I was riding around Gross Pointe in Michigan, an all white suburb of Detriot. A cop pulled me over and asked me what I was doing in this neighborhood. I told him looking at the houses - I am an architect. He said well you best get out of this neighborhood. He was pretty polite but had I pointed out that it's a public street and a free country I might have been one of the dead people who "asked for it." That cop was just doing what he was told to do but I'm not going to respect that, sorry.
I worked on a Public Housing project that won a Presidential Design Award some years ago. When studying the place to determine why the crime rate was so high ( highest in the City of Norfolk, VA) and if there was a physical enabler at work. We discovered that about 70% of the people who were arrested there didn't live in the project. Turns out that the police had stopped patrolling there so crime all over the area moved in. We also noticed the layout of the buildings there did not allow vehicle access and created areas where it took a cop 2-3 minutes to get to and that had to be done on foot. So we added streets, gave people an addres to come to, and control of the space around the units. Crime dropped 90%. Police patrols started again as the cops were not sitting ducks if attacked. That was 15 years ago and the place still looks awesome. It's easy to look at people in a bad situation and say they are animals. But more often than not people just need a chance at dignity.
People do the best they can with the cards they are dealt. Dispite the myth some have, no one wants to be poor and welfare is not a comfortable life. How can we expect the same results from someone born with nothing, and who is viewed negatively by society before they can even talk? I'll be honest, if the best I could ever hope for is to be a janitor I would be a criminal too.
The bottom line is the constitution guarentees everyone a fair trial and that they will be assumed innocent until proven otherwise. It does this no matter what their history is. Jelly you speak of the reception you got when you came to this country, well lucky for you you're not Mexican.
When I talk to at risk kids I tell them that they have a lot of obstacles in their lives but their only choice is to overcome them or waste their lives. If they want to be criminals either their enemies will kill them or the system will. The only prerequisite to having a civilized life is you have to be civilized (that BTW is a line I stole from Al Sharpton). But while I tell them that I know very few of them will be able to deal with the obstacles they will face.
Ok I'm rambling..........
I lived in California for 6 years and one of my best friends was an African American cop. He did a masters degree in this very subject we are discussing and had a very mature outlook, a bit different to views here. My wife reports to the CEO of a medical clinic, who is an African American and we have become good friends. The best story he told me was about an African American lady, who believe she was treated with utmost discrimination due to her race. She complained and raised hell about how racist the clinic is. They arranged a meeting with the CEO, my African American friend and after he introduced himself, she just got up and walked out.
I hear what you are saying, but believe there is more sensitivity from those who feel they are discriminated against because of race, rather than accepting this is long gone and even Presidential status has crossed that barrier.
We live in an area I would not trade for anywhere else, so perhaps my experience is a bit protected, but I can honestly say there is no racism here.
What I do know is my first few years with a green card as a foreigner, I was very careful and felt a bit insecure at times. I have however come to realize that respect is earned and returned proportionally to ones character. Something I hope more people who feel they are discriminated against will learn.
In California the cops were so friendly, they actually made you feel guilty about the citation they have to write.
In OK, I got forcefully pulled out of a car for speeding, forcefully pushed into the passenger seat of the cop's car and written a ticket. Irrespective of my race, I would expect that this cop would have treated anyone else the same. At first I thought of calling his supervisor the next day, but then I felt that probably if I did not break the law, I would have been fine, so it was my own fault.
It takes a long time to fix racism. South Africa is a mess today, electrical and utility supply is no longer reliable, the currency has gone down the drain, potholes in the roads and a society who believes crime is justified against farmers and wealthy folks, as they were deprived for so many years. 75% of the voters who vote for the current government are unemployed. This has nothing to do with color, but rather values of a population who were raised under revolutionary conditions, not educated well and bitter about the past.
Before this thread, and the latest protests which were multi racial by the way, I thought the US was way past this. I hope I was right and this is just a blip in time.
That alone says you are clueless. The big difference in SA and here is that the blacks in SA were in the majority and the Africaners were going to either change or face some dire consequences.
