Is Bill O'Reilly correct about the African-American culture and race?

[Kilgore Trout]

Whites blame society's problems on everyone else, while their greed and unethical actions go unchecked.

No, some whites blame society's problems on non-white people, while other white people blame society's problems on white people. However, there are a few of us who are intelligent enough to understand that there are a myriad of more important factors and influences which are responsible for society's problems, and that both racial blame and racial guilt don't help in any way.

 

[YmirGF]

No, some whites blame society's problems on non-white people, while other white people blame society's problems on white people. However, there are a few of us who are intelligent enough to understand that there are a myriad of more important factors and influences which are responsible for society's problems, and that both racial blame and racial guilt don't help in any way.

BING-FRICKEN-O, eh.

 

[Poeticus]

Namaste,

I can say with 100% certainty, that there is no one alive today that was responsible for (European) colonization.

M.V.

 

[tytlyf]

Some of what Bill said was true, but most of it is over the top commentary and fabrication of stories to smear people (as usual). I was taking notes when I heard them during the video, here are some of his nonsense.

Race problem says obama?

Bill starts off his story somehow trying to show that Obama has a race problem during his speech.

"Conversation" about race = bloviating.

Just make it up Bill, make it up!

President on down has no clue how to solve problems in black community.

That's quite a stretch and claim Bill, I'm sure people do have opinions on how to solve or improve it.

Zimmerman Pin pointed TM because clothing is used by extreme criminals.

Hoodies used by Extreme criminals? What's an extreme criminal? I'd bet more extreme criminals don't wear a hoodie or look like TM.

The reason there is violence in chicago is because of the disintegration of the Black family.

Because you say it that makes it true.

When was the last time you saw a PSA telling young black girls to avoid becoming pregnant?

I don't know. When was the last time you saw ANY commercial telling people to not become pregnant. (Then segways into smearing obama, nbc, civil rights)

The entertainment industrusty encourages irresponsibility by glorifying bad behaviour

Ya all those leftie hippie liberals in hollywood. Another tactic to smear people. Then smears Obama after.

Race hustlers and limousine liberals complain about black men in prison for selling drugs?

Nice propaganda and word selection. Scary! I don't know anyone complaining about black people in prison for drug offenses. What you fail to leave out on purpose bill is mentioning the type of drug like Marijuana. Where people actually do want less harsh laws to free up the prison system. Carry on bill, carry on.

So those are a couple issues I have with Bill. I'd give his commentary a 5/10 for truthfulness as usual. This was one of his better 'talking points' he's done. Still a clown who takes advantage of the elderly.

 

[I.S.L.A.M617]

C'mon... if you know that one particular group, say Latvian Lesbian Midgets was prone to a particular activity, if you encountered such people would you not stop them to check what they were doing? Is that unreasonable? Is it unfair to go with what the stats already indicate is a problem area? Is it unethical to target that area? :sorry1:

I would agree with you if black people were the only people known to be in possession of drugs regularly. But drug possession/use is not something that's exclusive to black communities, or even in a higher concentration than in other communities. EVERYBODY does drugs; cops are just more inclined to stop black people in lower income neighborhoods.

 

[Bismillah]

Drug use and selling was epidemic before the so-called "war on drugs". Do you start a 10 Trillion dollar drug rehab program?

While I haven't studied it extensively, from what I understand the 70s were the beginning of the war on drugs.

Marijuana, a relatively benign psychoactive, is central to the discussion.

"The political upheaval in Mexico that culminated in the Revolution of 1910 led to a wave of Mexican immigration to states throughout the American Southwest. The prejudices and fears that greeted these peasant immigrants also extended to their traditional means of intoxication: smoking marijuana. Police officers in Texas claimed that marijuana incited violent crimes, aroused a "lust for blood," and gave its users "superhuman strength." Rumors spread that Mexicans were distributing this "killer weed" to unsuspecting American schoolchildren. Sailors and West Indian immigrants brought the practice of smoking marijuana to port cities along the Gulf of Mexico. In New Orleans newspaper articles associated the drug with African-Americans, jazz musicians, prostitutes, and underworld whites. "The Marijuana Menace," as sketched by anti-drug campaigners, was personified by inferior races and social deviants."

...

it's also the reason for more than half of the drug arrests in the U.S. A deeply disproportionate number of marijuana arrests (the vast majority of which are for possession) befall African-Americans, despite similar rates of usage among whites and blacks, the ACLU says.

The Mysterious History Of 'Marijuana' : Code Switch : NPR

Mandatory minimum sentencing, discriminatory policing, arrest, and conviction rates, had and continue to fill out prisons with blacks with disproportionate sentencing ranging from a year to life. This creates a cycle, with the father of the family incarcerated it falls on black mothers to work multiple jobs as well as heavily relying on assisted income. When former inmates return to society they have a very limited chance of legal employment because not only do minorities, specially blacks, have a much lower chance of finding employment simply because of their race trying to find employment with a criminal record becomes all the more impossible. These individuals fall under a malicious cycle then of returning to the streets from jail only to find that the easiest option is to break the law and then return to prison.

Picture then the average black child. 3/4 of black households are single mother. They find themselves in increasingly decayed ghetto urban settings (as heavily discriminatory post war housing policy led to many whites settling in new suburbs) in a society where institutional racism and inherent favoritism makes pulling up one's self by the "bootstraps" increasingly difficult

So I started the research in trying to understand the life experiences of people like those in my classes and how they came to understand issues of inequality, particularly racial inequality, and the issue of jobs became a very important part of that. I got detailed job histories, starting with high school to the time I did interviews with people in three parts of the country, and one of the startling things that I found was that 99 percent of the people that I talked to got 70 percent of the jobs that they held over their lifetimes with getting some kind of help from family, friends, acquaintances, in terms of getting inside information, having someone use influence on their behalf or someone who could actually offer them a job or an opportunity.

And when you have almost every job that people get over their lifetimes with that kind of inside help, it raises questions about what actually is the job market if most jobs, in fact, are not available to just anyone out there, but is available to primarily someone who has an inside edge.

One of the things that I came to understand as I was doing this research is that when we talk about issues of racial inequality we so often frame it primarily in terms of whites doing bad things to black people or non-whites. And we think about the job market as whites denying jobs to blacks and to other minorities. But the research that I did found that most people get jobs because whites are helping other whites get jobs, as opposed to trying to keep blacks out of jobs - at least in the post-civil rights period. And that difference is very important because discriminating or excluding people from jobs is illegal. But helping friends or family members or acquaintances get a job is not illegal. And it's...

...

The answer to that is basically no. I did ask a number of questions about issues of fairness and inequality and what that means. Even though, again, 99 percent of the respondents for 70 percent of the jobs got some kind of help, that's not what they said when I asked them what most contributed to their life situation. Instead, they talked about how highly motivated they were or what good workers they were or how persistent they were. In fact, only 14 percent, I think it was, mentioned help of any form, let alone this kind of help. And that is also consequential because the people that I talk to, again, believe in civil rights, said they believe in equal opportunity, thought discrimination was wrong, but they didn't perceive that they contributed in any way to those things because they weren't doing bad things to black people. They were simply doing good things for white people. And they therefore did not think that racial inequality was something they contributed to. They, in fact, thought they were part of the solution instead of part of the problem.

New Report On Black America Reveals 'A Tale of Two Truths' : NPR

In this context it becomes more clear why the black community falls under certain seemingly repetitive patterns. This points to a severely dysfunctional society and the fact that a black man is more likely to go to prison than graduate from college makes me that much more grateful of the socioeconomic and racial class that I was born into.

 

[Falvlun]

C'mon... if you know that one particular group, say Latvian Lesbian Midgets was prone to a particular activity, if you encountered such people would you not stop them to check what they were doing? Is that unreasonable? Is it unfair to go with what the stats already indicate is a problem area? Is it unethical to target that area? :sorry1:

Except you are ignoring the feedback loop.

What if Latvian Lesbian Midets were no more prone to this particular activity than any other group, but word was spread around that they were. So people start scrutinizing the LLMs, and noticing every time one of their group does this activity. The statisitcs for the LLMs doing this activity start to skyrocket as more and more people report seeing LLMs do this activity. The high statistic is then used as proof that they really should be targeting LLMs.

 

[LuisDantas]

I would agree with you if black people were the only people known to be in possession of drugs regularly. But drug possession/use is not something that's exclusive to black communities, or even in a higher concentration than in other communities. EVERYBODY does drugs; cops are just more inclined to stop black people in lower income neighborhoods.

I would take issue with that "everybody", but I see your point and I have recently come to realize that you are closer to the truth than I want to admit.

That is one parallel with the prohibition that hasn't received nearly enough attention. Enforcement is so selective - not only by ethnical criteria, but also and perhaps more gravely by social and economical - that a good case can be made that it became an even greater problem. It came to the point that several people seem to actually believe that enforcement is the sole problem, and that disappoints me greatly.

 

[tytlyf]

Conservative comedian Steven Colbert takes down BillO and fox. He is talking about this exact BillO episode this thread is about.

Colbert Calls Out Fox News Racism After Obama's Race Speech (VIDEO)

 

[Father Heathen]

Except you are ignoring the feedback loop.

What if Latvian Lesbian Midets were no more prone to this particular activity than any other group, but word was spread around that they were. So people start scrutinizing the LLMs, and noticing every time one of their group does this activity. The statisitcs for the LLMs doing this activity start to skyrocket as more and more people report seeing LLMs do this activity. The high statistic is then used as proof that they really should be targeting LLMs.

Crime tends to be high within demographics that are disadvantaged by poverty and inadequate education. It's not because of race, but rather due to unfortunate cultural, sociological and economic circumstances.

 

[Aquitaine]

Crime tends to be high within demographics that are disadvantaged by poverty and inadequate education. It's not because of race, but rather due to unfortunate cultural, sociological and economic circumstances.

Exactly, and some demographics have historically "ran the race" from a disadvantaged position. Even today, some people are placed further ahead (or behind) of the starting line.

 

[Falvlun]

Crime tends to be high within demographics that are disadvantaged by poverty and inadequate education. It's not because of race, but rather due to unfortunate cultural, sociological and economic circumstances.

Exactly.

 

[BSM1]

Those put in prison by the 'war on drugs' are disproportionately people of colour, thus the war on drugs contributes quite significantly to children of colour being raised by a single parent or by a guardian.

Can you give us a credible source to back up your statement?

 

[Falvlun]

Can you give us a credible source to back up your statement?

Here is a good article about the institutional racism seen in the US judicial system:

14 Examples

Here's the first 5:

One. The US has seen a surge in arrests and putting people in jail over the last four decades. Most of the reason is the war on drugs. Yet whites and blacks engage in drug offenses, possession and sales, at roughly comparable rates - according to a report on race and drug enforcement published by Human Rights Watch in May 2008. While African Americans comprise 13% of the US population and 14% of monthly drug users they are 37% of the people arrested for drug offenses - according to 2009 Congressional testimony by Marc Mauer of The Sentencing Project.

Two. The police stop blacks and Latinos at rates that are much higher than whites. In New York City, where people of color make up about half of the population, 80% of the NYPD stops were of blacks and Latinos. When whites were stopped, only 8% were frisked. When blacks and Latinos are stopped 85% were frisked according to information provided by the NYPD. The same is true most other places as well. In a California study, the ACLU found blacks are three times more likely to be stopped than whites.

Three. Since 1970, drug arrests have skyrocketed rising from 320,000 to close to 1.6 million according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics of the U.S. Department of Justice.
African Americans are arrested for drug offenses at rates 2 to 11 times higher than the rate for whites - according to a May 2009 report on disparity in drug arrests by Human Rights Watch.

Four. Once arrested, blacks are more likely to remain in prison awaiting trial than whites. For example, the New York state division of criminal justice did a 1995 review of disparities in processing felony arrests and found that in some parts of New York blacks are 33% more likely to be detained awaiting felony trials than whites facing felony trials.

Five. Once arrested, 80% of the people in the criminal justice system get a public defender for their lawyer. Race plays a big role here as well. Stop in any urban courtroom and look a the color of the people who are waiting for public defenders. Despite often heroic efforts by public defenders the system gives them much more work and much less money than the prosecution. The American Bar Association, not a radical bunch, reviewed the US public defender system in 2004 and concluded "All too often, defendants plead guilty, even if they are innocent, without really understanding their legal rights or what is occurring...The fundamental right to a lawyer that America assumes applies to everyone accused of criminal conduct effectively does not exist in practice for countless people across the US."

 

[tytlyf]

Can you give us a credible source to back up your statement?

I think that's just common sense. Not really something that should be taken in question.

 

[InformedIgnorance]

Though call. There is probably a lot to that, but what is one to do?

That's true but who's fault is that? Blacks should not be dealing with drugs when they know it's illegal and harmful. Also, like O'Reilly said, young black guys are TEN times more likely to commit a crime than whites and hispanics combined

Sorry but perhaps I have not made myself clear, it is not just that there are a large number of black people put in jail for drug crimes, but that both the formulation (at times) and the implementation of these laws are racially differentiated resulting in black people being disproportionately more likely to be arrested and prosecuted (while wiki is a poor reference, this portion of the article is well linked for references to appropriate sources.

"A 2013 study by the American Civil Liberties Union determined that a black person in the United States was 3.73 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than a white person, even though both races have similar rates of marijuana use.[8] Iowa had the highest racial disparity of the fifty states.[9] Black people in Iowa were arrested for marijuana possession at a rate 8.4 times higher than white people.[9]" Race and the War on Drugs - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Now it is important here to note the difference in arrest rates occurs despite the similarity in usage rates.

Can you give us a credible source to back up your statement?

Something like: "Nationwide African-Americans were sent to state prisons for drug offenses 13 times more often than white men,[10] even though they only comprise 13% of regular drug users.[1]" Race and the War on Drugs - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia they provide the journal that the article is published in.

 

[Quagmire]

". . .you can't design effective public policy that solves present problems by dwelling on the sins of the past" --O'Reilly

um, these aren't the "sins of the past", the racial profiling that Obama's talking about in the video are still going on right now.

 

[I.S.L.A.M617]

". . .you can't design effective public policy that solves present problems by dwelling on the sins of the past" --O'Reilly

um, these aren't the "sins of the past", the racial profiling that Obama's talking about in the video are still going on right now.

Not in the conservative bubble.

 

[Quagmire]

Not in the conservative bubble.

Still doesn't make any sense; it's still 1952 in there.

 

[I.S.L.A.M617]

Still doesn't make any sense; it's still 1952 in there.

In 1952 it wasn't considered racist; everybody just "knew their place". This is exactly what O'Reilly wants to say, but he doesn't want to become the next Don Imus so he's extremely vague (but at the same time obvious) about it.