by avishai 16 Replies latest jw friends
Everyone is entitled to their own truths and their own lies.
Well, if they're in a position of power and hold the authority to do great harm or great good to others, their accountability is greater. Their "own" truths affect more than just themselves.
Unfortunately the people of North Carolina kept sending him back to Washington DC so he could spew more of his stuff year after year.
Well, if they're in a position of power and hold the authority to do great harm or great good to others, their accountability is greater. Their "own" truths affect more than just themselves.
Unfortunately the people of North Carolina kept sending him back to Washington DC so he could spew more of his stuff year after year.
So he was held accountable to.................... who?
Warlock
If the Guy didn't represent the beliefs of the majority in his state, he wouldn't have been a senator for NC. Never underestimate the racism and anti-homosexual beliefs of the South.
I actually agree with some of the things you quoted him as saying. Statistitics prove that more crimes are commited by African Americans than any other race in the U.S. It's the culture they created for themselves, and Snoop Dog said it best in one of his songs:"When I grow up, I wanna be a motherfuckin Gangsta."
It is also a fact that AIDS was most common among Homosexuals and Intravenous Drug Users. We don't hear about it in the States so much anymore. Africa seems to be the only place that has AIDS if you watch the news. Homosexuals were the face of the AIDS epidemic back in the 80's.
I never heard of Jesse Helms, but he seems oppinionated. I don't agree with racism or homophobia, but you can't deny the facts.
Jesse Helms consistenly opposed civil rights, gay rights and foreign aid. Hard-edged conservatism precludes moral behaviour. What more needs to be said?
Yes I'm aware of some of the long-standing prejudices that exist among many in the USA, not just in the south.
Thanks to Preston for posting the link about Jesse Helms' 2005 book "Where I Stand". Towards the end of his Senate career which concluded in 2003, Helms finally decided to become a leader instead of simply a complaining critic.
Here's the quote from the article Preston linked:
Helms also was an outspoken opponent of laws to protect gays from discrimination and of funding for AIDS research, but he writes in the book that his views evolved during his final years in the Senate. He cites friendships he developed with North Carolina evangelist Franklin Graham and rock singer Bono, both of whom got him involved in the fight against the AIDS epidemic in Africa. "Until then," Helms writes, "it had been my feeling that AIDS was a disease largely spread by reckless and voluntary sexual and drug-abusing behavior and that it would probably be confined to those in high-risk populations. I was wrong." (AP)
To Helms' credit, he decided to stop the propaganda and become involved in being part of the solution. In the end he saw that his old views (and the popular notions) about AIDS were not entirely true.
As far as your quote from Snoop Dogg, surely you don't believe that African-Americans are the only ones who aspire to be criminals in this country. There have been studies done to investigate why blacks are disproportionately arrested and jailed. A major factor has been the ill-conceived "war on drugs". One study in Delaware found this:
- Prison Sentences: Whites are 56% of those arrested, but blacks are 64% of those sentenced to a jail or prison term.
- Drug Use: Whites are an estimated 73% of those using illicit drugs, but blacks are 86% of those doing time for drug charges.
- Drug Treatment: Whites are 59% of the admissions to the state's community drug treatment programs, but blacks are a majority of those getting drug treatment in prison.
- From the data, we can derive a disturbing conclusion: White offenders enjoy a revolving door back to the community compared to black offenders, who are disproportionately sent back to prison.
- Unequal risk of incarceration: The risk of a white arrestee being sentenced to incarceration is only 40% of the risk that a black arrestee faces. Further, among arrestees on drug charges, the chance that a white drug offender will be sentenced to a prison term (one year or more) is only 21% of that faced by black arrestees.
Later, the report states:
A consideration of possible key reasons why communities of color are over represented in the corrections system is made by Schiraldi and Ziedenberg and includes:Overrepresentation in the corrections system is one result of social disadvantages (less access to high quality education, high unemployment rates).
- Policing practices targeting low-income communities have the unintended consequence of arresting disproportionately more people of color, even though Whites use and sell at the same or higher rates. If one is more likely to be arrested, one is more likely to build up a criminal history resulting in subsequent incarceration.
- Whites, by the nature of their relatively better economic status, may have access to better legal representation who more vigorously advocate for their release. Studies in the juvenile justice system have shown that White youth are twice as likely as Black youth to retain private counsel, and youth represented by private attorneys are less likely to be convicted and less likely to be tried as adults than youth represented by either public defenders or appointed counsel.
- Whites may have better access to high quality treatment and related services to avoid crime and prison. Race may influence the decision-making of criminal justice professionals, including officers of the court. Schiraldi and Ziedenberg report on studies indicating that Whites are more successful than non-Whites at getting charges reduced to misdemeanors or infractions.
Here's the link to the complete report: http://www.dcjustice.org/pdfs/RaceIncarceration.pdf
So the "facts" are not just that African-Americans do more crime. There are factors, not only in Delaware, but throughout American culture, that are making African-American criminals more likely than their white counterparts to be sentenced to or return to prison.
I was with some Vietnamese recently, and some of them were smoking two cigarettes at the same time. That's the kind of customers we need!
this is too funny! LOL
As far as your quote from Snoop Dogg, surely you don't believe that African-Americans are the only ones who aspire to be criminals in this country. There have been studies done to investigate why blacks are disproportionately arrested and jailed. A major factor has been the ill-conceived "war on drugs". One study in Delaware found this:
Thanks for the information. As you said, there are other factors.
