Gap between blacks and whites over racial views

[CMF Newsman]

WASHINGTON (AP) — Since the nation's birth, Americans have discussed race and avoided it, organized neighborhoods and political movements around it, and used it to divide and hurt people even as relations have improved dramatically since the days of slavery, Reconstruction and legal segregation.

Now, in what could be a historic year for a black presidential candidate, a new Associated Press-Yahoo! News poll, conducted with Stanford University, shows just how wide a gap remains between whites and blacks.

It shows that a substantial portion of white Americans still harbor negative feelings toward blacks. It shows that blacks and whites disagree tremendously on how much racial prejudice exists, whose fault it is and how much influence blacks have in politics.

news.yahoo.com/page/election-2008-political-pulse-race-in-america;_ylt=AobtGcfsPCYvcpnfCjKrFlOs0NUE

[Felix]

This study is the basis of a topic in the Road to the White House forum, focusing on the effect of racial attitudes on the Presidential election. Of course, racial attitudes affect everything in our society, so discussion of these general attitudes can focus on areas other than elections.

Affirmative action is one obvious battleground in debates regarding race. How justified is skewing the hiring process to compensate for past and present discrimination?

[LimitedRecourse]

"How justified is skewing the hiring process to compensate for past and present discrimination?"


It helps make up for the public education system.

[Action!]

Affirmative action is one obvious battleground in debates regarding race. How justified is skewing the hiring process to compensate for past and present discrimination?

It's not justified at all. All job applicants should be treated equally with regard to race when it comes to hiring. It's not fair to not hire someone that is more qualified in order to hire a black person because of affirmative action rules. It's just reverse discrimination against the white applicant.

[LimitedRecourse]

The same goes for gays, too.

[gridbug]

It should go for women too (straight or gay)

Just don't hire smokers! Never hire the smokers.

[Action!]

Sept 22, 2008 15:47:56 GMT -5 LimitedRecourse said:

The same goes for gays, too.

I don't remember there ever being a question on a job application asking one if they were gay or not LimitedRecourse, have you?

[Action!]

It should go for women too (straight or gay)Just don't hire smokers! Never hire the smokers.

Exactly, and you can add overweight people to the list of people that I personally would not hire for a job.

[LimitedRecourse]

"Exactly, and you can add overweight people to the list of people that I personally would not hire for a job."

Or people who wear last year's fashions.

[Action!]

Or Republicans.

[LimitedRecourse]

"Or Republicans."


Well, at least you'd still hire me, then, as I'm not Republican.

[Action!]

That may be. I'd have to interview you first.

[LimitedRecourse]

After I slim down some.

[sluggo]

Exactly, and you can add overweight people to the list of people that I personally would not hire for a job.

So, you don't like fat people? What about a fat, gay Republican?

[Tsavodiner]

Sept 22, 2008 16:21:27 GMT -5 Action! said:

Sept 22, 2008 15:47:56 GMT -5 LimitedRecourse said:

The same goes for gays, too.

I don't remember there ever being a question on a job application asking one if they were gay or not LimitedRecourse, have you?

That's what the 'Chief's lounge' is for.

[Kordax]

In any political race in any district, my guess is that Black voters vote for Black candidates in large percentages with a few historical exceptions. In this election cycle, I doubt that White voters will vote for the White candidate in percenatges close to the Black vote for the Black candidate....

[Felix]

Kordax asserts:

I doubt that White voters will vote for the White candidate in percenatges close to the Black vote for the Black candidate....

[/i]Hmmmm...so the portion of the population with a long history of suffering slavery, de facto peonage, occasional victimization by lynching and other experiences denied the white population may feel inclined to support those of a similar background?

I don't doubt it.

Nor do I doubt that whites, who have not similarly suffered, might not feel that supporting candidates exclusively of their own race in the same percentages was necessary. Other than those whites still open or closeted racists.

[Tsavodiner]

Hmmmm...so the portion of the population with a long history of suffering slavery, de facto peonage, occasional victimization by lynching and other experiences denied the white population

I dunno, Marvell, quite a few whites were lynched in the Old World for a plethora of offenses real and imagined, and if you've ever worked for minimum wage, which I have, you understand what peonage really is.

[Justin Thyme]

Think of the ten people you voluntarily hang with the most. Write them down. Denote their race next to their names. Seven of them should be white. Of the other three there should be one hispanic and one black. The tenth should be either asian, hispanic or black. If this isn't the case you are statistically showing a racial bias in choosing who to hang with.*

With that being the case, look around at your co-workers. If the above ratio doesn't pan out then your work place is statistically showing a racial hiring bias. Look at who you vote for, the same applies here.

There is a statistical flaw in my assertion. I'm using a population of ten because few of us regularly hang with a group larger than that. Even in the workplace one's specific workgroup rarely is larger than ten. You really need a population size of at least fifty or more for the model to work.

[el Gusano]

We only have six blacks living in town, but I do have some Eskimo friends and my wife is hispanic.

Is that close enough?

[Justin Thyme]

Sept 23, 2008 8:32:48 GMT -5 el Gusano said:

We only have six blacks living in town, but I do have some Eskimo friends and my wife is hispanic.

Is that close enough?

Alaskan racial demographics are probably nothing like the rest of the country's. I suspect that you may statistically be hanging around a lot more hispanics than your local demographics would suggest as being normal.

[LimitedRecourse]

"Hmmmm...so the portion of the population with a long history of suffering slavery, de facto peonage, occasional victimization by lynching and other experiences denied the white population may feel inclined to support those of a similar background?"

Yeah, and only A HUNDRED YEARS AGO.

[daworm]

Having justification (valid or not) for racism is still racism, and still inexcusable.

[LimitedRecourse]

Having NO justification for calling someone racist is racism also.

[osrb]

<sarcasm?If you are white and do not vote for obama you are a racist. If you are black you are a race traitor. </sarcasm>

[Kordax]

Marvell, I'm keeping a sharp eye out for any politicians of Egyptian descent; anyone who enslaved god's chosen people should be an anathema to Christian voters forever.... Forget never!

[fullphaser]

Sept 22, 2008 18:08:19 GMT -5 sluggo said:

Exactly, and you can add overweight people to the list of people that I personally would not hire for a job.

So, you don't like fat people? What about a fat, gay Republican?

Isn't that sort of a living contradiction?

[gridbug]

Sept 23, 2008 12:51:28 GMT -5 Kordax said:

Marvell, I'm keeping a sharp eye out for any politicians of Egyptian descent; anyone who enslaved god's chosen people should be an anathema to Christian voters forever.... Forget never!

So if Jesus was really black, the US is doomed?

Egyptian politicians do it right! Hosni Mubarak wins every time in free elections (that just have one real candidate). But then we only get two to choose from, I guess that makes us twice as free as Egypt.

[Deleted]

> So if Jesus was really black...

Jesus isn't black.


Show him one of your pictures, Bob.

[osrb]

> So if Jesus was really black...Jesus isn't black.

he was an Arab.

Jews came from the fertile crescent following Abraham. They were Arabic. Jesus was a Jew so logic goes to follow Jesus was an Arab.