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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
I’ll correct you, at least as far as the dictionary is concerned. Dictionary.com
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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…
These are outlandish assertions. Indentured servitude is not chattel slavery, nor did many Irish come to this country as indentured servants. 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. If African-Americans had suddenly sprung forth in the present day, like Minerva from the forehead of Zeus, then maybe you could make a valid argument that current levels of racism shouldn’t stand in their way.
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?
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.
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.
Racism has little to do with the disparities and problems that we see today among blacks. Nevermind the fact that apartheid in this country 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.
White-on-black racism is a not a big deal. But black-on-white racism is “real, alive and very, very well.”
Blacks are in “full crisis”, even though the majority of blacks lead normal, ordinary middle class lives.
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.
Any black man who walks away from $50 million because he is not happy with his job anymore is an ungrateful lunatic. And somehow racist and anti-semitic. And other bad things too.
Reading this summary, is there any wonder that Chappell had enough? I’d be sick and tired of entertaining people who held these views too.
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.
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.