Often, the debate around the difference between ethnicity and race become pretentious and a conclusion hasn't and likely won't be reached. For example, what is the "black" ethnicity? Is it geographically-based? Is it culture-based? Is it biologically-based? You don't have to answer these; I just wanted to show the difficulty in defining either "race" or "ethnicity." The most important thing is not whether you use one wrong category or the other wrong category, but how you apply the terms. For now, many, many professionals use the word "race" to talk about different groups of people even if they don't believe the groups are appropriately distinguished biologically.
I'm pretty sure this is to provide equal opportunity for Neanderthals. Or the government is covering all their bases on the off chance an employee decides to start identifying as Klingon. Edited to add: This is really no more racist then the original constitution, in fact quite a lot less. We're getting there.
Asking what race a person is would be very impolite, in the same way asking if they are handicapped, or what their gender is. A government form should not be a model for tact.
So it's wrong to ask the proper way to refer to a certain sub group of the human race? Personally I think you are over-blowing this whole thing. Do you want to criticize what I had for dinner tonight too? How about you ask me what my clothes are made of so you can tell me I'm contributing to child slave labor.
Race: does it refer to skin color? Facial construction? Sub-species? Culture? It depends on who you ask! Does it exist? That depends on what definition we happen to be using today! You can be sure of one thing, though: anything you say has a significant chance of driving somebody's blood pressure through the roof!
By some broad definitions, the terms "Black race" and "White race" are racist, but not in the sense that we would normally think of. They are not inherently malicious. They are not inherently bigoted, anymore than the statement "black people have black skin" is. They may well be inaccurate methods of human classification, but, by themselves, they certainly aren't racial slurs, and they don't deserve much of any emotional reaction. Of course, a lot of people use "race" to refer to skin color or some other loose form of grouping, rather than subspecies, which illustrates one of the common problems with this type of discussion: everyone uses different definitions. It is therefore useful to examine someone's views on a deeper level than those basic terms. I'm not particularly taking anybody's side here. I just felt like saying that.
Eh...I'd like to see an analysis of the voting situation in this area. Just how easy is it for a black citizen to vote in Ferguson? What barriers are placed against their voting?
I just read this this morning but didn't post it. The 6% of blacks voting figure turned out to only apply to the last municipal election. In the same election only 17% of whites voted. The same percentage of blacks as whites voted in the 2012 election, ~55%. Despite costing more, the city holds municipal elections on different days than the wider election. That favors incumbents because they have more resources to get the vote out in low motivation elections. I'll have to hunt up the link because I didn't save it. I'll bet you in the next local election those local officials don't fare so well but one never knows.
This isn't directed at you personally ChickenFreak; I just wanted to build off your post. I have the odd distinction of having held elected office without ever having cast a vote myself. Many have told me that I don't have the right to complain if I don't vote. A few have called me some unpleasant names. Nearly all have explained to me how generations of brave soldiers have fought for my right to vote. I am also a ridiculously decorated military combat veteran. I fought and bled due to belief systems I no longer hold. Never though, did I fight to protect anyone's right to vote. If anything, I fought to protect someone's right to choose whether to vote or not. I simply choose not to. I have my reasons and for those who feel that not voting is irresponsible or wrong, my reasons won't matter - and that's okay; we're different. I'm a minority living in the United States. Here's my experience with the powers that be: My first run in with the police was when I was thirteen years old after I ran away from home. I was picked up by the police and stood in a room with six desks manned by six officers while the officer who had me in custody had me stand there with my pants around my ankles while he burned the obituary of a friend along with her picture that he had found in my wallet. I've gotten two moving violations in the last thirty years but have been stopped over one hundred times. I've been stopped walking down the street, sitting at a café enjoying coffee, riding a bicycle and driving. I've been frisked, thrown in a cell while they searched my car, threatened, beaten...my wife's been raped by a cop. Turns out there wasn't film in the camera that day. Up thread I spoke about being thrown to the ground and handcuffed while having a medical crisis. Please believe me that regardless of what you think, regardless of your experience with people who say such things - I do not and will not call the police for any reason, under any circumstance. Whatever danger I face is only exacerbated if I call the police. I've lived long enough to have seen politicians come and go, police regimes come and go...nothing has changed. Well, I take that back; it's gotten worse. I'm disenfranchised. Could I vote? Sure. Work is required to give me time off to vote by law. They can also fire me for any reason or no reason - as long as it's not an illegal reason. So go ahead yagr, and insist on your 'up to two hours' off work so you can vote today. See if you don't wear the wrong color pants to work tomorrow. Or perhaps you find yourself with fifteen hours on the schedule next week, instead of the twenty-eight you've been kissing ass for six months to work up to. Hell, I live on the rez. We don't have a voting station here. It's thirty-five miles or so to the closest voting station. There's no public transportation on the rez either, so good luck getting there and back in two hours if you do decide to go. Better have a car or be able to catch a ride with Uncle Dooner and hope like hell his car doesn't break down or he runs out of gas. Worse, better hope that the po-po isn't at the end of the rez road like it's Christmas waiting to gift the county with a bit more revenue as scoff-law Natives like Uncle Dooner, trying to make it on his $397/month social security, drives by with expired tags for the privilege of trying to vote for someone who really doesn't give two shits about him or his problems. At forty-nine years old, I've lived long enough to remember the "Help Wanted - natives need not apply" signs in storefronts along side "Dogs and Indians stay off the grass" signs in the yards. I did not grow up wanting to be a part of that system. I never grew up wanting to be a part of that society. So I stayed on the outside feeling powerless. And then a party breaks out... This time it's not me that's pulled over and beaten. It's not my wife that's raped. This time it's my cousin who was shot by police. My cousin was drunk. I've never seen him belligerent when drunk but to listen to the cop, he was some kind of combination of the Incredible Hulk and Crazy Horse. Of course, the autopsy revealed a BAC of 0.71 - almost nine times the legal definition of drunk so I'm going to suggest that he couldn't have done much more than sit there in a stupor - but you know, that can be pretty intimidating. I was powerless to prevent myself from getting stopped all those times for nothing but my race. I was powerless to prevent the beatings, the wrongful incarcerations, the unemployment, my wife's rape, my cousin's murder...and I'll be powerless again tomorrow. But right now, today, in this moment - there's a riot. It's pissing the po-po off. It's pissing off the mayor. It's pissing off all the people that have spent a lifetime pissing me off. It's making them look bad too. Oh heck, maybe rioting will make me look bad too; but you know, I already look bad to these folks. Today, I get to reach out and take a little bit of power. Today, I get to tell them, in a way that they will understand, what I think of their precious law and order. I don't agree with the rioting, but I do get it.
Wow, that's some history, @yagr. I have a lot of stories too but none that bad. I benefitted from the fact cops often let girls go while arresting the guys they were with.
I should likely aim for more clarification for what I am about to say, but fuck it. On the basis empathy and human suffering this is terrible. However, within the realm of the human condition, this is incredibly beautiful.
I tend to reject interpretations of political theory that place things along a simplistic line graph of either/or: 'right and left', 'democratic and undemocratic', 'Collectivist and Individualist' because life in my experience is always much more complicated than that. Don't get me wrong, you are right, with your next paragraph: At the risk of being boring, I know people use the word 'democratic' in a different way since the age of enlightenment (when before that the word 'democrat' was considered an insult, it was seen to be something very much like a communist) but where then does a republic end and a democracy begin? Is a republic now a democracy? That wasn't what it meant in the classical age - which is the definition I am using. The American founding fathers seemed to have a problem with the classical interpretation of the word 'democracy'. When I use the word 'democracy', I am using it in the sense of 5th century BC Athens. In modern casual usage you are right, but most political theory classrooms that I'm aware of still use democracy in the classical sense, and it was what I was told as a student too.
Jeez, yagr. I'm sorry to hear about your history. I agree. When using Schedler's chain of democracy to determine how democratic a country is, it doesn't claim to determine all attributes of a country. It only serves to differentiate between countries by looking at democratic attributes. I can definitely understand where you're coming from. Many people do still use democracy to mean a direct democracy, where the U.S. would be considered a republic as you mentioned. Some classes that I have taken do still use it this way; generally ones that are focused on outlining the history of political systems. The only problem with doing it this way is that no current country would be considered a democracy in that sense. Most of the classes that I have taken that discuss specific political theories in more depth, though, tend to use democracy as more of an adjective than noun. The use of democratic, then, would generally refer to some aspect of a system as democratic or undemocratic. Saying a country is a democracy is more of an informal demarcation based on how democratic the country is. Under this definition, the US would be considered a democracy because that democratic scale is based on a spectrum between more democratic or more authoritarian. This use can be more helpful in comparing political systems by saying things like, "The Peronists' pervasive clientelistic practices reduced the quality of democracy in Argentina by preventing other parties from being able to legitimately compete with them."
I'm seeing three discussions going in the same thread. Methinks we should split it up into three? Let's have a democracy vote! I, however, am going to go write. Ta-ta!
For example? Cops with dogs and firehoses? Signs at the polling place(s) saying, "No Darkies"? It's as easy for a black man to vote in Ferguson as it is for a white man if he cares to make the effort. Another thought. Maybe the race-baiters like Sharpton and Jackson would be of real service to the Ferguson community if, instead of showing up in their three-thousand-dollar suits when the TV cameras come on then scuttling back to D.C., they were to stay a while and do a little old-fashioned community organizing to help the black community develop some political influence.
Thought I'd update people who aren't paying attention. So the autopsy done by the family showed the fatal shot entered the top of the head and had a trajectory toward the face. It's an incomplete autopsy because they only had the body, no clothes, X-rays, or evidence from the crime scene. But the trajectory is not consistent with Brown, head down, bull-rushing Wilson as is being suggested. Instead it is consistent with Brown getting down or falling down with the kill shot coming from above Brown. Not above like standing over him, rather above like a standing person shooting at a down angle, but from a distance away. An audio has surfaced with the sound of 10-11 shots on it, a volley of 6, a few seconds pause then a volley of four. The pause is disturbing because it means Wilson had a chance to reassess the threat before shooting Brown again and killing him. The autopsy and audio recording are consistent with Tiffany Wilson's account. With the last 4 shots coming after a pause, given the trajectory of the fatal bullet, it's hard to come up with a scenario where Wilson shot at a man charging toward him.
I wonder if Brown fell down on all fours (head towards Wilson) after first volley, and then Wilson executed an injured man? Is Wilson in custody?
Wilson is not in custody. They've brought the case to the grand jury though, but they're not expecting anything to come from it until October, if I remember correctly. I'm not too sure about the validity of the gunshot recording yet. It was aired on CNN and they're still waiting for the FBI to confirm it. Basically it was a video chat from someone in the complex. I listened to it, but the conversation, what the guy is actually saying while the shots are being fired in the background, seem strange. So either this man is very odd, or it was staged. I'd like to believe it's legitimate, but at this point, I'm refraining from judgment until I get it confirmed by the FBI.