wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 3:53 pm This is why I am very critical of any claims of injustice by police involving Black men. In a lot of cases highlighted by the LEFT-wing media, you tend to find the suspect resisting. This is why I request that any study purporting to show that Black people are shot more by cops first FACTOR in if resisting arrest was involved.
"Resisting arrest" (eg. not complying with orders instantly and unquestioningly, asking for warrants/identification, running away) is not a capital crime as far as I'm aware, and should never be a justification for the use of lethal force such as firearms.

The response of those LA police in the video despite the man's efforts to grab their weapons seems more or less appropriate, or even remarkably restrained if they had identified him as a felon in possession of a gun. Of course the video doesn't show what sparked the confrontation to begin with.

koko

Re: The only way to truly solve the race problem in America is to narrow the wealth gap

Post #39

Post by koko »

Like it or not, we shall have to await the final determination made in a court of law. Going by what the police say (especially in a city like LA where cops have been successfully sued for MILLIONS of dollars in damages) is futile and utterly foolish given their history of crimes against the public.

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Re: The only way to truly solve the race problem in America is to narrow the wealth gap

Post #40

Post by AgnosticBoy »

Mithrae wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 4:42 pm
AgnosticBoy wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 3:53 pm This is why I am very critical of any claims of injustice by police involving Black men. In a lot of cases highlighted by the LEFT-wing media, you tend to find the suspect resisting. This is why I request that any study purporting to show that Black people are shot more by cops first FACTOR in if resisting arrest was involved.
"Resisting arrest" (eg. not complying with orders instantly and unquestioningly, asking for warrants/identification, running away) is not a capital crime as far as I'm aware, and should never be a justification for the use of lethal force such as firearms.

The response of those LA police in the video despite the man's efforts to grab their weapons seems more or less appropriate, or even remarkably restrained if they had identified him as a felon in possession of a gun. Of course the video doesn't show what sparked the confrontation to begin with.
Fair point. I would the say violent resistance of arrest certainly warrants lethal force. Once it turns violent then the officers are in danger of physical harm.

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