I actually read through every post in this thread and all I can say is WTF? Actually, I can say more:
I think the posters here need to ease up a bit on Vivian, she started a thread as a Black Woman for general questions about why she thinks(being, of course, a black woman) an average black woman does certain things that may have puzzled the rest of us(that being non-black women). Where the hell do people get off telling her her opionions are racist? The questions posted have been racial in tone, but of course they would be in a ASK THE BLACK WOMAN thread. The answers, then, have come from the POV of her as a black woman, not as a citizen of the world or a champion of the meek and racially down-trodden. Her answers are and, I hope, will continue to be insightful into a culture where my experiences are sorely lacking.
As for the stereotype issue, please cut the shit. Everyone uses stereotypes to interact with the world around them. With few exceptions, no-one has met a person from every race/religion/nationality/gender/sexual preference etc. and need these pre-concieved sterotypes in order to have a basic idea of what to expect and how to act when meeting a new person. I know I have many sterotypical views of people and I use them. But you know what? I’m a thoughtful, intelligent person and use these only as a basis on how to interact with a new person (much in the same way I would use someone’s description of a friend of his to base how to act when first meeting that person) After that, I use my own mind to decide what the person is all about. The problem comes from assholes who think no farther than these stereotypes and make people fit in whatever niche they think is right. In this way, stereotypes are dangerous. But that makes them dangerous on an individual level, when used by ignorant people.
It would be nice to take a moral high ground and say “I never have any pre-concieved notions about any person I have or ever will meet” but this would make me(and all others) a liar. Sterotypes have a use in society and are not wrong. The application of these often are, but that is the individuals failings showing through.
Geeze, don’t you get it? There is no difference between cats and dogs. If you make a generalization based on a perceived difference between cats and dogs, don’t you realize you are just contributing to negative stereotypes? All stereotypes are bad! If I said “my little buffy scratched my arm up good” how dare you assume my little buffy is a cat. Or worse, that she is “acting catlike.” For all you know, my little buffy could be a dog or an iguana. After all, I once knew a guy who knew a guy who was scratched by an iguana, so don’t you see how your stereotyping casts dispersions upon cats, and thus all animalkind in general? I mean, some people…
Oh My, Enore_Tstset! Welcome to The Straight Dope. I can see you have a lot to learn here.
And where, pray tell, do you get off dismissing our right to express our opinions with regard to our perceptions of the statements she’s made here? Please. You, too, can get off your cross because obviously a lot of wood is needed around here.
Please be aware of the rules of the forum in which you post. Telling people to cut the shit in IMHO is highly inflamatory and completely inappropriate outside of The Pit.
And no, everyone doesn’t use stereotypes to interact with the world around them. Only narrow-minded, bigotted fools do. I interact with the people around me based on many things, some of which include respect for my superiors, common courtesy to strangers, and contempt for racist, rude and mean-spirited people.
This is not only patently untrue, it is also extraordinarily dangerous. Exactly what “stereotypes” should one use about Jews when meeting me for the first time so that they better know how to act around me? Should they shake my hand and immediately check their pockets to be sure I haven’t ripped them off in some “shyster” deal, given how slick we Jews are in business? And if they find the contents of their pockets remain intact, only then should they decide what I’m personally “all about” (as if anyone could ever know me that completely upon first meeting)?
Then I hope and pray I never have the misfortune of meeting you. I would be mortified to know that you were prejudging me based on some ridiculous stereotypes prior to bothering to get to know me.
Based on the above description of your own behaviour, I’d have to disagree with this assessment entirely. But we aren’t in the proper forum for me to tell you what I really think of you. I’ll just leave it to the reader to interpret.
I can say that, I do say that, I live that and I’m most certainly not a liar about that fact.
Stereotypes have NO use in society and are EXTREMELY wrong. But I suspect you will never, ever be able to be convinced of that. Sadly, I think you are a lost cause.
This amuses me. I mean, the outrage – how dare we tell a person who has stated that white people smell like wet dogs or raw meat that her opinions are racist? The utter gall of us! Newsflash: Some of her opinions are racist, and she has not denied this. Where do you get off telling me her opinions are not racist? Can you not read?
Oh, I’m not the one shoveling the shit around here. There is no reason to stereotype people based on race. What possible use could it be? Black people are . . . what? Smarter? Dumber? Taller? Shorter? Richer? Poorer?
Really. I “need” to stereotype black people in order to know “what to expect” from them or “how to act” when meeting them, huh? So the next time I meet a black guy I should ask him “Wazzzzuuuuup?,” right? What utter bullshit.
How about instead I treat all people with respect and politeness until I know enough about them as individuals to tailor my interactions with them accordingly?
My father is a thoughtful, intelligent person. He also is a man who, due to his upbringing, stereotypes American Indians as generally lazy, and probably drunks. Now you tell me how having him rely upon that stereotype as he interacts with American Indians will be of any practical use. For that matter, tell me the value of stereotyping white people as smelling like wet dogs or raw meat. Bet that comes in real handy when you’re meeting a white person for the first time. :rolleyes:
I’m going to attempt to explain what those of us in concensus mean by “acting black/white”, though I honestly think that you know exactly what this means and are being a bit too idealistic, urealistic, and/or naive (just my opinion, of course).
I’m trying to be as objective as I can, so I’m using a textbook for the definitions.
Lets start with defining culture, shall we? According to the sociology book I have before me, culture is:
“…a system of ideas, values, beliefs, knowledge, norms, customs, and technology shared by almost everyone in a particular society.”
However, the book goes on to say:
“It is rare to find a society that has a single culture shared equally by all it’s members. This could happen only in small, isolated, non-industrial societies. Most societies who share some of the cultural complexes of the larger society yet also have their own distinctive set of cultural complexes. These units of culture are known as subcultures. Although subcultures exist within the confines of a larger culture they also have their own norms, values, and life styles. They often reflect racial or ethnic differences such as those found in , Polish-, Chinese- or African-Americans.”
It also goes on to say that other subcultures develop around other unifying categories such as occupation, religion, geography, etc.
Now, as I said before, I’m no scientist, but I’d bet my left tit that if you gathered up 100 representatives from each of the subcultures in America, and recorded specific subcultural data about each of them, you would see definite trends within each group represented. No, you won’t get 100% agreement within any of those groups, and no one assumes that you would. But there will be things that distinguish one group from another. The majority in one group might like to wear underwear made out of cotton; the other may prefer yak hair. If you want to call them stereotypes, that’s fine. But not every “stereotype” is bad in and of itself. It’s all about context.
To me, it would be the same as saying that most (yet not all) African-Americans have dark skin. It’s a fact for the majority of us, yet there are some who don’t. Cultural trends, preferences, “norms”, values, behaviors, etc., can be identified in a similar way. For example, most black people I know (and I know quite a few since I’m black) don’t like hard rock music, and prefer R&B/Rap/Gospel or whatever simply becuse it’s the culture that was passed on to them. There’s nothing wrong with that. Humans are social animals and tend to be influenced by the culture(s) we are familiar and/or comfortable with.
I think what might have put you off about the “acting white/black” thing is that those terms are racial in connotation and are indeed somewhat prejudicial (plus, race is a whole other kettle of fish as it is a societal and not biological construct). But, I also believe that even you in your sweetly feigned ignorance :rolleyes: can acknowledge the existance of the various subcultures mentioned above, plus many more, unless you live in Mongolia where there are 4 people per every 100,000 or so square miles. In which case, I can understand your insistence on homogeny and individualism.
In the context of the above exposition, can you now understand what is meant by “acting white/black” ?
I’m not Biggirl, but I would still like to reply to your post.
First of all, make no mistake, there has been no consensus here regarding acting black or white. A consensus is an opinion or position reached by a group as a whole. If even one person dissents, there is no consensus, and clearly more than one person has dissented here.
But to the real meat of your position… Your appeal to authority (the use of an as-yet-unnamed sociology text) doesn’t really hold any water for me. First of all, we don’t know if the author of that text is someone who holds opinions more likely to match yours or more likely to match Biggirl’s. IOW, what is his/her bias? And do you believe everything you read just because someone managed to get a book or study published? How accurate was their data? Under what conditions did they study their group(s)? What groups were chosen to be studied (if any at all)? And why were others eliminated? On what basis did they divide up their “subcultures”? And so and and so on.
Now, what I won’t disagree with is that there is such a thing as subcultures that exist within larger cultures of peoples. That can hardly be denied (at least not with a straight face). However, I beg to differ that subcultures can be defined upon racial lines at all.
I’m no scientist, either, but I’d bet my left tit that if you gathered up 100 black physicians and 100 black inner city youth, you’d see two completely different subcultures at work. Please tell me where race has anything to do with it at all. They’re all black people, right? According to you, they should share some common subculture that could be easily defined by their norms, values, and life styles. Uhm, I fail to see it. Can you honestly say you do?
Now, grab yourself 100 black physicians and 100 white physicians and I would be willing to bet my other tit that they’d share very similar subcultures - again, without regard to race. Same for 100 inner city blacks and 100 inner city hispanics. I’d say they share the same subculture despite being of different races.
Go to Jazz club in whatever city you live in and, according to you, the patrons would be predominantly black. Go to a Jazz club where I grew up (St. Louis - which does happen to have quite a large black community) and go to “the” neighborhood that embodies St. Louis Jazz (Soulard, for those in the know) and you will find the patrons in those clubs to be predominantly white (at least it was when I used to hang out there when I still lived in The Home of The Blues). So should I jump to the (obviously erroneous) conclusion that because most Jazz patrons I saw were white, that the love of Jazz is a part of some white “subculture”?
So no, I don’t agree at all that it follows that “if you gathered up 100 representatives from each of the subcultures in America, and recorded specific subcultural data about each of them, [and you saw] definite trends within each group represented”, that those trends would ever be divided up based on race, and particularly not on race alone.
Besides, the most ridiculous part of that whole presumption is that it would be possible for one to define what, exactly, “each of the subcultures in America” even are. What are they?
No, I’m sorry, you have not only not convinced me, you’ve actually strengthened my opposition to such notions.
Vivian, quite a few folks seem to be upset about your “smell’s like raw meat” statement. Please, do you mean that in a ‘mean’ way? Or is it simply descriprive? I don’t find anything especially repugnant in the odor of raw meat.
When I was in high school (late 50’s, early 60’s) I noticed that the black kids in my gym class smelled different than the white kids. Not better, not worse, just different. I haven’t noticed this difference in many years. Maybe something has changed. I don’t know.
Anyway, I’m a very curious person. So I asked my childhood friend and schoolmate, a black* kid, if us white kids smelled different to him. He said yes, we smelled kinda like a wet dog. Only not as strong. Never heard the ‘raw meat’ thing, though.
*The common ‘polite’ term was negro back then. I prefer black.
Please don’t leave. We all, including you vivian, can learn from honest discussion like this.
Peace,
mangeorge
Czarcasm is absolutley right. Well maybe not absolutely right. I would like the privilage to question what I don’t understand or agree with. Sorry for this super duper major hijack. If you would like to continue the “acting colors” conversation, please see this thread.
I would really like to see vivian there. A warning: this thread is in Great Debates. People will disagree with you. In my personal opinion you could get your feelings hurt a lot easier in GD than even The Pit.
[sup]What the hell am I doing posting this late at night?
OK Shayna, it’s late, I’m tired and I’m getting a headache…I hope this clears things up.
Well…I don’t know what dictionary you use, but, the Webstster’s New World Dictionary defines consensus as:
1)“an opinion held by all or most or 2)general agreement esp. in **opinion” **
Like I said, it is a textbook. A book used to teach college students about introductory sociology at the University of Georgia and U. of Pennsylvania. The exact name of it is ** Sociology: an Introduction** by J. Ross Eshelman; Barbara G. Cashon and Laurence A. Bashirico**. ISBN # 0-673-39718-1. It was my future sister-in-law’s former textbook(UGA) who passed it along to my bf(U. of Penn.)…however, I had the same text in my sociology class at Mercer University in Macon, GA. So, I assume it is a generaly recognized text which teaches generally recognized information since it has been used in two public schools and a private school in two different states.
As I said before, “race” is a dubious social distinction and generally not not assumed by biologists to be biologically based at all. However, there are times that “race” and subculture do overlap. If you need an example, just ask.
As I said previously, according to my understanding, occupations can be a subculture within themselves. So, the physician thing doesn’t wash - because it is, in itself, a separate subculture that usually takes precedence (according to the Hippocratic Oath) to the subcultures to which the physicians once belonged. Physicians are one subculture…lawyers are another…plain ol’ blue collar, working class black folk are another because they typically (again, not 100%) have more in common with each other because of their economic status than they do with physicians or lawyers.
I apologize…I forgot to say that the above mentioned suspect text also said that cultures can and do change over time. Talk to Wynton Marsalis and he will tell you emphatically that jazz was originally a musical art form that African-Americans invented/created and appreciated once upon a time. Any ethnoomusicologist will tell you that, white or black. However, over time, more caucasians have begun to appreciate jazz than blacks because it doesn’t speak to the immediate concerns of modern day “black” culture as well as hip-hop or other forms of modern music does. One is no better than the other…times have just changed. BTW, I live in Atlanta…one of the largest, predominantly black major cities in the country, and when I go to jazz clubs (which I do quite often since I’m a musician and singer also) there are usually more white ppl than black ppl there.
You misunderstand me…I’m not saying that the only divisions are along racial lines…they are along the lines that we as humans divide ourselves along. We tend to separate ourselves within categories because of comfort and familiarity (racial and otherwise). Whether it be race, gender, sexuality, occupation (physicians), preferences(jazz music), height, weight or whatever. And that most, (not all) of the time, those divisions are defined by identifying with people that look, act, breathe, walk, talk, etc., like what we are comfortable with and identify with.
Once again, unless you too have been crashing in Mongolia your whole life, there are many: i.e Polish-Americans, Chinese-Americans, German-Americans Japanese-Americans, Inuit-Americans, Afghani-Americans, and (OH MY GOD!) :eek: African-Americans. Of course this is not an exhaustive list; it would be a waste of all of our time to try and list all of them here because you pretend not to know what they are.
So, you are denying the indentity of the people in Chinatown (most notably in San Francisco and New York) who are Chinese-Americans and have their own culture and traditions and celebrate the New Year on a different day than most Americans do? Are you denying the identity of the Muslim-American women who wear the hijab in accordance with their traditional interpretation of the Koran? Are you denying the identity of the Jewish-Americans who celebrate the recently observed Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur? Cultural norms are a fact, my dear, and unless you are a cultural elitist, they are nothing to be ashamed about or to deny.
Okay Vivian, I have a real “Ask the Black Woman” question. How do girls with braids wash their hair? Do they just wash the braids? And doesn’t that mess them up? Also, how much does it cost to get braids done and would it cost more for me since my hair is waist-length?
Thank you, thank you, thank you. i realize i should have answered the question in a more…PC way…but, i thought that it was rather…vivian to answer that way…guess not alot of people appreciate it. what i actually would have said was…ah…you know forget it…now to answer your question…
what i really meant was that Canada treats blacks a little more cautiously in my opinion. i think i gave an example earlier in the thread where my sisters and i had travelled to New Jersey and were stopped by the police for asking directions. we had the whole flashlight in the face thing, yelling to get out of car…it was straight out of COPS. it was very, very scary for us. other things like going to the mall. i forget the name of it, but i do remeber it had a target, 3 floors and was in the country or non-suburban area. i think it was in New Jersey or near the NJ/NY border…but the looks we got.same thing at any of the off highway restaurants…when i came back and people would ask how the trip was, i would tell them that i had never been so black before in my life. I’ve also been to Amsterdam and it was like Canada…
Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! i’ve been a little caught up in a few things…
from **my personal experience ** it’s rather interesting because if i’m walking down the street, white men would stare, but as soon as i meet their gaze, they quickly look away. i’m not sure what that means, but it happens. i’ve had men come up to me and ask me if i’ve ever been with a white man and if i haven’t can they be my first. i’ve also been offered $$ from one guy that wanted to take me to an entertainment industry party. said he would buy my clothes, take me to the hairdresser and everything! i declined because he was creeping me out…like he was reallt desperate or was ona bet or dare or something…
i didn’t mean it as a ‘mean’ thing. Someone asked me the question because they heard it from another black person and wanted to know if that wasn’t one black person who happened to think that way. i too thought that, especially when i was younger. i think the raw meat thing is just a variation of the smell.
** i’m not going anywhere. unless someone tries to get me kicked off…and i know that as of last night, someone has. i’m answereing as honest as i can based on my experiences. for those of you who want to write a freakin’ thesis, essay or whatever on my opinions, knock yourself out!**
Biggirl smelled me last night. She says that I do not smell like raw meat, but do smell like a wet dog. She then proceeded to touch my hair without asking permission.
okay…let’s see. my expereince with braids would depend on the type of braids (micro,cornrow,single etc,.) the kind of hair used (synthetic or human) and the condition of my scalp. we use hair to add to length or style. it may cost more to do your hair because of the length. when my white friends ask me whether or not they should braid their hair, i say no. why? it doesn’t last as long as ours and would be a waste of $$$ for them. it would look messy after one week. i pay anywhere from $80 at a ‘at home stylist’ not including the hair which can cost anywhere from $1 per pkg for synthetic or $5-7 per pkg for kanakelon (another synthetic kind, but with more ‘human hair’ qualities) to $30 for human hair. Depending on the style and the amount of hair , i could use 4 pkgs to 7pkgs. Normally, depending on the style, i can keep it in for at least 2 months.i would just wash them. but i don’t blow dry. it would give my own hair a frizzy appearance and make the braids look old. so, i let them air dry and put lots of hair food [like a moisturizer] in it so that it shines. the reason why i say the condition of my scalp is because by not washing it on a weekly or bi-weekly basis would cause a buildup of oil from hair product. sometimes if it is really dry, ‘dandruff’ would appear. other black women are going to kill me for saying that! now, i say ‘dandruff’ because i don’t think black people’s dandruff is the same as white people…at least from my experience, my sisters’ and friends. it’s more…thicker and not as easily ‘flaky’…hard to describe. but let’s just say head and shoulders has never worked for me…plus it dries out my hair…any ‘white’ people shampoo does.
i hope that answered your question!
gooti, since this part of the discussion has been moved over to Great Debates, I have copied the relevant posts to that thread (with permission from TubaDiva) and will reply to your most recent post over there.
Thanks for answering my question, vivian. I don’t know the names for all the different types of braids but I meant the ones which just hang, not the corn-row type. I guess they probably wouldn’t last long on me because in my experience of doing just a few braids here and there they always look messy after about a week.
Another question, do you have a favourite hairstyle for black guys, I mean one that you think black guys look best in?
