• Menu
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Before Header

  • About Us
  • Lexicon
  • Contact Us
  • Our Store
  • ↑
  • ↓
  • ←
  • →

Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Second rate reporter says what?

A Senator Walker would also be an insult to reason, rationality, and decency.

If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

John Fetterman: Too Manly for Pennsylvania.  Paid for by the Oz for Senator campaign.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Why did Dr. Oz lose? well, according to the exit polls, it’s because Fetterman won.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Mobile Menu

  • Winnable House Races
  • Donate with Venmo, Zelle & PayPal
  • Site Feedback
  • War in Ukraine
  • Submit Photos to On the Road
  • Politics
  • On The Road
  • Open Threads
  • Topics
  • Balloon Juice 2023 Pet Calendar (coming soon)
  • COVID-19 Coronavirus
  • Authors
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Lexicon
  • Our Store
  • Politics
  • Open Threads
  • War in Ukraine
  • Garden Chats
  • On The Road
  • 2021-22 Fundraising!
You are here: Home / Civil Rights / Racial Justice / Post-racial America / This is Why Workforce Diversity Isn’t Just Some Liberal Namby Pamby Stuff

This is Why Workforce Diversity Isn’t Just Some Liberal Namby Pamby Stuff

by John Cole|  December 13, 20116:47 pm| 158 Comments

This post is in: Post-racial America, Clown Shoes, Our Failed Media Experiment

FacebookTweetEmail

I don’t know how Forbes operates- I don’t know if Gene Marks writes from home, I don’t know if they have an editorial review process, etc. But my first thought when reading that nonsense was “this is why workforce diversity” is so important. I’m betting, right about now, Forbes and Gene Marks wished that he had some co-workers with a diverse economic and racial background, and some editors with the same kind of background, because if they had seen that crap he churned out, they would have put the kaibosh on it right quick.

ABL brought up “white privilege,” and one of the reasons it exists is because a lot of white people just aren’t exposed to the same life experiences as many other people in this country. It’s something I struggle to deal with myself, and on occasion I’ve said something blockheaded and you all will quickly inform me what is what. Back to the point, I don’t know anything about Marks, and he may not be a bad man or an asshole. He may have thought he was helping people out, by exposing them to technologies and possibilities they might not have otherwise known of (despite the fact that I’m reasonably sure no poor black kids read the Forbes tech section). But it was his lack of understanding and experience with how others in his country live that allowed him to so clearly show his ass in front of the entire world today. That’s a white privilege in and of itself- not even having to dirty your little mind with how the other half lives.

FacebookTweetEmail
Previous Post: « Rupert, Rupert, Rupert
Next Post: Go Ahead And Flame Me Open Thread »

Reader Interactions

158Comments

  1. 1.

    BGinCHI

    December 13, 2011 at 6:50 pm

    Louis CK has been a one man wrecking crew on this subject.

    If you’ve never heard any of his rants on “white people problems” and so forth, get thee to YouTube and check him out.

  2. 2.

    Pedant

    December 13, 2011 at 7:00 pm

    Namby, not mamby.

  3. 3.

    Calouste

    December 13, 2011 at 7:02 pm

    Forbes? Of course they have workplace diversity. People have been to Harvard and Yale. Heck, they are probably so diverse they have someone who has been to Oxford.

  4. 4.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    December 13, 2011 at 7:02 pm

    Well here is my personal “white privilege” epiphany for the day; cops dump on blacks and harass them so much because the vast majority blacks are essentially law abiding people. If blacks were really the angry young bucks out to rape all the white women of white imagination then no cop would go into a black neighborhood.

  5. 5.

    Soonergrunt

    December 13, 2011 at 7:04 pm

    Of course, a person has to be personally conscious enough to even allow for the possibility that he has white privilege. I don’t know how many white people I’ve known who flat out deny that there is another experience of America than the one they have.

  6. 6.

    Soonergrunt

    December 13, 2011 at 7:05 pm

    @Pedant: You say potato, I say potahto…

  7. 7.

    Sebz

    December 13, 2011 at 7:07 pm

    So the importance of workforce diversity is that it would allow opinions that are slightly out of line with mainstream orthodoxy to be censored more effectively?

    I’m not sure this is as great a selling point as you think.

  8. 8.

    Egg Berry

    December 13, 2011 at 7:07 pm

    @Soonergrunt:

    I don’t know how many white people I’ve known who flat out deny that there is another experience of America than the one they have.

    Oh, sure. I’ve met plenty of them. Usually, the sentence starts “those lazy …” or “those shiftless …” The rest is not repeatable.

  9. 9.

    Brachiator

    December 13, 2011 at 7:09 pm

    @John Cole:

    Forbes and Glen Marks wished that he had some co-workers with a diverse economic and racial background, and some editors with the same kind of background, because if they had seen that crap he churned out, they would have put the kaibosh on it right quick.

    What would be the point of economic diversity at a magazine devoted to persuading the rest of the world that they way of the 1 percent is the way it’s supposed to be?

    despite the fact that I’m reasonably sure no poor black kids read the Forbes tech section

    I was going to respond to some other stuff, but this brought me to a stop. It reeks of condescension, and worse. It presumes that black people are not curious, and cannot see beyond the stereotypical box that people, especially some white people, especially some white Balloon Juicers, want to keep them in.

    What ABL and staci and others wrote most strongly about was how people with racist and class and sexist assumptions hold black people, Latinos, women and other people back by assuming that (as Al Campanis once stupidly said) they lack the necessaries to do a task, to learn, to contribute.

    That’s a white privilege in and of itself- not even having to dirty your little mind with how the other half lives.

    No, that’s just stupidity.

    And a funny thing here, John. People want to make a big goddam thing about white privilege as though privilege and class and status blindness don’t exist anywhere else in the universe. You have seen, and reacted to, and learned from the stupid, hateful, racist and sexist comments directed at ABL. And your reaction and attempts to learn seems to come from an essential decency that you have. It is not the only answer, but it is the starting point that we all have in common.

  10. 10.

    Sebz

    December 13, 2011 at 7:10 pm

    If blacks were really the angry young bucks out to rape all the white women

    lol @ spectacular straw man!!

  11. 11.

    John Cole

    December 13, 2011 at 7:13 pm

    I was going to respond to some other stuff, but this brought me to a stop. It reeks of condescension, and worse. It presumes that black people are not curious, and cannot see beyond the stereotypical box that people, especially some white people, especially some white Balloon Juicers, want to keep them in.

    Really? You think the way to help poor black kids is in an asinine piece in Forbes? It’s not racist or rude or even condescending to note that poor black kids are not a prime Forbes demographic.

  12. 12.

    Sebz

    December 13, 2011 at 7:15 pm

    It’s not racist or rude or even condescending to note that poor black kids are not a prime Forbes demographic.

    Of course it is “racist”. “Racist”, as defined by liberalism, is anything a white person does, thinks or is. You are white, right? Then what you wrote is racist.

    Isn’t that what you believe too?

  13. 13.

    andrewsomething

    December 13, 2011 at 7:15 pm

    You’re assuming the problem is that the author was “stupid” and not “evil.”

  14. 14.

    John Cole

    December 13, 2011 at 7:18 pm

    @Sebz: I thought your first comment was a one-off, but this comment makes me realize I am dealing with an idiot and shouldn’t waste my time.

  15. 15.

    Veritas

    December 13, 2011 at 7:18 pm

    Nothing like somebody who lives in West “By God” Virginia (one of the whitest, if not THE whitest state in America) lecturing us on the wonders of diversity.

  16. 16.

    Brian R.

    December 13, 2011 at 7:20 pm

    Aside from the blinding condescension, the real problem with that piece is that it’s so fucking shoddy in even the mose basic aspects of research. As this piece shows, there are a lot of easily-accessible, demonstrable facts about education, computer access, etc. in Philadelphia. But this schmuck just went with some vague comments from “teacher friends” who, I’m sure, teach in public schools in the poorest neighborhoods of West Philly. Research, what is it?

    Idiot. Let me know when Ta-Nahesi Coates is done defiling his corpse.

  17. 17.

    Raven

    December 13, 2011 at 7:20 pm

    @Veritas: You are a multi-thread douche.

  18. 18.

    cathyx

    December 13, 2011 at 7:21 pm

    I would venture to guess that any kid is not a Forbes demographic.

  19. 19.

    Catsy

    December 13, 2011 at 7:21 pm

    @Sebz: You say “censor unorthodox views more effectively”, I say “implements much-needed brain-keyboard filter to avoid scoring an own-goal of humiliating fail”.

    The world could do with a lot more people who surround themselves with others who will call them on their bullshit.

  20. 20.

    Sebz

    December 13, 2011 at 7:21 pm

    @John Cole: I am impressed you waited for my second post to sink to ad hominem. that is pretty impressive by “progressive” standards these days.

  21. 21.

    Brian R.

    December 13, 2011 at 7:22 pm

    @Veritas:

    Nothing like somebody who lives in West “By God” Virginia (one of the whitest, if not THE whitest state in America) lecturing us on the wonders of diversity.

    I know. Maybe if he’d made some effort to describe how he himself struggles with this issue every day and has himself been smacked down for his own ignorance.

    But no. Not a word of that stuff. Just goes to show you who the real racists are, doesn’t it?

  22. 22.

    mclaren

    December 13, 2011 at 7:22 pm

    @John Cole:

    …this comment makes me realize I am dealing with an idiot and shouldn’t waste my time.

    D’oh!

    You’re dealing with a Balloon Juice commenter, Cole. Of course he’s an idiot. It’s one of the requirements, I think there’s a captcha in the form of an IQ test you have to fail before you can even post on this forum.

  23. 23.

    Jager

    December 13, 2011 at 7:22 pm

    @Calouste: The publisher went to Stanford and is from the midwest. He is my mother’s cousin’s kid and I used to bang his head on the wall when he was crawling around our house. When his dad was in grad school, his mom and dad ate and drank at our house every Sunday for 2 years.

  24. 24.

    Soonergrunt

    December 13, 2011 at 7:23 pm

    @Veritas: Nothing like a stupid motherfucker like yourself complaining about anything to totally devalue complaining.
    Nice job breaking it, hero.

  25. 25.

    Brian R.

    December 13, 2011 at 7:23 pm

    @Sebz:

    I am impressed you waited for my second post to sink to ad hominem. that is pretty impressive by “progressive” standards these days.

    Go fuck yourself and your precious scare-quotes, asshole.

    Was that quick enough for you?

  26. 26.

    Veritas

    December 13, 2011 at 7:24 pm

    @Brian R.:

    How can he struggle with it when he’s living in a place thats 97% white? Jesus, Sweden probably has more racial diversity these days than West Virginia.

    ETA: Also, fun fact, West Virginia was one of only two states where the white population increased in the last census (the other being, weirdly, Hawaii.)

  27. 27.

    cathyx

    December 13, 2011 at 7:24 pm

    @mclaren: What are you saying about yourself?

  28. 28.

    srv

    December 13, 2011 at 7:25 pm

    I’m sure Glen has spent many an all-nighter with the bright, white visionaries of Silicon Valley like Peter Thiel. Men who have real-world experience creating revolutionary game-changing solutions.

    Y’all need to expand your social network and help him integrate his experiences with poor urban youth.

    Perhaps we could all buy a subscription of Forbes for our local inner-city schools.

  29. 29.

    Sebz

    December 13, 2011 at 7:25 pm

    @Catsy: Catsy, i agree completely that the world needs less group think. We are both saying the same thing. I would argue that if an author is writing a piece and it never raises an eye or offends anyone, what’s the point?

  30. 30.

    Egg Berry

    December 13, 2011 at 7:25 pm

    Wow, this is beginning to read like a newspaper comments section.

  31. 31.

    Sebz

    December 13, 2011 at 7:26 pm

    @mclaren: nice, a progressive who still believes in IQ! there is hope!!

  32. 32.

    Veritas

    December 13, 2011 at 7:26 pm

    I mean this is kind of like that one time where a white guy from Vermont told me how much he loved immigrants, and how mass illegal immigration didn’t bother him in the least.

  33. 33.

    Brian R.

    December 13, 2011 at 7:27 pm

    @Veritas:

    How can he struggle with it when he’s living in a place thats 97% white?

    Sorry, are you operating under the assumption that this internet thing only connects your computer to the ones in your own state?

    That might explain the quality of your comments.

  34. 34.

    JPL

    December 13, 2011 at 7:27 pm

    Give the guy a break. Although he questioned the work ethic of the child at least he didn’t say they should be janitors.
    It might be time to watch old episodes of “Twilight Zone”.

  35. 35.

    Soonergrunt

    December 13, 2011 at 7:28 pm

    @Sebz: Identifying a troll as a troll is not an ad-hominem, you sexually incompetent syphilitic piece of grabasstic chicken shit.

    Calling you a “sexually incompetent syphilitic piece of grabasstic chicken shit”? Yeah. THAT was an ad-hominem, you cow-fucking paragon of in-breeding.
    So was that, just so’s we’re all clear on the concept.

  36. 36.

    Josie

    December 13, 2011 at 7:29 pm

    @mclaren: And yet, here you are.

  37. 37.

    Veritas

    December 13, 2011 at 7:29 pm

    @Brian R.:

    The internet isn’t anything like real life, toolbag. Do you really want to compare blogging to being, say, a white person living in inner-city Detroit?

  38. 38.

    Hill Dweller

    December 13, 2011 at 7:29 pm

    @Veritas: Has Cole spent his entire life in WV?

  39. 39.

    Brian R.

    December 13, 2011 at 7:30 pm

    @Veritas:

    I mean this is kind of like that one time where a white guy from Vermont said he didn’t mind mass immigration at all. Yeah.

    Exactly. Only people who live in states that border other countries should have an opinion on immigration. Certainly not Vermont, right?

  40. 40.

    jl

    December 13, 2011 at 7:30 pm

    To be fair to Marks, and I do not feel like being fair right now, but I will try he did come within a mile of the main point in two places:

    ” The world is not fair to those kids mainly because they had the misfortune of being born two miles away into a more difficult part of the world and with a skin color that makes realizing the opportunities that the President spoke about that much harder. This is a fact. In 2011.”

    AND

    ” Except that my kids are just lucky enough to have parents and a well-funded school system around to push them in the right direction. ”

    I see two problems,

    First he assumes that no black (or Hispanic, or any other sort of ‘poors’ ?, or is just blacks that are the problem?) are trying to take advantage of what slim opportunities there are.

    Second, his pep talk does not address the fact that competition between people in oppressed demographic classes to grab limited opportunities cannot help with disparities between whole communities. Because all of his fine technology cannot make more spaces, more funding, more good teachers, more schools with textbooks a student can actually take home, more after school programs, more art music, chess, sports, cultural activities, more advanced math and computer classes.

    All his advice can do is create a few isolated lucky ducky winners who can escape a community that is being discriminated against.

    So, 90% of the piece is in the same skeavy ‘Death of Salesman’ genre you hear on the radio and read in junk print and blog media about some gimmick to climb up the shit ladder a little quicker than some other loser. A ladder that is rapidly collapsing a few rungs below where you are now, or maybe collapsing at the next rung you are trying to reach.

    So, 90 percent of the piece was skeavy, cheap and condescending. The guy might should have just stopped and did a thorough think through after pondering the couple of sentences he wrote that got at the real problem.

    And the real problem is affecting more and more of the lesser people in this country. But blacks and a few other racial minorities are getting hammered far more than the rest.

  41. 41.

    Tom Hilton

    December 13, 2011 at 7:31 pm

    I was arguing with my son the other day (he’s gone libertarian-ish, and is sadly credulous about all kinds of Fox News pseudo-stories) about voter ID bills, and he absolutely could not wrap his head around the idea that such a requirement could actually be a de facto bar to voting for a lot of people. “Why can’t they just get an ID?” and that sort of thing. And you’re right–it isn’t malice, it’s the lack of contact with anyone who could set him straight. (He was raised in an affluent white suburb; he’s broke-ish these days, but student-poor, which is very different from the kind of poverty that we’re talking about.)

  42. 42.

    Brian R.

    December 13, 2011 at 7:33 pm

    @Veritas:

    The internet isn’t anything like real life, toolbag.

    Lucky for you. With the smug shit you say here, I’d have to imagine your face is quite punchable in real life.

    Do you really want to compare blogging to being, say, a white person living in inner-city Detroit?

    Oh, so only white people in inner-city Detroit get to have an opinion on racial issues? You mean smug conservative shitheads from the mostly white suburbs don’t get to say anything about it? You should really dash off a letter to the staffs of the Weekly Standard and National Review letting them know it’s time to shut the fuck up.

    Sssh, sssh. Someone from Detroit is speaking. Let’s all do exactly what they say!

  43. 43.

    TooManyJens

    December 13, 2011 at 7:33 pm

    But my first thought when reading that nonsense was “this is why workforce diversity” is so important. I’m betting, right about now, Forbes and Gene Marks wished that he had some co-workers with a diverse economic and racial background, and some editors with the same kind of background, because if they had seen that crap he churned out, they would have put the kaibosh on it right quick.

    On Blacking it Up (@elonjames’s podcast), this is called “needing a Jamal.”

  44. 44.

    Veritas

    December 13, 2011 at 7:34 pm

    @Brian R.:

    Canada, being a stable first world country, isn’t exactly sending 10s of millions of immigrants south of their border, are they?

    And the facts support me on this:

    See Here

    Percentage of Vermont’s population that is foreign born? 3.3%.

  45. 45.

    Villago Delenda Est

    December 13, 2011 at 7:35 pm

    @Soonergrunt:

    That’ll learn ’em!

  46. 46.

    Quicksand

    December 13, 2011 at 7:36 pm

    So much fail in here today.

  47. 47.

    Veritas

    December 13, 2011 at 7:36 pm

    Percentage of foreign-born people in West Virginia? 1.1%! DIVERSITY!

  48. 48.

    jl

    December 13, 2011 at 7:36 pm

    Damn, almost missed a good insult Cole opp.

    You know, I, a left coast farm boy you got lots of lucky breaks in my life and am now comfortable, have been thinking about snaggle tooth overweight WV hicks lately. here is what they need to do…

    Lose weight. Stand up to that domineering fat white cat, and there ARE new technologies that make that possible. Quit eating grits and ham hocks six times a day, and cut out the soda pop. They might look into new technologies for getting electricity to their shotgun shack and install a computer. There are water proof covers that will keep the hole in the roof from ruining the machine. Hook up to the internet.

    There are techological scooters that will allow you to get out of the holler more often.

    Reading is a skill they should look into. There are computer programs that make learning even the most demanding and intimidating egghead skills easy.

    I have more suggestions if Cole is interested.

  49. 49.

    Villago Delenda Est

    December 13, 2011 at 7:36 pm

    @Hill Dweller:

    Cole spent part of his life in uniform.

    Where he, invariably, ran into some non-white folks. It’s unavoidable nowadays.

    Now, I wouldn’t expect a chickenshit like Veritas/Unrealty Check to realize this, of course…

  50. 50.

    Egg Berry

    December 13, 2011 at 7:38 pm

    @Veritas:

    Canada, being a stable first world country, isn’t exactly sending 10s of millions of immigrants south of their border, are they?

    Could be all that sweet, sweet soshulized medicine and hockey!

  51. 51.

    khead

    December 13, 2011 at 7:38 pm

    I thought ABL did a fine job in the previous thread.

    And I can appreciate John’s self-awareness.

    But what I’d really like to do is take race out of the equation and point out that the outrage is just as applicable if the douchebag from Forbes had left out the “black” part and just gone with “poor”.

    I’d guess the dumbass has no clue what it would be like to be poor as hell. White, black, green, whatever.

  52. 52.

    Brian R.

    December 13, 2011 at 7:39 pm

    @Veritas:

    Canada, being a stable first world country, isn’t exactly sending 10s of millions of immigrants south of their border, are they?

    No country is currently sending “10s of millions of immigrants” into America. None.

    Jesus Christ, you suck at math as much as you do at politics. What are you good at? Goat blowing?

  53. 53.

    Veritas

    December 13, 2011 at 7:39 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Yes, and where did he move to when he finished? Why did he choose such an “undiverse” place like West Virginia?

  54. 54.

    Cassidy

    December 13, 2011 at 7:40 pm

    Stupid is out in force tonight. Must be quota time.

  55. 55.

    Veritas

    December 13, 2011 at 7:40 pm

    @Brian R.:

    It’s called hyperbole, numbnuts. The fact that Canada only has 30 some million people total should have clued you in.

  56. 56.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    December 13, 2011 at 7:42 pm

    Meh this is all such “pull yourselves up by your bootstraps” bullshit, completely and utterly refusing to admit that the 1% already stole their fucking bootstraps, and the working poor are now shuffling about in boots with no laces. I am so sick of this bullshit. The working poor, don’t have any fucking bootstraps, they don’t have any fucking computers, they don’t have electricity for god’s sake. They are living in trailers, cooking with charcoal. It is about time that these people get a damn clue.

  57. 57.

    Citizen_X

    December 13, 2011 at 7:42 pm

    So the importance of workforce diversity is that it would allow opinions that are slightly out of line with mainstream orthodoxy to be censored more effectively?

    Shorter Sebz: “I cant say Nigger no moar! I WANT MAH COUNTREY BAK!”

  58. 58.

    Sebz

    December 13, 2011 at 7:42 pm

    Yes, and where did he move to when he finished? Why did he choose such an “undiverse” place like West Virginia?

    wanting to live among your own people is always racist. unless you are black of course, or asian, or hispanic, in which case it is totally normal and understandable.

  59. 59.

    Brian R.

    December 13, 2011 at 7:43 pm

    @Veritas:

    It’s called hyperbole, numbnuts. The fact that I only have 200 million dollars total should have clued you in.

    Fixed it for you, Romney.

  60. 60.

    Veritas

    December 13, 2011 at 7:44 pm

    The working poor, don’t have any fucking bootstraps, they don’t have any fucking computers, they don’t have electricity for god’s sake.

    O RLY?

    80 percent of poor households have air conditioning. In 1970, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.
    92 percent of poor households have a microwave.
    Nearly three-fourths have a car or truck, and 31 percent have two or more cars or trucks.
    Nearly two-thirds have cable or satellite TV.
    Two-thirds have at least one DVD player, and 70 percent have a VCR.
    Half have a personal computer, and one in seven have two or more computers.
    More than half of poor families with children have a video game system, such as an Xbox or PlayStation.
    43 percent have Internet access.
    One-third have a wide-screen plasma or LCD TV.
    One-fourth have a digital video recorder system, such as a TiVo.

    You were saying?

  61. 61.

    cathyx

    December 13, 2011 at 7:44 pm

    @Veritas: Do you have to be born somewhere else to be diverse? My highschool in a Pittsburgh suburb had a lot of diversity, from Greeks, Poles, Slovaks, Italians, mostly eastern and western europeans. But everyone was born there.

  62. 62.

    Sebz

    December 13, 2011 at 7:44 pm

    @Citizen_X: Actually, i’m a naturalized foreigner. I love this country but hardly considered myself entitled to say “I want my country back”.

    sorry to break your stereotype of who i am.

  63. 63.

    John Cole

    December 13, 2011 at 7:45 pm

    I’m sort of stunned that Veritas is so silly he doesn’t recognize he is proving my point. The reason I struggle with “white privilege” is because I have it and live in a place that does not have a large number of minorities, and it is very easy for me to get into a mindset that ignores what other people with different backgrounds go through.

    And yes, I have lived a lot of places with much larger concentrations of minorities.

  64. 64.

    Hill Dweller

    December 13, 2011 at 7:45 pm

    @Veritas: Perhaps he had family there. Are you suggesting he moved to WV to avoid diversity?

  65. 65.

    Veritas

    December 13, 2011 at 7:45 pm

    @cathyx:

    The context of this particular conversation was about mass immigration. Vermont doesn’t have it.

  66. 66.

    TooManyJens

    December 13, 2011 at 7:46 pm

    @khead:

    But what I’d really like to do is take race out of the equation and point out that the outrage is just as applicable if the douchebag from Forbes had left out the “black” part and just gone with “poor”.

    True, and yet he didn’t leave out the “black” part. Race is in the equation; he put it there. Maybe he doesn’t believe that poor white kids have this problem of not wanting to succeed and not taking advantage of the opportunities they supposedly have. I don’t know. But there’s a reason he wrote the column about “poor black kids.”

  67. 67.

    Sebz

    December 13, 2011 at 7:46 pm

    @cathyx: that’s all white people. diversity means non white people. only melanin can provide true diversity. you should know that. what are you a KKK member?

  68. 68.

    Brian R.

    December 13, 2011 at 7:46 pm

    Someone archive Sebz’s wonderful additions to this discussion for the next time we’re wondering why the Republican Party is so inept when it comes to race.

    Don’t you have one of those hilarious “affirmative action bake sales” to get to? I bet the boys down at the racquet club thought that was just to die for!

  69. 69.

    Veritas

    December 13, 2011 at 7:46 pm

    @Hill Dweller:

    No, I’m not, but I am asking, why doesn’t he WANT to move to some place extremely diverse like Los Angeles in diversity is SO WONDERFUL AND NECESSARY!! like liberals always shout it is?

    It probably IS family, I know, it certainly can’t be because of West Virginia’s booming high-tech economy or world-class educational system, that’s for sure.

  70. 70.

    Egg Berry

    December 13, 2011 at 7:48 pm

    @Veritas:

    80 percent of poor households have air conditioning

    Oh, the humanity!

    edited: Also, you don’t break out those numbers by race. Wonder why?

  71. 71.

    Brian R.

    December 13, 2011 at 7:48 pm

    @John Cole:

    I’m sort of stunned that Veritas is so silly he doesn’t recognize he is proving my point.

    Really? I mean, of course he’s proving the point.

    But why are you stunned? He seems pretty fucking dense. I’m surprised he managed to turn his computer on.

    Hmm. Maybe one of the orderlies at the home does that for him.

  72. 72.

    Veritas

    December 13, 2011 at 7:49 pm

    @Egg Berry:

    Well, it does pretty much refute “the working poor don’t have electricity!!!” hysteria mentioned above. You want real poverty? Go to Africa or rural China. We have deprivation in this country, but we don’t have real poverty with the possible exceptions of some pockets in Appalachia and the border counties of Texas.

  73. 73.

    jl

    December 13, 2011 at 7:51 pm

    @Veritas:

    Did you read your whole list:

    ” Half have a personal computer, and one in seven have two or more computers.
    …
    43 percent have Internet access. ”

    Your list also assumes home gimmicks can make up for substandard schools.

    Go away.

    Dammit Cole, will you get off your fat ass and get better trolls for this blog. Hell, tell DougJ to get to work and run some spoofs for us. Please. Or if this is DougJ, tell him to make some effort. Jeez.

  74. 74.

    Brian R.

    December 13, 2011 at 7:52 pm

    I like how Veritas himself threw out the fact that only “43 percent [of the poor] have Internet access” in the process of trying to defend an article about how all poor black kids can escape their lot in life by just getting on the internet.

    You really suck at this debating thing, you know? I’m starting to think you really are Romney.

  75. 75.

    ThresherK

    December 13, 2011 at 7:53 pm

    Somewhere else on the intertubes I had to ask another white male why the two of us were discussing the idea of the privilege of race. Why, I finally asked, couldn’t we agree that two white men perhaps weren’t the best folks to decide whether this thing existed in the real world?

    It’s like a fish not knowing what water is: Spent its whole life in it, can’t imagine being without it, can’t comprehend any other way.

  76. 76.

    Egg Berry

    December 13, 2011 at 7:53 pm

    @Veritas:

    We have deprivation in this country, but we don’t have real poverty with the possible exceptions of some pockets in Appalachia and the border counties of Texas.

    You, sir, are an idiot.

    Also, how about a thought experiment where you live on poverty wages for say, a month, and come tell us about your adventures?

  77. 77.

    vernon

    December 13, 2011 at 7:53 pm

    @Veritas: Un freaking believable. The old list of technological gadgets whose prices have inevitably plummeted … while the cost of all these negligible things like, I dunno, health care and medicine and heating oil and a college education, have gone through the roof.

    I take comfort in the thought that when 99% of us are peons, people like Veritas will be around to remind us that we’re peons with mp3 players!! Never mind full citizenship, Your Excellencies, we do enjoy the bread & circuses very much.

  78. 78.

    Cheap Jim

    December 13, 2011 at 7:54 pm

    @Veritas: You enjoy human suffering too much, shitheel.

  79. 79.

    pragmatism

    December 13, 2011 at 7:55 pm

    @Veritas: there is no true poor scotsman.

  80. 80.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    December 13, 2011 at 7:57 pm

    @mclaren: “Of course he’s an idiot. It’s one of the requirements, I think there’s a captcha in the form of an IQ test you have to fail before you can even post on this forum.”

    I heard that you scored the lowest on that test, at the bottom of the class! You should have done what us smart people did here and bribe Tunch for access.

  81. 81.

    khead

    December 13, 2011 at 7:57 pm

    @TooManyJens:

    True, and yet he didn’t leave out the “black” part. Race is in the equation; he put it there. Maybe he doesn’t believe that poor white kids have this problem of not wanting to succeed and not taking advantage of the opportunities they supposedly have. I don’t know. But there’s a reason he wrote the column about “poor black kids.”

    I understand. Gene Marks is an asshole for going where he decided to go.

    Just saying that it is still a problem for poor white folks (also known as rednecks, crackers, my peeps once upon a time, etc.) just like it is for poor black folks. Maybe not quite as much – but still a real, serious problem. The common thing here is “poor”.

    Rather than argue about the race aspect, I just wish people would recognize that it’s really about being broke. Folks in southern WV aren’t any better equipped to buy those computers that Marks talked about. Or pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

  82. 82.

    cathyx

    December 13, 2011 at 7:58 pm

    @Sebz: So what is this? Do we need a definition of diversity?

  83. 83.

    3am

    December 13, 2011 at 8:00 pm

    @Soonergrunt:

    Soonergrunt – you’re okay in my book.

  84. 84.

    ThresherK

    December 13, 2011 at 8:00 pm

    @Egg Berry: Might I suggest we have another candidate for the “Nickled and Dimed” tour?

    And that book was written years ago. Not sure how much “recovery” the working class has had since then.

  85. 85.

    jl

    December 13, 2011 at 8:01 pm

    Just occurred to me that a couple of molecular biologists and pharmaceutical chemists and similar types from grad school in WV have passed through where I work over the years. Let’s see, they originated from China, S America, and someplace in Eastern Europe. WV must be a melting pot of diversity, no?

  86. 86.

    JPL

    December 13, 2011 at 8:02 pm

    @Veritas: I volunteer at a community charity organization and you are right they have tv’s and dvd’s and all kinds of fun stuff. In fact they often can buy them used where I volunteer. A nice tv sells as high as forty dollars. Does your research tell you how many are used or new?

  87. 87.

    ABL

    December 13, 2011 at 8:04 pm

    @Veritas: best troll ever.

    HA!

    i’m cracking up.

  88. 88.

    Citizen_X

    December 13, 2011 at 8:05 pm

    Sebz:

    Actually, i’m a naturalized foreigner.

    Ah, my mistake. So you’re pissed about not being able to say “wog” in public anymore.

  89. 89.

    The Other Chuck

    December 13, 2011 at 8:06 pm

    Another day, another pie-filtered asshole like Sebz

  90. 90.

    cckids

    December 13, 2011 at 8:06 pm

    @jl:

    Second, his pep talk does not address the fact that competition between people in oppressed demographic classes to grab limited opportunities cannot help with disparities between whole communities. Because all of his fine technology cannot make more spaces, more funding, more good teachers, more schools with textbooks a student can actually take home, more after school programs, more art music, chess, sports, cultural activities, more advanced math and computer classes.

    Yes. We’ve all read/heard of the wonder kids–the ones who, despite all the odds being against them, get the computer, the scholarship, the brass ring. What about everyone else? I’m not sure he gets how truly exceptional you’d have to be to (as a child, no less), put forth that degree of effort & organization. Not everyone has that drive, or, frankly, the family involvement & support to take advantage of rare opportunities. Should we just write off the rest of them?

  91. 91.

    Chyron HR

    December 13, 2011 at 8:06 pm

    @Veritas:

    Don’t listen to the liberals, RC. You should totally send Pawlenty Romney Gingrich Romney Whoever You Support Today a letter telling them to run on a “West Virginia sucks” platform. It’s only five electoral votes, but every vote counts, right?

  92. 92.

    Citizen Alan

    December 13, 2011 at 8:08 pm

    @Veritas:

  93. 93.

    gelfling545

    December 13, 2011 at 8:08 pm

    @John Cole: Or kids in general, for that matter. I sort of suspect it’s not the go-to publication for teen opinion.

  94. 94.

    clayton

    December 13, 2011 at 8:09 pm

    @Veritas: I’m old enough to remember back in the day when old rental houses had no appliances, but dude, please name me an apartment complex of ANY rental rate that doesn’t already have appliances and usually cable or satellite — sometimes even internet access as part of the package.

    Trotting out that Heritage Foundation tripe is weak.

    I’ll continue destroying your point if you like. Just let me know.

  95. 95.

    gbear

    December 13, 2011 at 8:11 pm

    It’s like, how much more toxic could this comment thread be? And the answer is none..None more toxic.

  96. 96.

    The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik

    December 13, 2011 at 8:13 pm

    You know…I’m from West Virginia…and guess what? I’m a First Generation Filipino-American, born to two purely Filipino immigrants who came to WV in the 80s due to medical work available in the region.

    We used to live near a Hispanic family (who moved recently in fact, partly due to racism experienced) who were so long in here the grandparents of the kids I used to play with had the local accent.

    Just as John said, the small percentage of non-white population there just makes White Privilege even more obvious for those who want to actually look. I will admit I experienced less racism than you might expect, and it usually came out of a weird benign ignorance, but it was still always there.

    So take that shit out of here, Veritas, please.

    EDIT: A great irony I’ve observed sadly is that many in WV’s FIl-Am medical community are conservative enough and Catholic enough to agree with some of our resident conservitrolls here. One of my parents good friends outright admitted she was voting against Obama out of mistrust for his race. :/

  97. 97.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    December 13, 2011 at 8:14 pm

    Gotta love it when the trolls come in. At times, I think of the scene in Prisoner of Azkaban where Sirius Black is explaining to Snape how he is once again coming to the wrong conclusion. But Snape was trying to do the right thing. The trolls are just displaying their weird fascination with their own anuses.

  98. 98.

    Omnes Omnibus

    December 13, 2011 at 8:14 pm

    @Odie Hugh Manatee: Rosie let me in for free. You gotta know who to talk to.

  99. 99.

    Calouste

    December 13, 2011 at 8:15 pm

    @Jager:

    Stanford! Even more diversity!

  100. 100.

    sven

    December 13, 2011 at 8:17 pm

    Veritas = DougJ (or another regular)

    Am I first?

    Do I get a cookie?

  101. 101.

    Citizen Alan

    December 13, 2011 at 8:19 pm

    I had put off installing the pie filter because I am technophobic and I assumed that I would just screw up my computer, but Veritas’s dribblings made me decide it was worth the risk. So now, I am nearly weeping with joy over how easy it was to install and how much more enjoyable this thread it with all of the goat-raping fecal stain’s posts are now about the joys of good pie. Thank you, cleek. I want to bear your children.

    Go here for any who weren’t sure what all this pie talk was about.

  102. 102.

    jake the snake

    December 13, 2011 at 8:22 pm

    @ veritas:

    I would like to appoint myself as a spokesperson for all the poor people in this country and apologize for the fact that they are not destitute enough to meet your standards for poor.
    You and the Heritage Foundation can go fuck yourself with a red hot poker.

  103. 103.

    jake the snake

    December 13, 2011 at 8:23 pm

    In moderation for an F word.

  104. 104.

    sven

    December 13, 2011 at 8:31 pm

    @cckids: The single biggest assumption Marks makes is that a young child (of any background) has the knowledge, understanding, and wisdom necessary to take the steps he is proposing. I am trying to picture the 10 year old of the author’s fantasies actually working through the process. In public schools, I have seen a tiny number of students with the kind of drive and focus he has described. In each case it was the result of environment not a magical epiphany.

  105. 105.

    Benjamin Franklin

    December 13, 2011 at 8:32 pm

    Holy Moly;

    I’m newbie here, but I am astonished to see someone more cyncial than myself.

    Veritas seems to be negatory on all things human. Is it psychoses or neuroses?

    i don’t know. What I do know is that discussions are futile. His is an agenda

    of breaking down the spirit, rather than providing context, information or

    encouragement. In other sites I infest, the consigliere detest my efforts to

    infuse context. Admittedly, I enjoy the chaos which ensues when I inject

    contravention. Feeding the trolls is counter-productive. It nourishes the

    fetish.

  106. 106.

    jncc

    December 13, 2011 at 8:36 pm

    Yep, middle aged white guys should just shut up and not offer advice to black kids, just like black kids should not offer advice to middle aged white guys. Right.

  107. 107.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    December 13, 2011 at 8:41 pm

    @Veritas: “Go to Africa or rural China. We have deprivation in this country, but we don’t have real poverty with the possible exceptions of some pockets in Appalachia and the border counties of Texas.”

    Ahhh, just those poor areas of the south where the voters keep voting for people who will keep the poor the way they are? Those poor souls! Everyone else is living high on the hog and they are left out of all of the money that’s raining down all over the rest of the country.

    You know, you ought get help for that problem. Meth is a hell of a drug.

  108. 108.

    TooManyJens

    December 13, 2011 at 8:41 pm

    @khead:

    Just saying that it is still a problem for poor white folks (also known as rednecks, crackers, my peeps once upon a time, etc.) just like it is for poor black folks. Maybe not quite as much – but still a real, serious problem. The common thing here is “poor”.

    Yeah, I hear you.

  109. 109.

    Gex

    December 13, 2011 at 8:42 pm

    @khead: Well, good. Take race out of it by getting the original author to change what he wrote. As it is, the discussion of the piece centers around his assumptions about black people. It is kind of annoying to have people interject in these discussions, all offended that poor whites, etc. are being left out. Whatever it takes to not talk about how black people are treated in this country, I guess.

  110. 110.

    handy

    December 13, 2011 at 8:44 pm

    @jncc:

    It depends on the “advice” given. In this case it was an article cloaked as advice but something else entirely.

  111. 111.

    Omnes Omnibus

    December 13, 2011 at 8:47 pm

    @jncc: Missed the point entirely, you did.

  112. 112.

    different-church-lady

    December 13, 2011 at 8:47 pm

    @Benjamin Franklin:

    Veritas seems to be negatory on all things human. Is it psychoses or neuroses?

    It’s trolling. Trying to understand the cause is futile.

  113. 113.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    December 13, 2011 at 8:48 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Yeah but what Rosie didn’t tell you is that Tunch grants premium access to the super secret Balloon-Juice Think Tank and its archives, a secret project that is funded by George Soros.

    One can of tuna can buy a lot of access if you approach His Tunchness on bended knee.

  114. 114.

    different-church-lady

    December 13, 2011 at 8:48 pm

    @Veritas: Do indoor plumbing next.

  115. 115.

    Omnes Omnibus

    December 13, 2011 at 8:51 pm

    @Odie Hugh Manatee: ::looks for can of tuna::

    Will salmon do?

  116. 116.

    different-church-lady

    December 13, 2011 at 8:51 pm

    @Veritas: So that’s what you want to hang your hat on, eh? “Our poor have it better than their poor.”

    Yeah. Good point. Why not go share it with the boys down at the diner? Maybe they’ll be more impressed than we are.

  117. 117.

    bemused senior

    December 13, 2011 at 8:53 pm

    My daughter does early intervention work with special needs kids in Silicon Valley. One of her families rents a single room in a house and has 7 kids. Aside from no internet, these kids don’t have a place to sit down and think.

  118. 118.

    Benjamin Franklin

    December 13, 2011 at 8:54 pm

    @different-church-lady:

    At least I don’t see you feeding……

  119. 119.

    different-church-lady

    December 13, 2011 at 8:54 pm

    @Sebz:

    So the importance of workforce diversity is that it would allow opinions that are slightly out of line with mainstream orthodoxy to be censored more effectively?

    The importance of workforce diversity is that it would allow stupid, condescending people the opportunity to learn how to be slightly less stupid and condescending.

  120. 120.

    different-church-lady

    December 13, 2011 at 8:55 pm

    @Benjamin Franklin: I feed trolls plenty, but they usually find my stuff hard to chew.

  121. 121.

    Citizen_X

    December 13, 2011 at 8:57 pm

    Submitted without comment: http://www.iluvpie.com

  122. 122.

    Omnes Omnibus

    December 13, 2011 at 9:03 pm

    @different-church-lady:

    I feed trolls plenty

    Don’t feel too bad, we all do it.

  123. 123.

    Benjamin Franklin

    December 13, 2011 at 9:07 pm

    Until Corzine holds the feather, the Bens cannot recognize him.

    It bolsters traffic. WtH

  124. 124.

    Benjamin Franklin

    December 13, 2011 at 9:08 pm

    holy moly. try again.

    “I feed trolls plenty, ”

    Bolsters traffic…

  125. 125.

    Canuckistani Tom

    December 13, 2011 at 9:09 pm

    @Veritas:

    80 percent of poor households have air conditioning. In 1970, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.

    Why do they always complain about poor people with AC, but no one complains about poor people with heat? ‘they can wear their winter coat & long undies for 4 months!’

    92 percent of poor households have a microwave.

    Well, it’s cheaper to buy than an oven, probably uses less energy.

    Nearly three-fourths have a car or truck, and 31 percent have two or more cars or trucks.

    And when both parents can find work, how do they get there?

    Nearly two-thirds have cable or satellite TV.
    Two-thirds have at least one DVD player, and 70 percent have a VCR.

    So 70% are so poor that they have to hang on to an outdated, obsolete piece of technology for entertainment?
    VCRs, seriously? These guys still keeping track of 8-track players too?
    Course, that number will drop, as the VHS tapes degrade, leaving people with…nothing.

    Half have a personal computer, and one in seven have two or more computers.

    Let’s see, how many MHz does a CPU need to run openoffice and for email? And how much is that computer worth, $50?

    More than half of poor families with children have a video game system, such as an Xbox or PlayStation.

    PlayStation, that’s from what, 1994? Xbox is from 2001. So again, so poor that they’re using 10 yr old or older equipment?

    43 percent have Internet access.

    Yay, Dial up!

    One-third have a wide-screen plasma or LCD TV.
    One-fourth have a digital video recorder system, such as a TiVo.

    Anyone else seen these in the Goodwill? I have. They won’t even take the cathode-ray TVs anymore.

  126. 126.

    different-church-lady

    December 13, 2011 at 9:11 pm

    @Benjamin Franklin:

    The artichokes in Berlin are very flavorful this year.

    I believe you have a message from headquarters about my next mission?

  127. 127.

    Omnes Omnibus

    December 13, 2011 at 9:15 pm

    @different-church-lady:
    Les sanglots longs
    Des violons
    De l’automne
    Blessent mon cœur
    D’une langueur
    Monotone.

  128. 128.

    Benjamin Franklin

    December 13, 2011 at 9:18 pm

    @different-church-lady:

    I am so not Techie…

  129. 129.

    different-church-lady

    December 13, 2011 at 9:18 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: Wait! That’s the Hungarian Rhapsody. What’s secret about that?

  130. 130.

    Omnes Omnibus

    December 13, 2011 at 9:21 pm

    @different-church-lady: It was the code broadcast to France to announce the Normandy invasion.

  131. 131.

    different-church-lady

    December 13, 2011 at 9:22 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: Wow. I guess I better get my ass in gear then.

  132. 132.

    Omnes Omnibus

    December 13, 2011 at 9:23 pm

    @different-church-lady: That was rather my point.

  133. 133.

    Mnemosyne

    December 13, 2011 at 9:26 pm

    @Veritas:

    Do you really want to compare blogging to being, say, a white person living in inner-city Detroit?

    My best friend is white, and grew up in inner-city Detroit not too far from the infamous 8 Mile Road. She and her sisters got mugged walking home from the grocery store more than once.

    And yet she doesn’t hate black people, because she actually lived there and knew a whole range of black people. When she moved out to Los Angeles on her own, she moved to Inglewood, which is primarily black. She said she always felt completely safe there because every single person in her building knew who she was since she was the only white person who lived there.

    So, yes, growing up as a white person in a black neighborhood is quite different than growing up white in a white neighborhood, but not in the way you seem to think.

  134. 134.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    December 13, 2011 at 9:30 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Shit, you might get even better access than me, especially if it’s fresh. Let me know if it works and what the perks are.

    I might want to upgrade!

  135. 135.

    Omnes Omnibus

    December 13, 2011 at 9:31 pm

    @Odie Hugh Manatee: Will do.

  136. 136.

    Keith G

    December 13, 2011 at 9:45 pm

    @Gex:
    <blockquote It is kind of annoying to have people interject in these discussions, all offended that poor whites, etc. are being left out. Whatever it takes to not talk about how black people are treated in this country, I guess.
    Is that what khead was getting at? I do not think so. It seem the khead was following along a line developed by other great American thinkers:

    Take my own country for example. We have developed the greatest system of production that history has ever known. We have become the richest nation in the world. Our national gross product this year will reach the astounding figure of almost 650 billion dollars. Yet, at least one-fifth of our fellow citizens – some ten million families, comprising about forty million individuals – are bound to a miserable culture of poverty. In a sense the poverty of the poor in America is more frustrating than the poverty of Africa and Asia. The misery of the poor in Africa and Asia is shared misery, a fact of life for the vast majority; they are all poor together as a result of years of exploitation and underdevelopment. In sad contrast, the poor in America know that they live in the richest nation in the world, and that even though they are perishing on a lonely island of poverty they are surrounded by a vast ocean of material prosperity

    – Dr Martin Luther King, Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech

  137. 137.

    Keith G

    December 13, 2011 at 9:51 pm

    @Gex:

    Well, good. Take race out of it by getting the original author to change what he wrote. As it is, the discussion of the piece centers around his assumptions about black people. It is kind of annoying to have people interject in these discussions, all offended that poor whites, etc. are being left out. Whatever it takes to not talk about how black people are treated in this country, I guess

    Is that what khead was getting at? I do not think so. It seems that khead was following along a line developed by other great American thinkers:

    Take my own country for example. We have developed the greatest system of production that history has ever known. We have become the richest nation in the world. Our national gross product this year will reach the astounding figure of almost 650 billion dollars. Yet, at least one-fifth of our fellow citizens – some ten million families, comprising about forty million individuals – are bound to a miserable culture of poverty. In a sense the poverty of the poor in America is more frustrating than the poverty of Africa and Asia. The misery of the poor in Africa and Asia is shared misery, a fact of life for the vast majority; they are all poor together as a result of years of exploitation and underdevelopment. In sad contrast, the poor in America know that they live in the richest nation in the world, and that even though they are perishing on a lonely island of poverty they are surrounded by a vast ocean of material prosperity

    -Dr Martin Luther King Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech

    Note: This was re-posted due to a tag error.

  138. 138.

    Gwangung

    December 13, 2011 at 9:59 pm

    Well, one good thing…dim witted shitheads are giving Cole as much shit as ABL.

  139. 139.

    Omnes Omnibus

    December 13, 2011 at 10:02 pm

    @Gwangung: If you close one eye, poke yourself in the other one, tip your head to the side a bit (no, the other side), and squint, then maybe.

  140. 140.

    khead

    December 13, 2011 at 10:07 pm

    Thank you Keith G.

    I thought I explained myself pretty well. But for those that missed my point, here’s a hit piece done by some Australian jackass on my home county. I freely admit that my home county is pretty pitiful. But…

    Is there anyone here that thinks the dude at the 3:55 mark gets some benefit from white privelege? Really?

  141. 141.

    Greyjoy

    December 13, 2011 at 10:21 pm

    Ahem. Xboxes are still being sold. Playstations are still being sold. What do you think an Xbox 360 is? What do you think the “PS” stands for in “PS3”?

    Can we please get over the canard that having “stuff” makes you rich? Almost every single item named might qualify as a luxury if purchased new, but if you then SOLD it, it would barely buy you groceries for a month. A used or factory-refurbished system is pretty damn cheap. DVD players, TVs, Internet access, cell phones, all cheap as hell these days. Most people live in cities, which have access to public transportation, but everybody who doesn’t have decent access to public transportation needs a car. And just because you HAVE a car doesn’t mean it’s not a $500 piece of shit, with no working heat or air conditioning, where the bumper’s held up with duct tape and the primary paint color is Bondo.

    Know what’s NOT cheap these days? Food and gas.

    Maybe we don’t have a society (YET) like rural China where people are literally grubbing in the dirt. On the other hand, we don’t have 1.2 billion people like China, and we DO have things like democracy and a social safety net and socialized education, which are SUPPOSED to keep our citizens from HAVING to grub in the dirt in any sense. The real tragedy is that despite this, we actually DO have people who go to bed hungry, or cold (people actually do complain about poor people with heat, as one could easily note by reading papers in geographic locales where if you don’t get heat in your house at certain points of the year you can actually die, and the people who complain about subsidies and laws that protect the poor and thus prevent mass die-offs in this manner). We DO have people whose school systems and tax distribution is so unfairly weighted that one school may have the latest in technology while one two miles away doesn’t even have enough schoolbooks to go around.

    Isn’t it really pretty shitty that even though we’re NOT rural China, we’re well on our way to having people living that way here? All because the system is rigged to benefit the fortunate few, and to create a vicious cycle whereupon those with money are increasingly incapable of losing their wealth because their losses are protected and paid for by the government, and where those without money are increasingly incapable of earning any, or improving themselves or their standard of living?

    I mean, yeah, you can complain about how a poor person has Internet access and therefore can’t really be poor. But if that’s how they’re acquiring a college education or even a freakin’ membership to lynda.com so they can learn something and get a job that actually pays money, what the hell else are they supposed to do? Expecting the poor to just scrabble in the dirt like the aforementioned rural Chinese just to qualify for the label is pretty ridiculous. Just because your house isn’t ACTUALLY built out of tar paper doesn’t mean you’re not poor. Just because you live in a Section 8 apartment that came with an air conditioner or a $30 microwave doesn’t mean you’re not poor. Just because you are in possession of an actual automobile with a functioning engine and 4 wheels doesn’t mean you’re not poor. There are plenty of people in this country who have an insecure food supply and not enough money to pay for their basic needs. That’s poor. What “stuff” they have doesn’t really matter because it’s not enough to increase their standard of living if they sell it, and a few of those items (cell phone, Internet, car) are probably vital to maintaining and/or having a chance of improving the quality of their lives.

  142. 142.

    suzanne

    December 13, 2011 at 10:28 pm

    @Canuckistani Tom: Those statistics don’t take household size into account, either. A family of ten with one garage-sale TV is hardly what I’d call middle-class.

  143. 143.

    Donut

    December 13, 2011 at 10:33 pm

    @mclaren:

    Well, you just posted, so, I guess you are a fucking winner your-own-self.

    Bra-fucking-vo.

  144. 144.

    suzanne

    December 13, 2011 at 10:38 pm

    @Greyjoy:

    The real tragedy is that despite this, we actually DO have people who go to bed hungry, or cold (people actually do complain about poor people with heat, as one could easily note by reading papers in geographic locales where if you don’t get heat in your house at certain points of the year you can actually die

    Here in AZ, many older homes and apartments are without air conditioning, and instead have evaporative coolers, which are not as effective. Heat waves are among the most dangerous natural disasters in terms of the number of lives lost, and huge numbers of people don’t have HVAC. It’s not a luxury in some parts of the country, it’s literally a matter of life and death. And every summer, we hear about drownings and heatstrokes every night.

  145. 145.

    Chukwu

    December 13, 2011 at 10:45 pm

    I think someone sent out a memo:

    http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/12/what-do-low-income-communities-need/249962/

    Had I known that this was the week for uninformed commentaries on the lives of the poor, I would have never stopped sniffing glue.

  146. 146.

    Keith G

    December 13, 2011 at 10:58 pm

    @Chukwu: Why in the hello did you link to that? Her musings are actually more fucked up and abusive than the Forbes piece.

    And I was trying to go to sleep. Thanks a lot.

  147. 147.

    Elliecat

    December 13, 2011 at 11:18 pm

    I don’t see this as a workplace diversity issue so much as a “get the hell out of your (literal or metaphorical) gated community once in a while” issue. If Forbes Boy has so many great ideas for how poor black kids could get ahead, he ought to be sharing them with those kids by traveling that two miles to volunteer as a mentor or something at a school. Like, actually meet some of these kids and see what they are and aren’t doing already.

    @sven:

    I am trying to picture the 10 year old of the author’s fantasies actually working through the process. In public schools,

    As someone who actually works as a volunteer in public schools, working with mostly poor, mostly black kids to improve their reading, I have to say that 10 years old is really rather late for a kid to make the decision to learn to read really well. I work with both kindergarten students (who are, these days, expected to learn to read at age 5, whether they are developmentally ready or not) and 10 year olds. By the time a child is 10 (say, fourth grade) if they can’t already read well, they are years and years behind. So really Forbes Boy is saying that 5 yo’s should make a decision to learn to read well.

  148. 148.

    josefina

    December 13, 2011 at 11:43 pm

    Nearly three-fourths have a car or truck, and 31 percent have two or more cars or trucks.

    veritas, your cite fails. “[A] car or truck” includes both a 2011 BMW 7-Series sedan and a 1998 Kia Sportage, as well as whatever you drive. Would you be willing to trade rides with someone living at or below the poverty level?

    Buying a car or truck that’s late-model and low-mileage (i.e., likely to both start and run at least 999 tries out of 1,000) requires cash up front. When you don’t have cash up front, you buy the best you can get.

    The best you can get craps out frequently and unexpectedly. Beyond basic maintenance (which is not free, even for poor people with access to the internet), it also needs major work on the suspension or the steering column or something else essential. As long as the BYCG drives, you put off the need for major work because buying gas and changing the oil and the air filters and paying for tags and insurance sucks up everything that isn’t budgeted for rent and utilities and food. You know the car or truck will crap out forever at some point and you just hope that you’ll be able to scrape together enough cash to get another BYCG.

    Owning two BYCGs is hardly a sign of lavish living. It’s a prudent bet against the odds that both will crap out at the same time.

  149. 149.

    Calouste

    December 14, 2011 at 12:05 am

    @Greyjoy:

    Buying a refurbished XBOX and a refurbished phone cost less money than a single doctor’s visit. And then we’re not even talking about medication.

  150. 150.

    Brachiator

    December 14, 2011 at 12:19 am

    @John Cole:

    Really? You think the way to help poor black kids is in an asinine piece in Forbes? It’s not racist or rude or even condescending to note that poor black kids are not a prime Forbes demographic.

    I agree that the Forbes piece is asinine. However, I don’t know what might inspire any particular person. Do you? I was inspired by Dickens’ “Great Expectations” even though I did not grow up in a poor village outside 19th century London. When my family moved to California, I had to deal with 2 teachers in particular, one white, another black, who were certain that I was worthless because I was from Texas and did not grow up in Southern California. A couple of other teachers, earnest liberals, we’re going to make me all sparkly, but at a cost.  I had to acknowledge how wonderfully evolved they were, and how oh so superior, to deign to spend their time on me.  I threw off all this bullshit, and apart from my family, Dickens (and Twain) were constant companions and guides.   

    It is racist, rude and condescending to assume that a poor black kid, or any one else, gives a rat’s ass about a magazine’s prime demographic if they are curious about a subject. Or just curious.  There’s a movie out about the black artist who animates the muppet Elmo. I imagine that there are good, earnest liberal white people who could tell you all about how puppetry is outside the poor black child demographic.

    ETA. Hope this formats correctly, am posting on the fly after professional commitments. But it is an important topic.

  151. 151.

    Addison Sweetwater

    December 14, 2011 at 12:31 am

    @Veritas:

    Nothing like somebody who lives in West “By God” Virginia (one of the whitest, if not THE whitest state in America) lecturing us on the wonders of diversity

    So what did he say that was wrong? Or are you just being a fucking douchenozzle again?

  152. 152.

    S. cerevisiae

    December 14, 2011 at 1:37 am

    Yeah, here are some of those cars: Indian Cars

  153. 153.

    The Other Bob

    December 14, 2011 at 8:49 am

    @John Cole:

    And yes, I have lived a lot of places with much larger concentrations of minorities.

    More importantly, you are smart enough to not attempt to lecture poor black kids in a magazine whose readership is likely 90+% white, rich male.

  154. 154.

    Plantsmantx

    December 14, 2011 at 8:55 am

    @Veritas:

    Yeah, really. That’s why all us black Texans are down on the border with guns.

  155. 155.

    Teresa

    December 14, 2011 at 12:15 pm

    After reading his column I honestly don’t think he’s ever spent any time whatsoever listening or actually seeing poor people, especially poor children.

  156. 156.

    HW3

    December 14, 2011 at 1:44 pm

    This reminds me of the scene in October Sky where the principal says giving the kids an education is giving them false hope (imdb link).

  157. 157.

    Larv

    December 14, 2011 at 3:36 pm

    @Chukwu:

    I thought that post wasn’t all that terrible by McMegan standards – I found it more thought-provoking than her usual fare, even if there’s plenty of her usual cluelessness and questionable conclusions. But my god, the comments are fucking horrifying. RedState, Freeper-level horrifying. Many of her commenters aren’t just clueless about poverty, they’re completely lacking in empathy and basic humanity.

Comments are closed.

Trackbacks

  1. …I’ve never thought enough was that much better than too much, so here, a brief (for me) reaction about the now-notorious Gene Marks piece in Forbes. (With apologies to ABL, DougJ, and John, all of whom get this “timely” thing waaa says:
    December 13, 2011 at 11:14 pm

    […] me) reaction about the now-notorious Gene Marks piece in Forbes. (With apologies to ABL, DougJ, and John, all of whom get this “timely” thing waaaay better than yours […]

Primary Sidebar

🎈Keep Balloon Juice Ad Free

Become a Balloon Juice Patreon
Donate with Venmo, Zelle or PayPal

2023 Pet Calendars

Pet Calendar Preview: A
Pet Calendar Preview: B

*Calendars can not be ordered until Cafe Press gets their calendar paper in.

Recent Comments

  • lowtechcyclist on Monday Morning Open Thread: Go, Team Biden! (Feb 6, 2023 @ 8:18am)
  • Another Scott on Monday Morning Open Thread: Go, Team Biden! (Feb 6, 2023 @ 8:18am)
  • Dorothy A. Winsor on Monday Morning Open Thread: Go, Team Biden! (Feb 6, 2023 @ 8:16am)
  • eclare on Monday Morning Open Thread: Go, Team Biden! (Feb 6, 2023 @ 8:12am)
  • Kay on Monday Morning Open Thread: Go, Team Biden! (Feb 6, 2023 @ 8:12am)

Balloon Juice Posts

View by Topic
View by Author
View by Month & Year
View by Past Author

Featuring

Medium Cool
Artists in Our Midst
Authors in Our Midst
We All Need A Little Kindness
Favorite Dogs & Cats
Classified Documents: A Primer

Calling All Jackals

Site Feedback
Nominate a Rotating Tag
Submit Photos to On the Road
Balloon Juice Mailing List Signup
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Links)
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Posts)

Front-pager Twitter

John Cole
DougJ (aka NYT Pitchbot)
Betty Cracker
Tom Levenson
TaMara
David Anderson
ActualCitizensUnited

Shop Amazon via this link to support Balloon Juice   

Join the Fight!

Join the Fight Signup Form
All Join the Fight Posts

Balloon Juice Events

5/14  The Apocalypse
5/20  Home Away from Home
5/29  We’re Back, Baby
7/21  Merging!

Balloon Juice for Ukraine

Donate

Site Footer

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Comment Policy
  • Our Authors
  • Blogroll
  • Our Artists
  • Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2023 Dev Balloon Juice · All Rights Reserved · Powered by BizBudding Inc

Share this ArticleLike this article? Email it to a friend!

Email sent!