Why do people equate racism with ignorance?

What else should we associate it with?

Perhaps the thought is…you would have to be ignorant of facts in order to endorse racist points of view.

I think maybe you are confusing the definition of ignorance with stupid. Anyone who hates someone just because of their skin color obviously has not been exposed to people of that skin color who do not fit their racist stereotypes and therefore is ignorant, because there is not one group, race, ethnicity, religion, whatever, of people where all of the people are exactly the same. Everyone is an individual.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir

Hatred, a shitty person, a person of bad character, someone with a poor outlook on life. These things are unrelated to intelligence

@MissA

What if this person has had bad experiences with those of another race? What if statistically significant amount of these people conform to his or her stereotype (Not all, most black people this man sees talk “ghetto” for example, thus confirming the stereotype to him). What if this man is a compete dick head and just hates everyone and loves pissing people off. What if this man then gets into his benz and then drives to Harris Corp where he is a lead engineer??

@Enforcer To me, so is ignorance.

Being a racist implies assigning the same qualities to a while class of people based on their race. While some seeming brilliant people have been racists, they must have a blind spot in relation to the character of the people they hate, or they would have to know that such a generalization flies in the face of observed information and reason.

It’s easy to hate hateful people.

@Enforcer ignorance has nothing to do with intelligence.

@Enforcer How does what you said change what I said? I’m sure you have one…but, I’m missing your point.

Well, I should correct myself by saying that some use the word ignorant to mean a lack of intelligence, but the most common definition is lack of experience or education.

To me, racism, inherently, speaks to a failure of empathy. It may not be ignorant per se, but to make a decision not to think from another’s vantage point speaks to me of lack of insight, lack of self-awareness, and other elements I associate with ignorance. It would never occur to me to wear a shirt with a comment that I didn’t run through the old brain-pan and assess the extent to which it might be hurtful to someone else—if it was insensitive to others, I wouldn’t wear the shirt.

To hate is a choice. But it is not a choice I select for myself. I have the benefit of an education (which includes exposure to individuals different from me and my own experiences). I have the benefit of interaction with others different from me in my daily life. I choose to see these collective experiences as enriching. I ask people questions so I can better learn about THEIR experiences (expecting their perspective to be different). Difference doesn’t fill me with hate, it fills me with wonder, curiosity, and compassion.

I think we are all racist to some extent and we are each responsible for our own education and enrichment when learning about folks who have a different life experience from our own. It is not an African American’s responsibility to teach me about racism—it is my own responsibility to care enough to ask the right questions to be able to learn about our differences and the ways in which my behavior, thoughts, and comments might be offensive, misguided etc even if unintentional.

Because it is the result of ignorance. To think that a person’s race affects their intelligence or worth as a human being is ignorant. It shows a lack of knowledge. That’s what ignorance is.

@DominicX Well stated.

I’m with @JLeslie on this one. The word ‘ignorance’ means that someone is unaware of the facts, not necessarily that they are stupid. A racist is ignorant of the fact that people of all races are inherently equal, although they may not be stupid.

Edit: I mean ‘stupid’ in the sense that they are less intelligent than average, not that I disagree with them or think they are any less of a person.

My point is how people chose to treat each other or view others in there mind is not equal to that person being ignorant.

We are told to view each other as equal, to love one and other, to feel for each other. Why do we we have to love by default and not hate or discriminate? This seems to me like an artificial social construct to me. The statistical facts certainly are there to support racist points of view (3\4 of black males will be involved in the correctional system at one point in there life if I remember correctly). What if someone who possibly had a bad experience with black people nit-picks these facts? The non-racist will nit-pick other facts (99% of all human DNA is alike).

It is simply a different point of view.

I think @Kayak8 brings up some very good points. Racism certainly does show a lack of empathy toward others, but does a lack of empathy make one ignorant. What if someone gets there kicks from being insensitive toward others? The same way that you might get your kicks doing something constructive such as helping others. This person may have a flawed character, but in my opinion this does not equate to ignorance

@JLeslie
I read your response. What one gets out of education may be different than what you get out of it. Read my response above about nit-picking facts. Two people can be taught everything there is to know about Cuba, it’s history, EVERYTHING. One person who lives in New York may go

“These poor people. They are being oppressed. We need to give them a safe place in America”

the other who lives in Florida may go

“Too bad let them rot, they are taking our jobs.”

@JLeslie hit the nail on the head. You’re defining ‘ignorance’ too narrowly.

However, if that doesn’t work for you, I’m happy to go with ‘dickhead’. However the shoe fits.

I like to be a neutral person when it comes to questons like this, but JLeslie makes a good point. Hitler was definately racist, but look what he did. I’m in no way condoning it, but an ingnorant person couldn’t have created something. He was just a great big racist S.O.B.

@Enforcer “Why do we we have to love by default and not hate or discriminate? This seems to me like an artificial social construct to me.”
It is actually a time-tested and proven evolutionary principle that has been key in the success of humanity over other animals. Altruism makes the whole social group stronger, while the sectarianism promoted by racist groups just leads to fighting, corruption and disadvantages a society.

@Enforcer

Stating that black people have a higher rate of incarceration if they do is not racist, it’s stating a fact. Racism is the belief that some races are inherently inferior to others.

Perhaps thinking that true racists (not people who hold prejudices) are simply ignorant is positive thinking on the part of humanists. Ignorance can be cured. Maybe racists are just hateful people.

I see racist as being ignorant because they wrongly believe that they are superior and other races, as defined by them, are not. They are ignorant of the fact that there is no such thing as race, and all people are simply humans.

The minor differences in appearance are nothing more than that, minor differences. It has nothing to do with differences in our humanity, but racists have not been taught the fact, therefore they are ignorant of the facts.

Ignorance has absolutely nothing to do with intelligence, but is merely the absence of proper understanding of the facts.

@YARNLADY

This can go on forever lol but

“They are ignorant of the fact that there is no such thing as race, and all people are simply humans.”

Isn’t it ignorant to assume that that is the correct way to view the world? I’m sure you feel that way, and so do I but should everyone else feel that way and if they don’t they are ignorant? What makes that view correct??

Race certinly does exist from a genetic standpoint. Although our genetic makeup is somewhere on the order of 99% similar these subtle differences make a difference (medically). Blacks are more prone to different diseases than whites are due to their genetic makeup (i.e. Sickle Cell). I’m sure whites, Indians, Jews, Arabs, and Asians all have there own diseases, I just do not know them off hand.

@Enforcer It is objectively correct that no race is inherently inferior to another for lack of opposing evidence. No racist has ever been able to mount a valid argument in defence of racism, so we stick with the null hypothesis that there is no difference beyond the superficial.

@Enforcer You are doing a lot of defending racism for someone who is just asking an idle question, not connected in any way to themselves. @YARNLADY is quite right, one must be ignorant of well-established facts, or willfully ignore them, in order to believe that millions or even billions of human beings all share traits determined solely by their race.

@ETpro

An argument is no fun when no one argues the other way :p.

@FireMadeFlesh
“No racist has ever been able to mount a valid argument in defense of racism, so we stick with the null hypothesis that there is no difference beyond the superficial.”

That is what I needed to hear. That makes total sense. Great answer. You gave me some reason, not some feel good shit. Thank you.

By @FireMadeFlesh‘s postulate Racists are inherently ignorant.

[/Topic Closed]

@Enforcer Your assertion that there is genetic evidence to back you up is simply mistaken. The evidence shows exactly the opposite.

@Enforcer Thanks, glad I could clear it up for you.

i tend to equate Racism proper, with economics, or precisely, economic disparity and power play, far more than ignorance, but nobody wants to talk about that, the Bourgeois, liberal response in the face of Racism is to tut and point out, rather snobbishly, how ignorant and base Racists are, in contrast to how refined and open minded they are, that in itself is a kind of ism isn’t it?

Well it’s pretty easy to be anti-racist on a decent income. These same people tell us immigration is good for the economy, i wonder if the sentiment would be so charitable if the immigration solely consisted of the Managerial classes, trained IT personnel, Financial and legal experts, Doctors, Psychiatrists, College and University lecturers, Construction Foremen and so forth.

@mammal Immigration is actually terrible for the economy in the long run, but that is a different issue for a different day.

@YARNLADY

Interesting indeed..

“I am sure there are plenty of intelligent people that hate others of another race for one reason or another.”

And what do you think drives their hatred????

@mammal Unfortunately, ignorance and economics are not separate and distinct. It costs money to be educated.

@lilikoi By definition racism isn’t hating someone of another race, it is hating or being suspicious of everyone of that race. As @FireMadeFlesh so eloquently noted, “No racist has ever been able to mount a valid argument in defense of racism, so we stick with the null hypothesis that there is no difference beyond the superficial.”

@lilikoi sure, i was going to mention that. Vicious cycle of course.

So what the fuck? Does anyone out there agree with the idea that race is a motivational constant in all global conflict. Let me say it again, that race automatically comes into play whether we like it or not because globally speaking, there is a competition amongst different people’s to dominate. This is from my very limited perspective. Real people only care about what color your money is.

@truecomedian There is a vast difference between believing you are a higher form of organism and merely trying to work your way into a more secure and more powerful position. Just because we want a mining deal that might otherwise go to another country doesn’t mean we hate the people of that country simply because they are from that country.

@FireMadeFlesh
Question was about ignorance firstly, and I tried to throw out some knowledge, tried to actually do something however meager. You got me though, I wasn’t basing my statements on hate, I was basing it on something deeper, instinctual. I live in a diverse place, I experience racism towards me, regularly. It’s spooky, to be truly hated by a stranger.

@truecomedian If it is not too hard, would you mind telling us what it feels like and how you deal with it?

I was parking my car at the grocery store, and a “local” woman, just started cussing me out and using racially charged words, one in particular. It was unprovoked which made it so disturbing. I try to not let it get to me. People will slow down and drive by and you can hear them calling you names. I’m in a place where I am the minority, it’s neat to see how it is on the losing end. Neat because I’m handling it better.

@truecomedian That’s terrible. If anyone did that here they’d get their head beaten in, or at least verbally abused. I have only experienced racism once in my life when my girlfriend was insulted, and I will never forget the feeling. I am usually a rational pacifist, but I felt the most extreme rage that my own countrymen, in my own age group and from the same racial background as myself, could say such a thing about my girlfriend who was also born here and is as Australian as me. I’m glad you’re handling it better now – I can’t imagine what it would be like to experience it on a regular basis.

I believe the tendency to look down on others is hard-wired into all of us, and that whether that racism becomes a lifetime mantra or something we struggle to overcome—and I do mean “struggle” because I don’t think we can ever totally eradicate those darker feelings—is determined, at least in part, by our individual upbringing, influences and experience. Educated people, I believe, have a better shot at rational and enlightened thought and beliefs about this or any other subject.

Years ago I wrote a short story called “The Blackest Day” in which one morning everyone in the world wakes up black. I wrote it in two voices, one racist, the other, which I felt to be mine, a “liberal” (as we activists called ourselves in the ‘60s). Re-reading it today, I find the polar opposite positions naïve in light of what I’ve seen and experienced in the decades since. Still, the story’s premise holds up for me, which is that you have to walk in someone else’s skin (or religion) to truly know what it’s like to be that person and how it feels to be looked down upon.

@Austinlad I’m not sure I agree that it is hard-wired into us. Children never discriminate by race unless it is a learned behaviour from an adult. My mum grew up in Apartheid South Africa, and was good friends with the workers’ children. She tells stories of how she didn’t understand why the workers had inferior housing and didn’t go to school. Children are more likely to think about everything in terms of themselves and how people relate to themselves than they are to group people into ‘us’ and ‘them’.

@Enforcer I Just got back to this Q. What @DominicX said Stating that black people have a higher rate of incarceration if they do is not racist, it’s stating a fact. Racism is the belief that some races are inherently inferior to others. is along the lines of my response to your Cuban example. Feeling sorry for the Cubans and wanting to let them in, or not wanting to let them into our country is not racist, it is a political opinion on the situation and how it should be handled, unless the person simply does not want to let them in because they are Hispanic. This is the very argument going on with the new AZ law, some want to call it racist, others could care less what race or ethnicity they are, they just want immigration controlled, and crime to be taken care of.

Racism is ignorant. It shows that the racist is lazy in that they are not able to do their own thinking and that they are unable to recognize individuals. It also shows laziness in the willingness to ascribe negative traits based on a superficial issue.

Intelligence is not ignorance. If the racist is intelligent, it is worse because that person is willfully ignorant.

@FireMadeFlesh, good point.

@truecomedian “It’s easy to hate hateful people” – not hate, disregard.

@ETpro Yes, of course. It wouldn’t make any sense to hate one person of a race, because of race, and not hate the rest.

.I would like to approach this from a different view point. I have never known an intelligent, educated person who was prejudiced or wore inflammatory clothing. I myself get aggravated at some African Americans that have not taken advantage of the opportunities offered to them today and who had rather drop out of school and sell dope and shoot each other. But I don’t think all African Americans are that way and I welcome those who have risen above this

@NormanL That is a too simplistic way of looking at things. There are relationships that exist between racism, poverty and economics that aren’t about ‘opportunities given’ (whatever that means) or ‘rising above it’.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir The government has tried to level the playing field between blacks and whites. Some have taken advantage of this and improved their living conditions and economic wellbeing. But some have stayed where they were before integration and elect to live on welfare and drug sales

@NormanL I think you have a rudimentary knowledge of race politics if you believe that many have a choice and ‘elect’ to be into drug sales.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir I live in a small town in South Carolina that is about 50/50 race wise. I realize that you are the product of your environment. But there are too many opportunities out there today to stay mired in the poverty drug culture. I know too many who have escaped. I think most of these want to stay where they are because they drive big new cars and are looked up to by a portion of their race.

@NormanL Why people do what they do and where they get their status quo from varies and shouldn’t be generalized based on race. Your last sentence can be applied to whites, as well.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir But we don’t have whites living on welfare, dealing drugs, and shooting each other here.

@NormanL We don’t? According to the latest numbers I last checked, 38% of all welfare receipients are white and 39% of black – given that there are more white people, the proportion is more for blacks, sure but there is a very real history behind that kind of distribution and who welfare was supposed to serve in the first place. As for whether whites deal drugs and shoot each other, let me not even go there – that’s a fallacious statement.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir I am speaking from actual facts for where I live and can back it up with newspaper articles. I can’t speak for the rest of the US. But having lived here over 35 years, I can say I am 100% accurate.

@NormanL I’m sorry, you’re right…why don’t we drop actual facts and use anecdotal evidence from your life experiences. What are you trying to prove to anyone other than your own thinly veiled racist attitudes? I’m so over the whole ‘all them negroes need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps like my old grandpa and I did’ bs so please, please spare me and yourself.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir I am sorry that you feel that way. I was trying to have a civil conservation with you before you became insulting. I am expressing my disappointment with the progress of the majority of the African Americans in the area where I live. I was all for the end to segregation and the government programs that were supposed to bring them up educationally and economically. I am sure more progress has been made in other areas.

@NormanL Look, I know it’s difficult sometimes to pull yourself out of your body and look at your words…but look at your words, just the very last comment even…it’s so condescending…you were all for ‘programs that bring them up’...who’s them…all blacks everywhere? and who’re are you? C’mon, this isn’t about insults, it’s about inbred paternalism in some white people that makes them feel as if their liberal ideas are like god’s gift to blacks and that alone should sustain all good graces upon you. This isn’t true. Examine your words and see how you come off sounding. And btw, a civil conversation doens’t randomly end with you saying “I’m 100% correct” because that makes it not a conversation but a point you wanted to hear yourself make.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir I think @NormanL is generalizing about his specific community, and is very likely it is accurate considering how it is in the south. I never would have guessed how it is down here, until I lived here. I know so many people who did not have a prejudice or racist bone in their body, and then they move to the south and cannot believe the stereotypes that begin to fill their heads. You are right that it is a complex reason for why African Americans may not be progressing as fast as we would like. I think it has to do with segregation and then again with desegregation and how horrible white people were, even forgetting about slavery. The south treated black people like lepers. My theory is as a reaction the blacks became more determined to create their own culture, and not want to identify with the white man, but have pride in their own race. The thing is the “white” way is what works to get ahead in America. It is like when white people said, “we don’t want to be with you,” to black people; the blacks stood up and said, “we never wanted to be like you or with you in the first place.” Kind of saving face. That is my theory anyway.

Up north this crap was not going on. My parents did not go to segregated schools in NY, they never saw in real life driniking fountains that said colored on one and whites only on the other. The south has grown up differently, and now they live with the legacy. The whites in the south treated a group of people like shit, like cattle, to be bought and sold, and now they have to live among them more than any other part of the country. Both groups have fault, white people for acting immorally, and African Americans for not taking advantage of the opportunities they do have. I have to agree with @NormanL there. Even Oprah says she created her school in Africa, because American kids all have the opportunity to go to school, and they many times take it for granted and throw the opportunity away. I admit I have no idea if she meant black children, or white children, or just a general statement, but it seemed implied that people were asking her about helping her own in America so to speak.

It seemed to me @NormanL was saying he wants better for the African Americans around him. I don’t think we can brand him racist. He said he knows African Americans who are successful, educated, etc. I think he gets that it is not inherent in the race that they are, in his words, all selling dope and dropping out of school.

In biology, races are distinct genetically divergent populations within the same species with relatively small morphological and genetic differences.

For human beings the notion of races doesn’t make sense. Genetically speaking all of the 6.8 billion people are almost identical.

We should no longer use the word race when talking about human beings. A much better word is: ethnic origin.

@JLeslie Thank you for putting what I was trying to say in better words. I find that if one parent is a teacher, the child rises above, goes to college, speaks good english and has a decent job. But if the child comes up in a single parent home with little to no education, that child is doomed to repeat history. I wish that there was some way to break the cycle.

@NormanL Now you’re bashing on single parents? Nice. Hey, you know a good way to break the cycle: don’t spread your ideas to your children.

@JLeslie I appreciate your answer, I totally do but I will not lower my standards as to what I consider racist and as to what I don’t – one’s upbringing and surroundings of course matter in terms of one’s views and that’s all good and fine but when one has lived many decades and still looks around and finds time to judge ‘them over there with there big cars and there shootings and this single moms running around’, I have no tolerance for that kind of paternalistic glance – what gives any one of us the right to look at any one group and make up solutions to problems we scarcely understand and only use own life to back up our viewpoints? That’s short-sighted.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir I appreciate you response. I agree the choice of words is inflammatory. I just worry sometimes that when we get defesive about how things are worded the conversation stops, both sides stop listening. @NormanL Is probably using the language commonly used when speaking about black people in his community, and we can take the time to respond as to why it is offensive, which I think is a good idea, or just get pissed off at how it all sounds. If we dismiss people like him out of hand, because of how they sound, we may never really get to know what they are thinking. I know people who say horrible slurs about Mexicans, and then they think my husband is wonderful. I had one acquaintance the other day say, “I never think of him as Mexican.” So it is not actually that he hates all Mexicans just because they are born Mexican, it is generalizations the person is making about the group, but when they meet someone they still evaluate them as individuals. To me this is not racist, but definitely we could argue it is being prejudice.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir You can go to a very hot place and do not respond to any more of my posts.

@JLeslie Actually, instead of dismissing like many people who PMed me about this particular conversation, I pleaded and urged you, @NormanL , to take a step back and try to see how you may come off sounding to people outside of the area where you grew up. @NormanL As to the hot place, why, do you want a date?

@Simone_De_Beauvoir I agree with you about how it sounds.

I just wanted to comment about ignorance. This was brought to mind because I am following this thread and in a semi related one on another website:

I am sometimes told that I “act white” due to using proper written and spoken English, having a good job (while I should be out stealing), an education (other than in how to steal), and whatnot. I was recently complimented that I have a job (just a job) based solely on my ethnicity whereas this compliment would not have been given had I been white.

To me, that is flat out ignorant. The assumption that such things are the providence of white folks shows willful ignorance.

@NormanL I was raised in a single parent home: my mother died giving birth to me and my father never remarried. Most people can readily ascertain that I am well educated.

@Arisztid Who tells you you act white? White people or non-white people?

@JLeslie Both. It is an insult from non whites, and a compliment, observation, or insult from white people. It is ignorant from all.

Interesting that white people have the chutzpah to say that to your face. I would never think in terms of you sounding white. But, I am guilty of knowing when someone is black by how they speak. Or, assuming they are black, I bet I am correct over 90% of the time. The thing is when I talk to someone who sounds “white,” as we are using the term, I do not make any assumptions about their color or ethnicity if I cannot see them, and I am never surprised when someone who is foreign or has darker skin speaks like a white person, or better to say speaks middle of the road English with an American accent.

@Arisztid Why do people even bother saying so? Why do people of any race have to sound a particular way, rather than just expressing themselves as they wish?

@FireMadeFlesh Because of that conformity thing I have mentioned if not here then on previous Q’s. If you want to be successful in America best to blend in with how you talk and dress and carry yourself.

I think Simone is a bitter woman who twists words to make people think they are racist. You were not born into a single parent family, you were born into a two parent family in which one of the parents died. The biggest percentage of kids who live in poverty are born to single mothers. It is the most reliable predictor of poverty.
My daughter in law is black and I have 3 wonderful grandkids who are mixed race. My son is a police detective and Daugher in Law is a nurse. They moved out of Memphis because the kids were constantly hassled by other kids for “acting white” because they spoke proper English, were respectful to teachers and got good grades. They are now in a small town where they don’t have to put up with that crap. The kids who hassled them were black.
What we need is school vouchers to get some of those kids out of the lousy inner city school districts into private schools that will really educate them. The public schools, faced with competition, would improve as well.
You attacked Norman for no reason. You need to deal with your anger.

Just to provide an example Chef Jeff Henderson who went from prison to eventually becoming a respected chef at the Ballagio in Vegas talked about when he came out of prison he stopped body building with so much intensity and changed his walk to fit in better with the career he wanted to pursue, clean shaven. He said he new he would come off as too intimidating as a black man who is all pumped up and swaggers like he is from the hood. Here is a link about him, but it does not have the transcript of the show I saw http://www.oprah.com/oprahradio/Chef-Jeff-Henderson

@JLeslie I think that it is, with white folks, that most say it as a compliment or observation. Of course, assholishness knows no race so the ones that insult me just come out with it. I get more of it as an insult online based on how I write than in real life, but then idiots are freer with their idiocy online due to the “I don’t want my teeth punched down my throat” factor. I also have not had it tons of times, rather about a dozen or so times that I remember.

@FireMadeFlesh JLeslie pretty much summed it up. :)

@Directmale I think school vouchers are a plan to end public education and out-source most public funding of it to church schools. I think it would be a singularly bad idea for the USA. But if you counter that we must stop talking about fixing what’s gone wrong with our schools, and do it, I will totally agree.

@Directmale I tell the black people I know in Memphis, who have never lived anywhere else, to get out of Dodge and see how different it can be. I am not in favor of vouchers, but I am in favor of building a public boarding school for Memphis/Shelby county under the SEED program. I think it would be great if it was a campus outside of the city so the kids can have a very different experience in more ways than one.

I am in favor of vouchers for a number of reasons:

I would rather educate our kids than make sure teachers are paid enough.
I think parents want the best for their kids and will make better decisions when it comes to their education if they have a choice.
Public schools will get better with competition.
If private schools can provide better education for less money why wouldn’t we send our kids there?

@Directmale Your reasons are compelling. My concern is once you destroy an institution, it is very, very hard to take apart the private, for-profit business that replaces it. Public education needs to work. It did work, and it helped us build a great nation. It needs to be put back in working order like it was.

The price we pay for private business is profit. The price we pay for public institutions is inefficiency. I believe the profit is smaller and ultimately more valuable than ineffeciency.

@Directmale Either you know me and are a coward for hiding under a different username or you don’t know me and have no clue where my anger lies. Either way, do me a favor and stop saying nonsense.

@Directmale I worry about public school losing attention same as @ETpro if vouchers are introduced. I think public schools are very important. In the south a lot of people don’t give a damn about public schools and it shows. They resent paying taxes for them, because their own kids go to private schools. I always ask the same thing, “name me an industrialized prosperous country that does not have a public school system?” I’m still waiting to hear an example, maybe there is one? But, I doubt it.

I talked about desegregation a few posts back, and that was the beginning of the downfall of the public school system in the south from my estimate. White people pulled their kids out, even if it was to substandard private schools at the time. This started a trend of the middle class and higher sending their children to private schools in the south. The places I grew up the majority of people went to public schools, MD and NY, and they were good schools. For a family with two or more children paying higher taxes for better public school is much cheaper than putting two children through private school.

Having said all of that, I have no idea how to really turn around cities like Memphis, because it is not just school that is a factor, there are cultural mores and norms that also need to shift, along with safety in our neighborhoods.

From what I understand California has a sort of voucher system within the public system. That children can go outside of their district, switch schools, easier than previously. That is interesting to me. Where I just moved from in FL there were a lot of Magnet Schools for children to specialize in their interests. My parents grew up with a magnet type of system in NY years ago. From what I understand Memphis is doing a lot of Charter schools, I have no idea if it is successful.

@Directmale Public institutions can and should be made efficient. When they are, they deliver services better and at lower costs than private, for-profit institutions can. I agree with @JLeslie. I have looked around and worldwide, successful, prosperous nations all have good public school systems. I recognize there’s a lot wrong with our schools today, and that needs fixing. But I am not willing to throw so vital an institution on the trash heap of privatization. Private industry has its legion of examples of failure as well. Enron is a poster child, bet there are many more listed here.

This topic went from racisim and ignorance to public vs private institutions and hte school system. How it got there I don’t know lol. This is a lot of responses to sift through.

@Enforcer Sorry about that. I guess I’m part of that odd drift.