Stuart Schneiderman:
Upper middle class New Yorkers embrace diversity, until it comes to their own children. They happily affirm their commitment to a culture of self-esteem, until it enters their children's classrooms.
Thus, they overcome the stress of helicopter mothering through the private school system.
posted by Helen at 2:10 PM
32 Comments:
This comment has been removed by the author.
I don't mind him...and blogs often serve as blotters for what bloggers are reading, no matter how much the blogger agrees or doesn't with the opinions of the reading list. So I don't take it as a signal of Helen's intelligence that she quotes other blogs.
That seems to be a common theme among many "open minded" people. They are open minded, until... And that blank is filled by all sorts of things. For academics, until they encounter Christianity. For "liberals", until they have to live under the rules they made with no room to wiggle. The list goes on.
It, in an odd way, reminds me of some saying or poem or such, something along the lines of... When they came for the Jew, I said nothing, for I was not Jewish. When they came for the gypsy, I said nothing... etc. Until they finally did come for so-and-whozitz. Only, these people are usually able to, or think they will be able to, carve out a little safe nook in the fabric of whatever they are creating. Many of the powers that be who installed Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, Castro, et al, were very wrong. Weak people who will lose it all. I wonder how they are fairing with the economic crash? No safe world unless they move, if then. They will be outsiders even in their own home towns until or unless they lose the liberal think.
I sort of feel sorry for them. They live such huge lies. Perhaps I would like things a bit too normal, but then, yeah. I really would. My actual problem with that isn't "them", it's me. At least I get that.
Doom, it's a famous statement attributed to Pastor Martin Niemöller that you refer to.
"THEY CAME FIRST for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
THEN THEY CAME for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
THEN THEY CAME for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
THEN THEY CAME for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up."
The liberals in my family live in the most insulated neighborhoods and have little day to day contact with minorities and others not in the upper middle class realm. The only person in my family to ever live in a gated community is a liberal.
The conservatives? We're out there getting our hands dirty mixing with everyone, even the liberals as distasteful as that is. I probably have more interaction with blacks and other minorities on a good day than the liberals in my family have in a month.
New Yorkers should get out more--to the National Parks and Forests, for example. There you will not have the opportunity to mingle with a Black, Brown, Red or Yellow American.
Of course, most of the time you will be hard-pressed to find anyone under the age of 60.
National Parks and forests nothing more than country clubs paid for by all and enjoyed by the few who are White and well-off.
Kind of like our public universities.
jimbino:
I can't agree with you more. That is the big secret of the National Park Service. I live near a National Monument. For the last 6 months I've documented how the Law Enforcement Officers there have targeted blacks and have issued them more than anyone nuisance citations. Luckily I was able to bring this to the attention of my federal elected officials who have taken swift and appropriate action. But the racism in the national parks is system-wide. I've been to many/most of them and have very rarely seen anything but older white people and white families.
(Not to get off-topic)
You guys need to visit the Smoky Mountains. Since I don't see everything through racial lenses, I've never kept track of the proportion of visitors by race. But, you'll find plenty of young people.
Especially at the swimming holes, the two most popular are the "Y" and the Sinks. It's the most visited national park in the country. I hate the traffic. Following a motor home for miles is a pain.
In the few hundred times I've been to the Smokies, I've only seen rangers ticketing/arresting someone a few times.
As I remember, the arrestee was always a drunken, white redneck.
Dadvocate:
At the National Monument they've ramped up the ticketing. In fact, prior to 6 months ago I've never seen anyone get a ticket for anything. Not only do they give you a ticket for having your tiny puppy off-leash but the LEOs do a full background check to make sure you are not a terrorist. Other infractions include bicycling on the bike path. Due to some construction the park has temporarily banned the bikes so they put up a tiny sign. If you miss reading the sign it's a full background check and a $75 ticket. The park has 1 stop sign, if you don't stop for 3 seconds at the sign it's the background check and $125. The LEOs for 6 months did nothing but create stop sign tickets, and many black people who dared enter the park got the ticket.
Baltimore City's children are 90% black but it is a rare day that one will see a black school group visit the park. In fact, I have never seen a black school group up there. I have been visiting that park weekly for 25 years.
Dadvocate, next time you visit the Smokies or any National Park/Monument take a look around. Count the black people.
Off-topic but words of wisdom from Camille Paglia, in a 1991 speech at MIT:
http://gos.sbc.edu/p/paglia.html
"Now for a series of minor points. The idea that feminism is the first group that ever denounced rape is a gross libel to men. Throughout history, rape has been condemned by honorable men. Honorable men do not murder; honorable men do not steal; honorable men do not rape. It goes all the way back through history. Tarquin's rape of Lucretia caused the fall of the tyrants and the beginning of the Roman Republic. This idea that somehow suddenly feminism miraculously found out that women were being exploited and raped though history is ridiculous. We have got to remove things like rape from the women's studies context and pull it back into ethics. It belongs in ethics. We have to ask how should everyone--not just men--how should everyone be trained as a child to behave in society. We must put it in a general philosophical context. This idea of focusing in, suddenly, at the freshman year of college--it's too late! Guess what--you're not going to convert anyone with a few films on date-rape education, a few demonstrations, and a few pamphlets being passed out, you're not going to change anyone's mind. Look--ethics has always condemned such abuses. You do not have this endless series of atrocities through history. Men have also protected women. Men have given women sustenance. Men have provided for women. Men have died to defend the country for women. We must look back and acknowledge what men have done for women.
Men's creation of the technological world of today has made me possible. I remember my paternal grandmother on the back porch in Endicott, scrubbing the clothes on a washboard. She had nine children. I remember that. I, her granddaughter, could have the leisure to write this book, thanks to the technological world and modern capitalism, which has such a bad rep. Look around the world, okay, and see what the reality is. Oh, I thank God I was born an American, I thank God. When I got to Europe--I feel the smog of convention hanging everywhere in Europe, even in England, which is a very free-speaking and free-thinking country. In America, woman is at her freest. Never in history have women been freer than they are here. And this idea, this bitching, bitching, kvetching about capitalism and America and men, this whining--it's infantile, it's an adolescent condition, it's bad for women. It's very, very bad to convince young women that they have been victims and that their heritage is nothing but victimization. This is another perversion."
I would LOVE to see Dr Helen and Camille in a room, possibly with a deep iconoclastic PUA thinker-analyst like Roissy, for a few hours talking about the raw deal men get in today's media society.
next time you visit the Smokies or any National Park/Monument take a look around. Count the black people.
Sorry. No will do. I don't go to national parks to perform sociological studies. I prefer to look at the world through a clear lens rather than one tinted with racism/sexism/class hatred or what have you. Visiting a national park is a voluntary activity, blacks and all others come and go as they wish. To make this a racial issue is idiotic.
Because of the bears, it is illegal to have an unleashed dog in the park. Dogs are only allowed on two trails at all. Taking a dog in a trail is a risky and stupid behavior. While much smaller than their grizzly cousins, black bears can be just as deadly.
As for the tickets at whatever national monument to which you refer, I can't speak but I doubt it's a nationwide problem. I've never heard of a complaint in the Smokies and I lived to ride my bicycle there the first 38 years of my life. Perhaps, you should visit that national monument and document whether or not tickets given were or not were for actual violations and whether or not blacks were disproportionately ticketed.
As for visiting the parks and monuments, maybe they just don't want to, or don't have the resources. Other than Knoxville and Chattanooge, TN and Ashville, NC, the Smokies are a long drive from anywhere. Park campsites are in high demand. Private campsites bordering the park are relatively expensive. If you can't afford the gas and have a decent car, it's not a trip you'll make.
I disagree more with jimbino's ignorant statements. When I say I've visited the Smokies hundreds of times, I don't exaggerate. To preserve nature, the old log cabins, stop poaching, etc, rangers enforce the rules and laws more strictly than you'll usually find in everyday life. But they do show some leniency.
The Cherokee Indians have a reservation bordering the North Carolina side of the park. Jimbino could go there and find the Red Americans he so longs to see. I'm sure they enter the park whenever they choose.
DadAdvocate is the kind of person who thinks it might be OK to tax all Americans to support construction and maintenance of Catholic churches, arguing that it's OK since atheists and Protestants could attend the mass if they wanted to. Or tax-subsidized circumcisions and Bibles, arguing that any American is free to get one too.
One day the ACLU or the NAACP will take on this issue of why black people don't feel welcome in the national parks. I'm sure it is coming sooner rather than later since I'm not the only that has noticed the situation. And when they do things will probably change for the better, much better. I do wonder what happened to the head LEO at my local national monument. He hasn't been seen or heard from since I contacted my elected representatives about the tickets. Not only that, but I haven't witnessed any citations issued either. It's back to normal with the friendly suggestions by the rangers about leash Fido on a leash and nobody has had to endure a background check either. Life is back to being good.
Jimbino, you're a friggin idiot who wouldn't recognize the truth if it hit you between the eyes. You're the kind of person who creates lies about people and portrays it as the truth in order to avoid confronting the truth.
All I will say is, if I go to a national park and feel comfortable (safe), I will stay and play. Otherwise, Jimbino and crue can have it. There doesn't seem to be an alternative. And, without someone to predate and the means to do so, da crue won't be there. I suppose, too, if there is a disparity, that is why.
Disparity is only immoral prejudice if it is due to one subsection being barred. Well, lots of them ARE barred, but the free ones are very much allowed into parks, if they aren't a threat to others, follow very easy rules (most can read them), and have some reason to be there. Disparity? I suppose so.
Cham wrote: "One day the ACLU or the NAACP will take on this issue of why black people don't feel welcome in the national parks."
I would rather they take on the issue of why black people don't feel the need for fathers.
Trey
Or why don't Jews feel comfortable playing in the NBA?
Trey
There is a really really good reason why white people would want all segments of society enjoying the National Parks. If you want me to write it out I'll do so, just say that you are interested.
Cham, it is a false issue, that explains the lack of interest. There is equal access to the parks, so everyone who wants to go can. Saying anything else is just nonsense.
So I am not interested.
Trey
And that attitude will ultimately cost white people their beloved national parks in the long run.
Cham,
I second TMink. Go write it for some prize, your Ph. D. in some useless social studies program, or your own entertainment. It is useless and pointless, worth less in wisdom, functional knowledge, and cash value than the paper (even virtual paper) it might end up printed upon. Or better, do it with crayons and get someone to give you a gold star for effort.
As I tried to say before, for many national parks the lack of minorities visiting, if this is really so, has at least something to do with the individuals's financial resources and interest. If you don't have the financial resources to own, rent, or borrow a car that will make the trip, pay for the gas, food, lodging, etc, you won't visit many national parks. For instance, visiting Denali NP would be a financial strain for me.
I'm pretty sure most blacks are urban dwellers, even more so than whites. Fewer may simply not have the interest in visiting the wilderness as they may have learned to prefer city activities.
Dadvocate you are absolutely right. The National Parks Service probably likes it that way. Older people are often meek and willing to abide by the many park rules and regulations. It certainly helps that a National Parks pass costs $80 for a single person or family per year per year, $10 of for a person over 62 which is a one time only fee, and nothing for a disabled person as they don't have to pay at all. Disabled and senior citizens get discounts on camping fees. The fee structure certainly tells a tale.
But let me explain the future. One may assume that in a few years the population of the US (if not already) may be 33% white 33% black and 33% other races. Lets also assume that our elected officials may eventually represent the colors of the population, same percentage breakdown. When it comes time to advocating for our National Parks only 33% of the population will care, which means 67% won't have visited the National Parks and won't care that a developer wants to put up a housing project on the side of the Smokies, or someone wants to mine the Tetons, or someone wants to log the Redwoods. When it comes time to cut the budget the Park Service will end up on the chopping block. But then again, some white people may not care either.
The Park Service should end up on the chopping block. Just like public schools and USPS.
To avert your doomsday scenario, Cham, all we need to do is privatize.
Walmart, Ted Turner, Disney World, UPS and Fedex all could deliver parks, mail, conservation, education, amusement and medical services better than their gummint-run or gummint-subsidized competitors.
Jimbino: If the Park Service was to ever privatize Walmart, Ted Turner and Disney World would all be extremely concerned that they would be missing 67% of potential customers. We'd have a Reggae Festival at Gettysburg, Africa Day at Guadalupe and Caribbean Fest at Glacier. I'd laugh till I was blue.
I never realized there was so much bias against older people. I hope to be one some day. Getting close already.
"But let me explain the future."
Where is my wallet? Good, I am sitting on it.
Trey
"But let me explain the future."
Cham has a rather dim view of the non-white racial groups and their ability/willingness to appreciate and preserve nature. It would be interesting if the liberal ideology ended up destroying much of nature that they "love." It wouldn't be a surprise though. Liberal ideology is destroying the people they claim to be helping.
I just got back from Yellowstone (a park of color apparently.) As I recall, there were people of color present as employees and visitors. Lots of young and older types too.
The mindless drivel from Cham and Jimbimbo on this thread is ... mindless and racist.
Dadvocate, I am aware of the traffic in the Smokies, but try a 2 hour traffic jam without any forward movement at all because the bison are standing in the road ... giving birth, nursing the young or just plain loitering.
Those damn bison just do whatever the hell they want, don't they? I guess being the size of your average pick up truck has its advantages.
"Those damn bison just do whatever the hell they want, don't they? I guess being the size of your average pick up truck has its advantages."
This might be a good thread to bring up the Orwellian UPenn incident where a student was suspended for racism for telling a fellow student to "quiet down, you water buffalo!" He was charged with racist hate speech; the woman who was being noisy was black, and the administrators at a major school went forward with the conviction that water buffalo were African and thus the student was acting out his latent racism.
Google it; the administrator at the center of it all wound up at Duke, to repeat the travesty with the lacrosse hoax.
Whoa, I knew about the water buffalo incident, but not that the buffoun was involved in the attempted lynching at Duke.
Trey
The laugh-in moment of the water buffalo incident is that water buffalo are Asian.
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