The Atlantic - Latest Comments in Open Thread At Noon

Re: Open Thread At Noon

BrianSierk — Sat, 09 May 2009 20:02:48 -0000

Some of the earliest maps were by the Egyptians (Northern Hemisphere) that has South up and north down. The reasoning there was the downhill flow of the Nile from Lake Victoria through Nubia or Ta-Nehisi, and down through lower Egypt.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

Stacy — Sat, 09 May 2009 17:54:43 -0000

Thanks, sans. I couldn't get anything right that day!!

Re: Open Thread At Noon

sans-culottes — Sat, 09 May 2009 14:09:00 -0000

Stacy, I don't if that fact is true, but the Maya were located in the Northern Hemisphere. The Inca were, for the most part, in the Southern Hemisphere. Remember: Ecuador/Equator.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

DaveinHackensack — Sat, 09 May 2009 13:52:38 -0000

BTW, the President of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, had an interesting op/ed in yesterday's Financial Times. I commented on it elsewhere ("An African Perspective on Development"), but here's an excerpt of Kagame's essay:

[A]s I tell our people, nobody owes Rwandans anything. Why should anyone in Rwanda feel comfortable that taxpayers in other countries are contributing money for our wellbeing or development? Rwanda is a nation with high goals and a sense of purpose. We are attempting to increase our gross domestic product by seven times over a generation, which increases per capita incomes fourfold. This will create the basis for further innovation and foster trust, civic-mindedness and tolerance, strengthening our society.

[...]

Entrepreneurship is the surest way for a nation to meet these goals. Government activities should focus on supporting entrepreneurship not just to meet these new goals, but because it unlocks people’s minds, fosters innovation and enables people to exercise their talents. If people are shielded from the forces of competition, it is like saying they are disabled.

Entrepreneurship gives people the feeling that they are valued and have meaning, that they are as capable, as competent and as gifted as anyone else.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

DaveinHackensack — Sat, 09 May 2009 03:54:51 -0000

Dan W,

"When I refer to 150 years ago, I'm referring to a Republican party that no longer exists"

150 years ago the GOP was the party of businessmen and the Democrats were the party of unions and big city machine politics. That much hasn't changed, and both parties still exist. What has changed in the last century is that, with FDR's creation of the welfare state, a majority of blacks started voting Democratic, and with the passage of Civil Rights, an even larger majority of blacks began voting Democratic, while most (but not all) Southern whites started voting Republican.

"Again, on "moving forward" I don't see why one would choose to literally spend trillions seeking the "right" people for reparations"

First, I wasn't thinking of trillions of dollars. That's not going to happen, because, as a country we can't afford it. It would have to be within the realm of the possible.

"Instead, why not push for a huge increase in education and child care, not to mention less incarceration?"

Because we already spend enormous amounts on education, with little to show for it. In fact, some of the places where we spend the most per student have the worst results (e.g., D.C.). And less incarceration means more criminals on the streets. Since many of these criminals are from black neighborhoods, it means more innocent blacks will be the victims of violent crime.

"The Holocaust was awful, and maybe monetary compensation is just, but slavery, aside from being atrocious, was also labor."

There was slave labor during the Holocaust as well, and there was a separate settlement specifically for those inmates that were consigned to slave labor for German industry. That's the settlement I referred to above that amounted to $5k or $10k per slave.

"As I said, the Bakke case was unconstitutional; the supreme court found that universities could not use a quota system..."

But it ruled that universities could continue to give preference to less-qualified (in some cases, far less-qualified) minorities over better qualified non-minorities. Even when the state of California banned racial preferences in its state universities years later, administrators looked for backdoor ways to give preferences to minority students. In many cases, this ended up doing more harm than good for black students. E.g., a smart black high school grad who might have flourished in, say, Cal State Long Beach, ended up getting thrown to the wolves in UCLA or Berkeley, getting discouraged, and dropping out.

"Fact is, the 20th century manufacturing has no future here."

I disagree. It's worth remembering that we still lead the world in manufacturing output, though manufacturing jobs as a percentage of our population have declined. If first world countries such as Japan and Germany can have vibrant manufacturing sectors, where they pay their workers more than ours in some cases, so can we. We just need to avoid policies that will chase manufacturers away.

Re oil companies, I don't know how much you know about them, but they create a lot of very high paying blue collar jobs. One thing John McCain was too ignorant to play up was how much money high school grads like his running mate's husband got paid on Alaska's North Slope -- over $100k, for seasonal work (they only drill when the ground is frozen). Every time white collar Democrats vote against a mining or drilling project they keep thousands of blue collar Americans from making decent livelihoods.

"As far as immigration goes, I don't think that's something that's going to just go away unless Mexico somehow recovers."

Simple solution: demand that blue collar employers verify their employees' legal status to work, just like white collar employees do. Do that, and illegals will go home. We could even offer them free one-way tickets to make it easier for them.

"Dude, the best antidote to poverty is a good-paying job? Then why would you be in favor of reparations!"

I'm not advocating reparations as an alternative to good-paying jobs; I'd like to see those too.

"To get a high paying job, you (most likely) need to go to at least a decent high school and have someone to look after you if your parents at work."

I don't think Exxon gives a crap where its roughnecks went to high school. If you hard working and willing to learn, they will teach you what you need to know to do the job. They know you didn't learn how to work an oil rig in high school.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

DaveinHackensack — Sat, 09 May 2009 03:28:12 -0000

"But the fact that you (we) are cognizant of black people in positions of economic and politcal power enough to point them out highlights just how exceptional it still is for black people to be in positions of economic and politcal power in America."

No it doesn't. I'm cognizant of white people in positions of economic and political power as well. I mentioned the black examples to you because they were relevant to my point.

"When the playing field is truly level, no one will bat an eye over the prospect of a black CEO"

Actually, we're well beyond that point. A sign of how far we've come is that no one batted an eye when a black CEO (in this case, Stan O'Neal of Merrill Lynch) was forced to resign (with an enormous golden parachute) after steering his company into a ditch. He got the same treatment as white CEOs (e.g., Chuck Prince of Citigroup) who also steered their companies into a ditch. That's progress.

"And this: "The field is level. Take the ball and run with it.", is pretty condescending."

Sorry you took it that way, but like I said, when you have black people at the highest levels of society -- politics, business, law, etc. -- it's hard to accept there isn't a level playing field for talented African Americans. That doesn't mean you are guaranteed to be successful, but a level playing field is about equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome.

"I just wish that while I'm running uphill I didn't have to listen to people strolling on higher ground telling me how level the field is."

How do you even know I'm on higher ground?

Re: Open Thread At Noon

socgrad — Fri, 08 May 2009 23:11:59 -0000

@ DaveinHackensack

"You have it, my friend. You live in a country where an African American can be the CEO of a Dow Component company, and be one of the highest-paid CEOs in the country (as in the case of Ken Chenault), where an African American can be a Supreme Court Justice, or even the President of the United States."

See this is where we fundamentally disagree. You provide this list as an illustration of how level the playing field is. But the fact that you (we) are cognizant of black people in positions of economic and politcal power enough to point them out highlights just how exceptional it still is for black people to be in positions of economic and politcal power in America. When the playing field is truly level, no one will bat an eye over the prospect of a black CEO of a major corporation or a black Supreme Court Justice, certainly not enough to keep a mental list of those acheivements. You think the playing field is level, when I and nearly all other non-white people in America (along with many white women) know that it isn't.

And this: "The field is level. Take the ball and run with it.", is pretty condescending. No, I'm just standing here crying my eyes out over how unfair the game is. Please man, I already know that to get anywhere in life I'm going to have to run hard (uphill no less). I just wish that while I'm running uphill I didn't have to listen to people strolling on higher ground telling me how level the field is.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

calexical — Fri, 08 May 2009 22:58:22 -0000

Eurocentrism isn't surprising to me, but I was thinking more on the question of North/South, which is connected but not quite the same. I have a hard time believing that the standard would have spread (not to mention survived intra-European squabbles) if there wasn't some solid reason behind it. And if there wasn't a solid reason, it seems more likely that a QWERTY-keyboard-like progression of events would be to blame rather than a coordinated nationalist plan.

Again, I'd be curious if anyone knows whether maps drawn by early Asian, Indian or Arab societies varied their top/bottom orientations.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

Dan Fox — Fri, 08 May 2009 20:50:08 -0000

I appreciate the response too, no doubt, but I think you're misinterpreting some of my points.

1)I'm not talking about the entire history of the Republican party when it comes to racism. Obviously, things were the other way around for a long time. I am referring to the Southern Strategy used by the party after Civil Rights legislation. Blacks were clearly used as a pariah (welfare queen, willie horton) for Republicans to gain an advantage through the South and people who weren't comfortable with integration (mainly the South, but clearly, racism knows no bounds in this country). When I refer to 150 years ago, I'm referring to a Republican party that no longer exists; I'm referring to the 40 acres and a mule. I guess what I'm trying to say is, after you espouse racism (not saying all Republicans do, just the leadership for a long time that was engrained), you have clearly forgotten about promises made a long time ago. Again, on "moving forward" I don't see why one would choose to literally spend trillions seeking the "right" people for reparations, figuring out a fair amount of money to pay, and then of course, finally paying them. Instead, why not push for a huge increase in education and child care, not to mention less incarceration? This will not be nearly as expensive, and the benefits would be much more lucrative.

2) I think you're misunderstanding what I say when I use "repay." The Holocaust was awful, and maybe monetary compensation is just, but slavery, aside from being atrocious, was also labor. Slaves weren't just held in concentration camps, they were free labor for aristocrats. That labor made the US an economic power, as hard as that may be to accept. Again, not to in anyway trivialize the Holocaust, but it wasn't lucrative for the Germans to do what they did to the Jews.

3)As I said, the Bakke case was unconstitutional; the supreme court found that universities could not use a quota system, although backgrounds of candidates could be taken into consideration. It took place 10 years after the Civil Rights Act, so the time the quota system was in place was trivial--and I agree, quotas are wrong. So there's no law that says you must accept inferior minority cases. In fact, the good old boy system is still the one mostly in place. 75% of white collar jobs come through networking. Guess who would be at a disadvantage because segregation both legal and subtle.

Again, on the CEOs go down the rest of the list. Also, look at Senators. There's a reason they're letting that clown Burris keep his job--there's no other black people. That's an example of both poor affirmative action policy and long standing racism, that they don't have one other black guy in there to keep it from being entirely white.

3) I agree with you on a lot of the Democrats' problems with labor. Fact is, the 20th century manufacturing has no future here. Maybe green collar does for a while, and it's something to push for, but 1)oil lobbies affect the Republican party more than the Democratic (although they do hit both, only one was chanting "Drill, baby, drill") 2)an oil based energy economy will only keep Detroit's sick dream alive, continue to accelerate global warming, and most of all, won't push us in the right direction economically. In this regard, Republicans need advocate for somewhat unskilled labor getting on the ground and making wind turbines, giving tax breaks to green companies, and most of all just look like they want to solve the problem. Getting back on topic, I think one really brilliant thing the GOP could do would be to advocate tax breaks to make low-income communities more economically diverse.

As far as immigration goes, I don't think that's something that's going to just go away unless Mexico somehow recovers. I literally don't think there's anything you can do about it other than sign them up and get them to pay taxes.

Dude, the best antidote to poverty is a good-paying job? Then why would you be in favor of reparations! Haha--this is what I'm trying to say I guess. To get a high paying job, you (most likely) need to go to at least a decent high school and have someone to look after you if your parents at work.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

Persia — Fri, 08 May 2009 20:39:21 -0000

Agreed! And I really feel like there's no monetary way to compensate for Jim Crow, the systemic destruction of black families during slavery, the enduring discrimination against job applicants with 'ethnic' names.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

Persia — Fri, 08 May 2009 20:37:08 -0000

bread & roses, I love my antidepressant but it has the opposite effect-- may even be the same stuff, body chemistry being what it is.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

Persia — Fri, 08 May 2009 20:36:18 -0000

The man can cast, for the most part, that's for sure. I had no idea Alan Tudyk was capable of that!

Re: Open Thread At Noon

Persia — Fri, 08 May 2009 20:35:48 -0000

Alas, Rushmore IS in my queue, behind the end of Gundam Wing and the beginning of The Wire and...

I like movies.

Total agreement on Sierra and Victor.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

CitizenE — Fri, 08 May 2009 19:05:44 -0000

I can only speak to a program of which I was a part. It was one of seven CAL-Soap programs that were created from California state funding as consortia of educational institutions among universities, colleges, secondary and elementary schools and community organizations in which students and their parents from groups with historically low college and university enrollment and retention rates, were from the fourth grade on given the opportunity of instensive mentoring, tutoring, and counseling. Much of the work was done by paid community college students from similar diverse backgrounds. The program was wildly successful, year in and year out for over two decades the students we worked with, thousands every year, wound up with not only higher university and/or college enrollment numbers than their own background groups, but higher than the average for the population at large.

We had a dedicated, beyond the call staff, and it worked year after year after year.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

DaveinHackensack — Fri, 08 May 2009 18:18:54 -0000

"Personally, I say, F*** reparations, give me equality under the law and a level playing field!"

You have it, my friend. You live in a country where an African American can be the CEO of a Dow Component company, and be one of the highest-paid CEOs in the country (as in the case of Ken Chenault), where an African American can be a Supreme Court Justice, or even the President of the United States. The field is level. Take the ball and run with it.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

DaveinHackensack — Fri, 08 May 2009 18:14:35 -0000

How has it worked out in practice? It seems that most of the benefits have flowed to already-affluent/advantaged African Americans and it has done little for the most disadvantaged African Americans. Not that money would be a panacea, but, combined with the sort of Booker T./Malcom X. entrepreneurship T-NC has written about, it could help African Americans create their own opportunities.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

DaveinHackensack — Fri, 08 May 2009 18:11:31 -0000

I mentioned this anecdote in a post on my site last year, which is relevant to your comment:

During a vacation to Brazil I had scheduled a couple of business meetings, the second of which was at the Rio de Janeiro branch of a U.S.-based brokerage. In conversation with the office manager, it came up that a friend and I had visited the old colonial port city of Paraty on our way up from São Paulo. The manager explained the history of the town to me, that it had been the port from which the minerals mined from the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais ("General Mining") were shipped back to Portugal. Then he went on to contrast the difference between the original settlers of what became the U.S. with the original settlers of Brazil: "You had a higher quality of settlers," he said. "Yours -- Puritans -- came to build. Ours came to take". Of course in the 19th and 20th Centuries, Brazil attracted some of the same sort of immigrants that the U.S. did, including Italians, Poles, Germans, Jews, and Japanese (Brazil today has the largest ethnic Japanese population outside of Japan).

Re: Open Thread At Noon

DaveinHackensack — Fri, 08 May 2009 18:08:44 -0000

Thanks for the response. I'll respond to a few of your points below.

"I would be at best suspicious of any group that for years used my race as a pariah to gain white support and took political positions that disproportionately negatively affected my race, only to all of sudden go back to a position it sorta held literally almost 150 years ago."

80% of Republicans in Congress voted for Civil Rights in 1964. This idea that Republicans freed the slaves in the Civil War and then the day after became a bunch or racists is nonsense. It's true that some of the Democrat Party's racists joined the GOP after Civil Rights, but then again, many racists stayed in the Dem party too, and some of them were Northerners. Remember: 150 years ago, in New York City, it was the Republican businessmen who were anti-slavery and in favor of the Civil War, and it was the blue collar union Democrats who rioted against the war and lynched blacks (and torched the houses of prominent Republicans).

In any case, the point of this wouldn't mainly be to win black votes, but to move America forward. As T-NC noted recently, America is become less white, but it's also becoming less black. Policies based on a black-white dynamic may not last that transition.

"That's really just goes to show Americans could literally never repay African-Americans"

And the Germans can't really repay Holocaust survivors for the abuses they suffered. That doesn't mean you can't offer some reasonable compensation.

"unless you literally think that well-qualified white men are getting screwed left and right by average women and minorities when quota systems, after Bakke v California in 1974 (I believe), were found to be unconstitutional. Take a look at the Fortune 500 CEOs or the Senate, then get back to me."

When well-qualified candidates get rejected in favor of less qualified candidates, it's not just the well-qualified candidates who get screwed. The Bakke case you mentioned is an example of this. The less-qualified African American who got admitted to U.C. Davis instead of Bakke, Patrick Chavis, went on to maim African American women (and even kill one) in Los Angeles as an incompetent doctor.

As for the Fortune 500, you may be surprised to learn this, but 3 of the 5 highest paid CEOs last year were non-white, and one of them Ken Chenault of American Express, was African American. Considering the examples of Chenault at Amex, Don Parsons and Time Warner and Citigroup, and Stan O'Neal, formerly of Merrill Lynch, it's hard to argue there's a glass ceiling for black executives.

"Why not address the problems today's poor people (often having to work 3 jobs, not see their kids, be uninsured, sure sounds like we haven't come that far to me) face?."

I think that the GOP should advocate more policies that would facilitate the creation of more high-paying blue collar jobs. This happens to be an area where Democrats -- while in favor the goal of a strong middle class in the abstract -- advocate policies that work against this goal in reality. They oppose most manufacturing and natural resource industries out of concerns about carbon and global warming; they advocate policies that will make energy (and thus energy-intensive industries such as manufacturing) more expensive, for similar reasons; they oppose the vocational tracking that would support a strong manufacturing base, out of egalitarian educational ideals; and they support unskilled immigration, which lowers the wages of blue collar workers in industries such as construction. Incidentally, I wrote about this in more detail on my site, "How Not to Create Broad-Based Prosperity".

The best antidote to poverty, in my opinion, is a good-paying job. Both parties ought to advocate policies that would put those sorts of jobs within reach of more Americans, but if Democrats won't do this, Republicans definitely should.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

DaveinHackensack — Fri, 08 May 2009 17:43:14 -0000

She's pretty, but she can't act her way out of a wet paper bag.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

bread & roses — Fri, 08 May 2009 17:40:33 -0000

I'm a white woman, so it's not my territory, but no way would I give up affirmative action for $25,000. I got my foot in the door of the construction industry through affirmative action, and I proved myself to a lot of men who thought I was worthless, and I continue to have to go uphill in every job I'm on- but if I hadn't had that affirmative action bump, I would have probably remained an apprentice for another 2-3 years. 2.5 years at $17 an hour instead of $32 an hour equals... let's see.... $75,000. And that's not counting the ripple effect that every one of my subsequent career moves could be delayed 2-3 years in an industry where the time you put in is really important. And it doesn't count the interest on that money or the other use I could put it to. That little boost was HUGE- trade that for $25,000 plus endless rejoinders that since reparations have been paid, everything's fair now, and I have nothing to complain about when 22-year olds tell me to clean up after them when I arrive with 5 times the tools, experience, and ability they have? No freakin' way.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

socgrad — Fri, 08 May 2009 17:39:32 -0000

Cosign on Dan W.'s reply, particularly the last paragraph. Rather than attempting a politcally untenable policy like reparations, we should focus on developing and supporting policies that can help alleviate poverty in general. Additionally, we should truly enforce current anti-discrimination laws in employment, housing, education, lending, etc, and seriously reform how the criminal justice system (doesn't) work for black / brown people in America. Doing these two things will go much further in helping black people in America than reparations ever would. If the GOP pursued these two policy goals and dropped their race baiting, they could break the Democrats' lock on the black vote (and its burgeoning hold on the Latino vote).

Of course the GOP is unlikely to do this any time soon (about as unlikely as they would be to back reparations). And if they even considered the idea of supporting reparations it would only be in the sense of giving black people something to placate them, rather than redressing real inequities in American society (which the two policy goals above would do). "Here we gave you people some money, will you shut up already about employment and education discrimination!"

The debate about reparations and much of the policies regarding the "problems of black folk" gets at a central problem that TNC talks about (in a different way) in another thread today. In America, black people are still not seen as fully American citizens. Policy is developed and sold to the public as a form of patronage from America to black people, rather than as policy benefiting American citizens. When we recognize that black people in America are *American citizens*, there won't seem anything weird about the concept of enforcing and fully supporting anti-discrimination laws and policies that promote integration. This will mean simply affirming the rights of *American citizens* and affirming the ideal of America as a united society.

Personally, I say, F*** reparations, give me equality under the law and a level playing field!

Re: Open Thread At Noon

agtebo — Fri, 08 May 2009 17:27:04 -0000

Incidentally, there has been a very strong movement, especially in South America of a "school of the south". Essentially, a intellectual movement that was designed to rethink the way that South America is viewed, the idea being that, due to European colonialism South America largely thought of itself as inferior to Europe and solely as a source of raw natural resources.

The artist, Joaquin Torres-Garcia, has a painting titled "Upside Down Map" which is just that: http://www.public.asu.edu/~aarios/resourcebank/maps/page4.html

Re: Open Thread At Noon

bread & roses — Fri, 08 May 2009 17:23:45 -0000

I'm on a new antidepressant that makes it impossible for me to drink coffee anymore- even a little caffeine and I'm jittery as all hell, like I drank 6 cups. I miss the taste and the ritual of coffee. But unlike coffee, this antidepressant makes me feel *perfectly caffeinated* all of the time. Like just when you feel the dose start to kick in and you stop wanting to kill your coworkers, and are ready to rock- but no crash and urge to re-dose after lunch. It's killer, and it's really changed my point of view about emotion-altering drugs. I used to cringe at the thought of being on antidepressants, like they would alter my fundamental self, but if they just do a better job than coffee- bring it on.

So, I'll be having orange juice with Obama.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

CitizenE — Fri, 08 May 2009 17:04:42 -0000

I believe there was an unkept compact of 40 acres and a mule.

But money and/or property begs the question of educational and occupational opportunity, especially from a society wide perspective in which the purpose of affirmative action would, or at least, should be better framed as an issue that goes to the health of a participatory democracy, rather than some sort of blood money with the idea that history can be washed away by throwing money at it. What Affirmative Action in its best spirt argues for is a society in which its entire populace can have equal access to the creation of wealth and culture as well as the reaping the rewards as a result--not because it benefits a single individual or set of individuals (here's where conservatism and liberalism part company), but rather because it benefits the whole.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

CitizenE — Fri, 08 May 2009 16:54:31 -0000

To Calexical: I really don't know the answer to that. But it is safe to say people made maps all over the world, but Europe was able to print and disseminate them, and as Stacy points out, because of their exploration had maps that took in larger portions of the world. I'd be curious if anyone who was into cartography could say.

However, Eurocentrism when it comes to mapmaking should not be surprising; so much of the world we live in comes to us for a variety of reasons through a Eurocentric filter for good as well as ill.