Is it racism?

[sweetheart]

On a recent journey to Atlanta, my spouse, complained to me about how
americans just don't get racism. I asked, "What do you mean?"

In the Atlanta international airport departure area is an
exhibit on racism and racial equality, with big billboards
"Racism: the black mans burden and the white mans shame" and lotsa
money spent. Then as you pass in to the departure lounge, there are
like 10 fast food outlets. Every single service person was black.

What is the truth? If black people get the economic shaft, is that
not racism?

[Leilani]

1. Does everything have to be about racism?

Atlanta happens to be a black majority population.

Here is Hawaii, Hawaiians are working at low paid service jobs.

Drive through Appalachia, & see poor white people working in these jobs.

Under Bush, the poor are getting poorer, the middle class in sliding down, & wealth is being concentrated in the hands of fewer people.

[sweetheart]

2. Then its not racism when darker skins have lower paying jobs

You're right on with what i'm asking.... just i can't help but
ask whether income disparity can be airbrushed out of racism and
purely described otherwise.

Demographically, darker skins earn less... but that is not racism?

Can't we call a spade a spade?

(yes, all people earn less under the fascist dictator after coup2000,
but this obscures the underlying fact of race-based behaviour)

[vetwife]

3. In some areas, segragation is rampid in Georgia

[sweetheart]

6. segregation....?

You mean like "black" and white universities?

Or areas of living.... or segregation in to lower paid jobs with
fewer rights.

In a past life, i once spent a summer doing door to door sales in
georgia, and am quite familiar with "accross the tracks"... a very
real thing, as much as it is parodied in the media. The racism
i saw and heard back then (80's) was breathtaking, and not at all
in keeping with the glossy forgetfulness of CNN.

Just, today in 2004, how does responsible government make justice?

Why would any black person respect a country that is so blatantly
against them for their bloody skin pigment?

[Contender]

34. All white Universities are not allowed. Only all Black.

[Contender]

37. rampid?

[kayell]

4. It's a result of racism, but also of classism

Black people have been relegated to lower econmic classes due to racism and lack of eduction, lack of oppurtunities. It is difficult to say that the situation you saw though is current racism, because classism tends to hold people in place in the economic system through multiple generations.

This is why affirmative action, and (dare I say it) reparations of some type are essential.

We may not have as obvious a caste system as India or Great Britain, but it is very real, no matter how we deny it.

---------------------------------------

Atlanta has a high black population. If the area near the airport is mostly black, this can also explain why more poor blacks than whites in these jobs. Access to transportation is a major employment issue for the poor. In other areas, you may find more poor whites, as someone noted above.

So, indicative, but definitly not proof.

[sweetheart]

5. Affirmative action.. (dare it be said)

There is no proof... just a lotta lotta evidence.

I don't think this can be healed without affirmative action.

Other meetings in Atlanta, with higher paid folks, were whiter...
and the airport with its message of irony, is a sad gesture to
people who know better.

The billboards signify to me the propaganda that racism has been
erradicated.... only for a new more insideous sort of "classism".

Do "we" democrats still stand for equality of that sort, and is it
taboo to discuss during a campaign.... ? Simply denying classism
and lack of opportunity to poor people is not a solution... has the
rightward shift pushed us to deny this along with the pukes?

[kayell]

9. The party has turned away from the poor

Sorry to say it, but while the Dems will not harm the poor to anywhere close to the extent that the Repukes will, they won't particularly help them either.

With corporate wealth being such a major part of the financial support of political campaigns in this country, it was inevitable that the dems would sell their souls trying to stay close to the repukes in funds. Probably a lot told themselves that they could take the money in order to win, in order to be able to stay in office and help the people who depend on them. But when you sell your soul to the corporate devil, he's not going to let you keep a portion of it.

Some might say that corporates have no use for poor people, because they can't support their product, but the poor are one of the greatest assests corporates have. The working poor are fodder for the factories, the marts, the fast food chains. The unemployed are the cautionary reminder to all of us that this could happen to any who rebel. They warn us to be docile or risk all.

I don't think that the people in charge really care whether the underclass is black, white, christian, muslim, southern, northern, so long as their is an underclass and it is growing in numbers. It is definately to their advantage though to keep the poor divided into artificial categories. If the poor are distracted into hating each other, they may not notice their real enemy.

Yeah, I think it is considered taboo to discuss that Dems are guilty too. But oh well, if you can't break at least one stupid taboo a day, how are you going to change things. The Dems are suffering for this choice and have been for years, as people who see little difference in the parties have opted out of voting, of caring at all. Life in the "ghetto" whether it be in an inner city, or a poor appalachian mining town, doesn't change much anymore no matter who is in power.

Of course, this election is an exception to that rule, in that the suffering under the BFEE will be extreme, and the poor as cannon fodder will feel it most and first. But the Dems, if they can pull out a win, will have to change or we will face the real possibility of corporate facism again.

Somedays I dispair that this country can ever find it's way again. Admitedly the US has never been the wondrous place of equality we learned in school, but there have been glimmers of hope. I fear those glimmers may have been permanantly extinguished.

[sangh0]

12. That is just a load

It was Democrats that increased the EITC. It was Democrats that saved Affirmative Action. It was Democrats that have been fighting off the right's attempts to cut Section 8 vouchers. It was Democrats who fought to establish and maintain Title I benefits, which send money to to schools in poor districts. It was Democrats that fought for extensions on unemployment benefits, and it's ALWAYS been Democrats fighting to maintain the social safety net. And they have continued, for decades, to do this even though poor people do not vote as frequently and as consistently as other groups. You didn't think it was the RNC that did all this, did you?

It's not a "stupid taboo". It's just plain ole stupid to say the Dems have turned away from the poor.

[kayell]

36. Democrats in the 30s and 60s protected the poor and instituted many

great programs to help poor people. The Democratic party as a whole in the 80s, 90s, and 00s has largely ignored the poor. They haven't tried to destroy the poor in the same way that the repukes have, but they have either ignored them or gone along with a weakening of aid to make themselves acceptable to the "swing voters" and the corporations.

See Clinton

[sangh0]

42. Wrong again. All of the examples I gave were from the 80's, 90's & 00's

Every single one of the examples I gave came from the 80's, 90's, and 00's, a fact you ignored because it effectively shows your claims are baseless.

See Clinton

Who do you think saved Affirmative Action, and expanded EITC, not to mention increasing the number of poor people who have health insurance? Who do you think increased the budgets of Civil Rights offices in the various Federal agencies? Who increased home ownership rates among minorities? Who lowered the poverty rate?

[southlandshari]

20. Well said!

Just because the Democratic Party has been SOMEWHAT better than the Republicans at giving SOME support to SOME of the programs that were designed to help "the poor" in this country, doesn't exactly put it at the vanguard of justice (economic, social or otherwise).

After we get rid of Bush in November, we have much to do to restore the ideals this party was built upon. In fact, I think if those ideals and passion for insuring a decent life for every American were still at the forefront of the Democratic Party, there would be no need for nail-biting about this election. It would already be obvious that the neo-cons days are over.

[Kanary]

21. It MUST be said........ Clinton's welfare deform badly hurt many people!!!

So, you are absolutely correct.. the Dems aren't doing a lot better when it comes to poverty issues, and poor folk know that. They aren't kidding themselves that things will get better if Kerry is elected, because the Dems have been busy selling them out since Johnson.

There are times of huge cuts, like Clinton's welfare mess, and in between there are constant erosions so that poverty is now WORSE than it was 15 or 20 years ago, and people are seeing less and less hope. That can be laid at the feet of the Dems for allowing it.

I share your despair that this country will "ever find it's way again". I'm really afraid that the great muddleclass will have to fall into poverty before they can empathize at all, and get back any caring for others they once had. And that includes Democratic middleclass people!

Kanary

[Speed8098]

29. "Clinton's welfare deform badly hurt many people!!! "

Clintons bill looked a hell of alot better than what the repubs were trying to ram through.

While I didn't agree with President Clinton's reforms, they didn't take away as much as they could've considering the political climate at the time.

[Kanary]

39. The people who died because of Clinton's deform are just as important

as you or anyone else.

I'm sick to death of the dismissal of HUMAN BEINGS.

Clinton says that he should have done the welfare deform FIRST. Any idea that he was dragged kicking and screaming into that "solution" is just plain false.

This kind of dismissal of people's lives is a foretaste of what will happen under a Kerry administration. Dems wil just let it happen, and let more people suffer and die needlessly, while bemoaning the war deaths.

Makes me SICK.

Kanary

[redpepper]

7. I don't think it is racism because

of the large black population of the area. Just like in my area there are a lot of Hispanics, yet in northern MN you will find a lot of white people working behind the counter.

Where the racism is involved is in the poor education we provide for the blacks and Hispanics. We must do more to bring equality to education.

[sweetheart]

8. Is education equality the thing?

If you elected me, and i was gonna be a bitch about it all and be
quite radical to achieve equality. Equal opportunity is not working
enough, so more measures are necessary.

I think i'd just levy a massive fine against all public firms that
were not able to show that thier pay practices were demographic.

Perhaps, the accounting laws should be changed to make firms report
net employees by ethnicity, sex, and average pay to the public,
just like earnings per share. Then the markets would punish
offenders.

I'm really pissed off that the constitution is a piece of shit
that is not respected in the new fascist states of criminal bushwhack.

What is justice when a majority of people in some parts of the
country know in advance that they will get FUCKED, no matter what.
I'm pissed off about racism... not at you... i'm ranting.. just
you really hit it, i think.

We've come to be making excuses for racist practices, and defending
corporations who have no right to personhood under the law,
expecially when they are systematically undermining economic
equality by stealth-racism/classism.

[wellstone dem]

38. In 1980 Central Minnesota

I happened to meet with a Black Lawyer from Louisiana. He asked me what was the reason for poverty in my community. I talked about education, domestic violence, disability, loss of hoped, etc. He replied, "That's interesting, in Louisiana I'd just have to say one word: racism."

[skygazer]

10. Quite frankly

I see racism AND sexism in the very words they used in the display.

"Racism: the black mans burden and the white mans shame"

Racism exists against hispanics, asians, Middle Easterners and all others without lily white skin. And the use of the word "man" rather than a less gender specific term is obnoxious. It may not seem like much but words DO convey ideas. They should be used carefully.

[jdj]

16. It reminds me of the subtitle of "This Bridge Called My Back"

"All the women are white, all the blacks are men, but some of us are brave."

[DrWeird]

11. Is it racism? Of course.

Is a few black people in fast foods restaurants in area with a large percentage of blacks racist in and of itself? No. It could be coincidence.

Is the undeniable fact that blacks are more likely to be more impoverished and have shittier jobs than whites racist? Of course. When you think about it, there are only two logical explanations for the great economic disparity among blacks: that they're somehow racially inferior to whites, or there is systemic racism in our society. Obviously it's the latter.

[DjTj]

13. It is the RESULT of racism...

...however, whining about the symptoms never cured any disease.

The reason there are economic disparities is that there has been racism in this country for a long time - and not very long ago, it was far worse than it is today.

When we see that injustice though, it does little good to shake our heads and blame some phantom "racism" or to feel sorry for them. Those people are working hard to earn a living just like anyone else. If we do our jobs, they may have more opportunities for promotion or at higher wages, and at the very least their kids should get a decent education.

What we must do is fight prejudice in the minds of Americans and eradicating and institutionalized racist practices - we have to attack the root of the problems.

Seeing "racism" is one thing, but "getting" racism - finding the root causes and doing something about it - is something else entirely.

[sweetheart]

32. "getting" racism

I feel sorry for people who've been screwed over, it is just human
nature to feel pangs for justice, no? So, what is leftover from
apartheid has not healed.... because we still have apartheid,
obviously.

The irony of pretending to cure a disease, by perpetuating its
causes, surely can at least make foreign visitors departing
atlanta airport shake their heads.

If we say that the results of Racism today are 100% economic, then
what is to be done for a just government to "doing something
about it"?

[TrueAmerican]

14. On a trip to Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati

I was amazed by the top level food concessions. Almost all the employees were black. As you went closer to the field the more whites that were working. All the ushers down closer to the field were white.

I'm from California and I really don't recall anything like that there. You have a lot of Hispanics working concessions, but there are other races mixed in.

I was a little confused in Cincinnati.

[sweetheart]

28. The shock from california

I remember the first time i left california to university in texas,
and how the race segregation and expressed race hatred, was
breathtaking.... but "i" felt like the racist to even bring it up.

It was as if everyone in the racist paradigm had become so desensitized
that they no longer saw segregation and racism, rather believing
the television rhetoric that words speak louder than actions.

This is really what shocked me in atlanta airport, that someone would
have the hubris to presume that words are a solution when actions
would clearly speak louder.

Geez, having black people in the kitchen, has been a southern thing
since slavery, and is not much of a race victory, to call the new
kitchen a fast food restaurant.

I'm dead sure that if you took the race, sex and income of every
person working in atlanta airport, you'd find that the data suggests
endemic racism. I would only accept the argument that the racism
is nonexistant anymore if the incomes were equal.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

15. Racism has a long legacy.

What you were seeing is the results 300+ years of racism. America still has not come to terms with it's own history.

[gofordean]

17. Not Racism at all

I happened to live in Atlanta for several years and know that the reason the staff(s) you encountered were mostly black was due to 2 factors.

1) Virtually all the residential neighborhoods within 10-12 miles of the airport are predominantly black (90+%)

2) All the restaurants, bars, newsstands, kiosks, etc inside Hartsfield are owned by African-Americans. All... no-exceptions. Atlanta's mayor's and power brokers decide who get these profit centers and have been very effective in making sure that ownership of these franchises reflect the surrounding community.


BTW, this is my first post, but have enjoyed site for several weeks

[DjTj]

18. Welcome to DU!

:hi:

...and thanks for the firsthand info!

[sweetheart]

30. Welcome to DU

Was not the kitchen the place where the slaves ran things in the
olde south as well? Fiddling economics so that the kitchen is
"owned" by blacks, seems a minor victory given history. John Brown
might be a bit disappointed.

Why were other higher paid areas of that airport with white workers
then? If we looked at all the contracted companies that supply
atlanta airport, would we find that ALL contracted companies
reflect the demographics of the surrounding neighborhoods?

Welcome to DU. Its good to hear a voice speaking up for liberalism!

[Name removed]

40. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Catfight]

19. I don't think the human race has evolved as much as we'd like to think.

Look at the fact that a black child's dream or a womans dream to become President of the United States is something parents have to tell them that can't happen. The fact is, there are more blacks and more women in the United States than white males. So why is it that women and blacks do not band together and vote someone in as President that represents what America ought to be, a country of the possible. That is why I could give a rats ass if Arnold Swaggesnager tries to get a bill passed for white men from other countries to have the right to run for President. I would like to see in my lifetime a woman or a black person to be in the WH.
Michael Moore did a piece on this, he called it, "Male Apartheid," and he is always right! We keep voting for the very people that hold us down. I always vote for the black person or the woman when I vote, I voted for Daryl Jones from Miami to run against Jeb Bush as Governor, but everyone wanted McBride, a dumbass fat white cat that lost. Then the black community says racism? Give me a break, there are more black people in Florida, why did another Bush get into office? Why did Katherine Harris get voted in for the House position? Why is it that these atrocities continue?
Yes, racism still exist, but until another movement takes place to move everyone closer to equality, we'll have these endless discussions.
I heard a black man on the radio during a talk radio show I really like here in Tampa, Critical Times, and he said, "The black community whines about why should they vote, the white man never helps them, whats the difference. Well this is the system you've got, this is the only system in America right now, and if you don't participate in it, it won't change. You've got to participate and start to change things by being involved." (paraphrasing). It's so true. Vote responsibly, be informed, and organize like crazy.

[flaminbats]

22. Republicans have been winning most of the south since 1968..

Carter won most of the south after Watergate, but he lost a majority of white southern voters both in 76 and 80. In the 90's Clinton won much of the south because of his solid support among minorities, and by winning the smaller third of southern whites.

In 2000 Gore lost the southern whites to Bush in some states by a five to one margin. Bush lost the combined votes of Hispanic and black voters to Gore in most of the south by a similar margin.

Once in history, this picture was a negative. Whites voted for Democrats like Stevenson and Kennedy over Nixon and Eisenhower by nearly a five to one margin. Black southerners were evenly divided, rural blacks often voting Republican and urban blacks voting Democratic. And before Castro..not all Cuban-Americans blindly voted Republican, nor did other Hispanics solidly back Democrats.

But this all changed in the sixties! First came Castro, then Civil Rights, then Vietnam, and finally Nixon's police-state southern strategy. When Nixon ran in 1960 he tried to only win in southern states that supported Eisenhower. These were states not deeply angered by civil rights, with black voters who still considered Republicans the party of Lincoln, and states that could be associated with the new south. In 1968 Nixon used the opposite strategy...he focused on winning whites who were bitterly opposed to integration, who supported the Vietnam War, and states that were associated with the old south. Since 1964 Republicans have dominated politics in the south, and since 1968 they have used this to realign Presidential politics in America.

What will it take for Democrats to realign America politically? Is winning southern whites necessary for building a new Democratic majority?

[cosmicvortex20]

23. Its pretty commonly known....

that the Atlanta airport is a big jobs program for the mayor and his cronies. That place has been corrupt for decades.

If you want to see some white people working there, then ask the people in charge why its happening. Let me know too when you figure that one out.

[flaminbats]

24. huh?

"If you want to see some white people working there, then ask the people in charge why its happening. Let me know too when you figure that one out."

first I have to understand your question...:eyes:

I'm sure many qualified blacks and Hispanic workers wonder about this regarding Sonny Perdue's office policy of hiring only unqualified south Georgia Republicans. Ohhh, let me guess...those flagger Republicans believe in quotas too!

[cosmicvortex20]

25. huh also

Sony has nothing to do with the Atlanta airport. That airport is owned and operated by the city of Atlanta, not the state of GA.

[flaminbats]

27. I know...

so when has the state stopped hiring qualified workers?

[SemiCharmedQuark]

26. Yep, Racism. The predominately black areas are low income areas.

Why? Because of segregation, because it's a cruel vicious circle (bad area-bad education-bad job-bad pay-have to live in bad area and send kids to bad school).

[sweetheart]

31. What heals this sickness?

If you were appointed dictator, and had the chance to make radical
changes to end the "vicious circle", what would you change.

I remember being bussed from the white suburbs of los angeles in to
a horrible school in the city center for a while until they stopped
it, and it was not a solution.

I would end the drugs war, and end the civilian proliferation of
handguns, as this would ease the crime load rotting such areas.

Then I would offer reparations payments to the descendents of
slavery. 200 billion, rather than going to a war on another nation,
to pay back a people insulted and injured generations after
slavery. Money is what affirmative action has been all about,
why not cut to the chase and get out the chequebook.

Then new schools, new roads, new civic goodwill would flourish and
replace this legacy of apartheid.

[Contender]

33. So your saying they should not take those jobs for appearances?

What should the black people behind those counters do? Not work? Get student loans and go to college? Why don't you go fill out the paper work for them?

There are plenty of poor white people out there as well. And due to affirmative action they can not get some jobs. Economic restraints knows no color.


By the way racism goes both ways. There are black people who hate white people. Orientals who hate blacks. Hispanics who hate orientals. Eskimos that hate Cherokee.

People who look at the word racism in a black and white tint are very ignorant and part of the problem.

[Vickers]

35. "And due to affirmative action they can not get some jobs."

Wow, that almost sounds like......no, it couldn't be.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

43. Affirmative Action keeps whites from getting jobs?

Yes... :eyes: No more fox news for you.

[Kathy in Cambridge]

44. What kind of crap are you spewing?

:eyes:

[Nikia]

41. I usuaully assume that is because I am in a black dominated area

I live in rural Wisconsin so most people who I see working in fast food are white. There are some restaurants with higher representation of Asian immigrants or Hispanic immigrants. I don't usually condsider that racism. Some resturaunts are more open to hiring people of different races and some have bilingual management which allows that. I think that most of these new immigrants are poorer and come from bigger families, which encourages the teenagers to work more. When I travel to an urban area and see a lot of black restaurant workers, I assume that I am in a predominately black area. I don't assume that they work there because it is the only jobs that they can get.
Perhaps it did seem racist if there were a fair amount of white airline employees. People will commute further for higher paying jobs though. People won't commute as far for lower paying jobs. I might drive an hour for a $18/hour job but I'll only take a $6/hour job if I can get there under 10 minutes. If whites don't live in that area, the ones working in fast food are working in their own neighborhoods.
Yes, black people generally get the economic shaft. Blacks often have to get a college degree to get jobs that don't require degrees just to prove that they are intelligent, hard working, and would be dedicated to a job because employers often assume that they are not these things when they apply for jobs. There are also big gaps in education and educational expectations. I don't know if the fast food workers at the Atlanta airport are a good illustration of this though.