I brought up welfare/food stamp fraud and as usual things become couched in race and people become dismissive. I never mentioned race but since it often goes there….
I would like to hear opinions from some non-whites but I don’t get the sense there are too many who post on here. You really need to reach out more.
Dusty Baker coaches pro baseball and was asked about the need to add some speed to his team. He said he would have to hire some Black guys. Racist? Honest? Dusty is Black.
What is the racial make-up of the NBA? How many cornerbacks in the NFL are white (or safeties for that matter)? Should there be some affirmative action clinics to get more Asians?
The last “fastest man on earth” who was White was Russian Valerie Borsoff (sp) in 1972.
I knew I was being racist when I went to a pickup game and if I was picking teams I started with the Black guys, in society I try to be conscious of the choices I make and when I’m given the chance I try to make my choices fair.
Is Dusty racist or honest?
SomervilleTom says
A better title for this is “Why can’t I scapegoat here?”
You posted utter rubbish about fraud, and you followed it with even more boorish and insulting rubbish.
This post is more of the same. You’re not talking about race, you’re blowing dog-whistles and treating all of us (and most especially yourself) with contempt.
If you offer “commentary” like this in those neighborhoods you claim to be so familiar with, you’ll be lucky to escape with only minor injuries.
jconway says
For pointing out that a crooked white business owner defrauded his minority clientele and the federal government out of millions of dollars. This goes to prove that greed and malfeasance are ripe at every level, and the onus of EBT enforcement should be directed against the businesses that exploit welfare recipients rather than the recipient themselves.
scott12mass says
It was a recent Black immigrant from Ghana who owned the store. She pleaded guilty. But it could have just as easily been a white person.
My point was the people selling the aid to the store could have gone to 3-4 small groceries in the area (there is even a medium size one three blocks away) and gotten a dollars worth of food. Not 50 cents worth of cash.
I delivered newspapers there as a kid, played ball at the Y up the street or the open courts farther up Main st. I never worry when I’m in the area
But back to Dusty?
thebaker says
For pointing out that a crooked white business owner defrauded his minority clientele – jconway Wed 16 Dec 11:28 AM
LOL ROFLMAO! Wow it only took one of the sheeple on bluemassgroup a little over an hour to prove your point for you scott! LOL ROFLMAO!!!!
SomervilleTom says
You’ve managed to attract thebaker to your side, offering his or her typical “commentary”.
Way to go.
Christopher says
…if we ALL learned to look past skin color. I believe the majority of welfare recipients are white, but that shouldn’t matter either. Skin color is no more significant than hair color or eye color and ought to be treated as such by all involved.
thebaker says
LOL
Christopher says
…and JConway is certainly no bigot!
thebaker says
I’m sorry it’s just funny how jconway showed his cards back there … LOL He couldn’t help himself LOL
My favorite part is how he basically made scott12mass’ point for him.
It’s just extremely amusing to me. ho ho ho
Mark L. Bail says
says about all the half-baked Baker needs to say.
DFW was certainly irritating, but he was a toothless troll who gummed everyone to death. The Baker, well, he’s smarter, meaner, and ROFLMAO.
Christopher says
n/t
jconway says
And I really resent people who’ve never had to use these programs complaining about minor acts of fraud. Especially when we waste billions on bombers we don’t use that are obsolete when we build them. You wanna go after welfare queens they got two names: Boeing and Lockheed.
Everyone else is entitled to a hand up and a helping hand. You go to WIC as we did when dad got laid off in 93′, and tell me if that feels good and is easy. It ain’t, and people who have to do that work their asses off to get off of it. I have no idea how ma would fare today, CEDA got axed by Reagan which paid for her to go to Bunker Hill and going to school doesn’t count as the work you need to get to stay on benefits thanks to Clinton. The store owner defrauded the government, not the recipients.
jconway says
I can’t remember the last comment she posted that wasn’t a lame insult directed towards someone else. I doubt they’ve followed any of the BMG rules. She makes Dan from Waltham look insightful by comparison.
Mark L. Bail says
with The Baker. I suggest we either ignore or respond ROFLMAO.
SomervilleTom says
I encourage you to consider attention like this a badge of honor.
Every successful site has them, and every well-regarded participant attracts them like flies to honey.
paulsimmons says
However much this “white boys can’t jump” bullshit annoys me, perhaps – just perhaps – this can jumpstart a substantive discussion about the political and cultural dynamics playing out here. It’s not entirely racial. Largely racialized by both sides, but not entirely racial.
There are issues internal to white working class culture involved too, which is why the white majority of welfare recipients doesn’t work as a progressive talking point; and the existence of “minor acts of fraud” among recipients of any race reinforces the Republican Party. Case in point:
Furthermore, progressives tend to forget (and the Right doesn’t want to know) that Clinton’s welfare reform policies were supported by the majority of blacks, for the same reasons as those of their white counterparts.
There are matters of civic collapse here more important than infantile morality plays.
scott12mass says
I don’t consider 3.6 million “minor”. Maybe in Boston.
I appreciate exchanging ideas here and never try to personally attack those on here, I just find the points of reference so far from my own it’s like going to a different country. It seems like going to one of the college campuses where free speech means “no negative thoughts speech, and we must protect the students for their own good”.
If you want an honest opinion I’ll give it, ignore, respond, whatever, but don’t assume other points of view don’t have validity.
A Black friend who had relatives on aid told me he supported the reforms himself. His mother had been on aid when he was a kid and said they should go back to the way he did it when they were small. He pulled a wagon down and they filled up with bags of rice, cans of beans, etc.
I delivered newspapers in the area as a kid. When you have a route on collection day many of the customers just hide the money under a rug, in the clothespin bag etc. My first week on my own on this new route the previous delivery kid went around and cleaned out the hiding spots, the money gone. The customers found out and I got the best tips that first week I ever got. Lesson
Expect the worst of people you’ll often be pleasantly surprised.
SomervilleTom says
It’s not about “Boston”, it’s about what you’re comparing it to.
Do you get as up in arms about the fraud committed by various Housing Authority directors over the past decade or so? How about the amount of public money sent off to Big Dig contractors by the Weld administration?
You don’t seem to appreciate the magnitude of how much you and we are being ripped off by the very same people who point you at scams like this.
Sorry, but $3.6 M is small potatoes in the Massachusetts fraud game, and the game is NOT happening down in the mud where you’re groveling.
I wonder if your town administrators have run the “Streetlight scam” on your town meeting yet — announce an “outrageous” 300% increase in the “Streetlight replacement” budget (from $10,000 to $30,000), get town meeting to spend 90% of its time arguing about it, dutifully cave at the end, and walk home with an increase of millions in a payroll account because by the end of the streetlight fight, everybody is too tired to keep arguing about the rest of the budget.
It’s a shell game, and if you let the scammer keep your attention focused on the pea — instead of the scammer — you’ll keep losing.
scott12mass says
We’re pretty low budget. The street department just got a new building a couple years ago. They moved out of a Quonset hut.
The reason there is such a “starve the beast attitude” (govt) out here is that we do appreciate the scope of how much we’re getting ripped off by everyone.
It is worse when it’s elected officials. You know how we have a hate crime statute, I would like to see a government corruption statute. If an elected official gets convicted throw the book at them. 10 yrs, double restitution, bring back the stockade. Good luck getting any accountability out of Beacon Hill. The fact you think 3.6M is small potatoes discourages me even more. So what’s the answer?
And for me don’t talk about redistribution of accumulated wealth from the 1% to the rest of us. Who’s going to administer the taxing and redistribution, the same crooks in Wash and Boston that are there now?
SomervilleTom says
To your last question, we agree that the first step is to establish a zero-tolerance policy for corruption, including “legal” corruption like that developed into an art form by our current Massachusetts House legislative leadership. So in answer to your last question, the crooks that run Massachusetts government today must be retired (my preference would be to see them incarcerated for graft, but I’m an optimist).
The problem in Washington is overwhelmingly the result of GOP intransigence. I’m sorry, that’s just the plain truth. I’m not saying that every Democrat is as pure as the driven snow. I am instead saying that the GOP has established itself as a bastion of lies, bigotry, prejudice and hate. This began, explicitly, when it opened its arms to embrace supporters of the racist southern Democrats ejected from the national Democratic Party in 1968 (the GOP “Southern Strategy”). The GOP doubled down on that policy in response to the election of Barack Obama. Their racist opposition to Mr. Obama is palpable. The flagrant abuses of today’s GOP against rationality, realism, facts, and truth completely drown out the shortcomings and imperfections of the Democrats in office.
The magnitude of the $3.6 M fraud is what it is. It was prosecuted by US Attorney Carmen Ortiz, the same person who prosecuted Chuck Turner and Diane Wilkerson. A crime was apparently committed and charges brought against the alleged perpetrator. I’m therefore not sure what your point is, other than plain old-fashioned racism.
The 2015 annual budget entry for “Subsidies to Public Housing Authorities” is $64 M. It, too, is what it is. The case you spend so much energy on is about 5% of just this single line item — a minor line item buried in a THIRTY SIX BILLION DOLLAR annual budget for Massachusetts.
We already know that Michael McLaughlin defrauded the local housing authority that he controlled for years before being discovered. Are you as suspicious of the executives that run the Berkshire County Regional Housing Authority, or the Pittsfield Housing Authority as you are about whomever it is you blame the Vida Causey case on (other than Vida Causey)?
Do you know who those executives are? Have you or any journalists/bloggers that you’re aware of explored questions like how many housing authority employees are friends, relatives, or business associates of those executives (or of various government officials)?
Do you know who gets the money Charlton spends on police and fire? What portion of Charlton police and fire department are relatives, friends, and associates of other police and fire staff or town officials? In Massachusetts, police and fire is too often a family business for some, and completely inaccessible to others. Have you examined the police and fire departments of your town with the same critical stance that you describe for “those neighborhoods” you’re unhappy about?
Your concerns about fraud and corruption will go down better with me (I don’t know about anyone else here) if:
a) They are occasionally directed at middle-class or upper-class whites, and
b) They comprise a measurable portion of overall government spending
In my view, to your question “So what’s the answer”, I encourage you to focus your energy and attention on what matters and discipline yourself to not be distracted by the glittery fluff paraded in front of you by the right wing and those pander to them (like talk radio, Fox News, and similar bastions of bigotry).
Do at least a little bit of homework about where public money is being collected, where it is being spent, and by whom. I think you’ll find, after doing even a little bit of that homework, that you too will agree that the Vida Causey case truly IS small potatoes, just like Chuck Turner and Diane Wilkerson were small potatoes. The fact that $3.6M sounds large to you suggests to me that you haven’t spent much time with government budgets.
I think you’ll find that the most significant aspect that puts these cases on the media (and therefore your own) radar is that they each involve black perpetrators or communities. These cases are put on the radar because they inflame anti-black prejudice. When you respond as you do, you perpetuate that racism — whether intentionally or not.
I really WOULD like know what portion of that $64 M state housing authority subsidy goes to patronage/nepotism hires. Actually, I’d like to know what part of the entire $36 B state budget goes to patronage/nepotism. Lobbying and similar legal quid-pro-quos are a different also interesting beast.
scott12mass says
Crap happens everywhere. We just had a fire out here (a winery) and when the fire dept shows up (mostly volunteers by the way) it was pretty overwhelming. The guy in charge decides to use tanker trucks instead of a pond nearby to get water (there are no hydrants out here). The operation goes sour, the building burns to the ground.
Turns out the winery owner had had words with the guy in charge when that guy was in his other official capacity on the town board in charge of regulating signs in town. The winery signs were misplaced or too big.
Coincidence that it burnt to the ground? What will happen? Nothing.
There is plenty of corruption everywhere and I spend little time on government budgets. I don’t trust the GOP any more than I do the DEMs.
SomervilleTom says
You might have gotten a better reception from me if you invited a discussion about the Charleton fire and your concerns/suspicions about how it was handled.
We may be zeroing in on an agreement about the scale and import of the Vida Causey case. I’ve shown you how it compares to the amount of fraud that we both agree is likely happening in Massachusetts government. I’ve reminded you that that fraud was caught and the alleged perpetrator is being prosecuted — that itself is very different from the bulk of the actual fraud taking place as we speak. I agree that if you don’t bother to inform yourself about what government actually spends, then you’re easily distracted by a relatively insignificant episode like the $3.6M Vida Causey case.
At the state level, our trust of the Massachusetts GOP is pretty much irrelevant because a small and shrinking minority of Massachusetts voters self-identify with it. Sadly, as a lifelong Democrat, our issue here in Massachusetts is with our Democrats.
Still, at the national level, the difference between the national GOP and the national Democratic Party is stark. I don’t see how anyone who cares about rationality, reason, truth, science, and the relationship between those things and national policy can look at the current national GOP and react with anything except contempt.
Christopher says
The peculiar institution was often propped up politically by poor whites who never had a shot at being slaveholders themselves just so they could take comfort in not being the very bottom of the socio-economic ladder.
SomervilleTom says
Indeed.
It’s sad that a century later, the same divisive ploys are still effective.
petr says
… I don’t know that you mentioned race or not. I don’t know that anybody else did either. Which makes your entire shtick of “oh well, since it’s out there we might as well confront it” obliquity rather fragile. Creating a whole diary on such flimsy circumstances betrays a rather stringent vigilance at odds with your purported nonchalance.
I don’t understand where this is specifically racist. It is no secret that many Black Americans have made deliberate decisions to seek advancement through athletics. That they may have succeeded isn’t, per se, racist. I believe that they have sought advancement through athletics, deliberately, for at least two reasons: A) personally, it’s very lucrative and 2) it’s very public. Given the vast amounts of money in sports and the very very public nature of it — as well as the common mythos surrounding physical endeavor, and I’m thinking very specifically of John Henry and Jesse Owens — an oppressed people might be well motivated to, as publicly as possible, display their prowess to the oppressor as a rather deliberate form of “fuck you”. I think these rationales are equally applicable to the so-called ‘entertainment’ industry where Blacks are disproportionately represented as well… though I dearly hope that somebody somewhere, aspires to be as good as, or better, than Bill Withers in their involvement in said industry…
The third reason, and the one you won’t want to discuss, is the lack of advancement available in other fields. Of course somebody is going to learn to be the fastest base runner if White people are not going to let them be a banker or a lawyer or policeman…
‘
Well, keep trying. You’ll get there eventually… I don’t think it’s racist to choose the best athletes to play a game. You’re in good company: Red Auerbach was the first to play a Black man in the NBA, the first to play an all Black starting five and the first to hire an African-American head coach (in any league in America). Of course, in the ’80’s, after all that progress, Auerbach was decried as racist for fielding a team that was, in the view of some, “too white” because he started Larry Bird, Kevin McHale and Danny Ainge (Or, as I like to think of him as “Danny Ain’t” for his abyssmal shooting record. Seriously… Danny Ainge was the soft underbelly of Red’s otherwise brilliant career. I hate Danny Ainge and his low rent version of a piss-poor-decision-making-Paul-Pierce-trading-second-rate-version-of-a-third-rate-GM… but I’m not bitter…)
Really, it’s not racist to choose the best in the game. I t’s only racist if that”s the most you’ll ever expect out of them…
scott12mass says
I wanted to be Bill Russell when I grew up (played center), or maybe Havlicek. I’ve got a signed program from Cousy.
Mark L. Bail says
being a white male. You never know when someone of a different color or gender is going to get something they don’t deserve.
I think that’s what Scott is trying to say.
jconway says
I particularly liked the in depth Celtics knowledge. I like what Brad is doing, we gotta good group of guys with a lot of heart, but I do miss the last big 3, I’m so thankful I got to see them play live.