Bipolar

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Saw this on CNN, had heard about it before on the radio. Bullshit if you ask me. Especially how they state that it is not a racism issue.

Discuss.


http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/23/turner.prom/index.html

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Echolalia

Yeah, I've heard of this. It is really just sickening, and I feel really sorry for the racist asses of the world. I find it even worse that this is happening in an "advanced" country like the united states. Really sad and-unconstitutional? I'm surprised no one brought that up, segregation based on race is supposed to be illegal in this country (right?).

First!

original_chikin

Don't get me wrong, I am not racist by any means. I am, however, highly disgusted with the double standards regarding race in America. How is it that having seperate Prom Queens due to race is a tragedy whereas having scholarships for specific races (though never for whites) is not only acceptable, but encouraged? I just really don't get how it's ok for certain people to be proud of their race and even gain from it, but horribly wrong for others to do the exact same thing.

ddoubleez

The US is one of the most rasist countries on the planet. There are more black people in harris county jails, than the entire country of south africa in the height of apartheid in 1991. If you look at countries like Brazil, they don't even understand our emotions toward each other.

bluster2468

Ummmm...maybe the blacks are in the jail for a reason. Many whites are in jail too ny the way.
Sorry you feel like this is such a "rasist" place (actually spelled racist)...do not live your life thinking you are a victim.

original_chikin

How can you possibly even say that other people, those not being in the US, don't understand racist feelings? That's a ridiculous statement. One of the reasons America is "one of the most rasist countries on the planet" is because we're made of of so many different races. You put that many different kinds of people there and there's bound to be tension. I would bet money that there are Brazilians out there that have racist tendancies. And you suggest that the US is the most racist against blacks? Thats moronic. Affirmative action is, again, a perfect example here. You complain that there's blacks in jail, yet you completely ignore the fact that most major universities in the US have lower standards for blacks and every major university has at least one scholarship specifically for "African Americans" even though they can also be awarded the scholarships that aren't race-specific. If anything the tables have been completely turned and todays whites are being oppressed because of the color of THEIR skin.

Juan.©amaney

yah nevermind germany and that whole holocaust thing. or those race wars (okay religious mainly) over in israel....

we're all equal here, at least. we all have the same rights when we are born.

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ddoubleez

If you have to reach back 60 years to find a more racist country than ours there is a problem. We are the richest country in the world and our poverty rates are imbarrasing. Our health statitics are imbarrasing. Our prison system is a disasterm, and our justice system is EXTREMELY rasist. Black's comprise 18 percent of the free population and nearly 80% of our prison system. We have the worst employment record among developed countries. And the holicost was horrible, but more people died in russia at the same time and no one ever brings them up. You also need to remember that our government faught both against the woman's right to vote as well as the black's right to vote. Black men were forced to fight, disportionatly to whites in Viet Nam before the draft and could not even vote at the time. If you want to see racism, walk accross town and ask what a teacher has to teach with in a special needs school......... And by the way we sold the weapons in the situations you mentioned above.

original_chikin

You do have one good point, America did have to develop from a state where different races and women were oppressed. But you have to reach way back into it's relatively short history to find that stuff. What about all of the Middle East? They're just this year starting to have women in positions of power. Every developing country has had some sort of racial tension in their past, and comparatively to most countries America is way ahead in equality. You continually complain about blacks in jail? You're saying that they're in jail because they're black. Is it impossible for black people to commit crimes? Or maybe you're hinting that poverty causes crime which is just another scapegoat so people don't have to own up to their actions. The truth is, it's people with your sentiments that create all this racial bullcrap now anyway.

By the way, world's richest countries:
1. Luxembourg
2. Norway
3. Switzerland
4. United States

ddoubleez

First I am as white as they come, german and scottish. Next who are you talking to that you think:
You continually complain about blacks in jail? You're saying that they're in jail because they're black. Is it impossible for black people to commit crimes?
This has been brought up twice, I think you maybe over-reacting, and our prison statitics are obviously racist, and studies and many books have been written on this. And I bring up other countries, because the level of racism IS unique to this country. It is typically class or money that devides people, look at any part of brazil for the easiest examples.

Now for my answer to: is it impossible for blacks to commit crimes, the answer is no, however my point of them being treated different after committing a crime is the point being argued and to that I will retort with:


According to the federal Household Survey, "most current illicit
drug users are white. There were an estimated 9.9 million whites
(72 percent of all users), 2.0 million blacks (15 percent), and 1.4
million Hispanics (10 percent) who were current illicit drug users
in 1998." And yet, blacks constitute 36.8% of those arrested for drug
violations and over 42% of those in federal prisons for drug
violations. African-Americans comprise almost 57% of those in state
prisons for drug felonies; Hispanics account for 17.2%.

Sources: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration,
National Household Survey on Drug Abuse: Summary Report 1998
(Rockville, MD: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services
Administration, 1999), p. 13; Bureau of Justice Statistics,
Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics 1998 (Washington DC: US
Department of Justice, August 1999), p. 343, Table 4.10, p. 435,
Table 5.48, and p. 505, Table 6.52; Beck, Allen J., Ph.D. and
Mumola, Christopher J., US Department of Justice, Bureau of
Justice Statistics, Prisoners in 1998 (Washington DC: US Department
of Justice, August 1999), p. 10, Table 16; Harrison, Paige M. &
Allen J. Beck, PhD, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Prisoners in
2001 (Washington, DC: US Dept. of Justice, July 2002), p. 13,
Table 17.

Next:

"The United States has the highest prison population rate
in the world, some 738 per 100,000 of the national population,
followed by Russia (611), St Kitts & Nevis (547), U.S. Virgin Is.
(521), Turkmenistan (c.489), Belize (487), Cuba (c.487), Palau
(478), British Virgin Is. (464), Bermuda (463), Bahamas (462),
Cayman Is. (453), American Samoa (446), Belarus (426) and
Dominica (419).
"However, more than three fifths of countries (61%) have rates
below 150 per 100,000. (The rate in England and Wales -
148 per 100,000 of the national population - is above the
mid-point in the World List.)"

Source: Walmsley, Roy, "World Prison Population List (Seventh
Edition)" (London, England: International Centre for Prison Studies,
2007), p. 1.

"More than 9.25 million people are held in penal institutions
throughout the world, mostly as pre-trial detainees (remand prisoners)
or as sentenced prisoners. Almost half of these are in the United
States (2.19m), China (1.55m plus pretrial detainees and prisoners in
'administrative detention') or Russia (0.87m)."
According to the US Census Bureau, the population of the US represents
4.6% of the world's total population (291,450,886 out of a total
6,303,683,217).

Source: Walmsley, Roy, "World Prison Population List (Seventh
Edition)" (London, England: International Centre for Prison Studies,
2007), p. 1; US Census Bureau, Population Division, from the web at
http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html
accessed July 8, 2003.


The U.S. nonviolent prisoner population is larger than the
combined populations of Wyoming and Alaska.

Source: John Irwin, Ph. D., Vincent Schiraldi, and Jason Ziedenberg,
America's One Million Nonviolent Prisoners (Washington, DC: Justice
Policy Institute, 1999), pg. 4.

According to a report on prison growth by the Urban Institute's
Justice Policy Center, "Figure 6 lists the top 10 states ranked from
the highest growth to the lowest growth. They are Texas, Florida,
California, New York, Michigan, Georgia, Illinois, Ohio, Colorado,
and Missouri. The magnitude of prison growth in these 10 states is
remarkable. Between 1979 and 2000, the number of additional prisons
ranged from 19 prisons in Missouri to 120 prisons in Texas. The growth
in Texas equates to an extraordinary average annual increase of 5.7
additional prisons per year over the 21-year period. As a group, the
10 states were operating more than three times as many prisons in
2000 as in 1979—increasing from 195 facilities to 604 facilities.
Figure 6 shows the relative growth in each state in addition to the
absolute growth. In all 10 states, the number of prisons increased
by more than 100 percent over the two decades. States with the lowest
relative growth are Florida, which grew by 115 percent, and New York,
which grew by 117 percent. Texas is again the clear leader growing by
706 percent over the 21-year period. Indeed, Texas is in a league of
its own, as it added the most prisons (120), currently has the largest
number of prisons in operation (137), and experienced the largest
percentage increase (706 percent)."

Source: Lawrence, Sarah and Jeremy Travis, "The New Landscape of
Imprisonment: Mapping America's Prison Expansion" (Washington, DC:
Urban Institute, April 2004), p. 9.

Assuming recent incarceration rates remain unchanged, an
estimated 1 of every 20 Americans (5%) can be expected to serve
time in prison during their lifetime. For African-American men,
the number is greater than 1 in 4 (28.5%).

Source: Bonczar, T.P. & Beck, Allen J., US Department of Justice,
Bureau of Justice Statistics, Lifetime Likelihood of Going to
State or Federal Prison (Washington DC: US Department of Justice,
March 1997), p. 1.

"Since 1982 total direct expenditures increased more than five-fold from nearly $36 billion to over $285 billion, a 418% increase
(figure 2). The average annual increase between 1982 and 2003
was nearly 8% (table 1)."

Source: Kristen A. Hughes, "Justice Expenditure and Employment in
the United States, 2003" (Washington, DC: US Dept. of Justice,
Bureau of Justice Statistics, May 2004), NCJ212260, p. 2.

"Department of corrections data show that about a fourth of those
initially imprisoned for nonviolent crimes are sentenced for
a second time for committing a violent offense. Whatever else
it reflects, this pattern highlights the possibility that prison
serves to transmit violent habits and values rather than to reduce
them."

Source: Craig Haney, Ph.D., and Philip Zimbardo, Ph.D., "The
Past and Future of U.S. Prison Policy: Twenty-five Years After
the Stanford Prison Experiment," American Psychologist, Vol.
53, No. 7 (July 1998), p. 721.

original_chikin

Well to your long list of mostly irrelevant information I respond with: You only had two statistics dealing with blacks. Basically those two pieces of information said nothing more than what you said before, there are more blacks in prison than whites. This just means they are caught more. Now I'm not saying that there aren't police out there that like to target blacks, but in these times if some one like this is found they are nearlyinstantly chastised by everyone and removed from action. And one big problem with your statistic, it lumps all drug-users and those arrested for using drugs into one big category and does not break them down into seperate states. It doesn't account for different population densities throughout the US. Bottom line, I don't have the time to waste searching for extraneous and highly interpretable information, but the prison system is one miniscule part of the US infrastructure, and to say that because it's supposedly racist that the US as a whole is racist is simple ignorant.

ddoubleez

I don't understand how providing you information that most of those behind bars are non-violent is irrelevant, other countries don't do this. I don't understand how compairing us to china, a country known for their human rights abuses, does not even incarsarate at the rate we do, with over 3 times the people and 2/3 the prison population. Or worse than russia who were known for keeping their country in fear using their prison system. I don't see how telling you that the prisons are growing at an increasing rate, instead of a decreasing rate to show racism is increasing is not very relivant. The static showed what our prison demigraph outlined that all information pertaining to prisoners would be with the understanding that you could apply this information.


Breakdown on states:

Since most inmates are adult men, an even more significant measure of the extent of racial disparities in state prison populations and of the sheer magnitude of black incarceration is obtained from comparing the racially disaggregated incarceration rates of men over the age of eighteen. In no state are black men incarcerated at rates even close to those of white men. Nationwide, black men are incarcerated at 9.6 times the rate of white men. In eleven states, black men are incarcerated at rates that are twelve to twenty-six times greater than those of white men. Thus, in Minnesota, the state with the greatest racial disparity in incarceration, a black man is 26.8 times more likely to be in prison than a white man. In Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, a black man is more than fifteen times more likely to be in prison than a white man. In the District of Columbia, black men are incarcerated at 49 times the rate of white men.

The rate at which black men are incarcerated is astonishing. There are 4,630 black men in prison nationwide per 100,000 black men in the population, whereas the rate for white men is 482.28 In ten states and the District of Columbia, black men are incarcerated at staggeringly high rates that range from 5,740 to 7,859 per 100,000. In contrast, the range among the ten states with the highest rates of white male incarceration is 620 to 1,151. The highest rate of white male incarceration (1,151) is lower than the lowest rate of black male incarceration (1,195). According to Department of Justice calculations, if current rates of incarceration remain unchanged, 28.5 percent of black men will be confined in prison at least once during their lifetime, a figure six times greater than that for white men.

Because of their extraordinary rate of incarceration, one in every 20 black men over the age of 18 is in a state or federal prison, compared to one in every 180 whites. In certain states, the incarceration of black men reaches devastating levels: in Oklahoma and Iowa one in every thirteen black men is in state prison; in Rhode Island, Texas and Wisconsin, the figure is one in every fourteen.



A number of phylosophers, including Voltair, have said a civilization's prison system is a reflection of it's society as a whole. Calling Voltair ignorant would give you no points among anyone that thinks. And as far as it being a miniscule part of the infrastruture, we expend nearly 1 trillion, in direct and indirect expendatures, making it one of the largest slices of the pie, without it we would not be in dept to the tune of 8.3 trillion dollars, our income tax only covers the intrest on that. And you don't have to tell me you don't have time to to look up information, you have made that obvious to me.

jerknoneout

the south should be the first to change

gocatgo

It doesn't surprise me that prison statistics have been brought up and such. That's beside the point, the point is there are still southern towns backward ass enough to segregate a damn prom. That is simply sad.

As far as racism goes, unforunately it's a fact of life. It's not going to just go away no matter how much we preach tolerance and such. Some people people just have their minds closed way too tight. They'll preach their beliefs to their children and the cycle will just continue on through the generations.

It doesn't matter if you're black, white, hispanic, asian, etc...we all have the capacity to be racist bastards if we're raised in ignorant enough circumstances. It's a learned behavior plain and simple.

And one must not forget that there's many different forms of racism, whether it's blatant hatred or one feeling the need to be overly accommodating to the point of alienation.