Chappelle talks: Why I walked away. [Archive]

Rubystreak

04-13-2006, 10:53 PM

Maybe this isn't the right forum for this question, but why do white people react this way so often when anyone alleges that racism still exists and is still affecting the lives of black people and other people of color in America? The idea that racism is ended and black people should just get over it is either extremely naive or patronizingly disingenuous. It reminds of me of the philosophy espoused to such cartoonish effect Bruno's from Black & White.

$50 million does not begin to dream of touching what white people own in this country and world. I don't see how it is racist of Chappelle to point this out; it's affecting how he feels about his contribution to the culture. Isn't that entirely within his right to formulate? Might it not inform his decision about whether or not to accept $50 million to keep doing it? It's easy to focus on popular American culture in the last few decades and try to forget, dimish, or block out everything that came (so relatively recently) before with race relations in America, especially if it only affects you indirectly, when something happens like your favorite comedian du jour no longer doing his show.

I have concluded, based on what I've seen, that Chappelle had some epiphany about racism and what his act was doing (or not doing) for race relations in America. He made an ethical decision for himself, his family, and his sanity to stop doing it. I don't think anyone has a justification to toss a :rolleyes: his way. His decision is admirable if it's what he felt was right. Seems like a personal, complicated decision that I don't have a right to dismiss. Neither is anyone in a position to say he's having a nervous breakdown because he decided not to make the show anymore or to turn down $50 million. I feel like people are thinking he's crazy just because he turned down the money, which is kind of a reductive reading of the whole thing IMO.

Might be I'm getting on a soapbox about this because I've been thinking about these issues so much as been a major topic of discussion and concern in secondary education. Been having a lot of frank conversation with many people about how things are outside of the limited world I've been in most of my life. My conclusion is it's hard for people to grasp what life is like for people with such different cultural identites, and that a lot of white people who bluster and scoff about racism are either clueless, really full of crap, or a combination of both. Calling Chappelle a jackass definitely seems unwarranted under the circumstances.

Possibly too much said for this thread... I'm out.

Garfield226

04-13-2006, 11:15 PM

$50 million does not begin to dream of touching what white people own in this country and world.
He's comparing apples and oranges. $50 million going to one guy for one show for how many years doesn't compare with the wealth of all the white people in the world? Well no shit. I'll tell you one thing though, it's a damn sight more than this white boy will probably ever see in his lifetime, let alone have given to me for a year or two of work.

It's not racist for him to point it out, it's just stupid. No, Dave, $50 million doesn't make up for years of slavery and years of actual discrimination and years of institutionalized discrimination. It isn't supposed to. It's a salary being paid to you for work you're doing now, not a statement on race relations in America for the past 300 years.

If he wanted to be in an environment where he wasn't likely to be misinterpreted (not that he actually was being misinterpreted all that much, IIRC), I'm sure BET would have loved to have him. Seems to me the fact that he was on a widely-watched cable network NOT targeted at his own race speaks more for race relations though. Also seems to me that if he's disgusted at race relations, as Ogre touched on, I'd bet I could find something to do with $50 million to help.

Maybe this isn't the right forum for this question, but why do white people react this way so often when anyone alleges that racism still exists and is still affecting the lives of black people and other people of color in America?I'm not sure what "way" you think they're (I'm) reacting. Please clarify (or open a new thread so as not to continue the hijack).

InternetLegend

04-13-2006, 11:35 PM

I'm not sure what "way" you think they're (I'm) reacting. Please clarify (or open a new thread so as not to continue the hijack).My guess? In a defensive way.

I agree with Rubystreak. It seems to me that many white people are unable or unwilling to relate the history of racism in this country to societal conditions today. It's not like racial discrimination is a thing of the far-distant past. We still live in a country where a man like Strom Thurmond could be re-elected to Congress. Redlining was a common practice (and may still be, despite the laws) well into the 1970s. Racism is not an historical artifact, it's something that we as a society are continuing to deal with in more or less overt ways.

When Chappelle says that (in the context of the show) he couldn't be himself as a black man without explaining or apologizing, I get it completely. I can understand why he would be tired of dealing with a white corporate structure to which he constantly had to explain himself.

And I say this as an often clueless white woman who grew up and lives in an overwhelmingly Anglo/Hispanic community. If I can see it with my rather limited perspective, it seems to me that it's not all in Chappelle's (or any other black person's) imagination.

Rubystreak

04-13-2006, 11:47 PM

I'll tell you one thing though, it's a damn sight more than this white boy will probably ever see in his lifetime, let alone have given to me for a year or two of work.

If this is what your criticism is about, it kind of confirms what I said, doesn't it?

It's not racist for him to point it out, it's just stupid. No, Dave, $50 million doesn't make up for years of slavery and years of actual discrimination and years of institutionalized discrimination. It isn't supposed to. It's a salary being paid to you for work you're doing now, not a statement on race relations in America for the past 300 years.

No, it would be payment for work that would be performed and/or aired in the future, which he has decided he doesn't want to happen. It's not a matter of "making up" for anything. It's informed by past events but really, it's a matter of society as it is RIGHT NOW and what he wants to contribute to it. I don't see how it's stupid of him to reevaluate his work and decide not to share it if he thinks it's wrong to do so, which clearly he does.

If he wanted to be in an environment where he wasn't likely to be misinterpreted (not that he actually was being misinterpreted all that much, IIRC), I'm sure BET would have loved to have him.

Do you think that people who were fans of Chappelle's Show would just not watch the show if it was on BET? I doubt it. I think he made this decision after he signed the contract with Comedy Central, so going to BET was probably not an option (though I'm not sure of this). Also, I get the sense that he just did not want it out there at all, regardless of the forum.

if he's disgusted at race relations, as Ogre touched on, I'd bet I could find something to do with $50 million to help.

Maybe he thinks the best thing he can do is NOT perform the stuff he was offering on the show, and he doesn't want to accept money for it anymore either. Isn't that his prerogative? What is so stupid about that?

I'm not sure what "way" you think they're (I'm) reacting. Please clarify (or open a new thread so as not to continue the hijack).

I thought I was clear to the point of belaboring the argument. You don't get why Chappelle is doing this and are interpreting his decision from your own point of view, which is not really relevant. He made an intensely personal, ethically-based choice that defied American expectations and Hollywood norms. Your (and others') comments sound so dismissive and scornful and I don't think it's justified. No one has the right to say that he should have released material that he thought was wrong and call him crazy or stupid if he won't. What kind of person would he be if he believed what his work was inimical to his beliefs and goals, but took the money and did the show anyway?

If you want to get into it with me further on topic not directly related to DC, you can open another thread, though I make no promises about the amount of time I can spend here in the immediate future. Someone else might have to argue with you about it :p . I realize I'm not sufficiently proofreading as it is... sorry about that.

Loopydude

04-13-2006, 11:50 PM

His answers make me more confused than I was before, unless his management was simply lying. I mean, CC claimed to have offered him a boatload of money, complete creative control, and total forgiveness for going awol. They just wanted him back. He could even take his time, if he liked. There are very few artists who can attract an offer like that of any color or creed. I'm having a hard time putting "50 mil and total control" together with "dysfunctional", but maybe a lot more was going on backstage. What that might have been to make him walk away from such a sweet deal...well, what would make someone do that?

Garfield226

04-14-2006, 12:02 AM

If this is what your criticism is about, it kind of confirms what I said, doesn't it?It's not primarily what the criticism was about, just a statement that $50 million not touching what "white people" own is so broad a statement as to be meaningless.

No, it would be payment for work that would be performed and/or aired in the future, which he has decided he doesn't want to happen. It's not a matter of "making up" for anything. It's informed by past events but really, it's a matter of society as it is RIGHT NOW and what he wants to contribute to it. I don't see how it's stupid of him to reevaluate his work and decide not to share it if he thinks it's wrong to do so, which clearly he does.

Do you think that people who were fans of Chappelle's Show would just not watch the show if it was on BET? I doubt it. I think he made this decision after he signed the contract with Comedy Central, so going to BET was probably not an option (though I'm not sure of this). Also, I get the sense that he just did not want it out there at all, regardless of the forum.

Maybe he thinks the best thing he can do is NOT perform the stuff he was offering on the show, and he doesn't want to accept money for it anymore either. Isn't that his prerogative? What is so stupid about that?If he doesn't WANT to do his show anymore, for whatever reason, that's certainly his choice to make, and it doesn't personally affect me one way or the other (especially since I watched it once or twice and wasn't particularly interested, and moved on). I just don't particularly agree with his reasoning, as I perceive it to be.

I thought I was clear to the point of belaboring the argument. You don't get why Chappelle is doing this and are interpreting his decision from your own point of view, which is not really relevant. He made an intensely personal, ethically-based choice that defied American expectations and Hollywood norms. Your (and others') comments sound so dismissive and scornful and I don't think it's justified. No one has the right to say that he should have released material that he thought was wrong and call him crazy or stupid if he won't. What kind of person would he be if he believed what his work was inimical to his beliefs and goals, but took the money and did the show anyway?I'm not saying he's crazy and stupid for not releasing material he thinks is wrong. I'm saying the reasoning he's giving for not doing it is nonsensical, from my point of view.

And of course I'm interpreting it from my point of view. Don't we all?

Rubystreak

04-14-2006, 12:04 AM

I'm having a hard time putting "50 mil and total control" together with "dysfunctional", but maybe a lot more was going on backstage. What that might have been to make him walk away from such a sweet deal...well, what would make someone do that?

I know his family had a lot of problems with the show. I doubt CC made the deal as sweet as they say it was. Chappelle said he wanted more "personal and creative freedom," so that seems like a contradiction to CC's claims. I get the sense something happened to convince him the show just wasn't a good idea... maybe the eps he had in the can when he decided this were ones he didn't want to air, so he broke the contract for the entire season? I don't know.

To amplify what I said before in a more succinct way: white people have a stake in dismissing the idea of current racism. We are hardly objective about it and a lot of that stems from defensiveness and guilt.

It was brave as hell of Chappelle to walk away from all that money and fame because he thought it was wrong. Efforts to discredit him seem like discrediting his feeling that racism still exists, that he was being part of the problem from his POV and that couldn't do the act he wanted to do anymore. Is it so hard to believe that this was a rational choice based on his situation, of which we have limited knowledge for so many reasons?

I am among the people who is sad to see Chappelle's Show go, but I think DC will cotinue to work and be interesting to watch.

Rubystreak

04-14-2006, 12:08 AM

And of course I'm interpreting it from my point of view. Don't we all?

Can you accept that your POV might make it impossible for you to understand his decision? Which doesn't undermine the validity of the decision whatsoever? Thus, calling it stupid or crazy is, well, not exactly the most erudite or open-minded interpretation of the whole thing.

Argent Towers

04-14-2006, 12:10 AM

"White people own everything" is horseshit, pure horseshit.

Tell that to all the dirt-poor blue-collar whites all over this country. The descendents of Scotch-Irish indentured servants (read: WHITE SLAVES) who are screwed out of their homes and farms, maimed and killed working in factories and mines or get cancer from toxic chemicals, their children born into lives of alcoholism and crystal meth and domestic abuse.

RICH PEOPLE own everything. Rich whites, rich Arabs, rich Japanese, rich Hispanics, rich blacks, RICH PEOPLE.

The divide in this country is a class divide, not a race divide. The black poor and white poor share the same fate.

Ogre

04-14-2006, 12:30 AM

$50 million does not begin to dream of touching what white people own in this country and world.It doesn't begin to dream of touching what black people own in theis world either.

It always seemed to me that he made fun of black people as much as he made fun of whites. Maybe he felt guilty because "The Man" was therefore paying him $25 million to make fun of black people.

If that's the case, then he lost the point that I thought made his comedy so good...that there's really no freaking difference between the races at all.

devilsknew

04-14-2006, 02:07 AM

To bew honest, I think he's stuck in Old Chapelle, and soesn't want to ruin his niche. He was comfortable in his understated familiarity. Ironically he made a bigger controversy by just trying to escape. I feel sorry for him.

I tend to believe he's a little paranoid, too.

Loopydude

04-14-2006, 07:28 AM

To amplify what I said before in a more succinct way: white people have a stake in dismissing the idea of current racism. We are hardly objective about it and a lot of that stems from defensiveness and guilt.

Well, maybe. To be honest, I didn't see the race aspect in any of this until Chapelle brought it up. Chappelle had about the raunchiest, most politically incorrect show on non-premium cable, and I loved him for it. Everyone seemed to love him for it. To push things even a millimeter further than he did would require moving to HBO. I mean, did he chafe under FCC restrictions? Howard Stern could comisserate, I'm sure, but he never accused Infinity Broadcasting of anti-semitism that I'm aware of.

He rather wickedly ripped on whites and gays of any color quite often, just as a forinstance, and nobody called him a bigot, or got defensive. We all got the satire, or so I thought, and "minstrel show" never entered my mind. Nor anyone else's, that I can see. Everyone I've ever spoken to about it just thought it was the funniest damn show on television and couldn't get enough.

Oh well. I'll miss having new episodes, that's for sure, but all good things must end, I suppose. I might just pick up the article, if only to cure some of my bafflement.

lawoot

04-14-2006, 07:47 AM

I reminded of a Chris Rock routine about 'being rich' versus 'being wealthy'.

Shaq is RICH. The guy who signs his checks is WEALTHY

Rubystreak

04-14-2006, 09:01 AM

"White people own everything" is horseshit, pure horseshit.

No, it really, really isn't, esp. in the USA. How much of the real wealth of this country is owned by black and latino people? I don't mean money, I mean wealth. You must realize that, while all of them aren't white, few of them are black.

Tell that to all the dirt-poor blue-collar whites all over this country....

You do realize that, just because there are also poor white people doesn't negate the fact that white people own everything, right?

RICH PEOPLE own everything. Rich whites, rich Arabs, rich Japanese, rich Hispanics, rich blacks, RICH PEOPLE.

The divide in this country is a class divide, not a race divide. The black poor and white poor share the same fate.

First of all this is not true. Being white does confer some automatic, passive privilege that white people receive and black people don't. Blacks and whites do not share the same fate. There are many ways to illustrate this, but this one's the first that comes to mind: look at the composition of the prison population by race and then tell me it's the same.

Chappelle's humor focused on race, and he didn't want to do it anymore because of the racial divide between blacks and whites. This divide does exit, racism does exist, and Chappelle felt he was hurting the situation more than helping. Nothing about that is horseshit.

Lochdale

04-14-2006, 09:36 AM

No, it really, really isn't, esp. in the USA. How much of the real wealth of this country is owned by black and latino people? I don't mean money, I mean wealth. You must realize that, while all of them aren't white, few of them are black.
.

Blacks only make up about 12% of the population. Just how much do they need to own for you to be happy? Most Latinos are immigrants so it's going to take them a while to move up the food chain. There are, however, many wealthy Lations who live in places like...the continent of South America or the country of Spain. To be sure there are still issues relating to racism particularly with regard to Black Americans but that does not mean 1) You can now include Latinos in your rainbow coalition of victimhood 2) a man making in excess of $50m is a good example to highlight that racism.

You do realize that, just because there are also poor white people doesn't negate the fact that white people own everything, right?

Actually it does. White people don't own everything. Some white people are very wealthy but most white people are not. You seem to be a little paranoid about this.

Being white does confer some automatic, passive privilege that white people receive and black people don't. Blacks and whites do not share the same fate. There are many ways to illustrate this, but this one's the first that comes to mind: look at the composition of the prison population by race and then tell me it's the same.

People tend to associate with people who look and sound like them. That isn't unique to white people. And do you think, perhaps, that there may be a socio-economic cause to Black rates of imprisonment? For example, in countries like England most of the prison population is white, what are they doing wrong such that they are imprisoning their own white brothers? Your premise is overbroad, simplistic and really without much merit.

Chappelle's humor focused on race, and he didn't want to do it anymore because of the racial divide between blacks and whites. This divide does exit, racism does exist, and Chappelle felt he was hurting the situation more than helping. Nothing about that is horseshit.

Or perhaps he just quit because the pressure was too much, he didn't need the money, he got lazy, he joined a cult, likes farms in Ohio a lot, was burned out etc. etc.

Any one of the above are as legitimate as your pov.

you with the face

04-14-2006, 09:40 AM

It's not primarily what the criticism was about, just a statement that $50 million not touching what "white people" own is so broad a statement as to be meaningless.

But he didn't say that. You've pulled this out of your ass.

"The bottom line was, white people own everything, and where can a black person go and be himself or say something that's familiar to him and not have to explain or apologize?"

His point was that he is tired of having to explain himself over and over again to people who do not understand him. Tell me why this is so offensive?

JohnT

04-14-2006, 09:42 AM

Because he implies it's a race thing and discounts the fact that it's a human thing, this propensity to misunderstand?

Menocchio

04-14-2006, 09:57 AM

Loopydude

04-14-2006, 10:08 AM

The fact that Chapelle is being called to explain his actions over and over again doesn't exactly prove him right, but it does explain why he feels so scrutinized.

He had a successful show. He didn't want to do it anymore, so he stopped. The end. That's the only explanation we, as an audience, need to know or are due.

(Okay, the fleeing to Africa without letting anyone know where you're going was a tad odd, but the basic story is still none of our business)

I really don't know about that. Chapelle was wildly popular and only growing moreso. He was offered a huge sum of money and a degree of latitude most artists can only have wet dreams about. His third season was as eagerly anticipated as any on Cable, and perhaps on any network...and he tossed it all and flew abrubtly to Africa, leaving everyone (Charlie Murphy, his bosses, you name them) to wonder what in the Hell was going on. I just don't see this as a "black" thing. It looks like a spectacularly drama-queeny celebrity meltdown thing, quite frankly, and this kind of behavior would set tongues wagging no matter who he was or what he looked like. Yeah, he's being scrutinized, but he's a performer! You get real famous and suddenly implode like that, people are going to scratch their heads.

you with the face

04-14-2006, 10:11 AM

Because he implies it's a race thing and discounts the fact that it's a human thing, this propensity to misunderstand?

So would you have prefered he had said this instead?

"The bottom line was, people who are under the influence of certain sociocultural factors that are correlated with membership to the majority race which make them clueless to the general perspective associated with being an African-American are quite ubiqitous in the environment, and where can a person who has the particular sociocultural perspectives associated with African-Americans go and be himself or say something that's familiar to him and not have to explain or apologize?"

Wordy enough for you? I had fun typing it.

even sven

04-14-2006, 10:35 AM

Blacks only make up about 12% of the population. Just how much do they need to own for you to be happy? Most Latinos are immigrants so it's going to take them a while to move up the food chain. There are, however, many wealthy Lations who live in places like...the continent of South America or the country of Spain. To be sure there are still issues relating to racism particularly with regard to Black Americans but that does not mean 1) You can now include Latinos in your rainbow coalition of victimhood 2) a man making in excess of $50m is a good example to highlight that racism.

I'll tell you a little secret. Nearly all of those wealthy Latin Americans are WHITE.

I say give the guy a break. He's a comedian. He's used to going up on stage, doing his thing, and then going home. Now that he's on a show, he's got handlers and market researchers and a full panel of executives deciding what he should say...well, Hollywood is tough on everyone. It can be a nasty business and not everyone is cut out for it or wants it. It does hurt families and it does make it hard to know or keep actual friends. It can be especially nasty when there are race dynamic involved- and there are. Go look at a class of film students one day (or an Oscar party). You've never seen so many white faces. Even if it's not a sign of deep running racism, it can be uncomfortable. If I had a job where whole corporate structures of Black people were telling me what to do, and my job was to be "a funny white girl", I would be uncomfortable. We all get a little uncomfortable outside of our element.

I know I've called in sick to a job and never came back. I've left jobs because the conditions skeeved me out. Just because he's famous and we all like his show doesn't mean he has some kind of responsibility to us.

pokey

04-14-2006, 10:43 AM

Everyone I've ever spoken to about it just thought it was the funniest damn show on television and couldn't get enough.
But you probably only talk to reasonably enlightened people. From all the interviews DC's done about why he left, doing the show exposed him to the fact that there are people watching his show who didn't get it the way you and your friends get it. Fucked up people who take it on a different level. My personal guess is that even though he always knew in the abstract that people like that still abound, he didn't have to confront deeply it until he started to meet the public and that's when it became an unavoidable reality to him. The truth is that a lot of us are sheltered from the reality of hate. We encounter it from time to time and think it's a fucked up anomaly and rush back to our enlightened circles to say, "woah, that was creepy," but it doesn't really open your eyes when there's nothing at stake. Lots of things in life are like that.

People seem to take an arrogant view that if someone's famous they owe it to everyone to be tough and just take it and like it in return for the money and love their getting, but sometimes those people are supposed to be artists and what makes them good is that they are sensitive and have emotional reactions. I don't think Dave Chappelle would be funny if he didn't have a finely tuned sense of how things ought to be versus how they are. If you don't see what's wrong and illogical in society, or if you don't have any feelings about it, how can you comment on it in a new way that makes people laugh? I think what makes him special is that he doesn't come at things from a jaded point of view. I don't believe he had ever internalized the reality of racism to the degree that it exists and I think it's the exact same problem a lot of his critics have. They haven't had the wakeup call he's had, and sometimes you just don't know til you know.

The way I think of it is it's like when you grow up in a diverse city and don't think a lot about racism from day to day, and then you go on a roadtrip and you stop in some strange place and go to the grocery store and the white cashier is chatting with the person ahead of you in line and they are saying racist things. Maybe moving to BET might shelter him from those people a bit, but I think the point is that he had never really internalized that segregation was somehow necessary to feel free to be yourself. Yeah, we can all say, "how could you be surprised?" but really, don't you feel shocked and assulted when you have to go into that grocery store and face that cashier. You just can't wait to go back to the "real world" of home where people like that have no credibility and you can forget them.

Even though every celebrity has to go through that to some degree, most of them don't talk about it in public because they know everyone will say they're crazy. What did they expect? Who do they think they are and why do they think they're so special? Of course you sold your soul and now you're a commodity but that's fair play for 50 million bucks. How naive were you? But my view of it is that if Dave Chappelle had been jaded on that stuff he never would have been so gleefully hilarious. Now he's in this trap as an artist and as a public figure, and he's trying a new way to get out of it and I think it takes a lot of guts. When people call you crazy you get put in the position of sacrificing your remaining credibility trying to show that you're sane, and most people won't risk it. They go hide. Not Dave, he keeps risking it all to tell the truth as he sees it and I'm hearing him. I think he is fucking awesome.

Lochdale

04-14-2006, 12:27 PM

I'll tell you a little secret. Nearly all of those wealthy Latin Americans are WHITE.

So they aren't really Latinos then? What about those of mixed Indian-Caucasian ancestry? What are they? Half-a-Latin?

Larry Borgia

04-14-2006, 12:32 PM

Regardless of his reasons, anyone who would turn down a 50 million dollar contract because he felt it would compromise his integrity has my respect.

Loopydude

04-14-2006, 12:57 PM

But you probably only talk to reasonably enlightened people.

I dunno. We caucasians have had many years' worth of Eddie Murphy and Richard Pryor (and their emulators) to watch and get used to the whole concept of a black guy sitting up in front of a crowd of white folks and making fun of us (and gays, and Asians, and black women, and white women, and drug addicts, and...). I don't want to give myself too much credit, here. It just isn't that much of a stretch anymore to appreciate someone like Dave Chapelle for simply being a great comedian among great comedians of any ethnicity.

Lochdale

04-14-2006, 01:05 PM

Are only white people capable of racism or is it possible for other races/ethnic groups to also be racist?

This is an issue Chappelle actually touched on in his show. Further, his show was equally as damning to blacks as it was to whites.

Garfield226

04-14-2006, 01:05 PM

It's not primarily what the criticism was about, just a statement that $50 million not touching what "white people" own is so broad a statement as to be meaningless.But he didn't say that. You've pulled this out of your ass.
Actually, I pulled it from Rubystreak's post. Any resemblance to my ass is mere coincidence, I assure you.

$50 million does not begin to dream of touching what white people own in this country and world.

you with the face

04-14-2006, 01:13 PM

Actually, I pulled it from Rubystreak's post.

You are right. My bad.

kimera

04-14-2006, 01:42 PM

Dave's letter to white people (http://www.popmatters.com/columns/harris/060411.shtml).

OK, maybe it's you just a bit. I mean, I like you. I even love you. I just don't trust you. You're kind of like a creepy stepfather. You could be a great dad for years -- taking me to ballgames, playing catch and all -- but if I were to wake up one night to find your nut sack on my chin, I wouldn't be all that shocked....You've gotta admit that you haven't exactly filled me with confidence in your self-control. You've taken slang like "bling", "all good", and "ho cake" and squeezed all of the edge out of them. And when did backwards caps become the official uniform of drunken keg stands? You wanna know why I went to Africa? Because "I'm Rick James, bitch!" was becoming the new "Dy-no-mite!" You already ruined Lil' Jon's career; I don't wanna be next.

Lochdale

04-14-2006, 01:55 PM

I wonder what Chappelle thought about Africa.....not exactly the friendliest place in the world despite the fact that it is mostly black. Wonder if the genocide in Dafur by Arabs against blacks bothers him at all?

Still, he's right about the Rick James bit. We did ruin it :(

Acsenray

04-14-2006, 02:20 PM

It seems to me that Chappelle has said several times that he was not comfortable being a superstar. He has implied that it negatively affected his friendships and other relationships. This was pretty clear in the Actor's Studio interview. Yes, he wants to make a good living as a comedian and performer. Maybe he even likes being rich. But he's not willing to do the superstar thing in order to be $50 million rich. He's got his limits and he's not willing what from his point of view is his soul for $50 million. It takes integrity and guts. You might not make the same decision. But really what Chappelle is saying is "I don't want this life and having $50 million isn't going to make it better."

I wonder what Chappelle thought about Africa.....not exactly the friendliest place in the world despite the fact that it is mostly black. Wonder if the genocide in Dafur by Arabs against blacks bothers him at all?

:dubious:

Africa is a big place, as big as a whole continent even. Chappelle didn't visit all of Africa. He hung out at a friend's place in South Africa, which is a fairly modern country.

even sven

04-14-2006, 03:00 PM

So they aren't really Latinos then? What about those of mixed Indian-Caucasian ancestry? What are they? Half-a-Latin?

They are Latinos, but they are also White. We tend to think of Latin America as a nice even shade of brown. But they actually have their own race issues just like we do. Much of the upper class proudly traces their lily-white linneage back to Europe and won't marry anyone who can't do the same. Indeed, the color lines in business, etc. are even more rigid than they are here. Indians still face a huge amount of discrimination (of course, this varies by region). When we are talking about the world of politcs, business, and big money of all kinds, it's the white people that are winning, and have for ages. Bolivia just got it's first Indian president. Argentina is 97% caucasian. Guyana is like 50% Hindu because of their overwhelming East Indian demogrpahic. Brazil, a racial melting pot if there ever has been one, claims "Indian" as their smallest demographic. Latin America is a diverse place, but one that is still ruled by an overclass, and that overclass happens to be nearly all white.

I wonder what Chappelle thought about Africa.....not exactly the friendliest place in the world despite the fact that it is mostly black. Wonder if the genocide in Dafur by Arabs against blacks bothers him at all?

Africa is a big continent. It varies from "hell on earth" to "this could be London". There are plenty of places that have full tourist facilities and get a lot of tourist traffic from Europe, complete with bikini beaches, surfing and discos. From what I know, the life of the relatively affluent in South Africa is increadably familiqr- leafy suburbs with green lawns, big cities with wide streets and tall buildings, movie theaters, fashion magazines, clean school uniforms and the evening news.

Equipoise

04-14-2006, 03:24 PM

Wonder if the genocide in Dafur by Arabs against blacks bothers him at all?

I can't believe I'm seeing those words are on my computer screen, in a place dedicated to fighting ignorance. You are a :wally (cleaned-up version because this is Cafe Society).

Apos

04-14-2006, 03:25 PM

But he's not willing to do the superstar thing in order to be $50 million rich. He's got his limits and he's not willing what from his point of view is his soul for $50 million. It takes integrity and guts.

What? He had pretty much full creative control over his show. He's ALREADY a superstar and nothing will ever change that now. I just don't get his problem. He signed a contract to do some stuff for Comedy Central, but I don't see any evidence that they were forcing him to do anything in particular. As far as I can tell, he will continue to do stuff, and get paid for it. If he wants to get paid less, I'm sure CC would be happy with that.

Still doesn't make a damn lick of sense. Dude went crazy.

Ensign Edison

04-14-2006, 03:50 PM

I agree with Rubystreak, who is more patient & articulate (at least without saying 'fuck' about a thousand times, which is why I tend to hang out in the Pit) than I, so I have nothing to add, but didn't want her (I believe?) to be a lone voice.

Sal Ammoniac

04-14-2006, 04:03 PM

I think some of you guys are missing something. Here's the relevant bit, bolding mine: "Culturally: 'The bottom line was, white people own everything, and where can a black person go and be himself or say something that's familiar to him and not have to explain or apologize?'" Obviously, there's some exaggeration for effect there, but I read this as saying, "In the cultural space, whites predominate, and I find it hard to be myself there" -- a fairly unimpeachable sentiment. He's not talking about money and assets here, so whether or not he's richer than the average white person is completely irrelevant.

Lute Skywatcher

04-14-2006, 04:05 PM

Culturally: "The bottom line was, white people own everything, and where can a black person go and be himself or say something that's familiar to him and not have to explain or apologize?"Time Magazine (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=367216)?

Jayrot

04-14-2006, 04:07 PM

I'd like to just say that I'm happy some people have come in to defend Chapelle (even if only in principle). The first 10 or so responses to this thread were rather disappointing.

Ghanima

04-14-2006, 04:24 PM

I think Chappelle's done a decent job of explaining himself. I do think he sounds a tad paranoid, and I read the "letter to white people" with an eyebrow raised. As a white woman, I will not ever really be able to understand his position, though. But I agree with Larry Borgia's comment in post #33.

Lochdale

04-14-2006, 04:39 PM

I can't believe I'm seeing those words are on my computer screen, in a place dedicated to fighting ignorance. You are a :wally (cleaned-up version because this is Cafe Society).

How exactly would you describe it then?

Lochdale

04-14-2006, 04:40 PM

Or maybe we are giving him too much credit. He may just have gone a little crazy with the pressure of trying to produce a third season to top the first two. This might be him just ranting or it might just be a means of deflecting the fact that he lost the plot.

Equipoise

04-14-2006, 04:51 PM

How exactly would you describe it then?

Describe you wondering if a sensitive and intelligent man like Dave Chappelle is "bothered" by a genocide? I'm sorry, there aren't enough words in the Pit or hell to describe what I think of you saying such a thing. Not that I would want to. You disgust me and I'd rather not have anything more to do with you.

Lochdale

04-14-2006, 04:56 PM

Describe you wondering if a sensitive and intelligent man like Dave Chappelle is "bothered" by a genocide? I'm sorry, there aren't enough words in the Pit or hell to describe what I think of you saying such a thing. Not that I would want to. You disgust me and I'd rather not have anything more to do with you.

It's not the pit so I'll try and be civil. My point was, which you obviously missed perhaps because I didn't write it particularly well, was that if Chappelle were going to go off about racism and what-not then perhaps he could also have gone on of some of the more extreme examples of racism going on in the world today. Seeing as how he had jetted off to Africa and all. Put another way, I found his comments to be a little trite given the money he made, the amount of control he had over his show and the siginificanly larger and more immediate problems racism problems.

As for Chappelle being a sensitive man, well I don't know him so I won't assume whether he is or not. He strikes me as being intelligent though as well as damn funny.

But hey, this isn't pit so I'm just sad to see you get so worked up about it. Have a pint and relax.

Loopydude

04-14-2006, 05:01 PM

That "open letter" thing is not for real, now, is it? It seems like people are treating it as if it was...

pizzabrat

04-14-2006, 05:07 PM

That "open letter" thing is not for real, now, is it? It seems like people are treating it as if it was...

No, like it said on the link, that columnist is the author.

pizzabrat

04-14-2006, 05:11 PM

It's not the pit so I'll try and be civil. My point was, which you obviously missed perhaps because I didn't write it particularly well, was that if Chappelle were going to go off about racism and what-not then perhaps he could also have gone on of some of the more extreme examples of racism going on in the world today.

Are, like, just playing the part of the cartoonishly defensive about race white guy just prove his point? He can have a valid complaint about the racism he experiences in his home country, you know, without being obligated to make any statements about events in other parts of the world that aren't relevant to any of us.

Rubystreak

04-14-2006, 06:55 PM

Blacks only make up about 12% of the population. Just how much do they need to own for you to be happy?

I'd like to not see them scoring lower on standardized tests, not comprising 40+% of the prison population, and not having to worry about being pulled over by cops, treated differently in stores, more likely to be unemployed, murdered, drop out of high school, live in poverty, etc. It's not really about money per se; money is just a nice, concrete way to measure it. I also doubt they own 12% of the wealth of this nation, but that's a symptom, not the cause.

To be sure there are still issues relating to racism particularly with regard to Black Americans but that does not mean 1) You can now include Latinos in your rainbow coalition of victimhood 2) a man making in excess of $50m is a good example to highlight that racism.

After I stopped laughing at your #1, I was able to wonder how Dave Chappelle making $50 million means he cannot have an epiphany about racism and his effect on it. I also don't understand how you can dismiss his decision not to accept money for something that he felt was wrong, and in such a cavalier and scornful manner.

White people don't own everything. Some white people are very wealthy but most white people are not. You seem to be a little paranoid about this.

No, you seem defensive. White people own the vast majority of the means of production in this country, set cultural norms, make the laws, enforce them, and all that. That is the real wealth/power source; $50 million for a TV show does not touch this.

And do you think, perhaps, that there may be a socio-economic cause to Black rates of imprisonment?

And do you think, perhaps, that racism has something to do with the socio-economic status of black people in America? I think it really, really does. It's endemic, systemic, and it's not even close to over.

For example, in countries like England most of the prison population is white, what are they doing wrong such that they are imprisoning their own white brothers? Your premise is overbroad, simplistic and really without much merit.

Your argument is so ridiculous, all I'll offer in response is a cite (http://www.drugwarfacts.org/racepris.htm), and see if you can still dismiss the effect of race on African Americans WRT incarceration.

Or perhaps he just quit because the pressure was too much, he didn't need the money, he got lazy, he joined a cult, likes farms in Ohio a lot, was burned out etc. etc.

Any one of the above are as legitimate as your pov.

And none of them are remote as valid at the one THE MAN HIMSELF possesses. Why do you think your armchair psychoanalysis is more valid than what Chappelle says are his reasons? My god, you really have no clue.

Askia

04-14-2006, 07:16 PM

What? He had pretty much full creative control over his show. He's ALREADY a superstar and nothing will ever change that now. I just don't get his problem. Dave did not have full creative control. Dave Chapelle's not quite a superstar, and he was definitely veering toward that sphere of star/whoredom with an attendant degree of attention, speculation, fascination and defamation that only the rich and celebrated suffer and endure. These past three years have raised his public profile in ways he finds deeply troubling and deeply disconcerting. It's clear you don't get his problem, his rationales for walking away from it, or why he quit, summing it up as, "Dude went crazy." Maybe that's a good thing.

hawksgirl

04-14-2006, 08:28 PM

Are only white people capable of racism or is it possible for other races/ethnic groups to also be racist?
::sociology student mode::

As I understand it, most -isms (like racism, sexism, &c) are only considered to be such when coming from the dominatant group (whites in the US). Also only the dominant group can discriminate , but any group can be prejudiced against another group.

So, only whites can be racist, anyone else is just prejudiced. Feel free to correct, since I'm not an expert by any means.

Lochdale

04-14-2006, 10:52 PM

So, only whites can be racist, anyone else is just prejudiced. Feel free to correct, since I'm not an expert by any means.

What about, for example, racism in South American countries where whites are not the majority? Or in the Sudan where non-Black Arabs are the majority. Under your model then non-whites can indeed be racist as well.

The things, it's very easy and also very dangerous to blame all minority problems on "racism". It's a glib and unintellectual way to try and explain away what are complex problems. It demonizes one section of society while obviating another from accepting responsibilty. Cries of racism are often a childish response to these complex issues.

To be sure there is racism in America. It's vital that black Americans receive adequate assistance in the form of affirmitive action (limited solely to black Americans to address the overwhelming problem of incorporating a peoples who were literally slaves into society as a whole). It's important that racism is stamped out and that we strive to create a society with equality of opportunity. That's it though. We cannot and should not try to create an egalitrian society because we simply aren't all equal. That sort of social engineering can lead to all sorts of trouble.

Chappelle grew up in a suburban, middle-class family. While he may have experience racism it hasn't prevented him from being an extremely popular and successful actor and comedian. It's my belief that he just caved in under the pressure of having to produce a third season given the quality of the first two. He's now looking for whatever outlet he can, either for himself or his fans, to justify this breakdown.

SkipMagic

04-14-2006, 11:37 PM

I'm sorry, there aren't enough words in the Pit or hell to describe what I think of you saying such a thing. Not that I would want to. You disgust me and I'd rather not have anything more to do with you.
Despite this not being the Pit, you're sure getting your personal digs in, anyway. You need to stop. Also, the Wally or putz smiley is considered an insult, so keep it to the confines of the Pit when aiming it at another poster.

Okay, as for this thread: it started out as a Cafe Society thread, but since it has morphed more into a debate, I'm gonna kick it over to Great Debates.

Askia

04-15-2006, 12:11 AM

Hawksgirl. While not quite "reverse racism," and it typically is rare and occurs among fringe groups -- minority groups suffering under the persecution of a given dominant society can be racist and bigoted, too. Just look at Palestine and Israel. I wonder what the racism of the militant Hindu Dalit (Untouchables) is like, or what forms Kurdish bigotry and hatred takes toward Shi'a Muslims.

Lochdale. Chappelle produced several episodes of the third season. He didn't "cave in" or "had a breakdown." He pointedly walked away from it, from racial comedy and material he no longer felt sure of or advisors around him that he no longer found trustworthy.

I don't understand this pervasive need to paint Dave Chappelle as simultaneously this fearless, insightful comedic genius and also this mentally unstable or drug-addled weak-willed Negro who choked under pressure. Just because his idol was Richard Pryor doesn't mean he's gonna end up smoked-up and brain-scrambled like dude. I listened to the DVD commentaries of both seasons and it's painfully obvious that Dave did NOT have the kind of creative control people attribute to him. He walked a tightrope between his comedic visionary stylings and his corporate paymasters as long as he could, and if anything the expectations got bigger and probably more intrusive as time went on -- and he walked. If Dave caved in to the kind of pressure he was really under, he'd still be cranking out episodes.

P.S. - I'm pretty sure blacks are still a majority in Sudan.

even sven

04-15-2006, 12:17 AM

What about, for example, racism in South American countries where whites are not the majority?

Man, did I not just explain this. For future reference, white people are a major force in Latin America (comprising 97% of Argentina, for example) and most certainly consititute the ruling class (dominating business, the media and politics), even in countries where they are not the majority. Indians face huge amounts of blatant and outright discrimination nearly throughout Latin America. Many, many Latin Americans who come here, who can proudly recite their family tree right back to Spain, are shocked when they come here and are suddenly no longer white.

raindog

04-15-2006, 12:41 AM

I'd like to not see them scoring lower on standardized tests, not comprising 40+% of the prison population, and not having to worry about being pulled over by cops, treated differently in stores, more likely to be unemployed, murdered, drop out of high school, live in poverty, etc. It's not really about money per se; money is just a nice, concrete way to measure it. I also doubt they own 12% of the wealth of this nation, but that's a symptom, not the cause.
I agree.
First thing is maybe forgoing the Fubu, Nike, and the like for maybe a copy of....hooked on phonics say.

Maybe not shooting each other---best I can tell the greatest cause of death [particularly of young black man] is murder....at the hands of another young black man.

Maybe not having children indiscriminately while teenagers, and not abandoning their own children so that teenage Johnny has both a mother and a father (that hopefully are older than 28 years old) and are still around and interested in giving Johhny the counsel, direction, encouragement and that keeps him in high school.

Maybe there is some direct corrolation between that same education, and his family being together and Johhny's job prospects, chances of staying out of prison and staying out of poverty, do ya think?

And do you think, perhaps, that racism has something to do with the socio-economic status of black people in America? I think it really, really does. It's endemic, systemic, and it's not even close to over.
By and large, NO.

Racism has been prevalent for all of human history. The notion that it would be eradicated is folly. The question is however, "Does racism prevent African Americans from getting a good education, live with a semblance of dignity, get a job, raise a family and lead a productive, fulfilling life?"

The answer is No.

The overwhelming amount of the troubles visited upon the black community are self inflicted. No one forced Johhny's parents to have him at 15, drop out of school, sling drugs, kill one another, destroy their own neighborhoods or commit crimes.

It's long overdue that we wake up and realize that the civil rights battle has been fought and won. The sooner we accept that and stop with this Bogeyman/victim mentality the sooner we can get down to the business of addressing the real issues.

tomndebb

04-15-2006, 12:41 AM

Why not go over to BET then?

If a white person were to say something similary a derogatory as Chappelle did they would be pillored. All he was short of doing was blaming the "Jews".Well, for starters, BET was sold to a predominantly white consortium (VIACOM) a couple of years ago.

I'm not sure what you considered "derogatory." Saying "whites don't get it" may be a (flawed) judgement call, but it is hardly derogatory. And your "jews" comment is simply odd.

tomndebb

04-15-2006, 12:45 AM

It's long overdue that we wake up and realize that the civil rights battle has been fought and won. The sooner we accept that and stop with this Bogeyman/victim mentality the sooner we can get down to the business of addressing the real issues. Piffle.

There have been tremendous strides made, perhaps more than many people would like to admit. But if you think that racial discrimination does not continue to harm blacks in this country (from discrimination in hirings and promotions to discrimination in housing to selective drug law enforcement), then you are not paying attention.

raindog

04-15-2006, 12:49 AM

::sociology student mode::

As I understand it, most -isms (like racism, sexism, &c) are only considered to be such when coming from the dominatant group (whites in the US). Also only the dominant group can discriminate , but any group can be prejudiced against another group.

So, only whites can be racist, anyone else is just prejudiced. Feel free to correct, since I'm not an expert by any means.
I'll correct you, at least as far as the dictionary is concerned. Dictionary.com

rac·ism Pronunciation Key (rszm)
n.

1. The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others.
2. Discrimination or prejudice based on race.

racist adj. & n.
The silly notion that only whites can be racist is not consistent with the definition of the word, or it's correct application. Black racism is practiced every single day. It's on TV, it's in the workplace, it's at the market, in the barbershop, it's in the schools, it's in homes.

It's our dirty little secret. However decades of white guilt and erstwhile hang wringing keeps us from stating the obvious: Black racism is alive and well; in fact it's thriving.

White people may have cornered the market on many things. Ignorance isn't one of them.

raindog

04-15-2006, 01:00 AM

Piffle.

There have been tremendous strides made, perhaps more than many people would like to admit. But if you think that racial discrimination does not continue to harm blacks in this country (from discrimination in hirings and promotions to discrimination in housing to selective drug law enforcement), then you are not paying attention.
In fact I am.

The problems in the AA community-----particularly in the urban centers---are in full crisis. To ascribe anything more than the slightest culpability to a select few racist employers and/or managers is a smoke screen to the real issues.

The greatest harm to blacks, by an overwhelming amount, is done by other blacks.

In my view, the greatest joke of all is this fiction of "institutional racism." The notion that behind every white manager, supervisor, HR director, recruiter and business owner is a latent Bull Connor is a myth; a myth perpetuated by the Cornell Wests, and Al Sharptons of the world.

Anyone who would suggest that racism (by either blacks or whites) is gone isn't paying attention. But to suggest that it affects anything more than the thinnest of percentages is simply untrue in my view. I think it also has the effect of keeping us from discussing more important issues, as we remain paralyzed by this Bogeyman.

Odesio

04-15-2006, 01:33 AM

As I understand it, most -isms (like racism, sexism, &c) are only considered to be such when coming from the dominatant group (whites in the US). Also only the dominant group can discriminate , but any group can be prejudiced against another group.

According to Nanda and Warms (2004) "Racism is contempt for people who have physical characteristics different from your own. In Western culture, racism is often combined with racialism. Racialism is an ideology based on the following suppositions: there are biologically fixed races; different races have different moral, intellectual, and physical characteristics; an individual's aptitudes are determined primarily by his or her race; races can be ranked in a single hierarchy; and political action should be taken to order society so that it reflects this hierarchy" (p. 14).

From an anthropological perspective being the dominant group isn't a requirement of racism. I would imagine the dominant group's racist beliefs would tend to overshadow other racist beliefs though.

Marc

References

Nanda, S., & Warms, R. L. (2004). Cultural Anthropology (8th Ed.).
Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomas Learning

tomndebb

04-15-2006, 02:10 AM

The problems in the AA community-----particularly in the urban centers---are in full crisis. To ascribe anything more than the slightest culpability to a select few racist employers and/or managers is a smoke screen to the real issues. No, iot is a recognition that the situation is more complex that either blaming just racism or just bad culture for the whole mess. I have no problem with the notion that a lot of problems stem from within the inner city groups--or even from within various suburban groups. I object to the notion that we can simply make a false declaration that civil rights have been "won" so we can just blame "those people." Racism continues to play a significant part in the overall picture. Recognizing that fact does not let anyone off the hook for the problems associated with criticism for "acting white" or an erroneous feeling of entitlement or the abandonment of responsibility within the community. It does, however, mean that the problems of selective law enforcement and other forms of discrimination (hardly limited to "a few" racist employers) still need to be addressed.

Argent Towers

04-15-2006, 03:03 AM

Euthanasiast

04-15-2006, 03:26 AM

I agree.
First thing is maybe forgoing the Fubu, Nike, and the like for maybe a copy of....hooked on phonics say.

Maybe not shooting each other---best I can tell the greatest cause of death [particularly of young black man] is murder....at the hands of another young black man.

Maybe not having children indiscriminately while teenagers, and not abandoning their own children so that teenage Johnny has both a mother and a father (that hopefully are older than 28 years old) and are still around and interested in giving Johhny the counsel, direction, encouragement and that keeps him in high school.

Racism has been prevalent for all of human history. The notion that it would be eradicated is folly. The question is however, "Does racism prevent African Americans from getting a good education, live with a semblance of dignity, get a job, raise a family and lead a productive, fulfilling life?"

The answer is No.

The overwhelming amount of the troubles visited upon the black community are self inflicted. No one forced Johhny's parents to have him at 15, drop out of school, sling drugs, kill one another, destroy their own neighborhoods or commit crimes.

It's long overdue that we wake up and realize that the civil rights battle has been fought and won. The sooner we accept that and stop with this Bogeyman/victim mentality the sooner we can get down to the business of addressing the real issues.

Flawless assertion by The Raindog.

I don't care what you believe about racism. It doesn't matter at all whether or not you feel that a particular race is under privileged or not. All that you need to understand is that as long as members of that particular race continue to pick up this victim mentality and use it as a personal landfill for their own shortcomings, a cudgel to ward off responsibility for their own failings, the situation will never, ever improve. This is about individuals, who have the power (privileged or not) to succeed despite the odds. And this is why programs like Affirmative Action are deeply flawed and only serve to widen the chasm between the races. They propagate a false mindset, that you need an assist to succeed. You couldn't do it otherwise. Martin Luther King understood this, and it is deeply troubling that in all this time none of his successors have carried on his vision, his dream.

Euthanasiast

04-15-2006, 03:37 AM

One need only look at the Korean, Filipino, Cuban, Jewish, Irish, or Indian communities of the United States, and their economic success, to see that there is much more to this than simply "racism."

Blacks aren't the only ones who've had it rough.

Don't forget that the Irish were at one point thought as being a different race than the "white race," that they were believed to be apelike savages, and that many of them came over to this country as white slaves ("indentured servants.")

The Japanese were literally put into concentration camps in this country. That didn't cause them to suffer from the problems that plague the black sector of the American population today.

The Jews came here not as bankers and lawyers but as dirt-poor villagers from Russia and Poland without any knowledge of English and with a religion that has historically gotten the shit end of the stick like no other. Now they are overrepresented in the elite professions, and not just the ones that have changed their surnames.

These people were able to economically succeed by instilling family and educational values into their descendants. They kept their families together and they kept their kids in school. This is what matters. Not the color of your skin. You'll notice that there are plenty of middle class and upper class blacks in this country. They got there because they worked hard. Anyone can do it.

And another slam dunk! (I suppose my job in this thread is cheerleader for the sensible--whatever, it's a worthy cause)

Boatloads of Asian immigrants come to this country. They do not speak the language. They have no idea how the system of America works. All they understand is that it is a place where a dedicated soul can prosper. They come to this country with families intact. In seven years or less, they speak the language fluently, run prosperous business, and have children that are outscoring white and black kids on college entrance exams everywhere.

I do not see them getting special treatment in schools or on the streets. I do not see them getting the attention of government officials and other empty sympathetics who then lobby to include positive additions to school textbooks so that they can feel good about themselves and perhaps function better in this society because of it.

Sorry for the continued hijack.

Apos

04-15-2006, 07:37 AM

It's clear you don't get his problem, his rationales for walking away from it, or why he quit,

But you, with your amazing blackdar, and like the author of the article who feels able to simply write out his inner mind, get to make up stuff to fill in all his thoughts and seemingly irrational behavior...

Come on....

Sal Ammoniac

04-15-2006, 08:02 AM

Euthanasiast

04-15-2006, 08:58 AM

Were Koreans, Filipinos, Cubans, or Jews ever chattel slaves in this country? Did they suffer lynchings, a hundred years of savage Jim Crow? The black experience in this country is almost unique in its awfulness. Only the native people arguably had it as bad, and look how well they're doing.

To say racisms is dead(ish) at present is to completely miss the point. It's the reality of racism in the past that has made life so difficult for African-Americans in the present.

How many people are even alive today that even witnessed a lynching? How long do you get to pull that skeleton out of the closet and beat us with it like a monkey on a snare drum. In a thousand years we'll still be hearing about it. And furthermore, I'm not hearing about it from blacks, it's liberals that are screaming it from the roof tops. Black people for the most part just want to put it behind them and move on. This is the right thing to do, because dwelling on this awful past is anything but constructive.

Yes it sucked, for the millionth time, it sucked. So when do we move on?

raindog

04-15-2006, 08:59 AM

No, iot is a recognition that the situation is more complex that either blaming just racism or just bad culture for the whole mess. I have no problem with the notion that a lot of problems stem from within the inner city groups--or even from within various suburban groups. I object to the notion that we can simply make a false declaration that civil rights have been "won" so we can just blame "those people." Racism continues to play a significant part in the overall picture. Recognizing that fact does not let anyone off the hook for the problems associated with criticism for "acting white" or an erroneous feeling of entitlement or the abandonment of responsibility within the community. It does, however, mean that the problems of selective law enforcement and other forms of discrimination (hardly limited to "a few" racist employers) still need to be addressed.
I agree that the situatation is complex.

I don't agree that racism plays anything but the very smallest of roles in what is wrong in the AA community. My biggest concern is that this whole racism charge gets so much press, gets so much bandwidth, so much attention that many people are left with the logical impression that there nothing they can do.

I can't get a good education, I can't get a job, I can't make my way in the world for fear of being stopped while driving black, for being followed while in the department store etc. I can no longer be held accountable for my personal choices because the societal deck is stacked against me. And, in fact, the few who refuse to accept this less than subtle message and make good choices---and who get good educations, keep from having kids at absurdly young ages etc will certainly be victimized at some point by this shadowy, monolithic racist system.

I just don't buy it. I would venture that most AA rarely experience racism. That's not to say that all white Americans are fully enlightened. What it means is that most WA don't care---they're not consumed with "holding a brother down" the way the Sharptons would like us to believe. As co-workers, supervisors, employers, citizens etc they simply don't care. I would guess that most are puzzled by the incessant charge of systemic racism. They remain puzzled why "racists" are going after Barry Bonds given the evidence suggesting his misdeeds, (ever heard of Pete Rose?) and get irritated by the charge of racism in the whole OJ Simpson debacle. (a man embraced by white America from the day he was a freshman at USC, lived in a white suburban enclave and was married to a white woman without the first picketer)

I would also submit that the majority of the claims of racism in employment practices are not racism at all----that some percentage of them are fabricated, and some are just plain [sincere but] incorrect. I have had AA acquaintences say plainly that the racism card is just one more strategy in resolving an employment dispute. Some years ago I ran a catering business from a nationally known office building. At some point I fired a young black man for poor performance, and poor attendance. Immediately he made a scene that his firing was racially motivated. This despite that among my 18 employees only 3 were white--and that the balance were equally distributed between men, women blacks and hispanics. Further, he was fully informed about his performance at every step of the way. (and documented) In the years that have followed, I wonder how many times he has told friends and relatives about how he was another brother victimized by a racist boss.

Racism is the catch all strategy for poor performance, poor qualifications and bad behavior.

raindog

04-15-2006, 09:06 AM

According to Nanda and Warms (2004) "Racism is contempt for people who have physical characteristics different from your own. In Western culture, racism is often combined with racialism. Racialism is an ideology based on the following suppositions: there are biologically fixed races; different races have different moral, intellectual, and physical characteristics; an individual's aptitudes are determined primarily by his or her race; races can be ranked in a single hierarchy; and political action should be taken to order society so that it reflects this hierarchy" (p. 14).

From an anthropological perspective being the dominant group isn't a requirement of racism. I would imagine the dominant group's racist beliefs would tend to overshadow other racist beliefs though.

Marc

References

Nanda, S., & Warms, R. L. (2004). Cultural Anthropology (8th Ed.).
Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomas Learning

Dead on.

The Cornell Wests of the world have repeated the charge that only "the dominant culture" (i.e. Whites) is capable of racism so often that it is fixed in our conciousness.

It's simply not true.

Black racism is real, alive and very, very well.

you with the face

04-15-2006, 10:01 AM

Rubystreak

04-15-2006, 10:07 AM

Yes it sucked, for the millionth time, it sucked. So when do we move on?

It sucked? Wow.

I guess you guys have never heard of a vicious cycle. Racism in this country was open, active, and undeniably systemic at least until the Civil Rights movement of the 1960's. Do you folks really think that the African American culture has recovered from it as completely as you claim in 50 years?

Racism plus poverty has led to a culture that makes it difficult for people to rise above it. African American culture is still in a process of moving on. It's really too bad they can't do it on white people's timetable, but it does take more than a couple of decades to process through centuries of chattel slavery, systemic discrimination, and the resultant socioeconomic and cultural deficits

Some of the comments in this thread are patently outrageous, but I'm not really one for Great Debates. I doubt anything I say will change your minds, since you've decided that black people who point out racism are all whiners who don't want to succeed. Feel free to rest in your ignorance without interference from me.

Ensign Edison

04-15-2006, 10:27 AM

Thanks again, Ruby, face, & Askia, and anyone else patiently chipping away at this outrageous nonsense. Maybe in another couple years on the Dope I'll be able to join these discussions without getting myself banned. Maybe if we all keep at it a few people...probably not the ones who say things like "they just need to fix their attitudes" and "systemic racism doesn't exist, it's all about what people think in their heads, and if they're not thinking 'I hate ni***rs' then they're not racists, but if they are thinking 'I hate crackers' then they are racists", but maybe some of the ones reading...will start to see through the bluster to the chilling reality, which is that the position that black people are not held back by racism in this country is itself an inherently racist position.

Does that mean the people who hold it hate 'ni***ers'? No. It means that as long as people hold that position, there will be fewer checks on racism in this country. If you're standing in a rising pool of water insisting that you fixed that pipe already so your house can't possibly be flooding, you are part of the problem. And it's possible to be part of the problem without donning a white sheet and grabbing the torches. It's possible to really, truly not feel at all racist -- to honestly have no hatred or even dislike of black people -- and be part of the problem. If you can't grasp that, you are, frankly, just too ignorant to be taken at all seriously in discussion of this matter.

tomndebb

04-15-2006, 10:40 AM

I don't agree that racism plays anything but the very smallest of roles in what is wrong in the AA community. My biggest concern is that this whole racism charge gets so much press, gets so much bandwidth, so much attention that many people are left with the logical impression that there nothing they can do.But you appear to be letting the validity of the second statement (with which I somewhat agree) turn the whole issue into a black and white one (pun intended) in which you simply dismiss the reality of the racism.

Consider the statistics of young black men in jail. An awful lot of them are there because crimes and convictions tend to show up most among the poorest groups in crowded situations in society. I agree that there is no specific racism in that situation (other than that the racist actions of previous generations created the a fair amount of that poverty). However, when we consider that the huge numbers of people incarcerated over the last 20 years are in for drug related crimes (including possession as well as selling) and that we have the testimony of Federal law enforcement personnel that they devote most of their energies toward the inner city, a different picture emerges of why their numbers are as high as they are.

You have also focused nearly all your attention of the poorest groups of urban blacks, but racism has an effect on the middle class, as well.

Finally, you seem to rely pretty heavily on anecdotal personal experience. I too have seen poor performing workers attempt to play the race card. There is no question that that happens. However, I have also seen racism used to keep blacks out of certain housing or put a ceiling on their careers--the apartment I rented in a mixed neighborhood where I discovered everyone in my building was white and where the landlord asked me as I moved out if I knew any white people who were looking for housing, the multiple employers of a person I know in HR who have continually asked her to find ways to let them circumvent the equal opportunity rules that she was hired to enforce, the hiring of the least qualified black by managers who were under pressure to recruit outside the "white male" box so that they could point at the hired person as an example of why hiring blacks was a bad idea.

I am in favor of black leaders getting in the faces of students and telling them that the phrase "acting white" is about the stupidest phrase in their vocabulary. I am in favor of simply dismissing charges of racism when the employee is obviously incompetent or unmotivated. I am in favor of someone (preferably in the black community) telling Jackson and Sharpton to sit down and shut up when they loudly defend black kids who have been caught (on tape!) in criminal acts.

I am not in favor of using that sort of event as an excuse to simply say it's all their fault; let them figure it out or to declare the battle for civil rights to be "won" when I have seen ample evidence that there is still active discrimination continuing in this country.

The black mayor of New Orleans was an idiot for not taking seriously the suggestions that he needed to evacuate his people and then whining on (inter)national TV that his people had been betrayed.
But it was the white police chief in the next city that physically prevented black people from leaving the city after it flooded, then ordered his troops to scatter the people and destroy their possessions.
We had seven days of loud proclamations that (black) people trapped at the Superdome were rioting and raping and murdering each other and only a couple of months-later footnotes that none of that actually happened.
Racism does continue to play a role in our society. We will never get everyone to love one another, but we can work a lot harder to remove barriers to advancement and to treat people more equally.

Loopydude

04-15-2006, 10:41 AM

Jeez. I thought this was a pretty straightforward question: Integrity, or flipped wig? Shows what I know...

Rubystreak

04-15-2006, 11:11 AM

Jeez. I thought this was a pretty straightforward question: Integrity, or flipped wig? Shows what I know...

Sometimes, when someone has a major personal epiphany that leads to an act of integrity, people don't understand. They haven't had this revelation, and they can only see the situation from their POV. Thus, it looks like a flipped wig, esp. when lots of money is involved and people can only think, "I would LOVE to have that money and he's walking away from it, thus he must be nuts."

I still say Chappelle showed extraordinary integrity for walking away from that money and from actions and words that he thinks are wrong. The insistence that he's nuts reveals more about the person making the diagnosis than it does about Chappelle.

Loopydude

04-15-2006, 11:55 AM

The insistence that he's nuts reveals more about the person making the diagnosis than it does about Chappelle.

Well, it may show that we're pretty used to our celebrities being nuts, e.g. "Charliemurphay! Darkness is falling! I'm Rick James, biotch!"

Argent Towers

04-15-2006, 11:55 AM

Blacks had more tightly-knit communities and more two-parent, stable families BEFORE CIVIL RIGHTS than they do now. Why were they able to pull this off 70 and 80 years ago and not able to pull it off now as well?

pokey

04-15-2006, 11:57 AM

Argent Towers

04-15-2006, 12:03 PM

pool

04-15-2006, 12:29 PM

Originally posted by Ensign Edison:
It's possible to really, truly not feel at all racist -- to honestly have no hatred or even dislike of black people -- and be part of the problem. If you can't grasp that, you are, frankly, just too ignorant to be taken at all seriously in discussion of this matter.

I don't want to put words in your mouth so I'll just ask you, Are you saying then then that these people are at fault? If so, then what is the best way to rectify the situation?

Lochdale

04-15-2006, 12:38 PM

Man, did I not just explain this. For future reference, white people are a major force in Latin America (comprising 97% of Argentina, for example) and most certainly consititute the ruling class (dominating business, the media and politics), even in countries where they are not the majority. Indians face huge amounts of blatant and outright discrimination nearly throughout Latin America. Many, many Latin Americans who come here, who can proudly recite their family tree right back to Spain, are shocked when they come here and are suddenly no longer white.

So let's just get to the heart of you point: All white people are evil and but for whites Africa/South America/Antartica would be a virtual paradise. That about sum it up?

Rubystreak

04-15-2006, 12:43 PM

Google "black illigitimacy rates" and you will see that they have been RISING over the past decades - in other words, they were once much lower. Even when public racism was much more of a problem than it is now.

White rates are up too. (http://www.isteve.com/2003_Black_Illegitimacy_Rate_Declines.htm)

Indeed, the illegitimacy rate among non-Hispanic whites (22.9 percent in 2002, up from 22.5 percent the previous year) is now higher than that 22 percent black rate of four decades ago. By way of contrast, the white illegitimacy rate was 16.9 percent in 1990, and only 1.9 percent back in 1956.

Lochdale

04-15-2006, 01:01 PM

I don't *think* anyone is suggesting that racism hasn't been a problem for black-Americans. I think the debate is the degree to which it has affected blacks. I think it's dangerous and easy to blame all of the problems in the black community on "racism". It's a glib answer that allows black leadership to avoid the real issues facing the black community. That said, people like Chappelle show that blacks can and do succeed in American society. Most black people are not shooting one another or having children out of wedlock. They would do well, however, to drop the victim mentality as it simply isn't getting them anywhere and will turn other groups such as asians and latinos against them as simply don't share the same guilt that white-Americans do.

I would not, however, consider affirmitive action as a sop to that victimhood. If, as it was intended, it were limited to black-Americans then it could really work. It's an extraordinary remedy to an extraordinary problem (slavery).

pool

04-15-2006, 01:10 PM

When you say affirmative action do you mean things like quota systems or tax breaks for black owned businesses, scholarships? What comes to your mind when you think of affirmative action.

Lochdale

04-15-2006, 01:18 PM

When you say affirmative action do you mean things like quota systems or tax breaks for black owned businesses, scholarships? What comes to your mind when you think of affirmative action.

That's a very good question.

I think quotas would create more resentment and perhaps do more harm then good.

Here's my back of the envelope thoughts on affirmative actions.

1. Limit it (as it was intended) solely to black-Americans as a means of redressing the evils of slavery. This would lend real moral and intellectual authority to affirmative action programs.

2. Tax breaks and low start-up costs (waiving filing fees etc.) for true black-owned businesses (not fronts created to take advantage of certain programs). Particular emphases given for businesses that are set-up in deprived areas and have black-Americans as X% of their workforce.

3. Give greater weight to applications from blacks who also come from a deprived of working-class background. That is, if you live in Beverly Hills you shouldn't get an advantage simply because you are black.

4. This is just a thought from my experience growing up in Ireland. Sponsor and support technical programs in black neighborhoods and schools. Such programs could include carpentry, electrical, plumbing etc. Not everyone should go to college and a liberal arts degree from a poor school may simply not be worth it. The development of a tradesman class of black-Americans would be an excellent way to begin the ascent up the socio-economic ladder.

Just some thoughts, by no means comprehensive

Rubystreak

04-15-2006, 01:32 PM

I think it's dangerous and easy to blame all of the problems in the black community on "racism".

Is that what you think Chappelle was doing? Clearly not, since he felt that he was contributing to racism in a negative way, so he opted to stop. If he felt he was powerless over racism, then he would have just taken the money, eh? Instead, he exercised the power he did have, which I think it admirable.

Loopydude

04-15-2006, 01:46 PM

I listened to the DVD commentaries of both seasons and it's painfully obvious that Dave did NOT have the kind of creative control people attribute to him. He walked a tightrope between his comedic visionary stylings and his corporate paymasters as long as he could...

I've not heard the commentary, nor have I seen some of the interviews (I tend to summarily avoid "The Actor's Studio" because James Lipton's mug flashing on the screen makes me scream like a frightened toddler).

I'm just thinking of the show, the final product of his "corporate paymasters'" meddling, apparently. He got to stand up in front of a classroom full of young children and exclaim "And that, kids, was the first time I sucked a dick for crack!". There was a sketch where a guy punches out the bottom of a bag of popcorn, shoves his junk in it, and by the end of the bit his movie date's head is bobbing up and down in it. He did a toe-curling satire with a blind, black white supremacist who's every other word is "nigger", meaning nigger. He had an effeminate gay Klansman in pink robes kindly ask some other "niggers" to pretty pleath leave the neighborhood. He's got a sissy boxing match where one of the contenders is nicknamed "The Tyranical Teabagger!" He does a blatantly suggestive quasi-pornographic spoof of an R. Kelly video entitled "Piss On You".

For non-premium cable, I'm not seeing many restraints here. I mean, yeah, when Mr. James says "Bitches! Show him your titties!", we don't get an unrestricted view of the titties. It's clear however, even with the excesses of South Park, this show was pushing a few envelopes. Some clashes over content would not have surprised me, but were they over the heart of the creative content, or over things like "Dave, we've gotta bleep it out when you say ''Cause fuck 'em! That's why!'. We're gonna lose our license...."

OK, so, with this background, he essentially shatters his contract, flees to another country with no explanation, and the public response of his employers was something like: "Please come back, Dave. Whenever you like. You get whatever you want. Take a year. Or more? Please?"

I'm not seeing the painful oppression here. Prior to, simple, non-racially tinged, incipient Brandoesque nuttyness seemed likely to me. From my naive, perhaps ill-informed perspective, I kind of wish someone would oppress me like that. I can accept the arrangement still wasn't up to his high artistic standards, but it's not clear to me why I'd be out of line wondering if these were, in fact, with the recent disclosures, absurdly high standards meant to wreck the arrangement because, apparently, Dave just doesn't like working with white people, and the experience of pleasing them made him crack. I mean, that's fine, he's entitled to like or dislike whoever he wishes, and if he finds white money so distasteful nobody ought to force it on him. But if that's the case (and I don't know if it is), why cast aspersions when it seems his problem might be that the wrong sorts of people wound up liking him?

Rubystreak

04-15-2006, 01:58 PM

I'm just thinking of the show, the final product of his "corporate paymasters'" meddling, apparently.... From my naive, perhaps ill-informed perspective, I kind of wish someone would oppress me like that.

I think the point you're missing is that he did not want to do the Rick James thing, or the crackhead thing, or drop the word "nigger" all over the place anymore. However, that was the kind of show that CC signed on for, and he no longer wanted to do that kind of show. Thus, you can imagine why he walked away from the whole deal. I wonder if creative control meant that he could change his act completely. I doubt it. As long as he was turning out the product that people came to expect, he had creative latitude, but maybe when he decided he had to move away from it, that was not OK. At least, that's the impression I got from the interviews.

monstro

04-15-2006, 02:38 PM

I'm not seeing the painful oppression here.

Maybe it's because you can't. Not because you're white, but because you haven't lived in Chappelle's shoes. You don't know what fucked-up things he was told or overheard coming from boardrooms. You aren't privy to his life--not his personal or business drama. So of course you can't see the painful oppression. Chappelle isn't your best friend. To you and most Americans, he's simply a cartoon character, a clown, a buffoon who serves to amuse. You and I don't know the full picture.

I like Chappelle, but I can totally understand why he was bothered by aspects of his show and did not want to do it anymore. The truth is is that we don't know what part of his show was his stuff, and what part of it was the product of writers and CC executives. Maybe the guy felt like he was already pushing the envelop enough, and yet he was getting heavy pressure to go even more over the top. Everyone has their sacred cows. Maybe he was worried he'd broken too many of them, for the wrong reasons, and he was in danger of being someone he was not.

I think black comedians who gain wide acclaim walk a tight line between being funny and being a "coon". The former is the stereotype we're familiar with from minstrel shows, of a black buffoon who gets laughs by embarassing himself in the basest of ways, perpetuating negative stereotypes in the process. Maybe Dave Chappelle feels like he's allowed himself to be a coon. If all the public can do when they see him is shout "I'm Rick James BIATCH!!", then I don't think that feeling is completely unwarranted.

monstro

04-15-2006, 02:44 PM

The former is the stereotype we're familiar with from minstrel shows...

Of course, I meant the latter.

Cartooniverse

04-15-2006, 02:50 PM

If white people own everything, where in the hell is my residual check?!!!!

-cough- Apparently some of us aren't quite as white as we think we are.-cough-

:D

I can't figure out, from having followed this a bit, if there is a whole lotta something that Mr. Chappelle hasn't even hinted at or if he just got deeply freaked out.

Joey Baggadonuts wins 190 Mil in the Lottery, and loses his mind. Yanno...when people who don't expect a huge payday get it, something sometimes goes wonky. Maybe he truly stressed, and cracked, and is now trying to line up reasons to justify.

If that is the case, then it's a bit sad that he's not allowed to say, " Yanno what? I freaked out but good. Tons of pressure and I just could not do it. So sorry. "

Not everyone who is a performer is made of steel, right?

Cartooniverse

even sven

04-15-2006, 03:04 PM

So let's just get to the heart of you point: All white people are evil and but for whites Africa/South America/Antartica would be a virtual paradise. That about sum it up?

Yeah, thats me. Down with all the white men. My point is that race in Latin America is a complicated subject, just like it is here, and that Latin America isn't made up largely of undiferentiated "brown" people who live in some sort of "brown man's world". The lingering effects of colonialism througout the world are far too complex to stick lables "good" and "bad" on them, but what we can do is try to get basic facts (like what the racial profile of the ruling classes of Latin America) right before we start blathering about it.

Askia

04-15-2006, 03:06 PM

But you, with your amazing blackdar, and like the author of the article who feels able to simply write out his inner mind, get to make up stuff to fill in all his thoughts and seemingly irrational behavior...

Come on.... Apos. This is probably my spring head cold congestion talking, or my sore throat medicine talking, and my irritation being inside on such a nice, bright spring day talking, but please, a favor. I find myself livid as fuck reading your post, which is odd because it's not all that ire-raising. So, in the future, when you quote me, Apos, please do not edit my thoughts mid-sentence to bolster your own points. If you must do, please have the integrity to use an ellipses (...) or, better still, an ellipses with a [snip] sign. My fill, unexpurgated comment was (and is) as follows:
It's clear you don't get his problem, his rationales for walking away from it, or why he quit, summing it up as, "Dude went crazy." Maybe that's a good thing.
If I am bothering to actually watch the Chappelle/Lipton interview, and the Chappelle/Oprah interview, and listening to two seasons worth of his DVD commentaries, I suspect I'm gathering FAR more information, nuance and facts that allows more reasonable inductive behavioral insights than anything a "blackdar" scan would do. I agree my analysis is pretty amazing.

I'm just thinking of the show, the final product of his "corporate paymasters'" meddling, apparently. He got to stand up in front of a classroom full of young children and exclaim "And that, kids, was the first time I sucked a dick for crack!". There was a sketch where a guy punches out the bottom of a bag of popcorn, shoves his junk in it, and by the end of the bit his movie date's head is bobbing up and down in it. He did a toe-curling satire with a blind, black white supremacist who's every other word is "nigger", meaning nigger. He had an effeminate gay Klansman in pink robes kindly ask some other "niggers" to pretty pleath leave the neighborhood. He's got a sissy boxing match where one of the contenders is nicknamed "The Tyranical Teabagger!" He does a blatantly suggestive quasi-pornographic spoof of an R. Kelly video entitled "Piss On You". [bolding mine.]

Nitpicking.

1) It was a classroom set full of child actors and a fake teacher. An important difference.

2) Visually, not really all that different from AIRPLANE! when the stewardess "blew" the deflating automatic pilot, 30 years before.

3) The "effeminate" gay Klansman bit was never aired in full.

4) The sissy boxing match was part of the same sketch and never aired in full.

5) Where you saw a "quasi-pornographic spoof" I saw "fully-dressed actors at all times doing a fully-scatological humor-referenced music video spoof" of R. Kelly. When I see porn I think sex. That's not what happened.

Yeah, but Loop: conspicuously missing from his fully aired skits this year, and only seen briefly during a greatest misses episode, was a "time travelling haters" episode where the Haters (from the Haters Ball episode) went back in time to diss a slavemaster... and then Dave's character wound up killing the dude with a brought from the future semiautomatic rifle and setting the slaves free. There's no way his core base of black fans wouldn't have been happy with seeing a smart-mouthed pimp blowing away a slave driver.

Now, I don't know about you, but that's a comedy piece with a slice of real black edginess to it, yet for some odd reason, Comedy Central killed it. I know it would have been successful as hell (at least with a segment of his audience), and you have to wonder why. Hmm.

I agree with your first part of your analysis. "Come back, Dave. We'll do anything. YOU can do anything!" They of course want Chappelle back. There's just no way Comedy Central would give him free unfettered creative reign to do so. They didn't for Parker and Stone, or for Mencia, Spade, Colbert or Stewart.

Cartooniverse. There're undeserved, unfair and unsubstantiated judgments being made calling someone "deeply freaked out," "loses his mind," "goes wonky," "truly stressed," "wonky," just because they walked away from a payday based on an increasing discomfort with expectations of their performance and "dancing like a coon."

I don't understand why these characterizations against Dave always have to be framed in good mental health terms. What, a nigger can't just get tired of the shit? A nigger can't be paranoid at the shadiness? Shit just can't feel ill?

Lochdale

04-15-2006, 03:24 PM

Is that what you think Chappelle was doing? Clearly not, since he felt that he was contributing to racism in a negative way, so he opted to stop. If he felt he was powerless over racism, then he would have just taken the money, eh? Instead, he exercised the power he did have, which I think it admirable.

This is after he just walked away from a contract, hid out in Africa and generally ignored the media and his fans for several months? Doesn't pass the smell test.

Rubystreak

04-15-2006, 03:44 PM

-cough- Apparently some of us aren't quite as white as we think we are.-cough-

This is just bad logic and I'm not sure why it's persisting in this thread. Just because white people control most of the wealth doesn't mean that all white people are wealthy, nor that white people do not suffer with poverty in this country.

I can't figure out, from having followed this a bit, if there is a whole lotta something that Mr. Chappelle hasn't even hinted at or if he just got deeply freaked out.

I don't think he makes any bones about deeply freaking out. A lot of people can't accept that he had a perfectly valid reason for freaking out and seek to discredit that reason.

Joey Baggadonuts wins 190 Mil in the Lottery, and loses his mind. Yanno...when people who don't expect a huge payday get it, something sometimes goes wonky. Maybe he truly stressed, and cracked, and is now trying to line up reasons to justify.

What if he cracked and does have reasons to justify that you just won't accept? Why are people trying so hard to come up with some other story instead of the one he has given? Because you don't like the implications of his reasoning, it makes you feel defensive or indirectly accused of something and that makes you uncomfortable? I say that's too bad.

I think Chappelle was trying to make social commentary and found himself reduced to a schtick, a vaudeville show. Yeah, he partially blames his audience, but I think he's also taking responsibility on himself, consequently turning down the money and fame. That's good enough reason for me.

Not everyone who is a performer is made of steel, right?

IMO it was pretty steely of him to forego all that money. YMMV.

Rubystreak

04-15-2006, 03:51 PM

This is after he just walked away from a contract, hid out in Africa and generally ignored the media and his fans for several months? Doesn't pass the smell test.

What is your point? That going to Africa and blowing off the contract = crazy? that he was NOT exercising his personal power by ignoring the media and his fans? Is this not entirely within his right to do if he wants to? Do you think he "owes" the media and his fans to the point where he has to do something he thinks is wrong to please them?

Haven't you ever, in your life, just had to walk the hell away from something because it was making you miserable? There are times when, if I had the resources to just flee, I would have. Instead, I just stop answering my phone and e-mail for a while, and take a break in my house by myself. Chappelle did not have that luxury.

Bottom line for me is, the man did what he felt he had to do. I don't think I'm in a position to cast aspersions on his sanity nor second guess his motives, in contradiction to what he says, since his reasons seem valid to me.

Guinastasia

04-15-2006, 03:52 PM

Ellis Dee

04-15-2006, 04:05 PM

I am almost positive I've seen him say that white people were a little too comfortable with the "anti-black" elements of his show. As in, random white people on the street that would come up to him in everyday life.

My interpretation of that interview was that he felt his show had become a sort of rallying cry for racism against blacks, and he felt this more and more as the show went on. And it scared him in a very visceral way.

IMO, he "snapped" when he realized that all the money in the world wasn't worth being a rallying cry for society's hatred of his race.

Sucks for us, but I say good for him.

Rubystreak

04-15-2006, 04:11 PM

Question-who came up with the whole "Chapelle Theory" about how he was hearing Oprah talk to him from his TV set? Because if HE was the one who came up with it, I think that would qualify as "flipping his lid."

Chappelle didn't write it. It was "pieced together by... a retired public relations executive who wishes to remain anonymous." Says so right on the first page of www.chappelletheory.com. I'd take this "theory" with an an entire mineful of salt.

Askia

04-15-2006, 04:18 PM

This is after he just walked away from a contract, hid out in Africa and generally ignored the media and his fans for several months? Doesn't pass the smell test. The way you describe it, of course not. BUT. He's always been a private person who lives in Ohio on a farm. He's never been heavily involved with the LA celebrity scene. He's never been much of a media attention whore. Yet while he was in South Africa he was contact with Comedy Central and he did graft one interview with TIME magazine amidst reports he quit the show and specifically to refute early rumors he'd suffered a mental breakdown, and it was the reporter's opinion that Dave was fine.

So, I wonder, Lochdale: what is it that you THINK you're smelling? Come from whom? Leading you to believe what?

Guinastasia

04-15-2006, 04:25 PM

Chappelle didn't write it. It was "pieced together by... a retired public relations executive who wishes to remain anonymous." Says so right on the first page of www.chappelletheory.com. I'd take this "theory" with an an entire mineful of salt.

Ah, I see. I haven't really read the site, just heard excerpts.

Lochdale

04-15-2006, 04:29 PM

So, I wonder, Lochdale: what is it that you THINK you're smelling? Come from whom? Leading you to believe what?

Personally, I think he buckled under the pressure. Nothing wrong with that. I think he just couldn't or didn't want to try and emulate what he had done. I would imagine the success of the show was as big a surprise to him as to anyone. I think that, initially anyway, he just lost it.

As I noted, he was as harsh on blacks as he was to whites. After a period of reflection perhaps he started to consider these issues but I just don't believe that this was the sole reason or even the catalyst for him walking away.

And yes, his show was harsh on blacks which is what makes it comedy. You know, reflecting reality in funny situations. He was also fairly damning of whites as well. I'm still not sure I see how this leads to his stating that whites control everything etc. etc. Regardless, I just don't buy that it was the reason for his leaving.

BabaBooey

04-15-2006, 04:36 PM

I think the point you're missing is that he did not want to do the Rick James thing, or the crackhead thing, or drop the word "nigger" all over the place anymore.

Have you seen any of his standups? It's practically the same thing as his show, and to my knowledge CC has no control over his standups.

pizzabrat

04-15-2006, 04:55 PM

Thanks again, Ruby, face, & Askia, and anyone else patiently chipping away at this outrageous nonsense. Maybe in another couple years on the Dope I'll be able to join these discussions without getting myself banned. Maybe if we all keep at it a few people...probably not the ones who say things like "they just need to fix their attitudes" and "systemic racism doesn't exist, it's all about what people think in their heads, and if they're not thinking 'I hate ni***rs' then they're not racists, but if they are thinking 'I hate crackers' then they are racists", but maybe some of the ones reading...will start to see through the bluster to the chilling reality, which is that the position that black people are not held back by racism in this country is itself an inherently racist position.

That's why we need a post rating system on this board. It can get depressing and maddening when threads get crowded with racist rhetoric like in this situation and we're tempted to assume that theirs is the general consensus. There may be, actually, plenty of much saner lurkers reading who just don't want to join in, but we'd never know it.

Anyway, the good thing about these threads is that they bait the more stubborn racists to expose themselves, allowing me to note who to ignore in the future (I'm not allowed whether I mean manually or digitally), and make reading the board a smithereen more enjoyable.

Loopydude

04-15-2006, 04:56 PM

1) It was a classroom set full of child actors and a fake teacher. An important difference.

Well, I got that they were child actors, but be they pros or not, they're kids, and it's one of those things that makes me think "I can't believe their parents..."

2) Visually, not really all that different from AIRPLANE! when the stewardess "blew" the deflating automatic pilot, 30 years before.

I found the notion there was supposed to be an erect penis in the popcorn pretty graphic for TV.

3) The "effeminate" gay Klansman bit was never aired in full.

4) The sissy boxing match was part of the same sketch and never aired in full.

Am I being whooshed? I saw the episode. I know it was an outtakes episode. Did the commentary on the DVD say CC killed these sketches? The way DC intros them, the impression I got is they had their moments, but overall just didn't work well enough as comedy. It's been a while since I saw it, so maybe I'm misremembering something. If IIRC, I missed the first five minutes of the episode when he usuall does the opening monologue, so maybe he explained then that the management had scrapped those ideas.

5) Where you saw a "quasi-pornographic spoof" I saw "fully-dressed actors at all times doing a fully-scatological humor-referenced music video spoof" of R. Kelly. When I see porn I think sex. That's not what happened.

Well, I added the quasi for a reason. Something that screams watersports strikes me as kinda porno. I guess it's a matter of...er...taste. :D

Yeah, but Loop: conspicuously missing from his fully aired skits this year, and only seen briefly during a greatest misses episode, was a "time travelling haters" episode where the Haters (from the Haters Ball episode)...Now, I don't know about you, but that's a comedy piece with a slice of real black edginess to it, yet for some odd reason, Comedy Central killed it. I know it would have been successful as hell (at least with a segment of his audience), and you have to wonder why. Hmm.

Interesting. I thought the shooting fell flat. I wasn't offended in the slightest, which was perhaps part of the problem, because shooting a slave master didn't seem edgy to me at all. It seemed like a bit too cheap and obvious a laugh, actually, and not up to par for Chappelle's normally very original and clever satirical sensibilities. I just thought the time-traveling Haters was too goofy a concept (which DC seems to have acknowledged to some extent). Charlie Murphy's weird tics while in character were mocked as an aside, and I had to agree that in the context of that skit, they didn't quite work. And the other guy running away screaming was just...well, it wasn't funny, it was just silly. When Chappelle stated he guessed only he got the joke, I tended to agree, and thought for really very standard comedic reasons the skit was a bit of a mess. Again, maybe CC killed the right skit for the wrong reasons, I dunno, but this one especially struck me as a throw-away.

I agree with your first part of your analysis. "Come back, Dave. We'll do anything. YOU can do anything!" They of course want Chappelle back. There's just no way Comedy Central would give him free unfettered creative reign to do so. They didn't for Parker and Stone, or for Mencia, Spade, Colbert or Stewart.

I kinda wish we'd gotten the opportunity to see. It's not hard for me to imagine that Chappelle would have been given, if not total control, more than any other CC headliner, for no other reason, perhaps, than for the cynical one, because he was the most lucrative of the bunch.

Lochdale

04-15-2006, 05:02 PM

That's why we need a post rating system on this board. It can get depressing and maddening when threads get crowded with racist rhetoric like in this situation and we're tempted to assume that theirs is the general consensus. There may be, actually, plenty of much saner lurkers reading who just don't want to join in, but we'd never know it.

Anyway, the good thing about these threads is that they bait the more stubborn racists to expose themselves, allowing me to note who to ignore in the future (I'm not allowed whether I mean manually or digitally), and make reading the board a smithereen more enjoyable.

Wow, this is one extremely smug comment. So if someone doesn't think that racism is the sole cause of problems in America they themselves are racist?

pizzabrat

04-15-2006, 05:03 PM

Lochdale

04-15-2006, 05:06 PM

As far as the biggest problem with the black community, it's overanalyzation. Can we not be the country's lab rats for just one generation (and then the rest of the generations after that). Why is "the Negro problem" still a relevant concept?

One reason might be that black leaders are constantly making reference to it? That it is often the sole plank of the the black Congressional Caucas?

Anyone in their right mind would want blacks to do as well as whites, asians, latinos etc. it just hasn't happened yet.

Apos

04-15-2006, 05:18 PM

Apos. This is probably my spring head cold congestion talking, or my sore throat medicine talking, and my irritation being inside on such a nice, bright spring day talking, but please, a favor. I find myself livid as fuck reading your post, which is odd because it's not all that ire-raising. So, in the future, when you quote me, Apos, please do not edit my thoughts mid-sentence to bolster your own points. If you must do, please have the integrity to use an ellipses (...) or, better still, an ellipses with a [snip] sign. My fill, unexpurgated comment was (and is) as follows:

Oh NO!! Now your full quote only appears TWICE in one thread. Please, please, include it a third time so that any future readers that only scan random sections of the thread can re-read your entire paragraphs as many times over as your integrity demands!

Now, back in reality, I don't even recall why I only included part of what you said, but most likely it was simply because I don't need to quote your entire post in order to reference it. Your "unexpurgated" version contains nothing of any relevance at all to what I responded to, and your ire is just a silly way to make a scene.

Look. The implication here is that CC was somehow forcing Chapelle to do the sort of uncomfortable race humor he did on his show. I find that implausible in the extreme: it's not like their was any sort of clause saying "Dave must reinforce negative stereotypes OR ESLE NO MONEY FOR YOU" that he bravely fought against. And working a comment in a comentary track about the time traveling haters into some grand conspiracy about them forcing him to make fun of black people against his will just doesn't work.

He signed a contract (which is more than just about the money you get: it's also a commitment) and then disappeared. That is not integrity. Integrity is telling your partners, your co-cast members, and so on, that you have recognized problems with what's been going on, and you want to change, and then working to get out of the contract up front and in person. It's not vanishing into the blue without a word, leaving countless people and their careers hanging in the wind. From everything I've seen, CC would have bent over backwards to ignore the contract and renegotiate things to suit him anyway. He was and is far more free to do whatever he wants than the vast majority of people in showboz, black or white.

And yet none of this whole rationale even really appears until a year later. Other fellow actors like Charlie Murphy aren't told what the hell is going on, putting them and their careers in limbo. If Chappelle had come out and said "people, something about what we're doing is fucked up and we need to reevaluate what we're doing and why and I'm not working on this this way anymore" that would be one thing. I could completely get behind that. But he vanished. THAT is what screams "irrational" and "cracking under pressure" rather than proud stand.

Askia

04-15-2006, 05:54 PM

Oh NO!! Now your full quote only appears TWICE in one thread. Please, please, include it a third time so that any future readers that only scan random sections of the thread can re-read your entire paragraphs as many times over as your integrity demands! Okay. (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=7302704#post7302704)
Now, back in reality, I don't even recall why I only included part of what you said, but most likely it was simply because I don't need to quote your entire post in order to reference it. Your "unexpurgated" version contains nothing of any relevance at all to what I responded to, and your ire is just a silly way to make a scene. Your summation of Dave Chappelle's problems as "Dude went crazy," was pretty irrelevent, and that deserved pointing out.

I agree the way he took his stand wasn't a well-thought out plan of unassailable integrity, but I still admire the means by which he walked away from the show. I'm also quite sure insiders weren't exactly surprised by what ultimately went down.

Lochdale

04-15-2006, 06:29 PM

I agree the way he took his stand wasn't a well-thought out plan of unassailable integrity, but I still admire the means by which he walked away from the show. I'm also quite sure insiders weren't exactly surprised by what ultimately went down.

Heh, nice link.

I'm surprised you say that you still admire him. It's appears that he has left a number of people in the lurch including his co-writer, Charlie Murphy and a number of employees at CC.

A contract is a contract. There was no suggestion of duress so I'm sorry, I don't admire someone who walks out on their word.

you with the face

04-15-2006, 06:38 PM

There may be, actually, plenty of much saner lurkers reading who just don't want to join in, but we'd never know it.

I hope so. I certainly feel like a lone voice of sanity in this (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=366822) thread. Makes me wonder why the sane lukers don't speak up more.

Anyway, the good thing about these threads is that they bait the more stubborn racists to expose themselves, allowing me to note who to ignore in the future (I'm not allowed whether I mean manually or digitally), and make reading the board a smithereen more enjoyable.

True that.

Lochdale

04-15-2006, 06:47 PM

I hope so. I certainly feel like a lone voice of sanity in this (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=366822) thread. Makes me wonder why the sane lukers don't speak up more.

True that.

Just how smug can you possibly be? Everyone who disagrees with you is not a "racist". Just try and debate and maybe pat yourself on the back in private?

Garfield226

04-15-2006, 06:52 PM

I hope so. I certainly feel like a lone voice of sanity in this (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=366822) thread. Makes me wonder why the sane lukers don't speak up more.
So if no one else supports your position, your logical conclusion isn't that no one else supports your position, rather that there MUST be people who do, they're just not saying anything for some reason. :dubious:

Kind of assuming facts not in evidence, isn't it?

you with the face

04-15-2006, 07:12 PM

Kind of assuming facts not in evidence, isn't it?

Like the creative (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=7298049&postcount=11) way you interpreted Chappell's statement to mean that $50 million dollars didn't make up for slavery?

No, to answer your question.

Garfield226

04-15-2006, 07:23 PM

Like the creative (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=7298049&postcount=11) way you interpreted Chappell's statement to mean that $50 million dollars didn't make up for slavery?

No, to answer your question.
As I've already answered you once (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=7299604&postcount=36), I was responding to Rubystreak's post. I did address Chappelle directly in the post, but I see that I was responding to Rubystreak's interpretation of his statement, and not his statement directly, so I apologize for addressing him instead of the post, and retract that part.

Doesn't change the fact that "Hmm, nobody's agreed with me. . .but I CAN'T be wrong. My supporters are just the quiet type! Yeah, that's the ticket!" is ridiculous.

you with the face

04-15-2006, 07:26 PM

Doesn't change the fact that "Hmm, nobody's agreed with me. . .but I CAN'T be wrong. My supporters are just the quiet type! Yeah, that's the ticket!" is ridiculous.

There you go, misinterpreting people again. Please don't do that.

Rubystreak

04-15-2006, 07:30 PM

Have you seen any of his standups? It's practically the same thing as his show, and to my knowledge CC has no control over his standups.

When was the last time he did one? I've seen the ones before he went to Africa but that's irrelevant now.

I'm not and never have said that CC made Dave Chappelle say racist sort of things. Only that when he wanted to STOP he was not able to have that kind of control.

Anyone in their right mind would want blacks to do as well as whites, asians, latinos etc. it just hasn't happened yet.

Your naivete is showing again, man. I'd think you'd feel the breeze blowing across it by now, but I guess not. Racism isn't rational, and people who are racist aren't acting "in their right mind" about it.

That said, I'm sure Chappelle's decision to bolt wasn't made in the cold light of logic either. It was an emotional choice that was obviously made under great stress that was building up.

Everyone who disagrees with you is not a "racist".

Did pizzabrat say that? No. Just that a lot of the sentiments expressed here sound racist, and it's disheartening. I don't think it's smug for him (?) to say he hopes that there are more folks who agree with them than have been shown in this thread. I'm not so sure, though.

Lochdale

04-15-2006, 07:45 PM

Your naivete is showing again, man. I'd think you'd feel the breeze blowing across it by now, but I guess not. Racism isn't rational, and people who are racist aren't acting "in their right mind" about it.
.

And your condescension is nearing titanic proportions. Most people do want to see others do well if only for the selfish reason that it will cost them less in the long-run. Most people are not racist though I think you wish they were as it would fit into your world view very nicely indeed. It must be great going through life seeing everything in terms of absolutes.

The US has done a tremendous amount for black-Americans. A great number of non-blacks have done a tremendous amount for black-Americans. It's not perfect and it's not even finished yet but as a society we are making great strides towards some sort of racial parity. Using the race card at any and every opportunity will do more to turn people off helping others than anythign else.

It's fear mongers like yourself who want to put anything and everything down to "racism" that does as much to retard the socio-economic growth and development of black-Americans as any racist does.

Sal Ammoniac

04-15-2006, 07:53 PM

How many people are even alive today that even witnessed a lynching? How long do you get to pull that skeleton out of the closet and beat us with it like a monkey on a snare drum. In a thousand years we'll still be hearing about it. And furthermore, I'm not hearing about it from blacks, it's liberals that are screaming it from the roof tops. Black people for the most part just want to put it behind them and move on. This is the right thing to do, because dwelling on this awful past is anything but constructive.

Yes it sucked, for the millionth time, it sucked. So when do we move on?
You’re completely missing the point here. I’m not introducing a new sociological theory when I observe that poverty and its pathologies are transmitted from generation to generation. And what percentage of black people now alive have parents who got a substandard education, just because they were black? Your airily saying, “Oh, get over it” does nothing to restore an education to those black people who were deprived of one, nor make up for the hundreds of thousands of dollars of lifetime income that each one forewent. But you do demonstrate quite nicely the callousness about racism and its aftereffects that conservatives are capable of.

Loopydude

04-15-2006, 08:02 PM

OK. This is an exerpt from a Time article shortly after Chappelle fled to S.A.:

Herzog confirms he gave the comic a firm deadline to deliver the season's shows—but says Chappelle never called him before going AWOL. He notes that this was the second delay Chappelle had asked for. The show had been postponed in December...As for the direction of the series, says Herzog, it was ultimately up to the show's namesake: "He absolutely has complete creative freedom.
There's no one from the network sitting on his head. Dave is in charge of his own world." Chappelle's writing partner, Neal Brennan, agrees. He tells TIME that Chappelle had "literally absolute, complete, creative freedom" and plenty of time to work. To some extent, his colleagues profess bafflement about Chappelle's reaction to what seemed to be garden-variety creative differences. "There were 1,000 ways to deal with this," says Brennan. "By the numbers, this was the worst way to have done it. He couldn't think straight. It was fight or flight—and he chose flight."

So...they're lying?

pokey

04-15-2006, 08:07 PM

I hope so. I certainly feel like a lone voice of sanity in this (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=366822) thread. Makes me wonder why the sane lukers don't speak up more.

Because when people claim there's no such thing as a valid perception of racism they're basically negating anything you can say before you even say it. It's like having the opinion that all other opinions are stupid. It's not something a sane person can respond to.

Askia

04-15-2006, 08:12 PM

Heh, nice link.

I'm surprised you say that you still admire him. It's appears that he has left a number of people in the lurch including his co-writer, Charlie Murphy and a number of employees at CC.

A contract is a contract. There was no suggestion of duress so I'm sorry, I don't admire someone who walks out on their word. We're not privy to the precise details of the contract, beyond that Dave did and did not deliver beyond what we all assume to be the terms of the third season of Chappelle's Show. Comedy Central has begrudgingly not pursued litigtation, which makes me think that he MUST'VE settled some contractual obligations before he walked. Duress isn't the only reason to abandon a contract, nor is duress the only focal point we should be concerned with in contract negotiations, especially where creative control must be assumed to have been a sticking point. Granted Chappelle walked out on his word -- but he did not do so without consequence. Chappelle received (no doubt) a huge finanacial penalty, for walking off and damaged a number of number of business contacts/relationships on the way out the door, people who undoubtedly cast asperions on his name and stability to his sanity to this very day. That he still went ahead and walked away is admirable. Lots of people would have just sucked it in, done the third season, did the dancing Negro act. He didn't. He said in the letter to white folks that's "Wayans Brothers territory." Lochdale, to me, that's admirable.

On the other hand, long-term, I don't really see this hurting Chappelle Show co-writer Neal Brennan, who will find work in the industry as long as he wants it, and I see this potentially benefitting Charlie Murphy enormously, who shone on two seasons of Chappelle's Show as a player and writer, is co-writing a movie with brother Eddie coming out next year and has several projects coming out this year. According to imdb.com most of the shows writing staff and associate producers have moved on to other projects. Talented people aren't idle very long unless they want to be.

Rubystreak

04-15-2006, 08:13 PM

Loopydude, I don't think they're lying about his need to flee. I think Chappelle did bolt because he was overwhelmed, conflicted, scared, and upset. None of that means he's crazy. I think he made a choice that saved his sanity and peace of mind. Might he have done it in a better way? Sure, but I think he did what he felt he had to do. I don't think breaking a contract you can't keep is evil nor any of my business. It happens in show biz and people pay the price for breaking the contract, and that's it.

As for the creative control, the article says there were creative differences that led to Chappelle's retreat. If he had total control, why would there be? The show would just have changed to suit his new POV and there would have been no conflict. Are you denying that he likely felt pressure to churn out a similar product to past seasons when he felt he couldn't do it anymore?

And your condescension is nearing titanic proportions.

Pot, meet kettle. I think you're just going to have to get over it, because I feel I'm being pretty damn civil to you, considering.

Most people do want to see others do well if only for the selfish reason that it will cost them less in the long-run. Most people are not racist though I think you wish they were as it would fit into your world view very nicely indeed. It must be great going through life seeing everything in terms of absolutes.

See, when you tell me you think I wish people to be racist, I have the urge to be a lot more than condescending. What a twisted, uncalled for, wrong thing to say. My god, then you wonder why more people don't get into these debates with people like you; who wants to take this kind of abuse to argue with a stranger on the internet? It's not a debate anymore when you make idiotic statements like this, hence the contention that people might be reading this thread that disagree with you who don't want to comment. I hope so, and I don't blame people who don't want to sling shit aroung like this. I'm about done myself.

I think there are degrees of racism, one of which you are displaying by denying that people are still suffering in this country. I do not attribute malice to you, just ignorance and naivete. Not everyone is going to form a lynch mob, but unfortunately for your worldview, it's not that black and white (pun intended). Racism is alive and well in overt and in subtle ways, but its effect on the culture is undeniable. You choose to ignore all the evidence and dismiss anyone who contradicts your opinion. Must be nice to live in your world, but it ain't the real world.

Using the race card at any and every opportunity will do more to turn people off helping others than anythign else.

So pointing out racism is using the race card, eh? And you say you're not overreacting or defensive. Ha.

It's fear mongers like yourself who want to put anything and everything down to "racism" that does as much to retard the socio-economic growth and development of black-Americans as any racist does.

Sticks and stones, man. Not everyone who disagrees with you is a fear-monger, just like not everyone who disagrees with pizzabrat is a racist. You seem to enjoy making these blanket statements that are VAST overstatements of the original comment, just to further your rather weak rhetorical point. Give it a rest, willya?

Askia

04-15-2006, 08:18 PM

So...they're lying? No. But they're substantially downplaying the amount of imput they give, "suggestions" they offer, market research they do, and influence they have.

Lochdale

04-15-2006, 08:51 PM

[
Pot, meet kettle. I think you're just going to have to get over it, because I feel I'm being pretty damn civil to you, considering.

Considering what? That I have the temerity to question your point of view? That I find your blanket absolutism simplistic and intellectually wanting?

Loopydude

04-15-2006, 08:52 PM

As for the creative control, the article says there were creative differences that led to Chappelle's retreat. If he had total control, why would there be? The show would just have changed to suit his new POV and there would have been no conflict. Are you denying that he likely felt pressure to churn out a similar product to past seasons when he felt he couldn't do it anymore?

Chappelle is quoted in another article as having said to Herzog that he was tired of being "right" all the time. He also complained about people telling him he was such a genius, and wanted to know he could be "wrong" on occasion. A guy who's tired of being right but runs away from creative differences with an ensemble of writers presents some odd contradictions. Honestly, I can't make heads or tails of it.

Lochdale

04-15-2006, 08:53 PM

Lots of people would have just sucked it in, done the third season, did the dancing Negro act. He didn't. He said in the letter to white folks that's "Wayans Brothers territory." Lochdale, to me, that's admirable.

Was there ever any criticism that Chappelle was heading into "Wayans Brothers territory" before he walked out? That is, this sense that Chappelle was doing a minstrel act seems fairly new. I never heard anyone suggest that before he went AWOL so I am a little confused as his newfound piety.

Additionally, just because Brennan and Muprhy may do ok after this doesn't obviate the fact that Chappelle did not keep his word on a multi-million dollar contract that he entered into without duress. I guess you and I have different versions of integrity.

Lochdale

04-15-2006, 08:54 PM

Lots of people would have just sucked it in, done the third season, did the dancing Negro act. He didn't. He said in the letter to white folks that's "Wayans Brothers territory." Lochdale, to me, that's admirable.

Was there ever any criticism that Chappelle was heading into "Wayans Brothers territory" before he walked out? That is, this sense that Chappelle was doing a minstrel act seems fairly new. I never heard anyone suggest that before he went AWOL so I am a little confused as to his newfound piety.

Additionally, just because Brennan and Muprhy may do ok after this doesn't obviate the fact that Chappelle did not keep his word on a multi-million dollar contract that he entered into without duress. I guess you and I have different versions of integrity.

Rubystreak

04-15-2006, 09:12 PM

Considering what? That I have the temerity to question your point of view? That I find your blanket absolutism simplistic and intellectually wanting?

Turn your post around and direct it at yourself. This is exactly how I feel about your arguments. What I find very difficult is to remain civil when you have directed such nasty nonsense towards me. You accused me of setting the cause of African Americans back by believing there is still racism, and said you thought I wished people were racist to support my fear-mongering POV. If we were having this conversation in person, I would have insulted your mother and walked away by now. This is not a debate anymore. It's an ad hominem snarkfest.

G'night.

you with the face

04-15-2006, 09:16 PM

Additionally, just because Brennan and Muprhy may do ok after this doesn't obviate the fact that Chappelle did not keep his word on a multi-million dollar contract that he entered into without duress. I guess you and I have different versions of integrity.

So what was he supposed to do? Take the money and keep working on the show, even though he didn't want to anymore? Slavery went out of style back in 1863, last time I checked.

pokey

04-15-2006, 09:23 PM

Using the race card at any and every opportunity will do more to turn people off helping others than anythign else.

Boy, I don't want to be rude or anything but this really got me laughing. Look out black Americans, your precious supply of help is in danger! Think about what could happen if there were, say, a big big storm or something.

That's an awesome view of your country you have there. Most people aren't racist and want to help out black people out, they honestly do, but shhh don't complain about anything or they'll taketh away.

pool

04-15-2006, 09:36 PM

Originally posted by Askia:
Lots of people would have just sucked it in, done the third season, did the dancing Negro act. He didn't. He said in the letter to white folks that's "Wayans Brothers territory." Lochdale, to me, that's admirable.

Chapelle did not author the letter, it was written by Mark Harris...

Here is the link again, it has his picture right under Chappelle

http://www.popmatters.com/columns/harris/060411.shtml

Garfield226

04-15-2006, 09:43 PM

So what was he supposed to do? Take the money and keep working on the show, even though he didn't want to anymore? Slavery went out of style back in 1863, last time I checked.
I'd just like to point this out:

You're comparing fulfilling contractual obligations, in which one receives $50 million dollars in return, to slavery.

Now, lest I misinterpret you again, please correct this obviously incorrect reading of your post.

tomndebb

04-15-2006, 09:48 PM

So what was he supposed to do? Take the money and keep working on the show, even though he didn't want to anymore? Slavery went out of style back in 1863, last time I checked.Whatever the merits of Chapelle's decision, the comparison to slavery is nonsense. There is no slavery in honoring a contract into which one has freely entered, (unless you are claiming that Chapelle was mentally deficient and incompetent to sign a contract).

It is entirely possible that there had been a change in the situation subsequent to the signing of the contract that provided a legitimate reason to either break or renegotiate it. I certainly have far too little information to judge. However, the only way that you can equate the fullfillment of a contract with slavery is to stipulate that one party was incompetent to enter into the contract to begin with. Is that the impression you really want to present?

you with the face

04-15-2006, 10:02 PM

Yes, honoring a contract is different than slavery. I did not mean to suggest they were the same.

But in terms of personal integrity, what should one do when faced with a situation in which one's heart says "I can not do this anymore!"

If this revelation came to him after signing the contract, would he be demonstrating integrity by saying "Oh well, I signed on the dotted line; let me be a sell-out and do whatever is contractually expected of me, my conscience be damned."

I don't think so, IHO. He'd be making himself a slave to a piece of paper. So he made a tough decision and people want to criticize him for siding with his own personal ethics instead of kowtowing to a company that only wants to make money off of him. Wow, he is sooooo horrible.

Sorry for bringing up slavery in a thread that's already racially-charged. I just don't get why anyone besides the people directly affected by Chappell and Comedy Central should give a good holy damn about his reasons for leaving. It's as if people can't just accept that he wasn't happy anymore and leave it at that. No, they must find a reason to be offended.

Garfield226

04-15-2006, 10:07 PM

Sorry for bringing up slavery in a thread that's already racially-charged. I just don't get why anyone besides the people directly affected by Chappell and Comedy Central should give a good holy damn about his reasons for leaving. It's as if people can't just accept that he wasn't happy anymore and leave it at that. No, they must find a reason to be offended.
Ah, but HE HIMSELF didn't say he wasn't happy, and leave it at that. If he had, beyond being unhappy in general that he quit, I doubt anyone would care all that much. Fact is, he's the one who brought the racial angle into it, he brought it up, and so he has to deal with the fallout.

You can't expect to say "White people own everything, a black man can't be himself anywhere," etc., and get the same reaction as "I'm not happy anymore, I think I'll move on." They're two completely different statements.

you with the face

04-15-2006, 10:18 PM

You can't expect to say "White people own everything, a black man can't be himself anywhere," etc., and get the same reaction as "I'm not happy anymore, I think I'll move on." They're two completely different statements.

And can you please explain why what he said is so offensive? Maybe it's because I feel that way a lot of time myself, being a black woman in predominately white environments, but I can not see why his statement is so bothersome to some of you.

Guinastasia

04-15-2006, 10:26 PM

And can you please explain why what he said is so offensive? Maybe it's because I feel that way a lot of time myself, being a black woman in predominately white environments, but I can not see why his statement is so bothersome to some of you.

Well, I think some people feel that he's accusing EVERY white person of automatically being a racist. I don't know if I feel that way about what he said, but I do believe it can be interpretted that way.

And it automatically puts some people on the defensive.

Askia

04-15-2006, 10:31 PM

Lochdale. We may or may not have differing views on what constitutes having integrity. We CLEARLY differ on what we find admirable.

Chapelle did not author the letter, it was written by Mark Harris...
Holy shit. I did a little Googling and I think you're right, pool. Man. That's an amazing job Mark Harris did, assuming Dave's "voice." I was totally convinced Dave Chappelle himself wrote that piece. Especially these two bits, cuz they sound just like him:
Why must you love me so? I'm tired of being so damn likeable! Chris Rock doesn't have to deal with this clinginess. He's all sociopolitical and "ranty" enough in an angry black male sort of way that he keeps white people at arm's length. Me, I'm the happy-go-lucky drinking buddy. If I talk about anything serious, it's just "drunk talk". It's enough to drive a nigga CRAZY! Just kidding.
I can't stay in a relationship that's always challenging my dignity and integrity. That's Wayans Brothers territory. But I do realize that I'm partly to blame; skits about piss and venereal disease are just begging for a frat boy following. That's why I'm turning over a new, socially responsible leaf. Block Party was the first step. More conscious material and less fecal material; that's what Dave Chappelle has in store for 2006. (As you can see, I'm trying to hold back on my swearing and shit.)

Okay. Wow. Backing off this as "proof" of Chappelle's level-headedness...

you with the face

04-15-2006, 10:34 PM

Well, I think some people feel that he's accusing EVERY white person of automatically being a racist. I don't know if I feel that way about what he said, but I do believe it can be interpretted that way.

See, that particular interpretation eludes me. What I gather from what he said is that he is tired of having to constantly explain himself and put on an act for people who do not get him because they are white and he is black. Others have put the word "racist" in his mouth when he hasn't said anything to that effect.

Guinastasia

04-15-2006, 10:36 PM

See, that particular interpretation eludes me. What I gather from what he said is that he is tired of having to constantly explain himself and put on an act for people who do not get him because they are white and he is black. Others have put the word "racist" in his mouth when he hasn't said anything to that effect.

I didn't say it was a correct assumption, just that's how some people feel. I think when they hear "white people own everything", they automatically think, "Well gee, I didn't necessarily have it so easy!" Because they haven't experienced racism for themselves, they assume that someone is saying that it's all sunshine and lollipops if you're white. Not that hey, you're white, you most likely haven't experienced the effects of racism the way I have.

levdrakon

04-15-2006, 10:38 PM

And can you please explain why what he said is so offensive? Maybe it's because I feel that way a lot of time myself, being a black woman in predominately white environments, but I can not see why his statement is so bothersome to some of you.

I think it's offensive to the 99% of us white people who don't have it all. If he'd replace the word "rich" instead of "white" it wouldn't bug me so much.

Apos

04-15-2006, 11:47 PM

I agree the way he took his stand wasn't a well-thought out plan of unassailable integrity, but I still admire the means by which he walked away from the show. I'm also quite sure insiders weren't exactly surprised by what ultimately went down.

According to them, they were. Charlie Murphy obviously didn't know what the hell happened, and was pretty miffed by it. Dave's longtime friend and collaborator was quoted above as basically saying "WTH?"

Maybe it'll all work out. But vanishing without a word to the people who seem, by all respects, bend over backwards to accomodate anything, is decidedly erratic behavior.

Euthanasiast

04-16-2006, 02:56 AM

But you do demonstrate quite nicely the callousness about racism and its aftereffects that conservatives are capable of.

Since I am pro choice, anti-creationist (atheist), and for gays in the military and at the alter I find that comment a bit off the mark.

Also, since I was raised in a poor black neighborhood and when to a school where blacks were the majority (the whole town actually) and ate many meals at tables in black homes growing up, I'll take what I learned from those experiences over your critical assessment.

raindog

04-16-2006, 08:52 AM

But you appear to be letting the validity of the second statement (with which I somewhat agree) turn the whole issue into a black and white one (pun intended) in which you simply dismiss the reality of the racism.

Consider the statistics of young black men in jail. An awful lot of them are there because crimes and convictions tend to show up most among the poorest groups in crowded situations in society. I agree that there is no specific racism in that situation (other than that the racist actions of previous generations created the a fair amount of that poverty). However, when we consider that the huge numbers of people incarcerated over the last 20 years are in for drug related crimes (including possession as well as selling) and that we have the testimony of Federal law enforcement personnel that they devote most of their energies toward the inner city, a different picture emerges of why their numbers are as high as they are.
Poverty begets crime, and that perpetuates the cycle of poverty and crime. The reasons for this are very complex--and include misguided urban planning, inept politicians, social cancers (I would submit that much of urban rap is such a cancer) and....racism.

Frankly, I don't know what the answer is to drug use and offenses. I know that there are many people who believe we should give up on the war on drugs. But anybody whos lived in the inner city can tell you that drug use is not benign. It's ravaging the inner cities---which are largely black.

So if you're suggesting (and I don't think you are....) that law enforcement is focusing on the inner city because they're black, I'd have to say you're wrong. They're there because that's where the largest percentage of drug activity can be found. (even among suburbanites going to the city to buy) The numbers are that high because in most cities that's where the crimes are being committed---as least as it relates to distribution.

There all kinds of discussions to be had about drugs in America---but the notion that only blacks are being targeted is plain silly. Suburban kids sell drugs. And some of them get caught. Some of them use drugs, and some get caught. There is a disparity in how justice is dispensed, but here too the cry of "racism!" is plain wrong. Justice is not dispensed evenly in any society, but that is a function of wealth, power and privilege, not race. If Bill Cosby's, Michael Jordan's, Richard Parson's (CEO of Time Warner) or Colin Powell's kid gets picked up for selling drugs you can bet they'll mount a defense that will make a surburban parent blanch. Even then, if that black kid is the parent of a doctor or lawyer, you can expect then to be able to mount a formidable defense. Justice is not about race. It's about wealth and power, and all the things that come from it.

It's a no win situation for law enforcment. (FTR, I am deeply suspicious of law enforcement and think that a free society should always look at law enforcement with a healthy caution) If they are in the city in force they are picking on the young black male. If they don't, they've abaondoned the black community.

Remember the story that the CIA intentionally introduced crack into the inner cities to destroy the fabric of the community? (a story that still has a lot of legs) On the one hand, they're guilty for putting drugs in the community, and on the other for trying to rid the community of it!

You have also focused nearly all your attention of the poorest groups of urban blacks, but racism has an effect on the middle class, as well.

Finally, you seem to rely pretty heavily on anecdotal personal experience. I too have seen poor performing workers attempt to play the race card. There is no question that that happens. However, I have also seen racism used to keep blacks out of certain housing or put a ceiling on their careers--the apartment I rented in a mixed neighborhood where I discovered everyone in my building was white and where the landlord asked me as I moved out if I knew any white people who were looking for housing, the multiple employers of a person I know in HR who have continually asked her to find ways to let them circumvent the equal opportunity rules that she was hired to enforce, the hiring of the least qualified black by managers who were under pressure to recruit outside the "white male" box so that they could point at the hired person as an example of why hiring blacks was a bad idea.
I am not asserting that there is no racism in America. Far from it. I am saying however, that it exists in measures that don't begin to explain the enormity of the social ills that plague the inner city.

In the meantime, the 1 racist supervisor becomes the standard bearer for the other 999 (and is likely more like 99,999)who commit no such crime in word, deed or even thought, but are labeled just the same. In due course we can't tell the difference between them---even though they are outnumbered by staggering ratios.

And that illusion keeps us from talking about the real issues.

And so that knucklehead white racist gives a free pass to 50,000 other miscreants who are knocking up their 14 year old neighbor, robbing the 7-Eleven, and causing other sundry mayhem; unable to control themselves due to "instititional racism."

I am in favor of black leaders getting in the faces of students and telling them that the phrase "acting white" is about the stupidest phrase in their vocabulary. I am in favor of simply dismissing charges of racism when the employee is obviously incompetent or unmotivated. I am in favor of someone (preferably in the black community) telling Jackson and Sharpton to sit down and shut up when they loudly defend black kids who have been caught (on tape!) in criminal acts.
Tom, it's not the kids we have on tape! The most recent installment in a long line of farces that make a mockery of the civil rights struggle happened just last week. If you haven't seen Soledad O'Brien's interview with the boorish Cynthia McKinney, you're missing a crime. McKinney enters the Capitol, one of the most sensitive buildings in the world, and a policemen doesn't recognize her. As he is trained to do, he stops her immediately. Her response? She strikes a police officer! How she didn't end up in hand cuffs immediately is beyond me. In the immediate aftermath of her reprehensibe behavior her defense is...You guessed it! Racism!

Remember Michael Jackson? Even his family/acquaintences trotted out the race card. OJ? We were particularly galled that it was a white woman (and man) that were butchered. We were told that we wanted to destroy a successful black man; that if only he were white, or the victims black, this might this might have been a misdemeanor! Remember Mark Fuhrman?

Louis Farakhan? What do you suppose would have happened if his words were spoken by Billy Graham, or Jerry Falwell? Remember the unfortunate DJ last month who entirely accidentally said "coon", and immediately not only corrected himself but apologized?

What about Barry Bonds? Forget about the fact that he has been a Class 1 Jerk for most of his career, and has treated both his fans and the press with varying levels of indifference and contempt. Forget about the fact that he chasing down one of the most sacred records in all of sports, and that the evidence that he cheated is compelling. Forget about the fact that millions of kids Just Like Me spent countless hours trying to run like Willie Mays, or throw like Roberto Clemente---or that we stood up in front of the TV and applauded when Hammerin Hank hit 715. No...no we're pissed off because Barry is Big and Black. We don't like that. The evidence? Barry and a select few say so. Not buying it? Well, Hank Aaron got a handful of death threats on his quest to catch Ruth; certain proof that the other 65 million white baseball fans wanted him dead.

Remember Jesse Jackson knocking up his 20 something staffer, and paying her off with Rainbow Coalition money? Surely you remember the charge: The White Man was trying to destroy the Great Jesse Jackson, heir to MLK.

The list goes on and on and on; prominent black politicans, entertainers and athletes caught in exceptionally poor behavior. Time and again the race card is played. It's not just that they're co-opting the civil rights struggle and making a mockery of it---they're reinforcing the myth that White America really is that evil, that behind every white face is a burning desire to keep a brother down.

I am not in favor of using that sort of event as an excuse to simply say it's all their fault; let them figure it out or to declare the battle for civil rights to be "won" when I have seen ample evidence that there is still active discrimination continuing in this country.
Nor am I saying that it is all their fault. But the amount of racism faced by blacks , relative to 50 years ago, is a footnote in history. Racism doesn't prevent Johhny's parents from waiting until they're married, old enough and mature enough to be parents, to read to Johhny and to raise him with discipline and direction. Racism doen't make Johhny sell or use drugs, joing a a gang, drop put of school, kill his neighbors, have kids indiscriminately that he has no intention of supporting.

The civil right battle has been won.

I submit that the most pervasive form of racism praticed today comes from the so-called Black Leaders and bleeding hearts who maintain and reinforce a double standard for blacks. A double standard that implicitly says that blacks can't perform as well as whites in school, can't perform as well in the workplace and can't even be expected to behave. We can't expect Cynthis McKinney to behave! She's black don't you know? And there's this ...this.....Racism!!

The black mayor of New Orleans was an idiot for not taking seriously the suggestions that he needed to evacuate his people and then whining on (inter)national TV that his people had been betrayed.
But it was the white police chief in the next city that physically prevented black people from leaving the city after it flooded, then ordered his troops to scatter the people and destroy their possessions.
We had seven days of loud proclamations that (black) people trapped at the Superdome were rioting and raping and murdering each other and only a couple of months-later footnotes that none of that actually happened.
The only news footage that I ever saw of first hand accounts of rape, pillage and looting at the superdome was from blacks.

Further, white or black, both the mayor and governor were inept. How many calls has there been for his head? If the mayor of Salt Lake city said, "Salt lake City has always been a white city and will always remain a white city" he'd be out of office in 2 weeks. Yet the NO mayor said the same thing. We are so used to racist comments and the burden of 400 years of white guilt we say nothing. Ending racism means holding Ray Nagel to the same standard as Rudy Guiliani, Barry Bonds as Pete Rose and Rafael Paleirmo, Richard Parsons as Jeffrey Skilling, OJ Simpson as Joe Montana.

It is racism to hold blacks to a lower standard than whites. It is racism for a black Federal judge in Chicago to say that 'any black man south of Madison who doesn't vote for Harold Washington should be hanged' and do nothing. It is racism to say nothing when Spike Lee, or Al Sharpton says something that his white counterpart could never say---something clearly racist and would lead to scandal or consequence if it said by a white.

And it happens every single day.

Racism does continue to play a role in our society. We will never get everyone to love one another, but we can work a lot harder to remove barriers to advancement and to treat people more equally.
Racism has played a role in every society in the history of man. Racism, patronage, and nepotism, will be with us always. But there is nothing in our national fabric that keeps a young black child born today from going to college, getting a good job, having a family and being a productive part of society. The greatest barriers a young [inner city] child faces today will be from his own family and community. That's not the fault of the white man.

And so I would submit that people are not treated equally. In some rare instances blacks are victimized by white racists. In many others they are kept on the payroll by white bosses, despite poor performance or poor behavior, because of the inevitable cry "Racism!" when they are terminated.

raindog

04-16-2006, 09:12 AM

So let me get this straight.

1) Racism has little to do with the disparities and problems that we see today among blacks. Nevermind the fact that apartheid in this country (http://www.answers.com/topic/jim-crow-law) was alive and kicking only fifty years ago, none of that matters. No way. That's in the past and therefore, blacks should be on equal footing with whites by now. Institutional racism is a myth and it's wrong to suggest that historical racism has anything to do with the present.
You're right so far.....

Alive and kicking 50 years ago.

2) White-on-black racism is a not a big deal. But black-on-white racism is "real, alive and very, very well."
No. Racism is reprehensible in all it's forms. But in this thread alone some one opined that racism could only be practiced by whites---a charge that is being propogated by the Captains of the Victim Industry--Sharpton, Jackson, West et. al.

that is absurd.

3) Blacks are in "full crisis", even though the majority of blacks lead normal, ordinary middle class lives.
Interesting comment. That would seem to suggest that the civil rights struggle has in fact been won......Hmmmmm.........

How all those white bosses let this happen?

4) The fact that other immigrant groups--nevermind that they came over here voluntarily, were not enslaved, retained their culture and family ties, and did not have their rights stripped away anywhere to the extent that black people did--were able to attain success means black people are deficient for not rising to the challenge the same way. Nevermind the fact that there are plenty of successful black people, too. No, we must always focus on those who are bling, blinging in the ghetto.
The successful blacks see white racism for what it is: An ignorant practice practiced by a small percentage of the population that often has little or no consequence in their lives---a nuiscance. They do not dwell on it, or let it influence their lives. More importantly they don't see every traffic stop or rude department store clerk as a racist out to do them harm.

They're not victims because they haven't bought into the victim mentality, and they have taken personal responsibility for their lives and choices. And they're successful as a result.

DSeid

04-16-2006, 10:06 AM

Hey, I have not too much to say about Chappelle - a guy goes around with schtick like "Blackzilla" which has him humping a volcano in Tokyo, and people think he's a comic genius? Never quite got why so many people think he's so great. Could just be me. Didn't see more than a few minutes of his stuff anyway. Maybe he is briiliant and I am humor challenged or just don't get it since I am so White and all. No matter. So, for some reason he freaked out and ran away, and couldn't get it back together again, and after the fact he's telling fans and all some noble version of what his reasons were. Fine. Whatever.

But yes, someone who is clearly doing just fine in the opportunity realm pulls the race card as the reason for his collapse .... well, I find that a bit stupid. As someone who sees major problems in this world and in this country resulting from persistent racism - explicitly, institutionally, and in subtle ways that we each are not even aware of - I find his blaming the White power system for his running away to be idiotic after-the-fact excuse making and believe that it demeans the importance of racism in our world.

But whatever.

you with the face

04-16-2006, 10:17 AM

You're right so far.....

Alive and kicking 50 years ago.

Which means that my generation, Generation X, is the first generation of black people to actually be born free in this country. We're the first generation to live our entire lives without having to see a "Colored Only" sign. We're the first blacks in American History to be able to apply for a job, housing, or higher education with some type of legal protection against discrimination. We're the first generation of blacks who do not remember the time when the mere act of voting or holding a white woman's hand was a dangerous, life-threatening act. We're the first generation of blacks to be able to dream of becoming whatever we want to be without first worrying about white people. We're the first generation to be able to hope for fairness in the justice system, even though we know we don't always get it.

This probably won't strike you as being significant because freedom is something that a lot of whites take for granted, but hardly a day goes by that I don't sit and marvel about this. You scoff at 50 years, as is your right to do, but when I realize my parents were in their late teens when those Civil Rights protesters were hosed down in the street--by the police, mind you--there is no way I could have your blase appreciation for history. Seeing the white people yelling and throwing rocks at the little black girl who dared to go to "their" school, watching the white people turn into rabid animals at the sight of the blacks who dared to sit at "their" lunch counters, listening to the diatribes of Strom Thurmond and Wallace on the radio and TV. Seeing Martin Luther King villified in the news for having the audacity to say that blacks deserved to be treated like human beings. My parents were alive and fully cognizant during those days. And if they were alive, plenty of others were alive. The history is embedded into us.

You exhibit an attitude that I've seen in a lot of people, unfortunately. This "I know better than they do" attitude that smacks of arrogance and patronization. Sometimes I hear views like yours expressed and I have to wonder whether you think the history clock started ticking the day you were born. Because some of things you are saying make me think you don't really know or appreciate how far black people have come. All you can see if the present and all you can see is the negative.

No. Racism is reprehensible in all it's forms. But in this thread alone some one opined that racism could only be practiced by whites---a charge that is being propogated by the Captains of the Victim Industry--Sharpton, Jackson, West et. al.

Racism is a view that anyone can have, IMO. But when racism is practiced by the majority against a historically stigmatized minority, the ramifications are going to more larger scaled and signficant than when black people are prejudice against whites. This is why we don't spend a lot of time talking about the effects of racism against whites. The day that the table is turned and whites become the minority, then maybe it'll it make sense to turn our attention to black-on-white racism.

Interesting comment. That would seem to suggest that the civil rights struggle has in fact been won......Hmmmmm.........

No. Just because people have found success doesn't mean racism isn't still pervasive and damaging.

The successful blacks see white racism for what it is: An ignorant practice practiced by a small percentage of the population that often has little or no consequence in their lives---a nuiscance.

As a successful black person, I ask you not to tell me how I see racism. That is the height of presumptuousness.

Loopydude

04-16-2006, 11:00 AM

But yes, someone who is clearly doing just fine in the opportunity realm pulls the race card as the reason for his collapse .... well, I find that a bit stupid. As someone who sees major problems in this world and in this country resulting from persistent racism - explicitly, institutionally, and in subtle ways that we each are not even aware of - I find his blaming the White power system for his running away to be idiotic after-the-fact excuse making and believe that it demeans the importance of racism in our world.

But whatever.

Kind of looks that way from some angles. I came across the Slate article last night "explaining" Chappelle's quandry: He can't get away from white people. I don't put much stock in Slate, and that article could just be the typical product of sociological idiocy Slate spews forth on a regular basis. But it did quote the Oprah interview, where Chappelle appears to cite one of his reasons for leaving: A white stagehand was laughing too hard. Later, it quotes Chappelle, from his Block Party flick, as deriving a lot of pleasure from the fact that the crowd in front of him was less than 1% white. I dunno, maybe he had a tongue firmly planted in cheek when he made that comment. Maybe not. Sounds like white adulation makes him paranoid.

Kurt Cobain, before he offed himself, complained bitterly that the same sorts of folks who used to beat him up in high school were now among his greatest fans. This was not Cobain's real problem. His real problem was he was mentally ill, and shit that other people would shrug off made him miserable. I don't know if anxiety and depression are Chappelle's main issues or not. But he wouldn't be the first comedic genius to suffer from those afflictions. I don't see it as a fundamentally "black" thing. Who are some of the greatest comics we might remember? Well, there's Murphy, Pryor, Carlin, Bruce... Bruce wound up a cold dead overdoser, half-naked on a bathroom floor. Carlin was a coke addict and only partially cleaned himself up after suffering a near-fatal heart attack. Pryor lit himself on fire, among about a hundred other problems. Mental anguish seems to come with the genius territory fairly often, and Murphy is the only one on that short list who is both sane and physically intact. He's also apparently the big sellout of the bunch.

Anyway, Chappelle is, in my estimation, an extremely talented artist. I don't know if he's up there with the greatest-of-greats in their prime, but he's close. The Blackzilla skit is about as weak as his show ever got, and many of his skits were all-time-television greats, IMO. He also has great charisma, and, in collaboration with other comics, can often bring out the best in them. Charlie Murphy is the prime example, to me, of someone who could could soak up some of the DC aura make it their own in a way perhaps not entirely possible outside of the partnership. After the Negrodamus bit, to follow up with the "Is Wayne Brady gonna have to choke a bitch?!?" skit was, I think, pretty wonderfully good fun and sportsmanship all around, and I'm quite disappointed we're not going to see more performances like that. Flipping channels with my wife last night, we hit an SNL skit where Rachel Dratch was prattling on about a fucking hat, sequing to Amy Poeler in some idiotic music number that was about as unfunny as anything I've seen on TV. I think we lasted 15 seconds before I dove for the remote with the urgency of an act of self-defense. 99.9% of TV comedy sucks so hard it hurts. CC is the only haven of quality as far as I'm concerned, and Chappelle reigned supreme.

Now he quits because, apparently, having fans like me is painful, which he blames on excessive white ownership. Disappointing. Television, you're pretty much dead to me.

Cartooniverse

04-16-2006, 12:23 PM

Chafing at the bit of oppressive editing is one thing. If he hated having anyone edit or control his routines, that's one thing.

So, he should do what tons of folks have done. ( Eddie Murphy, etc. ) . Do an HBO comedy special, over which he has 100 % editorial control and from which he draws a percentage of profits.

But..... that isn't it, is it? He has some mental health issues and it's very hard to actually come out and say that in public. I wish him well. He's a funny fellow.

raindog

04-16-2006, 04:32 PM

Tom, did you read you with the face's excellent post?

We have a first person perspective of a black Gen-Xer, who desribes a world where he (if it is "she" please correct me and accept my apology) was "born free", free to apply for housing or higher education with legal protections, free to participate in the democratic procees without fear, free to date or marry a white woman if chooses, once again without fear, free to dream and realize those dreams without worry, and an expectation that they will receive "fairness" in the justice system, and apparently receiving it some portion of the time.

I can think of no more compelling evidence of the success of the civil rights struggle than the first person world view of a young black Gen-Xer. Not only could I not say it better myself, I wouldn't have the credibility of stating it from a black perspective.

I make no inference that we are living in The Garden Of Eden. It is quite hard however, to see the oppressive, systemic, pervasive institutional racism that bears down on blacks like humidity in August in his desription of the world he inhabits.

I'll go out on a limb and infer that the success that you with the face enjoys didn't come from caprice, dumb luck or inheritance; but rather from making good use* of the freedoms he so eloquently described---all fruits of the civil rights struggle. (*read: sound judgement, personal responsibility and hard work)

Amazingly, despite his favorable view of the world, and his appreciation for the struggles of his predessors, he still finds room to be a victim. It's noteworthy that he doesn't describe a single indignity he experienced, but rather the indignities of others. I see no instance where he's been a victim, but rather he's been told he 's a victim. It's embedded in him.

He's been vicariously victimized.

Which means that my generation, Generation X, is the first generation of black people to actually be born free in this country. We're the first generation to live our entire lives without having to see a "Colored Only" sign. We're the first blacks in American History to be able to apply for a job, housing, or higher education with some type of legal protection against discrimination. We're the first generation of blacks who do not remember the time when the mere act of voting or holding a white woman's hand was a dangerous, life-threatening act. We're the first generation of blacks to be able to dream of becoming whatever we want to be without first worrying about white people. We're the first generation to be able to hope for fairness in the justice system, even though we know we don't always get it.
I would like to make note of a couple things, if for no other reason than to correct your timeline.

Being "Free" is progressive. You weren't born free, but rather you are enjoying the fruits of many whites and blacks efforts--starting with white and black abolitionists--that has been going on for 150 years.

It is unlikely your parents saw "Colored Only" signs, and if they did they were likely in diapers. Rather it is your grandparents that suffered those indignities.

You are not the first generation that is able to consider inter-racial dating. I was 'holding the hand' of my black wife likely before you were born. I have bi racial children not much younger than you.

In the 20 years we were together I experienced several instances of racism, and twice I was forced to be violent. I traveled freely in the city of Chicago without fear. it is true however, that in every instance we were accosted and forced into a confrontation it was at the hands of black men. Every Single Time. This notion that inter-racial couples were in fear of white knuckleheads exclusively is pure fantasy.

Even today, an inter-racial couple would do well to be aware of their surroundings. But you are as likely to be abused by black racists than by white ones.

This probably won't strike you as being significant because freedom is something that a lot of whites take for granted, but hardly a day goes by that I don't sit and marvel about this. You scoff at 50 years, as is your right to do, but when I realize my parents were in their late teens when those Civil Rights protesters were hosed down in the street--by the police, mind you--there is no way I could have your blase appreciation for history. Seeing the white people yelling and throwing rocks at the little black girl who dared to go to "their" school, watching the white people turn into rabid animals at the sight of the blacks who dared to sit at "their" lunch counters, listening to the diatribes of Strom Thurmond and Wallace on the radio and TV. Seeing Martin Luther King villified in the news for having the audacity to say that blacks deserved to be treated like human beings. My parents were alive and fully cognizant during those days. And if they were alive, plenty of others were alive. The history is embedded into us.
None of the freeedoms that you have so powerfully described would be a reality without the efforts of millions of white Americans going back 150 years, many of which paid with their lives.

You describe some powerful images, none of which you experienced. No one is suggesting that we forget the civil rights struggle. But you are not paying homage to it by acting like a victim over incidents that you only know of through history. You're not dishonoring their sacrifices and memories by living the life they imagined for you.

The irony is that they suffered those abuses so that their offspring wouldn't have to be victims. It's long overdue that those of the victim class stop acting like one, and long overdue that clowns like Jesse Jackson stop selling that bill of goods.

The War Is Over. The Good Guys Won.

You exhibit an attitude that I've seen in a lot of people, unfortunately. This "I know better than they do" attitude that smacks of arrogance and patronization. Sometimes I hear views like yours expressed and I have to wonder whether you think the history clock started ticking the day you were born. Because some of things you are saying make me think you don't really know or appreciate how far black people have come. All you can see if the present and all you can see is the negative.
Right.

It is patronizing to consider blacks incapable of being productive, happy and successful because of this shadowy racist stalking them. It is patronizing to make excuses for poor performance and poor behavior. It is patronizing to make special accomodations in hiring practices, and college admissions by lowering test score requirements exclusively for black applicants.

If you wish to believe that I am ignorant of the history of the civil rights era, have at it. Forgive me if I'm dubious.

Racism is a view that anyone can have, IMO. But when racism is practiced by the majority against a historically stigmatized minority, the ramifications are going to more larger scaled and signficant than when black people are prejudice against whites. This is why we don't spend a lot of time talking about the effects of racism against whites. The day that the table is turned and whites become the minority, then maybe it'll it make sense to turn our attention to black-on-white racism.
A couple things here....

The "ramifications" of white racism are well documented--some of which you recounted here. It is a stain on our collective conscience and a blight on our history. However there has been a 150 year struggle, starting with the abolitionists, to undo those ramifications. In fact, the world you describe you live in would bring tears to the eyes of people like W.E.B. DuBois or Ida B Wells, yes? Yet you havn't shared with us what vestiges of these horrors still plague you today.

I would also submit that racial crime by blacks against whites is huge--and growing. (and I would bet good money is bigger than white on black racially motivated crime) Yet it has none of the cache of white idiocy. It goes largely unreported as a national issue, dare we be accused of focusing our attention on behavior and accepting personal responsibility.

But I submit it is paradoxically racist not to at this point in history. It's long overdue.

No. Just because people have found success doesn't mean racism isn't still pervasive and damaging.
Of course, you haven't desribed the very first instance of how it is pervasive or damaging in your life. What you did describe of your world is the exact opposite, right?

As a successful black person, I ask you not to tell me how I see racism. That is the height of presumptuousness.
Got it. I suspected you're living in the past, but somehow a victim in the present.

Askia

04-16-2006, 05:45 PM

mike1dog

04-16-2006, 06:02 PM

Dave's letter to white people (http://www.popmatters.com/columns/harris/060411.shtml).

I have to note that that wasn't written by Dave, it was written by that columnist.

pool

04-16-2006, 06:07 PM

We've already noted that a couple times.

Askia

04-16-2006, 06:08 PM

By God did we note that.

Lama Pacos

04-16-2006, 06:43 PM

Wow, I honestly didn't realize that there were so many people who don't believe in institutional racism.

Frosted Glass

04-16-2006, 06:54 PM

So, I actually wandered into this thread trying to figure out why it was in Great Debates. Needless to say, it only took me about half a page of posts to figure it out.

I would first like to address the people who feel that BET would have been a better place for Chappelle if he truly had issues with racism. Personally, it would seem like a joke to me if an entertainer complained about being exploited and then preceded to take his talents to BET. IMHO, BET is a waste of a station. I do not like their claim of providing being a channel for “us”. They are simply an overrated music video channel that “goes to church” on Sundays. Surely educated blacks across the country must love watching Negroes dance around and tell jokes. Before anyone responds to this comment, browse the website yourself and explain to me why the news section is so brief. Then explain to me why I have read more informative book reviews in Maxim. Finally, tell me why the biggest link on the community page is focused on rims and bling. If Chappelle, said what he did, and then took his show to BET, he would have lost all of the respect that educated people have for him. As can be seen here, he has already raised quite a few questions from his fan base. While I do not think he needed to give any reasons for his actions, I believe that once you publicly announce such strong feelings, you should at least attempt to stand by them.

It's not primarily what the criticism was about, just a statement that $50 million not touching what "white people" own is so broad a statement as to be meaningless.

I agree that the statement you were referencing is pretty meaningless. However, it is pretty meaningless for those who have responded to Chappelle’s comments by saying that there are lots of poor whites. Of course there are plenty of poor whites, there are plenty of poor everything. The wealthy in this country do not have large numbers. They have most of the money distributed amongst very few so statistically someone has to be on the bottom. Even if all blacks were poor, the numbers would not match our current poverty count.

The bottom line was, white people own everything

People need to get over this. I do not mean black people or white people; I mean everyone needs to get over this. Most of the people running this country are white. Would you all like a cookie for pointing that out to us? Black folks need to stop using this as a catchall excuse and white people need to stop getting so damn defensive about it. No one is saying that all rich people are white so come off of the nonsense.

where can a black person go and be himself or say something that's familiar to him and not have to explain or apologize?

A lot of folks here really jumped on this statement. In this situation, I can only blame ignorance. I am not going to tell you that you cannot possibly understand this unless you are an ethnic minority or poor. It may be more difficult for you to find a concrete example, but everyone should be able to relate to “selling out” their own kind. If you cannot, I want your life.

Justice is not about race. It's about wealth and power, and all the things that come from it.

I absolutely agree with you.

I don't agree that racism plays anything but the very smallest of roles in what is wrong in the AA community. My biggest concern is that this whole racism charge gets so much press, gets so much bandwidth, so much attention that many people are left with the logical impression that there nothing they can do.

This is indeed, a very serious problem that has caused numerous issues in the black community. It has caused us to accept the role of victim and to run with it. Personally, I hate the fact that lazy people exploit the unfortunate experiences of others in order to move up in the world. Still, the world is full of opportunists so I do not see this going away any time soon.

For the record, both my mother (58) and father (66) experienced “Colored Only” well into their adolescence while growing up in South Carolina and Mississippi, respectively.

The successful blacks see white racism for what it is: An ignorant practice practiced by a small percentage of the population that often has little or no consequence in their lives---a nuiscance. They do not dwell on it, or let it influence their lives. More importantly they don't see every traffic stop or rude department store clerk as a racist out to do them harm.

This is about where I begin to lose you. My maternal grandparents were both college educated and both of my parents have graduate degrees so I feel safe in claiming the role of “successful black.” I am only 21 but I have had more than my fair share of “nuisances.”

Upon my transfer, into the middle class suburban school district from which I graduated, I was forced to take 6 entrance examination series. Everyone else takes one series. The administrator in charge was not willing to accept my advanced credits until I proved my proficiency. A board investigation later determined that there was discrimination on the part of the administrator in charge. Three of my high school years were spent on a Varsity football team where my predominantly white team delighted in making me the brunt of their racial humor. If you want the jokes, message me. I may not see every traffic stop as a racist out to do me harm, but it gets to be pretty obvious after being stopped at least once a month. Especially when the cop walks up to the car and lets me go after realizing that he just pulled over the town’s “black scholar”. I have found Carnegie Mellon to be a real blast when I am excluded from organizations because students “just don’t think that you’re people would be comfortable with us.” I also enjoy being denied entry from the gymnasium I work in when my id card fails to scan for the desk attendant, and then watching a generic white guy walk in and use his drivers license to gain entry. The only physical racism that I have experienced has been due to an inter-racial relationship. Of course, you may interpret that as you choose because I am visibly bigger than most people and very non-confrontational.

As much as I agree with most of your sentiments raindog I cannot pass off my experiences as a nuisance. I do not think that I dwell on them, but it absolutely influences my life. If nothing else, it influences me to be a better person. I look forward to hearing more from you in the future.

Lochdale

04-16-2006, 07:02 PM

Wow, I honestly didn't realize that there were so many people who don't believe in institutional racism.

I'm not sure it's a case of believing in it or not but questioning it's affects. That is, can you blame racism for all the problems bedeviling black America? I say no. And I question the notion of active institutional racism. That is, an active conscious effort to hurt black people.

tomndebb

04-16-2006, 07:50 PM

But the amount of racism faced by blacks , relative to 50 years ago, is a footnote in history.And the amount of discrimination they faced fifty years ago (when we had finally suppressed routine lynchings) was less than they faced fifty years earleir (when lynchings were not only common, but popular). Based on an argument that "it's been worse," we should have done nothing fifty years ago. (In fact, forty years ago, I actually heard that argument.)

You note that people in the suburbs also get busted for drugs, yet there is no indication that drug usage is lower in the suburbs and the enforcement is much different in the two neighborhoods. Following the death of Len Bias, (ironically, for doing powder), Congress stampeded to make the laws governing crack ten times harsher than the laws governing powder--depite the fact that the claims that one was more addictive than the other were nonsense. As a result, the DEA concentrates on going after the "big bang for the buck" convictions for crack while ignoring a lot of powder transactions as not worth their time.

As to the people in the Superdome: I too saw maybe three persons interviewed during the crisis, all black, who reported violence and murders. I also was reminded of the claims of those few (frightened and confused) people on a half-hour basis throughout the week. On the other hand, I also saw the interviews with one white guardsman and one black cop after officials had made it back in there, each of whom said that conditions were horrible, but that the violence was greatly exaggerated. Those interviews were played once, each, and then no mention was made of them again. Later, when the actual death count of six was reported--none by murder--it got a back page story on a couple of papers and no big play on the electronic news--particularly not on an hourly basis throughout the day. This despite the fact that the news media had to have been aware of the huge number of blogs and talk radio shows going on at length about the "savages" in New Orleans.

That is the institutional racism that you with the face (and you?) believes does not exist. It is not the deliberate change from wards to at-large voting to ensure that growning numbers of black voters cannot get representation on city council. It is not Jim Crow or unfunded segregated schools, but it reinforces an attitude that all the problems blacks face are of their own making while supporting actions and attitudes that interfere with their ability to improve their lot.

And, as I noted briefly earlier, you have concentrated on the problems faced by the poorest of the urban poor. Racism continues to harm all blacks. Only about one in four blacks are classified as poor according to the U.S. Census, but racism affects many more. It is harder to find and prosecute examples of discrimination, these days because the racists are less blatant in their actions and the courts have interpreted the laws to mean that one must demonstrate discrimination to a level that is nearly impossible to prove in the everyday work place, but it is still there and active.

In the post from which I took the quote at the beginning of this response, you actually mioved from a postion that racism is not harming the black community to a claim that the only racism that is hurting blacks is the racism of black leaders. Yet, your only evidence of this is that when some black leaders (most often entertainers) get caught screwing up, they play the race card. It is not the whining of the Jacksons or McKinneys that keeps middle class blacks from getting the housing they seek or the jobs they have earned.

My position is not that racism is at the root of all problems faced by any black individual. My position is that racism continues to be one (and perhaps not the most serious) issue that faces the poorest of blacks and that it is one issue that continues to interfere with the lives of middle class blacks. We are doing better than we have. I simply dismiss your fairly simplistic claims that racism is irrelevant to and harms no one in current society.

tomndebb

04-16-2006, 08:02 PM

And I question the notion of active institutional racism. That is, an active conscious effort to hurt black people.By definition, institutional racism is NOT the active attempt to harm blacks. It is the underlying assumptions, often wrong, that presume that some things "just are that way" when the reality is that they originated in racist practices that are no longer reconsidered or have come to harm blacks in unforeseen ways that people do not want to exert the energy to change.

The nonsensical laws regarding crack vs powder cocaine are such an example. There is no reason why either form of the drug should be more heavily regualted than the other. As it happens, crack is more frequently used in the inner city and powder more frequently used in the suburbs. No one sat down and said, "Let's make a law that will punish blacks more than whites." The initial discrepancy was based on a misunderstanding of the addictive properties of each. However, medical science disproved the addictive fallacy within 11 months of the death of Len Bias. The law has been up for review on several occasions since that time. Congress, however, has chosen to simply let the laws stand the way they are, which has the net effect of focusing the DEA's attention on the inner city while ignoring the suburbs, resulting in far more arrests and convictions of people in the inner city than in the suburbs for what is, effectively, the identical crime.

It is not that anyone set out to harm blacks; it is that no one really cares about the actual effects of the drugs. They simply want to look "tough" on crime and they look a lot tougher making sure that "those people" are being inspected than if they were spending the effort to break up drug rings in college prep schools or golf clubs (where more money for campaign funds is found).

you with the face

04-16-2006, 08:44 PM

That is the institutional racism that you with the face (and you?) believes does not exist.

Um, tom? I certainly believe in institutional racism. My position, if anything, is that the kind of present-day racism that affects black Americans most significantly is indeed institutional, not the kind of the KKK type of racism that everyone always thinks of and conveniently can say is neglible. Institutional racism is the kind of racism that leads to tracking in schools, the promulgation of certain messages in the media (like the Katrina coverage you mentioned), and disparate attention by law enforcement which leads to increased scrutiny of black offenders and an unwarranted gift of the benefit of the doubt to white ones.

Individuals who harbor racist opinions are a nuisance when you encounter them, but when one has to worry about whether their resume will be rejected because the name on it sounds too "black"...that's a little bit more than a nuisance. It's that kind of stuff that can wear on not just the lower-class but also the middle-class.

[to the room, not just to tomndebb ]

There was nothing in my earlier post that suggested victimization. The ironic thing is that when I went out of my way not to make it about me and my own experiences with racism, I still got accused of trying to be a victim. I even called myself successful. So why should I be accused of self-victimization simply for trying to share my perspective in response to someone treating 50 years like ancient history? I just don't understand the attitude, and I'm starting to feel like its pointless to have these kind of discussions anymore.

tomndebb

04-16-2006, 09:00 PM

Sorry. I misunderstood an earlier comment.

Lochdale

04-16-2006, 09:21 PM

In the post from which I took the quote at the beginning of this response, you actually mioved from a postion that racism is not harming the black community to a claim that the only racism that is hurting blacks is the racism of black leaders. Yet, your only evidence of this is that when some black leaders (most often entertainers) get caught screwing up, they play the race card. It is not the whining of the Jacksons or McKinneys that keeps middle class blacks from getting the housing they seek or the jobs they have earned.
.

Just to quickly respond to this point, I do think current black leadership is racist insofar as their sole plank appears to be blaming white people for all of their ills whilst encouraging a victimhood mentality. And it's not just the entertainers but prominent black leaders such as Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and the Black Congressional Congress who continously return to this stance regardless of the situation. So no, entertainers in troble are not my "only evidence" (your words) and I would hope that you are not so myopic as to believe that it is.

tomndebb

04-16-2006, 09:25 PM

I agree that several black leaders have promoted de facto racism--certainly Sharpton and McKinney, probably Jackson. However, in terms of the Black Caucus and similar state organizations, I see no difference between their rhetoric and the rhetoric of all the ethnic leaders of other groups who preceeded them--groups who were not then accused of bigotry but simply acclaimed for looking out for their own.

Lochdale

04-16-2006, 09:30 PM

I simply disagree. They are almost entirely single-issue and there is never a situation that they don't see or find racism as a factor whether it exists or not.

Lochdale

04-16-2006, 09:36 PM

Rubystreak

04-16-2006, 10:31 PM

I simply disagree. They are almost entirely single-issue and there is never a situation that they don't see or find racism as a factor whether it exists or not.

If you really believe this, then there is no point in further conversation with you on this topic. Your confirmation bias is off the charts and nothing said in this thread or anywhere else is going to convince. You seem to be deeply invested in your view that racism only exists anymore from black to white, which is so absurd I'd laugh if it wasn't so damn horrible.

I do, however, agree with your point about the classification of crack cocaine. It's a disgrace. I am surprised, however, it hasn't been changed. Surely the Democrats could muster up enough votes to get the classifications changed?

Because black people don't want to help themselves, of course. If they changed that, then so many of them wouldn't go to jail, and then what would they have to complain about? :rolleyes: Don't you get it that institutional racism is what caused the classification of crack cocaine and the resultant prison terms? It can't be made any clearer to you.

This thread has been very educational for me, in so many ways. Can't say it's changed my opinion of the uselessness of debate in this forum, though.

Odesio

04-16-2006, 10:34 PM

I do, however, agree with your point about the classification of crack cocaine. It's a disgrace. I am surprised, however, it hasn't been changed. Surely the Democrats could muster up enough votes to get the classifications changed?

What politician wants to come out in favor of crack? Sure, I know that's not what you mean but that's but most people in office are going to be worried about appearing soft on crime or to show any approval of drug use. It's the same reason you won't find many politicians working to legalize prostitution. Who wants to appear to the public as an endorser of prostitution?

I remember when crack started hitting the news and we saw images of young black thugs with guns plastered on magazines, newspapers, and the televised news. Oddly enough back in the 20's and 30's they used similiar images to make marijuana and cocaine illegal.

Marc

Guinastasia

04-16-2006, 10:47 PM

Stupid question-why is crack more associated with blacks than powder?

DSeid

04-16-2006, 10:47 PM

Interestingly enough just finished watching Boondocks which was a rerun of the Martin Luther King episode. Never saw it the first time. Funny. Sad. Meaningful. Brilliant.

Just seems timely to this thread is all.

tomndebb

04-16-2006, 10:49 PM

Because black people don't want to help themselves, of course. If they changed that, then so many of them wouldn't go to jail, and then what would they have to complain about? You are aware, I hope, of the definition of a straw man argument? Assigning a position to another person in an argument that they have not actually expressed, themselves, is not conducive to moving the discussion forward.

Even if we all fail to agree on every point discussed, there is no reason to imply bad faith on the part of one's opponents before they have demonstrated that bad faith.

I am in strong disagreement with raindog and it should be clear that I disagree with much that Lockdale has posted, but I see no reason to mischaracterize their arguments.

Consider:This thread has been very educational for me, in so many ways. Can't say it's changed my opinion of the uselessness of debate in this forum, though.- either one actually hopes to persuade one's opponents to change their positions (in which case, erroneously assigning them positions they have not expressed will only irritate them and make them less likely to listen to your arguments or change their positions),
- or one realizes that one's opponents have (through differing life experiences) come to positions that are radically different from one's own and are unlikely to change--meaning that the arguments one puts forth are intended to sway some number of readers who have not made up their minds, (in which case, displaying a flaw in one's own presentation by attacking a straw man of one's opponents will simply peresuade the uninvolved readers that one has poor debatiing skills or, perhaps, is attacking one's opponents on a personal level to distract from the poverty of one's own arguments).

Either way, you are better off demonstrating respect for one's opponents than mischaracterizing their arguments or putting words in their mouths.

tomndebb

04-16-2006, 10:58 PM

Stupid question-why is crack more associated with blacks than powder?Economics of distribution. I don't recall why a rock is more popular in the inner city while powder is more popular in the suburbs, but the relative popularities exist and that is why laws targeting one form over the other have disparate impacts on the populations using them.

Cartooniverse

04-17-2006, 07:02 AM

Later, when the actual death count of six was reported--none by murder--it got a back page story on a couple of papers and no big play on the electronic news--particularly not on an hourly basis throughout the day. This despite the fact that the news media had to have been aware of the huge number of blogs and talk radio shows going on at length about the "savages" in New Orleans.

Nitpick: Either CNN hired Tom Savini to create not one but two very badly mutilated dead bodies just for ratings, or the reports of mutilated bodies were not a lie. For anyone who watched the footage of a camera walking around and zooming in on both corpses, I can tell you that they sure looked real to me. The chest cavity of one had been torn open to reveal internal organs. I happened to be home, watching t.v. when C.N.N. started airing the clips. To me, this is savage behavior of the highest and most inhumane level. YMMV, of course. Cite- scroll down to "Mutilated bodies were found at convention center. Says CNN." (http://www.cofcc.org/info/katrina_crime.php).

This page also provides accounts of acts of violence documented by CDC officials and others.

/Nitpick

Cartooniverse

Cartooniverse

04-17-2006, 07:06 AM

This was intended to be a part of the previous post. I am aware that the reports state that both of the mutilated bodies were already deceased when they were torn apart. My post was about tomndebb's use of the term savages in quotes, as though that term were somehow trumped up by the black-hating racist media. I didn't mean to imply that those two dead people were murdered, then mutilated.

And, I don't give two shits what the skin color was of the people that mutilated those two people. They are savages.

raindog

04-17-2006, 08:57 AM

The raindog. I do not mean to dismiss or belittle the experiences of you and your wife, but some of the things you with the face says and what you say are essentially in agreement. But a co-member of Generation X I have directly been subjected to racial hostility by whites, which I have talked about before on these boards, though as I grow older these kinds of incidents grow much less common. My generation is quite attuned to racial incidents happening to other people, if only because we still have a "this shit is still happening!" attitude that is not quite "embedded victimization" although I can see how you might think so. It's more of a "heads up!" deal.
I do not mean to say that white racism is so little so as to not exist. Not in the slightest.

What I am saying is that there are groups of people who have an interest in amplifying the nature of racism (and thereby misrepresenting it's scope and reach) and thereby making it The Official Reason why something is as it is.

Perhaps the most absurd example is Cynthia McKinney's behavior a couple weeks ago. Rather than accepting responsibility for her behavior, her boorish acts suddenly became (or at lest she tried) a referendum on racism in America. Who in their right mind buys that? But as mentioned, it is particulalry egegious when young blacks are taught that they are not responsible for their own actions because of some nebulous haze of racism. Time and again young blacks are defended with the race card when racism had nothing to do with their behavior. It's done in the work place, and in the schools. (and apparently in Congress)

It's particularly bad when young people are conditioned to believe they are screwed before they even begin their lives.

And so I don't believe that racism doesn't exist. I do strongly believe that we give it too much credit---too much credit to derail lives, too much credit as to it's pervasiveness, too much credit in it's ability to influence lives, too much credit to hurt. I think racism is overstated, and over reported, often by people who are sincere ans mistaken, and often by charlatans. It is often used as the "nuclear option"; ground cover for bad behavior.

We give the racist too much credit. And when we do, we take power from ourselves and lose personal responsibility.

It'a a petty practice practiced by petty people. And they no longer have the upper hand. They have been marginilized by millions of committed decent, people. They've been marginilized in law, in artistic expression like art, music and literature. They've been marginilized in popular culture. They've been marginilized in the company breakroom and in the school cafeteria.

So yea, I think the war is over. And I think the good guys won. But you make an excellent point about vigilance---because the war is over doesn't mean we can be complacement. If any of the foot soldiers thought for one minute that "victory" is when every heart and mind was won over, they will die embittered. And so every racist needs to be confronted head on---whether that be a stern look or word, complaint to HR, or a law suit. In every way the racist needs to be marginilized, hounded and prosecuted. You can't legislate beliefs, but you can sure hold people accountable for their behavior.

In that respect, I'd say that our generation is probably the first to expericence more or less "hassle free" social interracial dating, although yours was probably the first to challenge and overturn miscegenation laws. Fair enough?

I think for the most part people are politer now, and more likely to say niceties to your face, and better equipped to hold their fists and tongues. But the hatred and disapproval behind the practiced smiles is still racism, just a more insiduous and quieter kind. Well, it's demonstrably bigoted if not racist.

As a member of Generation X, I'm 35. My mother (55) and father (64) were both subjected to "Colored Only" segregation well into in their teens and twenties, respectively, in South Carolina and Tennesee, respectively, particularly since they both lived in small southern towns with segregated schools, parks, motels, stores and churches.

My own racial incidents are pretty unremarkable and MIGHT just be chalked up to "growing up." When I was 5, I bloodied the face of a white kid who called me a "stupid monkey" in kindergarten. When I was fourteen, I got in a fistfight with three white guys, one of whom who called me a "nigger" from his front porch, and I dared them to come over here and say that to my face. I was 18 when a carload of white boys called me "nigger!" from a passing car and threw a Coke bottle at my head, causing me to fall off the bike; I was around 23 when I was riding another bike out in the country and ran into, of all people, David Duke.

In my own teens and twenties, I've felt "free" to apply for housing and higher education, but make no mistake: I have been discriminated in housing applications before, and simply decided it was not worth my time or money to pursue legal recourse. I've had a few minor racial incidents at USC. I've participated in the democratic process without fear of personal retribution, but have seen where others like me have been quite legally disenfranchised in national elections in 2000 and 2004, and see where my votes in Ohio may be dispute, too. I do feel "free" to date or marry a white woman if I choose and she so consents, but I've made a conscious decision a long time ago that the hostility, bitterness and disapproval from some blacks with my just being with a white woman wasn't really worth looking outside my race for love. I'm not exactly losing sleep over this, but prehaps you look at me and see someone cowed by the opinions of others. If I have every expectation that I will receive fair treatment in the justice system, that's only because I've never really run afoul of the law. If something did happen, I wouldn't be surprised if my tune changed. I've bailed out friends on seen how the cops treated them. Despite my faith, I have very low expectations, almost always reinforced, almost every time I deal with the cops, that I will ever be treated fairly by them. I have been subjected to some boneheaded foot-dragging, rough treatment and callous indifference that I'm not sure I can attribute to my race or socioeconomic class or both.
I was under the impression that Gen-Xers were early 20 somethings...I must have that wrong.

I am 44. When I was going to marry, my mother told me, "raindog, I wonder if you have the maturity for this. You like to fight, and if you think that the world will embrace you, you are mistaken. If you choose to answer every slight with your fists you will spend the rest of your life fighting. You need to be realistic about this, in a very practical way. But if you find balance, peace, and learn to know when it is your fight, you'll do OK. If you love her, marry her"

It was sound advice. I have never let a racist get the best of me, mentally or otherwise. If I hear racists running their mouths I simply walk away. When I can't I tell them that that is juvenile and ignorant and I don't want to hear it. Embarrasment is so much more gratifying than fighting. (Maturity has a lot do with that I guess)

Racists never once kept me from being successful (including a job offer that was mysteriously rescinded after meeting my wife), it has never occupied more of my energy than was neccessary. I've never run from one, figuritively or otherwise, whether they be white or black.

I've taught my kids that, in my lifetime, I have encountered racism in many different forms, from very subtle slights to threats of violence. I've taught them that racism is found in equal measures from both whites and blacks, although the overwhelming amount of people in both races are good, decent, and well intentioned.

I've taught them that it is a measure of their strength and character that they not let a racist change who they wish to be. In any event, they may not allow racism to relieve them of their personal responsibility, nor may they allow themselves to be routed by it. Racism is an obstacle, nothing more.

I've also shared with them that many times I have been in a position to know the "inside facts" when racism was alleged in a work environment and it just wasn't there; and I was in a position to know that for sure. I've also let them know there were times that racism was in play and the 'victim' was blissfully ignorant of it.

I've told them that popular culture sees racism in all kinds of places where it just isn't, or in cases where it can't be known. Sometimes the clerk is just an equal opportunity jerk. Sometimes the traffic stop is just that. Blacks have been told for years by carpetbaggers like Jesse Jackson that every slight is an indication of racism. I've told them that there is enough real evil in the world and they should be cautious about ascribing racist motives when they simply don't know.

raindog, I believe you and I are essentially on the same side and I imagine we'd have a lot to talk about IRL. There are some major fundamental differences in our worldviews, however, typified by your oft-repeated assertion that the fight for freedom for blacks in America began only 150 years ago. :dubious:
Sorry for implying that it began 150 years ago. :smack: I make this mental distinction that begins the "modern" struggle for freedom and civil rights with Emancipation, Abolition, the underground railroad, the founding of the NAACP etc.

It was silly to imply that it "began" there.

pizzabrat

04-17-2006, 09:04 AM

And, I don't give two shits what the skin color was of the people that mutilated those two people. They are savages.

Do you have any idea why they were torn apart?

I'm asking because I don't know - I can't figure out any motive for anyone to rip apart a dead body. But I suspect you don't know either, but for some reason are content with just a picture in your head of maniacs ripping apart dead bodies for no reason, and them deeming them savages with no further questions.

Anyway, the elements (there was a hurricane going on, you know) and disinterested human activity seem to be the most likely cause.

holmes

04-17-2006, 09:23 AM

Rubystreak

04-17-2006, 09:56 AM

You are aware, I hope, of the definition of a straw man argument? Assigning a position to another person in an argument that they have not actually expressed, themselves, is not conducive to moving the discussion forward.

And I'm the only person in this thread who has done this, so I am somehow worthy of being singled out by you for this chastisement? I don't think so. And in case you hadn't noticed, the discussion hasn't moved forward in 4 pages, and I hardly think you can lay that at my door.

Even if we all fail to agree on every point discussed, there is no reason to imply bad faith on the part of one's opponents before they have demonstrated that bad faith.

I am in strong disagreement with raindog and it should be clear that I disagree with much that Lockdale has posted, but I see no reason to mischaracterize their arguments.

Yet you have no problem with Lochdale saying:

Most people are not racist though I think you wish they were as it would fit into your world view very nicely indeed. It must be great going through life seeing everything in terms of absolutes.

Is this not an ad hominem argument that does not advance the discussion? What about this:

It's fear mongers like yourself who want to put anything and everything down to "racism" that does as much to retard the socio-economic growth and development of black-Americans as any racist does.

Me believing in and pointing out racism = retarding the growth and development of African Americans. Hmmm. That's not bad faith arguing, eh? I hope that, if you are going to slap hands for being ad hominem and negative, you'll do it a little more even-handedly.

actually hopes to persuade one's opponents to change their positions (in which case, erroneously assigning them positions they have not expressed will only irritate them and make them less likely to listen to your arguments or change their positions),

I was responding to this from Lochdale:

They are almost entirely single-issue and there is never a situation that they don't see or find racism as a factor whether it exists or not.

His position is that black leaders use the race card for every issue and have no other topics with which they deal. Do you find this at all disingenuous? Even insulting, maybe?

Either way, you are better off demonstrating respect for one's opponents than mischaracterizing their arguments or putting words in their mouths.

It's happened all over this thread, so why you're singling ME out for this is incomprehensible to me. I hope you're acting in your capacity as a member of the board and not a moderator.

Cartooniverse

04-17-2006, 10:04 AM

Do we know how long the bodies were left there? Do we know whether or not they had been in the water for sometime and became bloated? How hot was it? Do we know whether or not there were animals roaming about?

It seems to me, one would like to know the something about conditions of these bodies and the environment thereof, before we strip away the humanity of people, based on some video.

...but that's me.

And that's me too. Witnesses inside the Convention Center had noted both dead bodies for more than 24 hours. Water, ferile animals, bloating and the like had nothing to do with this. At all. In any manner. Ok? These were two people who died inside of a large building, with a lot of other people around. Some of whom tore their bodies up rather badly. That is the condition in which their bodies were existing before, and after they were mutilated.

Read up, do some Googling, before you just decide I'm stripping away the humanity of people, ok? I didn't do the stripping away. Human beings mutliated dead bodies. It's kind of a fact, whether you wish to recognize it or not. I'm sorry that doesn't sit well with you.

FYI- CNN has removed the video, so the link within the link doesn't actually show the bodies any more.

holmes

04-17-2006, 10:09 AM

Sorry, you're the one with the bad link. I'm not goggling crap. If you believe this happened, then prove it. Post your cites and I'll read 'em.

Lochdale

04-17-2006, 11:35 AM

If you really believe this, then there is no point in further conversation with you on this topic. Your confirmation bias is off the charts and nothing said in this thread or anywhere else is going to convince. You seem to be deeply invested in your view that racism only exists anymore from black to white, which is so absurd I'd laugh if it wasn't so damn horrible.

Sigh. No I don't hold that view and I think you know it. My point is that racism is no longer the most significant inhibitor of black development in the United States. Put another way, while racism still exists (and will most likely continue to exist) it can no longer be used as a crutch to justify the victimhood mentality. That is, it is in black-America's best interests to move beyond the rhetoric and focus on what's best for the community. You haven't listened to a single argument made by anyone on this thread and I would suggest that you are the one whose views of racsim are so ingrained that you have become utterly blind to an alternative point of view.

Lochdale

04-17-2006, 11:42 AM

Economics of distribution. I don't recall why a rock is more popular in the inner city while powder is more popular in the suburbs, but the relative popularities exist and that is why laws targeting one form over the other have disparate impacts on the populations using them.

Isn't it cheaper to produce crack cocaine than it is to ingest pure powder? According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crack_cocaine#Crack_cocaine) , crack cocaine is cheaper.

I happen to know one guy who was a commodities trader who was a regular crack coacine user. He came from a good family and was quite well off. The drug just devastated him and even with the support system that he has he can still barely function. I can't imagine what it must be like for the urban poor.

tomndebb

04-17-2006, 11:49 AM

And I'm the only person in this thread who has done this, so I am somehow worthy of being singled out by you for this chastisement? I don't think so. And in case you hadn't noticed, the discussion hasn't moved forward in 4 pages, and I hardly think you can lay that at my door.You were the one who explicitly said that there was no point in continuing the conversation because your opponents held particular views--and then expressed views that overstated one comment by one poster as though it was representative of everyone with whom you had argued.
That is the statement to which I reacted.

tomndebb

04-17-2006, 11:58 AM

I have no idea what the "mutilated" bodies to which Cartooniverse referred looked like or what caused their mutilation, (although heat bloat plus feral dogs would seem to be as good a hypothesis as anything), but I will note that his claim is misleading in that I explicitly talked about the conditions inside the Superdome and the text and url associated with the now missing link talk about bodies found outside the convention center.

Cartooniverse, you are also deliberately distorting my statement when you attribute to me the idea that "black-hating racist media" was responsible for the images. My explicit point was that the media is not "black hating" but that when following the story they were only interested in sensationalism and that they ignored any responsibility to present facts when it was discovered that the sensational reports were exaggerated (and sometimes false) even though they had to have known that it was the images and words they broadcast that was fueling the hatred expressed in other fora.

kimera

04-17-2006, 12:46 PM

the raindog, in all due respect, the racism you experienced from having a relationship with a black woman is different than the racism that a black person may experience themselves. Perhaps the area where you live is more progressive than some of the areas that I have been in, but institutionalized racism does exist in some areas. When I lived in Cincinnati, I used to hang out with a group of black men that I met at my college. I was only around them for a year and a half and, before then, I would have denied that racism was still a problem in this day and age. They were all gifted, talented and incredibly smart, so none of them allowed racism to get in the way of their dreams or taint their view of whites, but I can’t imagine the hurt they must’ve gone through when they weren’t allowed to check into a hotel, or pulled over ‘just because’ (never once happened when I was driving, but sometimes while my black friend was) or the looks they were given by store clerks who didn’t realize I was with them.

I've experienced racism myself, but it's never been anywhere near the level that I've observed with some of my black friends, particularly the male ones.

Rubystreak

04-17-2006, 01:22 PM

Sigh. No I don't hold that view and I think you know it. My point is that racism is no longer the most significant inhibitor of black development in the United States.

I just cannot believe that you don't see it. You know about the rate of imprisonment. 1 out of 3 adult black men are in the criminal justice system. Do you think that's just a problem with black people and not the society they're in? What about the lower standardized test scores? How do you explain these? I simply cannot put all the blame on them. I feel like you are.

Put another way, while racism still exists (and will most likely continue to exist) it can no longer be used as a crutch to justify the victimhood mentality.

Boy am I sick of this phrase, "victimhood mentality." Racism is just a state of mind, and if they'd just stop letting it hurt them, they'd be fine? I can't believe you really think that. I don't deny that some people play the race card, but I don't see how that leads to the statistically provable inequities that I've pointed out.

You haven't listened to a single argument made by anyone on this thread and I would suggest that you are the one whose views of racsim are so ingrained that you have become utterly blind to an alternative point of view.

I have listened. I just don't agree; why is it OK for you not to budge an inch in your views, but when do the same, I'm the one who's not listening?

I've seen the effects of racism on my own students. My point of view on racism was pure ignorance at first; I grew up in a predominately white neighborhood, didn't really know any black people until I went out into the big old world. Then, I believed as you did: people just need to get on with it, racism's effects are over. But then I actually started having to deal with the problems my students face, and I was daunted, saddened, and determined to help. Thus, your accusations toward me are not only false, but hurtful.

Rubystreak

04-17-2006, 01:30 PM

You were the one who explicitly said that there was no point in continuing the conversation because your opponents held particular views--and then expressed views that overstated one comment by one poster as though it was representative of everyone with whom you had argued.
That is the statement to which I reacted.

I didn't say it representative of everyone whom I had argued. I was referring specifically to Lochdale and I said as much.

raindog

04-17-2006, 01:58 PM

This is about where I begin to lose you. My maternal grandparents were both college educated and both of my parents have graduate degrees so I feel safe in claiming the role of “successful black.” I am only 21 but I have had more than my fair share of “nuisances.”

Upon my transfer, into the middle class suburban school district from which I graduated, I was forced to take 6 entrance examination series. Everyone else takes one series. The administrator in charge was not willing to accept my advanced credits until I proved my proficiency. A board investigation later determined that there was discrimination on the part of the administrator in charge. Three of my high school years were spent on a Varsity football team where my predominantly white team delighted in making me the brunt of their racial humor. If you want the jokes, message me. I may not see every traffic stop as a racist out to do me harm, but it gets to be pretty obvious after being stopped at least once a month. Especially when the cop walks up to the car and lets me go after realizing that he just pulled over the town’s “black scholar”. I have found Carnegie Mellon to be a real blast when I am excluded from organizations because students “just don’t think that you’re people would be comfortable with us.” I also enjoy being denied entry from the gymnasium I work in when my id card fails to scan for the desk attendant, and then watching a generic white guy walk in and use his drivers license to gain entry. The only physical racism that I have experienced has been due to an inter-racial relationship. Of course, you may interpret that as you choose because I am visibly bigger than most people and very non-confrontational.

As much as I agree with most of your sentiments raindog I cannot pass off my experiences as a nuisance. I do not think that I dwell on them, but it absolutely influences my life. If nothing else, it influences me to be a better person. I look forward to hearing more from you in the future.

I don't know your experiences, and it certainly seems like you are on the level. I would also add that it seems that neither you or Askia are predisposed to being a victim, and more importantly haven't let experiences change who you are.

Still, the problem with "institutional racism" is that by nature it so open to interpretation. The modern racist no longer walks up and says, "Hey, get over here nigger!"

So the reports of racism are poor service in restaurants, suspicion in department stores, discrimination in hiring & promotions etc etc.

I am not nuance challenged, and I don't need it in black and white to see racism. (pun intended) But as I've said in this thread, I've been involved in employment issues as a mid level manager where I knew for sure that no racism took place. In some of those cases the person making the accusation was convinced that they were victims of racism. But I knew the situation intimately---long before the issue was raised---and was a party to the whole continuum.

Similarly, three months ago I was hired by a large (nationally known) competitor to put a new furnace/central air conditioning system in someone's home. My customer---the people paying me---was the competitor. Their customer---the homeowner----was a nice African American family. At the end of the job, the family asked us to do some work that was not part of our agreement. Had they been my customer I would have engaged them and come to an agreement on scope, price etc. But they were not my customer, and it would have been unethical for me to contract directly with them. I told them that someone would get back to them. I forwarded the info to the competitor.

In those instances, it is typical for the competitor to contact the homeowner, work up a price and in most instances hire me once again to do the additional work. (since I was already acquainted with the work, customer etc)

Now the competitor (once again, nationally known) didn't respond in a timely manner. (the local sales person is known for not being organized, prompt etc) I hadn't heard anything in a couple weeks so I figured the homeowner didn't want the additional work done. At any rate, that was between the competitor and the homeowner.

Three weeks later, I received a phone call from the competitor's national headquarters. The homeowner had called them alleging that they received poor service/follow up from us, because.........they were black. I told the person on the phone that we completed our work professionally and on time, and that the additional work request was forwarded. I offered to visit the homeowner, and they agreed. (keep in mind, the homeowner is not my customer) I visited the homeowner, and the lady wouldn't open the door; speaking to me through the glass.

Did that lady play the race card insincerely to get better results? Maybe, but I met them and they seemed to be sincere, cool people. I'm left with the distinct impression that this lady believes to this day that she received poor service because she's black. (and in my view she did receive poor follow up service, although race had nothing to do with it)

And so it goes. I was in a restaurant a couple years ago with 2 black friends.* (sisters)They are brilliant, extremely intelligent women.

The service was relatively poor---the type of service given by a server who doesn't want to be there. At the end of the meal, one of them concluded that service was poor because they were black. (it was just the 3 of us) Now I experienced the same meal, service etc---and while I agreed the service sucked I was hard pressed to see one single thing that indicated racism---not a look, no comment, posture, she wasn't even rude.

I was incredulous then and now--partly just how subjective this has become. And so I have become convinced that popular culture bears down on the African American community in a pervasive, pernicious way, constantly reminding them as Ellis Dee put it, "society's hatred of [their] race."

And so every poor waiter, every declined credit app, every termination, every house you didn't see, every job you didn't get, every traffic stop, every time you got a dirty look, every time you were followed in a department store, every time you are cut off in traffic, every promotion you didn't get-----all of it------is evidence of "society's hatred of the black American."

I say that is a tragedy.

(*These friends are so caught up with racism that they believe that the rates of illegitimate births between whites and blacks are the same and have always been the same. When I cited the disparity, they responded that this all part of "institutional racism"; that the government was intentionally under-reprorting white births, and intentionally over reporting black births. I pointed out that this would require a conspiricy of epic proportions---among thousands of people black and white, in many different organizations, and over decades of time. To this day they remain undeterred.)

Acsenray

04-17-2006, 02:01 PM

I simply disagree. They are almost entirely single-issue and there is never a situation that they don't see or find racism as a factor whether it exists or not.

Well, then, maybe you are engaging in some exaggeration on the issue of the entire Black Congressional Caucus or their entirely being single issue. I have had the opportunity to hear U.S. Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) speak on several occasions and am on his mailing list (both for work-related reasons) and I have heard him speak on a wide range of issues, very few of them having to do directly with anti-black prejudice or racism. Indeed, racism is implicated in many of his concerns (such as voting discrepancies), but they are not exclusively race issues and I have not heard him characterise them that way. On his home page there are listed 17 (http://www.house.gov/conyers/news_major_issues.htm) major issues he is interested in, and only two of them (racial profiling and reparations) are exclusively race-oriented. Indeed, most of his positions have to do with being anti-Bush and anti-Republican, but I don't think that is based in black victimhood; neither does it result in an exclusively race-based policy programme.

Okay, so you might say I'm being nitpicky in picking out just one member of the Black Congressional Caucus and highlighting the range of his interests and concerns. It's okay to exaggerate a little in order to make a point, you might say. However, your conclusion about black leaders, black politicians, and concerns about racism seem to me premised on the idea that what you are saying is literally true, not just an exaggeration. When you get to the point that you are judging individuals and entire race coming from a positiong that exaggerated stereotypes are literally true, I think that's a dangerous path.

Furthermore, it seems to me that if you really do believe that what you're saying is literally true, then that itself is an incorrect perception that is aided by the way the mass media portrays things. In other words, you believe what you believe about blacks living their lives doing nothing and just blaming everything on racism as a result of institutionalised racism.

Lochdale

04-17-2006, 02:37 PM

I just cannot believe that you don't see it. You know about the rate of imprisonment. 1 out of 3 adult black men are in the criminal justice system. Do you think that's just a problem with black people and not the society they're in? What about the lower standardized test scores? How do you explain these? I simply cannot put all the blame on them. I feel like you are.

So we should obviate them from any form or personal responsibility? That is, should we simply blame "racism" and then just walk away? Should we be so patronizing so that we take away any choice a black person may have? It's just not that simple. It's a very complex issue and there is no silver bullet solution. It's not that I don't "see it" it's that I don't choose to have a myopic view point and I see the bigger issues.

I've seen the effects of racism on my own students. My point of view on racism was pure ignorance at first; I grew up in a predominately white neighborhood, didn't really know any black people until I went out into the big old world. Then, I believed as you did: people just need to get on with it, racism's effects are over. But then I actually started having to deal with the problems my students face, and I was daunted, saddened, and determined to help. Thus, your accusations toward me are not only false, but hurtful.

I have no interest in hurting you but I do feel you've made this debate very emotional and that's not a good thing. By suggesting that those people who don't believe that racism is the sole or even the most significant cause of problems in the black community do not want to help is hurtful. Racism just can't explain away all the problems and issues in the black community. We can't just bury our head in the sand and say "If all white people would stop being racist or if they just vanished tomorrow" all would be well. That just isn't the case. Moreover, I do think that the victimhood is being used a crutch to delay discussing some core problems in the community. Further, other ethnic and racial groups just aren't going to be swayed by claims of "racism" at every turn.

Lochdale

04-17-2006, 02:42 PM

Okay, so you might say I'm being nitpicky in picking out just one member of the Black Congressional Caucus and highlighting the range of his interests and concerns. It's okay to exaggerate a little in order to make a point, you might say. However, your conclusion about black leaders, black politicians, and concerns about racism seem to me premised on the idea that what you are saying is literally true, not just an exaggeration. When you get to the point that you are judging individuals and entire race coming from a positiong that exaggerated stereotypes are literally true, I think that's a dangerous path.

I am going to say that you are being nit-picky. Whilst I do see your point it's just as easy to point to a Jesse Jackson or an Al Sharpton and see that they planks are fairly limited. Does the media only portray them that way? Not really, I think the likes of Sharpton and even the Caucaus go out of their way to get media attention for racial issues, real or imagined.

The media rarely reports on the many press releases released by members of Congress no matter their colour as they tend to want to jump on the sensationalist releases.

you with the face

04-17-2006, 02:47 PM

Furthermore, it seems to me that if you really do believe that what you're saying is literally true, then that itself is an incorrect perception that is aided by the way the mass media portrays things. In other words, you believe what you believe about blacks living their lives doing nothing and just blaming everything on racism as a result of institutionalised racism.

Your comments brings to mind this thread (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=351628&highlight=spray+grocery+racism) , a Pit rant about a grocery clerk who was sprayed with bug spray by an irate customer. The ranter linked us to an article describing the event. The article pointedly noted at the end that the clerk suspected it was racially motivated because the man called him racial slurs.

And for that offense, the clerk was pitted. Not the man who sprayed him with bug spray to begin with. And definitely not the reporter who added that information to the article for no reason except to add a sensational element to the story. No, the victim of the assault was pitted for mentioning the "r" word.

I see this frequently. Reporters will go out of their way to play up the race angle, and those in the audience who are extra sensitive to race will inevitably get fired up. Not about the sensationalistic reporters, though. No, their focus is usually on those who are being reported on. We saw this with OJ. From the start, the media exploited race and threw fires on the flames by reminding us day end and day out how differently the races viewed things. Of course, since most of the reporters and pundits were white, it made the presentation of this kind of analysis all the more provocative, because it often came across as "look how they see things so differently than we do." The end result was that black people were protrayed as being biased while whites were portrayed as being objective and rationale.

Institutional racism in this form is particularly insiduous because a lot of the information we get about our world comes from the media. It really has a way of impacting how we view each other. It's a reason why I pay close attention to the way info is presented rather than just looking at content. Content only tells part of the picture.

Cartooniverse

04-17-2006, 04:03 PM

Cartooniverse, you are also deliberately distorting my statement when you attribute to me the idea that "black-hating racist media" was responsible for the images. My explicit point was that the media is not "black hating" but that when following the story they were only interested in sensationalism and that they ignored any responsibility to present facts when it was discovered that the sensational reports were exaggerated (and sometimes false) even though they had to have known that it was the images and words they broadcast that was fueling the hatred expressed in other fora.

With all due respect, I addressed the use of the word "savages" in quotes. Where did I write "black-hating racist media" ? I though I articulated my point fairly well, and did not mean it as a personal attack. I'm so very sorry it appeared as such to you. I completely withdraw the statements presented in the post.

My apologies. No distortion was intened, I assure you. If it appeared by the quote I used and the answer to it that I provided, then it was erroneous and I apologize. :)

As far as the mutilated bodies, I provided a cite. The fact that the video has been removed by CNN does not negate my statements, nor does it negate the fact that adult dead bodies were mutilated- far from water, bloating, rotting because of wet, and any other hurricane-related factors.

CNN Transcript of broadcast directly supporting my statements (http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0509/08/pzn.01.html)

Gary Tuchman has been working on this story throughout the day. He joins me now from Baton Rouge.

What did you find, Gary?

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Paula, the New Orleans Convention Center had been described as the hurricane shelter from hell. Now there's explicit evidence of that.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TUCHMAN (voice-over): Very disturbing photographs supplied to CNN show four dead people who had apparently been mutilated. A source outraged at what happened who was inside the center gave these photographs to CNN. It is not known how these people died, but the source says it's apparent that, at some point, they had been physically abused.

One photograph of two corpses in a wheelchair is too gruesome for us show. Three of the victims are male, one female.

Now, either it is a fact that CNN did air footage and photographs of at least two mutilated bodies that were in no way connected with drowning, bloating, packs of wild dogs, or anything else connected to being away from the Convention Center. Or not. Again, the fact that the video clip was pulled down does not invalidate my statements. The cite above directly supports them.

I know what I saw on air.

Cartooniverse

Rubystreak

04-17-2006, 04:16 PM

So we should obviate them from any form or personal responsibility? That is, should we simply blame "racism" and then just walk away? Should we be so patronizing so that we take away any choice a black person may have? It's just not that simple.

Pretty please with sugar on top, show me where I said that I was obviating blacks from any responsibility, or just walking away? Or taking away people's choices? You made that up. I am in education and I am actively doing something about this problem. What are you doing about it, besides denying it exists?

It's a very complex issue and there is no silver bullet solution. It's not that I don't "see it" it's that I don't choose to have a myopic view point and I see the bigger issues.

I think you do have a myopic view and that I'm seeing the big picture. Funny about that.

I have no interest in hurting you but I do feel you've made this debate very emotional and that's not a good thing.

I got emotional when you accused me of setting back the cause of blacks in this country. If you could be dispassionate about such an accusation if it were leveled at you, then bully for you. Racism, as I pointed out, is an emotional issue and not rational. I am not apologizing for having strong feelings, esp. when people say things like this to me.

By suggesting that those people who don't believe that racism is the sole or even the most significant cause of problems in the black community do not want to help is hurtful.

Show me where I said this too. I said racism still existed and was still very much affecting people. I also said it was a vicious cycle. Please stop putting words in your mouth.

Rubystreak

04-17-2006, 04:38 PM

Please stop putting words in your mouth.

Words in MY mouth. :rolleyes: at self. I'm not very good at this.

DSeid

04-17-2006, 06:55 PM

But hey, you really do want him to stop putting words in his mouth, don't you? :)

I know that I have not really been a participant in most of this lengthy discussion, but as someone who has observed much of this from the side please allow me some small attempt to tie it back to the op. Please each comment on the following:

Racism is a persistent problem in this country. It become manifest in many ways from institutional racism, to overt racist acts, to subtle acts whose perpetraters are scarely aware (or are unaware) have racist effects. Good, well intended, intelligent people can have different concepts of how pervasive of a problem racism presents for most people at each of these levels.

There are some aspects of our institutions that have racist effects, whether by intent or by historic inertia. Not all of those instances of institutional racism are from White-dominated institutions.

Whites can be racist, Blacks can be racist. Sometimes the constant refrain of everything being the result of racism can be a racist act in itself. Certain elements of Black leadership (here I am mainly referring to self-appointed leadership) are guilty of the latter.

The media is a bunch of scum who have three buttons to press: sex; fear; and off. The first two sell things, the third is what they press if they don't have a way to press one of the first two. When approaching the subject of race they generally use it to press the fear button, not because they are racist scum, but because they care about little but sales and selling race as sex would look even worse.

Chappelle may or may not be funny, but he is a self-serving twit to blame his freak-out on White power structures. This sad attempt at a cover story does a disservice to any meaningful discussion about the role race plays in America.

Guinastasia

04-17-2006, 07:05 PM

Chappelle may or may not be funny, but he is a self-serving twit to blame his freak-out on White power structures. This sad attempt at a cover story does a disservice to any meaningful discussion about the role race plays in America.

But is he really doing that?
And I wouldn't say he had a "freak-out". It sounds more like he was burned out and under a lot of stress and needed to take some time off and spent some time thinking about his work.

you with the face

04-17-2006, 07:06 PM

But is he really doing that?

That's what I'm wondering.

People are getting a lot of mileage out of the three snippets in the OP.

tomndebb

04-17-2006, 07:28 PM

With all due respect, I addressed the use of the word "savages" in quotes. Where did I write "black-hating racist media" ?That would have been in Post #183 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=7306002&postcount=183) where someone posting under your username keyed the sentenceMy post was about tomndebb's use of the term savages in quotes, as though that term were somehow trumped up by the black-hating racist media...I did not take it as a personal attack. I did take it as an (over)emotional response to an image you saw on TV, which caused you to ignore the specific point of my statement which was the references to blogs and talk radio in which the several thousands of persons trapped in the Superdome were called "savages" based on the faulty information that rape and murder were common events inside the Superdome, to which you felt an urge to post an unrelated comment that there had been savage acts committed somewhere by someone.

On further investigation, it appears that there were only four deaths at the Convention Center, altogether, one a possible murder. Not having seen the pictures, I suppose that it is possible that mutilation was involved. That still leaves us with one murder and either one or two desecrations of corpses among somewhere between 25,000 and 40,000 people penned into two arenas with no food or water in the midst of tremendous heat and humidity and only rumors to indicate when--if ever--they might be rescued. The fact that some small number of people (may have)* performed savage acts under those conditions does not provide a legitimate excuse to label tens of thousands of people "savages" or for the networks to make no serious effort to correct the impressions that they had created with hasty and uninvestigated reports.

* On the other hand, I am very familiar with the fact that the mere presence of blood on a body skews interpretations of what trauma the body has suffered. Barring a coroner's report, the question of mutilation is still unresolved as far as I can see.

Rubystreak

04-17-2006, 07:42 PM

But hey, you really do want him to stop putting words in his mouth, don't you? :)

Heh. Maybe a little.

Whites can be racist, Blacks can be racist. Sometimes the constant refrain of everything being the result of racism can be a racist act in itself. Certain elements of Black leadership (here I am mainly referring to self-appointed leadership) are guilty of the latter.

I don't think racism will prevent black people from succeeding in America. I think it makes it harder, but having money will always help this, so poverty is part of the problem also, which goes back to racism, in part. I don't think it can be essentialized very easily, in any case.

Chappelle may or may not be funny, but he is a self-serving twit to blame his freak-out on White power structures. This sad attempt at a cover story does a disservice to any meaningful discussion about the role race plays in America.

This might be true if a lot of his humor wasn't race-based. He did focus on it a lot, and his decision not to use that as a source would significantly change the nature of his show. It makes sense to me, if he had a major change of heart about the way he talked about race, that he would not want to do the show anymore.

holmes

04-17-2006, 08:29 PM

As far as the mutilated bodies, I provided a cite. The fact that the video has been removed by CNN does not negate my statements, nor does it negate the fact that adult dead bodies were mutilated- far from water, bloating, rotting because of wet, and any other hurricane-related factors.

CNN Transcript of broadcast directly supporting my statements (http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0509/08/pzn.01.html)

Now, either it is a fact that CNN did air footage and photographs of at least two mutilated bodies that were in no way connected with drowning, bloating, packs of wild dogs, or anything else connected to being away from the Convention Center. Or not. Again, the fact that the video clip was pulled down does not invalidate my statements. The cite above directly supports them.

I know what I saw on air.

Cartooniverse

You did read the qualifier apparently right? That's means to me, that they don't know for sure what happened. What they have are photos, from an unnamed source, who told them that the bodies were mutiliated. We don't know when the photos were taken where or how the bodies were mutilated. Are you 100% sure they weren't dragged in from outside and posed or were attacked inside by various vermin.

You have in your mind what you believe you saw and I believe you believe you saw something. I don't doubt there are photos, I simply suggest, it's not what you think it is.

I doubt because as Tomndebb noted, lots of stories of these "savages" turned out to be wrong and while the behaviour of these people were front page news, the acknowledgement of the errors in reporting weren't.

From CNN:COOPER: No -- yes -- one source had told CNN that some of the bodies had been mutilated after death. That has not been independently confirmed.

CNN (http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0509/08/ng.01.html)

I've seen no independent verification of this. All there is, is an unnamed source and various CNN transcripts. None of which claim to have any verification that this event happened as you believe it did.

YMMV...of course.

pokey

04-17-2006, 08:44 PM

I see this frequently. Reporters will go out of their way to play up the race angle, and those in the audience who are extra sensitive to race will inevitably get fired up.
Well, yesterday on IMDB.com gossip thingie said "American funnyman Dave Chappelle has cited racial prejudice for his abrupt walk-out from hit comedy series," and then went on to list these 3 same quotes where he never says he walked out because of racial prejudice and never uses the word racism at all.

But what kind of headline would ever read, "American funnyman cites several complex personal issues for leaving show," or "American funnyman finally nagged by press into admitting he has several qualms, one of which is "culture" related"? How would that grab anyone's attention?

Even the headline is "Chappelle Cites "Race" Reasons for Show Walk-Out" with "race" in quotes as if to say "word not acutally used."

So I guess wait and see if he's even said anything about race.

What just really really bugs me about this thread is that he hasn't claimed racism is limiting his employment opportunities, let alone falsely claimed it. He's not suing anyone for discrimination or trying to get away without doing his share of work. It's not any different then when a Holllywood actress suddenly decides she'd rather be sued for breach of contract than to continue doing a movie she realizes is a piece of shit that will only degrade her and hurt her career. Like when Kim Basinger quit Boxing Helena. Nobody said she was playing the "sexism" card or said she had a victim mentality.

you with the face

04-17-2006, 09:01 PM

Well, yesterday on IMDB.com gossip thingie said "American funnyman Dave Chappelle has cited racial prejudice for his abrupt walk-out from hit comedy series," and then went on to list these 3 same quotes where he never says he walked out because of racial prejudice and never uses the word racism at all.

Okay, good. It's not just me then who is baffled by this talk about victimization and The Man and whatnot. The thread is making wonder if I'm reading the same things everyone else is. People have been parsing way too much out of his statements.

But what kind of headline would ever read, "American funnyman cites several complex personal issues for leaving show," or "American funnyman finally nagged by press into admitting he has several qualms, one of which is "culture" related"? How would that grab anyone's attention?

Yeah. "American funnyman is tired of having to explain himself over and over again" is not sexy enough. Gotta make white folks think he's blaming them for something so that they'll buy papers and click on internet ads. Yeah, that's the ticket.

Cartooniverse

04-17-2006, 09:42 PM

YMMV...of course.

So might yours, since we are both using CNN as a cite. Ironic? Jah.

I will write to Anderson Cooper. I will ask point blank if he can provide me with a cite, or the name of someone in Nawlins who is in a position to absolutely prove that the bodies shown in the photos that were videotaped and aired were mutilated.

How's that? And of course, if I get a reply from someone down South, I will post it in here. Otherwise, we could be right, either one of us.

DSeid

04-17-2006, 10:01 PM

But is he really doing that?
And I wouldn't say he had a "freak-out". It sounds more like he was burned out and under a lot of stress and needed to take some time off and spent some time thinking about his work.Point well made. (But boy, I'm under a lot of stress, can I just leave for a while and let my partners and everyone who is depending on me just hang there without notice? Can you? If you did wouldn't people say that you freaked out?)

So let me change it: If Chappelle is indeed blaming his apparent losing it and his eventual decision to stop his show on White power structures then he is being a twit.

I really don't give a rat's ass about Chappelle or his show and have not followed these events all that closely. But this is in GD, so that doesn't stop me from debating the principle!

Guinastasia

04-17-2006, 11:47 PM

Point well made. (But boy, I'm under a lot of stress, can I just leave for a while and let my partners and everyone who is depending on me just hang there without notice? Can you? If you did wouldn't people say that you freaked out?)

So let me change it: If Chappelle is indeed blaming his apparent losing it and his eventual decision to stop his show on White power structures then he is being a twit.

I really don't give a rat's ass about Chappelle or his show and have not followed these events all that closely. But this is in GD, so that doesn't stop me from debating the principle!

Well, maybe. But I'd call it more of a breakdown rather than a "freak out." Stress can do that to you. I feel for the guy.

Ogre

04-18-2006, 12:55 AM

Christ, what a powder keg. I forgot this thread existed.

jali

04-18-2006, 08:54 AM

[quote]They got there because they worked hard. Anyone can do it.[quote]

Some people will NEVER understand.

Thanks Rubystreak for trying to explain but I don't think that some people really even want to understand.

Some of the posts here really sadden me and I don't think I'll argue any points with any of the great debaters here. I'll just let the "experts" continue to discuss.

Lochdale

04-18-2006, 11:15 AM

Then why bother posting at all? As Tomdeb pointed out, this is a forum for debate and discussion, just because other posters don't see your point of view it doesn't mean that they are wrong? I don't believe that racism is the sole cause or even the primary cause of the problems facing the black-American community. That doesn't make me a bigot, it doesn't make me care less (as Rubystreak is implying) nor does it make me wrong. I think the idea of demonizing one group and removing responsibility from another is simplistic and wrong-headed. It hasn't worked in the past and will not work in the future.

Antinor01

04-18-2006, 11:57 AM

One of the things that struck me reading this thread...most of the things people are pointing at and calling racism, I've experienced.

I've gotten poor service in restaurants. In some instances I know it was because we are white. (being seated after 4 hispanic families who came in after us) In some instances I'm convinced it was because we are pretty clearly a gay couple. (this is harder to quantify)

I've been treated badly in stores. We went to buy furniture recently (entertainment center, dresser couple other things) and were in the store for 45 minutes without being helped, although the hispanic people coming in were greeted at the door. If we hadn't found exactly what we wanted we would have left, though even at that had to search 15 minutes for someone to ring us up.

My BF has been turned down for promotions because he's gay and there is taped evidence of it.

I've been assaulted on the street outside a bar because I'm gay and cared for my BF for the 4 days in the hospital and 6 weeks of recovery for the broken jaw he got in the incident.

I've been treated differently in many situations, called a faggot while walking down the street and gotten the dirty looks and had strangers come up to let me know I'm going to hell.

I guess my point is that most of the things talked about have happened to me. Do I feel that the entire country is anti-white and homophobic?? No, situations happen but you learn to go on with your life anyway.

Antinor01

04-18-2006, 11:58 AM

Just to be clear, I don't claim to have experienced everything that a black person has or anything like that. Please be sure and note the word MOST in the above posting before ripping me on it.

DianaG

04-18-2006, 01:12 PM

Do I feel that the entire country is anti-white and homophobic?? No, situations happen but you learn to go on with your life anyway.
Has anyone here said or implied that all whites are racist? Or even that black people think all white people are racist? Of course not.

Antinor01 , do you feel that you are sometimes treated unfairly because of your sexual orientation? And if so, do you feel that there is a certain societal expectation that you will be treated unfairly? Not that you should be, mind you. Just that you will be. That it's just kind of... accepted?

That's institutional prejudice, be it racism, religious intolerance, homophobia, or whatever.

Antinor01

04-18-2006, 01:17 PM

Has anyone here said or implied that all whites are racist? Or even that black people think all white people are racist? Of course not.

Antinor01 , do you feel that you are sometimes treated unfairly because of your sexual orientation? And if so, do you feel that there is a certain societal expectation that you will be treated unfairly? Not that you should be, mind you. Just that you will be. That it's just kind of... accepted?

That's institutional prejudice, be it racism, religious intolerance, homophobia, or whatever.

I feel tham I sometimes am, yes. Do I feel that it's expected..no. Do I feel that I've come to expect it in certain settings, yes.

Honestly, most of the time when it happens it surprises me. Like when my BF first told me about being turned down for a promotion, I didn't believe him. The only people I really expect it from are the far right religious types. Other than that, it shocks the hell out of me when people display prejudice/racism/homophobia etc.

holmes

04-18-2006, 01:20 PM

I feel tham I sometimes am, yes. Do I feel that it's expected..no. Do I feel that I've come to expect it in certain settings, yes.

Honestly, most of the time when it happens it surprises me. Like when my BF first told me about being turned down for a promotion, I didn't believe him. The only people I really expect it from are the far right religious types. Other than that, it shocks the hell out of me when people display prejudice/racism/homophobia etc.

Why didn't you believe him?

DianaG

04-18-2006, 01:29 PM

brickbacon

04-18-2006, 01:47 PM

I don't believe that racism is the sole cause or even the primary cause of the problems facing the black-American community. That doesn't make me a bigot, it doesn't make me care less (as Rubystreak is implying) nor does it make me wrong.

But you are wrong, and too many of us have wasted hours upon hours trying to convince people like you to see something you can't/won't see. It's a huge waste of time, because you are so convinced that you are right, that nothing will change your mind. You are a dishonest debater, so it makes no sense to try to counter every talking point you parrot. Whether it's making straw man arguments, or suggesting that the only thing the Congressional Black Caucus deals with are race issues. Even a quick glance at their website, or any member's website negates your claims, and the implication that this is somehow bad or wrong.

Tomndebb made a good point that I think needs to be reiterated:

And the amount of discrimination they faced fifty years ago (when we had finally suppressed routine lynchings) was less than they faced fifty years earlier (when lynchings were not only common, but popular). Based on an argument that "it's been worse," we should have done nothing fifty years ago (In fact, forty years ago, I actually heard that argument).

I think it also must be noted that even when lynching were occurring, they weren't all that common (http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1979/2/79.02.04.x.html#b).

According to the Tuskegee Institute figures, between the years 1882 and 1951, 4,730 people were lynched in the United States: 3,437 Negro and 1,293 white.3 The largest number of lynchings occurred in 1892. Of the 230 persons lynched that year, 161 were Negroes and sixty-nine whites.

I don't say that to minimize the fact that Blacks were lynched, just to give people some perspective. There have always been some Blacks that found a way to succeed in spite of racism. Hiram Rhodes Revels was elected to the US Senate in 1870, 22 years before the height of lynching. Blanche K. Bruce was elected to a full term in the senate in 1875. The first HBCU, Cheney University in Pennsylvania, was founded in 1837. There have almost always been opportunities for exceptional people, in the right circumstances. The problem is not everyone is Benjamin Banneker or W.E.B. Du Bois, and that not all of them have been in an environment that can lead to success. As long as racism is a problem for the average Black person, I don't think we can dismiss the problem. The argument you and people like raindog have made has been made every year for over a century. If Revels can be elected to the senate in 1870, why can't the rest of them shape up and succeed?

Unfortunately, I don't think there is much symbolic (or practical) difference between the 161 Black people lynched in 1892, and the 126,000 Black people in jail for drug offenses in 2002. Both send a powerful message to anyone in the cross-hairs that you are a target. Just as lynching a relatively small number of Blacks relayed to others that it was not OK to do certain things, many Blacks today have been conditioned by these messages that still exist. Among them, that the cops are the enemy, that the legal system is not accessible to you, that there are no educational opportunities available to you, that the way you act, dress, look, and talk is objectionable to many people, and a clear sign of savageness and idiocy. It didn't take many lynchings to intimidate black people in the 1800's, and it doesn't take many examples or studies citing differences in standardized scoring, housing discrimination, etc. to convey to a poor black person that many doors in life are closed to them. You don't need to keep kicking someone before they start kicking themselves (not that we've stopped kicking).

I not saying Blacks today don't have in better than people in the past did, but I think it's important to note that the true hurdles people faced back then still exist today. The dehumanization hasn't faded very much at all in the last century. Blackness is still a liability. Jack Johnson received death threats for dating white women in the 20's, just as Jason Taylor (http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=1678850) does today. It has never been about the act of lynching or racial slurs. People aren't so affected by name calling, etc. Those are just the vehicles for expressing hate and intolerance, and that's what bothers people. Just because the drug prohibition, racial profiling, etc. have become the primary vehicles doesn't mean racism is gone, and the civil rights movement has been won. Try having a rational discussion around here about Ebonics, rap music, Al Sharpton, or OJ Simpson, then tell me the battle is over.

Antinor01

04-18-2006, 02:21 PM

Why didn't you believe him?

Because it was something totally outside of what I would expect. After he explained a little more I did, but at first it was more of a 'Oh come on, are you sure it wasn't something else?' reaction.

As I said, someone blatantly practicing hiring/promotion discrimination was a foreign concept to me. Especially for it happening within the last 5 years or so. Most people are surprised, as I was, by the fact that you can be fired from most any job in most any part of the US for being gay, and they can say so, and have no legal recourse. There are states that have added us to the list of protected classes but that is still fairly rare.

Antinor01

04-18-2006, 02:25 PM

Antinor01, I was just coming back to clarify that, despite my unfortunate phrasing, I wasn't implying that of course you've felt that way, or that if you haven't, you're in denial. But you beat me back here!

FWIW, I'm also always surprised when I'm confronted with any kind of prejudice, even though I shouldn't be, at this point. Because even though I live in a pretty "liberal" area, and the people I choose to associate with are tolerant sorts, I still often hear "Well, what do you expect?" type statements from people who should know better. The implication being that whether it's right or wrong, it's the way it is, and there's nothing to be done about it. That's what I consider truly insidious.

I'm with you, I tend to associate with people that are not prejudiced against anyone. Example, the group of people I ride to work with and go to dinner with about once a month....there's about 10 of us and about half are immigrants to the US, 2 more are 2nd generation. We cover the spectrum from british to swiss, asian to polynesian, black to white, 20 to 65, gay to straight etc. Our 'differences' just don't matter to us.

I wonder if perhaps the expectation of discrimination is as much a problem as actual discrimination. Or if the expectation makes it seem that there is more actual than there really is. Something I'll have to ponder.

holmes

04-18-2006, 02:31 PM

Because it was something totally outside of what I would expect. After he explained a little more I did, but at first it was more of a 'Oh come on, are you sure it wasn't something else?' reaction. .

If he came home today and said he was fired because he was gay, would he still have to explain a little more, or would you due to changed expectations, instantly believe him?

Antinor01

04-18-2006, 02:41 PM

If he came home today and said he was fired because he was gay, would he still have to explain a little more, or would you due to changed expectations, instantly believe him?

I wouldn't automatically ascribe discrimination to anything, without other evidence. It would be easier to see now that I have seen it before but I would still expect other evidence before I charged anyone with discimination.

Lochdale

04-18-2006, 03:06 PM

But you are wrong, and too many of us have wasted hours upon hours trying to convince people like you to see something you can't/won't see. It's a huge waste of time, because you are so convinced that you are right, that nothing will change your mind. You are a dishonest debater, so it makes no sense to try to counter every talking point you parrot. Whether it's making straw man arguments, or suggesting that the only thing the Congressional Black Caucus deals with are race issues. Even a quick glance at their website, or any member's website negates your claims, and the implication that this is somehow bad or wrong. .

I just don't see the world in black and white the way you do. I am not willing to demonize people for something that they have not done or that has been done my a tiny minority. The Congressional Black Caucas is extremely focused on the race issue and I would argue that it's to the detriment of other issues. You can say I am "wrong" until you are blue in the face and it won't change a thing. I've tried to debate and engage in reasonable discourse but that's hard to do when people introduce emotion and anecdotes into the debate.

The argument you and people like raindog have made has been made every year for over a century. If Revels can be elected to the senate in 1870, why can't the rest of them shape up and succeed?

I have made no such argument. If you had been following the discussion or even if you had the good taste to read my comments then you would see that I am a proponent of affirmitive action for black-Americans. I even outlined some of the changes/methodologies I would like to see employed to that end.

Unfortunately, I don't think there is much symbolic (or practical) difference between the 161 Black people lynched in 1892, and the 126,000 Black people in jail for drug offenses in 2002

Actually I think there is a massive difference. The former were innocent victims whereas the other 126,000 were guilty of a crime or crimes and are being punished accordingly. Of those 126,000 how many were repeat offenders or committed violent crimes as well? I think it is intellectually untenable to compare the two and it does your argument a massive disservice.

Jack Johnson received death threats for dating white women in the 20's, just as Jason Taylor does today. It has never been about the act of lynching or racial slurs.

Sadly there are arseholes everywhere but the reality is that they are in the vast minority. Sorry, but I won't demonize an entire peoples based on the acts of a tiny minority.

Try having a rational discussion around here about Ebonics, rap music, Al Sharpton, or OJ Simpson, then tell me the battle is over.

People debate and disagree over numerous issues. That doesn't mean there is a battle or even a war. Humans disagree and that's not a bad thing. You could replace all of the above with George Bush, Tom Delay, Hilary Clinton, George Ryan etc. etc.

Lastly, I do think the victimization mentality will retard growth in the black community. As latinos and asian increase in numbers and in power I simply don't think they are going to be as sympathetic/tuned in to the issue as white-Americans are. That can, and will, lead to conflict.

Rubystreak

04-18-2006, 03:33 PM

I just don't see the world in black and white the way you do.

How does believing racism exists and pointing it out = a black and white POV? Many people here have said that racism exists; you are the one saying no, it doesn't, which makes it seem like you are the one with the black and white POV, not the rest of us.

I am not willing to demonize people for something that they have not done or that has been done my a tiny minority.

One in three adult black men is in the criminal justice system, and 40% of prison inmates are black. Black comprise only 10% of the population. Is that a tiny minority? Could racism be the cause of that? If not, what is? Please do tell us. If you say socioeconomic status, then I'm going to ask, why are so many black people so damn poor?

The Congressional Black Caucas is extremely focused on the race issue and I would argue that it's to the detriment of other issues.

They are a legislative grouping who call themselves the Black Caucus. Of course they are focused on race. "To the detriment of other issues" is your opinion, but to say that's all they do is just wrong.

You can say I am "wrong" until you are blue in the face and it won't change a thing. I've tried to debate and engage in reasonable discourse but that's hard to do when people introduce emotion and anecdotes into the debate.

You have no emotions on the subject? Then you haven't seen people suffer. It reinforces my opinion that you are disengaged from the real world effects of racism and therefore are talking out of ignorance. Also, when you insult people during the course of an "emotion-free" debate, then give them shit for having a reaction, that's bad debating.

Actually I think there is a massive difference. The former were innocent victims whereas the other 126,000 were guilty of a crime or crimes and are being punished accordingly.

Do you not realize that the people who committed lynchings thought they were punishing crimes? The most common cause of lynchings were that the black man had allegedly committed murder, assault, or rape of a white person. However, this is beside the point, since a lot of the drug convictions today are based on racist discrepancies in the law, which have already been pointed out to you numerous times and which you have failed to address.

Sadly there are arseholes everywhere but the reality is that they are in the vast minority. Sorry, but I won't demonize an entire peoples based on the acts of a tiny minority.

Here's something else you don't seem to be getting-- we're not talking about individuals being assholes (though you might be surprised how quickly and easily some people will toss around the word "nigger" when they think no one is around who'll do anything about it). We're talking about institutionalized racism in law enforcement, schools, testing and educational materials, job hiring practices, etc. This kind of racism is often invisible to white people because it doesn't effect them and they can't see it from their limited POV's... kinda like you.

Lastly, I do think the victimization mentality will retard growth in the black community. As latinos and asian increase in numbers and in power I simply don't think they are going to be as sympathetic/tuned in to the issue as white-Americans are. That can, and will, lead to conflict.

Huh? Latinos and Asians aren't as sympathetic to racism as white people? How freakin' absurd that is. Laughable, even.

People who are hurt by racism who point it out do not have a "victim mentality." There is a difference. I wish you could try to understand that.

Lochdale

04-18-2006, 03:55 PM

How does believing racism exists and pointing it out = a black and white POV? Many people here have said that racism exists; you are the one saying no, it doesn't, which makes it seem like you are the one with the black and white POV, not the rest of us.

I've said nothing of the sort. I've always maintained that racsim does exist I just question the totality of its affects and whether it is still the single greatest impediment for black advancement and whether it is the single greatest cause of problems in the black community. Please do try and actually read my posts.

However, this is beside the point, since a lot of the drug convictions today are based on racist discrepancies in the law, which have already been pointed out to you numerous times and which you have failed to address.

Again, please make an effort to read my posts. Your ignorance is starting to get off-putting. I noted the difference with regards to crack cocaine but hey, go ahead and ignore my posts.

I'll ask again, how many of those 120,000 are repeat offenders or committed other crimes?

We're talking about institutionalized racism in law enforcement, schools, testing and educational materials, job hiring practices, etc. This kind of racism is often invisible to white people because it doesn't effect them and they can't see it from their limited POV's... kinda like you.

Thing is, I'm asking you to prove it and all you are doing is making gradiose and near hysterical statements about people's point of view. We have laws that try and prevent discrimination in hiring, we have school districts run entirely by blacks etc. I see poverty and the destruction of a stable living environment as being a significant contributor to low test scores and other maladies. I see the eroding of the industrial belt as squeezing poor blacks. I see many other problems that are not exclusive or limited to racism. Racism is an easy sop to what are complex problems.

Huh? Latinos and Asians aren't as sympathetic to racism as white people? How freakin' absurd that is. Laughable, even.

I didn't say that. My point was that you have other developing ethnic groups who will simply balk at the notion that they owe anything to black-America. The notion of victimhood simply won't resonate with these groups to the same extent.

People who are hurt by racism who point it out do not have a "victim mentality." There is a difference. I wish you could try to understand that.

When it is used and sole cause of all their ills, regardless of whether or not they were self-inflicted, then I do have a problem with it.

holmes

04-18-2006, 04:27 PM

And how do you judge whether or not they believe it's the sole cause of their ills? If say, I was stopped by security at my high profile job in front of potential clients, caused them (the clients) to treat me differently as I appeared weak and my bosses gave my one real shot to another guy and my career goes downhill from there......let's assume that it's all true.

What do I have to do in order not to be a victim? If I get a job that's beneath me, because I need the work, but still resent the racist guard and find that I distrust all whites with the power to screw with me, like the $8.50 security guard that fucked me up, am I being a victim? I still work, I still pay my taxes...victim?

If I pack up my bags and more to another country, where I become successful, but still blame the "man" and refuse to return to the states, am I being a victim? I have a great job, I pay my taxes, I just don't believe in allowing people who in the past have screwed me over, the opportunity to do some again...victim?

Or do I have to be a happy, go lucky, roll with the punches, dust my self off and get back on that big white horse, sticks and stones kinda guy, in order not to be a victim in your mind?

Or do I have to be a wino, junkie, welfare cheat to be a victim?

If I call a spade a spade and go about my business am I still a victim?

you with the face

04-18-2006, 04:40 PM

If I call a spade a spade and go about my business am I still a victim?

Yes you are. You are trying to be a victim if you acknowlege that racism has been a problem in the past, so you know that makes you one if you say its still present. Much kudos to the raindog for making that clear for me.

Antinor01

04-18-2006, 05:17 PM

Rubystreak

04-18-2006, 05:48 PM

I've said nothing of the sort. I've always maintained that racsim does exist I just question the totality of its affects and whether it is still the single greatest impediment for black advancement and whether it is the single greatest cause of problems in the black community. Please do try and actually read my posts.

It's complicated, since the historical effects of slavery and racism, past and present, have destabilized black families and communities, and that legacy lives on and is, in fact, getting worse in some places compared to advances made in the decades immediately following the Civil Rights Act being passed. I'd say poverty is the greatest problem the black community, but racism of many kinds is a big contributing factor to poverty.

I am reading your posts, man. I just don't agree. Don't try to play it like I'm the one with the reading comprehension problem, since you keep putting words in my mouth.

Your ignorance is starting to get off-putting. I noted the difference with regards to crack cocaine but hey, go ahead and ignore my posts.

I'm ignorant? You admit that crack cocaine sentencing differential exists, but you refuse to attribute it to racism at all. Why, then, does it exist? What about the prison population issue?

I'll ask again, how many of those 120,000 are repeat offenders or committed other crimes?

Why don't you tell me, since you have offered zero cites for your learned opinion?

Thing is, I'm asking you to prove it and all you are doing is making gradiose and near hysterical statements about people's point of view.

YOU said everyone else is seeing in black and white but you. YOU have offered nothing but your own opinion, no cites, no back up but name-calling and barely veiled accusations of reverse racism. I don't think I'm being hysterical at all. I am getting tired of talking to you, though, since you have no idea what you're talking about.

We have laws that try and prevent discrimination in hiring,

Yet it still happens.

we have school districts run entirely by blacks etc.

Sez you. (http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:8tzezOhAqvcJ:findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3626/is_199801/ai_n8784682+african+american+school+administrators+percentage&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=10) Got anything to back that up? I do:

In stark contrast, the proportion of minority teachers is expected to decline from 10% in 1987 to a mere 5% of all U.S. teachers by the year 2000 (American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education [AACTE], 1990). Moreover, while the majority of U.S. teachers are European Americans, for more than a decade the disparity that has existed between the proportion of European American and minority teachers has increased. Even more discouragingly, the availability of teachers of color has decreased relative to European American teachers.

Segregation of school districts has been on the rise. (http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:cEgusnbNRn4J:www.educationworld.com/a_admin/admin/admin154.shtml+school+percentage+administrators+african-american+&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1) School district funding is determined by property taxes for the area, so funding is directly connected to the income of the community. What do you have to say about that? Read for a lot more detail on segregated school districts and the negative effects on education for the kids in that district. (Harvard University's Civil Rights Project[/url) Some highlights from Harvard's Civil Rights Project, b/c it's 47 pages in .pdf:

--A disproportionate # of schools being labeled "failures" by No Child Left Behind are segregated minority schools.

--Achievement scores are strongly linked to school racial composition and so is the presence of highly qualified and experienced teachers. (A 2004 U.S. Department of Education report showed that in schools where at least 75% of the students were low-income, there were three times as many uncertified or out-of-field teachers in both English and science…)

--The nation’s shockingly high dropout problem is squarely concentrated in heavily minority, low-income high schools in big cities.

--Schools can't do everything, though. A comprehensive federal study of children across the country entering kindergarten shows very large differences in the acquisition of skills invaluable for school success long before the children ever enter a schoolhouse (emphasis mine). Poor, undereducated parents (results of a segregated and deficient school system) who have to spend a lot of their time working cannot spend as much time with their kids, preparing them for school.

Is Harvard making this up? They conclude, as if directly addressing you:

These and many other inequalities do not mean that racial or socioeconomic integration is a magic bullet that can cure all the inequalities rooted in the broader society, but they clearly suggest that it is foolish to ignore the damage of segregation and to accept policy changes that may make it worse. Those who argue that because there are segregated schools that succeed we need not worry about segregation are engaged in a fallacy of using exceptions to the rule to prove a relationship.

Perpetuating the victim mentality? Or just reporting on the continued existence and negative effects of institutional racism in our public schools? How can you expect people to shake it off and move on when they are not getting the same educational opportunities that white people are getting? Starting off with this disadvantage has a cascade effect on the rest of their lives.

I see poverty and the destruction of a stable living environment as being a significant contributor to low test scores and other maladies. I see the eroding of the industrial belt as squeezing poor blacks. I see many other problems that are not exclusive or limited to racism. Racism is an easy sop to what are complex problems.

They are complex, and denying the part of racism in them is wrong. Pointing these things out is not enough, though. Money, education, open-mindedness are also necessary. Denying that it's a problem does not help, because that is removing responsibility from the outside factors and blaming it all on the people who are suffering.

I didn't say that. My point was that you have other developing ethnic groups who will simply balk at the notion that they owe anything to black-America. The notion of victimhood simply won't resonate with these groups to the same extent.

Cite?

When it is used and sole cause of all their ills, regardless of whether or not they were self-inflicted, then I do have a problem with it.

Show me where anyone said it was the sole cause of anything. I do think it is the root, however, with many issues spinning off it. I'd like you to offer some cites for your opinion, if you have any. Otherwise, YOU are the one who is being irrational and hysterical, not me.

holmes

04-18-2006, 06:56 PM

Considering that your hypothetical description doesn't show that the security guard was racist at all, yes you are playing the victim in that scenario.

And what in your mind, would show the guard was racist? You don't expect him to scream bad words at "me" do you?

Perhaps the guard allowed all manner of white people, regardless of their dress and demeaner to walk into the building unmolested. Yet when he sees me, in my Brooks Brother suit with all the trappings, stops me. I show him, my id and he calls up my office and asks if I'm allowed up...anyway. All within the clear view of the clients, who he had already allowed to pass, unmolested.

Racist enough? Even though the agency acknowledges he was over the top, I find, as I stated earlier, doors slowly being closed...to me. My star is no longer rising.

Am I victim, if I believe in my heart that the one act, has fucked me up. Sure I survive, sure I get another job...but am I victim if I realize the wrong that was done to me and the direction my life is now taking and decide never again?

DSeid

04-19-2006, 12:54 AM

Okay then, Rubystreak, let's take this meaty latest post and go into the issues a bit deeper.... the historical effects of slavery and racism, past and present, have destabilized black families and communities ...Can you please expand on this? What I know about the urban poor Black American population is that the father involvement is statistically "fragile." As a group Black females are not the youngest mothers out there (Hispanics tend to have children earlier as a group) but they are much less likely to be married when having children than other cultural populations (in contrast the Hispanic population is more often married and stay married). Dads are often initially involved but, not living in the household, are often rapidly dealt out of kids lives. This is a cultural reality and certainly contributes to a destabilized family. The numbers of young Black males in the prison system certainly does not help. And the lack of strong and present father figures is a clear risk factor for future underachievement of various sorts, including continued poverty and involvement in crime.

Now I can certainly believe that much of this situation is the end result of years of racism and of the poverty that resulted out of racism, but is it productive to blame its continuation on racism? Is that where the effort should go, towards blaming White power structures? Or is it more useful to address the factors within the community that perpetuate the cycle?

As far as crack goes ... I'm no expert here, but I'd wonder if there is a distinction between something that occurs as a result of a lack of political power versus something that occurs as a direct result of racism. Crack, and therefore Blacks, may be hit on not directly because of racism but because other groups are coming out to vote more. A politician who wants to show they are tough on drugs is not going to make an example of Hollywood heavies who fund them, they are going to send up populations that do not give to their campaigns and who do not vote as much anyway. It may be that it is very dispicible but not racist.

The achievement gap, the drop-out rate, the segregation of schools, all are a result of urban poverty and the fact that race can be used as a crude proxy for SES in this country, at least in many urban settings. The middle class Black kids I have known do just fine (well they run into some troubles at the HS level because in our community they then then mix with a lower SES Black population and are struggling with where they fit in, with the other middle class kids, who are White, or with the lower SES kids who are Black) My kids should do so well. And yes, I can buy that poverty is partly, or even largely, the result of historic racism, but again, where does that get us?Pointing these things out is not enough, though. Money, education, open-mindedness are also necessary. Denying that it's a problem does not help, because that is removing responsibility from the outside factors and blaming it all on the people who are suffering.Agreed. Society needs to work together to solve these issues. But remember that just as you hear some Whites trying to remove responsibilty from outside factors, some Whites may hear you as if you are trying to remove responsibility from intra-community and intra-cultural factors. Neither may be what the other is actually trying to say. Both must play roles in fixing things and arguing over which is larger is immaterial to doing what needs to be done, detracts from what needs to be done. Education, funding it and encouraging it. Getting out the vote of all who consider fair opportunties for all to be a high priority. Removing the barriers to keeping fathers involved. Encouraging stable families which generally does mean marriage before children. Encouraging successful Black intellectuals to mentor the up and coming. Vigilance in the fight to reduce racial profiling. Honest recognition by many Whites that they may unwittingly participate in racist practices and open acknowledgement that institutional barriers still exist. Acknowledgement that it is harder to become an intellectual giant when you are growing up in urban poverty and going to a crappy school with out of date text books and class sizes of 40 plus. Recognition that someone who has achieved a level of success in that environment is truely someone who would excel if given more of a chance. And so on.

And I still think Chappelle is a twit. :)

you with the face

04-19-2006, 07:44 AM

Now I can certainly believe that much of this situation is the end result of years of racism and of the poverty that resulted out of racism, but is it productive to blame its continuation on racism?

Well, is it productive to deny the role of historical racism? Yes, individuals need to take responsibility for their own actions. Yes, fathers needs to step up to the plate and women need to stop having babies by deadbeats. But when you look at the total picture and explain to outsiders why certain disparities exist, you would be remiss to not talk about history and its racist legacy.

This is not about being productive so much as being accurate.

Is that where the effort should go, towards blaming White power structures? Or is it more useful to address the factors within the community that perpetuate the cycle?

It's not clear what you mean when you say "blaming White power structures". That's not the same thing as acknowledging institutional racism or even historical racism. But assuming that you mean racism in general, recognizing the impact of racism and addressing behaviors within the community are not mutually exclusive things.

Rubystreak

04-19-2006, 09:36 AM

Okay then, Rubystreak, let's take this meaty latest post and go into the issues a bit deeper.Can you please expand on this?

How about you go a bit deeper? I think I expanded plenty and spent more time in this thread than I should have, considering.

Now I can certainly believe that much of this situation is the end result of years of racism and of the poverty that resulted out of racism, but is it productive to blame its continuation on racism? Is that where the effort should go, towards blaming White power structures? Or is it more useful to address the factors within the community that perpetuate the cycle?

I think you with the face already said it-- is it more productive to deny the existence of racism? When people are oppressed by society, acknowledging their struggle seems more productive than saying it's all their fault. White power structures ARE part of the problem. White people in power at least need to be aware of how the status quo perpetuates the negatives in black culture. If, as Lochdale claims, most people do not want to perpetuate racism, then awareness is the first step. Saying racism is over and black people have no excuse is not productive either.

As far as crack goes ... I'm no expert here, but I'd wonder if there is a distinction between something that occurs as a result of a lack of political power versus something that occurs as a direct result of racism.

Why do black lack power? Lack of education, lack of money... why? In part due to the legacy of racism. Leveling the playing field is necessary in these areas before blacks will have power proportionate to their population.

The achievement gap, the drop-out rate, the segregation of schools, all are a result of urban poverty and the fact that race can be used as a crude proxy for SES in this country, at least in many urban settings.

The very fact that race can be used as a proxy for these other harmful factors points to something, doesn't it?

And yes, I can buy that poverty is partly, or even largely, the result of historic racism, but again, where does that get us?

Don't you think that, if society at large admitted that there are institutions, big and powerful ones, that were and are racist, that would be a big step towards changing things? People like Lochdale won't even admit that racism is still a big problem for the American educational and correctional systems, and in fact segregation and its attendant problems have worsened in recent decades. With attitudes like that, things will only get worse.

Agreed. Society needs to work together to solve these issues. But remember that just as you hear some Whites trying to remove responsibilty from outside factors, some Whites may hear you as if you are trying to remove responsibility from intra-community and intra-cultural factors.

When people don't even START with the same educational opportunities from birth, you have to admit it's hard to then tell them they need to just get with the program. A single mom with 4 kids who had to work the night shift may realize she needs to read to her kids, but can she? Can she pay to open enroll her kids in a better school district or put them in private school? Then how is she supposed to change things, esp. when she's not terribly well educated herself? She can't go to board meetings, can't be involved in PTA, and thus the cycle goes on.

People need help from the institutions that are now not helping. Awareness of the problem is the reason why I'm still pointing out racism. Pointing it out is not the end of the story, but if people say it's not a problem, how can it be addressed? It's not a matter of blaming anyone. That's the thing you guys keep missing.

And I still think Chappelle is a twit. :)

That's your prerogative, and I still disagree.

Antinor01

04-19-2006, 10:27 AM

And what in your mind, would show the guard was racist? You don't expect him to scream bad words at "me" do you?

Perhaps the guard allowed all manner of white people, regardless of their dress and demeaner to walk into the building unmolested. Yet when he sees me, in my Brooks Brother suit with all the trappings, stops me. I show him, my id and he calls up my office and asks if I'm allowed up...anyway. All within the clear view of the clients, who he had already allowed to pass, unmolested.

Racist enough? Even though the agency acknowledges he was over the top, I find, as I stated earlier, doors slowly being closed...to me. My star is no longer rising.

Am I victim, if I believe in my heart that the one act, has fucked me up. Sure I survive, sure I get another job...but am I victim if I realize the wrong that was done to me and the direction my life is now taking and decide never again?

Your first scenario simply stated you were stopped by a security guard. That was it. Being stopped does not demonstrate racism or discrimination. The place I would say a line was probably crossed was in calling to verify the ID, if by that you meant a company issued ID. If it were something like a drivers license and he didn't know you, I could see checking on it. Maybe he knew those other people, maybe he is racist. Like I said before, I don't believe in charging that someone is racist or discriminatory without other evidence. Your first scenario had none. The 2nd is more plausible to claim rasicm.

holmes

04-19-2006, 10:48 AM

Which is why my first scenario was vauge. It doesn't matter. My question wasn't is this racist; my question was...if I believe this was racist, yet continue on with my life; am I victim?

My point and perhaps I'm not being clear and what I'm trying to understand is what makes "me" a victim. It seems to me, that whether or not I can prove my belief in racism is unimportant, to my status as victim, but what in what place I ulitmately end up.

What matters is that I continue to strive to be the best I can be. Even if I believe the white man is out to get me. Even if I blame every slight I receive is because I'm not white, as long I as pay my bills, go work and become a productive member of society. I'm not a victim.

Yes?

Let's look at like this. When I was kid, we have certain members on the block that were proud to call themselve Irish-Americans. Those members made no excuses that they blamed the British for all of the troubles in Ireland and cite them as the reason their families had to leave Ireland several generations earlier. They all had good jobs, they were better off than their families that still lived in Ireland. Yet they would at the drop of a hat, blame the British for any and everything and had no problems donating at the local bar to "support the cause".

Are they victims?

Antinor01

04-19-2006, 01:21 PM

DSeid

04-19-2006, 01:22 PM

Ruby, that chip on your shoulder must make it hard to walk.

I have stated very clearly that I believe that racism exists and is a significant problem at various levels. I have stated very clearly that I believe that society as a whole has a responsibility to address the problem. Yet your response to me is as if I am saying that it is not a problem.

I will try to say this very clearly. The goal is to reduce poverty, to reduce discrimination, to reduce all the factors, yes all the factors that perpetuate the cycle of unstable family structures, inadequate education, and lack of equal opportunities. Recognizing the role that institutional structures have played and continue to play in creating/perpetuating these situations is important, whether those structural impediments are motivated explicitly by racial prejudices or whether they are the unintended consequence of other goals. I care about the effect not the motivation, honestly.

I will state very clearly that popular support among other American groups for addressing those issues will be sparse if the debate is phrased as a duty for the White power structures to admit they are racist. Few who engage in actions that have racist effects believe they are racist and they may not be racist even if they participate in a system with racist effects. Few will feel like supporting the cause if it is presented as society's job to fix it alone and the Black community absolves itself of any responsibility for the continuation of the current situation. Sorry, but it is not up to White systems to encourage marriage before having children and stable family structures in the Black community. White power structures won't get out the Black vote on election day. Some of the fix has to come from within too. When Black leadership refuses to accept that the Black community has any responsibility for the current situation or for making it better, then they do come off as whiners, and few want to rush to support someone whining. You want real results then you need both sides to be able to speak frankly and to honestly look at their own warts. I hear you pointing out the warts of the asses of the White power structures, but refusing to look at the warts on any Black bottoms. That approach will go no where fast. It may make you feel good to say to yourself that all these White folk are clueless, but it accomplishes nothing else.

And as far as Chappelle being a twit, boy, that was an attempt at humor y'know. Chappelle is really of no consequence to the subjects now being discussed.

Holmes I'll be equally blunt to you. You sound like the Cubs a few years back when they made a real run for it and were doing great ... until a fan reached down and blocked a ball. Bad break that fan's reach. But that wasn't what lost the series, what lost the series was their getting freaked by that one bad break, losing their focus, and decompensating. They did not deserve to win, if they couldn't recover from an unfair break. Let us assume that the guard IS a racist prick ... I hardly think any client would even have noticed much that it was you who got seached. To them security is a random annoyance. They probably would have been clueless that there was even a possible racial motivation to it. If you lost stature to them and to your co-workers it was because of how you reacted to it. Your star is no longer rising not because you are a victim but because you you whined about being a victim concerned about personal gain instead of continuing to shine in value to the company good. There were ways to deal with this that did not involve whining about it. You could have, perhaps, later approached the guard and asked him if he realized that he only searched you and that such gives the appearance of racial profiling. Calmly, without accusing him of actually being a racist. Informing him that such an appearence puts a poor face on the company, and to please be aware of that in the future. It does more good to assume that he is not consciously racist than to assume he is. Remember, many racist acts are not done with conscious thought, they are done because of unconscious conditioning. Give him a chance to learn, if not new beleifs, new behaviors. If you did that you would be no one's victim. You would be part of the solution.

holmes

04-19-2006, 02:13 PM

Let us assume that the guard IS a racist prick ... I hardly think any client would even have noticed much that it was you who got seached. To them security is a random annoyance. They probably would have been clueless that there was even a possible racial motivation to it.

How would they not notice? You have dozens of people walking unmolested past this security guard, you have clients who themselves are used to be nodded into their own offices, are nodded into one they don't work at, yet the one person who they know does work there is stopped. Asked for his company I.D., then is subjected to verbal verification. You don't think they would notice that? Again, forget the racial component of it, it's a matter of appearances.

If you lost stature to them and to your co-workers it was because of how you reacted to it. Your star is no longer rising not because you are a victim but because you you whined about being a victim concerned about personal gain instead of continuing to shine in value to the company good.

How did I react to it? I don't believe I mentioned in any of my posts how I reacted to it, sufficed to say I noticed I was being treated differently after the office buzz started going. The client's were made to feel uncomfortable. It bothered them, to stand their at the elevator waitching the go-to guy, get "pulled over" for DWB. To them it was a sign of weakness.

I must ask, why are you assuming I said anything at all? In fact in my scenario, I tried to be as vauge as possible. Yet here you are accusing "me" of "whining", because i mentioned an event that I feel may have caused a person some harm, yet he, as I have stated several times now, continued on with his life.

In order not to be a whiner means that people should take whatever shit is tossed on them silently? Life's not fair, and if you demand respect and to be treated fairly, you're a whiner? Is that it? Does the guy have to scream <insert slur here> in order to prove he's crossed the line?

There were ways to deal with this that did not involve whining about it. You could have, perhaps, later approached the guard and asked him if he realized that he only searched you and that such gives the appearance of racial profiling. Calmly, without accusing him of actually being a racist. Informing him that such an appearence puts a poor face on the company, and to please be aware of that in the future.

So then, lets say I do and the guard says, "I have the right to screen whomever I want and I don't like the want you look." Is it okay to contact the agency or does that make me a whiner? I didn't ask for compensation. I didn't call the guy a racist, i didn't ask to have to guy fired 'cause were I come from, you mess with a man's ability to feed his family. However I noticed ever since that event, I'm being treated differently and that makes be a whiner? I don't like the environment and leave; victim?

Again, what in my little scenario caused you to think I whined to anyone about it? I seriously want to know, because I don't see it....unless as has been noted several times in this thread, the mere acknowledgement of unfair treatment is tantamount to being a victim, playing the race card or being a whiner.

It does more good to assume that he is not consciously racist than to assume he is. Remember, many racist acts are not done with conscious thought, they are done because of unconscious conditioning. Give him a chance to learn, if not new beleifs, new behaviors. If you did that you would be no one's victim. You would be part of the solution.

Why, why do I have to educate him? Why can't I go about my business, pay my taxes and assume he's a racist prick?

holmes

04-19-2006, 02:25 PM

That's a bit clearer. If you go on with your life and be productive, that's great and should be the case. However, if you blame every slight on racism, with no evidence whatsoever, you are playing the role of victim because you're looking for racism to blame your problems on..

So them if I blame every slight on people being rude, insensitive idiots, with no evidence whatsoever except my feeling, because I believe that most people are rude, insensitive and idiots...am I playing the role of victim?

Antinor01

04-19-2006, 02:31 PM

So them if I blame every slight on people being rude, insensitive idiots, with no evidence whatsoever except my feeling, because I believe that most people are rude, insensitive and idiots...am I playing the role of victim?

In thinking about this line of discussion, it seems to me that we're using the term victim when something else would apply. You are talking about projecting your feelings on other people and ascribing motive to them without any evidence.

Last year my company had one of those stupid corporate team builder things. I did get something good from it though. One of the concepts they used was called 'making stuff up', which is basically what you're talking about. Making stuff up is when you ascribe motive to someone or make assumptions about a situation without the facts. While that very likely doesn't rise to the level of 'playing the victim', it is certainly making stuff up. You do a great disservice to yourself and the people around you when you do that.

I wouldn't presume to tell you not to randomly assign motive to people, but I would encourage you to look at what's really going on instead.

holmes

04-19-2006, 02:43 PM

Antinor01

04-19-2006, 03:06 PM

Which is why I trying to pin down this term "victim". One of my gripes with these types of discussions is how easily terms like victim, whiner, race card gets tossed out, when if you removed the ethnic component, the term suddenly becomes something else.

In my crude way, that's what I was trying to show.

We're on the same page here for the most part...but it really bugs the crap out of me, when negative terms are instantly tossed out, just because the issue addressed deals with how different groups of people interact with one another.

Victim is often in the eye of the beholder. Which is why it's hard to clarify at times.
In my view, someone is acting like a victim if they spend their time running around saying "I can't get a job because I'm gay" "I can't buy that house I want because I'm black" etc etc and actually believing it. It's when you start blaming every problem on that one issue and refuse to accept any other possibility. When we see the world as out to get you because of that one factor, you're hurting yourself and those around you.

Rubystreak

04-19-2006, 04:17 PM

Ruby, that chip on your shoulder must make it hard to walk.

Huh? Why would I have a chip on my shoulder? Because I think racism is a problem? Because I don't agree with you? I have more than backed up my opinion, so the name calling is getting a little tired.

I have stated very clearly that I believe that racism exists and is a significant problem at various levels. I have stated very clearly that I believe that society as a whole has a responsibility to address the problem. Yet your response to me is as if I am saying that it is not a problem.

I specifically pointed to Lochdale as someone who was saying it wasn't a problem, not you. It is a bit annoying, after I offered tons of cites, to be asked to delve deeper when you have offered none.

I will try to say this very clearly. The goal is to reduce poverty, to reduce discrimination, to reduce all the factors, yes all the factors that perpetuate the cycle of unstable family structures, inadequate education, and lack of equal opportunities.

On this, we agree.

Recognizing the role that institutional structures have played and continue to play in creating/perpetuating these situations is important, whether those structural impediments are motivated explicitly by racial prejudices or whether they are the unintended consequence of other goals. I care about the effect not the motivation, honestly.

The motivation has a way of showing itself, though, and is itself a problem. What's worse is people denying the reasons why things are the way they are, denigrating people who point it out, and calling names.

I will state very clearly that popular support among other American groups for addressing those issues will be sparse if the debate is phrased as a duty for the White power structures to admit they are racist.

Yeah, let's tiptoe around the sensitive white people who don't want to hear that they're racist. That's what it sounds like you're saying. Say it nice, black folks, or the white people who hold the reins won't help you! I find that attitude a bit patronizing, frankly.

Maybe it's a matter of diplomatic phrasing, but I don't think so. I think it goes a lot deeper than that. These problems have been stated by lots of people in all manner of ways, and they remain a problem. People like me are chastised for even bringing them up. Black people are called whiners who can't take responsibility when they bring it up. Do you think being extra super nice about it will make the difference for people of color? Really?

Few who engage in actions that have racist effects believe they are racist and they may not be racist even if they participate in a system with racist effects. Few will feel like supporting the cause if it is presented as society's job to fix it alone and the Black community absolves itself of any responsibility for the continuation of the current situation.

Sigh. Where did I absolve anyone of anything? It's a complicated problem, but the people with the power usually have to be willing to acknowledge the existence of the problem and participate in the solution before it can be changed. Maybe being less "whiny" would work, but I have to question your definition of whining. It sorta seems like anyone who says racism is the root of the problem = whiner to you, and I think that's unfair.

Sorry, but it is not up to White systems to encourage marriage before having children and stable family structures in the Black community. White power structures won't get out the Black vote on election day. Some of the fix has to come from within too.

Sure it does, but by the time people are having children and able to vote, the damage has often already been done... see my cites about segregated schools. Changing society has to start from the bottom. If the playing field was leveled, then people can start to change their lives, and responsibility can make the shift over. When the majority of people of color in low SES groups start out with a deficit imposed from outside (Harvard's study backs me up on this), how can you boil it down to whining and playing the blame game?

When Black leadership refuses to accept that the Black community has any responsibility for the current situation or for making it better, then they do come off as whiners, and few want to rush to support someone whining.

This is a matter of your opinion. I have not and will not agree that black leadership is whining and taking no responsibility. The mere fact that they won't take all of it doesn't mean they're whining. There are black leaders who are harming their cause, but I would hardly tar them all with that brush.

I hear you pointing out the warts of the asses of the White power structures, but refusing to look at the warts on any Black bottoms. That approach will go no where fast. It may make you feel good to say to yourself that all these White folk are clueless, but it accomplishes nothing else.

I am doing my share to change it, don't worry. Realizing it still existed was my first task, though, and I think it's the same for other white people and societal organizations. It's hard for me to blame children for low test scores, higher dropout rates, etc. That's a problem with the system, the parents (who are products of the fucked up system), and people who are in denial.

And as far as Chappelle being a twit, boy, that was an attempt at humor y'know. Chappelle is really of no consequence to the subjects now being discussed.

Yeah, how'd that happen?