I just wanted to post the same video you did (http://videosift.com/video/Audience-at-GOP-Debate-Cheers-Letting-Sick-Man-Die)



Here's another gem: http://videosift.com/video/Rick-Santorum-How-GOP-Can-Attract-Latino-Voters

I strongly suggest giving Canada a try if one of these people wins

@swedishfriend

1. "Compared to their native Swedish peers, immigrant students, on average, have weaker education outcomes at all levels of education. Nearing the end of compulsory education, at age 15, there are very significant performance disadvantages for immigrant students." Source.



2a. Generally, in the modern era, the achievement gap between the descendants of immigrants and the host population correlates with the achievement gap between the immigrants' nation of origin and the host nation. For example, expect US achievement gaps to be with us for the long-term:
NYT: "Triumph Fades on Racial Gap in City Schools"

2b. US school test scores are virtually the best in the world once you break down test scores by region of ancestry. Asian Americans do better than Asians in Asia; Latino Americans do better than Latinos in Latin America; African Americans do better than Africans in Africa; European Americans do better than Europeans in Europe. The illusion that US scores aren't the best in the world is caused by the demographic composition of the US, not by US school policy.

2c. Indeed, as expected from the US's dominance of international test scores (once broken down by country of origin), descendants of Swedes living in Minnesota significantly outperform Swedes living in Sweden. (Search that post for "achievement gap" to read more about the achievement gap in Sweden between natives and descendants of immigants.)



3. Exceptions: US Muslims, such as Iranian-Americans, significantly outperform other US groups, including the majority group, because they were drawn from high performers in their country of origin, such as scientists.

and japanese people get more excited about these sorts of things than latino sports commentators and football

Whether or not this is a police state is a relative question. Your class, your race, and where in the country you live can all be factors. In the Guliani days, I would argue that parts of NYC was a police state for some poor youth in some parts of the city. In Georgia, they just created a law that tries to create a police state for latinos.

Over the last ten years, I have seen bad cop behavior migrate, so that lower classes, the lighter skinned ethnic groups, and people in more states are starting to be victimized by it.

@longde "I bet latinos and blacks in Cali wish they could suffer the atrocities you say Asians have."

Nobody would want to go from receiving huge SAT bonuses to receiving the 140-450 point SAT disadvantage that Asian minorities receive.

It seems hard to defend that kind of deliberate racism instead of advocating affirmative action be based on parental income.

@chilaxe

"atrocious racial discrimination"

You mean little Johnny will have to go to Davis instead of Berkeley. Or Notre Dame instead of UCLA. Or (gasp!) De Anza instead of San Jose State. Oh the horrors!!!! Yeah, its worse than the Japanese Internment. Is that all? I bet latinos and blacks in Cali wish they could suffer the atrocities you say Asians have instead of the ones they are saddled with.

@bareboards2 As you can see, chilaxe has a major bone to pick with Affirmative Action, especially the forms which benefit latinos and blacks, but not some Asian groups. Implying that blacks and latinos may still suffer from mass bias in society would weaken some of his criticisms of those programs. So, he must raise the bar for racism, requiring explicit evidence for a phenom that has very subtle forms today.

I have lived in the south, as well as the San Fran Bay Area, and I am very familiar with the attitude that would have someone overreact over a petty crime. Apparently, it has gone over Chilaxe's head the fact that these boys will be overpunished for a petty crime, and this may have some bearing in bias against them or their group.

He calls them repeat criminals (proof?). I say they are stupid kids. I know plenty of people of all races who committed crimes in their high school or college youth, but went on to live productive lives. Only a subset of them (guess which) are given snap labels like 'offender' or 'criminal'. Nothing to do with race, though.........

It would not change my mind. Whatever the source, the sift should not by default become place of hostility for black (or asian, or white, or muslim, or latino, et al.) people by bigots who hide behind "free speech" to spread hate speech. This is not stormfront.

Regardless if we can see the logic in it or reason behind it, most African Americans would be highly offended by BK's remark; also by so many sifters jumping up to defend that putrid behavior. Unless we want a site where only white people congregate and feel comfortable, that type of hate speech should be highly regulated, if not prohibited.

I wonder would people be so tolerant and supportive of BK if he spouted some crazy anti-semetic drivel. What if snide or subtle anti-semetic comments popped up all the time? Would we feel comfortable on this site? Burd's point is that that is what is happening wrt anti-black speech.

But really, I think the biggest target of bigotry on the sift is muslims. We have whole sets of videos depricating muslims under the excuse of being anti-religion. But the tenor of the anti-muslim comments and videos is much more debased than the anti-christian ones. Christians on this site are regularly presented as buffoons; but muslims are regularly characterized as dirty, dangerous animals. Look at the roster of videos if you don't believe me. Compared to this, the anti-black bigots are just the icing on the shit cake.


>> ^smooman:
Im curious tho if your mind would change if bk was black

@grinter

Are you saying Jews/Latinos/Asians don't need to have the opportunity to be on basketball teams because they're naturally not as good at it? Wouldn't that mean that if Asians and Jews were naturally better at academics, they should be able to occupy all the seats at the top universities? I don't think that's what we want to argue.

@longde

1. What do you mean Asian Americans don't experience discrimination? They're demonstrably racistly discriminated against as a matter of official policy.

2. Most Asian Americans aren't Hmong, and the group averages are still true. Feel free to stop making references to Whites, Latinos, or Blacks, since those groups have much variance within them, and then we can finally make affirmative action based on income instead of self-reinforcing tribalistic concepts.

3a. Everybody has to develop their human capital if they want to be skilled in advancing in the business world. I read a dozen books (or audiobooks) per year on how to do it, and I think about it constantly, trying new things, writing down my thoughts, and improving on my (many) past mistakes.

3b. People can use anything as a crutch, and when something goes wrong, which is a constant part of life, they attribute it to that crutch. They then won't develop their full potential. We should probably have affirmative action based on height, beauty, and likable personality (if you believe in affirmative action), and if we'd rather be born as Will Smith (Hollywood's highest paid actor) than Paul Giamatti, these are more significant crutches than what sub-culture we belong to.

>> ^gwiz665:

Actually, now that I've slept on it, I would much prefer a "Europe" channel, to match the Asia and downunder channels. I think the only direct country we have is canada, and I think it should have been northamerica instead, but canada is shorter I guess. "The americas" heh.
Anyway, if you were to make Europe instead, I would be a lot happier with it.


I like this idea better. If French/France, what about Spanish/Latino, Brazillan/Portugese, etc.?

No I was not aware they were capable of breaking unemployment rates down by race. I looked up how they actually determine unemployment rates. It is by a finding a pool of people they feel represent demographics the census shows them and calling them to ask if they are working or not.....basically. Then they use that to state the overall unemployment rates. I read that they don't use the number of people drawing unemployment benefits, I mention this because I suspected the unemployment fluctuations were because lots of people were being dropped from the counting when they exhausted their benefits. However I now believe that the way they sample could account for a pretty big fluctuation considering they might get a sampling that isn't true to reality.... I couldn't determine any other kind of metric they employ that even sounds remotely like they verify anything they claim as fact.

My experiences with their department is that they just routinely gave me wrong information or sent me documents in error. Causing me to have to contact them to find out what was going on....and having to call them 2-3 times to actually get in contact with someone who would take the time to answer my questions. And then those answers were 50/50 on their accuracy as well. It's one thing to be overburdened, it's another to create more work and hassle for yourself and everyone else involved.....it may have been a stalling tactic but it ain't fun to be denied by letter, then told on the phone you were eligible....filling out your weekly form to find out you were actually denied. Spending the week getting that straightened out, waiting a week because they say it'll take a week. Then find out your denied again.....spending another week straightening it out and a month has gone by before you get forward progress.

Didn't go to a college that had frat houses that I was aware of, and I commuted so I didn't spend a lot of time on campus as it more of a commuter heavy college. They certainly didn't have anything greek "official" within sight of campus. Didn't care if I was in a frat, club, or group. I'm just saying it was announced on the college radio that these clubs were around for these folks....not based on interests such as chess or even a greek/frat system.

And I don't really care what races Im around as long as they are on an even footing with me and have the common courtesy to take showers, wear deodorant, and try to control their breath or at least not get up in my face with stank mouth. Oh and if they must speak a foreign language at least try to include others in the conversation if we're working on a group project or having a group conversation. I've been trying to pick up other languages, but man...native speakers when they get going I can't tell what the hell they are saying.

And....what is "white culture" if everyone is included? Like.....country clubs? I figured they were more "rich culture".

>> ^longde:

@<Porksandwich I can sympathize; but did you know that the black unemployment rate is twice that of whites? I think the demographics of this shitty government agency reflect the fact that, before the downturn, whites who have better options in the workforce chose not to take those jobs. And during the downturn, the public agency you saw just happened to be one which didn't have much turnover. I bet they laid people off though, and the inefficiency you witnessed is due to individual employees doing jobs meant for 2 or 3 people. As far as college groups, there are indeed white groups that exclude others. Just take a walk down frat row for instance, where you may see the occasional token in some of the houses. The asian/black/latino groups you saw cannot exclude white people, and in my college experience, some white people did join those groups to get exposure to other cultures. But most whites didn't; they either ignored or complained about the groups.
Also, it seemed like every year, there were whites who started a Whites Club----but these organizations never lasted, because what's the point? The damn campus is majority white, and everything is tailored towards white people and white culture. And, as I said above, if you really want to be around whites only, there are plenty of options on campus to do so, not limited to frats. This truth, incidently, extends to greater society.

@Porksandwich I can sympathize; but did you know that the black unemployment rate is twice that of whites? I think the demographics of this shitty government agency reflect the fact that, before the downturn, whites who have better options in the workforce chose not to take those jobs. And during the downturn, the public agency you saw just happened to be one which didn't have much turnover. I bet they laid people off though, and the inefficiency you witnessed is due to individual employees doing jobs meant for 2 or 3 people.

As far as college groups, there are indeed white groups that exclude others. Just take a walk down frat row for instance, where you may see the occasional token in some of the houses. The asian/black/latino groups you saw cannot exclude white people, and in my college experience, some white people did join those groups to get exposure to other cultures. But most whites didn't; they either ignored or complained about the groups.

Also, it seemed like every year, there were whites who started a Whites Club----but these organizations never lasted, because what's the point? The damn campus is majority white, and everything is tailored towards white people and white culture. And, as I said above, if you really want to be around whites only, there are plenty of options on campus to do so, not limited to frats. This truth, incidently, extends to greater society.

>> ^Crosswords:

Part of the problem is often the face of Mexican nationality in the US isn't the successful educated Mexican's, its the day laborers. Hired as skilled labor, but largely unskilled and paid next to nothing, often below legal limits if they're undocumented. They tend to do a shit job, cutting corners and generally not caring about the quality of work they do and trying to communicate with them through the language barrier is frustrating as all get out. Of course this only happens because companies, and it seems people as a whole, prefer cheap labor over quality labor. They only exist because the market for that kind of labor is huge, so large I think its degraded the quality of labor overall. But people don't make that connection, they see bad work being done by low paid unskilled labor who happen to be Mexicans thus Mexicans are dirty and lazy. The real connection should be that builders and contractors are greedy shysters.
>> ^bareboards2:
One pride movement that is starting, quietly, is the idea of Mexican Pride. I have only seen this a couple of places, and I am cheering it on.
Unfortunately, in America, the very word "Mexican" carries with it the echo of the phrase "dirty Mexican" -- one of the reasons we use back away to be "nice" and say Hispanic/Latino/Latina, when someone is clearly Mexican.
"Nice" becomes really ugly, when the word Mexican should be a descriptive word and not pejorative just by itself.
There are some Mexicans out there who are sick of it, and are starting to reclaim their national identity.
I had never thought of it this way, until I heard this famous actor interviewed (do wish I could remember who it was -- Salma Hayek? Someone smart and beautiful, I remember that.)
I have been trying to use the word Mexican ever since, and have screwed up, because it turns out I can't tell Guatamalen from Brazilian, so I end up insulting folks anyway. But I'm trying.
Mexican. Mexican. Mexican.



Maybe that was your experience with day laborers but, it is not representative of all day laborers or people of Mexican nationality (but, Spanish as far as their race). I have worked with and hired transitory day laborers and most of them do a better job and work just as hard (if not harder) than any permanent (usually unionized) worker.
And as for hiring them, they were paid well over the average wage of most American workers. They were paid beforehand and proceeded to work quickly and efficiently. The money they make in the U.S. is worth so much more in their country. THAT'S why they're willing to work for lower wages than most Americans. I currently work with a guy that said the money he makes in 2 hours at his job here in the U.S. would last a week in El Salvador.
The market wouldn't exist if people were unhappy with the end product. So, to say that their work doesn't meet quality standards doesn't make much sense. If they were producing inferior products nobody would be hiring them.

I see the distinction now. Sounds like a good idea. What do mexicans/mexican americans call themselves in spanish?




>> ^bareboards2:
Hey, I'm just quoting a Mexican. Who isn't Chicano, right? Google tells me Chicano is Mexican-American.
Notice, please, that it is a Chicano movement. Not Mexican-American movement. So even they backed away from the word Mexican.
This is specifically about reclaiming the word Mexican, according to this smart, talented Mexican woman.
I have been stewing over @<A rel="nofollow" class=profilelink title="member since November 18th, 2007" href="http://videosift.com/member/Crosswords">Crosswords post since I read it hours ago. Something about it bugged me.
I think what it is -- why bring up the reasons why the word Mexican has a bad rap? We know all that stereotypical stuff. Why not go the other direction and start to replace this narrow response to the word with other images of dignity?
Frida Kahlo. Diego Rivera. Entertainers, sports figures. Politicians. Cesar Chavez. The Dog Whisperer Cesar Millan. The millions of Mexicans who work hard, often living under a pall of fear of deportation, taking care of our children and our homes. Dedicated to their families, sending money back home. Mexican nationals who have lived their whole lives in America, choosing to become soldiers and fight for what they consider to be their country even though a piece of paper says otherwise. Even construction workers who work hard for a days pay, hoping that they will have a job the next day and in fact do a great job.
We need to start reprogramming ourselves to hear a different image when we hear the word Mexican. That is what I heard that famous Mexican woman talking about.
Mexican. Mexican. Mexican.
>> ^longde:
Have you never heard of the Chicano Movement? Chicano or mexican pride has been around for decades. >> ^bareboards2:
One pride movement that is starting, quietly, is the idea of Mexican Pride. I have only seen this a couple of places, and I am cheering it on.
Unfortunately, in America, the very word "Mexican" carries with it the echo of the phrase "dirty Mexican" -- one of the reasons we use back away to be "nice" and say Hispanic/Latino/Latina, when someone is clearly Mexican.
"Nice" becomes really ugly, when the word Mexican should be a descriptive word and not pejorative just by itself.
There are some Mexicans out there who are sick of it, and are starting to reclaim their national identity.
I had never thought of it this way, until I heard this famous actor interviewed (do wish I could remember who it was -- Salma Hayek? Someone smart and beautiful, I remember that.)
I have been trying to use the word Mexican ever since, and have screwed up, because it turns out I can't tell Guatamalen from Brazilian, so I end up insulting folks anyway. But I'm trying.
Mexican. Mexican. Mexican.