The Flag

[TomKalbfus]

I still find it (especially as a non US-ian) utterly bizzare how anyone finds their actions so disrespectful or unpatriotic.

 

It's not as though they face their back to the flag or make obscene gestures towards it. (In fact, their action was designed to - not - be disrespectful).

 

Such a teacup storm.

 

Why are there no protests of indignation over strippers using old-glory themed bikinis? I guess they are patriotic strippers.

 

 

Edit:

Is a patriot someone who blindly assumes their country is perfect as it is and shows unquestioning approval of everything?

Is someone who recognises a problem in their country, and peacefully tries to draw attention to it to help find a solution, a patriot?

One does not pray to a flag, the flag is not God! Worshipping a flag is a form of idolatry. The idea of the United States is not that the flag should be worshipped as a God. The Government is supposed to be the servant, not the master! America is about equal rights as citizens, we don't have classes, and we don't bow or kneel to anyone or anything!

[pzkpfw]

One does not pray to a flag, the flag is not God! Worshipping a flag is a form of idolatry. The idea of the United States is not that the flag should be worshipped as a God. The Government is supposed to be the servant, not the master! America is about equal rights as citizens, we don't have classes, and we don't bow or kneel to anyone or anything!

That's very odd, because it's your post that I replied to, that indicates it's you who holds the flag to be some kind of sacred thing. I'm the one saying "chill".

 

Interesting, though, that you bring up "America is about equal rights as citizens" - because the whole issue there is that the citizens do not actually have equal rights, and the kneeling thing was a peaceful non disrespectful way to draw attention to that.

 

"All men are created equal" was written when white men could own black men. True equality still isn't there.

[TomKalbfus]

That's very odd, because it's your post that I replied to, that indicates it's you who holds the flag to be some kind of sacred thing. I'm the one saying "chill".

 

Interesting, though, that you bring up "America is about equal rights as citizens" - because the whole issue there is that the citizens do not actually have equal rights, and the kneeling thing was a peaceful non disrespectful way to draw attention to that.

 

"All men are created equal" was written when white men could own black men. True equality still isn't there.

Where does it say in the US Constitution that blacks don't have equal rights?

Equal rights and true equality are different things. If you want true equality, I suggest you found a nation of clones. People are different, they have different abilities and they rarely ever are equal.

[pzkpfw]

Where does it say in the US Constitution that blacks don't have equal rights?

Equal rights and true equality are different things. If you want true equality, I suggest you found a nation of clones. People are different, they have different abilities and they rarely ever are equal.

 

Way to miss the point! More than once in one post.

 

While the current laws may make for claimed equality, the application of those laws is not necessarily equal. The simple example is how a black man driving a car, doing nothing wrong, is more likely to be "randomly" pulled over by a cop than a white man driving. A black man is also more likely to be shot by that cop. These are the kinds of thing that the peaceful, non disrespectful, kneeling protest was intended to highlight.

 

And you seem to have totally missed the point in my comment on the quote of the constitution. The constitution was written at a time when black people absolutely had less rights in the U.S. than white people. I did some googling on the history of it, as the hypocrisy was so clear. Turns out that when the constitution was written some of the people involved did want to include some stuff about the wrongness of slavery; but their changes were edited out and the language kept more neutral. So while the constitution may appear on the face of it to be about equality, inequality was actually subtly written into it.

 

Either way, the constitution was written in 1787, and (for example) in 1955 people were still made to sit in a certain place in a bus based on their skin colour. "All men are created equal" may have been written, but it was not believed by all; including by some of the writers of the constitution, who "owned" black people.

 

I'm not at all arguing that all people are equal in terms of being exactly the same. (I have no idea how you think your clone comment is at all relevant to this thread; other than as a weird interpretation of what I meant by "true equality". Is English your first language?). Not even all people of one gender or race are the same as each other. What I am saying is that not all people have equal rights, but they should.

 

Even if the laws as currently written are apparently for equal rights, equal rights are not actually enjoyed by all.

 

It's very very simple. A particular black man driving down the road may be 6 foot tall, and like pasta. A particular white man driving down the road may be 6 foot 2 inches tall and like sushi. No, they are not "clones", they are not exactly the same. Nobody says they should be identical. But, they should have equal rights, and their skin colour should not affect their chance of being pulled over by a cop. The laws may say they have equal rights, but do they?

Edited October 18, 2017 by pzkpfw

[TomKalbfus]

Way to miss the point! More than once in one post.

 

While the current laws may make for claimed equality, the application of those laws is not necessarily equal. The simple example is how a black man driving a car, doing nothing wrong, is more likely to be "randomly" pulled over by a cop than a white man driving. A black man is also more likely to be shot by that cop. These are the kinds of thing that the peaceful, non disrespectful, kneeling protest was intended to highlight.

​

The only way to guarantee that won't happen would be for a total separation between blacks and whites, that way a white cop won't be around to shoot a black man and vice versa. There was segregation in the old South, but it was never total, white cops still had contact with black people and could still shoot them, having separate black bathrooms and blacks in the back of the bus didn't change that. If you have a racially mixed community, then there is always a chance that a white cop will shoot a black man, and there is no way to stop that! There is also a chance that a black cop will shoot a white man. Black non-cops have shot white men, so put a uniform on that black man and a black cop could shoot a white man. Society isn't perfect, so football players are basically protesting the fact that society isn't perfect and will keep on disrespecting the flag until the United States of America learns how to be perfect!

 

Perfection doesn't exist in this world. To expect perfection is to expect the impossible.

 

And you seem to have totally missed the point in my comment on the quote of the constitution. The constitution was written at a time when black people absolutely had less rights in the U.S. than white people. I did some googling on the history of it, as the hypocrisy was so clear. Turns out that when the constitution was written some of the people involved did want to include some stuff about the wrongness of slavery; but their changes were edited out and the language kept more neutral. So while the constitution may appear on the face of it to be about equality, inequality was actually subtly written into it.

 

The Constitution was a compromise document, if the people at that Constitutional Convention didn't want to compromise, then we wouldn't have a Constitution and we wouldn't have a country. As I said before, to expect perfection is to expect the impossible. Slavery was a special interest back then, they would not have allowed a Constitution to be passed that outlawed slavery, after all, they did rebel when Lincoln got elected on an anti-slavery platform, now think of what would have happened if this occurred during the Revolutionary War or immediately thereafter. The Compromise was a Constitution that didn't mention slavery. The choice was to settle for something less than perfect of settle for nothing at all! I think the United States did an awful lot of good in this World, and that good would not have happened if we did not compromise to agree upon that Constitution. In a perfect world today, there would be no abortion, abortion is about how we value human life and so was slavery in a different respect. I am opposed to both, I am opposed to slavery in other countries, for example in Cuba, people can't leave the country without the government's permission, so in effect all Cuban citizens are slaves to the state.

 

 

Either way, the constitution was written in 1787, and (for example) in 1955 people were still made to sit in a certain place in a bus based on their skin colour. "All men are created equal" may have been written, but it was not believed by all; including by some of the writers of the constitution, who "owned" black people.

 

Just because people sit in different parts of the bus, doesn't mean that they aren't equal. Perhaps the original intent was to keep the two groups separate so their wouldn't be fights breaking out on the bus if they are motivated by racism. Let me give you a concrete example. Lets suppose O.J. Simpson was sitting in the black of a bus with his knife, and Ronald Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson were sitting in the front of the Bus holding hands. O.J. Simpson would have to get up and move to the front of the bus to stab those two people. Do you think O.J. Simpson was a racist? Two of his victims were white after all, but an all black jury wouldn't convict him of murder, maybe the all black jury was racist? Society isn't perfect and some people overlook the fact that racism goes both ways. In this society right now, blacks hating white people is more acceptable that white people hating blacks. I've been on the receiving end of that hatred from my early days as a child when a bunch of black kids were picking on me because I was white. I talked to my parents about that, I was very young at the time, and they explained to me the whole story about slavery, but still it didn't make any sense to me that they would pick on me because of slavery, because I didn't have anything to do with that, and it was so long ago! Ever since that time, I've seen a lot of black people with chips on their shoulder, hating white people because of some perceived historical injustice. Well, I don't have a time machine, because if I did, I would go back and fix it.

 

I'm not at all arguing that all people are equal in terms of being exactly the same. (I have no idea how you think your clone comment is at all relevant to this thread; other than as a weird interpretation of what I meant by "true equality". Is English your first language?). Not even all people of one gender or race are the same as each other. What I am saying is that not all people have equal rights, but they should.​

 

No law can fix humanity. One of the survival patterns that all humans possess is the ability to recognize patterns which may indicate danger. I remember the story of a girl who went to South Africa to oppose Apartheid, she was white, she went there do show her support for racial equality, and a bunch of black people killed her! Other blacks that knew her really regretted that incident, but it still happened. the girl had trained herself not to see danger, because she interpreted that as a form of racism, she ignored the warning signs and she was killed.

 

Even if the laws as currently written are apparently for equal rights, equal rights are not actually enjoyed by all.

 

It's very very simple. A particular black man driving down the road may be 6 foot tall, and like pasta. A particular white man driving down the road may be 6 foot 2 inches tall and like sushi. No, they are not "clones", they are not exactly the same. Nobody says they should be identical. But, they should have equal rights, and their skin colour should not affect their chance of being pulled over by a cop. The laws may say they have equal rights, but do they?

 

 

Part of what motivates a cop to shoot is fear that he or she may be killed if he or she doesn't. This might be an argument for no female cops, here is an example.

 

Lets suppose O.J. Simpson is in a car driving above the speed limit, and a cop decides to pull him over and give him a ticket. The cop walks up to the car, and O.J. Simpson gets out of the car and lunges at the police officer. Don't you think a female cop would be more likely to pull out her gun and shoot, than a male cop who is closer in size to O.J. Simpson? The female cop has visions of being overpowered raped and murdered, so she pulls out her gun right away! The Male cop feels he has more of a chance to win the engagement by wrestling with O.J. Simpson so he doesn't pull out his gun. The result is, that if we want to avoid some of the shootings of suspects, we cannot allow female cops because they are physically smaller and weaker and thus more likely to use firearms to defend themselves.

 

The World is not a perfect place, and there are no perfect answers, the question is whether you are willing to live with that, because solutions to some problems often create other problems. 

Edited October 19, 2017 by TomKalbfus

[pzkpfw]

... Perfection doesn't exist in this world. To expect perfection is to expect the impossible. ...

So your answer is to give up and accept racism or the effects thereof? To not try to improve things?

 

... The Constitution was a compromise document ...

It's been a few years since 1787, why not try to improve things? Compromises made (or the thoughts behind them) then don't necessarily have to apply today.

 

... Just because people sit in different parts of the bus, doesn't mean that they aren't equal. ...

That's too funny to comment on.

 

... No law can fix humanity. ...

Maybe not, but laws can try to help. A law can't stop a racist being racist, but it can try to discourage him or her from harming or disadvantaging someone because of that racism, by punishing them if they do.

 

... The World is not a perfect place, and there are no perfect answers, the question is whether you are willing to live with that, because solutions to some problems often create other problems. ...

Which again is an admission things are not actually perfect in the U.S., and a suggestion to not even try to improve things.

 

To quote your glorious leader: "sad".

[Maine farmer]

 Society isn't perfect and some people overlook the fact that racism goes both ways. In this society right now, blacks hating white people is more acceptable that white people hating blacks. I've been on the receiving end of that hatred from my early days as a child when a bunch of black kids were picking on me because I was white. I talked to my parents about that, I was very young at the time, and they explained to me the whole story about slavery, but still it didn't make any sense to me that they would pick on me because of slavery, because I didn't have anything to do with that, and it was so long ago! Ever since that time, I've seen a lot of black people with chips on their shoulder, hating white people because of some perceived historical injustice. Well, I don't have a time machine, because if I did, I would go back and fix it.

 

Well now we have gotten to the bottom of it all.  I suspected as much.  It is common for one to extrapolate their own personal experiences to the larger world, but the trouble is that the world is so much larger.  If the kids who picked on you were white, they likely would have found some other difference to use, because that is what bullies do.  I saw kids get bullied all the time in school when I was growing up.  In my youth, I didn't stand up to the bullies unless the attacked me directly, and I regret that I did not stand up for and beside those poor kids who were less fortunate than myself.  Race may have been a reason, but ultimately it wasn't "the" reason.

 

I am not a good christian, but I hold to  the premise that I should "do unto others as I would have others do unto me".  It isn't easy, but it's easier than the old "eye for an eye" in the long run.

[TomKalbfus]

Well now we have gotten to the bottom of it all.  I suspected as much.  It is common for one to extrapolate their own personal experiences to the larger world, but the trouble is that the world is so much larger.  If the kids who picked on you were white, they likely would have found some other difference to use, because that is what bullies do.  I saw kids get bullied all the time in school when I was growing up.  In my youth, I didn't stand up to the bullies unless the attacked me directly, and I regret that I did not stand up for and beside those poor kids who were less fortunate than myself.  Race may have been a reason, but ultimately it wasn't "the" reason.

 

I am not a good christian, but I hold to  the premise that I should "do unto others as I would have others do unto me".  It isn't easy, but it's easier than the old "eye for an eye" in the long run.

Were they less fortunate, or was that just some excuse to pick on some poor white kid on the playground? I couldn't tell their economic situation or that of their families just by looking at them. Going black to the days of slavery and explaining that they are doing it because their ancestors were slaves, isn't very helpful, and that doesn't cause me to forgive them. A bully is a bully, and they don't get a pass jus because they are supposedly a racially disadvantaged minority who's ancestors came to America in the bottom of a boat in chains so they could be sold on the slave market! You know I didn't create this history, I learned it in school, but it has nothing to do with me, and I don't feel guilty because of it! I didn't choose to be white anymore than they chose to be black. Why should I learn to understand their motives when they pick on me, just because they learned to hate white people in history class?

[Maine farmer]

Of course a bully is a bully, and your parents were probably way off the mark with their explanation to you, but  to judge a whole race of people based on the behavior of the worst of them leads us only in a useless circle of blame.  Weather someone is just different, a little odd, gay, lesbian, transgender, man, woman, white or black, there is no justification for bullying.  Telling the African Americans that they should either be grateful or just leave is much the same as telling you to be grateful that your tormentors didn't kill you.  It's just plain absurd.  

 

In your specific case you were the less fortunate because you were apparently perceived as an easy target and apparently had no one to offer you help

[TomKalbfus]

It was more a verbal kind of bullying, I just use it as an example. the people that lived in the 19th century are not my people, 19th century America was a different country, I don't know anyone who lived way back then History teaches that there was slavery and a civil war, that is what I learned in School, I don't know any civil war veterans, they are all dead! The slaves and the masters are all dead! My thought is simply this, if they went back to Africa after they were freed, the cycle of racism would have been broken. The ex-slaves without their former masters would have had no one to hate, and the ex-slave owners without their slaves would have just had stories to tell their children about it. The children would just have shrugged their shoulders not actually having met a black person themselves. When the first voluntary black immigrants showed up on Ellis Island, they would have encountered no racism, because the white population would have forgotten how to be racist, they would have heard stories about slavery from their history books and that would be about it.

[pzkpfw]

That is laughably naive. You absolutely still would have had white people who hated black people, simply for being black. (And vice versa).

 

Memories of slave ownership days simply are not the sole cause of racism.

 

Do you not know how many kinds of racism there are? Take the way Irish immigrants were treated at times. Or the Chinese labourers who built the railways.

 

In the wider sense, bullying is done for all sorts of stupid reasons. Red headed people are sometimes bullied just for their hair colour!

 

Extreme Segregation is not the answer to racism (or bullying).

 

 

(Edit: removed "extreme". I was responding to the specific post (which was extreme), but didn't want to be misunderstood ... any segregation in this context is daft.)

Edited October 20, 2017 by pzkpfw

[Maine farmer]

It was more a verbal kind of bullying, I just use it as an example. the people that lived in the 19th century are not my people, 19th century America was a different country, I don't know anyone who lived way back then History teaches that there was slavery and a civil war, that is what I learned in School, I don't know any civil war veterans, they are all dead! The slaves and the masters are all dead! My thought is simply this, if they went back to Africa after they were freed, the cycle of racism would have been broken. The ex-slaves without their former masters would have had no one to hate, and the ex-slave owners without their slaves would have just had stories to tell their children about it. The children would just have shrugged their shoulders not actually having met a black person themselves. When the first voluntary black immigrants showed up on Ellis Island, they would have encountered no racism, because the white population would have forgotten how to be racist, they would have heard stories about slavery from their history books and that would be about it.

Being an outsider or a newcomer is always tough, but it's tougher when you have a physical difference that can't be hidden.  

 

 Red headed people are sometimes bullied just for their hair colour!

 

Someone I once knew once had a fight with a red haired person, and from then on disliked all redheads!

[pzkpfw]

...

 

Someone I once knew once had a fight with a red haired person, and from then on disliked all redheads!

Yep. People find ways to hate.

 

I suspect TomKalbfus has led a very sheltered life, and gets too much "knowledge" from the wrong sort of web site.

 

Heck, I used to think racism was as simple as white vs black. Then I lived in Fiji for two and a half years. Interesting feeling being the only white guy on a bus, learning what it's like to feel like a minority.

 

Then I learned that many of the Fijians didn't like Indians and vice versa. As far as I knew before, they were all non-white; but that didn't put them all on the same "side". Further, the various groups of pacific islanders didn't all "like" each other (Fijian, Tongan, Samoan, Rotuman, ...), and even the lighter skinned and darker skinned Indians had a kind of prejudice against each other.

 

The only realistic solution, is education and time.

[TomKalbfus]

That is laughably naive. You absolutely still would have had white people who hated black people, simply for being black. (And vice versa).

 

Memories of slave ownership days simply are not the sole cause of racism.

 

Do you not know how many kinds of racism there are? Take the way Irish immigrants were treated at times. Or the Chinese labourers who built the railways.

 

In the wider sense, bullying is done for all sorts of stupid reasons. Red headed people are sometimes bullied just for their hair colour!

 

Extreme Segregation is not the answer to racism (or bullying).

 

 

(Edit: removed "extreme". I was responding to the specific post (which was extreme), but didn't want to be misunderstood ... any segregation in this context is daft.)

 

That is laughably naive. You absolutely still would have had white people who hated black people, simply for being black. (And vice versa).

 

Why? Why would you hate someone you've never met, give me a rational reason why that would occur? If you've never met a black person in your whole entire live, how could you hate black people? Even if you did, what could you do to them if you can't get your hands on them? Would you travel to Africa so you could kill black people?

Give me a logical rational reason why some white person would hate black people if they were all sent back to Africa after they were freed from slavery? Lets say you were a kid who was born after all the slaves were sent back to Africa, and the only thing you know about them is that they were once slaves and they worked hard on those plantations and now they are gone, so someone else has to pick the cotton and tobacco. Why would you hate people, you've never met? I can understand black people who were slaves hating white people, but why would white people hate blacks if the only thing you know about them is that they were once slaves? Lets think like scientists now, not with our emotions!

 

Take the way Irish immigrants were treated at times.

 

They were treated that way because they were here competing for jobs and had an accent, thus it was possible to distinguish them from other people competing for jobs who didn't have an accent. If they were given lessons on how to speak with an American accent and changed their name to something like "John Smith" no one would know they were Irish. if they stayed in Ireland, then no one in America would hate them, in this case the hatred has an economic motivation in a job market where jobs were scarce.

 

Or the Chinese labourers who built the railways.​

 

But I guess they were hated because some white people wanted those jobs building the railroad, same reason as the Irish, a few voice lessons wouldn't help them, maybe better immigration control would help No one has an automatic right to come to the United States, and the people we let in should serve the interests of the people who are already here. So a decision needed to be made. How badly did we need to have that railroad built, and how badly did we want to have those jobs the Chinese laborers took? Without them here, it would likely have cost the railroad companies more to hire white people to build those railroads, and they would have to decide whether the benefits of building that railroad was work the cost of hiring those white workers instead of the cheaper Chinese. Also those workers were poor, when we let them in, we were importing poverty, is that in the interests of the United States of America and its people?

 

In the wider sense, bullying is done for all sorts of stupid reasons. Red headed people are sometimes bullied just for their hair colour!

 

Extreme Segregation is not the answer to racism (or bullying).

 

Do you have an answer? You are telling me what is not the answer, but you don't have an answer yourself on how to eliminate racism in this country. If we did, we would have done so already, yet many of you same leftists still say we are a racist country, so apparently you don't have an answer. If blacks are not here we can't discriminate against them. Those black kids could not have bullied me as a child if they lived in Africa. hatred goes both ways, so why bring people who hate each other together? I would assume the first to hate were the black slaves, because white people enslaved them. The white slave owners had no reason to hate their slaves, any more than they had reason to hate their horses or their cattle. Once freed slaves would be quite angry at those people who enslaved them, they might even hate white people in general, so they do something bad to some of them, and white people remember that, and now they have reason to hate black people, they do something bad to black people, and now blacks have additional reason to hate white people and it goes on and on so long as they have the opportunity to get revenge against each other.

 

Now what about the people who never owned slaves? All a black person sees is a white person, and he is mad that white people enslaved him, so what do you think he's going to do to that white person? That is the logic of separation! if you want all races to live together in harmony, you have to keep out the people who hate or send them to Africa where they can't harm any body that is the target of their hatred. You know sometimes diversity is destructive when they groups that make up that diversity hate each other, take the Middle East for instance.

[TomKalbfus]

Yep. People find ways to hate.

 

I suspect TomKalbfus has led a very sheltered life, and gets too much "knowledge" from the wrong sort of web site.

 

Heck, I used to think racism was as simple as white vs black. Then I lived in Fiji for two and a half years. Interesting feeling being the only white guy on a bus, learning what it's like to feel like a minority.

 

Then I learned that many of the Fijians didn't like Indians and vice versa. As far as I knew before, they were all non-white; but that didn't put them all on the same "side". Further, the various groups of pacific islanders didn't all "like" each other (Fijian, Tongan, Samoan, Rotuman, ...), and even the lighter skinned and darker skinned Indians had a kind of prejudice against each other.

 

The only realistic solution, is education and time.

 

We've had 152 years of education and time, and you say that's not enough? How much is enough time for you 2000 years? Would have been simpler to return the freed slaves to Africa rather than to endure racism and bigotry for 152 years as you say it still exists today. My question to you is, why must they live here? Can you give me a good reason? Lots of people live in Africa, and we could have compensated all the freed slaves while they lived in Africa instead of while they were living here and dealing with white prejudice. You tell me was it worth it to try to live together? After seeing those black football players disrespecting the flag, I wonder.

[Buffy]

We've had 152 years of education and time, and you say that's not enough?

The first 100 of that was dominated by Jim Crow laws where there was no slavery, but basically blacks were put in a box they were not allowed out of. This was as true in northern cities like Boston that hid their discrimination in title deed covenants that prevented blacks from buying in white areas as it was in the South with it's white-only public accommodations.

 

We finally got some movement with civil rights in the 50s and 60s, but it was like pulling teeth, and racist attitudes were only slowly driven underground, not eliminated overnight.

 

The last condominium I lived in I was on the board when we re-wrote the CC&Rs that dated only back to 1968, but even it had covenants that basically did not allow blacks or woman to buy them. This was in *Oakland California*. Hardly a bastion of racism or sexism. And the guy who built them and wrote those CC&Rs was a well known Republican state assemblyman!

 

Insisting that everything's been hunky dory for African Americans for 152 years is, shall we say, being in deep denial of well-known history.

 

Such a display of extreme ignorance would be funny if it weren't so scary. It's basically right out of the mouth of David Duke.

 

 

What we really want to do is to be left alone. We don't want Negroes around. We don't need Negroes around. We simply want our own country and our own society. :phones:

Buffy

[TomKalbfus]

The first 100 of that was dominated by Jim Crow laws where there was no slavery, but basically blacks were put in a box they were not allowed out of. This was as true in northern cities like Boston that hid their discrimination in title deed covenants that prevented blacks from buying in white areas as it was in the South with it's white-only public accommodations.

 

We finally got some movement with civil rights in the 50s and 60s, but it was like pulling teeth, and racist attitudes were only slowly driven underground, not eliminated overnight.

 

The last condominium I lived in I was on the board when we re-wrote the CC&Rs that dated only back to 1968, but even it had covenants that basically did not allow blacks or woman to buy them. This was in *Oakland California*. Hardly a bastion of racism or sexism. And the guy who built them and wrote those CC&Rs was a well known Republican state assemblyman!

 

Insisting that everything's been hunky dory for African Americans for 152 years is, shall we say, being in deep denial of well-known history.

 

Such a display of extreme ignorance would be funny if it weren't so scary. It's basically right out of the mouth of David Duke.

 

 

What we really want to do is to be left alone. We don't want Negroes around. We don't need Negroes around. We simply want our own country and our own society. :phones:

Buffy

Were Asians discriminated against at the same time blacks were? Did Asians need to live next to white people and attend white people's schools so the magic will rub off of them and they can improve themselves? Blacks tend to give up more than Asians do! They say, "Life's unfair, woe is me!" The Asians just work harder. Asians tend to annoy some people by being so successful, I heard that mentioned about the Chinese railroad workers. Blacks go , "Boohoo, my grandpa was a slave, there is nothing I can do to improve my life, maybe I'll just rob a liquor store." Some of the highest rates of growth in the World is in Asia, while Africa boils with violence and terrorism. My theory is that Asians are more group oriented than Africans, they tend not to like chaos and violence. Africans act more as individuals, they think of themselves first and how they can get ahead, many sold other blacks into slavery after taking their stuff in tribal wars. With Asians it was always family first self second, that is why in China, the family name comes first and the individual's name comes second. I once dated a Chinese girl, believe it or not!