Can My Children Be Friends With XXX People?

[Chicken lady]

I raised white children. I taught them to be aware that not everybody who is nice to you is necessarily your friend. I understand that unfortunately his son will have to pay closer attention than mine did. I think he uses the term “friend” much as I do (I have very few friends) But I find his premise racist by definition. And I think that by discouraging his son from trying to bridge differences he is perpetuating the problem.

[jp1]

I tend to agree with chicken lady. The author's initial premise is faulty. Only 46% of voters were comfortable enough with the identity and victim politics of trump to actually vote for him. There are plenty of white people who want no part of the toxic hatred and divisiveness he was pushing. I think a better lesson to teach his children would be that it takes time to get to know someone well enough to be able to judge the content of their heart regardless of any other details that may be readily visible about the person.

[creaker]

Seems like the first thing you'd have to teach your kid is profiling. Color doesn't feel like what should warn kids about, it sounds like he's out to turn his kid into a racist.

[Williamsmith]

In order for us all to be equally informed, here is a bio from the huffingtonpost on the author:

“Ekow N. Yankah is a Professor of Law at Cardozo School of Law. He holds degrees from the University of Michigan, Columbia University School of Law and the B.C.L., a post-graduate law degree from Oxford University. Professor Yankah’s scholarship explores the intersection of jurisprudence, criminal law and political theory. His scholarship has appeared in a variety of books, law reviews and peer reviewed legal theory journals. Professor Yankah has been recognized as one of the Top 50 influential Law Professors. He has been a fellow of the Israeli Institute of Advance Studies, a distinguished visitor of the MacArthur Foundation and will be a visiting fellow at the Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya and a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Toronto School of Law. Professor Yankah is the Co-Chair of the nationally recognized New York Democratic Lawyer’s Counsel, the the voting rights organization of the Democratic National Committee, sits on the Boards of The Humanities Institute, The Lawyers' Committee for Equal Rights Under the Law, and the Innocence Project. His opinion pieces have appeared in, among other places, The New York Times, The New Yorker and The Huffington Post. He is a commentator on among others MSNBC, BBC and BBC International.”

[Williamsmith]

Correct me please. Is he not complaining that the opiod crisis disproportionately effects white people because of white privilege? I know he’s the man with the alphabet soup but I’d have found a better complaint. He doesn’t mention that white people commit suicide at far greater rates than blacks. Refer to the CDC. I also doubt his kids will be exposed much to ignorant white racists as he is no doubt residing in a well to do upper class community and not the ghettos of inner cities. Hol......Ekow!

[jp1]

Correct me please. Is he not complaining that the opiod crisis disproportionately effects white people because of white privilege?

I didn't get that he was complaining that opiods disproportionately affect white folks, but that the treatment of blacks with drug problems is distinctly different from the treatment of drug problems among white people. One are criminalized. The other are considered to have a medical problem. There's a long history of republicans using the drug war against their enemies. After Nixon it was the differentiation of powder cocaine vs. crack. One, the less serious offense, was typically used by white folks, the other, more commonly by black folks. The punishment for crack was much harsher than straight cocaine when there ware actually similar amounts of cocaine in either.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikshe.../#6c7fc73942c8

[ApatheticNoMore]

But when black lives were struck by addiction, we cordoned off minority communities with the police and threw away an entire generation of black and Hispanic men.

yea I guess I didn't read this as strictly about blacks being more likely to be imprisoned for drug use, but I suppose if one wants to have a very narrow interpretation that the ONLY problem with drug addiction is it being illegal then they might. But while the legal issues ARE a problem, another not so small problem with addiction is also that it directly kills people (not always the opiates themselves sometimes it's a mix of drugs).

And I also don't get it when it's argued we are treating it as a public health problem with white people, is that really meant to be merely mean we aren't imprisoning people, again a pure absence of a negative, at least we refrain from that? Because I interpret it as we are doing something positive to help them, and I know there is some talk of that, but I don't know that we really are. I don't think we really care very much about poor people in this country even when they are white.

Is it really "those white people are SO lucky they didn't go to prison". Yes prisons are indeed horrible places, I agree already, but it doesn't mean the white people even when they don't go to prison can necessarily rebuild their lives, well for one thing they may be dead, but even if not, many of them are hardly hire-able (assuming they even had any options previously and it wasn't never being able to find work that drove them to drugs) after years of drug addiction etc.. Upper middle class people maybe easily rebuild lives after drug addiction but poor people with few economic prospects to begin with ...

Basically we threw away an entire generation (although not that young, lots middle aged) of poor often rural white people in order for a few drug company heads to make record profits. Just like you know they die of coal related cancers etc. in Appalachia and we let them die and somehow the lack of melanin doesn't protect them from being poisoned for profit, while the powers that be look the other way.

[Ultralight]

It's the natural progression of identity politics which advances bigotry as a noble cause, social segregation rather than legal segregation.

I agree with you. Which is a bit unsettling... hahaha

[Ultralight]

Correct me please. Is he not complaining that the opiod crisis disproportionately effects white people because of white privilege? I know he’s the man with the alphabet soup but I’d have found a better complaint. He doesn’t mention that white people commit suicide at far greater rates than blacks. Refer to the CDC. I also doubt his kids will be exposed much to ignorant white racists as he is no doubt residing in a well to do upper class community and not the ghettos of inner cities. Hol......Ekow!

8 out of 10 suicides are men. Male privilege that.

[Ultralight]

“I have certainly met much more discrimination in terms of being a woman than being black, in the field of politics.”--Shirley Chisholm

I remembered her remarks because she was one of the many non-starter candidates I have voted for over the years. I think Clinton's experience would bear that out.

You win the Oppression Olympics gold medal.