Usa Thread

[Flashermac]

I remember my mother watching Opera one day years ago when she had on some black radicals demanding "reparations" for their ancestors being kept in slavery. They demanded $40,000 for every black person in the USA. (This was in the 1990s. I expect their demands have gone up.) They said, "If we don't get it, we're gonna take!" Whatever the fark that means ...

 

Opera went to the audience for comments. One well dressed black man took the mike and said that African Americans lived in a wonderful country and shared all of its benefits. If they wanted reparations, fine. Take the money and fly to Africa to live. They couldn't have it both ways, America or the money. The radicals and most of the audience began shouting at him, calling him an Uncle Tom and everything else you can think of. If he'd said it outside of the studio, no doubt they'd have physically attacked him. That one program gave white viewers something to think about.

 

Slavery ended more than 150 years ago. Does the English part me owe me money for what England did to my Irish ancestors centuries ago? I hadly think so. Reparations to the slaves would be fine ... but they are all long dead. African Americans do have plenty to complain about though, since they are the only group in America that was legally discriminated against. That went on for over 90 years after slavery ended. Just think of all the Jim Crow laws, which I am old enough to remember a bit. It wasn't just in the South either. Look up the Brown vs the Board of Education decision and tell me what state it happened it. You might be surprised.

 

I like to point to the military for an example. I saw next to no problems over race in combat arms units in Vietnam. We were all brothers who looked out for each other. (Non-combat arms units might be different, unfortunately.) When I was an Army instructor in the 1990s, I saw that racism had almost diasppeared among career soldiers. One of my buddies - a black senior NCO from Georgia - remarked one day at how common interracial marriages were becoming among the GIs. Black and white marriages were something that no one even seemed to notice. Race had become more or less unimportant. It should be.

[Flashermac]

Stunning lack of diversity in Obama campaign, photos reveal

 

 

 

 

 

 

A photo of Obama’s “army†originally posted on the campaign’s Tumblr site and run in conjunction with a BuzzFeed story on the Obama campaign reveals a stunning lack of diversity among the president’s Chicago staff.

 

The Obama campaign’s Chicago headquarters has it all—from Jack Daniels and Ping Pong to bouncy balls and ironic desk mementos.

 

Yet the “army of twenty-somethings†campaign manager Jim Messina has assembled in the president’s hometown is almost uniformly white, according to photos contained in a detailed BuzzFeed report Monday.

 

Further examination of the Obama’s campaign’s Tumblr site over the past month reveals very few black individuals—apart from the president and his wife, Michelle—in the pictures posted in the feed.

 

One of the only featured pictures to include a black individual is one from a recent White House visit by Star Trek actress Nichelle Nichols.

 

The revelation is potentially embarrassing for the first African-American president and the party he leads.

 

In August 2011, Obama signed an executive order requiring federal agencies to develop plans for improving workforce diversity.

 

The apparent lack of racial diversity at the Obama campaign headquarters comes at a time when the national black unemployment rate is nearly double the rate for whites.

 

According to the most recent report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), 14 percent of blacks are currently unemployed, compared with 7.3 percent of whites.

 

The divide is even more pronounced among younger age groups. According to BLS data, the black unemployment rate among 16- to 19-year-olds is 40.5 percent, compared with 22.5 percent for whites.

 

In Illinois, the black unemployment rate—as high as 28 percent, according to the Illinois Department of Employment Security—far exceeds the national average.

 

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) has come under fire from African-American groups in recent years alleging that the party organization has failed to award contracts to black-owned business despite repeated pledges to advance the interests such firms.

 

The Obama campaign did not immediately return a request for comment.

 

 

 

 

My link

 

 

[Flashermac]

Stunning lack of diversity in Obama campaign, photos reveal

 

 

 

A photo of Obama’s “army†originally posted on the campaign’s Tumblr site and run in conjunction with a BuzzFeed story on the Obama campaign reveals a stunning lack of diversity among the president’s Chicago staff.

 

The Obama campaign’s Chicago headquarters has it all—from Jack Daniels and Ping Pong to bouncy balls and ironic desk mementos.

 

Yet the “army of twenty-somethings†campaign manager Jim Messina has assembled in the president’s hometown is almost uniformly white, according to photos contained in a detailed BuzzFeed report Monday.

 

Further examination of the Obama’s campaign’s Tumblr site over the past month reveals very few black individuals—apart from the president and his wife, Michelle—in the pictures posted in the feed.

 

One of the only featured pictures to include a black individual is one from a recent White House visit by Star Trek actress Nichelle Nichols.

 

The revelation is potentially embarrassing for the first African-American president and the party he leads.

 

In August 2011, Obama signed an executive order requiring federal agencies to develop plans for improving workforce diversity.

 

The apparent lack of racial diversity at the Obama campaign headquarters comes at a time when the national black unemployment rate is nearly double the rate for whites.

 

According to the most recent report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), 14 percent of blacks are currently unemployed, compared with 7.3 percent of whites.

 

The divide is even more pronounced among younger age groups. According to BLS data, the black unemployment rate among 16- to 19-year-olds is 40.5 percent, compared with 22.5 percent for whites.

 

In Illinois, the black unemployment rate—as high as 28 percent, according to the Illinois Department of Employment Security—far exceeds the national average.

 

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) has come under fire from African-American groups in recent years alleging that the party organization has failed to award contracts to black-owned business despite repeated pledges to advance the interests such firms.

 

The Obama campaign did not immediately return a request for comment.

 

 

My link

[allistar]

As a Kansan, I have to claim Brown V. Board of Education. It was one of five cases of similar nature making their way to the Supreme Court. The other ones were in the South (South Carolina, Virginia and Washington DC) or in Delaware. What made Brown unique was that the facilities and staff at both the segregated and mainstream schools in Topeka, Kansas were roughly equal. So, by taking the Topeka case, the court was saying segregated school systems were unconstitutional throughout the U.S. and were inherently unconstitutional, not just because the schools for blacks were substantially inferior to those for white students.

[Flashermac]

I had a good friend who was a WWII combat vet and a retired MP LTC. He told me about a time in the mid 1950s when he was assigned to find a hotel banquet hall for an Officers' Club function. He found a perfect location and was about to sign the contract, when a thought crossed his mind. He asked, "We have a few colored officers. Is there any problem with that?" The hotel manager told him in no uncertain terms that "those people" would not be allowed allowed to set foot in the hotel! My friend told him the deal was off and left to look for another hotel. That was in Leavenworth, Kansas.

 

People also forget that the KKK was very strong in Indiana, Illinois and Ohio during the 1920s and '30s. In fact, the KKK managed to take over the government of Indiana!

 

<< The organization reached its highest point of power during the years that followed, and by 1925 over half the members of the Indiana General Assembly, the Governor of Indiana, and many other high ranking members of the government were all members of the Klan. >>

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Klan

 

 

[allistar]

I do know that Kansas City was very segregationist. Even though it was a center of jazz and blues, many musicians like Cab Calloway refused to play here after experiencing Kansas City hospitality. Kansas City does have a rich, black history (BBQ, music and negro baseball, with the hall of fame here), but it is still divided, with Troost Avenue the dividing line generally with blacks living to the east and whites to the west. Leavenworth isn't a very big town but it is an army town, so I'm a little surprised about your friend's experience in the 1950's.

[Flashermac]

Surprised him too, since he'd grown up in the Deep South but didn't expect it in Kansas. He got a direct commission as a university student after WWII, since he had been a 19-year-old infantry staff sergeant. His first assignment as a brand new 2LT was in what had been an all black regiment. He said he loved it, one of the best disciplined companies he had ever worked with.

 

 

 

 

[Bangkoktraveler]

The tax I find highly questionable is the 'employee withholding tax'

employees/employers pay each week. Surprisingly nobody questions this practice.

I consider this tax practice illegal.

 

 

Explain what it is. And why you think it is illegal.

 

 

If a tax is due on April 15, 2012 - would you questioned

why you must pay some of the tax at the end of the first week

of January in the year 2011?

 

Our Founding Fathers probably would consider that tax illegal

based on the fact the tax is 'due' on April 15, 2012

and not collectable till then.

 

[Bangkoktraveler]

I remember my mother watching Opera one day years ago when she had on some black radicals demanding "reparations" for their ancestors being kept in slavery. They demanded $40,000 for every black person in the USA. (This was in the 1990s. I expect their demands have gone up.) They said, "If we don't get it, we're gonna take!" Whatever the fark that means ...

 

Opera went to the audience for comments. One well dressed black man took the mike and said that African Americans lived in a wonderful country and shared all of its benefits. If they wanted reparations, fine. Take the money and fly to Africa to live. They couldn't have it both ways, America or the money. The radicals and most of the audience began shouting at him, calling him an Uncle Tom and everything else you can think of. If he'd said it outside of the studio, no doubt they'd have physically attacked him. That one program gave white viewers something to think about.

 

Slavery ended more than 150 years ago. Does the English part me owe me money for what England did to my Irish ancestors centuries ago? I hadly think so. Reparations to the slaves would be fine ... but they are all long dead. African Americans do have plenty to complain about though, since they are the only group in America that was legally discriminated against. That went on for over 90 years after slavery ended. Just think of all the Jim Crow laws, which I am old enough to remember a bit. It wasn't just in the South either. Look up the Brown vs the Board of Education decision and tell me what state it happened it. You might be surprised.

 

I like to point to the military for an example. I saw next to no problems over race in combat arms units in Vietnam. We were all brothers who looked out for each other. (Non-combat arms units might be different, unfortunately.) When I was an Army instructor in the 1990s, I saw that racism had almost diasppeared among career soldiers. One of my buddies - a black senior NCO from Georgia - remarked one day at how common interracial marriages were becoming among the GIs. Black and white marriages were something that no one even seemed to notice. Race had become more or less unimportant. It should be.

 

 

President Lincoln advocated before the beginning of the

Civil War of sending the slaves back to Africa.

[TheCorinthian]

If a tax is due on April 15, 2012 - would you questioned

why you must pay some of the tax at the end of the first week

of January in the year 2011?

Our Founding Fathers probably would consider that tax illegal

based on the fact the tax is 'due' on April 15, 2012

and not collectable till then.

 

Huh? Explain what it is again...? (Or really for the first time.)