The Goat Pen

Great story AA. I love hearing it every June 8th.

Yes, Rat, that expedition was most unkind. Please tip a glass with me in fond remembrance of Augie.

I've thought this for awhile hearing from my kids. Anytime I make a comment that distinguishes race or gender I get an earful from them.

Saying "you could probably hire a Mexican at Home Depot to help with your roof" not in jest, but as part of real discussion is racist in their mind.
The only thing they don't mind bashing is religion - the one thing I've always respected in this household and I failed by creating two little atheists.

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Like Chris Rock and Larry the Cable Guy, Jerry Seinfeld avoids doing shows on college campuses. And while talking with ESPN’s Colin Cowherd on Thursday, the comedian revealed why: College kids today are too politically correct.

“I hear that all the time,” Seinfeld said on The Herd with Colin Cowherd. “I don’t play colleges, but I hear a lot of people tell me, ‘Don’t go near colleges. They’re so PC.’”

Seinfeld says teens and college-aged kids don’t understand what it means to throw around certain politically-correct terms. “They just want to use these words: ‘That’s racist;’ ‘That’s sexist;’ ‘That’s prejudice,’” he said. “They don’t know what the f­—k they’re talking about.”

The funnyman went on to recount a conversation he and his wife had with their 14-year-old daughter, which he believes proved his point.

“My wife says to her, ‘Well, you know, in the next couple years, I think maybe you’re going to want to be hanging around the city more on the weekends, so you can see boys,’” Seinfeld recalled. “You know what my daughter says? She says, ‘That’s sexist.’”

Some parents are the same way, too. They get overly sensitive to acknowledging ethnic labels. Descriptors are descriptors, in my book...as long as you get the category right. Now, my mom calling every person of Latin American descent "Puerto Rican" and every person of Middle Eastern or Indian descent "Ay-rabs" is actually racist. However, it is funny...especially when she is just saying it as an innocent part of a conversation.

Is it really racist when I yell out epithets in my car when I get pissed at another driver? Typically, I don't know the sex, race or sexual orientation of the offender when I start my name-calling, but I will adjust to suit the culprit if and when I do get a visual on them...

augies last 6 posts were all nsfw

he will be missed

I get that shit all the time from my girls. Whether its, "That's so gay" to, "You stupid cunt" while driving, they always call me out. I apologize to them and explain to them that at their age those things were common and it's a hard habit to break. They still catch me sometimes cussing out grandma or some stupid bitch crossing against green with her kid in a stroller thinking she matters on a busy street. But they know now that to give me shit about it means a long walk home.

Sometimes tough love is the best love

If that's true, your murderer would achieve Christ-like status...

True. Killing a legend does help some achieve lifetime fame.

just read the last 4 pages of posts since I don't check in much any more and realized it's been about 17 years since I first joined cnn/si way back in '98 - just think, some of you are now nearly as old as I was then

anyway, the mention of Augie got the nostalgia going and if he still lurks on occasion here's hoping he and Vanassa are still together and doing well

I wonder if Augie is still selling eletronics?

saw where the GOP is trying to kill the FCC's ability to enforce net neutrality by slipping some funding and legalise into a budget bill.

If you are curious how IB got the way he is now, please read this profile of his pastor.

http://www.phoenixmag.com/People/west-of-westboro.html

Why would I care to do that?

A placeholder in my "we've all been equal since about 1973" viewpoint rebuttal...

http://www.vox.com/2015/5/29/8687205/cr ... ice-racism

I think alot of those stats can be explained by population density.

As long as black offenders – and young black men in particular – are over-represented in America’s crime statistics, there is always going to be an inequality in multiple aspects of racial bias.

That's going to play out it neighborhoods that aren't diverse, especially in big city urban communities.

Whether the problem is racial or poverty based is irrelevant to many at this point but its important to note that this cycle of poverty has continued for 40 years even with multiple programs designed to end it or create opportunities for it to be decreased.

You look at Baltimore in particular - since the late 60s and era of civil rights law enactment the people of Baltimore have overwhelmingly voted in Democrats. African Americans have been well represented in political positions and community activism. Baltimore is the closest major city to Washington D.C. and has had as much political exposure for change as any city in America.

If any city should be a blueprint for eliminating the cycle of poverty and the resulting racial bias that has been created from it, its Baltimore.

Yet virtually nothing has changed since the mid 60's in the urban centers of the city.

What is the appropriate length of time to be given before someone is allowed to say - you know what - that's on them, not everyone else? At what point can you say they've squandered opportunity after opportunity to get away from the behaviors and environment that continues to put them in a situation where 13% of the population generates a disproportionate level of crime. Another decade? two decades?

Why is it wrong for someone to note that African American children in Baltimore and every other city in America have access to a free public education and from that can attend a vocational school, a college or join the military as an opportunity to get out of that poverty - the same opportunity afforded every American in this country? Yes, there are obstacles, yes, there is racial bias, but what is holding them back is not the external world beyond the city blocks of their neighborhood - its the environment and culture developed within the city blocks of Baltimore - the city run by officials elected by these people, with mayors in charge of the police. 4 of the last 5 mayors of Baltimore were African American, representing 21 out of 29 years of elected office.

I'm not holding them back - my neighbors aren't holding them back. That's the general attitude of America outside of Baltimore (and other cities with similar problems). Baltimore is holding Baltimore back.

The % of black mayors/police chiefs/policmen/detectives/judges in large majority black cities has shown a steady upward trend for at least 40 yrs....Can't quote it, but would bet the % of blacks behind bars has remained basically flat(if not slight increase) over same period.

The Black Dilemma, by Ian Duncan

"For almost 150 years the United States has been conducting an interesting experiment. The subjects of the experiment: black people and working-class whites.

The hypothesis to be tested: Can a people taken from the jungles of Africa and forced into slavery be fully integrated as citizens in a majority white population?

The whites were descendants of Europeans who had created a majestic civilization. The former slaves had been tribal peoples with no written language and virtually no intellectual achievements. Acting on a policy that was not fair to either group, the government released newly freed black people into a white society that saw them as inferiors. America has struggled with racial discord ever since.

Decade after decade the problems persisted but the experimenters never gave up. They insisted that if they could find the right formula the experiment would work, and concocted program after program to get the result they wanted. They created the Freedmans Bureau, passed civil rights laws, tried to build the Great Society, declared War on Poverty, ordered race preferences, built housing projects, and tried midnight basketball.

Their new laws intruded into peoples lives in ways that would have been otherwise unthinkable. They called in National Guard troops to enforce school integration. They outlawed freedom of association. Over the protests of parents, they put white children on buses and sent them to black schools and vice-versa. They tried with money, special programs, relaxed standards, and endless hand wringing to close the achievement gap. To keep white backlash in check they began punishing public and even private statements on race. They hung up Orwellian public banners that commanded whites to Celebrate Diversity! and Say No to Racism. Nothing was off limits if it might salvage the experiment.

Some thought that what W.E.B. DuBois called the Talented Tenth would lead the way for black people. A group of elite, educated blacks would knock down doors of opportunity and show the world what blacks were capable of.
There is a Talented Tenth. They are the black Americans who have become entrepreneurs, lawyers, doctors and scientists. But ten percent is not enough. For the experiment to work, the ten percent has to be followed by a critical mass of people who can hold middle-class jobs and promote social stability. That is what is missing.

Through the years, too many black people continue to show an inability to function and prosper in a culture unsuited to them. Detroit is bankrupt, the south side of Chicago is a war zone, and the vast majority of black cities all over America are beset by degeneracy and violence. And blacks never take responsibility for their failures. Instead, they lash out in anger and resentment.

Across the generations and across the country, as we have seen in Detroit, Watts, Newark, Los Angeles, Cincinnati, and now Ferguson, rioting and looting are just one racial incident away. The white elite would tell us that this doesn't mean the experiment has failed. We just have to try harder. We need more money, more time, more understanding, more programs, and more opportunities.

But nothing changes no matter how much money is spent, no matter how many laws are passed, no matter how many black geniuses are portrayed on TV, and no matter who is president. Some argue its a problem of culture, as if culture creates peoples behavior instead of the other way around. Others blame white privilege.

But since 1965, when the elites opened Americas doors to the Third World, immigrants from Asia and India people who are not white, not rich, and not connected have quietly succeeded. While the children of these people are winning spelling bees and getting top scores on the SAT, black youths are committing half the country's violent crime, which includes viciously punching random white people on the street for the thrill of it that has nothing to do with poverty.

The experiment has failed. Not because of white culture, or white privilege, or white racism. The fundamental problem is that American black culture has evolved into an un-fixable and crime ridden mess. *They do not want to change their culture or society, and expect others to tolerate their violence and amoral behavior. They have become socially incompatible with other races by their own design, not because of the racism of others - but by their own hatred of non-blacks.*

Our leaders don't seem to understand just how tired their white subjects are with this experiment. *They don't understand that white people aren't out to get black people; they are just exhausted with them. They are exhausted by the social pathologies, the violence, the endless complaints, and the blind racial solidarity, the bottomless pit of grievances, the excuses, and the reflexive animosity. The liberal elites explain everything with racism, and refuse to believe that white frustration could soon reach the boiling point."---

"You can't legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government can't give to anybody anything that the government doesn't first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they don't have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."



Ian Duncan
The Baltimore Sun , May 30, 2015

Looking around here in eastern NC, I'm not sure there's a "talented tenth" of white people...

"But nothing changes no matter how much money is spent, no matter how many laws are passed, no matter how many black geniuses are portrayed on TV, and no matter who is president."

I don't know about that. From what I can gather, Harlem used to be a pretty bad place, while today, the rent's too damn high...