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Detroit High School Protest: Students Suspended After Demanding 'An Education' (edite

Re: What blacks should be protesting: Detroit high students revolt against staff

Don't get me wrong, I'm not accusing anyone of the victim mentality. Im just debating the point with you is all.

That's absolutely fine

Like I said, I don't know the reason the black race hasn't improved as fast as other races. Couldn't tell you. But I don't believe we can say slavery is the cause, or even one of the causes, anymore.

Yeah I understand where you're coming from. I'm just trying to belabor the point that it isn't simply the slavery that happened 150 years ago. The slavery that happened back then can't be disconnected or disentangled from its own legacy, which resulted in Jim Crow, segregation, institutional discrimination and the like that only really ended in the 60s and 70s, and due to this, black people have only had about a generation or so to really even have a chance at pulling themselves up by their bootstraps and have a chance at some degree of socioeconomic mobility.
 
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Re: What blacks should be protesting: Detroit high students revolt against staff

I suppose it's not accurate to say "it's just slavery." It's the entire legacy of racism and slavery in this country, up to and including the Jim Crow Era, which only ended a generation ago. The European immigrant comparison isn't particularly apt because despite their situation, they didn't suffer institutionalized, overt discrimination over several generations the way blacks have. Historically, there have been economic opportunities there for European immigrants that simply haven't been there for blacks. For instance, it wasn't even until World War II that Officer Candidate School really opened up its ranks to African-Americans.

Yeah I understand where you're coming from. I'm just trying to belabor the point that it isn't simply the slavery that happened 150 years ago. The slavery that happened back then can't be disconnected or disentangled from its own legacy, which resulted in Jim Crow, segregation, institutional discrimination and the like that only really ended in the 60s and 70s, and due to this, black people have only had about a generation or so to really even have a chance at pulling themselves up by their bootstraps and have a chance at some degree of socioeconomic mobility.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Jim Crow laws weren't in effect in northern states were they?
 
Re: What blacks should be protesting: Detroit high students revolt against staff

That's absolutely fine



Yeah I understand where you're coming from. I'm just trying to belabor the point that it isn't simply the slavery that happened 150 years ago. The slavery that happened back then can't be disconnected or disentangled from its own legacy, which resulted in Jim Crow, segregation, institutional discrimination and the like that only really ended in the 60s and 70s, and due to this, black people have only had about a generation or so to really even have a chance at pulling themselves up by their bootstraps.

It can't be disconnected or disentangled, but when someone is finally given equality of rights, and the environment in which to compete and prosper, they must take the opportunity and use it to better their situation, their communities and their lives as a whole. I believe that much of what holds some of them back is the poverty pimps like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton keeping things stirred up. At some point, with every human, no matter the race, ethnicity, religion, or whatever you are holding onto as the reason your life is bad, you gotta let the bad **** go. It's like an abused woman who won't let go of her abusive spouse.
 
Re: What blacks should be protesting: Detroit high students revolt against staff

It can't be disconnected or disentangled, but when someone is finally given equality of rights, and the environment in which to compete and prosper, they must take the opportunity and use it to better their situation, their communities and their lives as a whole. I believe that much of what holds some of them back is the poverty pimps like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton keeping things stirred up. At some point, with every human, no matter the race, ethnicity, religion, or whatever you are holding onto as the reason your life is bad, you gotta let the bad **** go. It's like an abused woman who won't let go of her abusive spouse.

Oh don't get me wrong, I'm not saying black people have an excuse not to try and make the best out of their situation. Regardless of where one's station in life, it is the responsibility of that individual to, through their own effort, make the best out of whatever situation they were handed. But I think there are perfectly understandable historical explanations for why black people seem to have not been able to achieve what other minorities have, which include slavery and its legacy of institutionalized racism, segregation, and Jim Crow.

I have to say though that simply being given equal rights legally doesn't translate into de facto equality of opportunity in practice.
 
Re: What blacks should be protesting: Detroit high students revolt against staff

Well, I was just using slavery as a quick example. However, today, there are things such as institutionalized racism. Yet overall, I'd say that the main problem isn't racism, but economics.

EDIT: However, I think most people can agree with the second paragraph in that post.
 
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Re: What blacks should be protesting: Detroit high students revolt against staff

Well, I was just using slavery as a quick example. However, today, there are things such as institutionalized racism. Yet overall, I'd say that the main problem isn't racism, but economics.

Economics? Explain please.
 
Re: What blacks should be protesting: Detroit high students revolt against staff

Well, I was just using slavery as a quick example. However, today, there are things such as institutionalized racism. Yet overall, I'd say that the main problem isn't racism, but economics.

With the exception of a few glitches, in the time period from post-WWII, until 2007, we were economically very sound. This covers a span of 60 or so years.
 
Re: What blacks should be protesting: Detroit high students revolt against staff

Economics? Explain please.


Sure. Black Americans first began in slavery and then from there to sharecropping in which there was no way to build the economy of black America. Due to the involvement of institutions and the government, the Civil Rights Movement was co-opted and watered down and the War On Drugs and the creation of welfare, became a way to incarcerate blacks en masse, thus furthering the problems of the black economy. If you want more detailed info, I would recommend reading this lengthy, but extremely interesting article (An Empire of Poverty: Race, Punishment, and Social Control « The People's Book Project).
 
Re: What blacks should be protesting: Detroit high students revolt against staff

I appreciate the input, Mr. Invisible.
 
Re: What blacks should be protesting: Detroit high students revolt against staff

Sure. Black Americans first began in slavery and then from there to sharecropping in which there was no way to build the economy of black America. Due to the involvement of institutions and the government, the Civil Rights Movement was co-opted and watered down and the War On Drugs and the creation of welfare, became a way to incarcerate blacks en masse, thus furthering the problems of the black economy. If you want more detailed info, I would recommend reading this lengthy, but extremely interesting article (An Empire of Poverty: Race, Punishment, and Social Control « The People's Book Project).

There is no "economy of Black America". The economy is an American economy, and knows no racial bounds or exclusions.
 
Re: What blacks should be protesting: Detroit high students revolt against staff

Sure. Black Americans first began in slavery and then from there to sharecropping in which there was no way to build the economy of black America. Due to the involvement of institutions and the government, the Civil Rights Movement was co-opted and watered down and the War On Drugs and the creation of welfare, became a way to incarcerate blacks en masse, thus furthering the problems of the black economy. If you want more detailed info, I would recommend reading this lengthy, but extremely interesting article (An Empire of Poverty: Race, Punishment, and Social Control « The People's Book Project).

You had me until the war on drugs and welfare. No one crafted either of those programs as a way to "incarcerate blacks en masse" nor are they a way to "incarcerate blacks en masse". The war on drugs targeted hispanics just as much and more whites are on welfare than blacks. Also, I'd like to hear your explanation of the civil rights movement being "co opted".
 
Re: What blacks should be protesting: Detroit high students revolt against staff

Racism, yes, in some portions of the country is still a problem. Slavery? No way. Slavery ended 150 years ago. Thats plenty of time to recover. Many a Irishman and Italian migrated to this country with little to no education, no knowledge of the English language (Italians), and no prospects. Those races are doing just fine. I'm not claiming to know why the black race hasn't prospered, but I know it can't be blamed on slavery anymore. That's ridiculous. As for the Jewish comparison, don't just think holocaust. Look back further at what that people has been through. Each time adversity came to them, they overcame it. As they still do today.

The African American experience is exceptional in the fact that American society as a whole has been unable to properly incorporate them. Keep in mind that, again, much in the way of social progress did not start until the 1960s and continues to evolve today. For a variety of reasons, the experience is just exceptional. Sociologists have still found Africans immigrating to America have a better experience.
 
Re: What blacks should be protesting: Detroit high students revolt against staff

I wish this story would get more attention. This is an awesome display of motivated youths demanding they be educated. Those youths also happen to come from the black inner city of Detroit. Where's Al Shapton on this one? These kids need exposure. They need a voice larger than a back page story. This is the kind of stuff activists should get behind. Highlighting schools that fail their students. Highlighting absent fathers. These are the roots of the black community's struggles. If they tackle this stuff, I believe they would find a much more accepting and willing public arena to speak in when they set forth claims of racism and inequality. People like Al Sharpton, if they really want to help their race, should work on improving THEIR race and not everyone else's. You can't change the way people perceive you. But you can improve your perception of yourself. Bravo to these kids for taking an interest in their education when no one else would!
Detroit High School Protest: Students Suspended After Demanding 'An Education'

Nice racist baiting title and paragraph.
 
Re: What blacks should be protesting: Detroit high students revolt against staff

You had me until the war on drugs and welfare. No one crafted either of those programs as a way to "incarcerate blacks en masse" nor are they a way to "incarcerate blacks en masse". The war on drugs targeted hispanics just as much and more whites are on welfare than blacks. Also, I'd like to hear your explanation of the civil rights movement being "co opted".

OK. Here are excerpts from the article:

The Ford Foundation also sponsored the Grey Areas program in the early 1960s, which evolved into President Johnson’s “War on Poverty,” as a program for “urban renewal,” but was, in fact, concerned with issues arising out of poor people’s (and particularly poor people of colour’s) resistance to major urban growth projects undertaken by a coalition of corporations and corporatist labour unions following World War II. As Roger Friedland wrote:

Political challenge by the poor, and especially the nonwhite poor, threatened the dominance of the corporations and labor unions and the growth policies they pursued. It was the poorest neighborhoods which were displaced by urban renewal and highway construction, whose housing stock was depleted by clearance, whose employment opportunities were often reduced both by the expansion of office employment stimulated by central business district growth and by restrictive unionization on large construction projects and municipal jobs, and whose services were constrained by the enormous fiscal costs of the growth programs.[38]

It was in this context that the Ford Foundation established programs aimed at ameliorating the antagonisms within the impoverished communities, not through structural or systemic change of the causes of poverty, but through organization, institutionalization, and legalistic reform programs, thus leading to the government’s “War on Poverty.” The same approach was taken in regards to the Civil Rights movement.

The major foundations “supported the moderate civil rights organizations in response to the ‘radical flank’ threat of the militants, while non-elites (churches, unions and small individual donors) spread their support evenly.”[40]

Elite patronage of the Civil Rights movement “diverted leaders from indigenous organizing and exacerbated inter-organizational rivalries, thereby promoting movement decay.”[41] Foundation funding for civil rights did not become significant until 1961-62, five years after the Birmingham bus boycott, and the peak of foundation support for civil rights was in 1972-73, four to five years after the assassination of King.[42] This indicated that foundation grants to civil rights were ‘reactive’, in that they were designed in response to changes in the movement itself, implying that foundation patronage was aimed at social control. [...] Many of the foundations subsequently became “centrally involved in the formulation of national social policy and responded to elite concerns about the riots.”[44]



For clarification purposes, I am mentioning slavery in a historical context for in order for us to effectively aid the black community, we must first understand why the black community is the way it is today, which would require a historical look of black people over time in terms of politics, economics, and culture.


In terms of the War on Drugs:

As reported in the journal, Punishment & Society:

The impact of these developments has fallen disproportionately on young African-Americans and Latinos. By 1994, one of every three black males between the ages of 18-34 was under some form of correctional supervision, and the number of Hispanic prisoners has more than quintupled since 1980. These developments are not primarily the consequence of rising crime rates, but rather the ‘get-tough’ policies of the wars on crime and drugs.[60]

[...]

Just as took place during the criminalization of black life following the Civil War, the criminalization of black life following the Civil Rights Movement saw not only the growth of incarceration rates for the black community, but also saw the growth of the use of the prison population as a source of cheap labour. In today’s context, with privatization of prisons, outsourcing of prison labour, and other forms of exploitation of the “punished” population, this has given rise to what is often referred to as the “prison-industrial complex.”[63]​
 
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Re: What blacks should be protesting: Detroit high students revolt against staff

I'm trying to understand. I really am. I'm having a really hard time, though.
 
Re: What blacks should be protesting: Detroit high students revolt against staff

I confident the teacher's union will solve all the problems at that school.
satire.
 
Re: What blacks should be protesting: Detroit high students revolt against staff

I confident the teacher's union will solve all the problems at that school.
satire.

It's just a damn shame that the students themselves have to demand a decent education, and the parents/school system aren't already offering it.
 
Re: What blacks should be protesting: Detroit high students revolt against staff

"Thread: What blacks should be protesting: Detroit high students revolt against staff"

Nice to see you play the race card right there in the title.

So, is it safe to assume you think blacks should stick to protesting black issues and whites should protest white ones?

Racially divide much?
 
Re: What blacks should be protesting: Detroit high students revolt against staff

While the Trayvon Martin shooting was certainly tragic, and I do think Zimmerman should be charged...theres LOTS for the Sharptons of the world to get involved with. Blacks in America are getting slaughtered daily. There should be marches, demonstrations...protests across the country. Something should be done.

FBI- 2010
White on White murders 2,777
White on Black murders came to 218;
Black on White murders came to 447, while
Black on Black murders came to 2,459.

Tragic. Truly.

FBI — Expanded Homicide Data Table 6
 
Re: What blacks should be protesting: Detroit high students revolt against staff

MarineTPartier brought up an interesting point: Jews have indeed suffered, had everything taken from them, mass executions of entire families . . . in much more recent times than blacks have been in slavery. Why are they successful? They value education would certainly be at the top of a list of reasons.

Until blacks respect themselves and both value and demand an excellent education, they are doomed. And until we, as a nation, stop keeping them in "slavery" by facilitating their decision not to value these things, we're going to be stuck with more of the same. And so are they.

"Thread: What blacks should be protesting: Detroit high students revolt against staff"

Nice to see you play the race card right there in the title.

So, is it safe to assume you think blacks should stick to protesting black issues and whites should protest white ones?

Racially divide much?

Give us all a break, huh?
 
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Re: What blacks should be protesting: Detroit high students revolt against staff

While the Trayvon Martin shooting was certainly tragic, and I do think Zimmerman should be charged...theres LOTS for the Sharptons of the world to get involved with. Blacks in America are getting slaughtered daily. There should be marches, demonstrations...protests across the country. Something should be done.

FBI- 2010
White on White murders 2,777
White on Black murders came to 218;
Black on White murders came to 447, while
Black on Black murders came to 2,459.

Tragic. Truly.

FBI — Expanded Homicide Data Table 6

Black-on-Black homocide doesn't give him enough facetime.
 
Re: What blacks should be protesting: Detroit high students revolt against staff

Black-on-Black homocide doesn't give him enough facetime.
I dont know...if they celebrate every death like its a blood orgy as they have done with the Trayvon Martin shooting (that 1 death occured on 26 February...wonder how many dead bodies have littered the streets since then) seems to me Revrund Al should have plenty o face time. Since Im sure they are truly invested in the welfare of citizens everywhere (and not just making this a race baiting issue), imagine the good they could do.

Sad thing is...2010 was on OFF year. Im not sure but considering the death rates in Chicago alone I think they will by far surpass those totals. oh...and thats 'just' the deaths...not the total numbers of shootings. Hell we had 13 in one event in Florida on the day of the martin rally.
 
Re: What blacks should be protesting: Detroit high students revolt against staff

I dont know...if they celebrate every death like its a blood orgy as they have done with the Trayvon Martin shooting (that 1 death occured on 26 February...wonder how many dead bodies have littered the streets since then) seems to me Revrund Al should have plenty o face time. Since Im sure they are truly invested in the welfare of citizens everywhere (and not just making this a race baiting issue), imagine the good they could do.

Sad thing is...2010 was on OFF year. Im not sure but considering the death rates in Chicago alone I think they will by far surpass those totals. oh...and thats 'just' the deaths...not the total numbers of shootings. Hell we had 13 in one event in Florida on the day of the martin rally.

Actually, now that you've made me think about it in that way, you're right.

What IF Sharpton and Jackson tackled one American city? Detroit? Chicago? New York? And made a stand. This was last week:

CHICAGO (AP) - A nephew of Miami Heat star Dwyane Wade was one of 13 men shot - two fatally - during a violent six-hour stretch in Chicago, another indication that violence is on the rise in the nation's third-largest city.

Why not? No, I mean, really. Why don't they do this??

Do they not care? Does it not serve their best interests to get this black-on-black violence under control? What?
 
Re: What blacks should be protesting: Detroit high students revolt against staff

"Thread: What blacks should be protesting: Detroit high students revolt against staff"

Nice to see you play the race card right there in the title.

So, is it safe to assume you think blacks should stick to protesting black issues and whites should protest white ones?

Racially divide much?

I agree........
 
Re: What blacks should be protesting: Detroit high students revolt against staff

There are times on DP when a DISlike button would be desireable. This is one of those times.
 
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