"Black" = Unaccomplished?

Great Debates
61

My sister’s best friend is a daughter of African immigrants (I think they are from Kenya, but am not sure). Both of her parents are doctors. My sister was having some conversation with my Dad about race relations and successful black people, and my father stated that her friends parents didn’t count, because “they weren’t really black.” I’ve never met the parents, but their daughter is the color of bittersweet chocolate. I can’t imagine what you’d call them other than black. I thought it was weird how he needed to point out that they “didn’t count.”

(My father is pretty racist, sadly. I wonder if he thinks this way so he doesn’t have to reconcile his prejudice with the reality of this girl who is at their house all the time and comes to parties, and our shore house, etc.)

62

He means because she wasn’t the child of Black American descendents of slaves. But the irony of that is, if a racist is going to exclude every single black person except the descendents of slavery, then that same racist must admit that it was the institution of slavery * that doomed the people that they despise so much.

But they never seem to make that connection.
*I don’t really believe that we are doomed.

63

Phew!

64

How do you mean that? Biologically, or culturally? If you mean it biologically, I couldn’t answer. But culturally, it’s pretty obvious to my mind that the differences between a Pygmie and a Masai would be much greater than those between a Chinese and Japanese, simply because of all the intellectual cross-pollenation between Japan and the mainland, and the difficulty for hunter-gatherers who don’t share or abut territories to have the same kind of cultural interactions. (I may be wrong about this, of course - my understanding of the different ranges of the two African cultures is rudimentary at best.)
To go with the question in your OP - I don’t know. I’ve heard people talk about this or that person (mostly Obama) as being not really black, but I neither understand nor agree with it. I think, for the most part, the people who try to redefine someone as “not black” once they’re told that they’re accomplished are simply proving themselves to be racist idiots.

As for the “one drop” fallacy - I don’t like it. I think it’s a carry-over from a shameful episode in history. But given the way that was so draconianly forced upon the population of slaves, I think it’s something we can’t simply say shouldn’t matter any more. With that background, I think that what’s important for classifying someone is their own self-identidy. If someone claims to be black, then I’m not going to argue with them. ISTR that we’ve got a number of very light-skinned people on the Dope who could easily be labelled any way they chose. But I’m not going to tell them how to present themselves.

Unfortunately, I can see how that attitude could encourage more people to remove themselves from the population of self-identified blacks as they feel that their success allows them to re-invent themselves into a less curtailed social class.

And whatever I’d rather be the case, I can’t pretend that racism isn’t around and still curtailing the opportunities of many people. (Not simply black people, but honesty forces me to admit that’s probably the worst, both because it’s so much more obvious a difference, as well as being a much larger population, so those people who are most threatened by non-caucasians will focus their efforts on that population.)

65

Fessie, look at the generalizations that you made about whites and the stereotypes that you used. All of the following are statements that are taken from just one of your posts:

  1. “…Whites seize on “anti-black” statements by blacks.”

  2. “Many Liberal whites are tired of feeling guilty for being white.”

  3. “Plus it’s [self-reliance and self-determination] what whites are raised on (never mind the unequal playing field, the social and economic disparities into which we’re born).”

  4. “…Whites (especially white men) feel enormous pressure to succeed and don’t have an “out” when they fail. They need to blame someone.”

  5. “When they know about affirmative action policies and efforts to level the playing field, they feel cheated - they’re not getting ahead (as much as they thought they would), why should someone else get a piece of the pie?”

  6. “…It never occurs to whites that they’re not succeeding as well as they’d imagined because it simply can’t be done. Not everyone’s going to be Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, but that’s what they hold as a standard. Nobody aims for Average anymore.”

Do you really think that all white people come from economically advantaged homes and have the same pressures, expectations, attitudes and standards? Have we all seemed so cold and indifferent to the needs of others?

In my neighborhood he could also be Cambodian or Hispanic. Both of those cultures have gangs here.

Sometimes I wonder if the idea that he’s “not black enough” was started by Republican political strategists.

Could you be specific? What kind of criticism? Describe what you mean by “going ga-ga.”

Fight my ignorance. Explain why a non-biracial black person would look mixed.

Jerry Springer exploits and brings out the worst in people. Oprah is a giver who encourages people and educates them. She hasn’t solved her ego problems yet, but I think she will get there. She’s a very decent human being.

And for whoever suggested it, she did not grow up in a house with both parents present nor were they college educated. Her father is a retired barber.

66

Yep, I don’t always agree with her (though sometimes I do) and I don’t always like her (though sometimes I do) and some of this stuff makes me think she is a little daft. But that doesn’t mean I can’t admire how successful she has become.

67

Springer was included as a joke.
The others are, (in different ways, limited by their lower incomes), also “givers” who are hated.
I did not say that Oprah was a terrible person; I pointed out that most of the “hatred” she suffers has more to do with her line of work than her race or her race plus her success. Povich and Williams don’t attract as much scorn as Oprah, but they are not as big targets. When Donahue was on top, he seemed to catch as much flak as Oprah.

68

Of course not. That’s why I said I’m writing as a white who lives in the Midwest. Do I babble on for pages, trying to cover every base and describe regions I’ve never visited, or do I briefly condense what I’ve learned in 42 years, after living in 6 cities in 5 different states, and after working at 38 different jobs? I was trying to cut to the chase and describe white racism, not offering an exhaustive description of caucasian culture.

69

I mentioned Chris Rock earlier. For a while, there was noticeable trend of white people grabbing onto Chris Rock quotes and reciting them in race discussions as if to imply that he is some kind of “telling it like it is” authority rather than a comic. I suspect Rock would not have received this love if it hadn’t been for his talk about “niggers”. It was almost as if he saying the stuff a lot of white people wanted to say but felt they couldn’t, and he was rewarded for it.

When Bill Cosby was in the news with his podium banging, I observed a lot of white people chanting his name to the heavens with delight and celebrating his candor. Previous to his crotchedy old man crusade, Bill Cosby was respected as an entertainer but he wasn’t exalted in this way…despite the fact that he’s been a generous philanthropist for decades now and has always been a promoter of education for black youth. It wasn’t until he started scolding poor-doing black folks in public venues that many whites felt it necessary to give him any attention. This is what I mean by “ga-ga”. Interestingly enough, around the same time, Cosby was also facing accusations of adultery and sexual harrassment, but this potential area of hypocrisy was noticeably overlooked in favor of praising his finger wagging.

Just look at how black celebrities who dare to express a less than favorable opinion about race relations are treated. David Chappelle was everybody’s best friend when he was making un-PC jokes about the races…but just as soon as he started suggesting he was uncomfortable because of race-related issues, he was ripped to pieces. This villification played out on this very board; just do a search on his name and you’ll find the thread I’m talking about.

If you can name one famous African-American in contemporary times who is known for talking about racism and has not been dismissed as crazy, racist, or whiny by a majority of white people, then I’ll be super impressed.

Zoe, are you whooshing me? Do you think Harold Ford, Vanessa Williams, Lena Horne, and Angela Davis are biracial? Because they are not; all these people are the products of black-black unions. And yet don’t you agree that they look as mixed (if not moreso) than folks like Lenny Kravitz, Bob Marley, and Victoria Rowell, who are considered biracial?

If Vanessa Williams has a child with another black person, that child will be black but not biracial. Good chances are, though, that the kid will look “biracial”. If Vanessa and Harold have a child, chances are the kid might even look white.

70

I believe you may be referencing my post #53. If so, that statement was not about Oprah.

71

I think I don’t *know *if they’re mixed race or not, and probably (statistically) neither do they. I’m more than willing to call them “black” if that’s how they self-identify, but I don’t know that *all *of their ancestors came from Africa. The slave trade in the US made genealogy difficult, for “whites” and “blacks” alike. *Especially *if, as has been stated a few times in this thread by people who would know better than I, some black people are adamant about “one drop” making you black. A person’s grandmother or even mother could have had three white grandparents and would still have made it into the family history books (and even the census books) as black.

72

Of course not (to the part in bold). But you could say the exact same thing about most African-Americans. Even the dark ones with kinky hair. This is what the legacy of slavery and the one-drop rule means.

73

On Cleopatra and the Ethiopians, it might be worth noting that northeast Africa has always been a melting pot, and these peoples (the Khemites of Egypt, the Cushites of Egypt/Sudan, the Tigres, Tigrinyas, and Amharas of Ethiopia) are generally regarded as a mixture of dark-skinned Caucasoid (“white”) and Congoid (“black”) – insofar as the big racial groups point to anything with physiological/genetic reality, not just social constructs.

Tiger Woods, like some other mixed-race people, leans over backwards to recognize both his black and his Asian heritage.

Which reminds me of a family I was well acquainted with: He was a retired master sergeant from WWII, a black man from Bogalusa LA; she was a war bride, a feistry petite brunette from Bavaria. They were both very liberal, active in the local NCAAP chapter; their daugher and sons were quite bright, one going to Yale. But she took offense at one thing: the idea that her kids were “black” by anyone else’s classification system. They were extremely proud of their black heritage – but also of their anti-Nazi German heritage. To me, that says volumes about the proper perspective to take.

74

I’ve met both of Vanessa’s parents. (One was my music teacher in school… and she was one of those great teachers.) She’s black, and we’re all proud of her.

75

Yes, actually you did. If you want to complain about people not lumping the members of one continent into one racial subgroup, then you’re going to have to accept that Indians are Asians. Oh, and Arabs are Asians, as well.

If you don’t see a problem with people dividing up Asia into different subcategories based on certain classifications, then I don’t see what the problem with Diamond doing the same thing.

76

She said:

She most assuredly did not claim that Indians aren’t Asians. Where are you getting that?

77

Sorry Polycarp… I don’t mean to give you a hard time here. But every single time someone mentions Cleopatra in this thread, I’m going to stop them right there.

It is an ugly myth that the average black American goes around spouting off about Cleopatra being black. No black person I have conversed with on the topic believes that.

I know there are some severely undereducated black people that do think that, but then there are some severely undereducated people of every stripe and color that believe in all kinds of craziness.

Sense I consider myself a black myth buster, I thought I would just interject that little tidbit.

78

Now THERE’S an “Ask the…” thread!

79

No sweat. Cleopatra, being almost 100% Greek in ethnic origin, would be a particularly unlikely example of a classical-era black person, anyway. But my point was that the so-called “eastern Hamites” (an outmoded ethnolinguistic concept anyway) are, much like a large group of American blacks, actually the product of a mixture of ethnic stocks. The features of a typical Ethiopian, ignoring skin color, are much more similar to those of a Bosnian or Lebanese than to someone from Gabon or Zimbabwe.

80

No, but she did insinuate that there wasn’t already a differentiation between ‘brown’ and ‘yellow’ Asians. The thing is, Asia, as a continent, already has tons of differentiations based upon race, despite a common continental origin.