And you, sir, would make an excellent Presidential campaign supervisor.
I defy you, sir, to find any links to “black power” and “chicano pride” sites on this board. Please. Just one. Just one site put forth- like this one was- to incite other posters. Please, sir. Just one.
Or would you prefer to immediately assume the worst about the moderators with no evidence whatsoever to back you up? If so, I suggest you instead use the claim “Lynn Bodoni eats babies!”. Much more inflammatory, and much more easily readable as the bullshit that it really is.
You want to make accusations, come up with some evidence.
I’m sure you have, although your examples are a bit lacking:
Affirmative Action: requires companies to spend excess time and money proving that they have not discriminated against anyone who is not a member of agroup that has suffered discrimination, but does NOT require companies to provide preferential treatment to anyone. (The courts have been ruling against preferential treatment since around 1980, or so.)
Political Correctness: I never use the terms African American or Native American unless a person asks me to identify them that way in a discussion. I have never suffered any penalties in public, private, commmerce, or employment for choosing not to use those terms.
Black Comedy: I never pay any attention to Def Jam and I see that Chris Rock is making a lot more money.
L.A. Riot: Riots are evil and rioters are evil and stupid. I have heard roughly equal numbers of people defending the L.A. rioters and defending the executive officers of Texaco. (Obviously not the same people defending both groups.)
The Nation of Islam is racist. OK. Which is older and has more members? NOI or KKK? Showing that oppressed people can provide society with hate-filled idiots hardly justifies the existence of the oppressing society that had a bigger hate group, first. (And, against the NOI, we have not only the KKK, but the Aryan Brotherhood and a dozen or two other outfits.)
WB is racist? They showed TV shows that appealed to a black audience. Whites wouldn’t watch those shows while backs will watch white-based shows. So where is the racism? I’d say that appealing to an underdeveloped market is good old-fashioned American captialism. The racism only occurs in the white audience that won’t watch “black” shows.
Spike Lee movies? Spike Lee is an agry young man with a point of view. If you actually watched his movies, you would note that he addresses racism within the black community as well as racism imposed from the outside.
As to my “old” examples, only the whites/coloreds signs and the Mississippi flood occurred before you were born. The discrimination in housing and the intimidation in the workplace both occurred in the last 20 years, long after all the laws that you appear to believe “fixed” the situation were in place. Those laws require money and effort to enforce and they are often not enforced.
Is there black-on-white racism? Absolutely. Is there any threat from that small minority of people that “white society” will be overthrown? Piffle! (The Hispanics or the Asians may reduce whites to a large minority in 50 years, but no white has a valid reason to fear black power. I agree that the fear is real, but it is based on misunderstandings and irrational boogeymen, not on facts.)
Wonderful TomnDeb…just wonderful. Perhaps the whippersnappers will hang around long enough in order to base their views on facts. Maybe they will open their minds in the future and search for real answers instead of spouting racist platitudes fed to them by minds crippled with fear.
Affirmative Action…we have heard horror stories of “reverse discrimination” even on this board occasionally. Most have been debunked as being completely unfounded rantings brought about by disappointment and fear. People who are unsure of their own abilities will always seek to blame someone else for their failures. Affirmative action initiatives never were designed to favor one group over another.
The Riots…do you live in Watts, or East L.A. then don’t worry your pretty little blond head over it. Not likely you will ever become a victim. These unfortunate incidents always take place in their own neighborhoods. Then these angry, silly people have to go back and pick up the pieces. Hopefully they will one day learn that these displays only hurt what they are struggling to protect. But even then anyone with a brain can see that they are born out of frustration and anger. Everyone gets angry, and some have even more reason.
The Nation of Islam…what can be said about this other than ignorance comes in many colors and many different flavors. However every black who is a follower of Islam is not part of this group. My good and wonderful friend Tracey in Chicago is a very religious and gentle man. He and his family respect all religions and do not prescribe to the oppresion of anyone, even women. He says that they are not practicing “true” Islam. (That reminds me think I’ll boot up my Instant Messenger and tell him happy Thanksgiving.)
Spike Lee makes movies about society. He holds up a mirror and makes us look at ourselves. He also does not discriminate about who he is trying to reflect. His movies are as much about black predjudices as any other.
FUBU…black television…rap music…what is it makes you think that whites should only be the businessmen, entertainers and politicians in a country as diverse as ours? That’s right you’ve been looking at those sites. The ones where they have you convinced it’s your birth right to rule the free world. Not by personal accomplishments, education, hard work and talent, simply by the fact that your skin contains less pigmentation.
I’ve seen DEF Jam, I’ve seen them poke fun at whites. I’ve also seen them poke even more fun at themselves. A comedian that does only one kind of joke doesn’t stay funny very long. I haven’t noticed a single black comedian that has built his entire career on doing only “cracker” jokes.
Lynn was absolutely right to delete a link given in this context.
I would also imagine that the young man who originated this OP does encounter predjudice from blacks. Have you seen American History X? Not the greatest of films, but simplistic enough for even you to understand the message.
I too am old enough to remember “whites only”. I will not sit back and keep my mouth shut while the few ignorant and terrified grow in number and poison the minds of our youth. We’ve been striving for 30 years to grow away from this way of thinking and we have made some progress. Despite the fact that most people are never satisfied with what they have and love to bitch about their government, society, the economy, etc. etc. We are all doing better than before and part of the reason is because we are still striving to get along and appreciate each others differences and the beauty and richness ethinic diversity brings to our country.
In other words SHUT UP YOU IGNORANT LITTLE TWIT! Stop blaming your own pathetic failings on a group of people that have absolutely no investment one way or the other in whether you succeed or fail as a human being. That is up to you.
I’m gonna repeat what others have said… I’m glad I’m white. I’m glad I live in America. Why? Because it makes things easier. Racism pisses me off so bad… and I’m glad that I’m not the target of it. I know how close I get to hitting people who spout racist stuff in front of me… if they did it TO me I’d probably end up in jail. Also, I have to say that life is hard enough without being discriminated against. I think it is a horrible aspect of our society, but it’s getting better over time, and hopefully in the future being non-white won’t be a disadvantage for so many people in America. It shouldn’t be now, but I’d be lying if I said that that it wasn’t.
Am I proud to be white? Or American? No, that would be stupid. It’s like someone said, am I proud I have size 9 feet (yes I do!)? No. It isn’t an accomplishment so how can I be proud of it?
Granted that my 30 years have not given me your vast storehouse of knowledge and experience, O Venerable One, but let’s both of us get a grip on reality, shall we? I am NOT simply spouting dreck that was spoon-fed to me; I speak from experience. Shall we attack your wisdom a point at a time?
[the crippled with fear bit was a nice touch, by the way. Did that come straight out of the “Complete Idiot’s Guide to Baiting Your Opponent”, or did you innovate it all by yourself?]
Two comments:
[ul]
[li]There is no such thing as “reverse discrimination.” Discrimination is discrimination. Don’t dress it up. Actually, I think the “reverse” term has even more of a racist bent to it, as in “How dare they discriminate against me? ME! This is the reverse of the way of things!”[/li][li]I have experienced Affirmative Action, not, as you so eloquently put it, through my “…unfounded rantings brought about by disappointment and fear…seek[ing] to blame someone else for [my] failures,” but as a restaurant assistant manager who saw my boss hiring minority workers preferentially, due to perceived pressure from Affirmative Action. As I’m certain you already know, there is more to a law than the strictly legal requirements. That set of laws was brought about to effect a societal change, and it has. Whether the threat is real has no bearing on reality. The fact is, employers believe that they must not fall below a certain quota, and thus give preferred status to minority applicants–even if for no other reason than to avoid the appearance of racism.[/li][/ul]
I’m not even a little bit blonde, although my female friends tell me I’m quite striking, thank you. How nice of you to notice.
Are you really saying that violent and destructive racist demonstrations are ok as long as it only happens in black neighborhoods??? That’s certainly what the above piece looks like. Anyway, regardless of whether I will ever be a victim (which does not even remotely approach the point, why did you even waste the keystrokes to type it?), it was a huge several-days-long temper-tantrum, displaying primarily racist attitudes. Nice, however, that you excuse it because “everyone gets angry, and some have even more reason.” My point illustrated beautifully. Regardless of what you may think, the people who rioted were not born when segregation was lawful, any more than I was. And each one of those kids is capable of going to school and working, and is every bit as responsible for his own situation as I am for mine. I’ve run the gamut…lived in nice neighborhoods and haven’t had to work, scraped by on minimum wage jobs while I lived in a run-down slum, even lived in a $20 a week motel for six months. I know how hard it is to find a job when you don’t have a permanent address, how hard it is to find a good job with no degree, but so what? I also know it can be done if you give a shit about yourself enough to get off your ass and do it. So don’t play the “they have good reason, THE MAN holds them back” card with me. Violence is violence, and there was no excuse for what happened in L.A. No matter whose back yard it happened in.
here we agree. no comments.
This is a common line of garbage that people seem ready to swallow. Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, Ice Cube, and Ice-T used the same line to justify their violent, obscene, and misogynist lyrics. It’s no more true now than it was then. But, it’s important to people in the entertainment industry that you believe it. Because these people make huge amounts of money from kids trying to emulate the image of “black life” they see in spike lee movies and hear about in Ice Cube songs. I live in an all-black (except me) household in an all-black (except me) neighborhood in an almost entirely black suburb (Irvington) of a mostly black city (Newark). I know what day to day black life looks like and that is not it.
Ok, here I have to say FUCK YOU and your self-righteous attitude. Never did I say or imply that white people should be the only ANYTHING. Nor did I say that I’m entitled to ANYTHING because of my skin color (which is most likely darker than yours, as my ancestors came most recently from Mexico, not from Europe). Wait, this must be from “The Complete Idiot’s Guide To Baiting Your Opponent” again. “Chapter 2: Taking a high moral stand against something he didn’t actually say”, right?
Actually, I think you have me confused with the OP, but Fuck You anyway for being too lazy to get off your ass and check your facts before firing off your mouth.
Ahem back to the order at hand…
Naturally a comedian can’t do the same routine for his entire career. But “makin’ fun of whitey” is the meat and potatoes of black comedy.
I am not. However, that also means I have never sat at the front of a bus while a black man was forced to move to the back. Nor have I thrown rocks at black children who tried to go to the same school as white children (well, we all threw rocks at each other, but not because of skin color. Mainly because we were children). Affirmative Action could benefit me, but why? Because my ancestors didn’t come from white Europe does that make me less capable? Does it mean I cannot gain entrance to a University unless “minority slots” are reserved for me and my ilk? For that reason, I have turned down minority scholarships for which I was eligible, because I don’t need the government’s help to make my own way.
Can you make the same claims?
But I think in your arrogance and haste to shower the whippersnappers with the wisdom of your years, you both completely misinterpreted the OP, and made some completely uninformed and, frankly, very stupid misobservations about me.
**
Maybe you should sit back and keep your mouth shut, thereby avoiding the inevitibility of placing your foot squarely into it. Yes, there has been some progress. Quite a bit, as a matter of fact. But I daresay you have not been part of the solution, but rather part of the problem. It’s no help for you to preach your “I’m so sorry I’m white, I’m so ashamed of what we did to you” sermon to the youth.
I haven’t enslaved anybody. I haven’t kicked anybody off their land. I haven’t ever even killed anybody. I don’t think skin color should ever be an issue in any circumstance. There are plenty of valid reasons to hate people, so why waste time on a stupid one like “they look different”? I am not a racist. I simply choose not to share in the collective guilt complex that is currently in vogue. The current state of racial tension is a self-perpetuating problem. The longer we dwell on it, the longer it goes on.
Joe Cool, I have spoken on this before in other threads. I will reiterate here.
My father is a racist. He really and truely does not like or trust white people. He feels that a white person would just as soon lynch him as talk to him and will only talk to him nicely because he(the white person) is forced to by the mores and conventions of 21st century America.
He comes by this distrust quite honestly. His own father was one of NYC’s first black firemen. These firemen had to all be put into one firestation for their own saftey. My father has been spit at and called nigger. He was told by a teacher in high school “Smitty, you’re a bright kid and all, but don’t you think you’d be happier in Auto than in Bio?” He has been told that “his kind” cannot live in a certain neighborhood, despite the much lighter color of his wife. He has been firehosed. He was once beaten to unconsciousness by five white teenagers because he had the nerve to “come to South Boston.” I can continue listing the demeaning acts my father had to endure, but I think you get the picture.
My father fears for me because I am not a racist. And even though I have been called a nigger (there is a thread here in the pit somewhere about that experience) I can see that the person who uttered that word to me was a stupid asshole, but I do not condemn his whole race for it. The whole white race looked down at my father once. He will never get over it.
Biggirl, I understand what you’re saying. I read your thread about that and it made my blood boil. I hope I’m not coming across as too much of a jerk, because I know the sentiment exists, and I sympathize with your father. I know I’ve been lucky not being exposed to much, if any racism at all during my formative years(maybe thanks to my parents?). That kind of stuff really makes me sick, but I honestly believe it’s just as bad and just as unfair when it’s a member of a minority acting towards a white person as it is the other way around.
My roommate is black, and we are the best of friends. In fact, other than him teasing me about liking thin girls and me teasing him about having subscriptions to Vibe and Ebony, and the fact that we have different taste in music, it has never been an issue. We talk about race stuff all the time in an educational format (I’m really amazed hearing about what it was like growing up black in Jersey, it’s a lot different here from New Mexico). It really bothers me that it’s such an issue with people what color you skin is.
Joe, I wasn’t trying to make you look or feel like a jerk. You pointed out that black people are racists. This is true. I was just trying to explain why. I don’t agree with my father. We have had many heated arguements over his attitude. It just seemed prudent to explain why some people give minorities a little lattitude when it comes to prejudice.
The levees were already in place. Built by the Army Corps of Engineers, the levees were every bit a successful in exacerbating the flood in 1927 as they were in 1993. (We don’t learn very fast.)
However, as the water rose, the white population was moved farther and farther from the banks of the rising river, while the majority of the blacks were confined to the muddy top of a miles-long, narrow levee. From there, many were conscripted at gunpoint to build sandbag dikes to shore up weaker sections of the levee that still protected white homes and businesses.
The episode is recounted in Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America, John M. Barry and in the PBS documentary The Greatest Flood of the Century.
Unfortunately, there is little on the web refering to that event directly. A search for “rising tide: the great mississippi flood of 1927” will turn up dozens of book reviews that recount it in pieces. Joe_Cool, I would guess that Needs2knowdid confuse you with the OP, but that is for you and he to sort out because I do not want to put words in anyone’s mouth.
Despite your experience with store managers giving preferences out of fear and ignorance, I can assure you that there are a lot of less ethical folks out there that know that they can still get away with racial discrimination (especially since the Supreme Court has been hacking away at even basic rights for the last 17 years or so and the Republican Congress has been dropping EEOC-related funding for years). I dislike seeing preferences given (because they do result in backlash) and I oppose quotas in hiring, but looked at across the majority of major industries, the tales preferences are greatly exaggerated.
Tom, you bring up an excellent point, and I am thinking about it. You’re probably right in that we should allow the address to be available when it’s in an appropriate discussion. We’ll probably want to discourage actual links. This subject is currently in staff discussion. I probably shouldn’t have said that links to hate speech site are absolutely unacceptable, but I stand by my decision to edit the link in this case, as it was provided solely to to incite hate speech.
I’m still waiting on this, you lying sack of shit. Prove it or withdraw the claim. I’m officially tired of my fellow moderators being bashed by lowlifes like yourself.
I know, I know…please excuse me for the foam…Let me address this in a less inflamatory manner.
Fear…I cannot be positive that this is the prime motivation behind the continuing saga of bigotry in this country but it’s the closest my simple, uneducated mind seems able to understand. Maybe greed is the prime motivator. It simply does not make sense to me that there is still a huge segment of “whites” in this society who refuse to see that they have enjoyed 200 some odd years of priviledge in this country.
Affirmative Action…I did not coin the phrase “reverse discrimination”. I’m not sure who did but I’d be willing to bet they weren’t black. Personal anecdotal experiences while often used to demonstrate a point do not usually reflect the entire picture. In your case… just because some manager in a restaurant you’ve worked for doesn’t have the slightest idea how to apply AA iniciatives correctly does not make ALL these iniciatives wrong. It is a sad fact that many social programs designed to help those in need are often misinterpreted, misapplied, and mismanaged. I’ve seen AA work and I’ve seen it misapplied myself. Let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Instead let’s rework and rethink our application of the iniciatives.
As for the Riots…they had nothing to do with the problems you have mentioned poverty, education, etc. they have everything to do with being black. I did not sanction them. I find them to be terribly non-productive, actually silly. But the L.A. riots you’ve mentioned several times were brought about by the fear and anger of police brutality. Which we all know now was a real situation and not just some percieved injustice by a group of people looking for a handout, or special treatment.
About the WB…that is what you mentioned right? The black sitcoms on the WB. What is it about them that bothers you so much? Just don’t watch the WB. You do realize that whites criticized Jews and still do for some of the very same things you find offensive about blacks. Their success in business. Their patronization of their own businesses. They too have been accused of trying to monopolize the banking industry, the entertainment industry and the medical professions. You can see the correlation here can’t you? You spout off about rappers and their violent, militant lyrics, many of them come from violent backgrounds, what else would they right about, butterflies and fields of dazies? Besides you must be forgetting about Marilyn Manson, Ozzie Osbourne and a few other heavy metalists that glorified some of the same things. Black people didn’t invent violence, but they’ve lived with it an awful long time just as whites.
Comedians…I can’t address this view of yours it is so predjudicial and biased that I have no answer for it. You can give no real example of ANY black comedian or otherwise who have built their entire career on nothing more than making fun of whites.
No, I have never myself seen blacks move to the back of the bus. When I was a kid we didn’t even ride together, our neighborhoods were that far apart. But I did experience the hoopla over busing in the 70’s. Most of the kids didn’t really care I think. It was their parents that didn’t want their kids to go to school with minorities.
Why would you turn down a scholarship, on what principle? There are plenty of grants and scholarships available for everyone. There are even grants and scholarships available for non-minorities. Virginia State University which is 5 minutes away from my home gives scholarships and grants to whites in an effort to create diversity on campus. I can see nothing wrong with a white student making use of such opportunities. Everyone benefits, the students and the school.
Please forgive me if I become frustrated with attitudes such as yours. I simply cannot understand the reasoning. Yes it’s true that young black Americans have not experienced predjudice to the same extent as their ancestors. But many of us whites are only a couple of generations away from being poor, disenfranchised immigrants ourselves. The big difference is that it was easier for our families to assimilate themselves into society. We were not deliberately held back socially, economically and politically. The parents of young black Americans have not forgotten. And they have not allowed their children to forget.
I also have to clarify something. I have no guilt complex what-so-ever. As a matter of fact there is something that I am rather proud to share. Sometime around the tender age of 9 I realized that blacks were human. Certainly this was completely against everything I had been raised to believe. What I was thinking at the time went against all the subtle and not so subtle indications I had recieved up until then, that blacks were inferior. Over the years this notion grew. I also became observant. I watched whites and blacks. I noticed things. I noticed that blacks didn’t seem to fit in with much of the “evils” attributed to them. I made this discovery completely on my own. It amazes me even now. I’m not college educated. I’m not from a well to do family. (So therefore cannot afford to be a “limosine liberal” or any variation thereof.) I was born and rasied in Ricmond, Virginia. (Sorry honey but Richmond is where the South starts and in 1964 I think I heard the words “nigger lover” enough to last a lifetime. Of course now I’m classified by many as one myself.) I am still very often a fish out of water here. Someone who thinks differently than those who share similar backgrounds and ancestory. I don’t understand how I just one day “knew” that racism was wrong. And not just wrong but pervasive, this undercurrent that ran through our lives like a poison stream everyday. But many of the fellow whites I come into contact with and still some of my family members have been trying all these years to educate me otherwise. So much of your rethoric sounds exactly the same as theirs.
I have no desire to be your thought monitor. This is your life. But I’m wondering why you can’t feel how your attitude is very much like anger and resentment. Does that feel good to you?
Yesterday I read this thread and found myself getting angry, and then just sad. I keep wondering how it is 30 years afterwards and we still have this mistrust and antagonism between our communites. Why?
I too have relatives that are racist. My Grandma and Uncle are prime examples. They both when I was growing up told me not to trust whites. I learned much like N2K, that most were just people. i guess my Grandma must have eventually realized it too, because she’s recently been dating a white man. Never thought I’d see that day.
Like N2K mentioned, the riots in LA were a result of the unfairness blacks saw at the courts and society for what they saw as a brutal act condoned by a jury. I thought it was stupid too, but I also see another issue. I notice you didn’t critizise the WTO and WB riots of whom most of the participants were white. I’m not saying you condoned the action, but blacks are entitled to express their anger too, correct? You don’t think a lot of black men saw that tape, and realized that it could have easily been them.
Judging a community based on the content of of entertainment by a few members is equally wrong. Or to put it another way, do you think it would be fair to judge white culture by say Animal House, Fast Times at Ridgemont High or Clueless? As for Spike Lee, try wathching Do The Right Thing and you’ll get an of what TomnDeb meant about the mirror to society working both ways.
Hi Stuffy how ya doing? What were we arguing about last week I can’t even remember now.
Joe and others…If you’d like when I return from the Thanksgiving holidays we can further discuss racism. Perhaps we should talk about “white privledge” or “white supremacy”. I understand that some universities are offering studies in “whiteness”. Not for the same reasons that David Duke might offer whiteness studies but in an attempt to make whites see themselves as they really are, an ethnic group that has enjoyed subtle and unrecognized privledges everyday since they were born. Interesting concept huh?