If you look at the population demographic that has most impacted the Western workplace since 1960, you will see it has been women. I find your suggestion that “women don’t constitute a culture” highly specious: if what you said were the case I don’t believe there would be the women’s magazine movement, cars designed for feminine choices, ad infinitum. Allow me people’s exhibit 1: Oprah Winfrey. One of the wealthiest people in the world, also black, also a woman. Any interview with her will confirm women are treated as a minority but she had the diligence to transcend that.

Further your definition of what does and does not constitute a “culture” — and thus a minority culture — is nebulous. Is a minority a race ( Asian ), a gender ( women ), a sexuality ( lesbian ), a religion ( Catholic ), a historical ancestry ( Armenian ). It gives your argument a protean quality which makes any true understanding difficult.

I can certainly say that the Jewish minority seems to have done well with itself— but you could say that you meant racial groups. I could say that the Italian minority has done well with itself; but you could say you meant non–national boundaries, etc.

If you look at the population demographic that has most impacted the Western workplace since 1960, you will see it has been women. I find your suggestion that “women don’t constitute a culture” highly specious: if what you said were the case I don’t believe there would be the women’s magazine movement, cars designed for feminine choices, ad infinitum. Allow me people’s exhibit 1: Oprah Winfrey. One of the wealthiest people in the world, also black, also a woman. Any interview with her will confirm women are treated as a minority but she had the diligence to transcend that.

Further your definition of what does and does not constitute a “culture” — and thus a minority culture — is nebulous. Is a minority a race ( Asian ), a gender ( women ), a sexuality ( lesbian ), a religion ( Catholic ), a historical ancestry ( Armenian ). It gives your argument a protean quality which makes any true understanding difficult.

I can certainly say that the Jewish minority seems to have done well with itself— but you could say that you meant racial groups. I could say that the Italian minority has done well with itself; but you could say you meant non–national boundaries, etc.

If you look at the population demographic that has most impacted the Western workplace since 1960, you will see it has been women. I find your suggestion that “women don’t constitute a culture” highly specious: if what you said were the case I don’t believe there would be the women’s magazine movement, cars designed for feminine choices, ad infinitum. Allow me people’s exhibit 1: Oprah Winfrey. One of the wealthiest people in the world, also black, also a woman. Any interview with her will confirm women are treated as a minority but she had the diligence to transcend that.

Further your definition of what does and does not constitute a “culture” — and thus a minority culture — is nebulous. Is a minority a race ( Asian ), a gender ( women ), a sexuality ( lesbian ), a religion ( Catholic ), a historical ancestry ( Armenian ). It gives your argument a protean quality which makes any true understanding difficult.

I can certainly say that the Jewish minority seems to have done well with itself— but you could say that you meant racial groups. I could say that the Italian minority has done well with itself; but you could say you meant non–national boundaries, etc.

If you look at the population demographic that has most impacted the Western workplace since 1960, you will see it has been women. I find your suggestion that “women don’t constitute a culture” highly specious: if what you said were the case I don’t believe there would be the women’s magazine movement, cars designed for feminine choices, ad infinitum. Allow me people’s exhibit 1: Oprah Winfrey. One of the wealthiest people in the world, also black, also a woman. Any interview with her will confirm women are treated as a minority but she had the diligence to transcend that.

Further your definition of what does and does not constitute a “culture” — and thus a minority culture — is nebulous. Is a minority a race ( Asian ), a gender ( women ), a sexuality ( lesbian ), a religion ( Catholic ), a historical ancestry ( Armenian ). It gives your argument a protean quality which makes any true understanding difficult.

I can certainly say that the Jewish minority seems to have done well with itself— but you could say that you meant racial groups. I could say that the Italian minority has done well with itself; but you could say you meant non–national boundaries, etc.

I’m split on this one. I happen to know enough about the extremely effective lobbying powers of penitentiary system, including the guards and the facility management providers. Part of their overall pull is exactly what has contributed to California’s budget deficit, year after year. It’s a built in expense increase into every annual budget, just as the state assembly’s wage increase is already automatically increased.

This sort of thing didn’t happen on it’s own, or by accident. There are powerful unions taking the brunt of the impact from public backlash, but also the prison service companies, who obversely seem immune to any regard by the vocal public. At one time, Schwarzenegger was going to pursue the guard unions, but after the first year it was obvious he was going to have to back off. They are very deeply entrenched in their positions, and are continuing to increase their profit margins by the year.

So, I do see the prisons as greedy sumbitches.

However, the institutionalized cultural norms for potential and existing prisoners do favor the majority of blacks, and then whites, and then hispanics, in my estimation. Even without the disparage in sentencing standards for so-called “white” crimes vs “minority” crimes, ie: cocaine distribution equals crack possession, the culture outside prisons, in streets and neighborhoods primarily black, is inherently violent and prone to crime. This is not to say that blacks are inherently violent, just that their potential is not being achieved because of the barrier within their own society, which often admits a diverse interest very apart from the mainstream, non-black America.

Are all blacks and browns so different from whites and asians? No, not too different, just prone to the good and bad parts of their specific attitudes that arise from both isolation and market driven identity norms that profit off frustrated youths readily angered and ready to rage against an inconsiderate world uncaring of the plights of their families needs, or their own. It’s exploitative, and where violent rap music does charge the volatile black youth, angry speed metal charges the volatile white youth. In the atmosphere that compounds this on other media in a daily influence weeks upon months upon years, engulfing too much of a lifetime, I find little reason to question the outcome when it’s as predictable as the mechanisms in a clock.

My angry youth was spent listening to Andrew Dice Clay and Sam Kineson, and it was like an epiphany to me. I learned to say, “fuck this, fuck that.”, with ease, and such a casual air that I could finally question the importance of things coming into my 13 year old catholic life, and the world took a different shape. I began to immediately question what things were worth, based on how much I wouldn’t say “fuck that”. It added new dimensions, and I learned to reign them in, rather quickly. With other albums, like Run DMC’s Raising Hell, giving fuel to a blooming sense of pride and awareness of self worth, I found my direction, and found the need for such direction very compelling.

Today I can see the same influence on today’s kids, and I can gauge who will fall into what traps. Not well, but I get the vague image of what directions the young are currently receiving. Merely observe the kids at bus stops. Read the magazines. Watch what is on the popular channels. Go to the malls. You’ll see that their message, the motto that pervades their, our, media is that pride and self worth goes before, and often in the place of, community needs and forward thinking. Instead of constructive marketing, nurturing the generations into their adulthood, there is a raw message of capitalizing on any resource in your reach, and you are nothing unless you are living as large as you can.

What makes me different than that to fall into that category, that demographic? My weaknesses aren’t so trackable, not so profitable, and I am immune to the environment an immoral market seeks to maintain for those otherwise forward thinking, responsible, generous young men coming up and staring through the gates of the ghetto, wondering what life is like outside the world they know.

-=T=-

I’m split on this one. I happen to know enough about the extremely effective lobbying powers of penitentiary system, including the guards and the facility management providers. Part of their overall pull is exactly what has contributed to California’s budget deficit, year after year. It’s a built in expense increase into every annual budget, just as the state assembly’s wage increase is already automatically increased.

This sort of thing didn’t happen on it’s own, or by accident. There are powerful unions taking the brunt of the impact from public backlash, but also the prison service companies, who obversely seem immune to any regard by the vocal public. At one time, Schwarzenegger was going to pursue the guard unions, but after the first year it was obvious he was going to have to back off. They are very deeply entrenched in their positions, and are continuing to increase their profit margins by the year.

So, I do see the prisons as greedy sumbitches.

However, the institutionalized cultural norms for potential and existing prisoners do favor the majority of blacks, and then whites, and then hispanics, in my estimation. Even without the disparage in sentencing standards for so-called “white” crimes vs “minority” crimes, ie: cocaine distribution equals crack possession, the culture outside prisons, in streets and neighborhoods primarily black, is inherently violent and prone to crime. This is not to say that blacks are inherently violent, just that their potential is not being achieved because of the barrier within their own society, which often admits a diverse interest very apart from the mainstream, non-black America.

Are all blacks and browns so different from whites and asians? No, not too different, just prone to the good and bad parts of their specific attitudes that arise from both isolation and market driven identity norms that profit off frustrated youths readily angered and ready to rage against an inconsiderate world uncaring of the plights of their families needs, or their own. It’s exploitative, and where violent rap music does charge the volatile black youth, angry speed metal charges the volatile white youth. In the atmosphere that compounds this on other media in a daily influence weeks upon months upon years, engulfing too much of a lifetime, I find little reason to question the outcome when it’s as predictable as the mechanisms in a clock.

My angry youth was spent listening to Andrew Dice Clay and Sam Kineson, and it was like an epiphany to me. I learned to say, “fuck this, fuck that.”, with ease, and such a casual air that I could finally question the importance of things coming into my 13 year old catholic life, and the world took a different shape. I began to immediately question what things were worth, based on how much I wouldn’t say “fuck that”. It added new dimensions, and I learned to reign them in, rather quickly. With other albums, like Run DMC’s Raising Hell, giving fuel to a blooming sense of pride and awareness of self worth, I found my direction, and found the need for such direction very compelling.

Today I can see the same influence on today’s kids, and I can gauge who will fall into what traps. Not well, but I get the vague image of what directions the young are currently receiving. Merely observe the kids at bus stops. Read the magazines. Watch what is on the popular channels. Go to the malls. You’ll see that their message, the motto that pervades their, our, media is that pride and self worth goes before, and often in the place of, community needs and forward thinking. Instead of constructive marketing, nurturing the generations into their adulthood, there is a raw message of capitalizing on any resource in your reach, and you are nothing unless you are living as large as you can.

What makes me different than that to fall into that category, that demographic? My weaknesses aren’t so trackable, not so profitable, and I am immune to the environment an immoral market seeks to maintain for those otherwise forward thinking, responsible, generous young men coming up and staring through the gates of the ghetto, wondering what life is like outside the world they know.

-=T=-

Funny, women seem to have done it just fine?

Steven

Funny, women seem to have done it just fine?

Steven

Funny, women seem to have done it just fine?

Steven

Funny, women seem to have done it just fine?

Steven