What we see here is a direct manifestation of both hatred of blacks and Hispanics, and hatred of the poor -- which in many urban areas are largely overlapping categories.  The rich and would-be-rich middle classes claim not to be able to handle mixing with the poor people; their solution? Ghettoize the poor and leave them in inferior schools, which will in turn reduce their ability to stop being poor.  Then blame the poor for their lack of achievement.  It's a series of self-fulfilling acts of discrimination all around, with the evident aim -- so far quite successful -- of creating a caste society in which the upper caste (rich, white) has power, access to information, and the knowledge of how to work the system, and the lower castes (poor, black, Hispanic) are shut out.

 A little information that should not be controversial (though those on the right doubtless will make it so): blacks, Hispanics, poor people, and other minorities are not intrinsically stupider, less well behaved, or more criminal than members of the upper caste.  They simply are channelled by a society shaped by the upper caste into those roles, and some of them feel no choice but to act out the roles assigned to them.  I don't minimize the role of individual choice, but choices are conditioned by environmental factors, and at a mass level, trends are observable that cannot be assigned to a mere summation of "bad choices".  If an entire group is suffering because of discrimination in employment, in education, in access to information, it is not our task to berate them for an assumed series of individual bad choices, but to find out what mistaken policies have created the trend, and reverse them.

 The problem here is that of the reflexive, knee-jerk response of loathing by a privileged sector of the nation to an underprivileged sector.  It is the task of the government to overcome this loathing.  Discriminatory attitudes cannot, of course, be changed by magic; they can only be gradually reduced from one generation to the next.  But the only way in which this reduction in discriminatory tendencies can be carried out is by making sure that overt discrimination never has a chance to be manifested; that is, by making sure that public acts of discrimination are prevented, by social pressure where possible, and by law where necessary.  Discrimination will not be reduced over time if we condone it and excuse it; this simply tells the next generation that society considers their prejudiced attitudes okay.

 To answer the inevitable question: yes, I attended a well-integrated public school, and I learned there how to begin to respect and understand people of very different backgrounds from my own.

Posted at February 3, 2006 10:29 AM in response to School Frays

gbd states a good many things as "facts" which are not facts at all, and which are simply propaganda.  gbd would do well to brush up on his knowledge of the Iranian constitution, in order to understand why "Mahmoud Ahmadinejad" and "the Iranian government" are two entirely different things.

 However, this inflammatory bit of rhetoric cannot be allowed to pass:

"Even if, like the Iranian government, you think all Jews should be exterminated"

 I can understand why gbd would like to attribute such a view to "the Iranian government"; it is far less clear why he wants to attribute it to Kerr and Lewis.  However, for the record, more than ten thousand Jews live in Iran and practice their religion freely.  If the Iranian government suddenly adopts an exterminatory policy toward Jews in general, one could reasonably expect it to be manifested in its policy toward Iranian Jews.  Iran is not, at present anyway, putting Iranian Jews into death camps; so gbd's claims seem exaggerated.  Of course, things could change, and if I were a Jew in Iran I would certainly be very unhappy with Mr. Ahmadinejad's remarks (and I imagine that many non-Jewish Iranians feel the same way); but it is one thing to have fears for the future and another to claim the existence of a policy for which there is as yet no evidence.

Posted at January 21, 2006 8:04 AM in response to The Iranian Nuclear Program

The discussion of Mahmud Ahmadinejad above is pointless.  Ahmadinejad is President of Iran, which means he has some qualified influence in the domestic field (if the other governing bodies of Iran choose to allow it to him) but absolutely none in Iran's foreign policy.  The person with the real power in Iran is Ali Khamene'i, just as it has been for the past sixteen years.  Iran's foreign policy remains unchanged. Ahmadinejad is certainly a stupid, nasty man who is a national embarrassment to Iran, but nothing he says or does can be any excuse for action on the international level, because in the sphere of international relations Ahmadinejad speaks for only himself.

Posted at January 15, 2006 2:55 AM in response to Iran Links