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MTZehvor on 08 July 2016
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pokoko said:
MTZehvor said:

I'll recant the misleading bit, because I misinterpreted what you were trying to say.

As for statistics, I think you misunderstand the purpose of them in my argument. No one is claiming that one person in the 9.9% is less or more important than someone in the 27.8%. Nor is it anywhere near condescending or debilitating, or to make people less than people. Quite honestly, I can't think of anyone who's used statistics to say that a group doesn't matter as much, with the possible exception of Bernie Sanders arguing that white people don't know what it's like to be poor. The point is not to argue that poor black people are more or less "important" than white people, it's about identifying what common problems are. If we're trying to figure out as a society what is causing these two groups to not get along very well (in this case, police and blacks), then statistics are a way of identifying where the issues might lie. When we find anomalies between a group and the rest of the population, that's an indicator that it might be a cause.

To my knowledge, and feel free to correct me if you have a counter example, almost no one I can think of argues that "a poor black person deserves your help more than a poor white person because he's black." I certainly haven't argued that on this thread, and I can't think of a single major organization or political pundit that would support that either.

That's slightly disingenuous because it's said all the time, simply by excluding the second part of your sentence.  Groups like the NAACP or figures like Al Sharpton certainly aren't looking out for everyone and they represent significant influence and attention.

Of course, there are statistical differences that should be understood.  Education needs to be more practical rather than just masterbation over top grade grubbers.  Black men, in general, rarely seem to be learning any skills at all from the previous generation, perhaps because of the high divorce rate.  Even high school dropouts who are familar with fields like masonry, construction, or carpentry can do well for themselves.  There should be more engagement and positive reinforcement for all students, not just those who can pull down A's on a report card.  As I said, I went to a poor school and I've seen many people who didn't really have a place there and they knew it.  They either wasted time until they got their piece of paper or they gave up and dropped out.  That does nothing for anyone.

You can certainly make it disingenuous if you're actively trying to, but the same can be said for any statement that isn't provided with context. I could, for instance, take your previous statement that there are more white people than black people in poverty, not mention how much of the US population they make up, and convince people that poverty disproportionately affects white people. Ultimately, I think it's unfair to blame statistics for being abused; more than anything, it should be a reminder to us all that we should take statistics worth a grain of salt before we do the required research to make sure that the person giving statistics didn't leave anything out.

I agree that education is a problem and should be more practical, and realistically it'd be nice to see standarized testing take a hike. With that said, getting rid of a standard cirriculum does put pressure on the teachers to, well, actually come up with a coherent set of courses throughout school, and having volunteered at extremely poor public schools before, I'm not entirely convinced that they'd ever be able to do so. Public education is definitely the place to start, in some way or another, but figuring out how is difficult at best. Maybe give some kind of rewards to schools that can find kids jobs for the summers inbetween school years? That'd at least give them incentive to get kids some discernable skills and workplace experience, so that even if their grades fall through, they've got something of a past career to fall back on.