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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/28/sally-kern-affirmative-action_n_854936.html

Oklahoma state Rep. Sally Kern, a Republican, made questionable remarks in the wake of a measure seeking to ban affirmative action programs advancing in the state, Tulsa World reports.

According to the local outlet:

Rep. Sally Kern, R-Oklahoma City, said minorities earn less than white people because they don’t work as hard and have less initiative.

“We have a high percentage of blacks in prison, and that’s tragic, but are they in prison just because they are black or because they don’t want to study as hard in school? I’ve taught school, and I saw a lot of people of color who didn’t study hard because they said the government would take care of them.”

In light of the proposed constitutional amendment in question clearing the state House of Representatives on Wednesday evening, the GOP lawmaker also suggested women earn less than their male counterparts because they generally spend more time in the home.

The AP recently reported on the legislation:

The measure [will] put on the 2012 election ballot a provision that the state may not grant preferential treatment to any individual or group on the basis of race, color, sex, ethnicity or national origin. The ban would apply to public employment, education and contracting.

Opponents say the proposal targets a non-existent problem. Several Democrats contend the bill is an attempt to use race to generate fear and draw conservative white voters to the polls.

The Oklahoman reports:

Rep. Emily Virgin, D-Norman, one of the youngest members of the Legislature, said discrimination still occurs against women. She said she and her brother applied for home loans about the same time; her loan took longer to process and she had to make a larger down payment.

“I don't want a handout and I don't think any woman does,” she said.

Democratic state Rep. Jeannie McDaniel reportedly conveyed a similar sentiment, saying, “I don't believe women have reached their equal rights in Oklahoma," she said.

Yey for... whatever is going on I guess...

I'm all for the meritocracy thing, but some of the evidence in the article is a little odd. Percentage wise, I think there were as many lazy black guys in my classes as lazy(edit for clarification) white guys, and all the guys were lazier than most of the girls.

My personal experience does not mesh with theirs, so I *gets on soap box* demand more accurate data!

But then the home loan bit is equally absurd (and much more vague). I'm no expert but there could be many things that prolong getting a home loan besides being female, though I do think that I saw a report awhile back about discrimination in loans and women so maybe that ones not as far fetched.

The deep south. The place where all the black guys are really lazy and the white guys are just as lazy but they're always mad at the black guys for being lazy.

LordofHats wrote:Yey for... whatever is going on I guess...

I'm all for the meritocracy thing, but some of the evidence in the article is a little odd. Percentage wise, I think there were as many lazy black guys in my classes as white guys, and all the guys were lazier than most of the girls.

Speaking from personal experience: I'm really lazy, and I do fine, so that's probably not the best variable to consider in any study.


But anyway, I think the amendment being debated is more interesting than the commentary: affirmative action ban.




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Mike Noble wrote:The deep south. The place where all the black guys are really lazy and the white guys are just as lazy but they're always mad at the black guys for being lazy.

There's a slavery joke in there for sure.

dogma wrote:

Mike Noble wrote:The deep south. The place where all the black guys are really lazy and the white guys are just as lazy but they're always mad at the black guys for being lazy.

There's a slavery joke in there for sure.

And possibly even a Family Guy reference hiding somewhere as well.

People just really, really refuse to get the idea that being born into privilege makes a difference, don't they?

I mean, they just absolutely will not consider the idea that being born into a middle class, white family will make it easier to get a decent job than being born into an impoverished, black family. To the point where they'll end up spouting absolute nonsense like Sally Kern.

I mean, seriously, is it that hard to understand?

No. But many people are stupid, and the rest lie.





(I also lie)

dogma wrote:No. But many people are stupid, and the rest lie.





(I also lie)

I also lie.

Whatever. As long as my girl knows to get me a sandwich when I want one, who cares how much more money I make?

It's funny how, no matter how much people on this forum try to defend them, the Republican party's politicians continues to prove themselves to collectively be a bunch of racist, misogynistic donkey-caves.

I'm not touching the minority issue with a 50-foot pole.

The disparity between male and female wages is an interesting discussion though.

Here's a recent article from the Wall Street Journal:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704415104576250672504707048.html.

Written by the executive director of the Independent Women's Forum, it sums up:

Childless women under 35 actually make an average of 8% more than their male counterparts.

According to the US Dept. of Labor, full-time employed men men work an average of 9% more hours than women (full-time working women spend an average of 8.01 hours per day on the job, compared to 8.75 hours for full-time working men.)

Men are more likely to be impacted by the recession than women, with higher unemployment rates tied to reductions in economy-tracking professions like trucking and construction, as opposed to more traditionally female occupations like education and health-care.

Women now account for roughly 60% of college graduates.

The disparity between male and female wages is also fairly well explained by what can be called life choices. Women are more likely to take time away from their careers to raise a family. Women are more likely to trade financial incentives (a higher paycheck) for life incentives (working closer to home, fewer hours). My wife, for example, turned down a higher paying job that would have required a one hour commute each way for a lower paying job ten minutes from home. I, on the other hand, have an hour commute each day.

Also to be considered are the risks involved in various types of employment. Women rarely take more risky jobs. When controlling for industry, there is statistically very little difference in pay rates. I dated an IBEW electrician at one time, and her wages were based entirely on how many years she'd been in the union. Union negotiated wages for construction work were completely independent of gender.

So, while I think that the woman referenced in the initial article is a complete idiot, and that the poor will obviously tend to fare worse than those with a privileged background, it's important not to buy into the myths of a gender-based pay imbalance. It may have been true 30 years ago, but based on current research, it's clearly not true today, and in fact, the opposite is - women are out-earning men.

As a highly educated and comfortably middle-classed ackground generic white guy who has worked in high end and low end jobs with high end and low end people I have to say, on an individual level, I see absolutely no disparity between race or gender and wages. None at all. What I do see is any minority black, brown, handicapped, vaginal,(if women can really be considered a "minority") protected group having more bitching rights than your "average" white male who evidently gets no soapbox to stand on. It's the bitching rights that this seems to be confronting and I am all for it.

I lost a job because I was smashed to pieces by a minivan while crossing in a crosswalk. No foul on me. I was told by my lawyer, when I let him know that they wouldn't re-hire me, that since I was not part of any "protected" group, they were under no threat to feel obliged to re-hire me once I was healed up.

I was more or less forced out of another job because the new manager hated white people and made life hell for me, cutiting my hours to give them to her newly hired cousins and friend's "baby-daddys". How did she become a manager? Well, at the risk of sounding racist I will go ahead and say it: because she was a strong willed angry, self posessed african american matriarch appointed to the position by another of the same.

If a white guy doesn't hire a black guy but hires a white guy, he might be racist.
If a woman who does less work gets passed over for a raise it might be sexist.

On an individual level, at any job I have been in, race and gender have no bearing on the actual work people contribute and pay they get; except the evil white males, who are the only ones who cannot stand on a soapbox that they are being unfairly treated.


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So I say to anyone else who wants a soap box regarding unfair treatment at work: suck it up. You are not special either. If I can't bitch, neither should you.

Melissia wrote:It's funny how, no matter how much people on this forum try to defend them, the Republican party's politicians continues to prove themselves to collectively be a bunch of racist, misogynistic donkey-caves.

The (highly debatable) statements of a single person from a widespread and mainstream political party does not automatically reflect the views of other people who might be similarly politically inclined. Let's please remember this, especially in a thread ( that's remaining open as the optimist hat is on today, it must be the weather) which essentially focuses on the viability of making broad sweeping statements about a sizable number of people.

cheers

I think a lot of what the representative is saying makes sense. Not all black people are lazy or have an entitlement mentality, but it's a larger problem in the African-American community than it is in the white community (to the extent that there is such a thing as a "white" or "black" community).

Whenever you have entitlement programs, some people are going to take advantage of the situation and not attempt to do better than they would without the entitlement. When you direct these entitlement programs based on race, you get more people of that race that take advantage of the programs than the median.

This is the downside to entitlement programs that usually aren't considered. Giving money to the poor is a good idea, but when you guarantee people a check, there are going to be some who take the check and won't try to use it to get themselves out of poverty. Increasing the amount of the check doesn't encourage them to get out of poverty, it just creates more of a problem.

For example, if the government guarantees me $10,000 per year, and I can value my free time more than an extra $5,000/year, then it doesn't make sense for me to go get a job that pays $15,000 per year.

I posted this on my FB, and someone replied "This is awesome !!"

Might be time to cut some of the chaff from the friends list again...

Melissia wrote:It's funny how, no matter how much people on this forum try to defend them, the Republican party's politicians continues to prove themselves to collectively be a bunch of racist, misogynistic donkey-caves.

You forgot homophobic.
I thought this thread first said children and women. Of course children should get paid less. They're shorter!


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Mike Noble wrote:The deep south. The place where all the black guys are really lazy and the white guys are just as lazy but they're always mad at the black guys for being lazy.

Oklahoma's not deep south.
True fact: Oklahoma is really, really flat.

Frazzled wrote:
Oklahoma's not deep south.
True fact: Oklahoma is really, really flat.

So this one time I was passing through Oklahoma on my way to Texas, and in a Wendy's, parents were arguing with their child about what god had told her what she was going to do with her life... "well god told me I should go to xyz" "no, god told us you need to go to school here, and stay with us" "but god said..."

It was interesting to say the least.

How did her parents know what God said to her?

sebster wrote:People just really, really refuse to get the idea that being born into privilege makes a difference, don't they?

I mean, they just absolutely will not consider the idea that being born into a middle class, white family will make it easier to get a decent job than being born into an impoverished, black family. To the point where they'll end up spouting absolute nonsense like Sally Kern.

I mean, seriously, is it that hard to understand?

So what about the guy who was born into an impoverished, white family? Just because there are white people with money and privileges doesn't mean we all, or even most of us, also have them.

reds8n wrote:

Melissia wrote:It's funny how, no matter how much people on this forum try to defend them, the Republican party's politicians continues to prove themselves to collectively be a bunch of racist, misogynistic donkey-caves.

The (highly debatable) statements of a single person from a widespread and mainstream political party does not automatically reflect the views of other people who might be similarly politically inclined. Let's please remember this, especially in a thread ( that's remaining open as the optimist hat is on today, it must be the weather) which essentially focuses on the viability of making broad sweeping statements about a sizable number of people.

cheers

I specified the politicians of the party rather than its members. Or do we forget the infamous string of gay bashers in congress (both federal and state) who themselves ended up merely being in the closet... and who were all Republican?

Not that the democratic party politicians aren't also corrupt, but it certainly seems to me that republican politicians have a long history of falling prey to trying to appeal to these hate-based viewpoints as opposed to the more positive aspects of their party.

Kilkrazy wrote:How did her parents know what God said to her?

Dude, it's Oklahoma. We know what God is saying all the time.....yeah, he just told me you should stop touching yourself.


Sally makes me so proud to have been born in and living in this state. Hey, at least I got to live in other countries for a good number of years, unlike most okies who seem to think Arkansas is another country and Texas is the land of the anti-christ (aka Frazzled).

I could create a whole forum dedicated to the insanely stupid things that the politicians here try to get away with (and now are thanks to party-line voting on ballots).

Oklahoma is also where the wind comes sweeping down the plains and fights between cowboys and ranchers often breakout even though they should be friends. Not to mention creepy guys living in a shack on the farm trying to get the attention of the farmer's daughter while a much more attractive person already has the attention of the farmer's daughter.

There's also foreign travelling salesmen who berate women by calling them liars who try to get men to marry them.

Melissia wrote:I specified the politicians of the party rather than its members. Or do we forget the infamous string of gay bashers in congress (both federal and state) who themselves ended up merely being in the closet... and who were all Republican?

Not that the democratic party politicians aren't also corrupt, but it certainly seems to me that republican politicians have a long history of falling prey to trying to appeal to these hate-based viewpoints as opposed to the more positive aspects of their party.

You might like to know that the politician in question is also a gaybasher.

Just saying.

And he's probably also himself in the closet, but that isn't necessarily the topic of this thread

Melissia wrote:

reds8n wrote:

Melissia wrote:It's funny how, no matter how much people on this forum try to defend them, the Republican party's politicians continues to prove themselves to collectively be a bunch of racist, misogynistic donkey-caves.

The (highly debatable) statements of a single person from a widespread and mainstream political party does not automatically reflect the views of other people who might be similarly politically inclined. Let's please remember this, especially in a thread ( that's remaining open as the optimist hat is on today, it must be the weather) which essentially focuses on the viability of making broad sweeping statements about a sizable number of people.

cheers

I specified the politicians of the party rather than its members. Or do we forget the infamous string of gay bashers in congress (both federal and state) who themselves ended up merely being in the closet... and who were all Republican?

Not that the democratic party politicians aren't also corrupt, but it certainly seems to me that republican politicians have a long history of falling prey to trying to appeal to these hate-based viewpoints as opposed to the more positive aspects of their party.

Melissia wrote:And he's probably also himself in the closet, but that isn't necessarily the topic of this thread

Herself.



I'll forgive you because she's pretty manish.

Her husband is a pastor of a church and everybody believes that her son is gay.

Link to a humorous news blog: http://www.thelostogle.com/2011/04/28/sally-kern-thinks-black-people-are-lazy-and-don%e2%80%99t-like-school%e2%80%a6/#more-14824

He's not riding a moose, he's piloting it as a boat. Your argument is irrelevant.


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agnosto wrote:

Melissia wrote:And he's probably also himself in the closet, but that isn't necessarily the topic of this thread

Herself.

Bleh. I read the topic too early in the morning and apparently misread.

Melissia wrote:He's not riding a moose, he's piloting it as a boat. Your argument is irrelevant.

It's Teddy Roosevelt, he can do anything he wants.

halonachos wrote:

Melissia wrote:He's not riding a moose, he's piloting it as a boat. Your argument is irrelevant.

It's Teddy Roosevelt, he can do anything he wants.

Teddy > Chuck Norris.

agnosto wrote:

halonachos wrote:

Melissia wrote:He's not riding a moose, he's piloting it as a boat. Your argument is irrelevant.

It's Teddy Roosevelt, he can do anything he wants.

Teddy > Chuck Norris.