Joel Klein on Ferguson: "It's a Cultural Problem" with the Black Community

[Leopolds Ghost]

Joel Klein and another rich white "liberal" New Yorker disagreed with Joe Scarborough who was busy calling out right wing bloggers saying "it's just facts and numbers" that blacks are systematically degraded by the criminal justice system. Klein interrupted, said, "no, in my many years of covering these issues, it's not facts, blacks have a metaphorical understanding of these issues, they do not look at the facts of each case which may bear out that this was a justifiable shooting." He went on to say that "It's a cultural problem with the black community... (some huge percent) of the population of people accused of murder are black... the black on black violence... etc." I half expected him to trot out the argument that Christians and Jews were genetically and morally superior to Muslims, which these people also secretly believe.

[bigdarryl]

1. Sorry to here this I had great respect for him

It just goes to show even some white liberals are ignorant to what is happening in my community.

[malaise]

2. Someone should have asked Joe Klein if he had the same thoughts

about Israeli attitudes to Palestinians. I switched channels.

[Leopolds Ghost]

3. I tuned out after he said blacks have a "metaphorical" understanding of police racism

This reminds me of statements that women are prone to "hysteria"

[Squinch]

4. If Joel Klein is a liberal, I am the queen of France. And lets pause for a moment to reflect: this

man ran New York City schools for the better part of a decade. Now tell me that unions and not crap administration are the problem with schools. This is what this man thought of a majority of the students he was responsible for, and this point of view affected all of his actions.

[Leopolds Ghost]

5. Are you serious, really? When

I did not know that. Is that how he got a sinecure at Time and helped run it further into the ground? I tuned out on Klein in junior high school when Clinton was prez, and Klein was raving about how wonderful it was that they were reclaiming the Democratic party from the liberals.

Although he was accurate about that, I guess.

[Squinch]

6. Chancellor from 2002 to 2011. Coincidentally, just when the schools went into administrative chaos.

ETA: During his tenure, the state legislature passed a law that allowed the mayor (Bloomberg) to have complete control of the schools. Bloomberg and Klein HATE the schools, and teachers, and students. And it showed for 9 long, hard years.

[Leopolds Ghost]

7. lol, if you can't teach, write. If you can't write, become an administrator.

This must have been the Clinton's reward to Klein for defending Andrew Cuomo's gutting of the U.S. Public Housing system in the late 90s under the Clinton HOPE VI initiative, removing one of the last vestiges of Johnson's Great Society programs and paving the way for 1 out of 25 Manhattan residents to be out-of-state millionaires.

[Squinch]

8. And now that Cuomo's in, he's lying down in front of every "raise taxes on the rich so they

pay a slightly larger percentage than they do now, but not nearly the percentage the poor pay" tax that Di Blasio sends his way.

So those out of state millionaires, bless them, will all be able to walk over the bodies of the homeless the way they like to.

I have to say, and I understand he got stuff for the city in return, but I am disappointed that DiBlasio didn't hold the line on that pre-k tax on the rich. Cuomo "paid" for it but that means that the rest of us, and not those out of state millionaires, pay for it.

[Leopolds Ghost]

9. What is with this active campaign to take over the Democratic Party for the rich?

And what can people do about it besides riot?

[hatrack]

10. Simple - as the Republicans march steadily into the ozone-scented cloud of madness . . .

. . . all the "sensible" people (by which I mean those with some grasp of reality, some with serious skills in law, business, politics and so forth, and who aren't ideologically envenomated by thirty years of increasingly shrill, paranoid bullshit) will become Democrats.

Teh Stupid and Teh Crazy can go have their (tea) party, and the New Party of Business will wear a donkey, along with a gauzy, disposable (and surprisingly inexpensive!) cloak of pro-LGBT, pro-immigrant and pro-environment issues.

It's already about 80% a done deal.

[Leopolds Ghost]

11. I am still hoping the Republican party will break up into conservative and libertarian factions

Which would allow other activists to do the same.

Then we might have a real democracy like Britain and Israel USED to.

[Squinch]

12. I think this is true. I assume it is why we see so much right wing crap right here on DU lately.

These are the people who now consider themselves Liberal because there is nowhere else to put them.

[Laelth]

15. I hate to admit that you are right.

My hope is for a split of the Democratic Party. When, and if, the Republican Party becomes a regional party (banished from the White House as a result of their own "Southern Strategy" of race-baiting), my hope is that the only game in town, so to speak, i.e. the Democratic Party, will split. Only then will we have a truly liberal party in the United States, and, when that happens, I will happily support the more liberal branch of the Party.

-Laelth

[Blue_Tires]

13. +1

[Orrex]

14. Darkie gots to learn his place, I suppose.

Are you kidding me, Klein?

[Rex]

16. Wow...did he just say black people don't understand their own problems?

They have a figurative understanding of 'their problem', but not a factual one? Amazing how many racists are coming out of the woodworks to TELL black people what 'their problem' is.

'You just don't understand, because you are not smart enough'...wow...just wow...

If I read that wrong...then please somebody tell me.