The Michael Vick Ordeal

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

That's why we try to give the convicted a jury of their peers. Peers meaning those who are from the same general social group as the accused, more or less.

Can you show your basis for this definition of "peers"? I've never seen it.

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by hectorberlioz

Maybe I didn't get it straight then...

A generalization is taking a characteristic that is prevalent in a significant (sometimes even majority) proportion of a population and projecting it on to the entire population. For example, blacks in the US have a higher crime rate as a percentage of their population than whites. Thus saying, "most blacks are criminals" would be a sweeping generalization. The truth is, most blacks aren't criminals, but the minority that are make up a larger percentage of the black population than you see among whites.

This is a sweeping, and terribly inaccurate, generalization:

BJ- I'm sure you would also accept the idea that African-Americans are ingrained with a deep sense of victimhood, then?

More accurately, you could say that blacks are more likely to develop a sense of victimhood than whites, mostly due to historical events.

But, even then, it's questionable since many whites also see themselves as "victims" of things like reverse discrimination.

Measuring something like "victimhood" is tough, so it's best to avoid those kind of statements.

On my post, I was stating something that is an aspect shared by all humans. It is not a "generalization" (in the respect that the word is being used here) if an entire population shares that characteristic. For example, it's not a generalization to say that all people feel pain when you cut their finger off eventhough, technically, there are a small proportion of people with no neural functions with which to feel pain.

Also, in my statement, I qualified it by saying "much more likely" (i.e. it comes in different degrees and is not always the same). As opposed to your "ingrained with a deep sense", which basically implies that 100% of blacks are born with this viewpoint.

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by sisterandcousinandaunt

Can you show your basis for this definition of "peers"? I've never seen it.

It's a pretty deep legal issue to get into but, in a nutshell, it's why we try to allow defendents to be tried in the location that their crime was committed by a more or less randomly selected jury with no restrictions as to income, race or other factors, and why many laws are set by the State, or even by the County, as opposed to Federal.

For instance, in pre Rowe v. Wade days, when abortion law was State to State, it would not have been very fair to put jury members from a State where abortion was legal on a trial in a State where it was not legal.

Whenever possible, laws and the juries that enforce them, are kept as localized as possible, with the implication that people are the best judges of their own community's members.

[hectorberlioz]

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

As opposed to your "ingrained with a deep sense", which basically implies that 100% of blacks are born with this viewpoint.

Wait a minute...I did say that, but I was quoting you . I'm the one who is saying that "being born" with victimhood (or racism, as Rex implies) is ridiculous.

I'll have to get back to you later today...I've got assignments to catch up with!

[Lotesse]

Well - as far as I'm concerned, hurting and torturing and murdering dogs is just straight-up bad and wrong, why would it have to be a black jury to convict (or set free) a man for doing these things - it transcends race. Peers is other people. Or, if you want to get all technical about peerage, I guess in Vick's case his peers would all have to be black men who are highly paid NFL football stars. Try getting THAT kind of collection of jurors. Heh. And anyway, I bet even if that kind of jury was selected, who's to say that all these "peers" won't also think that maiming and murdering dogs for sport is disgusting and wrong and punishable?

Peers, schmeers...

[hectorberlioz]

My dad said the same thing, Lotesse

[Lotesse]

Awesome! Your Dad sounds hella cool...

[Insidious Rex]

Originally Posted by hectorberlioz

Wait a minute...I did say that, but I was quoting you . I'm the one who is saying that "being born" with victimhood (or racism, as Rex implies) is ridiculous.

Read it again Hector. I never said anything about "being born" racist. Its a programming issue in our culture. And your denial of it hardly makes it untrue.

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

It's a pretty deep legal issue to get into but, in a nutshell, it's why we try to allow defendents to be tried in the location that their crime was committed by a more or less randomly selected jury with no restrictions as to income, race or other factors, and why many laws are set by the State, or even by the County, as opposed to Federal.

For instance, in pre Rowe v. Wade days, when abortion law was State to State, it would not have been very fair to put jury members from a State where abortion was legal on a trial in a State where it was not legal.

Whenever possible, laws and the juries that enforce them, are kept as localized as possible, with the implication that people are the best judges of their own community's members.

Um, I'm sorry, BJ, but that's absurd. Really. Juries are pulled from the area served by the law. If it's a state law, it's considered in a state court. Roe vs Wade did not make abortion less a states issue, and the laws pertaining to it are still local, rather than federal.The Supreme court decision just places a basis in Constitutional law against which state laws may be considered.

If there are 'no restrictions as to income, race or other factors' then there is no special definition of "peer" as race/class specific, which was your earlier suggestion, and which I contested. And if your point about "location" or "own community" is supposed to draw me in the direction of "in the hood" then I can only say that the jury selection process isn't that local, and point out that "race" and "neighborhood" are no longer (Thank Heaven) the same thing, at least legally. That was red-lining, and it's illegal. Same goes for "social group". I could sit on a jury for a farmer or a lawyer or a bus driver. If OJ is tried for a crime here, I could sit on his jury. In the US, a definition of "peer" = "Citizen."

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by sisterandcousinandaunt

Juries are pulled from the area served by the law.

Exactly.

I didn't say anything about race/class specific, I said from the same social group, which to me says town, county, state, and in a minority of legal cases federal.

The vast majority of laws are local, and thus adjudicated locally by your peers, not by a jury from halfway across the country.

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

Ok.

Can't draw you, eh?

[hectorberlioz]

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

Read it again Hector. I never said anything about "being born" racist. Its a programming issue in our culture. And your denial of it hardly makes it untrue.

Perhaps I might pose the same question to you that I did to BJ: are African-Americans ingrained with a sense of victimhood, as whites are with a sense of superiority?

[Lotesse]

Originally Posted by hectorberlioz

are African-Americans ingrained with a sense of victimhood, as whites are with a sense of superiority?

I'll hesitantly venture to suggest that this is partly true in a very broad, general, vague and unproveable way. It is such a sweeping statement, though, and it doesn't really mean anything - I mean, so? So, what do we do now? If there are some white people who subconsciously feel a sense of privileged superiority (in that they get get-out-of-jail-free cards in life when their non-white peers tend to get do not pass go do not collect 200 dollars cards) and there are some black people who subconsciously feel a sense of underprivileged victimization, then - so what? What next? There are going to be all kinds of people who feel, think, or subconsciously have a sense of all sorts of real or imagined views toward or against them. And? How does this have any bearing or effect on whether or not Michael Vick is guilty of animal cruelty and illegal gambling?

Originally Posted by SisCousinAunt

If there are 'no restrictions as to income, race or other factors' then there is no special definition of "peer" as race/class specific, which was your earlier suggestion, and which I contested. And if your point about "location" or "own community" is supposed to draw me in the direction of "in the hood" then I can only say that the jury selection process isn't that local, and point out that "race" and "neighborhood" are no longer (Thank Heaven) the same thing, at least legally. That was red-lining, and it's illegal. Same goes for "social group". I could sit on a jury for a farmer or a lawyer or a bus driver. If OJ is tried for a crime here, I could sit on his jury. In the US, a definition of "peer" = "Citizen."

Yes.

[hectorberlioz]

Originally Posted by Lotesse

I'll hesitantly venture to suggest that this is partly true in a very broad, general, vague and unproveable way. It is such a sweeping statement, though, and it doesn't really mean anything - I mean, so? So, what do we do now?

Well that is why I am posing this to Sis, Rex et al...they seemed pretty hop-skippity to say that there was racial tension towards rich african-americans because of the old "Master/Slave" idea...subconciously ingrained in white people via society, as Rex suggests...
I'm just wondering if they are as willing to say that african-americans -because their ancestors were slaves- are as deeply ingrained with a sense of victimhood/slaveness.

How does this have any bearing or effect on whether or not Michael Vick is guilty of animal cruelty and illegal gambling?

I believe it was Sis who suggested that there was a hint of racism to the Vick story.

[The Gaffer]

No it was me. Well, me and sis and bunch of others.

It's not as black and white as that, to coin a phrase. It's about the subconscious values/ideas that drive the selling of stories: both the construction of the story and its consumption. And who's to say that one of those ideas isn't the white fear of empowered blacks?

I couldn't say whether black people have "victimhood" in such a sense.

To me, it is possibly more about class than race as such. You get similar stories here about poor kids made good coming unstuck, almost always gleefully dissected by the bogroll press.

[Lotesse]

Originally Posted by The Gaffer

No it was me. Well, me and sis and bunch of others.

It's not as black and white as that, to coin a phrase. It's about the subconscious values/ideas that drive the selling of stories: both the construction of the story and its consumption. And who's to say that one of those ideas isn't the white fear of empowered blacks?
I couldn't say whether black people have "victimhood" in such a sense.

To me, it is possibly more about class than race as such. You get similar stories here about poor kids made good coming unstuck, almost always gleefully dissected by the bogroll press.

True this, definitely.

Lately, for the past few months especially, I have been having a distinct gut feeling that this country is entering into, or desperately needs to enter into another "civil rights era." There are so many indicators, SO many indicators - both outright and subtle, Hatred and its snobbish little brother Intolerance is unabashedly rampant these days and it's not even hidden or disguised any more, look at the national news on any given day nowadays. Hell, just look around our little Entmoot! We're a microcosmic snapshot of the overall social situation of America today.


Race relations issues desperately need to be addressed and reformed right now, and I mean literally right now, not a year from now or even a month from now. Change is afoot, it's time. I feel it in the water, I smell it in the air, you know?

And I mean all race relations; it isn't any longer simply a white and black (Anglo & African, specifically) issue like it was in the sixties, nowadays it is EVERYbody. The race relation issue in this new millenium is now Hispanic, Latino, African, Middle-Eastern, Anglo, Jewish, Asian, Indian, Pakistani, Native American, just to name the most dominant ones of our melting-pot. And I mean BETWEEN all the races, not white versus everybody else, or black versus white and that's it. It's not anything like that anymore. Arab versus Anglo, African versus Hispanic, Latino versus Middle-Eastern, Jewish versus Arab versus Anglo, Asian versus African versus Middle-Eastern versus Pakistani, it is out of control.

But it isn't only race relations which is such a gigantic issue nowadays, now we havereligious relations problems, too, issues which I think really got into full gear after Bush went into office and then 9/11 occurred.- Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Hindu. Problems, big ones. This is a completely new era, unlike anything this country or this world has experienced before, this post 9/11, computer/Internet driven age. Today it's all about terrorism, and the Patriot Act and illegal oil wars and a mendacious, all-powerful White House, this president who encourages the citizens of the U.S. to hate. How "evil" is that. This current administration whips up frenzied mass hatred and intolerance like nothing I've seen or read about before in the history of U.S. presidents.

Racism & inter-religious hatred, and fear & hatred and paranoid discrimination against the decidedly non-religious, i.e. Atheists & Agnostics in this Christian dominated country) is a very, very big problem. Oh, and re: atheism, think for a second: How many, if any outspokenly Atheist senators do we have in Congress right now, and when has this country EVER had a non-Christian President? Could you imagine a Jewish President or an Atheist President? It's much easier to imagine a Black President or Woman President than one who is outspokenly Non-Christian, never mind Atheist, Jewish or Muslim.


All these current race and religious problems within the U.S., I believe, have almost everything to do with the beginning of the millenium and the Terrorism Decade. Sept. 11, 2001 and the Bush Administration's wars have changed everything in this country and now we've got all-race racism and inter-religious/atheist discrimination & intolerance, thriving strong and growing more obese by the day on a gluttinous diet of defiantly ignorant, fear-based hatred.

It will take a lot of work, love, legislation and POSITIVE, hard-working, relentless, fearless, brilliant, passionate leadership on a par with the old civil rights and equal rights leaders of the past, people like Martin Luther King, Jr. and W.E.B. DuBois, Bobby Kennedy and JFK, like Medger Evers and Malcolm X. You know, these kinds of leaders, we need new ones, now. And we need them from all the races & religions & non-religions, and from both sexes, too.

Things will seem to get a lot worse before they get better, but this was the case in the first big civil rights/women's rights era, too. Change is painful, but it'll hurt a helluva lot worse if no one steps up, if we keep on passively allowing ourselves as a nation to collectively sink down into a dark age.

Maybe all we needed was love back in Lennon's day, but nowadays we need a lot more than love. We need action, we need education, we need leaders who are sincere and pure of heart and passionate, we need to care about what is going on in this country right NOW, because if we don't, America is over. No longer will the U.S. be a home for free people, and certainly no home for the brave. How brave are we as a multi-ethnic and multi-religious/atheist and multi-sexual nation if no one has the guts to step up and fight against all of our own terrible, super-destructive, horrifically hypocritical social injustices?

I sure hope some new fearless leaders show themselves soon; I wish I could start something myself but alas, I'm not cut out for this level of leadership and change-making, not at this point in my life anyway. If I were 18 today, I would love to attend Georgetown & then go to Harvard and get a civil-rights law degree and passionately set out to start the new movement. But I have to believe that there are some special genius people out there in America today who sense this need now and who will rise up to the challenge and hopefully not get assasinated or sent to Guantanamo for their efforts.




http://www.ameasite.org/history.asp

http://atheistrevolution.blogspot.co...s-call-us.html

[The Gaffer]

Nice post, Lotsy.

Originally Posted by Lotesse

I sure hope some new fearless leaders show themselves soon;

That's the most depressing thing: the candidates all appear to vie with each other to be as bland, as lowest-common-denominator and as pro-status quo as possible.

It's hard to imagine a truly visionary leader surviving any sort of selection process. It's also hard to imagine them surviving trial by media trivialisation.

But you're absolutely right. Of course, a generation ago you still had segregation in parts of the US. These attitudes take a long time to truly change in a properly internalised sense.

The unfortunate, or should I say, downright nasty thing is when leaders and the media tap into those feelings for their own advantage. What you say about religion is true, though I think there is a crossover with race.

The post 9/11 "strategy" (i.e. invade Afghanistan and Iraq) was sold partly on the unconscious proposition that "all these towelheads are the same" and therefore it doesn't matter that Iraq had nothing to do with it. The religion-based "clash of civilisations" rhetoric merely provides the justification at a different, less visceral level.

String 'em up. It's the only language they understand.

[Insidious Rex]

Originally Posted by hectorberlioz

Perhaps I might pose the same question to you that I did to BJ: are African-Americans ingrained with a sense of victimhood, as whites are with a sense of superiority?

The term "victomhood" is fairly loaded and certainly isnt the opposite of superiority. Ill quote for you what I said originally though:

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

Even the most “enlightened” folk cant escape its subconscious effects INCLUDING most blacks (although, just like whites, most would NEVER admit it).

This implies a sense of inferiority which naturally compliments and equal and opposite sense of superiority in a culture. It was certainly true before civil rights. Do you really think its completely vanished into the nether or do aspects of it still linger with us even today...