Watch your @$$: Serial Butt Slasher on the loose!-Update: Caught!

ITDEFX

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This one is too funny to pass up:
http://wtop.com/?nid=149&sid=2478645

So here in Northern VA we got our usual shit, but this one tops it. Apparently there has been a hispanic man in the area going around and slashing women's asses and getting away with it. They have video images of the guy, but they can't seem to find him.

:roll:

So now a special "Task Force" has been created to find this Ass Slasher....great..MORE tax payer money wasted for this shit.

Seriously? These women *can't* feel something sharp across the butt cheeks to turn around and see what happened? No one has the common sense to stop the guy? What the hell?!?!?

Still fucked up for someone to go around and slash people's asses. I've been to these malls before so I know the area well.

I really wish there was a video of the guy slashing asses to see if the women actually noticing it happening to them.

:roll:
 
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Maybe it's like in anime where the dude is running so fast he's just a bunch of black lines.
 
[quote name='ITDEFX']This one is too funny to pass up:
http://wtop.com/?nid=149&sid=2478645

So here in Northern VA we got our usual shit, but this one tops it. Apparently there has been a hispanic man in the area going around and slashing women's asses and getting away with it. They have video images of the guy, but they can't seem to find him.

:roll:

So now a special "Task Force" has been created to find this Ass Slasher....great..MORE tax payer money wasted for this shit.

Seriously? These women *can't* feel something sharp across the butt cheeks to turn around and see what happened? No one has the common sense to stop the guy? What the hell?!?!?

Still fucked up for someone to go around and slash people's asses. I've been to these malls before so I know the area well.

I really wish there was a video of the guy slashing asses to see if the women actually noticing it happening to them.

:roll:[/QUOTE]
If women don't want to be raped, maybe they shouldn't dress like sluts!

Obviously if the women that got assaulted and didn't notice right away, they must've wanted to get assaulted!

Way to go asshole.:roll:
 
[quote name='ITDEFX']How can you not notice this until later?[/QUOTE]
You're right. That can only mean that they stabbed themselves in the ass.
 
[quote name='Strell']Stick it in her pNO NOT LIKE THAT WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU[/QUOTE]

Illegal Aliens don't know how to do that Strell!
 
[quote name='dohdough']If women don't want to be raped, maybe they shouldn't dress like sluts!

Obviously if the women that got assaulted and didn't notice right away, they must've wanted to get assaulted!

Way to go asshole.:roll:[/QUOTE]

So you "go there" after the OP expressed some incredulity that a person wouldn't immediately notice their ass slashing? That's a major leap even for you.
 
[quote name='nasum']So you "go there" after the OP expressed some incredulity that a person wouldn't immediately notice their ass slashing? That's a major leap even for you.[/QUOTE]

In one of the stories I have read, some people do turn around and just notice the guy bent over picking up his clothes that he dropped on the floor and thought that they accidentally got poked by the hanger...
 
[quote name='nasum']So you "go there" after the OP expressed some incredulity that a person wouldn't immediately notice their ass slashing? That's a major leap even for you.[/QUOTE]

[quote name='nasum']which obviously means you're suggesting that they desired the hangar poking correct?[/QUOTE]
You guys are two peas in a pod. Victim-blaming seems to be your forte. If you can't see it, then there's no need for me to point it out to you.
 
I wish I could make a poll within this post...

Is "How can someone not feel that" the same as "she was raped because she had on a mini skirt"?

Secondary to that is "how can someone not feel that" assigning blame?

English motherfucker, do you speak it?

This sentence assigns blame:
You deserved a butt slashing that you couldn't originally feel.

That is a statement, it ends in a period.

This sentence asks a question regarding an odd situation:
You didn't feel that?

This is a question as it ends in a question mark. You can't assign blame in a question. You could imply it by asking a leading question such as "did you slash your own butt?". This however is not the case at all between ITDEFX and my statements.

An analolgy, a baseball player breaks his finger celebrating a homerun and therefore cannot play in the world series.
"Geez buddy, did that hurt?" - A question of concern
"You dumb shit, you shouldn't have celebrated now you can't play" - A statement that assigns some blame.

Do you see the difference at all?
 
I think the issue is the tone of the OP. Statements like this:
[quote name='ITDEFX']So now a special "Task Force" has been created to find this Ass Slasher....great..MORE tax payer money wasted for this shit.[/QUOTE]

...strongly imply that someone going around assaulting people is okay and that it is a waste of tax payer money to stop them.

Statements like this:
Seriously? These women *can't* feel something sharp across the butt cheeks to turn around and see what happened? No one has the common sense to stop the guy? What the hell?!?!?

...tries to take some of the blame from the attacker and assign it onto the victims.

To keep with dohdough's original rape analogy (heh... anal), it'd be like blaming a rape victim for not fighting off her attacker. You say you can't assign blame in the form of a question, but if someone asked a rape victim "Why did you let him rape you?", I think we can all agree that'd be in poor taste and would be trying to assign blame.
 
wow you guys really take things the wrong way. I NEVER said it's the women's fault and that they deserved it. Just seems pretty strange that if someone cuts your ass, you don't notice it for hours. Some of the reports describe the cuts as several inches long. That seriously has to hurt......unless their booty was so big they didn't even notice it.

The area has bigger problems right now than to waste tax payers money (rise in home break in and copper theft is one) setting up a task force to get this guy. Yes this guy need to be caught. It shouldn't be a top priority over catching drug dealers , murderers and rapists.

It isn't that hard to turn around and grab the guy or say "HEY YOU STOP!!!".... to get people's attention.
 
People hurt themselves all the time and not notice it. The brain has the capability to block out certain stimuli, especially traumatic things, and will only react to them once they've been properly observed.

A kid in my high school was in shop class and cut part of his finger off, and didn't notice for several minutes until someone pointed it out to him. Up until that point, he was cool, calm, collected, etc, as if nothing bad had happened. After that, he (understandably) lost his shit and started screaming when he saw the blood and part of himself twitching on the table.

To say it's 100% on the victim when our internal circuitry can route things in such a way to defend ourselves is a little much. Yeah, maybe there are people that would notice immediately and catch the guy in the act. But it's entirely plausible for other people to completely be unaware of it.

It's the same reason people wearing headphones connected to iPods scare the hell out of me, because those idiots will walk right out into the middle of the street and be blissfully unaware of all the potential things around them (cars, other people, Bigfoot, etc).
 
Now I feel less bad for initially assuming that this was the work of an illegal alien...
 
[quote name='BigT']Now I feel less bad for initially assuming that this was the work of an illegal alien...[/QUOTE]
Actually, you should feel even worse because there's no information released about his citizenship status, but don't let that stand in the way of your racist assumptions as if 100% home grown citizens don't commit similar and sometimes worse crimes in larger numbers.
 
[quote name='dohdough']don't let that stand in the way of your racist assumptions as if 100% home grown citizens don't commit similar and sometimes worse crimes in larger numbers.[/QUOTE]
Well, answer the question then. Do 100% home grown citizens commit similar and sometimes worse crimes and in larger numbers? Should we deport American citizens in favor of illegal immigrants as a crime prevention program? Do certain groups of American citizens commit similar and sometimes worse crimes and in larger numbers than illegal immigrants, or are Americans as a whole more criminal than illegal immigrants?

A good summary of some of the difficulties awaiting you in answering this question can be read here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illega...States#Crimes_committed_by_illegal_immigrants

Some additional material may also be useful: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_crime_in_the_United_States

Note that Wikipedia can simply be a starting point in your research, though the original statistics are thoroughly sourced. In any case, good luck, friend.
 
[quote name='Spokker']Well, answer the question then. Do 100% home grown citizens commit similar and sometimes worse crimes and in larger numbers? Should we deport American citizens in favor of illegal immigrants as a crime prevention program? Do certain groups of American citizens commit similar and sometimes worse crimes and in larger numbers than illegal immigrants, or are Americans as a whole more criminal than illegal immigrants?

A good summary of some of the difficulties awaiting you in answering this question can be read here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illega...States#Crimes_committed_by_illegal_immigrants

Some additional material may also be useful: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_crime_in_the_United_States

Note that Wikipedia can simply be a starting point in your research, though the original statistics are thoroughly sourced. In any case, good luck, friend.[/QUOTE]
You're only going to get cliffnotes from me because you obviously didn't read the first wiki link.

- Immigrants as a whole are less likely to commit crimes regardless of immigration status.

- Non-whites, especially black people, enjoy disproportionate law enforcement and harsher punishment for the same crimes as whites.

- At no point did I even come close to advocating for the types of cynical policies you describe to strawman me, but feel free to continue white-knighting blatant racism.

- I've addressed your points dozens of times in this forum, so maybe you're the one that needs to do some research and then research that research.

[quote name='perdition(troy']dohdough why are you always so RAYCESS jeez[/QUOTE]
Yeah...I'm the racist asshole for pointing out someone else being a racist asshole...
 
[quote name='dohdough']

- Immigrants as a whole are less likely to commit crimes regardless of immigration status.[/quote]No, it's not regardless of immigration status. The statistics do not differentiate between legal and illegal immigrants. There is a whole section about how this is very difficult to measure in the first place. There is also the situation in which illegal immigrant criminals are deported, and rightfully so, so they don't show up in the measures in which we measure who commits crime in this country, such as the makeup of the prison population.

- Non-whites, especially black people, enjoy disproportionate law enforcement and harsher punishment for the same crimes as whites.
I support ending the war on drugs, and if supporters are successful it will be interesting to see who is right about disproportionate law enforcement. And even after we release all of the nonviolent drug offenders, we will still have a substantial amount of over-representation of blacks in other areas of crime: http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2009/data/table_43.html Or is all of this explained entirely by racism as well?

A couple things we'll have to work on with whites is why their youth enjoy driving drunk and setting fire to things. But then again, arson is even more rare than murder.
 
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Butt-slasher just rose to the top of my list of preferred name-callings:

Butt-slasher
Butt wipe
Butthead
Ass Bandit
Asshole
 
[quote name='Spokker']No, it's not regardless of immigration status. The statistics do not differentiate between legal and illegal immigrants. There is a whole section about how this is very difficult to measure in the first place. There is also the situation in which illegal immigrant criminals are deported, and rightfully so, so they don't show up in the measures in which we measure who commits crime in this country, such as the makeup of the prison population.[/QUOTE]
Most new data, except the ones coming from conservative think tanks, pretty much confirm that immigrants, regardless of status, tend to commit less crimes than citizens. But all your statements about the accuracy of statistics is irrelevant because...

I support ending the war on drugs, and if supporters are successful it will be interesting to see who is right about disproportionate law enforcement. And even after we release all of the nonviolent drug offenders, we will still have a substantial amount of over-representation of blacks in other areas of crime: http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2009/data/table_43.html Or is all of this explained entirely by racism as well?

A couple things we'll have to work on with whites is why their youth enjoy driving drunk and setting fire to things. But then again, arson is even more rare than murder.
...saying that immigrants(regardless of status)/black people/Latinos commit more crime than everyone else is lazy-assed reasoning of the worst kind because it ascribes criminality to race as opposed to looking for systemic problems that reproduce these events. The numbers that you're citing aren't racist in themselves, but your interpretation of it IS racist. When we have ratios of white arrests to population being 1:28 and black arrests of 1:9, we have a fucking problem in this country beyond saying "but blacks commit more crimes so they deserve more attention!!!111one!!" and leaving it at that.

Ending the drug war won't change percentages by much because there was systemic racism before that and there'll be systemic racism after that. It exists more broadly than in the realm of the US justice system.

But hey, I happen to enjoy noticing the disproportianate attention you're giving me rather than to someone that thought it HAD to be an "illegal alien" that commited those crimes without any evidence before a name and possible location in Peru helped to confirm and comfort his racist thoughts. I'm not the one with problems here.
 
Dude, relax... it was a joke... and, I'd still bet that he was probably an illegal alien... ;)

People on both sides of the issue take these race/nationality issues way too seriously... it has gotten to the point that certain hypotheses may be rejected, not because they are shown to be false, but simply because they are deemed to be "racist" or "politically incorrect." On the other side of the fence, certain people may reject data that does not meet their "ideals of purity." That's not how science works... sometimes our findings are not politically correct or convenient! All that should matter is that we move closer to discovering the truth behind an issue.
 
[quote name='dohdough']When we have ratios of white arrests to population being 1:28 and black arrests of 1:9, we have a fucking problem in this country beyond saying "but blacks commit more crimes so they deserve more attention!!!111one!!" and leaving it at that.
[/QUOTE]Evidence of a disparity is not necessarily evidence of discrimination. What you don't address are the murder statistics. If it were all about poverty and racism, then I would begin to understand the disparities in crime statistics like as robbery. I could probably get on board with oppressed young black men stealing to feed their families.

But what I could never wrap my head around is the massive amount of black on black homicide. If I felt I were a victim of systemic racism (and I might be as I am part of a minority group after all), the last thing I would do is murder my own kind at such fantastic rates. It just doesn't make any sense and cannot be justified by the state of impoverished neighborhoods.

Walter E. Williams is a well-known economist and many of my beliefs on the issue have come to mirror his: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704881304576094221050061598.html

"Racial discrimination is not the problem of black people that it used to be" in his youth, says Mr. Williams. "Today I doubt you could find any significant problem that blacks face that is caused by racial discrimination. The 70% illegitimacy rate is a devastating problem, but it doesn't have a damn thing to do with racism. The fact that in some areas black people are huddled in their homes at night, sometimes serving meals on the floor so they don't get hit by a stray bullet—that's not because the Klan is riding through the neighborhood."
There has been racism in the past and there is still today, but most of the racism today is in the form of paternalistic policies pushed by the left that infantilize non-whites. Part of it is about securing votes and part of it is about analyzing policy by good intentions and not real outcomes. The welfare state has destroyed black families and allowed a culture that disrespects education and fathers to thrive. The same thing is happening among Latinos.

Personally, I don't want your welfare and I don't want your affirmative action. I do just fine not being "victimized" by the war on drugs by, gasp, not using or slinging crack and keeping a glock next to my pipe.
 
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6134208749_c3d0460772.jpg
 
[quote name='BigT']Dude, relax... it was a joke... and, I'd still bet that he was probably an illegal alien... ;)

People on both sides of the issue take these race/nationality issues way too seriously... it has gotten to the point that certain hypotheses may be rejected, not because they are shown to be false, but simply because they are deemed to be "racist" or "politically incorrect." On the other side of the fence, certain people may reject data that does not meet their "ideals of purity." That's not how science works... sometimes our findings are not politically correct or convenient! All that should matter is that we move closer to discovering the truth behind an issue.[/QUOTE]
If he were white with a european name would you have said the same thing? Cause you know, there are illegal white people here as well.

Let me answer for you, of course you wouldn't have. You let assumptions and knee jerk reactions rule your opinions. And hell, you may actually be right that he's illegal, but that doesn't change the fact that making assumptions based on absolutely no evidence is stupid, and you of all people should know that.
 
[quote name='shieryda']Butt-slasher just rose to the top of my list of preferred name-callings:

Butt-slasher
Butt wipe
Butthead
Ass Bandit
Asshole[/QUOTE]

don't forget sphincter raider
 
[quote name='Clak']If he were white with a european name would you have said the same thing? Cause you know, there are illegal white people here as well.[/QUOTE]
What white European would come here illegally? Relatively few do. Their native countries probably have more generous social programs. White Europeans who immigrate to the United States are probably wealthy individuals who wish to take care of the lower taxes here and do so legally.

Simply playing the odds, the poster is better off guessing the Central/South American immigrant is illegal than guessing the white European immigrant is illegal. Most illegal immigrants are brown. As of 2006, the Pew Hispanic Center Estimated that 57% of illegal immigrants came from Mexico and 24% from elsewhere in Latin America. 6% were from Europe or Canada. Also according to Pew, 80% to 85% of immigration from Mexico and Central America is illegal. There is also a huge difference between a foreign student that overstays their visa and a woman who comes to the United States illegally and has a kid who ends up on the welfare rolls. Both should be dealt with, but one is a bit more burdensome than the other.

In any case, the president is getting shit from advocates over his deportation record, but he is deporting criminals. Those that aren't criminals are apprehended at the border or are repeat offenders. So who exactly are the advocates defending? Those with longtime ties to this country are being left alone for the most part. http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/08/16/debate-over-immigration-and-deportations-facts-matter
 
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The OP title lured me into reading the first page of this thread. Dildough (sp?) being an argumentative prick made me leave.

[quote name='dohdough']I'm not the one with problems here.[/QUOTE]

Clearly. :lol: I see another gargus in the making. ;)
 
[quote name='Spokker']Evidence of a disparity is not necessarily evidence of discrimination. What you don't address are the murder statistics. If it were all about poverty and racism, then I would begin to understand the disparities in crime statistics like as robbery. I could probably get on board with oppressed young black men stealing to feed their families.

But what I could never wrap my head around is the massive amount of black on black homicide. If I felt I were a victim of systemic racism (and I might be as I am part of a minority group after all), the last thing I would do is murder my own kind at such fantastic rates. It just doesn't make any sense and cannot be justified by the state of impoverished neighborhoods.[/QUOTE]

Wow, it's like I already explained this several times. Why the fuck do rich people do drugs, steal money, and do other crimes? There's obviously some social pressure to commit certains acts, whether good or bad. People aren't goddamn islands.

Your inability to comprehend it has more to do with your lack of knowledge in these areas and how you don't really care to change that...which is highlighted by your example below...

Walter E. Williams is a well-known economist and many of my beliefs on the issue have come to mirror his: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704881304576094221050061598.html
You are aware that Austrian economists don't really believe in empirical data right?

Also, well-known doesn't mean reputable and he isn't any different from Sowell. Both of their conclusions have been long refuted. Not to mention that lack of education and cohesive families isn't a "black thing;" it's a class thing.

There has been racism in the past and there is still today, but most of the racism today is in the form of paternalistic policies pushed by the left that infantilize non-whites. Part of it is about securing votes and part of it is about analyzing policy by good intentions and not real outcomes. The welfare state has destroyed black families and allowed a culture that disrespects education and fathers to thrive. The same thing is happening among Latinos.
Welfare destroyed black families and not barriers to opportunity that were enforced in a literal apartheid state? You got some serious internalized racism going on, pal. Even if you take race out of the argument, the ruling class has said the same thing about the poor for thousands of years.

I highly doubt that "black culture" is anti-education like you describe. The reason why it may seem that way is because the education system has consistantly failed the black community and this cuts across class lines.

Personally, I don't want your welfare and I don't want your affirmative action. I do just fine not being "victimized" by the war on drugs by, gasp, not using or slinging crack and keeping a glock next to my pipe.
You need a refresher course in history. We already had a period of time with no social safety nets and no affirmative action...it wasn't so great.

[quote name='SgtMurder']Loving the male guilt and over apology from Dohdough...

can't wait for this to be all white males fault.[/QUOTE]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG4f9zR5yzY

I generally don't support bans, but you might change my mind.

[quote name='Blade']The OP title lured me into reading the first page of this thread. Dildough (sp?) being an argumentative prick made me leave.[/QUOTE]
But not before you dropped an insult without any content to contribute to the discussion. Although, you seem to be more interested in letting everyone know that you have a preoccupation with sex toys in the shape of male genitalia.

Clearly. :lol: I see another gargus in the making. ;)
gargus was a racist prick that was socially stunted with a touch of asperger's and had no problem showing it. If calling out someone for making a racist comment makes me a prick, it says far more about you than it does me. I guess making a racist joke about Latinos would've been more your forte.
 
[quote name='dohdough']
I highly doubt that "black culture" is anti-education like you describe. The reason why it may seem that way is because the education system has consistantly failed the black community and this cuts across class lines. [/QUOTE]
I'm not sure how the education system has failed the black community. We spend ungodly sums on education in this country, and not just for whites.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/05/24/us-usa-education-spending-idUSN2438214220070524

"It's not necessarily so that states with higher spending have higher test scores," said Tom Loveless, an education policy expert at the Brookings Institution think tank.

He said Washington, D.C., has among the highest spending in the country but its students have among the lowest scores on standardized tests, while some states like Montana with relatively low spending have fairly high performance on tests.
Montana is the 46th richest state as of 2000. If DC and other inner city schools are so poor, it's not for a lack of tax-payer funding. DC per pupil spending for 2010 was around $28,000. For comparison, Harvard tuition is ~$32,000.

But if with all this money, DC and inner city schools are so bad, the money may be better spent on a voucher system and schools could compete for students. I guarantee the cost would go down and quality would go up. Good teachers will be retained and hired while bad teachers will be disciplined or let go. Why do we continue to cling to the current public school system?

Here's another good example: http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Artic...udgets-The-Worst-Education-Money-Can-Buy.aspx

Best known for urban blight and local corruption, Camden has an unemployment rate of 17 percent and 35 percent of its 80,000 inhabitants live below the poverty line. Fifty percent of residents are black, 15.5 percent white, 2.6 percent Asian; 10,000 people are crammed into each square mile. In 2008, the Federal Bureau of Investigation ranked it as the most dangerous city in America.

Camden High School, with an enrollment of 1,200 students, has less than a 40 percent graduation rate, and the former district chief of security Thomas Hewes-Eddinger has called it a “mini-jail.” Yet the district spends $23,356 per student, more than twice the national average.

Nearly 2,200 miles away lies the opposite example: the lowest-cost school district . Alpine school district is located in American Fork, Utah, a town of 27,000 people at the foot of Mount Timpanogos. The racial makeup is 95 percent white, 0.16 percent black and 0.65 percent Asian. The town’s median household income is $52,000; 4 percent of the population lives below the poverty line. The district spends a mere $5,658 per student, nearly half the national average, and has a 78 percent graduation rate.
Systemic racism, indeed. And to bring it somewhat in line with the first derail about immigration, these black students don't even have to learn English as a second language! They often fail to learn it as a first :)

Now, let me remind you that I don't feel that racism does not exist. There are certainly people like me who keep black people down by posting on the Internet, but I reject the argument that racism, direct, indirect, systemic or what have you, is 100% or even 50% responsible for the black-white gap. Ending racism, if such a thing were even possible in this universe, is a lofty but unattainable goal that has so far not borne fruit. Some of the short to medium term goals I would focus on is ending minimum wage, phasing out welfare in all but the most serious situations and moving toward a school voucher program. Finally, I would ask black neighborhoods to clean up their acts.
 
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[quote name='Clak']If he were white with a european name would you have said the same thing? Cause you know, there are illegal white people here as well.

Let me answer for you, of course you wouldn't have. You let assumptions and knee jerk reactions rule your opinions. And hell, you may actually be right that he's illegal, but that doesn't change the fact that making assumptions based on absolutely no evidence is stupid, and you of all people should know that.[/QUOTE]

I am a white European immigrant ;) I'm legal and a have dual citizenship... at least in California, I have not seen too many illegal Europeans...

As much as you may not like it, the truth is that we use stereotyping all the time... out brains rely on pattern recognition and use our past experiences to try to predict future outcomes... overall, this saves a lot of time and provides a survival advantage. Computers do it too, through branch prediction...

These knee jerk reactions are certainly not 100% accurate, but they can give a good starting point for decision making as they are likely to be more reliable than a random guess.
 
[quote name='Spokker']I'm not sure how the education system has failed the black community. We spend ungodly sums on education in this country, and not just for whites.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/05/24/us-usa-education-spending-idUSN2438214220070524


Montana is the 46th richest state as of 2000. If DC and other inner city schools are so poor, it's not for a lack of tax-payer funding. DC per pupil spending for 2010 was around $28,000. For comparison, Harvard tuition is ~$32,000.

But if with all this money, DC and inner city schools are so bad, the money may be better spent on a voucher system and schools could compete for students. I guarantee the cost would go down and quality would go up. Good teachers will be retained and hired while bad teachers will be disciplined or let go. Why do we continue to cling to the current public school system?

Here's another good example: http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Artic...udgets-The-Worst-Education-Money-Can-Buy.aspx


Systemic racism, indeed. And to bring it somewhat in line with the first derail about immigration, these black students don't even have to learn English as a second language! They often fail to learn it as a first :)

Now, let me remind you that I don't feel that racism does not exist. There are certainly people like me who keep black people down by posting on the Internet, but I reject the argument that racism, direct, indirect, systemic or what have you, is 100% or even 50% responsible for the black-white gap. Ending racism, if such a thing were even possible in this universe, is a lofty but unattainable goal that has so far not borne fruit. Some of the short to medium term goals I would focus on is ending minimum wage, phasing out welfare in all but the most serious situations and moving toward a school voucher program. Finally, I would ask black neighborhoods to clean up their acts.[/QUOTE]

Good post. My reflections on this are as follows:

* Overall, in society, we have a problem that education (either theoretical or practical) is not highly valued. This is a problem that cuts across all parts of society, but, as with most things, the poor are more deleteriously affected because they don't have resources to fall back on (e.g., a rich kid goofs off and can still get by leeching off of his parents; a poor kid goofs off and then has nothing to fall back on... well, probably nothing that is legal). It is really sad nowadays... most young people (OMG, I'm getting old...) don't have any useful skills and are more concerned with facebook, twitter, or pointless entertainment rather than the pursuit of such skills. Even in advanced graduate studies, I am often disappointed by the lack of knowledge (and more importantly) the lack of a motivation to learn that is demonstrated.

* More money and more gov't intervention is unlikely to provide the solution. Certainly, having enough basic resources is important, but after that, no one can force another to learn. You can lead a horse to water...

* There are certainly racist people in the world and in this country. However, I can tell you that they do not run the lower and higher education systems. There are tons of opportunities for minorities to attend college and an admission committee's wet dream is to have a good amount of minorities get positions. If a black person is dedicated and wishes to obtain a higher education in this country, all doors are open!
 
[quote name='Spokker']I'm not sure how the education system has failed the black community. We spend ungodly sums on education in this country, and not just for whites.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/05/24/us-usa-education-spending-idUSN2438214220070524

Montana is the 46th richest state as of 2000. If DC and other inner city schools are so poor, it's not for a lack of tax-payer funding. DC per pupil spending for 2010 was around $28,000. For comparison, Harvard tuition is ~$32,000.[/QUOTE]

Putting more money in the k-12 system doesn't put computers in homes, provide internet access, feed food-insecure familes, give jobs with living wages to parents, give adequate housing, clean up impovervished areas, and a plethora of other things that have seemingly nothing to do with education, but are related to a student's peristence rate...and these are just economic barriers without even address race yet.

But if with all this money, DC and inner city schools are so bad, the money may be better spent on a voucher system and schools could compete for students. I guarantee the cost would go down and quality would go up. Good teachers will be retained and hired while bad teachers will be disciplined or let go. Why do we continue to cling to the current public school system?
Charter schools and privatizing the education system leads to more disparity. Privatizing also leads to cherry-picking students and public schools don't and shouldn't have that luxury. And where would those vouchers go to? Obviously private schools that have far better resources, which would further depress already economically depressed areas.

You mean remedial education and special ed programs are more expensive? No shit.

Systemic racism, indeed. And to bring it somewhat in line with the first derail about immigration, these black students don't even have to learn English as a second language! They often fail to learn it as a first :)
I'm no linguist, but inflections and regional dialects come from somewhere. We all have accents and some accents are much harder to understand than others if you're not familiar with them. I've heard some Irish accents that were nearly unintelligible, but that don't mean they weren't speaking "proper" english. Language evolves and english is a mongrel language anyways.

Your issue is more about cultural capital anyways, which is more based on socio-economic class. It's not just a "black thing." Insinuating that it is, is what makes it racist. Poverty affects different groups differently because racism operates within classes as well.

Now, let me remind you that I don't feel that racism does not exist. There are certainly people like me who keep black people down by posting on the Internet, but I reject the argument that racism, direct, indirect, systemic or what have you, is 100% or even 50% responsible for the black-white gap. Ending racism, if such a thing were even possible in this universe, is a lofty but unattainable goal that has so far not borne fruit. Some of the short to medium term goals I would focus on is ending minimum wage, phasing out welfare in all but the most serious situations and moving toward a school voucher program. Finally, I would ask black neighborhoods to clean up their acts.
The black/white gap was created by intentional laws and direct socio-economic assistance for whites and against black people(and many other races and ethnicities) since before the inception of this country. Things like the New Deal, social security, FHA, GI Bill, and most programs were not able to be used if you weren't white. Suburbs and ghettos didn't "naturally" occur and the urban decay that plagues most black communites aren't by accident either. Regardless of intention, what we see today is a result of past and on-going discrimination. We might've made it unacceptable for whites to call black people n****rs in everyday conversation, but language has evolved to get around those problems like blaming nebulous things like "culture" without acknowledging how that culture develops from external social pressures.

I will agree that policies are somewhat paternalistic, but to point out social policies directed to help disenfranchised groups as infantilistic is simplistic reasoning at best. No one gets to where they are alone and everyone that suceeds gets there with lots of help whether it's individual, generational, or societal and it always a combination of all three and more.

[quote name='BigT']Good post. My reflections on this are as follows:

* Overall, in society, we have a problem that education (either theoretical or practical) is not highly valued. This is a problem that cuts across all parts of society, but, as with most things, the poor are more deleteriously affected because they don't have resources to fall back on (e.g., a rich kid goofs off and can still get by leeching off of his parents; a poor kid goofs off and then has nothing to fall back on... well, probably nothing that is legal). It is really sad nowadays... most young people (OMG, I'm getting old...) don't have any useful skills and are more concerned with facebook, twitter, or pointless entertainment rather than the pursuit of such skills. Even in advanced graduate studies, I am often disappointed by the lack of knowledge (and more importantly) the lack of a motivation to learn that is demonstrated.[/QUOTE]
And what do you think is the reason for preoccupation with social media and lack of motivation for education? I'm guessing the marketing industry that uses billions of dollars and behavioral sciences to influence people into doing things isn't on your list of reasons.

* More money and more gov't intervention is unlikely to provide the solution. Certainly, having enough basic resources is important, but after that, no one can force another to learn. You can lead a horse to water...
The state of education in the US has less to do with money and more to do with other environmental factors. Providing basic resources is important, but the US has been cutting them down for decades, so "enough" isn't really there.

* There are certainly racist people in the world and in this country. However, I can tell you that they do not run the lower and higher education systems. There are tons of opportunities for minorities to attend college and an admission committee's wet dream is to have a good amount of minorities get positions. If a black person is dedicated and wishes to obtain a higher education in this country, all doors are open!
Overt racism of the past exists in smaller occurances, but racism has evolved beyond that. Cynical admissions policies often pad their diversity numbers with international students and hardly ever admit people of color from the neighborhoods. And once those students get to those institutions, there is little in the form of support specifically tailored to them. This goes from college to doctoral studies.

Going to school and getting a higher education is one thing, but entering the job force is another. White males being the highest earners with white women earning the second most at 25% less is another serious problem that seriously hampers socio-economic mobility for most people of color. Saying that Oprah is a billionaire, so anyone can do it if they work hard enough is outright foolish and unrealistic.
 
[quote name='dohdough']Putting more money in the k-12 system doesn't put computers in homes, provide internet access, feed food-insecure familes, give jobs with living wages to parents, give adequate housing, clean up impovervished areas, and a plethora of other things that have seemingly nothing to do with education, but are related to a student's peristence rate...and these are just economic barriers without even address race yet.[/quote]What do computers and Internet access have to do with learning basic English and math? Did we not know how to divide fractions before the information age? Cleaning up impoverished areas sounds like the responsibility of impoverished areas, many of which are run by leaders who are the same color as the people who live there (as an aside, black leaders in Compton use political tricks to keep Hispanics out of government). Whites are completely out of the equation. "Give" adequate housing. Give, give, give. How about "earn?" "Give" jobs with living wages, yet while we're giving all this adequate housing, food and other welfare away, we fail to realize how that affects the work incentive.

But many of these things are being done. Have been done. Yet they do not bear much fruit. Every year these initiatives are being taken and every year we hear about the widening black-Hispanic-white gap. And the solution is to keep throwing money at the problem. Perhaps it's time to try something new?

You mean remedial education and special ed programs are more expensive? No shit.
One has to wonder why they are needed and why they are not working that well.

I'm no linguist, but inflections and regional dialects come from somewhere. We all have accents and some accents are much harder to understand than others if you're not familiar with them. I've heard some Irish accents that were nearly unintelligible, but that don't mean they weren't speaking "proper" english. Language evolves and english is a mongrel language anyways.
They tried this argument with Ebonics and it didn't work. Employers can and will discriminate on the basis of language, including how well you speak it. You can be denied a job for not speaking proper English as well as not being able to speak Spanish in some parts of the country. Embracing improper English or even making excuses for it is foolish and detrimental. Improper English goes far beyond an accent.

We might've made it unacceptable for whites to call black people n****rs in everyday conversation, but language has evolved to get around those problems like blaming nebulous things like "culture" without acknowledging how that culture develops from external social pressures.
We've achieved equality under the law and with equality under the law blacks are going backwards. Black illegitimacy and employment is much worse today than it ever was. Certain Asian groups that have experienced similar bouts of discrimination arrive here fresh off the boat and seem to have a business open the next day. I exaggerate, but the point is very much real.

The state of education in the US has less to do with money and more to do with other environmental factors. Providing basic resources is important, but the US has been cutting them down for decades, so "enough" isn't really there
What is the $20,000+ spend per student in these "poor" schools buying then? We provide the school lunches, we provide inner city schools with computer labs. We provide basic resources and computers are the last thing we should be worrying about.

http://www.educationworld.com/a_issues/chat/chat018.shtml

"I live very near an inner city school, and I can tell you that the main problem in inner city schools is horrible discipline. In what way is that helped by a large computer budget? Often, computers in inner city schools are wrecked or stolen very quickly anyway. Even if the computers can be secured, the schools cannot. If the computers aren't wrecked by the kids, they're stolen by the neighbors. If the computers themselves aren't stolen, the cables are. In a nearby city high school, only about 5 of 35 computers in the computer lab are working. Educational technologists like to sit in their offices and dream of computers in idealized city schools, but that's not what really happens."

Overt racism of the past exists in smaller occurances, but racism has evolved beyond that. Cynical admissions policies often pad their diversity numbers with international students and hardly ever admit people of color from the neighborhoods. And once those students get to those institutions, there is little in the form of support specifically tailored to them. This goes from college to doctoral studies.
Phantom racism and admissions conspiracies.

Saying that Oprah is a billionaire, so anyone can do it if they work hard enough is outright foolish and unrealistic.
I don't think I said that and even if you worked as hard as Oprah, there is no guarantee that you will become a billionaire.
 
The problem isn't the school systems as much as it is the broken communties and families in inner cities where minorities are disproportionately located.

The best schools in the world aren't going to do much for kids of any race/ethnicity if they're going home to parents who couldn't care less about them and how they're doing in school. Or for kids who have to drop out and find ways to make money so they don't go hungry etc.

That's not to say that many inner city schools aren't terrible and need more funding etc., because they do.

But the bigger problem is the years of concentrated disadvantage in the inner city that have disproportionately affected minorities as the whites left these areas long ago and the city and state stopped investing in these areas and let them get ran down to the point they are currently.

Pumping money and resources into the school system won't have much impact if steps aren't taken to combat concentrated disadvantage as a whole. Poor schools are just one piece of that complex puzzle.
 
[quote name='Spokker']What do computers and Internet access have to do with learning basic English and math? Did we not know how to divide fractions before the information age?[/QUOTE]
They're now necessities for modern living and pumping money or siphoning it out of the school system doesn't magically take care of peripheral problems that contribute to the lack of motivation to learn. Which was your argument to begin with.

Cleaning up impoverished areas sounds like the responsibility of impoverished areas, many of which are run by leaders who are the same color as the people who live there (as an aside, black leaders in Compton use political tricks to keep Hispanics out of government). Whites are completely out of the equation.
Property tax laws were written to keep capital within local jurisdictions. When you have an economically depressed area, you can't expect them to have the resources of an upper-middle class suburb. The reason why some districts have lower educational costs per student is because families can provide things where as some school systems have to pick up the slack. This is not a relevation.

Also, whites are never "out of the equation." Just because they might not be actors at that level, doesn't mean that they didn't have a part in creating the situation as it now exists.

"Give" adequate housing. Give, give, give. How about "earn?" "Give" jobs with living wages, yet while we're giving all this adequate housing, food and other welfare away, we fail to realize how that affects the work incentive.
You're twisting your argument and misinterpreting mine. I already explained this 4 different ways and so did dmaul. Giving people a subsistance living in substandard shelter in an impoverished neighborhood does not affect work incentive; multi-generational disenfranchisment caused by oppressive laws does.

By they way, do you know what happens to that money given through social services? It goes right back into the economy because they aren't hoarding what little money they get.

But many of these things are being done. Have been done. Yet they do not bear much fruit. Every year these initiatives are being taken and every year we hear about the widening black-Hispanic-white gap. And the solution is to keep throwing money at the problem. Perhaps it's time to try something new?
What things? Half-assed social programs that get cut every year? The movement towards more standardized testing? What new things are you talking about? Child labor? Sterilization? Drug testing? The removal of all social safety nets? Those things aren't new and I don't think you truly understand the complexity of the achievement gap.

One has to wonder why they are needed and why they are not working that well.
Cutting people off isn't the answer unless you want mass homelessness, people starving on the streets, and the elderly eating catfood. And by the way, white suburbia didn't just pop-up because white people were somehow more hardworking than black people. This was already addressed in the snippet of my post you left out.

They tried this argument with Ebonics and it didn't work. Employers can and will discriminate on the basis of language, including how well you speak it. You can be denied a job for not speaking proper English as well as not being able to speak Spanish in some parts of the country. Embracing improper English or even making excuses for it is foolish and detrimental. Improper English goes far beyond an accent.
What argument? That people fuck up grammar all the time and that vernacular was born out of the period of slavery? Just because you don't understand the etymology and pedagogy of it's use doesn't make it invalid. If it wasn't a legitimate form of communication, it wouldn't exist.

We've achieved equality under the law and with equality under the law blacks are going backwards. Black illegitimacy and employment is much worse today than it ever was. Certain Asian groups that have experienced similar bouts of discrimination arrive here fresh off the boat and seem to have a business open the next day. I exaggerate, but the point is very much real.
Under the law just means that everyone has to follow the same rules and that's different from they're enforced. Housing discrimination still exists, it's easier for a white man with a criminal record to get a job than a black man with no record, ethnic names are discriminated against, etc, so is there any reason why those rates WOULDN'T increase?

And for your model minority example, those that are able to get over here already have the means to succeed. Fresh of the boat should be replaced with fresh of the plane. Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans fare better, but Vietnamese, Cambodian, Laotian, and Hmong communities have similar statistics to black and Latino communities. The difference is pretty obvious when you take into consideration the radically different nationalities.

In other words, you don't have a point. Just because some people make it, doesn't mean that most people can or do.

What is the $20,000+ spend per student in these "poor" schools buying then? We provide the school lunches, we provide inner city schools with computer labs. We provide basic resources and computers are the last thing we should be worrying about.

http://www.educationworld.com/a_issues/chat/chat018.shtml
Yeah...computers are worthless in terms of educating a child today and in the future.:roll:

Also, Stoll isn't exactly an expert in education or pedagogy; he writes books about technology.

Phantom racism and admissions conspiracies.
You obviously don't know anyone that works on an admissions committee. Things like I describe get worse as you move up in prestige and a known secret. Tokenizing students of color isn't to bring more students of color to an institution, but to bring more whites. It's more akin to a carnival freak show.

I don't think I said that and even if you worked as hard as Oprah, there is no guarantee that you will become a billionaire.
Maybe because hard work is irrelevant when it comes to economic success because it requires the right circumstances that can only be made on a systemic level?
 
Here's a nice little quote from Lee Atwater that addresses your "phantom racism":
Atwater: As to the whole Southern strategy that Harry S. Dent, Sr. and others put together in 1968, opposition to the Voting Rights Act would have been a central part of keeping the South. Now [the new Southern Strategy of Ronald Reagan] doesn't have to do that. All you have to do to keep the South is for Reagan to run in place on the issues he's campaigned on since 1964 and that's fiscal conservatism, balancing the budget, cut taxes, you know, the whole cluster.
Questioner: But the fact is, isn't it, that Reagan does get to the Wallace voter and to the racist side of the Wallace voter by doing away with legal services, by cutting down on food stamps?
Atwater: You start out in 1954 by saying, "$$$$er, $$$$er, $$$$er." By 1968 you can't say "$$$$er" — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "$$$$er, $$$$er."

It's nice to know that CAG automatically filters the n-word.
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']The problem isn't the school systems as much as it is the broken communties and families in inner cities where minorities are disproportionately located.

The best schools in the world aren't going to do much for kids of any race/ethnicity if they're going home to parents who couldn't care less about them and how they're doing in school. Or for kids who have to drop out and find ways to make money so they don't go hungry etc.

That's not to say that many inner city schools aren't terrible and need more funding etc., because they do.

But the bigger problem is the years of concentrated disadvantage in the inner city that have disproportionately affected minorities as the whites left these areas long ago and the city and state stopped investing in these areas and let them get ran down to the point they are currently.

Pumping money and resources into the school system won't have much impact if steps aren't taken to combat concentrated disadvantage as a whole. Poor schools are just one piece of that complex puzzle.[/QUOTE]

Agreed. I'd bet that if we gave a lot of these school systems a blank check, their results would only improve slightly.

If teachers don't care and parents don't care, then more likely than not, the students won't care about learning either.

I grew up in a pretty shady neighborhood, but my parents always had a large focus on the importance of education and paid for a private school education. Our local HS dropout rate was nearly 50%. The parents who cared (mainly saw this in Asian immigrant families, who were by no means rich), sent their children to private schools.

To learn the basics, computers are not necessary. I grew up having intermittent access to Apple IIs with 143K 5.25" floppies (then got an upgrade to 800k 3.5" floppies) and I turned out fine, at least from an educational standpoint ;) They are good resources to have, but on the whole, they probably lead to more wasted time than quality learning. They promote multitasking, which our brains are not very adept at handling. I suspect that most kids use them primarily for facebook/twitter/casual gaming.
 
I'm glad that Atwater's quote is still pertinent since nothing has changed in our society since 1920.

Dohdough's insistence that immigrants be viewed "regardless of status" is somewhat telling since 100% of illegal immigrants are here illegally. Now we can go down the road of what immigration means and what illegal immigration means but I put it to you this way: If I cross the border into Canada and decide to live there and earn cash with low paying labor, I'm still doing that illegally if I don't go through the process.
 
[quote name='BigT']Agreed. I'd bet that if we gave a lot of these school systems a blank check, their results would only improve slightly.

If teachers don't care and parents don't care, then more likely than not, the students won't care about learning either.

I grew up in a pretty shady neighborhood, but my parents always had a large focus on the importance of education and paid for a private school education. Our local HS dropout rate was nearly 50%. The parents who cared (mainly saw this in Asian immigrant families, who were by no means rich), sent their children to private schools.

To learn the basics, computers are not necessary. I grew up having intermittent access to Apple IIs with 143K 5.25" floppies (then got an upgrade to 800k 3.5" floppies) and I turned out fine, at least from an educational standpoint ;) They are good resources to have, but on the whole, they probably lead to more wasted time than quality learning. They promote multitasking, which our brains are not very adept at handling. I suspect that most kids use them primarily for facebook/twitter/casual gaming.[/QUOTE]

I think computers can help to even the playing field a bit between the rich and the poor if used properly. I agree parents need to play a bigger role in education, but not all people can afford private school, my parents put a tremendously high value on education, but they just couldn't afford it, so while it worked out in your case, I would say you were not the norm.
 
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