[lpkmckenna]

Originally Posted by OAW 

I wouldn't go that far. There are plenty of blacks who don't believe in corporal punishment. Just as there are plenty of whites who do. But generally speaking I think you are onto something. Let me put it like this ....

Say you took a random sample of 1000 blacks and 1000 whites ... told everybody that the girl was being punished for stealing music and games over the internet in defiance of her parents ... and then showed them that video. I'd be pretty comfortable betting my next paycheck that far more whites would disapprove than blacks.

You and I are in complete agreement here.

Originally Posted by Athens 

Wow pretty racist... "White parents dont beat kids, but black parents do, look at all the black kids taken away from parents....."

That wasn't what I said at all. Not even close.

[OAW]

Originally Posted by Athens 

That video just made National news here and was just played out. Judge Adams is now on suspension and being investigated. Worse hes a family judge and rules on these kind of cases....

While he's on suspension with his job, the cops have already indicated that the statute of limitations has passed so he's in no legal jeopardy criminally. Now I said from the beginning that I thought it was suspect that she chose play that card she had been holding close to her vest after all this time. Here's an excerpt from an official statement released by her father ....

The seven year old video presently circulating the internet and now made the basis of international media attention, showing two parents disciplining their 16 year old daughter, who had been caught, by her own televised and internet reported admissions, engaged in repeated criminal activity, was posted for reasons other than as professed by the publisher.

It is regrettable that Hillary Adams, a bright and gifted person, would include in her post that she is or was a disabled or a special needs child. As multiple media appearances clearly demonstrate, Hillary Adams is articulate, possesses a superior IQ, and is capable of functioning as a productive adult in today’s complex society. No one should take the affliction of cerebral palsy lightly. Hillary’s parents did not. Hillary’s condition was monitored as a child and her medical needs met. However, neither should a perfectly capable adult try to use an affliction as a device for media sympathy. It should now be apparent to the world that “disabled” was mislabeled.

In response to the internet post, the media has appropriately attempted to understand why Hillary Adams chose the present time to disseminate the video. To many, her answers to those questions have been confusing and hollow. As she has said by recent interview, she “hoarded” the secret tape for future use, but has not explained, even now, for what purpose. Very few people find palatable her claim that it was to “help” her father.

Perhaps Hillary Adams should explain, if she felt she was raised by a tyrannical father, a claim shared with no one until five years after adulthood, why she insisted on living with her father and not her mother from the time of her parent’s divorce, until she moved out on her own. Hillary Adams has been living on her own for some time, and has been an adult for almost six years, so why post the video in late 2011?

William Adams is of the opinion that Hillary Adams is an extremely bright, highly functional, adult. The media has described her as a piano prodigy, who has competed at Carnegie Hall on multiple occasions. As one of Hillary’s long term teachers noted in the press, Hillary, so close to accomplishment, has of recent “inexplicably dropped out, just two classes shy of completing her [college] studies.” The video in question was recorded well before Hillary graduated high school. If the public must know, just prior to the You Tube upload, a concerned father shared with his 23 year old daughter that he was unwilling to continue to work hard and be her primary source of financial support, if she was going to simply “drop out”, and strive to achieve no more in life than to work part time at a video game store. Hillary warned her father if he reduced her financial support, and took away her Mercedes automobile, which her father had provided, he would live to regret it. The post was then uploaded. The public may wonder if this is the tyranny of which Hillary Adams speaks as her reason to disseminate the video seven years after it was recorded, and five years into adulthood? Is this the reason she “hoarded” the video for seven years?

DA: Statute of limitations prevents charges in judge's beating of daughter - CNN.com

So her father is paying her bills. She drops out of college two classes shy of graduation. Her father threatens to cut her off and take away the Benz. And then she threw her father under the bus. Interesting.

OAW

[lpkmckenna]

I am not inclined to accept Judge Adams' self-serving interpretation of these events.

[andi*pandi]

As for why she chose to live with him after the divorce, there's many possibilities but only guessing: a) stockholm syndrome, b) he had more money to buy her nice things.

Does this info counteract the video? I don't think so.

[OAW]

It saddens me to report that the kid in the YouTube video that Shaddim posted here ... the one where his uncle was spanking him and making him disavow any gang ties and admit that all his bragging on Facebook about being a "gangsta" was fake ... was shot and killed in New Orleans recently.

Kimberly Ward sat at her kitchen table Thursday morning and wondered, through tears, what more she should have done to save her son's life.

She kept him inside the entire week, and gave him an 11 p.m. curfew on weekends. When Michael Taylor, 16, left their Terrytown apartment, she made him walk along the sidewalk in an area where she could watch him. She worked 16-hour shifts as a nurse not only to make sure that he had all the essentials -- food, shelter and clothing -- but also so that she could take him to the mall when the newest Air Jordans hit the stores.

Ward threatened him, she punished him and she loved him, but Taylor still wound up dead on a sidewalk a few steps from her door. And she doesn't understand why.

"I don't know. I just want to know really what could I have done to change this," Ward said as she scrolled through her son's pictures on her phone, looking for one that accurately represented the teenager she loved.

The Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office says Taylor was shot to death near the intersection of Deerfield Road and Daniels Road shortly after 8:30 p.m. Wednesday. Deputies were responding to a report of gunshots in the area and found Taylor with multiple gunshot wounds to the body, said Sgt. Larry Dyess, JPSO spokesman. Authorities have not released a motive or suspect in the incident.

Ward said that about 8 p.m., she was in her room studying, and her son was sleeping in his room. Taylor woke up after receiving a text message, then went to talk to some friends outside his mother's door. She called him back inside a few minutes later to find out what was going on, and he told her he was just talking and went back outside. A few minutes later, her daughter received a text message saying that Taylor had been shot, and then another saying he was dead.

Ward said she rushed from the house, driving around the neighborhood looking for her son, but didn't find him until she was coming back to her apartment complex. That's when she saw his body on the cold sidewalk clad in the red sweatshirt she'd noticed when he left the house.

"I came home and saw my son on the ground," Ward said.

Authorities have not given Ward any information on the shooting, but she's managed to piece together her own theory from her last conversations with her son, and from the account of a witness who saw the shooting. The man told her that her son was on the phone when two men rushed up to him brandishing weapons and then opened fire. Ward wonders if her son was somehow lured outside by individuals he thought were his friends, only to be ambushed. It's the only explanation she can accept because she says her son was not involved with drugs or fighting, and really just cared about girls and clothes.

"He thought he had some friends he could trust," she said.

Ward can only think of two motives for killing her son. One stems from an incident at his school, West Jefferson High School, where another student was beaten and robbed in the bathroom, and her son was initially fingered as the culprit and arrested for simple robbery. However, when the case went to trial, the victim testified that Taylor was not a robber, but a potential witness and might be able to assist authorities in finding the culprits. However, because all charges were dropped against him, he gained a reputation around school and his neighborhood as a "rat," she said.

Ward also acknowledges that her son had some friends who didn't have good reputations. She and his grandmother often railed at him to leave those people alone, but he would claim that by hanging with tough guys, he avoided problems with other students. Taylor was not a fighter, his mother said, and she believes he used his friends to protect him from having to fight.

However, Taylor recently took a picture with a friend that was posted on Facebook, and that young man is involved in an ongoing "beef" with an Algiers group, Ward said. Because of the photo, her son also became a target, and Ward even remembers a young man threatening her son when she took him to the mall recently. Ward said she believes her son's associates, not his actions, led to his death.

"He was guilty by association," she said. "He wasn't involved in no drugs because he know one thing -- I don't play."

Ward remembered her eldest child as a typically mild-mannered youth who had some trouble in school because of a learning disability, but still went faithfully every day. She said he was generous and kind, and loved his family.

Shooting death of teenage son has Terrytown mother perplexed | NOLA.com

Teen whipped in Viral YouTube Video Found Dead | EURweb

This here is precisely why I posted this earlier ....

Originally Posted by OAW

There's one thing that's for sure though. However one answers these questions ... there are bound to be plenty of exceptions when it comes to a topic like this. We are all the products of our experiences and our upbringing. That is what molds us and shapes our worldview.

Now it's no secret that I'm African-American. But I'm also 40ish. College-educated. Center-left politically for the most part but to the right in certain areas. Born and raised in the Midwest. Mother was a teacher and Father was an auto worker which afforded us a middle class lifestyle. Parents and grandparents from the South who personally experienced Jim Crow as opposed to reading about it in some book or watching it on TV. Brought up in the Baptist tradition which firmly believed in "Spare the rod and spoil the child." In a time when it was "Yes Sir" and "No Ma'am" to any adult ... especially your parents ... and without question when you were receiving a tongue lashing for misbehavior. You "talked back" at your peril. You had better stay out of "grown folks business" unless asked. And you most definitely better mind your "tone" when speaking to your parents. So one can say that I grew up in a "cultural context" so to speak where obedience to your parents was of paramount importance. When my grandparents told my father not to go past certain streets that wasn't optional. It was not subject to debate. And my father's opinion about it all was of no consequence. Obedience was critical because there were certain written and unwritten rules that one had to follow in order to survive. Because a black male teenager caught in a white neighborhood could easily lose his life in those days. At the hands of the police or the neighborhood residents. Even being in a "buffer zone" business district after dark could result in a severe beatdown. So when my father decided to do what he wanted to do and and take that route anyway because it was a shortcut on his way to visit some girl .... my grandfather taxed that ass. And as my man ebuddy said "And a heavy tax it was!". Because obedience was quite literally a matter of life and death. So a generation later when my parents were raising me and my siblings ... is it any wonder that we had best have ourselves in the house by the time the street lights came on? You see the danger then wasn't Jim Crow ... but rather getting caught up in the streets or gang violence or the dope game. And I had the type of parents who would rather tax my ass to keep me on the straight and narrow ... as opposed to me ending up with Big Tiny taxing my ass in a much worse way up in a prison cell. And definitely as opposed to me ending up pushing up daisies because I wouldn't listen.

They tried. His mother. His uncle. And the streets got him anyway.

OAW

[Athens]

Can some one please explain to me what is it with American black people that its gone sooo wrong. From the prison population stats, to the school stats and the drug stats along with what you see on Cops, Bait Car and other reality shows and from what I have seen first hand in the US. It seems like a culture of violence. You don't see this from Canadian black people though you do see it with Canadian Natives. The few black people I know, some are from Cuba, Haiti, Countries in Africa and a few Canadian born blacks and one UK black Britain and none of them even remotely act or behave like Black Americans.

When I was in New York last, every single person working a low pay job, from picking up garbage, cleaning the food court in malls, MTA all black people. My Aunt married a black man in Louisiana and I visited them once and it was mostly a black community. Actually it was a all black community that they lived in. I think her and myself where the only white people for 20 miles. Super friendly people. Great cooks. very hospitable and welcoming yet they still all talked stupid like if never educated. The community itself was pretty run down but I noticed every place I went to in Louisiana was so I didn't really think of it much related to the community.

Is it really that much of a difference for education and job opportunities because of skin color or is it a victim mentality first from slavery then unequal treatment. I can understand old black Americans but the young generations, whats the reason.

[Tiresias]

Similarly, Maori form just 14 per cent of New Zealand's population, but half the prison population and 45 per cent of offenders serving community-based sentences. They are also grossly over-represented in statistics for domestic violence.

It is a mistake to look for a monocausal explanation. There are a whole range of causes and any number, but not necessary all, may apply to an individual case.

But a working list should include,

Disenfranchisement in a post-colonial context
The slow burn of resentment at the above
The breakdown of the family
Seeking a sense of community in gang culture to compensate for the above
Alcohol and drugs
A cyclical culture of crime and domestic violence
The influence of American hip-hop and gang culture

[Shaddim]

Sounds like he would have benefited from some real spankings.

[Tiresias]

Originally Posted by Athens 

Can some one please explain to me what is it with American black people that its gone sooo wrong. From the prison population stats, to the school stats and the drug stats along with what you see on Cops, Bait Car and other reality shows and from what I have seen first hand in the US. It seems like a culture of violence. You don't see this from Canadian black people though you do see it with Canadian Natives. The few black people I know, some are from Cuba, Haiti, Countries in Africa and a few Canadian born blacks and one UK black Britain and none of them even remotely act or behave like Black Americans.

When I was in New York last, every single person working a low pay job, from picking up garbage, cleaning the food court in malls, MTA all black people. My Aunt married a black man in Louisiana and I visited them once and it was mostly a black community. Actually it was a all black community that they lived in. I think her and myself where the only white people for 20 miles. Super friendly people. Great cooks. very hospitable and welcoming yet they still all talked stupid like if never educated. The community itself was pretty run down but I noticed every place I went to in Louisiana was so I didn't really think of it much related to the community.

Is it really that much of a difference for education and job opportunities because of skin color or is it a victim mentality first from slavery then unequal treatment. I can understand old black Americans but the young generations, whats the reason.

I really don't think education constitutes much of a culture gap. Any moron can get a degree. And a lot of very intelligent people are not formally educated.

In my opinion, the main predictor for a developed intelligence is not a degree but the habit of reading, since that is tantamount to a habit of on-going self-education.

It only takes a few minutes of conversation before I can tell if someone is a reader. It is much more difficult to tell if someone has been to university.

But we should also remember that being articulate is not a good a criterion for intelligence because, while most if not all articulate people are intelligent, not all inarticulate people are stupid.

[ghporter]

Has everyone forgotten the economic inequality issue? US Blacks are proportionally significantly poorer than almost all other groups (except perhaps illegal immigrants). This has been the case for a significant part of our history, and it has shaped social structures throughout the Black community. Well-intentioned attempts to address the economic issues have backfired, with a now 50-year history of reinforcing economic dependency in the poorest groups. On top of this a culture of anti-social interaction and drug distribution-based social hierarchies have pushed poor but functional families to the margins of their local social environments; i.e. hard working, intact families are ostracized by dysfunctional and drug-dealing culture-influenced groups, demotivating the children.

Asking "what happened to Black America?" is like asking "why did we get into WWII?" There are lots of reasons, and you have to go much farther back than the current appearance of specific issues to see the start of the problem.

[Athens]

No I think that really is the biggest issue. Because our natives are about the same and economic issues are at the heart of them too.

[Athens]

I started a totally new thread to continue a discussion about the failings of Blacks located here

http://forums.macnn.com/89/macnn-lou...s/#post4137126

So this does not get de-railed or moved into the PWL

[andi*pandi]

It is not related to feedback, so I moved it.