@CharliePrime I suspect that what you say is true but can you give me evidence to support it?

@CharliePrime What do you think was going through that man's mind when he ignored the commands from the police?

@CharliePrime I find that so hard to believe! That's not to say you're wrong. I haven't lived my whole life with black people, just five years when I lived as an immigrant in Seattle. I found some of their ways odd, such as the never-ending jive-talk, that seemed to me to be an extreme version of the white way of talking everything up. I thought it was all a way of coping in a very competitive world. Some other ways were very like Irish ways; they were the ways of subjugated people who comply in a reluctant way to the dictates of the people in power. But one thing I doubt anyone belonging to a subjugated people would do is to challenge and defy the police in front of his children. I can't help thinking you must be hopelessly high on drugs to risk that horrible scenario. I hope to hear more about this in the future.

@CharliePrime To be fair, blacks have to deal with whites in America and it hasn't been a pleasant experience for them. I'm astonished you have so little fellow-feeling for them.

@brentan His actions show he was thinking something like "Screw you cracker pig."

@Truth_Teller20 Maybe he was high. I'm baffled - a dad, with his three children in the back of the car. I find it really hard to accept the reasons I'm being given. They could be true, though.

@CharliePrime I'll admit I only lived in America for a few years but I saw no evidence of these wonders while I was there or read about any wonderful improvements in the lives of black people since I returned home. As for how to treat them, I can't offer any more than the golden rule and Kant's categorical imperative.

@CharliePrime I think while you see the problem as blacks lowering the status of white neighbourhoods, I see the problem as whites refusing to raise the status of black people so as to resolve the problem that way. Get schools sorted out. Get employment sorted out. Just as the problem of different classes of people is a class issue in my country, I see American inequality as just another way of ensuring unfairness to one type of people. I think you're focussing on the symptoms of the American disease while I'm talking about the cure.

@CharliePrime I lived in America for five years and worked with black people. Many black people now live in my country in recent years. Maybe I just conveniently always met black people who were as intelligent as anyone else. As for me being a Marxist, you're just throwing labels around. Life isn't that convenient.

@CharliePrime Make a comment or don't.

@CharliePrime I guess you've run out of valid comments.

@CharliePrime That's what i mean. You've run out of any valid comment to make. Your amusement or lack of it adds nothing to the discussion.

@Thaw

The same pattern of decay existed in white communities where the more capable have moved away to better jobs in the cities as we see in black inner city communities where the more capable blacks have moved away.

Africa is an African problem.

@Thaw No, it is caused by political/social ideology - many of the same arguments can be applied to South/Central America and swaths of Asia.

I've been holding this request in reserve for the right opportunity, ie someone with a brain that makes the statement (or close to it) that systemic racism exists in the United States. So, here is the request:

Please provide evidence of systemic racism with the following condition: disparity of racial outcome is NOT evidence by itself. In other words, if 50% of murders are caused by blacks, having more blacks in prison is NOT evidence of systemic racism by itself.

@Thaw I find myself LESS able to refute such a statement.

@tracycoyle

You have latched on to an important distinction. Systemic racism and life history outcomes do not necessarily correlate. Asian Americans were subject to fairly severe discrimination but over came it to achieve above average economic outcomes.

My evidence for systemic racism is anecdotal and I'm not ashamed to admit it. Some things are nearly impossible to prove but are still valid positions. For example cigarettes were called coffin nails long before any scientific research was conducted. The effects of cigarette smoking were so obvious to casual observers that the research simply proved the obvious . As far as I know the exact mechanism by which smoking causes cancer is still poorly understood.

30 years ago racist comments were so common it is hard to imagine why anyone would question the existence of systemic racism. In comparison I hear very few racist comments today.

@tracycoyle, @Thaw

You are missing the point. There are approximately 52 million people in the U.S. with an IQ under 85. We have bigger problems than race or racism.

I read the problem of people struggling to assimilate but I understand it as the struggle of people fighting against those who don't want them to assimilate.

It's not skin color, it's CRIME and CULTURE....

@Thaw Do you really believe that skin colour indicates race?

@Thaw Flaunting your bigotry, as usual.

@Thaw As applied to a GROUP. Individuals can, and often do, exhibit differences than the group they are lumped into. So, while your stereotypes might be useful in general, they are less than beneficial when dealing with individuals.

So, I'd rather group people by their actions and LOTS of the rioting and damage going on right now is caused by WHITES....but both groups (blacks and whites) are being driven by ideology, not race (including BLM).

@Thaw My comment noted on the post. I saw the post previously but didn't make a comment prior.