ot ferguson

[FlyerInHi]

Watched black Jesus. Funny.

[FlyerInHi]

[quote=Blogstar]
the right dug in it’s heels and said, ” bullshit how do you help people who won’t help themselves” and the democrats started pandering with lies and negative policies of aid and more vague promises and now excuses and blaming others for the whole problem.[/quote]

Pandering with lies and vague promises? They delivered. I could accept the argument that the aid was squandered by the recipients… But what exactly are the negative policies you speak of?

You know, it’s not just poor blacks. Poor Whites need lots of aid. BG mentioned “flyover country.” Back in the 1990s Bill Clinton identified that a America’s emerging markets, or something like that.

Many of us live in big cities so we think of poverty as only an inner city problem.

[quote=Blogstar]
When I was 10-18 I lived in a place that had pockets of “compton” in it. If a republican or a democrat said grow your own vegetables the answer would be “that’s slavery” or something similar…that was just the culture…
.[/quote]

“You don’t need no welfare. Grow your own fucking veggies.” Repeat that over and over and people will get it.

Like the kitchen garden Michele Obama is growing at the White House? No… that’s not a good example to follow. It’s elitist and condescending. That’s for the rich and out of touch! It’s called a potager, if you want to sound elegant and elitist.

BG mentioned culture and health problems earlier; and she’s exactly right. In less then 100 years, the American diet of the poor has flipped from home cooked meals to packaged, pre-made items. People don’t even have the skills to make simple meals.

In the same period of time, the transportation infrastructure has completely flipped from walking and public transport to making the automobile absolutely necessary, even for the poorest.

I wonder who supported those health-killing, big-food, big-pharma, big-auto policies.

[NotCranky]

Stage political stunt garden. Like the Bush’s reading to grade school kids when the cameras were on. First lady image stuff.

Really though , congratulations to Michelle if she is out there tending an nice “pottage”! Who dug all the beds for her? That costs a lot in either energy or time to get built maybe Obama broke out the rototiller?

On the rest of it you are shirking and pointing fingers again ,B.

[bearishgurl]

[quote=Blogstar]Stage political stunt garden. Like the Bush’s reading to grade school kids when the cameras were on. First lady image stuff.

Really though , congratulations to Michelle if she is out there tending an nice “pottage”! Who dug all the beds for her? That costs a lot in either energy or time to get built maybe Obama broke out the rototiller?

On the rest of it you are shirking and pointing fingers again ,B.[/quote]

I’ll point fingers here … at the “elephant in the room.” Hint: it’s NOT about a particular race.

Religion

Michelle Obama is a Protestant Christian. She was raised Methodist and joined the Trinity United Church of Christ, where she and Barack Obama married, performed by Rev. Jeremiah Wright. On May 31, 2008, Barack and Michelle Obama announced that they had withdrawn their membership in Trinity United Church of Christ stating that “Our relations with Trinity have been strained by the divisive statements of Reverend Wright, which sharply conflict with our own views.”[51]

The Obama family has attended several different churches since moving to Washington D.C. in 2009, including Shiloh Baptist Church and St. John’s Episcopal Church. At the 49th African Methodist Episcopal Church’s general conference, Michelle Obama encouraged the attendees to advocate for political awareness, saying “To anyone who says that church is no place to talk about these issues, you tell them there is no place better – no place better, because ultimately, these are not just political issues – they are moral issues, they’re issues that have to do with human dignity and human potential, and the future we want for our kids and our grandkids.”[52]

(emphasis mine)

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

As the First Lady, Michelle Obama is surely allowed to take up a cause for which she is passionate about. In fact, it is her duty to do so. Being a native of Chicago’s south side, she knows the culture of “flyover country” like the back of her hand. She has seen the effects that cultural mores and customs have on the society she grew up in, first hand. Kids can still be molded … they aren’t yet entrenched in the local and regional customs that their parents and elders are. I find it admirable that she is taking on the lofty goal of educating children on proper nutrition for their continuing health into adulthood and avoidance of childhood obesity . . . weight of which is EXTREMELY HARD to shed as these children become adults and significantly lowers their self-esteem needed to be successful in life . . . regardless of educational level attained.

I see it several times per week as I pass through National City, CA. Many of the kids walking on the street are HUGE . . . different culture . . . same story. The culprit?? LARD and, to a lesser extent, SUGAR. Yes, these particular cultures DO cook at home – it doesn’t matter which region of the country they reside in. ESPECIALLY if they have an grandparent living with them. The problem is cultural and it affects Whites (in flyover country) as well.

I support any community education on nutrition which educates the public on the medical problems that high cholesterol and obesity can cause and teaches recipes and food prep on how to avoid them. Scripps and Sharp in San Diego have such free public information classes in place here in the South County (and likely elsewhere in the county, as well) located at easy-to-reach shopping malls.

And btw, many of the Ferguson lots exceed 10,000 sf and even 1/2 AC (even if there is only a permanently skirted double-wide mobile home situated on them). There’s plenty of room for a household to have a garden there. MANY Ferguson residents no doubt grow their own veggies (or some of them), ESPECIALLY if there is an elder in the house (grandparent/aunt/uncle). It’s what the household DOES with the food they grow that continues to exacerbate the entire family’s poor health, which I’ll address in a subsequent post.

[NotCranky]

Part of the discussion here is about large groups of poor people stuck in a rut. Blame me for that it’s o.k. We have discussed racial aspects of that due to the thread being about the black people of Ferguson, crime, white cops , education, poverty, and other things.Don’t forget the Black Jesus.
Race is part of the context of what has been said. That said, I wouldn’t be too impressed if Laura Bush had been passionate about gardening either. I will be impressed when the poverty , violence and misery of large groups of people is improving not getting worse.

Brian, I have never been against welfare in my life. I would never say,” grow your own vegetables and get off welfare”. I think the way it worked out debilitating lots of people was due to negative policies.. The grow your vegetables commentary was about the some what irresponsible food desert comments and I said what the response would be from many people in the “food desert” based on my having lived in one with decendants of slaves ,if you suggested they grow their own vegetables. I think many people would still say it. BG, Lots of the white people would make excuses too, even in my family. Too be even fairer to me, which is totally appropriate, the food desert was brought out as a black equality issue when it came out in the public.

Like I said before,Brian, I don’t know where you get these ideas about what I said…other than maybe knee jerk reactions or maybe being a troll. Reminds me of the time Sdrealtor and others got tired of you, and you got kicked off the blog.

[NotCranky]

Problems like we are talking about really make me think we are a lot more like ants then one would think. It’s very hard to move out of a caste once it is set , the cops are like a certain type of ant , the poor are like a certain type of ant, the wealthy and powerful are like a certain type of ant and they soothe the rest with platitudes for as long as it works and only acquiesce to any thing their “inferiors” want in “progress”to the very minimal degree to maintain things in the colony…nothing else will ever get done regardless of what kind of political arrangement mask is put over the colony….the composition of the lowly may gradually shift but it is not ever very fast. When it looks like it’s changing fast , or is supposed to , like with abolition, or the bolshevik revolution it isn’t. There in nothing in our society that makes me think it will ever conduct itself outside of this kind of model.

[bearishgurl]

[quote=Blogstar]. . . The grow your vegetables commentary was about the some what irresponsible food desert comments and I said what the response would be from many people in the “food desert” based on my having lived in one with decendants of slaves ,if you suggested they grow their own vegetables. I think many people would still say it. BG, Lots of the white people would make excuses too, even in my family. Too be even fairer to me, which is totally appropriate, the food desert was brought out as a black equality issue when it came out in the public. . . [/quote]

Russ, you don’t have to “justify” your opinions on here to me or anyone else. You’re entitled to them as I am to mine. Our opinions are borne of our own personal life experiences.

By bringing up the “food desert” in semi-rural and rural parts of “flyover country,” I was trying to point out the different lifestyles there as opposed to living in Cali (yes, including the lower-income Central Cali and other rural areas of the state). It’s NOT a “race issue.” It’s about the availability, quality and cost of fresh food to all residents who live there.

Remember from my earlier link that the current “student population” of McCluer South-Berkeley High School, located in Ferguson, MO, had a 99.8% Black student population.

But this really isn’t the case with Ferguson OR the other towns which the school serves.

Nor do those stats necessarily mean that BOTH parents (and both sets of grandparents) of a current Black HS student at McCluer South-Berkeley HS are actually African American (or even 1/4 African American) themselves. All it means is that the surrounding K-12 population which that school serves (5 towns) have an overwhelmingly Black student population.

Observe that the Ferguson police force is comprised of more than 50% races OTHER than African American (based only on photos in the news that I’ve seen).

How many active police officers/supervisors on the force are older than 45 years old? Older than 55 years old? Could it be that some of (or most) of these officers grew up in the immediate area?? How do we know that Ferguson’s “White” officers don’t still live nearby? If you look at the 2010 population stats for Ferguson, MO, we see that it was just over 2/3 African American:

. . . The racial makeup of the city was 29.3% White, 67.4% African American, 0.4% Native American, 0.5% Asian, 0.4% from other races, and 2.0% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 1.2% of the population. . . . The median age in the city was 33.1 years. 28.7% of residents were under the age of 18; 10.4% were between the ages of 18 and 24; 25.2% were from 25 to 44; 25.3% were from 45 to 64; and 10.3% were 65 years of age or older.. . .

For the year 2000, we see:

The racial makeup of the city was 44.8% White, 52.4% African American, 0.1% Native American, 0.7% Asian, < 0.1% Pacific Islander, 0.4% from other races, and 1.7% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 1.0% of the population.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferguson,_Missouri

What does all this tell us?

What is says to me is that Ferguson (as a microcosm of “flyover country”) has experienced “white flight” since 2000, perpetuating the racial segregation that its state and local government has likely been trying mightily to correct … to no avail.

The “Historical Population” chart on the right of the link indicates that Ferguson actually lost over 14% of their population in the 1970’s. It is very possible that it used to have an overwhelming majority of Whites 40+ years ago.

Even though the Black and White populations of flyover country share a lot in common, culturally, I believe the self-selecting segregation which has taken place in many areas of this region is due to the ingrained cultural biases of both cultures, partly due to influence from their elders in combination with White rural students of previous decades going off to college and never returning and younger local families being offered family support to help them buy/build a home elsewhere, as is the custom there. Believe it or not, it is not always the “Whites” who do the selecting.

Don’t get me wrong here. Whites and blacks routinely work together, shop together, go to church together, hire each other, patronize each other’s businesses and do everything else together in “flyover country.” But segregation in residence is still alive and well within cities and even “sides of town” in a big city. In semi-rural/rural “flyover country,” segregation can be much more pronounced where entire towns end up with an overwhelming preponderance of residents of one race, while being surrounded for miles by predominantly residents of another race who use the town’s stores, post office, banks and schools and are counted in the town’s population.

I strongly suspect that this is the case with Ferguson, MO.

***

In SD County, even areas which are (generally presumed to be) predominantly of African American residents … in actuality, are not. All races are actually well-represented in these areas’ populations. SD County differs from most areas of “flyover country” in that it has only a <6% African American population versus 25-85% in many parts of "flyover country" and parts of the east coast. Thus, SD County doesn't have actual "racial segregation," which, in part, keeps it from having a lot of the problems experienced by the residents of Ferguson and surrounds, IMHO.

I don't know what the answer is except that I believe the self-selecting segregation in "flyover country" is heavily influenced by deeply ingrained biases of the older generations of both races and isn't easily changed. As the elders pass on, this will be less and less of an issue.

[Coronita]

. deleted….

Trying to live to my latest motto…

FLU 1:39 “Thou shall not try to be a dick”….

Carry on!

[NotCranky]

Apparent self segregation is very interesting. I say apparent because I am sure lack of much choice is part of it too. I bet where you don’t find it there is much less racism.Remember when Santee was almost all white?….It was very racist. Not sure I agree that just because the generations pass there will be a lot of difference in racial bias where heavy segregation exists. I hope you are right though.

For the hell of it a few months ago I looked up an old navy shipmate on Facebook. I see that he has moved back to his very segregated residential community and all black church. Lot of white and black people live non-segregated for the first time ever in the Navy. Still black people mostly made up their own groups at the mess halls. I bet they still do.
Anyway , I know my old friend is not racist at all. I just wonder what that is like living in segregation.

[all]

[quote=flu]

FLU 1:39 “Thou shall not try to be a dick”….
[/quote]

Ever tried. Ever failed.

[FlyerInHi]

[quote=bearishgurl] Russ, you don’t have to “justify” your opinions on here to me or anyone else. You’re entitled to them as I am to mine. Our opinions are borne of our own personal life experiences.
[/quote]

Personal experiences are frequently the problem. We should try reason and intellect more often.

[FlyerInHi]

Blogstar, I won’t debate the legality of the killing in Ferguson. We’ll wait for the investigations to unfold.

But don’t you think that police killing should be avoided whenever possible and that good procedures should be in place in every police department?

You’re the one who said that people who care are “fake” and are using the issue as a ruse for personal gain. You then went on with “negative policies” by the democrats.

How is the DOJ investigation a ruse? And what are the social policies you find negative?

You don’t like the media and public response to Ferguson. So keep quiet and accept the status quo?

[quote=Blogstar]There in nothing in our society that makes me think it will ever conduct itself outside of this kind of model.[/quote]

You sound a little disgusted that society cannot change… Yet everything you said so far supports the old way of doing things.

[NotCranky]

[quote=FlyerInHi][quote=bearishgurl] Russ, you don’t have to “justify” your opinions on here to me or anyone else. You’re entitled to them as I am to mine. Our opinions are borne of our own personal life experiences.
[/quote]

Personal experiences are frequently the problem. We should try reason and intellect more often.[/quote]
Poor sport.
You don’t like reality
you don’t like facts
you don’t like experience.
You make up fairy tales
enemy of logic or common sense.
You corrupt way too much of what people say.

Then you claim “intellect” should do it somehow?

Looking good there buddy.

[scaredyclassic]

WWBJD?

[NotCranky]

[quote=scaredyclassic]WWBJD?[/quote]

Get Brian high?

[Author]

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