Race baiting

Taxes Are Racist

It’s tax season, and now we have an article claiming that taxes are racist: “Black married couples face heavier tax penalties than white couples,” and it’s pure BS. This is the logic:

When a Black or white couple have the same income, deductions and family structure, they will have the same tax liability, Gale said. But given the average economic differences between white and Black couples, according to the report, Black married couples are still more likely to face penalties and smaller bonuses.

Before tearing into the faulty logic here, I want to point out that “white” is not capitalized once in the article, while “Black” is capitalized every time. A bit of subtle “othering” that happens in journalism today.

So the taxes aren’t racist, it’s just that black married couples have more children than their white counterparts and taxpayers with children generally tend to face larger penalties under our current tax code. So it would be more accurate to say that the tax code discriminates against those with children.

I call bullshit on that, too. If a couple has a child, they get additional personal exemptions, they also get:

  • child tax credit
  • dependent care credit
  • earned income credit
  • adoption credit
  • education credit

Let’s look at two married couples: they have the same income, same jobs, same financial situation. Each couple earns a combined $68,000 a year. Their employers withheld $5,000 from their paychecks for Federal taxes. The only difference is that couple one has no children, and couple two has two children.

Couple one is in the 12 percent tax bracket, with an effective tax rate of 11.03%. They will pay $4,644 in Federal income taxes this year, so they will get a $356 refund.

Couple two has two children. They are both latchkey children, so there are no childcare expenses to deduct. They are also in the 12 % bracket, and had the same effective tax rate as couple two. However, they get more credits, so only wind up paying a net $644 in Federal income tax, and will wind up with a refund of $4,356.

So if in fact black couples have more children that whites, blacks pay LESS in taxes.

By Divemedic, ago

ASVAB Exposes Education Failures

For those who don’t know, the entrance exam for the US military is a standardized test called the ASVAB, and is one of the best vocational aptitude tests out there. The ASVAB includes tests in 10 areas: general science (GS), arithmetic reasoning (AR), word knowledge (WK), paragraph comprehension (PC), mathematics knowledge (MK), electronics information (EI), auto information (AI), shop information (SI), mechanical comprehension (MC) and assembling objects (AO).

The test is scored as a percentile. That is, the score ranges from 1 to 99. A 60 would indicate that you scored higher than 60 percent of the people who have taken the exam. For that reason, a perfectly average person would score a 50. The score required to enlist is different for each branch of the military, with the lowest being a 30 for the Army, and the highest being a 36 for the Coast Guard. (There are waivers that allow even lower scores to qualify)

With that being said, black applicants are half as likely to reach the minimum score as any other demographic. In fact, a whopping 40% of black test takers cannot achieve a passing score on the ASVAB. The average score for blacks is 38 and for Hispanics is 44, compared to whites’ average score of 55. These scores reflect the similar racial gaps on other standardized exams.

This is more problematic than it appears at first glance, going back to my post about licensing and certification. Every applicant for the military has a high school diploma- a piece of paper issued from their school district certifying that they can read, write, and perform arithmetic, yet are dumber than two thirds of the test takers. Even worse, if you extend this to those who have dropped out of school before high school graduation, a whopping 60% of US blacks can’t pass this exam. Our education system is a waste of money that is largely accomplishing nothing but grooming children to become liberal sexual deviants.

Now there are many who will claim that this is caused by some sort of racism, using the stupid metric of “anything that results in disproportionate results for blacks is racist” instead of looking deeper into the causes. Why? Looking deeper is difficult and exposes uncomfortable realities.

By Divemedic, ago

CNN to Black People: You Were Born Stupid and Poor, But It’s White People’s Fault

A recent study found that black children have less grey matter in their brains than white children. They researchers then came to the conclusion that this was the result of the stresses of poverty, drugs, and violence, which was caused by systemic racism. How can you draw that conclusion? It seems to me as if they began with the conclusion, then went looking for the support.

I can think of several alternative conclusions.

  • Cause and effect is reversed. Perhaps it is the lack of grey matter that causes the poverty and violence.
  • Perhaps it is that poverty and violence were caused by something else. Why does it have to be racism, and what supporting evidence do you have?

The study itself said this:

Black children experienced more traumatic events, family conflict, and material hardship on average compared with White children, and their parents or caregivers had lower educational attainment, lower income, and more unemployment compared with those of White children. Black children showed lower amygdala, hippocampus, and PFC gray matter volumes compared with White children. The volumes of the PFC and amygdala, but not the hippocampus, also varied with metrics of childhood adversity, with income being the most common predictor of brain volume differences. Accounting for differences in childhood adversity attenuated the magnitude of some race-related differences in gray matter volume.

OK. So how did you determine cause and effect? Were the black children born with less grey matter than whites? Did the amount of grey matter decline over time? Did you compare black children who were wealthy (say, Jayden Smith or the Obama girls) to white children who were poor, to see if there were correlations there? How about including other races? Asians?

Nope. Instead, the study began with the following assumptions:

Current U.S. Census data show that Black households, on average, have a lower median income, lower educational attainment, and higher rates of unemployment and poverty compared with White households. Moreover, research suggests that Black children are more likely to be exposed to trauma and domestic violence and are more likely to have a parent who died, an incarcerated parent, or divorced or separated parents compared with White children. Additionally, research has shown that Black children live in disproportionately disadvantaged neighborhoods and are more likely than White children to be exposed to neighborhood violence. These racial disparities are not random. Rather, they are deep-rooted structural inequalities that result from a history of disenfranchisement of racially minoritized groups (e.g., slavery, segregation) that reinforce themselves through societal norms and practices (i.e., systemic racism)

(highlighting added)

I was with them on the other evidence. Yes, there is evidence that black children are likely to be poor, have incarcerated parents, and lower intelligence. I agree. What they are essentially saying is that blacks are poor, less intelligent, and more likely to be criminals than are whites, and that there is a biological and physiological basis for this. That’s exactly what I have been saying for years. What I have a problem with is the conclusion that is unsupported by any evidence presented by this so-called study- that it’s white people’s fault.

This seems like junk science with no control group and little in the way of actual, well, science. When I was a teacher, had one of my students turned in an unsupported conclusion like that one, it likely would have received a poor grade.

By Divemedic, ago

Pushing Back

The communists in this country have been reeducating our children into their dogma for decades. Florida’s Governor is out to change that. The NAACP is furious that he isn’t letting the College Board teach a course in African American studies that covers such weighty topics as Black Queer studies and Reparations. They are demanding that the College Board not allow any AP courses to be taught in the state until DeSantis caves. I don’t think that they realize just how many students in Florida there are, and how much money is at stake. Enough that the College Board is rewriting the course to remove some of the objectionable material.

Who cares what the NAACP thinks? They are a communist front, disguised as a racial movement. They might as well call it Negroes About Advocating Communist Propaganda.

The left also forgets that state colleges receiving funding from the taxpayers of Florida are run by trustees who are appointed by the Governor. The trustees of the most liberal state college in Florida, so liberal that it doesn’t give grades or even require attendance, have been replaced by ultra conservatives.

Times, they are a changin’, at least in Florida, and the left can’t stand it. DeSantis is playing the same game that the left has been playing for years.

By Divemedic, ago

No Money for White People

Wells Fargo was sued in April 2022 for not loaning money to enough black people. On December 21, the bank reached a settlement agreement where they agreed to pay $3.7 billion in damages and civil penalties.

The bank has decided to take the only path that makes sense from a business standpoint. They are not going to lend any more money to white people. The noose tightens. If you are a white person with a job, you aren’t wanted in this society.

By Divemedic, ago

I think it went swimmingly

There was a man in Missouri who murdered a police officer. He was convicted and sentenced to die. The story would end there, but his 19 year old daughter wanted to be there with him when he died, but was denied because she wasn’t yet 21. The daughter claims that the justice system failed her. Of course you know that I have some thoughts on this.

First, the convict was 37 years old on the day he was executed. His daughter was 19, making him 18 when she was born. She has a 2 month old child. Three generations of welfare recipients- children having children. The mother in this case was killed by her boyfriend when the daughter was 4 years old. It seems that the black men in this story are all about violence and death.

Second, the reason why he got the death penalty in the first place. Williams had punched his girlfriend. When the police showed up to arrest him, his brother fled on foot and collapsed of a heart attack, which was caused by a genetic defect. Williams blamed one of the cops for the death, ambushing and killing him by shooting him multiple times. Williams confessed to the murder and was sentenced to death. Of course, the leftist lawyers all cried about how the process was races ‘n sheeit. Williams claims that it was due to his mental illness.

The daughter is an advocate against capital punishment. The family’s reverend says that there were other ways to handle this. In full disclosure, I oppose the death penalty as well, but only because I don’t trust the government to get the right guy. In this case, they did. She is an advocate against the death penalty? Why not be an advocate of black people committing violent crimes or murders? Then the death penalty would be wholly unnecessary.

My feeling here? No one in this scenario seems to even consider what the police officer and his children went through. No one considers that Williams was a violent criminal with a history of committing violent felonies. So he found religion as his execution date came near. So what? He wasn’t sorry for what he did, he was sorry that he got caught. How many crimes were prevented by his incarceration and execution?

By Divemedic, ago

Not Surprising

University of Florida had some woke bullshit BLM stuff on their medical school webpages. That doesn’t surprise me in the least. I didn’t go to UF, but this is widespread throughout US colleges. I had to listen to and report on Podcasts talking about Health Equity and how all white people have privilege and are racist.

One of those podcasts talked about how black women have worse outcomes in healthcare than do white women, and this is proof of racial bias. As evidence, the podcast offered Serina Williams’ issues during childbirth to show that black women can’t get quality care, even when rich and famous.

Except that isn’t what happened. Ms. Williams has a preexisting condition requiring that she take anticoagulants to prevent blood clots. When she was to give birth by Caesarian section, the hospital told her to stop taking the anticoagulants, as they increase the chances of severe bleeding during surgery. After the surgery, she developed blood clots because she wasn’t on her medication. That happens and had nothing to do with her race.

That doesn’t matter to the woke professors that have infected our colleges. What do you do as a student? Well, you can do what I did when I was in grad school to be a PA, which was be loud and defend your opinions, but all that does is make an enemy of the professor who will then run you out of school and make certain you won’t ever be accepted to another grad school. Or, you can do what I did when I went to nursing school: keep your mouth shut, parrot the woke party line, and try to not be noticed.

By Divemedic, ago

Don’t Label Me

A staffer for Marco Rubio was attacked merely for being a Republican. It wasn’t enough that they put him in the hospital. Now the communists and their lackeys in the MSM are adding insult to injury. ABC news in Miami has decided to doxx him. It turns out that his name is Javier Lopez, a 22 year old staffer Christopher Monzon, a canvasser for the Rubio campaign. ABC news takes it one step further and calls him a “white supremacist.”

Sören Kierkegaard wrote, “Once you label me, you negate me.” This is exactly what the left is doing. The label that they have found most effective is “Racist.” There are others. They accuse gun owners of having a small penis. They accuse parents of being terrorists and abusers.

It’s an effective tactic. It not only forces the person labeled to defend themselves from the accusation, but also allows the person and their family to be targeted by the communists’ black bloc enforcers. This young man and his family will be targeted at work, at the store, and at school. Your job, your spouse’s job both forfeit. Your kids will be bullied at school. You may even have physical security threats at home.

Look at what they have done to George Zimmerman, the original white supremacist Hispanic. The lesson there worked as intended, with people afraid to report crimes or confront criminals for fear of being labeled and negated.

I have been hit with that label pretty often. It’s a tool used to silence and negate others. It’s a weak argument.

By Divemedic, ago

Who’s the Racist Here?

Ron DeSantis said:

Don’t even think about looting. Don’t even think about taking advantage of people in this vulnerable situation. And so local law enforcement is involved in monitoring that. You can have people you know bringing boats into some of these islands and trying to ransack people’s homes. I can tell you, in the state of Florida, you never know what may be lurking behind somebody’s home, and I would not wanna chance that if I were you, given that we’re a Second Amendment state.

Joy Reid from that leftist show of cackling chickens then accused DeSantis of racism by claiming that he was exhorting people in Florida to kill black people.

Here is my question: DeSantis was talking about shooting looters. What makes Joy Reid think that all looters are black? Doesn’t that make HER the racist?

By Divemedic, ago