Thursday, January 26, 2006

Campaign of Misinformation

James Manning wrote a post called a "Dialogue on Race Politics Stereotypes, Myths & Misinformation", that to me just fuelled the talking points of the Republicans, i.e., black Republicans. The title I thought was provocative and promising, yet, to me he gave some statistics that I thought were totally misleading and part of a misinformation campaign by Republicans, particularly Black Republicans. I made a few comments on the posts that were probably a little sensitive, but I deleted the comments after a person who appeared to be of mixed race said he was convinced that all black women like the thug-type black man. Whenever I’m on black Conservative sites, I make a point not to say too much that will offend them. Therefore, since this post had that flavor, I thought it would be best if I deleted my comments because they were offensive to some. I don't know how the conversation went after that, because I stopped following it, but I’m sure it was interesting.

Having said that, I'm linking to the post so that I can have easy access to the statistics. I think James was trying to show that black people are not these welfare lazy people, but instead are decent hard working people who are making strides in a racist society. Although the way he said it, I came away thinking he was being a mouth piece for the black Conservative movement. As a result, what he was really saying, “hey - black people are not systematically being discriminated against” just take a look at the statistics, we are not doing as bad as those evil and immoral liberals are saying and we don't need or want your handouts (this is my impression only, it may not reflect his true thoughts). In one of my comments before I deleted it, I told James these statistics are misleading. I was so disappointed I felt like crying at the stuff that was being said by black people against black people. My stomach started churning.

Anyway, today I heard that slightly > 24,500 people applied for ~ 325 jobs at Wal-Mart (a new store located one block from Chicago). It is interesting to note, that only 500 of the people didn't live in Chicago. From my understanding, the reason this came up is that the remaining people were primarily black who applied for those low wage jobs. From this alone, it shows that the statistics James referenced need to be checked, cross checked, and rechecked to determine their true validity. Clearly, if this many people are applying for minimum wage jobs, the situation in the black community is dire and this directly contradicts the progress we have made as a group based upon the statistics James used for his analysis. And, this is why Mark Twain said there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics because statistics can be manipulated.

I did a cursory review of the statistics and the outcome is far worst than what James is reporting. I asked where he got his information from and true enough, he saw them on a moderate Conservative site. Therefore, I am convinced that these are black Republican talking points that are now being peddled on what I thought was a moderate liberal site.
posted by Cynthia   Permalink| Comments(11)|

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