I think the apology is very important and I am glad the pope did it.
This is what the Pope said to the Native Canadians:
"Through your voices I have been able to touch with my own hands and carry within me, with great sadness in my heart, the stories of suffering, deprivation, discriminatory treatment and various forms of abuse suffered by several of you," the pope said on Friday.
"It is chilling to think of the will to instill a sense of inferiority, to make someone lose his or her cultural identity, to sever their roots," he continued.
Pope Francis said something to them in his apology that His Holiness will not admit has happened to pre-Vatican II Catholics right after the Council and currently to Catholics who accepted and enjoyed Pope Benedict’s Summorum Pontificum.
Stop and think about Catholics who in the late 60’s and early 70’s who preferred the cultural heritage of the post Trent Catholic Church, to include the manner of religious life, the ceremonies of the Sacraments and the cultural aspect of Catholicism especially in national and ethnic popular devotions as well as it ecclesiology and doctrinal certitude.
These so-called (and negatively called this, btw) pre-Vatican II Catholics suffered deprivation, discriminatory treatment and had instilled in them a sense of inferiority to make them lose their cultural identity as Catholics rooted in the Council of Trent and the counter-reformation.
The Holy Father’s abusive language toward young people who prefer the older liturgies of the Church is unacceptable and suggesting that they are seriously mentally ill in their rigidity that covers dark secrets and perversion is abusive by any stretch of the imagination.
It is what I have called and continue to call implementing the so-called “spirit” of Vatican II in the most pre-Vatican II authoritarian way which included shaming and instituting discrimatory treatment against those who prefer to the older liturgy and were allowed since 2007 to enjoy these forms of the liturgies without discrimination and prejudice.
Connect the dots, Holy Father, rescind your cruel repression of Summorum Pontificum and apologize for using authoritarian and mean-spirited pre-Vatican II methods to harm the spirituality of scores of Catholics.
As Pope Francis notes, as it concerns the treatment of minorities in Canada, the issue is as much authoritarian righteousness of the pre-Vatican II Church with an abusive form of discipline as it is using that same authoritarian mentality in the post-Vatican II Church to call what was once acceptable and led to the holiness and martyrdom of multitudes of Catholics as somehow now corrupt and depraved and to be stamped out.
Archbishop’s Roche kicks up the abuse and discrimination of those who prefer the “older liturgical books” by saying their Masses can’t be advertised in bulletins and should not take place in parish churches, but rather non parish chapels of some sort.
This is Macon, Georgia’s beautiful and historic train station (now only a banquet facility):
And when it was a train station, during southern segregation, this is what “colored” people experienced when they came to wait for a train (this is still there, preserved for historical purposes):
81 comments:
Maybe the "indigenous people" can apologize for savage torture of missionaries in North America? This is simply another example of exaggerating any errors that might have been made by the Church and white explorers and ignoring the horrific inhumanity of those who have benefited from the introduction of Christian culture and have the audacity to complain about it.
All this accomplishes is to further de-legitimize the Catholic Church and Christianity in the eyes of self righteous secularists.
No more apologies until the American Indians account for the hundreds of deaths of Catholic martyrs.
Michael A,
Good points.
Father McDonald,
The problem is "liberals" like PF lack real core, liberal principles. It is their way or the highway. They are hypocrites on steroids. But what he and Roche are trying to do will all be washed away in about 10 years when the last of these intolerant, double-knit dinosaurs checks out or are in nursing homes. My 32 year old pastor will be liberated from these tyrants. He still says Mass in Latin once a week, thank God but he is lucky he does not have a left-wing loon, oh so "tolerant" bishop!
As for segregation, if you keep up with what is au courant, many universities are re-establishing segregation: all black dorms, all black graduation ceremonies, etc., etc. George Wallace would be very happy with modern day "liberals."
Michael A:
It is difficult to read, but is this what you are talking about?
https://www.simplycatholic.com/who-are-the-north-american-martyrs/
Please share with us any other accounts of North American Indian torture of Catholic missionaries of which you are aware, so that we can establish a baseline of agreed facts before expressing any opinions about them.
Mark,
I'm talking about a distortion of history that writes of only white man atrocities against the red man. When you do a google search on Native American tortures, you'll get pages of exaggeration about how whites killed millions of Indians. I question the veracity of those numbers because I'm not sure that there were millions to kill? If there were then the white annihilated the entire population of the hundreds of different tribes that were killing each other long before the ruthless Christian landed on American shores.
Here's a recent article that sums things up well
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/genocide-slavery-and-rape-lets-remember-the-atrocities-of-indigenous-peoples
Michael, how would you feel if Russia entered your state and your property and called you a savage and took your property and when they came they came with Covid 19 that spread to you and killed your loved ones?
Colonizers were viewed as invader and the colonizers took the land of the natives and pushed them out. Many now live on reservations in reparation for the lands that were taken from them.
They were in a war for their culture and land. And in Canada, their children were placed in residential schools to conform them to Canadian expectations about citizenship and in these homes, managed by religious groups both Catholic and Protestant, they experienced tremendous physical and sexual abuse and some died of this abuse as well as disease.
You can’t see the injustice in all of this and the latter part that I write in the living memory of many people including me!
Father,
Does it make sense to you that the white man came with bacteria and the stone aged Indian had none? You do know that the Indian was a nomadic stone aged man when white settlers arrived? When you torture your prisoners by chewing off their knuckles, then you are a savage.
The Russian invasion is something that I do experience first hand. I am Ukrainian albeit 1st generation in the USA but my wife is from Odessa and her family lives there. The Russians have based their invasion on denazification. What is worse in this world, to be called a Nazi or a savage? We know it's the former. I don't care about the Nazi name calling because I know it is nonsense. I do think when you correctly identify a people for what they were/are it hurts, because it is true.
I guess your argument is that the white man had no right to come here and America and the people who lived here would be better off if the white oppressors had not arrived? Maybe they would still be enjoying human sacrifice if only the puss infected white conquerors had not shown up? Did you know that the "indigenous people" performed a unique form of abortion on white women? They liked to slice the womb open and scattered the baby on the ground. I don't think that's savagery, do you?
My main point in this was, that I believe that the motivation of the attacks on white Europeans coming to the America is that they were Catholic and they brought Christianity. So you play into the hands of the secular modernists when you blindly accept all of their one sided distorted revisionist history.
I can't help if the Indian in Canada didn't want to be educated. Funny how we spend trillions to give people an education in this country and it's noble but when they attempted to educate Indians in Canada it is recorded as an outrage. Maybe you're right that they should have been left them without an alphabet and they could still be scratching some hieroglyphics on stone walls? Unless they got into their canoes and sailed the ocean to Spain and taught the Europeans how to farm, like they supposedly did here. That's a real knee slapper!
Michael A,
You are dealing with a lefty who wants you to accept his lefty sources of disinformation: The New York Slimes, etc. i guess he has forgotten St. Isaac Jogues
When do we reach the point when it's time to stop apologizing and making symbolic and real acts of reparation with ANY group?
Black people make up about 14% of the U.S. population, yet, because of our "collective white guilt" and all other relentless attempts to make whitey the bad guy 24/7, colleges, businesses and all variety of institutions promote "diversity" in various ways. If you watch TV or go to movies, you would think that 85 to 90 percent of the population is black, as they are oh, so careful to "equalize" representation, showing all of these black characters in commercials and TV shows living in upper middle class neighborhoods, with no illegitimate children, and speaking English correctly (never using phrases like, "I be sayin'..."). The seamier side gets exposed to us in the movies, where the "R" ratings give license to a darker reality that is equally stereotypical. And, thanks to the obscene salaries paid to pro athletes and entertainers, phrases like, "baby mama" have become mainstream. We've elected a black president. We've had two black supreme court justices and are about to get a third.
Yet to hear the media, all black poverty is whitey's fault. All white people are racists. White people have ruined America. White people regularly kill black people with cold indifference. All white people are potential Klan members. And an organization that OPENLY ADMITS it is both Marxist and anti-family has white people fawning and slobbering all over themselves to either join or endorse, because their title provokes some sort of accusation that if you are against them, you hate black people.
Yet, we are STILL apologizing. What have the apologies and programs achieved for us? Angrier members of Congress (think Maxine Waters and Cory Booker) spewing ever more hateful (and utterly false) accusations against white people AND black people ("If you vote Republican, you're nothin' but an 'Uncle Tom'") with no sign of anything getting better. We have cities that have stopped prosecuting violent crimes if you happen to be black. We've created a raging Leviathan that hates everyone it deems worthy of hatred and holds sway with its media enablers.
Every American is embarrassed by slavery. I suspect a majority of southerners are embarrassed by the Jim Crow culture that followed Reconstruction. We're not all monsters. Yet somehow, our culture of perpetual "mea culpa" has created a monster.
I don't have any evidence to present about the "indigenous peoples" of Canada, but I strongly suspect something very similar is taking shape up north.
"Yet to hear the media, all black poverty is whitey's fault. All white people are racists. White people have ruined America. White people regularly kill black people with cold indifference. All white people are potential Klan members."
I suspect the only "media" that one hears this nonsense from is the type that wants to make "whitey" afraid in order to seduce him or her into actions, including voting, that are, to say the least, regrettable.
"When do we reach the point when it's time to stop apologizing and making symbolic and real acts of reparation with ANY group?"
I suspect we can stop when there are zero impediments to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness among people of color that are the direct result of racism, past and present, and its related sins.
I am very aware of the reality, past and present, of racism in our country, including the fact that my maternal forebears in Charleston, SC, were slave owners. (I have a transcript of my great-grandfather's will that mentiones them as his property.) Yet I have never felt that I am a "monster" because I am caucasian, or that I am, at present, responsible for their actions.
I am also aware that, as a causasian male, I have never once been discriminated against because of my race, I have never been profiled and followed by security around a high-end mens' store because of my race, and that a banker or other finance officer will never take my race into account should I apply for a loan.
I recently saw a couple of short videos where a black girl cold cocked a white girl on the basketball court and a young black boy track runner did the same to a white runner during a race. Hard to believe but they were both racially motivated attacks. A real shocker!
When I was commercial lender, I didn't care if the applicant was brown, black, orange or green because I had loan goals to hit and if I could find qualified borrowers that's all I cared about. That's how it work's in the real world, not in a liberal fantasy land. In fact the law would give us extra brownie points if we did make loans to minorities which is called the CRA Act so we tried to make these loans as best as possible. If you didn't then the Feds could pull your charter or prevent you from expanding or buying other banks. This was in the 1986.
I know there has been discrimination against white and Asian college undergrad and graduate applicants. The lawsuits that have been argued in these cases have been an invention of the privileged races?
I'm a big Rams fan and my brother sent me Eric Dickerson's autobiography as a birthday gift. I loved Eric Dickerson until I read his book. It was a disgusting insult to white football fans everywhere. Every page had some kind of imagined racial grievance on it including how he always referred to Blacks with the capital "B" and to whites with the lower case "w". Imagine if a white retired NFL player did the same in reverse.
Regarding loans: The History of Lending Discrimination - Systemic racism still bolsters the racial wealth gap (Investopedia March 2022)
How mortgage algorithms perpetuate racial disparity in home lending (Marketplace August 2021)
A.I. Bias Caused 80% Of Black Mortgage Applicants To Be Denied (Forbes September 2021)
Racial bias in mortgage lending is very real, but there are steps you can take to secure a loan when the odds are stacked against you (Business Insider June 2020)
I don't think any of these sources, particularly FORBES, can be said to be part of a "liberal fantasy land."
Fr McDonald,
Given your ancestry, you might take some comfort from the fact that the indigenous peoples (now referred to as 'First Nation') fared much better in Canada than did their counterparts in the United States. After the battle of Little Bighorn (25 June 1876) Sitting Bull and many of his Lakota followers crossed into what is now Saskatchewan and encountered James Morrow Walsh of the North West Mounted Police. Walsh told him that as long as they kept the Queen's peace they could remain, and that the law was enforced equally.
It is worth noting that the reason for the Mounties' red tunics was to prevent Indians mistaking them for US soldiers.
Incidentally, I don't think PF should have apologized, and his reasons smack of 'multiculturalism' - a secular ideology which can be criticized on a number of counts; indeed his two immediate predecessors actually did so. Assimilation is not a bad goal in itself, although the methods used to foster it may be questionable.
And slavery wasn't an issue in Canada even before it was abolished throughout the British Empire in 1833. In contrast the number of slaves in the USA continued to grow, reaching nearly 4.5 million by 1860. Fortunately for those who escaped to Canada on the 'underground railroad', American attempts to invade British North America during the Revolutionary War and later the War of 1812-1814 were defeated.
"I suspect we can stop when there are zero impediments to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness among people of color that are the direct result of racism, past and present, and its related sins."
In my previous career as a teacher, many--in fact, the majority--of my black students had NO interest in academics and were only present because they HAD to go to school. If you spoke to them personally and tried to show concern about their lack of academic initiative, they would roll their eyes or ignore you, About the only thing they COULD show any commitment to was memorizing the words to rap "songs", most of which were laced with obscenities. Racism didn't force them to throw their academic careers in the trash. Racism didn't force them to commit sex acts in the bathrooms. Racism didn't force them to get pregnant before they were 14. Racism didn't force them to despise reading as something "white people do" while they disrupted class just for the fun of it by deliberately coming late every day.
Wait.
Yes, I apologize it WAS racism in some cases. It was racism against white people. Their hatred for white people was reflected by their misguided idea that academic success is a "white thang". It was reflected in the dialect of unintelligible sentence structures and double-negatives they spoke in because "I ain't talkin' white." And sometimes it was reflected by the seething hatred they showed to white teachers, no matter how patient and kind we would treat such students.
Racism exists. It's always existed. In some form it always will exist. It's time to stop presuming that ONLY white people practice it. And it's way past time to stop using it as an excuse for underachievement. Most of the black students I knew way back when were their own worst enemies and trying to help them was about as fruitful as pouring water on a stone and hoping a flower would grow out of it. Not all white people are racists and not all black people are racists, but like so many others who have faced discrimination, many black people have become the thing they hate: Racists. We should hate racism (the sin) and love racists (the sinner).
I would love for all the self-righteous, sanctimonious liberals to see what it is like to see Dr. King's Letter from a Birmingham Jail being taught and reviewed in classrooms where white students show interest and black students put their heads down or try to sneak at the chat on their cell phones.
What leads a black student to disregard the importance of education? Is it genetic? Is it the hip-hop lyrics they hear?
Might it be that they have seen that being well-educated did little to change the circumstances of their parents or grandparents in many regards. Maybe it's because, even when well-educated, their parents have been profiled by law enforcement and questioned on the flimsiest of grounds. Well-educated and law-abiding, their forebears were denied loans, not promoted in their work, followed in stores by security, and profiled when driving.
South Carolina US Senator Tim Scott, a black man, spoke on the floor of the Senate in 2016 and spoke of the seven times he has been pulled over by police. "He described several encounters with police, including one where he was stopped because the officer suspected his car was stolen. He described a similar incident that happened to his brother, a command sergeant major in the U.S. Army." He went on to say, "I do not know many African-American men who do not have a very similar story to tell no matter their profession. No matter their income, no matter their disposition in life."
So the idea that the only people responsible for their tragic circumstances are the black students who don't value education is a white-wash.
No one assumes that there is not racism among whites and blacks. No one.
As for students in general, I suspect there are many, maybe the majority, of white students in many places that are disinterested. That sad state is certainly not found only in black kids.
Fr K,
Then why don’t YOU lend your money to people with poor credit scores, lack of verifiable income and whose collateral is severely compromised? And then when you try to collect you will be called a racist. Most of those so-called studies are bunk. Forbes unfortunately is no longer reliable. It is drifting to the left and is is not much better than the New York Slimes
Thomas Garrett,
Thank you for demonstrating that actual experience can be more valuable and reliable than the findings of think tanks, whether liberal or not.
No-one has yet come up with a satisfactory explanation as to why Afro-Caribbeans tend to achieve more academically than do Afro-Americans. Both are descended from slaves. Any ideas?
Thomas Garrett,
The race card was maxed out when Obama was elected president. If the US was as racist as the leftwing media and Democratic Party (but I repeat myself) claim, how was his election possible?
The grievance industry is a business and race hustlers make a lot of money off of it, playing to the gullible and ignorant (which includes much of the liberal clergy and academia).
Thomas Garrett,
Now if you wanted to see something really off the rails, read this about an Hispanic speaker at an alleged Catholic college, Carlow College in Pittsburgh where we are exhorted to reject and crucify "White Christianity!"
https://www.thecollegefix.com/catholic-university-speaker-crucify-whiteness-embrace-hopelessness-ethically-lie/
If this is considered to be part of a "liberal" education, I suspect more colleges will be closing in the US in the near future.
Fr. Kavanaugh,
As I said, the race card was maxed out when Obama was elected president. But I have one question to pose: why does Obama avoid Black people? Why does he live in lily white enclaves of privilege? Why has he not returned to Chicago to help solve the problems of a city run by the Party of "Light and Goodness" for over 70 years? Why did he send his daughters to private schools while denying Black children vouchers to get out of failing public schools?
TJM
Perhaps because Obama is of mixed race (Kenyan father, English mother) and can identify as black or white as it suits him.
Meghan Markle is in a similar position - lives a privileged life but will blame 'racism' for her increasing unpopularity (nothing of course to do with her own appalling behaviour and scant regard for the truth).
Sophia here: Despite the fact that I type so slowly, I could not refrain from weighing in! I am so incensed by the comments of some of the people on this blog, whom I would characterize as actual White racists based on the lengths to which they go to excuse the behavior of Blacks, not recognizing that what they are really doing in effect is asserting that Blacks have inferior intellectual and will power and should not be expected to achieve academically or behave as morally, as others do! But notice that as the excusing of behavior have increased over the years, the out of control behavior is also accelerating-check out the Black crime rate in all the large cities in the U.S. (virtually all run by Democrats I might add!). Rule #1 about human behavior-you get more of the behavior you excuse, enable, encourage, reward. I cannot speak to whether racism was the actual reason why Congressman Tim Scott was stopped by police. Perception is a devilishly stubborn foe to argue against. But I do know several whites who were stopped by police and thought it was "unfair" for one reason or another-but they could not play the "race card"! And since I know that a disproportionately high rate of crime is perpetrated by people with Black skin that may well have contributed!
I worked in a girls detention center. The majority of the youths were Black and were there for violent crimes perpetrated against society. including with firearms. The relatively few whites there were usually there for taking their mom's car without permission, running away from home, truancy, etc. -mostly non-violent. Parents would press charges.
Luckily I have visited this topic in the past and saved my comments so I will repost them below! This White racism excuse for the behaviors, outcomes for "people of color" is not just outdated, it is downright pernicious, insidious, dangerous! Enough already! We are definitely in the age of radical Black racism!
John - The references I posted to the reality of continuing racial discrimination in lending are not from "think tanks."
Regarding Thomas' anecdotal, and I would suggest, biased, reporting, I suspect you could find many teachers who found, in their "actual experience," that their black students were very engaged in their educations.
TJM asks “If the US was as racist as the leftwing media and Democratic Party (but I repeat myself) claim, how was [Obama’s] election possible?
The apparent paradox is exactly that—apparent. There is no real paradox once we make the perfectly sensible distinction between active, personal racism and structural racism from which we might passively benefit, being privileged within these sinful structures. (Whether or not application of the concept of structural racism in the NCR article about Will Smith is sensible is a different question; so is the question whether, and how, children should be educated about structural racism.)
This is not leftist claptrap. Not only does the CCC address the issue. No less a person that Pope St. John Paul II does so too. The following explanation may help:
https://www.ncregister.com/blog/what-pope-st-john-paul-ii-said-about-structures-of-sin
Sophia here: This is essentially a repost of one of my previous posts over a year ago.
"And for the record I am a so-called black woman-that's for the ones of you who have stupidly decided that unless a person has the same trivial melanin content, the same genitalia, the same mental disease, the same addiction, the same level of criminality etc. that person is not allowed to speak about any fallacies connected to members of those groups. I actually self-identify only as a human being (race), Decent (ethnicity), practicing Roman Catholic, American Citizen who has been gifted with a keen logical mind, which I refuse to violate by subscribing to political correctness-I aspire only to be correct! So here I go.
The Democrats along with their propaganda arm have perfected the ugly technique of vilifying and destroying the reputation of people they hate by calling them names like the dreaded R word!
The crime rate is a much bigger problem than any racism that's out there. And I don't know of any systemic or structural racism that still exists. There are white and black racists of course, and most of the white ones are Democrats. Observe how they continue to insist that blacks are so inferior in ability and self-efficacy that even after approx. 50 years of Racial Quotas/Affirmative Action/ Diversity/preferential treatment we need even more. Notice how they excuse disproportionally high rates of violence, out of wedlock births and abortions as if disproportional numbers of blacks are incapable of obeying laws or of responsible behavior. Was Jesse Jackson a "racist" when he said if he was walking down a dark street , heard footsteps behind him, turned around and saw that it was a white person, he was relieved? No, of course not, he was just telling the truth. However if a white person said the same thing, he would be a "racist"!
There was definitely institutional racism in the past-the Democrats gave us Segregation and John Crow Laws. But not now! Instead that claim continues to be made and the term continues to be used precisely for one reason- to extract more concessions from society, to demonize whites and to make excuses for choices members of some minority groups make! Notice how Ivy League schools discriminate against Asians in favor of other minorities even though numerically Asians are even more of a minority than Blacks are?
We are even declaring that the characteristics which have been proven to lead to success no matter which group embraces them, is a sign of white supremacy/white privilege, and should be eschewed by blacks lest they be seen as "acting white"!
The terrible reality is that Democrats have mischaracterized the actual problems and are pushing a false narrative in order to maintain and increase their power by establishing "victim classes"! Unless problems (diagnoses so to speak) are accurate the solutions (treatments) will inevitably fail! Worst yet it has been extremely costly in tax dollars, wasted human capital, crime, misery misdirected hatred of others who don't deserve it...
It is absolutely astonishing that something as ephemeral as skin color is being used as a basis to persecute perfectly innocent people! It is even more astonishing that the actual victims of this miscarriage of justice have allowed themselves to be guilted and bullied into silence!"
Martin Luther King must be turning over in his grave-character, ability, behavior are out melanin content is back in-big time!
Mark,
It is leftist claptrap. Why so many flee to a “homophobic, mysogynistic, racist” country like the US also blows a whole in your sides narrative. Why not try living in Cuba or Saudi Arabia for a year and report back. And take your buddy, Father K with you!
Sophia,
Notice how are resident leftists never address head on the facts we put before them? They can’t handle the truth and seek to obfuscate the truth by pointing to “studies” prepared by fellow leftists equally detached from reality. How puerile
Sophia Here: Another of my previous posts on the topic of "Institutionalized Racism" Jan 13, 2021
"We do have a history of Institutionalized racism in this country- instituted by Democrats. Since the 60's, however we have been dismantling that. At the present time we have come so far with Affirmative Action, Diversity and Inclusivity policies etc. that these are the only policies which are currently institutionalized for Corporate and Government hiring and promotions, for Admissions and employment in Universities for example. We are definitely at the other extreme-meritocracy, qualifications, competence, character, White straight, Christian males are out. Melanin (which accounts for skin color) content is in! President-Elect Biden's selection to head the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, Kristen Clarke embodies this Institutionalized policy. She has declared that Blacks are superior to Whites physically as well as mentally precisely because of melanin! What rubbish! To further their agenda of sowing discord and hatred against the actual minority-White straight, Christian males, the narrative of persistent Racism in Institutions is often bolstered by the endless showing in the media of the very painful- but in actuality a miniscule number of- examples of White police using excessive force against Black suspects. However, they totally refuse to report that a disproportionately high percentage (52%) of violent crimes are actually perpetrated by Black males who are a disproportionately low percentage of society. There will be a disproportionate number of interactions between the police and Black suspects not because of their high melanin content but because of their behavior. Unfortunately some of these interactions have the potential to end very, very badly-with the death of the suspect or more often the death of the police officer! It would be logical to address the reasons for the interactions rather than push the false narrative of racism being the cause. But since the objective is to further an ideology, they don't do that. Notice how the media seldom tell us the names, let alone show us videos, of Whites killed in altercations with police? Racism,(as well as homophobia, xenophobia and all sorts of misapplication of the term "phobia") is being used as a cudgel to achieve an ideological end! Bigotry exists in people of all "races"! I have met, have worked with, and have known-even a few in my extended family- Black Bigots! Bigotry which is an example of sinfulness is part of the human condition but it ought not to be elevated to a position of dominance and encoded into law regardless of the melanin content of the sinners! President-Elect Biden has just declared his preference that Covid relief for small businesses will be distributed based on melanin content and/or genitalia of the business owners. Guess which business owners will be excluded? If you said White males you would be correct! Let us hope that there are at least a few Democrats, since they are in the majority in Congress, who will oppose this.
Big time Prayers for our Nation and our Holy Mother Church!"
January 13, 2021 at 2:13 PM
Sophia ought to check out the PROPAGANDA of too many in the Republican party when it comes to the splendiferously absurd Big Lie. Trump lost. Fraud was not the reason he lost. The desperation is growing thinner by the day.
Trumpian Republicanism, closely identified with democracy-ending fascism, is only the latest threat from their ilk.
Fr K
If you question Mr Garrett's objectivity and veracity regarding his personal experience then I suggest you take it up with him. If you can demonstrate that his experience is atypical, then by all means do so, and provide evidence to that effect. It would, of course, be anecdotal.
'I suspect that ... ' is not evidence.
John - The evidence I presented regarding the ongoing impact of racism is in the articles I posted. You choose to overlook them since they don't support your biases.
Since you find Thomas' evidence so compelling, you ought to show that it is more than anecdotal, and that it is, in fact, factual. Oh, and provide evidence to that effect.
To believe that woke large US Banks like Wells Fargo are out to deny loans because they hate the color of someone's skin is a joke. Give that some thought and ask yourself if it sounds at all plausible.
Corporations are motivated by profits and a bank can't make profits if it doesn’t make loans. As I said, there are unnecessary laws on the books that were put in place to prevent a practice that is self-defeating for the organizations that would practice them. The laws are unnecessary because of free market economics. When you make stupid decisions based on emotional beliefs, you will not succeed in the long run. Imagine if institutional shareholders become convinced that large banks were denying blacks and Indians(which was the original aggrieved racial group of this discussion) loans based on racism. Do you realize how devastating that would be for the bank(s) that would be found guilty of this in woke 2022? Institutional shareholders would dump the stocks and the business would be crushed. As a competitor of the racist bank, I would want them to practice foolish racism because it weakens my competitor. Now people like Father K might actually believe that there is a grand conspiracy among all large US banks to practice racism, but this fantasy only exists in a fanatic liberal’s brain.
Rather than posting a bunch of worthless articles to prove his point, why doesn’t Father K present the succinct arguments and facts of the case(s)? Possibly because the articles aren’t worth the paper that they are written on. What you’ll find out when you read the articles is that they offer no proof and all they do is make empty accusations that lead nowhere. It’s the same as the articles that I get bombarded with in my current profession that incessantly claim that because there are not enough women and black financial advisors there must be crazed misogynists and racists to blame. They can’t find them but they know they are out there.
So, what we understand is that Father Kavanaugh knows that banks in the USA have a mathematical program in place to help them perpetrate an injustice that is not in their best economic interest. He claims that because accusations have been made, they must be real, but all the cases that are actually brought to the courts are thrown out. He must also believe that the Catholic Church is racist because there aren’t enough blacks in the pews and possibly even in his own parish. Let’s put him on trial now until he is able to get the exact percentage of the black population in his community to match the percentage of black parishioners in his church. Until he does so, he is guilty as charged! Using his reasoning this is justice.
I didn't mean to start an "evidence war".
I'll be the first to admit that what I wrote IS anecdotal, but it is something I witnessed repeatedly with the same curriculum for several years. When black students found out I was presenting a lesson on King, they were initially excited. But when they had to get into the specifics of WHAT was wrong in Birmingham and Selma and what specific strategies King had and what his rationale was, they shut down. King was a well-educated man who could not be intimidated into hiding his extensive vocabulary for fear of "talking white", but anything that challenged those students out of their comfort zone was something they couldn't be bothered with. Again and again, I saw white students get very involved in the reading and projects, while the black students put their heads down or just giggled while they talked and gossiped to each other. Of course, it was not EVERY black student, but it WAS the majority of them.
I suppose I have no right to say this because of my skin color, but I am infuriated when I hear black people, especially young black people call each other the "N" word and, yes, I've heard all that rot about how they "own" the word and they get to use it. Most of them have no clue how dehumanizing that term was for the people who came before them, people who couldn't revel in the status of being "oppressed", but simply lived in oppression. Those people didn't have the luxury of recording "artists" spewing obscene hateful diatribes against white people to a beat. No, those people SACRIFICED and SUFFERED so that those who came after them could have more opportunities. And, more often than not, I saw the young people who had opportunities their parents and grandparents could never dream of, throw it away because it was easier to just say they had no chance and blame white people for it.
I/ve been hearing this nonsense since I was in the second grade. Sorry, I have "racial justice" fatigue. It's all B.S. anymore. I once thought we had made progress, but it's all to obvious that progress would mean acknowledging that things are better and the hustlers want to make sure that NEVER happens.
If you want to put on some fake "African Tribal Stole" and kneel with Nancy Pelosi be my guest. Why not be stupid? That's what we're being played for.
"Rather than posting a bunch of worthless articles to prove his point,..."
I suspect that - no, I am certain that - Forbes, Business Insider, Investopedia, and Maerketplace have done the research that backs up the claims they made in the articles I referenced.
I am certain that you dismiss them as "worthless" because you 1) have not read them and 2) could not, if you wanted, show that their conclusions are false.
Banks don't have a problem. People who work in banks do, unless you think that the HR departments in all banks have a perfect algorithm that weeds out ALL people with problems in this regard.
Some people go to GREAT lengths to absolve themselves and others from any culpability whatsoever and even acknowledging that racism is very much alive in our culture today and that it continues to impact the lives of millions.
Fr K
All accounts of personal experience are by their nature anecdotal. The witness's memory could be at fault; he might be embellishing or exaggerating events as a result of bias (conscious or unconscious); he might even be making the whole thing up.
This being so, there is no point in calling witnesses in a criminal trial, since their veracity cannot be proved. Circumstantial evidence and forensic science should alone determine the outcome.
Do you acknowledge the flaw in this argument?
Father Kavanaugh,
Occasional hiring of a few racists that somehow take over the entire home mortgage lending practices of behemoth banks whose management is too stupid to figure it out until they get sued is not what the articles you posted argue. They claim there is SYSTEMIC RACISM and you do too. What you now claim is that HR departments are letting a few bad actors slip through the cracks and that is not systemic racism. Have you read your own sources?
Since you have evaded your own personal guilt that can be proven statistically we must conclude that in fact you are a racist. What percentage of blacks live in your parish community and what percentage are they of your parish? Do you actively recruit blacks to come to your parish? I think it would be a good idea for you to go door to door in the black neighborhoods and invite them to come to your parish. Be sure to go at night time when you know they are home from work and report back to us what kind of results you're getting.
"They claim there is SYSTEMIC RACISM and you do too."
Correct on both points. "Systemic racism" does NOT mean that every person working in banking or any other business is a racist or that there is a policy, written or unwritten, that endorses racism.
Your accusation that I am a racist because the number of blacks in my parish is low seems to indicate that you simply don't understand that parishes are intended to serve the local community. The islands this parish serves - Wilmington, Talahi, Whitemarsh, Oatland - are 87% caucasian, 3.5% multi-racial (non Hispanic), 3% black, 2.25% Asian, and 2.1% Hispanic. Guess what? We have HIGHER percentages of the minority populations in our parish than the local percentages. (Keep in mind that only 6% of blacks in the USA are Catholics.)
So, your accusation falls flat.
John - The threshold to determine guilt in trials is "beyond a reasonable doubt," not absolutely, perfectly, and unassailably correct. Therefore, you are not correct when you say that witnesses should not be called because their veracity can be doubted. For that matter forensic evidence can be unreliable too.
In the recent federal hate-crime trials surrounding the murder of the young black man Ahmaud Arbery, who was killed by three white racists in a community 80 miles south of Savannah, the question of "intent" was important. I was intrigued and spoke with two parishioners,a husband and wife, one a judge and one an attorney, about this question. Both agreed that, while a juror cannot read the mind of the accused, and while there cannot be 100% certainty about what was in his/her mind, their "mens rea" can be judged to the level of "beyond a reasonable doubt" based on the evidence, eye-witness, circumstantial, and forensic, presented at trial.
Three racist white men were charged with murder and all were convicted.
Three white racist men were charged with a federal hate crime and all were convicted.
And speaking of systemic racism: "In May 2020, Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr said that his office would review how the investigation into Arbery's murder "was handled from the outset". At Carr's request, the GBI investigated whether District Attorney Jackie Johnson or District Attorney George Barnhill's actions in connection with the appointment of a conflict prosecutor to investigate the murder of Arbery constituted a crime. In November 2020, Jackie Johnson lost her bid for re-election as Brunswick District Attorney.
On September 2, 2021, Carr announced that a Glynn County grand jury had indicted ex-District Attorney Jackie Johnson on one felony count of violating the oath of a public officer "by showing favor and affection to Greg McMichael during the investigation" (Gregory was formerly her subordinate), and for being unfair to Arbery by having "recommended Barnhill to the Attorney General's Office for appointment as the case prosecutor without disclosing that she had previously sought Barnhill's assistance on the case". Simultaneously announced was that the grand jury had indicted Johnson on one misdemeanor count of obstruction and hindering law enforcement, in this case the Glynn County police, "by directing that Travis McMichael should not be placed under arrest."
Does this mean that EVERYONE in that DA's office is racist? Nope.
Does this mean that you have to have 100% racists in an organization for systemic racism to exost? Nope.
So, I am quite happy with what I have stated.
OK I understand that when you say a one-off occurrence is systemic and when things are ingrained in a business culture they are both systemic. Good for you.
So you have 13% minorities in your parish and 3%+ of them are black? I think you should have 14% blacks and I don't really care that only 6% of blacks are Catholics just in the same way as you and the race baiters who write garbage about discriminatory lending don't care to examine the data to find out how many qualified borrowers are black. Do you see how that works?
BTW: do you know what percentage of the bad loans in the subprime crises were made to blacks and what percentage of them defaulted? Don't forget that the last time we lowered lending standards it collapsed our economy. Funny how when the government forces banks to make bad loans then banks are "predatory" lenders and when they don't make loans, they are racists. A nice spot to be put in, don't you think?
Nope, as much as you want to put words in my mouth, you can't.
I didn't say a one off occurrence is systemic. You did.
Why, if not due to race concerns, might you be keeping track of the percentage of bad loans made to blacks? I thought ALL that bankers cared about was repayment of loans and making money... Were that the case, the record keepers would have no interest in the race of the borrower.
Unless.....
Fr K - My comment concerning witness testimony was not meant to be taken literally; it was part of an argument concerning anecdotal evidence, which you appear to think has to be proved to be 'in fact, factual' (tautology?)
Assuming that the author is not lying, his recounted experience is indeed factual, and what is required here is not proof, but corroboration; if his experience is replicated by others in a similar situation its usefulness as evidence is enhanced. Conversely, if his experience is not typical, perhaps the result of merely local circumstances, its usefulness is diminished.
By asking you to repudiate a flawed argument I succeeded in getting you to argue against yourself. You probably didn't realize you were doing so, but subtlety in argument isn't your strong suit.
Once again, I have to wonder whether we are trapped in binary or dualistic thinking, focusing on the poles at the end of a continuum rather than on the continuum. One suspects that systemic racism is not as prevalent as many "progressives" claim but also that it is more prevalent than many “conservatives” claim. Here are some statistics from 2020 (I tried to find later ones but without success, which doesn’t mean they aren’t available):
https://www.businessinsider.com/us-systemic-racism-in-charts-graphs-data-2020-6
Assuming the statistics are accurate, it is difficult to believe that systemic racism plays no part in accounting for the disparities, and that they are due entirely to other factors. Moreover, the situation may be even more nuanced because the role of systemic racism may be greater in one area than in others.
And factoring into all of this, too, is the role of implicit biases. I know I have them, and I have to think that we all do. Here is information about implicit biases and the Implicit Bias test:
https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html
Father Kavanaugh,
There is no unless...
Because you make virtually no sense. If you don't keep demographic information how else do you prove there is problem or not? When is the last time you submitted a mortgage application? Do you know that you're unable to avoid answering what race you are? How else can a bank substantiate that it isn't discriminating against blacks if no one is keeping count? Lenders are required to do so under HMDA. I think you better stick with religion or other social science topics because you have no clue what you're talking about when it comes finance. BTW: the first source you used to prove lending racism, was unable to verify credit score data when it supposedly discovered racism in lending. Before you paste useless blabber you should read what it says before you claim that it's powerful evidence to support your position. You did the same thing the last time we discussed the Vatican's position on the vaccine. It stated exactly the opposite of what you claimed. You're at it again.
Michael,
Let it go. Trust me, it's not worth it.
Michael - Is it your suggestion that black borrowers defaulted at a higher rate than other races in the subprime crisis?
If so, is it your contention that, with that default rate in mind, lenders should take race into account when making loans today?
Jerome - A person who has all the answers, you, in this case, is always among the first to say "It's not worth it" in a discussion of contentious issues. I think it is worth it because no one has all the answers and we just might learn something along the way.
John - You suggest, "Assuming that the author is not lying, his recounted experience is indeed factual..." That is not necessarily true. Many facvtors may play into how a person recounts and experience. That a person thinks or says something does not make it "factual."
And we all know that you think yourself the cleverest fox in the den and we all know how much you like to trumpet that baseless belief. So, if it makes you feel better, I suppose we just have to put up with it. Knock yourself ourt.
Michael A,
I hope you enjoyed your encounter with the empty cassock, a sad little man who always must have the last word. Clericalism on steroids
Business Insider, Harvard? Both are leftwing sources. My daughter has a Harvard MBA and can tell you plenty about the implicit and explicit biases there. The race card was maxed out with Obama who is still living in lily white enclaves of privilege.
Father Kavanaugh,
I will answer your questions, but you should do the same, occasionally.
I don't know the specific data on the subprime crisis. I do know that that a large percentage of the subprime loans are made to minorities so proportionally speaking they would constitute a high percentage of the defaults.
I have no interest in keeping racial data on loans. I think people should be free to discriminate and do business with whomever they want or don't want. BTW: in the 25 years as a financial advisor I have met with exactly 1 black man as a prospective client and he chose not to do business with me. In my business people find me rather than me finding them. I suspect that the blacks are discriminating against me because I'm white. What do you think?
"I think people should be free to discriminate and do business with whomever they want or don't want."
I think that is a perfectly un-American and un-Christian stand.
Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (42 U.S.C. 2000e and following) prohibits employers from discriminating against applicants and employees on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, and national origin (including membership in a Native American tribe). It also prohibits employers from retaliating against an applicant or employee who asserts his or her rights under the law. To learn more about retaliation, see our article on preventing retaliation claims by employees.
Title VII prohibits discrimination in all terms, conditions, and privileges of employment, including hiring, firing, compensation, benefits, job assignments, promotions, and discipline.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 1935: "Every form of social or cultural discrimination in fundamental personal rights on the grounds of sex, race, color, social conditions, language, or religion must be curbed and eradicated as incompatible with God's design."
Reference the above comment at 8:19 am:
For 'we all know' read 'I think'. What we can all perceive is that when a certain commentator has lost the argument (or perhaps cannot understand it) but has to have the last word, he goes into 'splutter mode', writing semi-literate nonsense and scattering typos about like confetti. Were he less obnoxious I could feel sorry for him.
John, you are too clever for us, by your own admission. Your understanding surpasses us all, which you have announced repeatedly.
I wonder that you allow your fingers to become so soiled in your on-going attempts to convince us of your superiority.
Goodness gracious, it must be exhausting!
Mike, you don't speak for 'us all', in fact you are something of an outlier on this forum. What you should have said is 'your understanding surpasses mine'. Believe me, it's neither difficult nor exhausting.
Another sign that someone has lost the argument is that he falls back on crude sarcasm.
This is starting to look like an episode of Firing Line in which Liberace attempts to debate William F. Buckley and the pianist can't outreason his opponent.
This is starting to look like a scene from HMS Pinafore with Johnny Nolan, imagining himself to be Sir Joseph, First Lord of the Admiralty, makeing utterances that are, in these glorious circumstances, invariably regarded as unanswerable.
Johnny, if I am an outlier in this forum of 6 or 7 folks who range from the smug Hunwickian to the "theologian" who regularly speaks of the wholly inadequate training he received in seminary to the "good" Catholic who proclaims his love for discriminating against whomsoever he pleases, then I will wear that as a badge of mundane normality.
Father Kavanaugh,
Thank you for pointing out the Catechism's teachings on discrimination to me. Would you be as quick to recite Catholic teaching to pro abortion politicians and denounce them as un-American and un-Christian?
Maybe you can answer this question: If there is systemic racism in this country then why does a accomplished milky white woman with advanced degrees pretend that she is a woman of color on a job application at an elite university? And she isn't the only one.
Mickey, congratulations on managing to compose a post with no solecisms or typographical errors. Keep up the good work!
Michael A - Were you in need of hearing those passages I would do so. I believe that that is not the case, and that your question is a diversion that comes out of your guilty conscience.
There is no "if" regarding the reality of systemic racism. So the foundation of your second question is shaky at best.
In general, we sin - lying, along with discrimination, is a sin - because we are born into a world that is broken. Our doctrine of Original Sin is our explanation for our condition. If you want to know the particular motivations of the person you are asking about, I suggest that you direct your inquiry to her.
Michael A,
Fr. K is a Democrat operative masquerading as a Catholic priest, so no, he will not respond to you
Father Kavanaugh,
No the premise of my question is that you and others claim there is systemic racism and I'm asking why in a country with white systemic racism that white men and women claim to be people of color?
I didn't ask you if you would recite to me the Catechism's teaching on abortion. I asked if you would do so quickly to pro-abortion Catholic politicians.
TJM,
He has failed an honest liberal test. He refuses to answer direct questions or deliberately twists them into something else so that he doesn't have to admit that he clings to a false ideology.
I like how someone screams racism and posts articles that use distorted statistics to claim false racism but when when you state that we need accurate data he tells you that you are a racist because you want to keep statistics. And BTW you are racist even though the government requires that you keep the statistics. I'd like to know the statistics on liberal mental illness, because it has to be hard to live a life with so much confusion in your head.
Michael A. - As I said, if you want to know why white people claim to be people of color, ask them. I can't answer the question.
And, as I said, you asked about the teaching on abortion as a diversion because you are guilty of the sin of racism and unwilling to deal with that.
Michael A,
I think most “liberals” are perpetually, offended nasty types. Given their new push for transgender “rights” and grooming of little children, one may conclude they are mentally ill. They are also cheapskates (as documented by Harvard, no less) who believe taxes count as their “charitable” contributions. I recall when Gore was running against Bush their respective charitable contributions were disclosed and we learned that Bush gave 20 times what Gore did. Of course those were in the days when the national media still put on a facade of being more evenhanded. That would not occur today because “Agenda Uber Alles!”
Father Kavanaugh
So when you think that banks aren't making enough loans to blacks based on distorted statistical information, you are able to immediately conclude that they are motivated by racism, but when people lie about being black or red to get jobs, you have no idea why they would do it. Makes sense to me! Thank you for your honesty.
Michael A - The evidence for racial bias was presented in the articles I posted. There are many others you could read if you cared to do so. You choose not to believe them.
Post a few articles about the reasons white people give for people pretending to be "of color" and then we can discuss it.
Michael A
Fr K. thinks that discrimination is a sin. Actually it is what we were put on earth for. If someone refers to me as a discriminating person I take it as a compliment.
He also believes that anthropogenic climate change is a scientifically proven fact, that there is no place for Latin in the liturgy, that lockdowns prevented the spread of COVID 19, and that systemic racism is so obviously true that its existence cannot be questioned.
He is of course entitled to his opinions, but that's all they are, and moreover they are not arrived at as a result of scholarly research; they merely parrot a depressingly familiar political agenda.
No doubt he'll come back with a 'tu quoque' argument in the style of Sergei Lavrov.
So far no-one has addressed my post at 6:00 p.m. on April 4, except for TJM who responds in his characteristically unlawyer-like and unprofessional manner (even though he claims to be a lawyer), which no judge, or indeed fellow lawyer, would tolerate (which is one of several reasons I doubt his claim to be a lawyer, unless it be a very bad one).
I reference this post not to get attention (which I certainly do not need) but in the optimistic hope (albeit perhaps a pollyannish one on this Blog) to advance discussion and understanding in lieu of the mutual mudslinging that has occurred, much as Michael J. advanced understanding (if not yet discussion) with his citation to a source discussing violence among indigenous people (even though I suspect his mention of hundreds of Catholic martyrs being killed (and tortured) by North American Indians was exaggerated, as I could find mention of only seven although I stand to be corrected as always).
Here are some. These don't include a "black man" who became president and ignores that he is half white and a "woman of color" who is Vice President with skin that is 80-85% white
https://thehill.com/changing-america/enrichment/education/577722-more-than-a-third-of-white-students-lie-about-their/
https://nypost.com/2015/04/12/mindy-kalings-brother-explains-why-he-pretended-to-be-black/
https://www.npr.org/local/305/2020/09/10/911410348/white-g-w-u-professor-who-apparently-pretended-to-be-black-resigns
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/elizabeth-warren-apologizes-for-calling-herself-native-american/2019/02/05/1627df76-2962-11e9-984d-9b8fba003e81_story.html
https://www.npr.org/2022/03/12/1086266248/judge-says-virginia-school-is-racial-balancing-at-the-expense-of-asian-americans
https://edwest.substack.com/p/the-unbearable-whiteness-of-being?s=r
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/ibram-kendi-tweets-on-white-college-applicants-lying-about-being-black/ar-AAQantV
This is turning into a cringe-fest.
I fear I may be responsible for this, because I am the one who introduced the race issue into the conversation. But this stopped being a conversation a long time ago.
I strongly suggest we all just stop before it gets any uglier.
After Father Kavanaugh responds to Michael J., I hope we might be able to have a more general discussion about lying and dishonesty, either on this thread or elsewhere. There is so much discussion of sexual or “pelvic” matters on this Blog that these other, extremely important sinful behaviors tend to be overlooked—or, at least, so it seems to me. The latest egregious example concerns pandemic relief-related fraud:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/biggest-fraud-generation-looting-covid-relief-program-known-ppp-n1279664
One doesn’t want to be reductionist, but is this just another aspect of selfish hyper-individualism, fueled especially by a materialist, money-driven capitalist culture, or are there other explanations? Of course, to keep matters in perspective, one also needs to remember all those who have been honest and have not engaged in fraud. Even so, . . .
Destruction of the family is the goal of Satan and all his Marxist follows. All that needs to be said. Look at African Americans in the 40s and 50s and then come the 60s and welfare and promiscuity spread like wild fire and the Black family disintegrated followed by the white families.
Look they don’t want us to even live and if we do they want us on drugs plugged into our virtual reality. Race won’t matter soon as the transhumanist don’t think we need more then 500,000 workers to support their future world.
As for the Heretic In Chief who even listens to him?
As for the savages just think Father you could have your fingers chewed off as well. And as for the entire Canada story it’s more about destroying the church further in Canada with lies about mass graves which all turn out to be lies.
Let’s Go Jorge
Mark,
I addressed your skepticism of how ruthless the "Indigenous People" were. You made no reply to it.
Here's a source with a good list
https://catholicexchange.com/united-states-land-many-martyrs/
There are many people that die for their faith that are either not recorded or are unknown. There might even be baptized Indians who were killed by other Indians; highly likely. I would have great admiration for them, the ones killed of course. It appears that you believe that there were a few killings in the early 1600s and then miraculously they stopped? Maybe the Catholic Church doesn't want to acknowledge anymore North American martyrs because it's politically uncomfortable and it's too busy apologizing. Forget about anymore canonizations because we want to sweep that part of history under the rug.
Here's another link to a description of how peaceful Indians were
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2396760/How-Comanche-Indians-butchered-babies-roasted-enemies-alive.html
Mark,
You are what most in the practicing bar refer to as “pretend lawyers.” Most of what you write are word salads, attempting to sound “oh so reasonable” while pushing moral equivalence, and referring to reliably leftwing sources as “evidence” for your opinions. Remember “brevity is the soul of wit?” However you get a gold star for not being as downright nasty as Father K.
I really thought the academic left had moved on from European (one way) atrocities to American Indians to championing transgender “rights” over the rights of actual, biological women. Fyi, if Islam takes power you and your buddies will be the first to kow-tow lest you give “offense!” So brave!
Mark,
Would “hyper-selfish individualism” refer to a former president with two seaside mansions which calls into question his devotion to climate change and the poor?
NYPost story - He did it to help him gain access to med school.
NPR story - No real explanation of "why." ("she had been battling mental health issues")
MSN story - "Most of those students - 81 percent - said they lied in order to improve their chances of getting accepted while half of them said they did so in order to qualify for minority-focused financial aid."
So we know why some people pretend to be black.
Does that mean that racism is not systemic? If parts of "the system" are now biased in favor of blacks, that might indicate that we do recognize that the same system has been and remains racially biased and, therefore, we ought to do more to undo that reality and to help move our society away from it entirely.
As for President Obama, yes, his genotype is mixed race. Many people have some mixture of races. My eldest sister did a DNA test a few years ago. We are 98.5% northern European, no surprise there, and 1.5% Neanderthal, which is also not surprising since Neanderthals have contributed between 1% and 4% of the genome of non-African modern humans.
Obama's phenotype, the physical characteristics we see, is that of a black man.
Father Kavanaugh,
Thank you for acknowledging that there is such a thing as black racism and that it might even be systemic. I believe we made some progress.
Michael A. - I have previously stated that racism is not limited to whites. This is nothing new.
Beyond banking, systemic, or structural, racism is recognized in many areas. The American Medical Association has stated: "To be clear, structural racism exists in the U.S. and in medicine, genuinely affecting the health of all people, especially people of color and others historically marginalized in society,” said AMA CEO and Executive Vice President James Madara, MD. “This is not opinion or conjecture, it is proven in numerous studies, through the science and in the evidence.” https://www.ama-assn.org/delivering-care/health-equity/what-structural-racism
And "Racial and ethnic inequities in the US health care system have been unremitting since the beginning of the country. In the 19th and 20th centuries, segregated black hospitals were emblematic of separate but unequal health care. Racism resulted in hospitals refusing to desegregate despite the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 until they were forced to under threat of losing federal funds from the newly enacted Medicaid and Medicare programs in 1966. For American Indian and Alaska Native persons, health care has always been and remains to be segregated. Recently, the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted long-standing, persistent inequities, with American Indian, Black, Latino, and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities being at high risk of morbidity and mortality." https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2783091
John - Yes, discriminating against people because of their race or ethnicity is a sin. This is the Catholic Church's teaching, not just something I think.
Yes, humans are contributing to climate change. This is not an "opinion," but is a conclusion reached by NASA scientists, among others, not something I think. (I posted that link earlier.) You, of course, know better than the NASA scientists...
Regarding Latin in the liturgy, you are wrong. During Lent and Advent we chant the Sanctus and the Agnus Dei in Latin. For good measure, we also chant the Greek Kyrie. So much for your what you "know." There is a place for Latin and Greek in the Liturgy.
Yes, the existence of systemic racism can be questioned. And you can ask if the moon is made of green cheese, if Elvis and JFK and Jimmy Hoffa are living together in Aruba, and if the earth is flat. You can believe anything you want.
JFK is a vegetable in a rocking chair on the porch of his Hyannis port home. Everyone knows this. And Elvis was sighted today at the Augusta National watching Tiger Wood’s come back and plotting his own. Jimmy Hoffa was cremated, though, and sprinkled on the Amen Corner. These are all well-known facts as is Mary’s apocalypse which begins in our breakaway diocese in Georgia. You can’t make this up.
Michael A.,
I thought I had replied to your point about the ruthlessness of indigenous people in my post at 5:36 p.m. on April 6 (apologies, by the way for misstating your initial as J. instead of A.). And I completely concede the point. The better view does indeed seem to be that intergroup violence (and often torture) was endemic to human life in what Jared Diamond calls “the world until yesterday,” relevant chapters of which I re-read after reading your post:
https://www.amazon.com/World-Until-Yesterday-Traditional-Societies/dp/0143124404
The practices of the Comanches are also somewhat typical in their essentials, even if they were more extreme in several respects. Rousseau’s notion of “the noble savage” is clearly poppycock.
My skepticism concerned specifically the number of Catholic martyrs but, as I also said, I stand to be corrected, which Bishop Arias’s book, referenced in the Daily Mail article you linked, effectively does:
https://www.amazon.com/Martyrs-United-States-Bishop-David/dp/1300423927/
I might not like these facts, but as someone committed to the truth, I cannot deny them. And I welcome continued learning and being taught by those who know more than I do.
All this said, we must also not forget how violent and barbaric the inhabitants of “Christendom” have been historically. The following article puts matters into perspective:
https://aeon.co/essays/the-conversation-about-american-torture-is-400-years-old
A sample:
“The European invaders had their own traditions of torture, and the Huron and other North American Indians often found them shocking. Europeans ignored the conventions of Indian diplomacy. They dispensed unprovoked cruelty while waging what to Indians seemed indiscriminate war.
“Torture is enmeshed in European history, in its statecraft, warfare and culture. The Ancient Greeks tortured, the Ancient Romans codified it in law, and the Catholic Church advocated it during the Middle Ages. Lawbreakers were publicly flogged, chained in iron collars, and tormented in stocks; they suffered having their hands and ears cut off, and their bodies racked, burned, flayed, and pulled apart. . . . Manuals catalogued, in meticulous detail, accumulated wisdom about effective torture techniques.
“European rulers used torture to demonstrate state power, especially against those accused of treason. Since the Roman era, treason had been considered an especially vile crime against the majesty and authority of one’s ruler. Torture occupied an equally prominent role in the Roman Church’s evolving campaign against heresy. Officially, the Church forbade inquisitors from permanently harming suspects or drawing blood. So they devised other effective methods of torture, including the rack, the strappado and simulated drowning to determine the guilt of heretics.”
As these passages suggest, Christianity does not appear to have mitigated the human propensity for cruelty and violence. Currently we are witnessing the massacres of Ukrainian civilians by the Orthodox Russians. Moreover, we might also want to recall the massacres of civilians carried out not only by the terror bombing of the Germans but also the terror bombing of the British and Americans in World War Two. Not a great track record I suggest; and isn’t it so easy just to project it into The Other such as Islam, as TJM does, without also owning it oneself?
And yet another way perhaps in which perhaps conversation on this Blog could (should?) be broadened out beyond the narrow focus on “pelvic” issues to include sins of violence (as well as fraud and dishonesty as I suggested in my previous post)?
“Would ‘hyper-selfish individualism’ [sic] refer to a former president with two seaside mansions which calls into question his devotion to climate change and the poor?”
I really don’t understand why TJM persists in asking me such questions when I have quite clearly said on many occasions that our politics is corrupt and that each of the two major parties is corrupt, albeit in different ways.
Father McDonald:
Most of our political leaders today are space aliens in disguise. Just Google “Slitheen” and you will discover the truth. They have even been captured on film. You can find footage on YouTube. Remember: “The truth is out there.” You just need the courage to look.
Mark,
Now there you go again. Actually both parties are not equally corrupt. The Democrat Crime Organization is corruption on steroids and the hypocrisy just oozes our all over the place, starting with Obama’s palaces by the sea. They use lawfare (even Alan Dershowitz is on to that) against their political enemies, groom children, and refer to abortion as “healthcare” and insist American taxpayers foot the bill for “undocumented Democrat voters” they drag over the border to the detriment of the American working class. Now they want student loan forgiveness which is the epitome of their disregard for the working class.
On another thread I called TJM a troll because he was certainly acting like one. I am now wondering whether he is really an ostrich.
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