Is Discrimination The Main Cause of African-American,s Problems?

I was tuning in to Obama's speech to the NAACP and decided to read it in text when I came across the quote below.

We know that even as our economic crisis batters Americans of all races, African Americans are out of work more than just about anybody else -- a gap that's widening here in New York City, as a detailed report this week by Comptroller Bill Thompson laid out. (Applause.)

We know that even as spiraling health care costs crush families of all races, African Americans are more likely to suffer from a host of diseases but less likely to own health insurance than just about anybody else.

We know that even as we imprison more people of all races than any nation in the world, an African American child is roughly five times as likely as a white child to see the inside of a prison.

We know that even as the scourge of HIV/AIDS devastates nations abroad, particularly in Africa, it is devastating the African American community here at home with disproportionate force. We know these things. (Applause.)

And so the question is, where do we direct our efforts? What steps do we take to overcome these barriers? How do we move forward in the next 100 years?

The first thing we need to do is make real the words of the NAACP charter and eradicate prejudice, bigotry, and discrimination among citizens of the United States. (Applause.) I understand there may be a temptation among some to think that discrimination is no longer a problem in 2009. And I believe that overall, there probably has never been less discrimination in America than there is today. I think we can say that.

But make no mistake: The pain of discrimination is still felt in America.

www.washingtontimes.com...


IMO, Obama seems to be putting the root cause of the problem on discrimination.

Is discrimination the main cause that African-Americans are more unemployed, have less education, more likely to go to jail, more likely to be uninsured or are there other logical reasons for these problem African-Americans face?

Let's ask Bill Cosby

Brown or black versus the Board of Education is no longer the white person's problem. We have got to take the neighborhood back. People used to be ashamed. Today a woman has eight children with eight different 'husbands' -- or men, or whatever you call them now. We have millionaire football players who cannot read. We have million-dollar basketball players who can't write two paragraphs. We, as black folks, have to do a better job. Someone working at Wal-Mart with seven kids, you are hurting us. We have to start holding each other to a higher standard.

We cannot blame the white people any longer."

www.harisingh.com...

Could the reason blacks have the highest unemployment rate be because they mainly reside in urban areas. and their population is way less than whites?

In June, unemployment rates for the major worker groups--adult men
(10.0 percent), adult women (7.6 percent), teenagers (24.0 percent),
whites (8.7 percent), blacks (14.7 percent), and Hispanics (12.2 per-
cent)--showed little change. The unemployment rate for Asians was
8.2 percent, not seasonally adjusted. (See tables A-1, A-2, and A-3.)

www.bls.gov...

For example, according to the 2000 Census, in the “south” region of the United States 69% of whites and 83% of African Americans live in urban areas, whereas in the “northeastern” region 80% of whites and 98% of African Americans live in urban areas.

www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov...

I agree that discrimination/racism does exist to a certain extreme, but like Bill Cosby, I think African Americans, Hispanics, and other races have to look within and hold themselves to higher standards if they desire to achieve success in this country.

Obama is an example of the kind of success they can achieve.

Do you agree with Obama's assessment?

I read a figure once, that said 85% of California's inmates were from unwed mothers, reguardless of the skin color.

I agree with that statement, but also can't seem to figure out why others treated worse have overcome it in no time, but hundreds of years later African Americans still blame someone else for their problems.

I think it is a mix of no fathers, living conditions and the media portraying stereotypes to purpetuate a divide between us.

I was thinking along the lines of a catch 22 situation that Bill Cosby was hinting at.

Disenfranchised black people resorting to crime because they are living in poverty, they live in poverty because people don't want to hire potential trouble makers or thieves, so they resort to crime because they are less employable...

An endless loop, black people must not resort to crime to make ends meet, then white people see them as good citizens, white people no longer see skin colour as an indicator of trust-worthyness and people will hire more black people, who will feel more inclusive in society and less likely to resort to crime that tarnishes the whole black community as a result.

Some black people are pretty pathetic though, just as white trash is, but idiot black people tarnish the image of their own race in a much more proportionately skewed way.

White idiots are just idiots.

Black idiots are black idiots.

And I am am Idoit.

I guess in some instances black people are more identified by their race than white people are. ie,
That man over there (white man).
That black man over there.

Being minorities they are more descriptive to hone in on by identifying their race.

I agree with that statement, but also can't seem to figure out why others treated worse have overcome it in no time, but hundreds of years later African Americans still blame someone else for their problems.



[edit on 18-7-2009 by maldronath]

[edit on 18-7-2009 by maldronath]

[edit on 18-7-2009 by maldronath]

The problem that black people face is their own lack of drive. [A generalization] For years affirmative action discouraged minorities from trying. Why study when you know that with a lesser test score you can beat a more qualified white person for a job or promotion? The minority community[s] were done a disservice. It was the easy way out, it is easier to bring someone down than to build someone up! Except for a few individuals here and there most blacks seem to wait with their hands out for what they feel is theirs. Restitution for slavery? Come on no one living was a slave or slaveholder from that time! Martin Luther King was a great man. He not only had a dream for his fellows, he had the drive to make it happen. Without the leadership he gave them it seems that they flounder under the leadership of the likes of Al Sharpton. If the black population acknowledge that the they are the ones responsible for their lives and start taking their stake in this countries future seriously, we would see more black people in the contested jobs on their own merits and ability.

Guess what I'm saying is as a people blacks need to stop acting like children and grow up. Stop buying into the sterotypes. Prove all the negative preconcieved notions wrong on a equal playing field. Equality of opportunity does not mean equality of ability!

reply to post by breakingdradles

I think it is a mix of no fathers, living conditions and the media portraying stereotypes to purpetuate a divide between us.

I could see this as being a big part of the reason. And the media does a great job of comparing blacks and whites.


Guess I am just tired of hearing whites blamed for the African American's problems. I am just a firm believer that any person, regardless of race, can overcome many of life's challenging pitfalls and still become a success story.

Hmmm... I rarely comment on cultural issues but I cannot sleep tonight so I will tell you exactly what the problem is because "most" of the problem is not one of race or opportunity anymore though these problems still exist of course.

90% OUR (collective nation' problem) and it is OUR problem as a nation, is "culture".

CULTURE has transcended race and income barriers and not for the better in my opinion.

We have 2 large distinct cultures in America today, It is hard to put into words but for lack of better terms I will use "scrupulous" and the "unscrupulous".

Let me define from the dictionary:

Scrupulous / principled: imbued with or having moral principles, conscientious, cautious, careful, circumspect. Scrupulous, Abiding by rules in observance of social conventions.


Unscrupulous / unprincipled: refers to a lack of moral standards or conscience to guide one's conduct. The unscrupulous person is without scruples of conscience, and disregards, or has contempt for, laws of right or justice with which he or she is perfectly well acquainted, and which should restrain his or her actions: unscrupulous in methods of making money, in taking advantage of the unfortunate. The unprincipled person is without moral principles or ethical standards in his or her conduct or actions: unprincipled conduct.

Now the "unscrupulous" culture as a whole represents the sub-sets of the gang culture, drug culture, violence culture, and the freeload / self entitlement culture, generally what you see on "Jerry Springer". It isn't a matter of poverty anymore, as a whole these sub-cultures have manifested into the "Norm" and have been accepted as a part of society and worse it is "cool" to be "unscrupulous". From music and pop culture we have raised a generation of degenerates that supersedes race, gender, background, national origin, or income level.

(Degenerate: A person who has declined, as in morals or character, from a type or standard considered normal. A person or thing that reverts to an earlier stage of culture, development, or evolution. Having fallen below a normal or desirable level, in physical or moral qualities.)

I have personal experience with this type of destructive behavior, My step-fathers family were all very "unscrupulous". From a young age, my Aunt had her children steal money from her husbands wallet while he was passed out drunk, assist her in stealing from stores, beer in the fridge for the taking since they were 5, violent behavior, fist fights, taught to respect the person who can be "badder" than you are and can kick your ass, be that person that can kick ass and instill fear. Being Bad and instilling fear and impressing others with your "Badness" is desired. (Thank freeking god I didn't have to be around them often!)

Know what that does ... teaches kids from toddlers that that kind of behavior is OK or the norm, acceptable, necessary. (This is the true cycle of disgrace in this country)

Now this is happening everywhere in the US today, it isn't limited to "poor" or "minority" or "insert whatever group here" because this culture has become pop-culture and it even has it's own sub - language dialects.

Until THIS problem is addressed there is only hope that the "individual" will one day grasp the concept that these behaviors are destructive and get the hell away from everyone that has been sucked into that lifestyle but unfortunately environmental factors will have already made that almost irreversible for most.....


Reprehensible:

theoriginalgreenwichdiva.com...

Until these influences are addressed, we will churn out generation after generation of worsening "unscrupulous" degenerates and no amount of financial aid to people, to schools, or to standard educational programs, are going to do a damned bit of good. The only way I can see hope is removing individuals from that destructive environment and training them in a better way of life but as we have seen with many celebrities and sports figures, it has been hard for them to divorce themselves from that lifestyle... seems like the temptation of going back to the nuthouse to show off how "big" they are leads to the continuing cycle of insanity.

I cant speak for other areas in the country, but where I live discrimination is not the issue. This is likely the most racially diverse area in the country, white(of all sorts), black, hispanic(mexican,honduran, guatemalan and so on)asian(chinese, japanese, Hmong,philipinos), indians, pakistanis, arabs and the list goes on.

Economic disadvantage isnt an excuse either, my father was born and raised in a farm labor camp, and I worked in the fields as a kid, picking strawberrys and grapes, and most of my family on my fathers side are recent immigrants from the true poverty of the philipines.
My uncles and cousins are now doctors, and lawyers, engineers and business owners(me), we took advantage of all that this country has to offer someone who is willing to work hard and take personal responsibility for themselves.
30 years ago the first Hmong arrived from the jungles of southeast asia, they basically came from the stone age into a modern society in the course of a boat ride. They are now also doctors and lawyers and productive members of society, and poverty is still rampant in the hmong community.
And thats not to say there arent hmong gangs and such but the community as whole doesnt idealize it like seems in the modern african american community.

When I was a kid, there were black kids that were just that black kids, it seems now that most black kids want to be thugs and thats nobodys fault but the community itself.
In fact there was black family that lived on the next street, a succesful middle class family. While we were kids the williams boys were just other kids in the diverse neigborhood, but by the time we got out of high school one was in prison for killing his father, one was in prison for killing someone else and the other dead from a shootout over crack.

The media companies that perpetuate this lifestyle are black owned.
A few years ago i saw a statistic that indicated a larger percentage of the black community was going to college in 1966 than in 1996.
It used to be that people tried to get out of the ghetto, but now they take the ghetto with them.
Just look at all of the trouble the millionaire black athletes get into.
And when was the last time anyone heard of two heavy metal or country singers getting in a shootout with each other.

When I had employees I had people of all races and ethnicities apply for a job, but not one black person, even though my business was located in a predominatley black neighborhood.

The Katrina disaster illustrated the problem of a lack of personal reponsibilty, compare the communities reponse to that of the people in indonesia after the tsunami, the difference in reaction was shocking.
While the indonesians went to work immediately to do the things that needed to be done, what was the reaction in new orleans, to loot and rob each other.
I agree with President Obama and Mr Cosby, the black community can no longer blame everyone else for their troubles.

reply to post by infolurker

Until THIS problem is addressed there is only hope that the "individual" will one day grasp the concept that these behaviors are destructive and get the hell away from everyone that has been sucked into that lifestyle but unfortunately environmental factors will have already made that almost irreversible for most.....

Excellent on your post. I too see the similarities you speak of and agree that this problem has to be addressed.

But how do you address it? Obama said that the first thing we need to do is make real the words of the NAACP charter and eradicate prejudice, bigotry, and discrimination among citizens of the United States.

IMO, he still thinks discrimination is the main culprit. Furthermore, what he states as the first objective is unsustainable. Discrimination will always be a part of our society. Did Obama not discriminate against whites when he filled many of his vacancies with minorities?

Every time my brother gets fired from a job, he claims discrimination. It is never his fault. Somebody is always out to get him because of the color of his skin. Yet, I have the same skin and have had a lot of success in life. Why is it that I can be successful and he can't. The answer is because he is lazy and expects things to fall into his lap and I work hard for them so I can put them in my lap.

Here's an interesting website that talks about black choices in education and how few blacks get PhDs in the difficult fields like math or physics or engineering or computer science. Number of black PhDs in those fields is only about 1/10 what it should be. Most black PhDs are in mickey-mouse fields like Education.

www.jbhe.com...

It appears blacks just don't have the brains white people have.

As to the issue of why so many blacks are in prison, i have to blame that on our extremely racist drug laws. By far the worst of all drug crimes is drunk driving but since rich white boys do that it is usually "punished" with a fine while coke possession gets you in the slammer.

I will be called racist, but it doesn't matter. Blacks have less drive for education than whites. It's blatantly obvious if you go to schools where the majority of kids are black they just plain don't care and don't want to be there, they are victims of the rapper/thug culture.

The whole idea that everyone is equal is nonsense, different races have different genes and are better at different things, just look at pro sports teams they are all like 80% black, where is the affirmative action for pro sports teams?. Like it or not whites are genetically more predisposed to be smarter than blacks, just as black are usually physically taller and stronger than whites.

Discrimination? HAHA! Please! I'd love to be a professional NFL player or rapper! Those poor guys!

It's not the color of their skin that is holding black people down, if you want to even argue they are being held down........it's their culture. I grew up in St. Louis. St. Louis used to be a very diverse and immigrant heavy city. As soon as the blacks moved in the city went to crap. This has happened all over the country. Black people seem to think they are the only poor disenfranchised people in the world, let alone the USA. My father was an immigrant who grew up in Poland during WWII. He lost both parents to the Nazis and was in an orphanage till he was 18. He never knew his father. He didn't use this as a justification to go out and impregnate 5 different women, never hold down a job, use drugs, and commit crimes. He raised three contributing members of society, paid his taxes, and became a US citizen. All the while he suffered his own form of discrimination for not being able to speak English fluently yet was able to speak Russian, French, German and Polish. Many blacks can't even speak one language with grammatical efficiency.

[edit on 20-7-2009 by Zosynspiracy]

Originally posted by miraclerock

The whole idea that everyone is equal is nonsense, different races have different genes and are better at different things,

All this equality crap is propaganda from the global govt crowd. They tell us race and religion and culture don't matter because they want us to think everyone is the same so why not just have a single planet wide govt?. With them in charge, of course.

Originally posted by Zosynspiracy
Discrimination? HAHA! Please! I'd love to be a professional NFL player or rapper! Those poor guys!

It's not the color of their skin that is holding black people down, if you want to even argue they are being held down........it's their culture.

Yup - blacks are told shoot drugs and shoot baskets. If you read and do well in school, other blacks accuse you of acting white?? They also glorify prison life. Blacks have a lot of stupid ideas in their culture.

85% of Obama's success is based on skin color.

They all suffer from a visual handicap.

Obama is no different than Lil Wayne or Lebron James in the sense that he runs with his natural disposition and base impulses.

Oh and so many people fell for it in the last election that it is not hard at all to figure out how the powers that be maintain control over the ignorant herd.

Jyeahhh!

reply to post by jam321


The solutions are not as difficult as you may think but I doubt will ever happen.

#1 TV & Entertainment: Yep, I will get blasted here but glorifying "unscrupulous" people and behavior is the biggest problem. I had a teen daughter cutting herself because she observed this behavior and it was "glorified" on a TV show call Degrasse (or something like that). Teen shows today sure as hell are nothing like the "Brady Bunch" anymore. That is just one example. Look how our "heroes" in entertainment have changed... from "Scrupulous" heroes like John Wayne to violent killers, thieves, etc. Video Games: wow- killing prostitutes, enough said. Horror movies - Sure in the 70's & 80's you had "slasher flicks" but look at them now... glorified "torture murders" over and over again.. "torture" . my god what the hell is that all about? Here is a good one, watch a cartoon called "DJ and the Fro" on MTV on a Saturday afternoon. You have to lock down 80% of your TV channels today.

#2 Teach kids principles and discipline in schools. The pledge of allegiance every morning, nothing but reading, writing & "principles" and math until the 4th grade. Read out loud... teach children. Actually teach! Teach principles (yeah, interesting concept). (Yes, I advocate role models in school, almost a daily 1/2 - 1 hour to each class from Firemen, Police, Military, Successful business people, etc. telling the kids every day that THEY can achieve. Teach the "Traps" of addiction, drugs, gangs, violence.... Scrupulous Success Good / Unscrupulous Behavior Bad. It isn't hard. Most kids can be saved if given the foundation of principles and discipline at a young age.

I have many more but it is 2 AM. Time to wrap it up for the night.

As long as there are groups such as the NAACP and the UNCF which I dispize.
My example; the top student "not me" Valadictorian sp? was black, he got the top scholarship offered from our graduating class of 700 students give or take a few.
Then went back up on stage 5 mins later for the UNCF scholarship which a lot of us were simply not eligable for because of color.......
As long as these programs and groups exist racism will thrive, it is very sad!

i have the answer. you guys ready for this.....the problem in the black community...so many are born into poverty and that way of life because each generation has to decide to make a better change and they havent done it yet, instead, they use racism and slavery and discrimination as a crutch. they wait around not making changes for the better but waiting for society to change it for them. white have problems but not as bad, and believe me, whites and latinas are far from perfect lol. the fact that a black inmate didnt have a father growing up or lived in a project has nothing to do with it. the only one that put him in jail was himself. the only one to blame for not having a job is himself. each one has had the same chances for the most part as us. public education. make good grades, learn a trade get a scholarship, or a job, and good things will come, maybe rough, but stop complaning and stop waiting for me or the next white guy to better your situation. i got my own problems and i didnt put you there. fix it yourself!!!

reply to post by infolurker


I was going to say that the problem with #1 is who controls the media, but then I decided to say that most people don't even like school or education of any sort so #2 isn't the answer. Most people just need to be helped along and encouraged to kill each other and themselves slowly while paying for consumer goods. Sex is more fun than school. Drugs are more fun than school. Get a new cell phone! How about a cigarette! Did you see that phat booty?!!