"Being black means never having to apologize" ??

[uruk]

Who cares about understanding your enemy? Didn't Sun Tzu say something about striking blindly whenever you could, without knowing your foe?

I think he said it was a bad thing.

Sun Tzu though that violence was a failure of strategy.

 

[uruk]

Sure, I understand your position, it is indeed good to know why people do things. But what I dislike about this way of thinking is that it assumes the terrorists are right and have a good reason to do what they do, and that we must comply and change ourselves accordingly.

This is absolutely unacceptable, IMO.

We have gone too far and acquired our freedoms and liberties at too great a price to give these fascists any ground.

I don't think anybody is saying that the terrorists are right or have a good reason. At least I hope not.

I just think that it is better to try to understand or at least identify the reasons so that a better strategy can be developed. So far the one we are using now is not that successful.

Terrorists do not fight a traditional style of warfare. Our war of attrition and retaliation tends to incur a bit of colateral damage. Colateral damage does not do our side any good in trying to win over the hearts of the people we are trying to protect.

I think we need a better strategy.

 

[Richard Masters]

But you're all ready starting to get into what I was talking about earlier with prescriptive versus descriptive. And we didn't decide that they were wrong, they decided that WE were wrong and ititiated attacks on us.

Actually, both happened.

Bad example. If you jam your finger in the car door, it's entirely your own fault. In the case of terrorism, however, you're going to get a lot of jeers and anger from people to suggest that it's people's own faults for getting attacked by terrorists.

The example is just fine. Retaliating against the car without analyzing the car's motives is counterproductive, whether it was your fault or not.

This is actually an example for the other side. It's the terrorists who are trying to kill US over a "speeding ticket" rather than working it out through nonviolent means like the court system. In the case of your police officer, if someone shoots at him, he's going to shoot back regardless of whether or not the speeding ticket he gave was correct.

It applies to both sides. Both the police officer and the driver can be wrong.

The "speeding ticket" the US has given the Middle East exists in the form of installing military bases in Saudi Arabia, support for Israel, etc. Whether or not we were right or wrong to do those things, the terrorists have decided to try to work the matter out violently. We have responded in kind.

Like I said, it's an appeal to ignorance from both sides. I'm not saying one side is right and the other is wrong. I'm saying both sides are wrong.

 

[Pardalis]

You make some pretty good points, Uruk.

 

[Lonewulf]

I think he said it was a bad thing.

Sun Tzu though that violence was a failure of strategy.

Fail@sarcasm comprehension

 

[ZirconBlue]

I don't think the expression "being [blank] means never having to say you're sorry" is generally meant to be literally interpreted as [blank]s never have to apologize. It's a figure of speech.

 

[truethat]

Jumping in without reading but I can cite an example of this. New Orleans. During hurricane Katrina everyone involved who was black (Like um the Mayor of the damn city) was wiped clean of responsibility. Also the droves of people in the Super Dome thing, who were mostly black and acted like a bunch of savages attacking screaming, the videos of people sitting in the middle of the streets screaming and yelling and freaking out because "someone" didn't come to help them.

Well I daresay I've seen flooding all over this country before, hurricanes and whatnot, and we've never seen such a display. But for some reason its not ok to suggest that the people in the Super Dome who were acting like maniacs are the problem.

Instead of quietly waiting for help, or trying to organize into groups, or even gathering together and trying to occupy the children, people were going out of their mind.

Who's fault is that? Oh yeah, the white people who didn't get there to help fast enough because they were racist and didn't care about the black people suffering.

 

[jimtron]

Jumping in without reading but I can cite an example of this. New Orleans. During hurricane Katrina everyone involved who was black (Like um the Mayor of the damn city) was wiped clean of responsibility. Also the droves of people in the Super Dome thing, who were mostly black and acted like a bunch of savages attacking screaming, the videos of people sitting in the middle of the streets screaming and yelling and freaking out because "someone" didn't come to help them.

Well I daresay I've seen flooding all over this country before, hurricanes and whatnot, and we've never seen such a display. But for some reason its not ok to suggest that the people in the Super Dome who were acting like maniacs are the problem.

Instead of quietly waiting for help, or trying to organize into groups, or even gathering together and trying to occupy the children, people were going out of their mind.

Who's fault is that? Oh yeah, the white people who didn't get there to help fast enough because they were racist and didn't care about the black people suffering.

Could you provide specific examples--direct quotes? Who wiped "everyone involved who was black" clean of responsibility? Who defended the blacks that were "acting like savages?" Show me where someone said these people don't need to apologize since they're black.

 

[Lonewulf]

ohgod Truethat's here.

 

[linusrichard]

Could you provide specific examples--direct quotes? Who wiped "everyone involved who was black" clean of responsibility? Who defended the blacks that were "acting like savages?" Show me where someone said these people don't need to apologize since they're black.

No, didn't you read it - everyone "was wiped clean of responsibility."

Passive voice means never having to provide examples.

 

[jimtron]

ohgod Truethat's here.

Whoa, that was his 911th post.

 

[ZirconBlue]

Whoa, that was his 911th post.

Her 911th post. You'll be expected to remember that later.

 

[Lonewulf]

Her 911th post. You'll be expected to remember that later.

I don't believe that Truethat's female. I really don't.

I'll compromise and refer to Truethat as ver/ve/vis, until ve can prove vis sex.

 

[jimtron]

So two pages and no evidence?

 

[ponderingturtle]

Implicit in this scenario, however, is the fact that Bob could (or maybe even should) stop being an obnoxious jerk in order to get people to stop assaulting him. In a way, it puts responsibility on Bob, at least partially, for being attacked.

When people start talking about why terrorists attack us, they walk a fine line between being descriptive and prescriptive. When you say terrorists attack us because of our policies in the Middle East people start to hear it as a suggestion that we should change our policies. At that point, people start to interpret that as you advocating that we simply do what the terrorists want. That elicits an emotional response.

This might be remarkable but supporting brutal dictators like Sadam(for a long time one of america's top allies in the region, with some minor domestic problems).

Supporting brutal dictators, you shouldn't be surprised when people don't like you.

To some people, saying "valid" sounds like you mean "right".

And there are some people who think that the revolutionary war was about political rights, and not evading taxes. When they said no taxation without representation they didn't actually want representation.

 

[ponderingturtle]

(the same is absolutely true of those who say "white people think THIS," or "white people don't care about the poor" and so on. I'm just using black people vs. hip-hop because it is the example at hand)

I was using hip-hop as a different more visible example. I am not sure that the definition of maleness and how men act is limited to that section.

And sales of hip hop albums mean little to how communities view of masculinity.

As for if white people think something, you can talk about subsections in that way. On many issues and in many ways the black community seems to be more homogeneous than the white community.

Again, *I* don't define manhood that way. And I am an American black person. So please leave me out of it. Dealing with racism in this country is a very raw nerve, so I can't tell you how irritating small things like this can be.

So do you think that talking about the black community and its role in the passing of proposition 8 in California is wrong, and doesn't say meaningful things about the black community?

 

[truethat]

I don't believe that Truethat's female. I really don't.

I'll compromise and refer to Truethat as ver/ve/vis, until ve can prove vis sex.

No I am. Most people who think I'm a guy are morons who think my avatar is really me or something. Sheesh.



To the others who ask what evidence, well if you were watching the same news reports that I was and you don't remember what happened then there's no point in trying to provide evidence because we simply saw it from two different perspectives. I do remember it being broadcast pretty clearly that the reason the situation became as bad as it did was because of the racist nature of the country that didn't care because the majority of the people were black.

I also remember sickening videos of how people were acting. I guess you don't remember those videos. And as a person who lives in NYC I was pretty shocked at how these people were behaving, especially because I've not seen people behave this way ever during a natural disaster or terrorist attack. On the video people were lined up and screaming and freaking out.

However I see it my way. You see it your way.

Btw here's an interview with Larry King that is as close to "evidence" as I can get. Its pretty shocking.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjYABkvSiTI

 

[jimtron]

truethat: sorry I referred to you as "he."

I also remember sickening videos of how people were acting. I guess you don't remember those videos.

I do. I don't remember hearing anyone say that it's OK for black people to behave badly due to their being black.

However I see it my way. You see it your way.

Here's part of the claim made by Big Red:

No, it's mocking the absurd "being black means never having to say your'e sorry" attitude I have seen/heard about a billions times either personally or in the media/news from black apologists...

Is there evidence for this or not? If this is happening so frequently, let's hear some quotes from the "black apologists" or "white liberals" Big Red mentioned.

Btw here's an interview with Larry King that is as close to "evidence" as I can get. Its pretty shocking.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjYABkvSiTI

This is a joke, right? Or is there something in that clip that backs up your point? If so, please provide the time on the clip.

 

[truethat]

People don't have to say it. Its accepted. Its taboo to say it. You don't have to agree with me but just because you don't doesn't make the OP wrong or me wrong or you right or wrong for that matter. Its simply a matter of perspective.


I see many people who will assume that the reason someone did something is that they can't help themselves because they are a victim. Other people don't buy excuses.

I guess it depends on your personality type. If you take the Myers Briggs Personality type test you will find that some people are more emotional in how they interpret things. So for many people who watched what was happening during Katrina, the emotions outweighed the facts. The facts were, that 90 percent of the problem with the people in the Super Dome was the behavior of the people involved.

You can go on to try to justify why they behaved the way they did, however as I've said, I've never seen this kind of behavior anywhere before. Not even the day of the Tsunami in Indonesia did people act like this. I was in NYC on 911 and people didn't act like this. So why did they act like this there? To me it was because it was acceptable to behave this way because there are excuses made. As is quite typical.


Really its a matter of what you deem "excusable" or "reasonable." I see no reason why anyone should conduct themselves in such a manner. Obviously others disagree.

There's a question I use to sometimes start conversations with people in groups.


A poor and desperate mother walks into a store and steals a can of formula off the shelf. She gets caught and immediately relinquishes herself to the shop keeper who calls the police. She explains her baby was hungry and that she didn't have any money. She's arrested and booked and taken before the judge.

Now you are the judge.


Is she guilty of stealing the formula.


Some types of people will say "Not really because she was stealing it for her child" "She was desperate" Etc.

For me I say "guilty" She stole it and she admitted it and we know the motive. She's guilty.

You'd be surprised how different people will see this.

 

[linusrichard]

To the others who ask what evidence, well if you were watching the same news reports that I was and you don't remember what happened then there's no point in trying to provide evidence because we simply saw it from two different perspectives. I do remember it being broadcast pretty clearly that the reason the situation became as bad as it did was because of the racist nature of the country that didn't care because the majority of the people were black.

Well, that, and the fact that the president treated the FEMA directorship as a sinecure. But what does any of this have to do with your original thesis that black people were absolved of any responsibility for bad behavior?

I also remember sickening videos of how people were acting. I guess you don't remember those videos.

This isn't about whether people were behaving badly in the aftermath of Katrina. It's about whether they were absolved of any responsibility for their bad actions because they were black.

And as a person who lives in NYC I was pretty shocked at how these people were behaving, especially because I've not seen people behave this way ever during a natural disaster or terrorist attack. On the video people were lined up and screaming and freaking out.

And you don't recall any New Yorkers screaming or freaking out in reaction to terror attacks? Let's leave that one alone. Do people deserve "blame" for "screaming and freaking out" when huge sections of their city are going underwater? Maybe I'm just an old softie, but I'm going to go with "no."

No doubt there were New Orleanians who were behaving badly post-Katrina. No doubt most of them were black (because most affected New Orleanians were black). I still don't see the evidence for anyone absolving these people for their actions.