The Police are not the problem, lack of Education is

Debate and discussion on racism and related issues

Moderator: Moderators

Post Reply
User avatar
AgnosticBoy
Guru
Posts: 1614
Joined: Mon Oct 09, 2017 1:44 pm
Has thanked: 203 times
Been thanked: 153 times
Contact:

The Police are not the problem, lack of Education is

Post #1

Post by AgnosticBoy »

Minorities, esp. BLM, would have you believe that the police are the problem. They are not. Everything about investing in good education and community can be done without abolishing the police. Blaming the police is just scapegoating.

Do a few bad cops make all police bad?

Can we fix the societal ills of minority population without abolishing the police? Why have plenty of Blacks found success in spite of current police funding?

koko

Re: Education is the problem

Post #111

Post by koko »

Bust Nak wrote: Mon Sep 07, 2020 6:20 am [Replying to koko in post #109]

You didn't say anything about grieving.

OK. You're correct. I did not say "grieving" though I thought it was implied in the question.

So now, I ask up front ~ what do you tell the grieving parent (along with the siblings) whose child has committed suicide about other family members considering college? This especially if those parents were co-signers on the debt and owe over $100 thousand dollars for their dead child's worthless student loans? With interest increments on the loans those parents will now have over half a million in debt if the other children go to college. Even if the other children do get good jobs, those parents will be in hock for the rest of their lives.

According to media reports I saw, applications to college were down 11% up to this year. Now with covid they are down 20% or so it has been reported. The surprise is that this number is not 30% or higher due to the obvious worthlessness of such an education as well as the hazard of going to school and risking contamination. Oh by the way, it has also been said applications by minority students has dropped even more than those of majoritarian students. It will be interesting to see how all that turns out because all too often a college education is a dead end {yes, that is a pun and intentionally so}.

Bust Nak
Savant
Posts: 9855
Joined: Mon Feb 27, 2012 6:03 am
Location: Planet Earth
Has thanked: 189 times
Been thanked: 266 times

Re: Education is the problem

Post #112

Post by Bust Nak »

[Replying to koko in post #111]

The same thing I would say to any grieving person: sorry for your loss.

As for your other points, I will judge to the best of my abilities whether it is appropriate to offer advice, if I deem it appropriate then
a) federal student loans is cancelled upon the death of the student. Private student loans are a different matter.
b) stick to federal student loans for the other children.
c) the average loan per student is around thirty thousand, which equates to repayments of around $400.
d) other children getting good jobs should be the main concern, regardless of the hardship to the parents, and higher education is still a good way for getting a good job on the whole.

koko

Re: Education is the problem

Post #113

Post by koko »

Bust Nak wrote: Mon Sep 07, 2020 12:39 pm [Replying to koko in post #111]

The same thing I would say to any grieving person: sorry for your loss.

As for your other points, I will judge to the best of my abilities whether it is appropriate to offer advice, if I deem it appropriate then
a) federal student loans is cancelled upon the death of the student. Private student loans are a different matter.
b) stick to federal student loans for the other children.
c) the average loan per student is around thirty thousand, which equates to repayments of around $400.
d) other children getting good jobs should be the main concern, regardless of the hardship to the parents, and higher education is still a good way for getting a good job on the whole.


Yes, it is true that based on what I've read, the average student debt for states colleges is $30K. Many are over $60K and about 1% are over $100K. This, of course, does not include numbers for indebtedness arising from graduate education. These numbers are even higher for private college indebtedness. Again, this assuming the goverment produced numbers are accurate and in no way an underrepresentation of the correct numbers.

I would try to console those parents but will also refrain from encouraging them to send their younger kids to college. As I said before, all too often such an education is a dead end.

User avatar
historia
Prodigy
Posts: 2603
Joined: Wed May 04, 2011 6:41 pm
Has thanked: 221 times
Been thanked: 320 times

Re: The Police are not the problem, lack of Education is

Post #114

Post by historia »

[Replying to Mithrae in post #80]

Sorry for the delay.

I'm going to split my reply into two posts: one focused on the issues, and the other focused on the discussion itself, as the latter tends to be noisy and distracting.
Mithrae wrote: Tue Aug 25, 2020 10:43 am
I think you've now shown that Jewish and Japanese Americans did indeed overcome systemic racism
Good. And, since both communities clearly used education to achieve that end, these examples demonstrate that education can, in fact, be a solution for systemic racism.
Mithrae wrote: Tue Aug 25, 2020 10:43 am
[W]e currently have decades' worth of data on financial attainment for black people who've earned bachelors, masters or higher degrees... and it simply hasn't closed the income gap.
You could have made the same comment about education not closing the gap for Jewish and Japanese Americans in 1910, too. But the fact that education ultimately worked for those communities means it can, in principle, be a solution for any community.

Now, no one said education is a quick and easy solution, so we can set aside those straw man arguments right here. And it seems quite apparent to me that underfunded schools in poor Black communities have severely blunted its effects in those communities.

To that end, if we want to see faster and better results, then we should dramatically increase funding for schools in those communities. We should also create more charter schools to better serve gifted students.
Mithrae wrote: Tue Aug 25, 2020 10:43 am
[E]ven if/when it can be done, overcoming barriers of racial discrimination isn't the same thing as solving the problem.
But surely this is trying to have your cake and eat it too.

On the one hand, you've accepted Tcg's argument that the disparity in income between Blacks and Whites with a college education shows that education is not a solution for systemic racism. But, on the other hand, you're now arguing that, even if education did close that gap, that somehow still isn't a solution.

You can't have it both ways. Either Tcg's argument is unsound or you're simply moving the goal posts. If you choose the former, then I think we can get at some interesting philosophical questions about what a "solution" means in this context. The latter is just a fallacious argument.

Moreover, your own replies in this thread belie your assertion here. When I first pointed out that Jewish and Japanese Americans have used education to overcome systemic racism, your initial reaction was to doubt that systemic racism was still a problem for them. If a community is doing so well that outsiders think the problem has stopped, you have a tough time arguing that's not a solution.

On that point:
Mithrae wrote: Tue Aug 25, 2020 10:43 am
historia wrote: Sun Aug 23, 2020 7:53 pm
Mithrae wrote: Mon Aug 17, 2020 7:39 pm
But even if we were to assume that systemic racism against Japanese people continued to this very day
Wait, why is it necessary to "assume" this? If we are taking the concept of systemic racism seriously -- and, if only for the sake of discussion in this thread, I think we should -- then, by definition, it affects Asian Americans too.

Consider, for example:
Mithrae wrote: Mon Aug 17, 2020 7:39 pm
It seems quite difficult for laws to prevent unacknowledged, informal biases against hiring black people for more lucrative positions, for example; as Bust Nak and I have shown, that's been an ongoing form of discrimination for decades, right down to the present.
That same Harvard study you and Bust Nak referenced earlier shows an identical experience for Asian Americans.
Which study are you referring to?
Sorry, perhaps it was just Bust Nak who referenced the Harvard study:
Bust Nak wrote: Tue Aug 04, 2020 10:27 pm
According to Harvard Business School, Black job applicants are twice as likely to get a job interview simply by hiding their race on their resume.
That same study shows an identical experience for Asian Americans.
Mithrae wrote: Tue Aug 25, 2020 10:43 am
It's difficult to see how Asians could be consistently earning more than white people with identical educational attainment, if they suffered identical hiring discrimination as black or Hispanic people!
Nevertheless that's what the study shows.

And I'm not sure why you think this is difficult to understand. Clearly, numerous factors go into determining ones income. On this one factor, Black and Asian Americans may be the same, but on other factors they are different.

And therein lies one of the underlying issues in this discussion: If you look at any two groups of people, you are likely to discover a difference in income. But how much of that difference may be due to something like systemic racism and how much is due to other factors? And how would we know?
Mithrae wrote: Tue Aug 25, 2020 10:43 am
The assumption that if systemic racism exists it must still affect all non-white groups alike seems utterly unsubstantiated, and indeed rather absurd given the very different histories, demographic and sociological compositions, and perceived 'differentness' of those groups.
No one said that all communities have the same experiences. I'm simply pointing out that we don't have to "assume" that "systemic racism against Japanese people continues to this very day."
Mithrae wrote: Mon Aug 17, 2020 7:39 pm
More emphasis on education undoubtedly is worthwhile; but you haven't offered any real reason to suppose that education alone is a plausible route to overcoming black disadvantages, and even less so that it should eclipse efforts to produce real solutions by exposing and countering actual racism and systemic disadvantages.
On the contrary, we have two reasons to suppose this:

First, we all agree that education works for individuals. If we can improve educational attainment for more individuals, then we can transform whole communities, as communities are collections of individuals.

Second, we have historical examples of this working for whole communities.
Mithrae wrote: Mon Aug 24, 2020 2:36 am
But as for efforts to produce real solutions by exposing and countering actual racism and systemic disadvantages, a few possibilities more or less off the top of my head would be:

- Black and poor Americans are disproportionately affected by gun violence both directly and in terms of stressed, on-edge police over-reactions. You can't be successful if you're dead; so introduce better gun control laws.

- Black and poor Americans are disproportionately affected by police brutality specifically and punitive policing/justice systems generally. You can't be successful if you're imprisoned, and at a vast disadvantage if your father or mother are imprisoned; so put more emphasis on funding for jobseeker training and financial support to mitigate crimes of desperation, fund local infrastructure, parks, community centres etc, social workers (particularly integrated within police forces), decriminalize if not legalize marijuana and remove prison sentences for minor drug offences, put a stop to 'warrior training' for regular police forces and more strictly discipline instances of brutality etc.

. . .

- Black Americans are especially affected disproportionately by the apparent continuation of informal redlining in banks' mortgage lending, as possibly the biggest ongoing component in household net wealth which is probably the single biggest disparity of all

. . .

Both you and your children are at a big disadvantage for achieving or maintaining success if you can't build a comparable wealth base for emergencies, setbacks, retirement and inheritance; so stricter monitoring of banks' practices including disclosure of their lending algorithms, and introduction of some kind of high-wealth tax to reduce disparities would seem appropriate.
First of all, I removed your recommendation for education, since, as you will recall, the point you were trying to establish is that there are non-educational efforts that will "produce real solutions by exposing and countering actual racism and systemic disadvantages."

Second, anyone who begins their list of policy recommendations for the United States by suggesting "better gun control laws" doesn't ever get to complain about "waving magic wands" again. ;)

More substantively: It seems that few, if any, of these recommendations "expose and counter actual racism," and so don't quite establish your point that there are "real solutions" out there that would do so.

User avatar
historia
Prodigy
Posts: 2603
Joined: Wed May 04, 2011 6:41 pm
Has thanked: 221 times
Been thanked: 320 times

Re: The Police are not the problem, lack of Education is

Post #115

Post by historia »

Continuing from above: Here we're discussing the debate itself:
Mithrae wrote: Tue Aug 25, 2020 10:43 am
By this point it seems clear that AgnosticBoy has nothing of substance to offer and is just trying to use 'education' as a smokescreen behind which to blame and vilify black people for their supposed "scapegoating" and "excuses": If you too are shying away from any kind of substantive proposals while arguing the same position, that's not exactly a good look.
I'm simply asking you to discuss the issues in a logical order. If we can't first agree that X is in principle a solution for Y, then there is no point discussing how we might bring about X.
Mithrae wrote: Tue Aug 25, 2020 10:43 am
[Tcg] said that "We should not forget, especially in light of the claims being made by this O.P., that education is not a solution for systemic racism. Yes, higher education on average helps individuals earn more money during their lifetimes, but as we have been reminded by Zzyzx, higher education increases the wage gap between whites and blacks[/color]." There seem to be three pretty clear points being made there:
- Disputing the OP assertions that lack of education is the problem and policing is not
- That higher education does indeed increase earning potential, but
- That data shows higher education has not closed the black/white income gap
Okay. But he uses these points to support the conclusion that "education is not a solution for systemic racism." It's jumping to that broad conclusion that I am contesting.

Moreover, he clearly thinks this point stands on its own, independent of this thread. The main clause of his first sentence is "We should not forget . . . that education is not a solution for systemic racism." Why does he say we should not "forget" this? Because, clearly, in his mind this point was already established by Zzyzx in a different thread -- one that preceded this current thread by several weeks.

That gives me more than sufficient warrant to dispute this claim on its own terms. Even if you personally think we ought to read his comments more narrowly, my interpretation cannot rightly be dismissed as "disingenuous" or a "mischaracterization."
Mithrae wrote: Tue Aug 25, 2020 10:43 am
Claiming that you are not bound to show that education is the solution seems to totally ignore the context of both TCG's comment and the thread in general; you aren't bound to do so, but pretending that you are challenging TCG's comments merely by illustrating education as one possible pathway to success would be disingenuous at best.
On the contrary, I'm simply taking his assertion that "education is not a solution for systemic racism" at face value. If that is perhaps an overstatement of his position, he's more than welcome to clarify.

You and Bust Nak both took AgnosticBoy's comments in the OP at face value, challenging them as overstatements -- which they obviously are -- and he was forced to clarify his position, which he effectively did in post #12.

How then is it "disingenuous" of me to do the same for Tcg's comment? And shouldn't AgnosticBoy's clarification (rather than the OP) now be the proper context for our discussion?
Mithrae wrote: Tue Aug 25, 2020 10:43 am
Taking that single phrase you snipped from his post and characterizing it as a "sweeping assertion" worthy of challenge also seems to completely ignore that second point above; one which you obviously heartily agree with but must downplay or sideline in order to portray his comments as unnuanced and objectionable.
This is just mistaken. Obviously, I realize that Tcg accepts that education can work for individuals. His point is that it is not a solution for whole communities, which is why my response focused on examples where it has worked for whole communities.
Mithrae wrote: Mon Aug 24, 2020 2:36 am
historia wrote: Sun Aug 23, 2020 7:53 pm
Mithrae wrote: Mon Aug 17, 2020 7:39 pm
More emphasis on education undoubtedly is worthwhile; but you haven't offered any real reason to suppose that education alone is a plausible route to overcoming black disadvantages, and even less so that it should eclipse efforts to produce real solutions by exposing and countering actual racism and systemic disadvantages.
Such as?

And, also, what about Hispanics?
Oversights or shortcomings in your position aren't fixed by asking for my solution.
I'm simply asking you to complete your thought before I respond.
Mithrae wrote: Tue Aug 25, 2020 10:43 am
Highlighting the possibility that black Americans could perhaps, in theory, learn and work harder than white Americans in order to scrape out equal results and calling that a 'solution' adamantly, persistently, without further policy elaboration and to the point of insulting and mischaracterizing the comments of another poster... you can surely see how that comes across as being indifferent at best to the very real discrimination and disadvantage which black Americans face.
Perhaps I could if that properly characterized our discussion. But this seems wrong on all counts.

First, your charge that I was being "blase" about "the inequality of opportunity being discussed here" came in reply to my first (meaningful) response to you, and thus cannot be retroactively justified on the grounds that it was a reaction to my supposedly "adamant, persistent" assertions.

(As an aside: We haven't been discussing this topic long enough for me to "adamantly, persistently" do anything. Surely you are not this impatient, my friend!)

Second, it seems clear to me that both this comment and several others in your replies are driven by assumptions you are reading into my argument based on what other participants in this thread have said, rather than what I am actually saying. The old adage about what happens when you assume seems apt here.

koko

Re: The Police are not the problem, lack of Education is

Post #116

Post by koko »

As I wrote in post #10, the USA has invested over $2 trillion. And what has all that wastage availed us? I say, stop the wastage and invest money in real solutions like those suggested previously, not in myth making nonsense.

Shariar12
Newbie
Posts: 1
Joined: Sun Oct 11, 2020 6:56 am

Re: The Police are not the problem, lack of Education is

Post #117

Post by Shariar12 »

It’s almost like we have a leaky roof and the school police are like the bucket that’s just going to collect the water,” Whitaker said. “And investing in mental health support services would be like actually getting up there on the roof.”

nobspeople
Prodigy
Posts: 3187
Joined: Wed Nov 11, 2020 11:32 am
Has thanked: 1510 times
Been thanked: 824 times

Re: The Police are not the problem, lack of Education is

Post #118

Post by nobspeople »

AgnosticBoy wrote: Fri Jul 31, 2020 7:29 pm Minorities, esp. BLM, would have you believe that the police are the problem. They are not. Everything about investing in good education and community can be done without abolishing the police. Blaming the police is just scapegoating.

Do a few bad cops make all police bad?

Can we fix the societal ills of minority population without abolishing the police? Why have plenty of Blacks found success in spite of current police funding?
Education has never, and likely will never be (at least in my lifetime) a strong suit in the USA. So many outside influences have worked their worthless hands in to the education system that it's unlikely to recover.
I'm not even sure what the answers are at this point. Education needs to be without bias. Parents need to parent and not only be their kids' friends. Authority organizations (police, for example) need to become honorable. Religions need to mind their own businesses. Corporations need to put people before profit.
In my opinion at least.
Have a great, potentially godless, day!

Post Reply