mental health services really aren't up to par in America. They take a basic look, diagnose you, send you off with pills, and don't check in until something goes wrong.
Agreed. The pharmaceutical companies command so much power here that medicate and forget has been the technique used to treat our mentally unstable.
Our system also seems to over focus on nonviolent drug related crimes rather than violent crime. Rapists walk free while someone goes away for decades for possession (with intent to deal). _________________ http://jonnyleather.com
To quote Mark Corrigan: Yes, I suppose the news should just be a dispassionate list of all the events that have occurred the world over during the day. That would be good. Except of course, it would take forever!
...rightly or wrongly people are interested in it, I'll shamelessly admit I spent several hours digging into this kid's character yesterday.
Now that I'm in front of a non-mobile device, I want to give a more detailed response to this point, because even though I generally agree with it, it's kind of attacking a straw man. Let me clarify.
The mainstream news media in the US is awful. Rocky's video is a great example of how the people running media outlets have no concern for the safety of the people they're supposedly informing, they only care about making money. If a tragedy occurs, they will do everything they can to convince people that it could happen to them, even if the odds are miniscule. If a child disappears, it will get more coverage if the child is cute and white. If there is an event related to politics, they will purposely slant the news to appeal to their target demographic (FOX news is not the only channel that does this). Etc., etc.
But the thing is, I really don't expect any different. With a free press in a capitalist country, the system will naturally select those who put money above all else. The only way that I can see to mitigate this kind of sensationalism is with more money going to education. More informed consumers will demand higher quality news and they won't be satisfied with the obviously slanted garbage that gets peddled on the mainstream news outlets.
Yes, I admit that I have a morbid curiosity about the gunman in this instance, but it's like like the sugar of news -- part of me craves it, but I also know that it's bad for me in large doses. News these days is entertainment because that's what sells, but we really don't need it to be entertainment, at least not in the same sense that movies are entertainment. Believe it or not, there is a part of our brain that is stimulated when we learn things about the world around us. There are people (including me) who seek out news for this purpose and this purpose only.
So how do I think the news should be presented? Not in list form, of course, because that's actually not very informative. It makes no attempt to paint a bigger picture and it's completely unrealistic on a national scale. Rather, I think the news should be more data-oriented. When an event triggers a discussion about gun control, rather than bringing on a parade of myopic pundits and jump-cut imagery, they should present something very similar to what Rocky posted above: statistics, graphs, and open-minded interpretation. Large-scale data compilation and analysis is something that the news media could theoretically provide for us that we couldn't get trivially on our own by just browsing the internet. There are a handful of blogs devoted to this already, but just think of how much better it could be with the resources of a major news network.
And maybe there is some of this coming. Blogs like FiveThirtyEight made it to the national spotlight after the 2008 elections and have been gradually gaining readership and interest on the national level. Sadly, the majority of Americans are probably not educated enough to easily digest even what Rocky posted, let alone the detailed analyses on FiveThirtyEight, but it doesn't have to be that way forever. I hope it isn't.
Yeah, I think there is a real problem with seeing news as entertainment, I think being informed on current affairs should be enough incentive for people to watch/read.
Still, I'm not actually that upset at television news in the UK, there are actually rules on impartiality for tv news so you don't get the political slants that you get in print news. But still, in print news people do actually choose to read newspapers which they know have a strong political bias, which I find odd, but I don't know how investing in education would change that, that sounds very vague.
On deeper analysis of big events or just for a more in depth look at particular issues, I'm actually very happy with the programming we have for that, particularly on BBC but Channel 4 too. Stuff like Newsnight, This Week, Question Time, Panorama, Hardtalk things like this, can all be excellent.
Eh, I guess I'm just not as fed up with tv news as you are. An American friend of my grandparents said one of the things she likes best about visiting is BBC News, I'm not sure how big the difference is though having not seen much American news programming. _________________ Shut up mate you're boring!
But still, in print news people do actually choose to read newspapers which they know have a strong political bias, which I find odd, but I don't know how investing in education would change that, that sounds very vague.
Perhaps I'm naive, but I still believe that educating people helps them to make better decisions. Divorce, criminality, risk for stroke and heart disease, and I'm sure many other things correlate negatively with level of education. That's not to say that there won't be exceptions -- my mother-in-law has a Ph.D. and watches Fox News religiously -- but in my experience, more informed people are less likely to do things that are bad for them.
I can't really speak to the quality of news in the UK, though I'll have to look into the impartiality laws you're talking about. Something like that would never fly in the US.
Thoughts on racism in America? I mean, it's always going to exist, but do you think it's as "alive and well" as this video suggests?
I think it's interesting to note that when my history class asked if racism still existed, the only kids who said "yes" were me (the 1 jew), a girl with a Cherokee mother, the only 2 black kids, and a Samoan immigrant. The Brazilian exchange student said after that she didn't understand the question but would've agreed. The rest of the (white and to my knowledge Christian/agnostic) class said racism is totally dead in America. Is that in itself the problem here? That people just ignore the racism that is left? Or is racism still a strong enough force here that that's really the root? Is it (it probably is) a combination? Is this video blowing things out of proportion?
It's 1:20 here and I can't sleep so I've been thinking about all of this for a bit and I'm curious as to your takes.
Just to clarify though, I'm in the camp of "there's still racists but an equally bad problem is that people just kind of ignore the racism that does exist now." Maybe that's a limited perspective though. _________________
I can't speak for America, but here in Britain it's never a double-sided sword, and it all boils down to "your ancestors didn't have to experience slavery" or "you are the natives of this country, so you don't feel like an outcast". White racism is still nowhere near as prominent in the UK as black or Asian racism, for sure, but it's still a factor that needs to be taken into account, and it's still one that goes under the radar quite a lot of the time. There's this kid at our school who gets called a Gypsy (or even worse "pikey", "gyppo", etc) all the time, and if you were to report that to someone they'd just laugh and say it's friendly ribbing or whatever. One time my friend was blasting out some shitty brostep from his headphones and was singing along to the tune ("ying ying ying ying" or something like that), and an Indian supply teacher comes in and says "are you dissing my language?" Well, for starters honey, your language is English (I recall her surname was English, and she told us she was half-English), and secondly how is "ying ying ying ying" even remotely dissing Indian. He got reported to senior staff, and even though they understood, they had to isolate him for a day because otherwise they thought the Indian supply teacher would report them because she felt that the school's views on racism is too lenient.
Now, is it just me, or that kid who gets bullied by getting called a 'Gypsy' should be able to report this to staff without getting the response of "if they're being hurtful, ignore them, but they're probably just having a joke", considering an Indian teacher reported my friend for singing "ying ying ying ying"...?
As I said, in the UK, racism is never a double-sided sword. If you're half-Asian or half-African, you're offended, if not, you're not. That's the general consensus. _________________
Obviously that video isn't the day to day experience of ethnic minorities in the US or UK, but it shows the type of thing that somebody might experience as an ethnic minority.
I think it says a lot that all the white kids in your class think racism is totally dead whereas the kids who actually have to experience it are far too aware that it isn't. I think it's terrible for people from majority groups to talk about how these sorts of things aren't a problem anymore without having any of the perspective they'd need to be able to say that with authority. People can convince themselves it doesn't exist because mostly it's far more subtle than calling someone a nigger in a carpark, but obviously it still exists and actually if you look out for it it's really not hard to see.
I'd say that the problem is still the racism in itself, but people being blind to it, willfully or not, makes it that much harder to change it. _________________ Shut up mate you're boring!
If kids are calling this kid a gypsy as a racist slur then it follows that he's some sort of ethnic minority? Otherwise it's not racism is it.
SuedeSwede wrote:
As I said, in the UK, racism is never a double-sided sword. If you're half-Asian or half-African, you're offended, if not, you're not. That's the general consensus.
But, really, have you ever actually been seriously offended by someone being racist to you? Assuming white kids are the majority at your school, there's a big difference between someone saying something racist to you compared to saying something racist to someone who isn't part of the majority. If someone calls you a cracker when you're surrounded by white people it's not very offensive, really. On top of that, besides the difference in impact, I would find it very hard to believe that racism against white people is anywhere near as prevalent as against ethnic minorities in the UK, in fact I'd be happy to say that's just incorrect. _________________ Shut up mate you're boring!
This video is exactly what you'll find when digging through white trash. That woman is pure white trash. Pretty sure I heard her say she strips for all the cops, so of course she's an ignorant racist.
Racism is still quite prevalent in the U.S.. The actions are just less severe. The KKK is no longer the force it was. segregation is mostly over, at least in the lawful sense. Racism is just more subtle. Like how blacks are more regularly convicted of crimes. Or how in NYC stop and frisk seemed to heavily focus on blacks. Riding the subway every day, any time I saw cops running stop and frisk, I'd walk right by, but they'd stop an African American. The worst of it all are the whites now saying that they're the ones suffering the racism. Like how racism has come full circle and poor Donald Sterling was forced to sell his basketball team for an absurd profit. He's the victim.
Oh, and if the white kid called gypsy actually comes from a lineage of persecuted gypsies then the complaint reasonable. Otherwise he can go cry me a river. _________________ http://jonnyleather.com
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