Is it just me or are certain African American groups racist?

The BBQ Pit
81

Who said education is unimportant? I am a big believer in education. I think it can be fantastic. I also think (especially in the arts) that you only get out of it what you put into it. I know a lot of artists who got a lot out of their education. I certainly got a lot out of mine. But I also saw a lot of fellow art students show little effort or enthusiasm, but instead would slack off or bullshit their way through the art courses. Oh, I suppose that some could smear paint on a canvas and maybe they’d be really great at that—there’s all sorts of art and we can discuss whether or not they are valid on a different thread. But this was a Life Drawing class with, like, y’know, drawing. Drawing accurately. That’s how this particular class was structured. We studied anatomy and proportions of the human figure. That sort of thing. And this particular lady SUCKED at that.

With some forms of art, there can be a more commonly-held agreement over whether a drawing is following anatomy, is in proportion, or is sucky. This lady sucked, no doubt about it. Her work screamed “newbie.” I may have been able to learn a great deal from her about sculpture (or some other thing) because she may very well have had a great deal of education in that and she may have been awesome in that. But she SUCKED at Life Drawing and I don’t think she would have had much to teach me about drawing figures, no matter how many damned degrees she had. It was overreaching of her to assume that because she had a degree that she would be qualified to oversee any art-related class. Life Drawing definitely wasn’t her strength.

And someone can go through a college, get the art degree, bullshit their way though it, (or get a substandard education) and end up with minimal ability. This is not uncomon with art-related degrees. A person with an art degree can also completely and totally quit doing art, but sit back and talk about their degree. But what does that make them? Someone who has a degree but who does Jack Shit with it. Why should that impress me? Should that be a substitute for actually doing the work? Some people act as if the mere mention of an art degree should mean that they are automatically someone who is a Great Artist Who Also Knows A Lot. Sorry, I’ve learned over the years that it doesn’t mean that at all. It’s what they know and what they can do that makes them worthy of respect.

82

About the flag- it has come to represent an evil institution. Not every German wanted to kill the Jews, but to fly the Nazi flag today is an affront to the Jewish people (and French and Dutch and American and British etc.). So if you fly the CSA battle flag today, people associate it with racism. Which is too bad, since if you look at it strictly as a graphic design, I’d put it up as one of the best flags that was ever designed. Some southerners fought to preserve slavery, however I bet more fought for the reason given in this little story: Yankee soldier captures rebel soldier and asks him “Why are you fighting us, anyway?” Rebel says “Because you’re here”.

Regarding separtist organizations for non-whites: It’s really time to give these up. You can’t be against racism while demanding special treatment for yourself. Since black women are now winning Miss America (at least in proportion to their demographics), there isn’t a need for Miss Black America. If we want to move beyond racism in this country, it’s time to get past this.

83

I was with you up into the last paragraph. First off all, an organization isn’t “separatist” simply because it is targeted to a particular group. As long as it does not discriminate in membership, it is not “separatist”. You might as well call all special interest groups “separatist” if you believe otherwise.

Second of all, why should these things be banned? If we ban black student organizations for being “special”, then we should also ban GALA and all ethnic-specific clubs (like the Indian Student Association). If we ban Miss Black America, why don’t we ban Miss America–which after all discriminates against men (but I guess sexism is alright).

Why don’t we get rid of “separatist” television channels? No BET, no WE, no Lifetime, no Spike. No Telemundo, either. Let’s just make all the channels like NBC and the WB. Ya know, channels which feature all races, cultures, and interest groups EQUALLY.

Literature should also be more “inclusive”. No more Ebony or Jet. No more New Yorker (we can’t have a mag that discriminates against us Southerners!) No more GQ and Seventeen. All magazines should have articles and columns that affect everyone EQUALLY.

I don’t expect NBC to show NASCAR and bass fishing. I don’t expect the WB channel to show Mexican soap operas. I don’t expect McCalls to talk about police brutality. And I don’t expect Miss America to start putting crowns on men. And I’m ok with these expectations. Most people are…except when it comes to black people and their things.

My post is ludicrous, I know. But I hope it illustrates why it’s insane to keep harping about how unfair “black” things are. Black people are not white people with brown skins. They have a culture (or multiple cultures) that is rich and dynamic, but it is often exaggerated or overlooked by popular culture. I don’t go to the Walmart if I want to buy kimchee. I don’t go to a Barnes and Nobles if I want to buy the Koran in Arabic. Why should a black person have to go to a “mainstream” place or organization to find what they are looking for*, but everyone else can have their own special interest group and be left alone about it? That’s not right.
[sub]*For instance, today is Juneteenth, the day that commemorates when the last slaves were freed in Texas, in 1865. I don’t expect the mainstream media to give this day much press, but black-oriented resources would. That’s why black organizations are valuable to so many people. And that’s why they will never go away. People who have a problem with this are wrong, IMHO.[/sub]

84

Points duly noted, Yosemite. I’m just saying that I’ve never come upon the “Because Catsix Says So” school of historical scholarship.

85

Well, there is really no need for Miss America, so we should abolish it, as well.

However, since men enjoy ogling women, some people got together and realized that they could do some good by offering cash prizes and (more importantly) scholarships to some women who got ogled. Thus, the beauty pageant evolved. The Miss Balck America pageant was founded at a time when black women were prohibited from entering the Miss America pageant. Now, the scholarships are in place, the people who organize the pageants are all employed, and there is an ongoing system of recruitment and sponsorship selection. Why should all those people choose to dissolve their organization, giving up their jobs and eliminating the scholarships, just so that you can feel that you are not excluded from something to which you probably pay no attention, anyway? (And why have you fixed on the Black Miss America pageant? Why not include the various pageants of other ethnic groups? There are still several pageants for East Asians, Hispanics, and some other groups. There used to be pageants for Irish-American and other groups of European origin, as well. They were never outlawed; they simply dissolved when the immigrant groups from which they sprang dwindled to a point where they were too small to continue to support the organizations. (I beleive there is still a Polish-American pageant.)

The Miss Black America (along with the other ethnic pageants) will disappear on its own when they can no longer attract sponsors.

I am also curious as to how any of this becomes “special treatment.” No one has asked Congress or the legislatures to establish the Miss Black America foundation. This is simple, grass-roots, entrepeneurial activity–the sort of thing that I though we were supposed to encourage in this country.

86

Or just listen to this link for the week of June 19, 2004

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/easy.shtml?r2_michaelball#

Then you’ll probably want to go get the cast recording (musicals do not have “soundtracks”).

87

Actually, I used to be colourblind.

I grew up in a town of 50,000 and was raised to not see color distinctions and that everyone was inherently the same: no better no different.

Well, I moved to Milwaukee, WI. Wow. I got bitchslapped for my naivete.

It was like being inside Tom Lehrer’s ‘National Brotherhood Week’.

"Oh, the white folks hate the black folks,
And the black folks hate the white folks;
To hate all but the right folks
Is an old established rule.

But during National Brotherhood Week,
National Brotherhood Week,
Lena Horne and Sheriff Clark are dancing cheek to cheek.
It’s fun to eulogize
The people you despise
As long as you don’t let 'em in your school.

Oh, the poor folks hate the rich folks,
And the rich folks hate the poor folks.
All of my folks hate all of your folks,
It’s American as apple pie.

But during National Brotherhood Week,
National Brotherhood Week,
New Yorkers love the Puerto Ricans 'cause it’s very chic.
Step up and shake the hand
Of someone you can’t stand,
You can tolerate him if you try!

Oh, the Protestants hate the Catholics
And the Catholics hate the Protestants,
And the Hindus hate the Moslems,
And everybody hates the Jews."

If I wasn’t treated like scum by some very loud hispanics, black, and asian students at my college for being white, they’d redouble their bigotry when they found out that I’m gay. It was an UGLY bit of culture shock.

I do understand also what the OP is saying as far as basically minorities-only computer labs. I think it is separatism, divisive, and in the end fosters a greater problem than it solves. An African American Student Union is one thing, but an African American Only Computer Lab reinforces for the stupid and bigoted every insipid wrong belief they have about affirmative action and that everyone else gets the breaks based on color. Still, I don’t see a way to win with this. No matter what you do, no one is going to be happy. A win-win solution is not what people really like in their heart of hearts.

The Confederate Flag issue is another one entirely. Now, it COULD just be the EVIL LIBERAL CONTROLLED MEDIA, but every time they show a piece on the Confederate Flag on TV, there is some asshole like Tom Metzger, or someone else from the Klan/White Power/Strawberry Shortcake Collectors of America that represents exactly why so many people have issues with it.

Personally, I think that ever since they updated Strawberry Shortcake’s outfit, lost the puffy hat, and got her to read Mein Kampf, it’s just never been the same. Of course, that’s just my opinion, but I’m never wrong.

88

One doper helping another doper bust a nut. Real togetherness. Lending a hand. Isn’t transcending difference and coming together what this thread is all about?

89

No, no it’s not. The only scarecrow here is you (if I only had a brain…).

Explain the difference between saying that the slaveowners’ rebellion was good because sometimes you have to rebel and saying that killing my family is good because sometimes you have to kill. In both cases, you’re ignoring the facts about what did happen in favor of what could happen.

Oh, I see. You’re an idiot! The difference, you see, is that we aren’t talking about two individuals’ conflicting interpretations of the flag. We’re talking about the flag’s overt, stated meaning vs. a jackass 140 years later who chooses to ignore that meaning. If my neighbors could show me where in American history the flag stood for* the soldiers who were fighting to enslave their people, and nothing else*, I’d avoid having it up. Because what actually happened matters to me. If a black man says to me that the Confederate flag is offensive to him, that’s not a motherfucking opinion. That’s history.

If you’re so sure about your stand here, why don’t you answer my question or Really Not All That Bright’s (implied) question? Is it OK to parade around in Klan gear, or an old Nazi uniform, or maybe some Al-Qaeda gear (if there is such gear) if you decide that those uniforms stand for, say, rugged individualism? What’s the difference?

By the way, I don’t think anybody’s calling you racist. That’s one of the options, but there are others. It may very well be that you don’t want to enslave blacks, but you just don’t care enough about the fact that they were enslaved to avoid rekindling that particular flame. In which case you’re an asshole but not necessarily racist.

90

[Mrs. White]Momentary?[/MW] This thread has been here, there, and everywhere. Allow me to steer us back to the original poster.

Salukifan, fuck the Salukis. That’s right. Fuck 'em and fuck your party school. If your team had beaten Alabama, my team could have beaten your team and I would have been able to gloat about it to my father. Wanker.

And now back to this this discussion of states’ rights, slavery, self-determination, flags, Avenue Q, the media, and, I don’t know, Enron.

-Wolfian, son of a Saluki

91

Pssst…monstro…how about the front page of yesterday’s NY Times, right there in front of God and everybody! And that picture of the lovely Shamaka was the illustration.

Ahem. As to the OP, it took me a while to realize that it was just another why-can’t-I-fly-the-Confederate-flag thing. I think it’s in bad taste and I have a couple of ancestors who shed blood in the Union cause, so it offends me on a lot of levels. Maybe that’s my problem, but it seems to be one I share with an awful lot of people.

And sure, African-Americans can be racist too, but usually not in a way that cripples the prospects of the victim for life. I got over taunts of the teenagers who were roaming the subway cars yelling “cracker” and “chink” at all the non-blacks, and it’s not like they could refuse to hire me or something. It was just annoying and pretty scary for a while. Life in the big city–jerks are jerks.

92

What is it if I say that the flag of Saudi Arabia is offensive to me because it represents a patriarchal and sexist society in which women are treated as chattel and have no rights?

Slavery died 140 years ago. It’s gone, and it isn’t coming back. There are far more serious problems in this world than a little piece of cloth, problems that are present every day, and a pattern on a t-shirt, or a bumper sticker on a car, those are not the problems.

What I’m saying is that the meaning of things changes after a great deal of time has passed since that thing saw active use. I personally don’t own any Stars and Bars stuff; however, a lot of people near where I live do own it. And not a damn one think it has anything to do with liking the institution of slavery. What a few dead guys used to think two lifetimes ago amounts to a whole lot of nothing today, apparently.

As to the question of whether or not there are racist black groups or racist blacks, I’d say that there are. The Black Action Society at U Pitt was quite known for disliking whitey, and it sure as hell wasn’t easy to grocery shop in East Liberty being told to get my ‘cracka ass’ out of there.

93

You’d have point??

94

Yes. Every single, solitary, motherfucking one of them. Even the ones who freed their slaves, because they were fighting, among other things, to preserve a vicious and vile system of human trade, and to allow other people to own blacks. Guilt by association. Regardless of your weak, tin-eared rationalizations (right to secede, my ass. Thank God we didn’t succeed, or we’d BOTH have been eaten alive by the European powers,) the only lasting thing that the Rebellion effectively stood for was slavery.

Then, the Confederate flag was resurrected as a symbol for every White Power nutzoid movement on earth. Hell, I’ve even seen the goddamn dirty thing hanging on a wall right the fuck next to a swastika.

That’s how it was, and that, by God, is how it will rightfully be remembered.

Your “noble” symbol is corrupt, degenerate, and filthy, and it sullies you and everything you stand for by your present association with it.

Shameful.

95

It’s not about what is offensive to you, or me, or any one person. It’s about the commonly understood meaning of a symbol. I’m going to write a setence here, and I want you to tell me what it means:

I think that sentence has a pretty clear meaning, don’t you? But all it is, is a string of symbols. What meaning it has is a direct result of a popular consensus: those symbols, in that order, represent a particular thought. Now, I could argue that the sequence of symbols “hate” means “I think they’re keen,” and I might even really, honestly, truly believe that. But every other human being who looks at that sentence is going to come away with precisely the opposite meaning, because what those symbols mean to me is not nearly as important as what they mean to everyone else.

Just so the Stars and Bars. Outside of a small minority of quixotic diehards, the commonly understood meaning to that particular flag is slavery, race hatred, and horrific slaughter. If you want to fly that flag, fine, that’s your right. You want to claim that you think it symbolizes Southern heritage, or Dukes of Hazzard fandom, or a deep appreciation of the works of Marcel Proust, or whatever the fuck you want to claim it symbolizes, great. Knock yourself out. But don’t complain when people see it and assume you’re a racist, because that is precisely the statement you are making when you fly that flag, wether it’s the one you intend to send or not.

96

You have many valid points. I’m just saying that as time goes on, we’re going to outgrow some of the ethnocentric organizations. For ages, black women had no shot at Miss America, hence Miss Black America was established. Now that the color barrier has been broken, I see little if any need for continuing a beauty pageant for one ethnic group. We’ll always have ethnic food stores and such, niche marketing is here to stay. But there’s a difference between niche marketing and forming exclusive organizations.

This quote " Most people are…except when it comes to black people and their things." I think is a little harsh. It’s more a perception that blacks want it both ways- to be included in all groups but retain the right to be exclusive when they want to. That’s what a lot of people have a hard time with.

97

Mehitabel, notice that I said “not much press”, not “no press”. But I’m glad The NY Times is representin’.

I’d have to wonder how you can see the offense in Saudi Arabia’s flag and not see the offense in the Confederate flag.

I love it when people do this. “Quit whining about me calling you a nigger”, they say. “Me calling you a nigger isn’t a serious problem. The hole in the ozone layer…now that’s a problem. But me calling you a nigger? You should be used to it!”

When I see the Confederate flag, it’s like someone calling me a nigger. When it hung as Georgia’s state flag, it was like the state of Georgia calling me a nigger. When I see Confederate flags being flown in New Jersey and upstate New York, I am reminded that the word “nigger” is not Southern property. When I hear people like you saying that the Confederate flag is about heritage, not hate, I really them saying, “My heritage affirms the superiority of my kind, nigger.”

No, the Confederate flag isn’t a pressing problem. But I refuse to support legislation which allows it to fly on government property. And I also refuse to allow others to tell me what the flag really means.

98

I’m not sure I follow you.

Black people are like everyone else…we have to function in everyday society. We should be included in places of business, places of employment, etc. because we are people, just like everyone else.

But if we want to get together and communion as a group, that shouldn’t be taboo either.

I dunno if I was too harsh. Having been on this board for two years now, it really seems like we’ve had this conversation a million times…and it’s always about black people and their “special” things. No one talks about organizations that cater to other minority groups. No one calls GALA “separatist”. No one thinks Telemundo is racist. No one thinks that women’s colleges are unfair. And yet black groups are given this treatment all the time. If I’m being harsh, it’s because I’m tired of the double standard.

99

I think I will be more than willing to cut non-white organizations some slack until there is economic, political and social parity. We’ll getting there. Until then, I’m not going to whine too much.

LouisB, keep on fighting our ignorace about the Stars and Bars. I remembered from last time!

Amen to that. Someone would have to be very ignorant to remain unaware of the pain that this symbol causes. To display it anyway out of some sense of regional pride or political position is be incredibly insensitive or selfish.

There was another more foolish reason still common today – the unreasoned yearning for manly glory.

I so rarely disagree with you that I jump at the chance to nitpick! :wink: “Dixie,” at least for my generation in the South, is not past tense. It’s home. Just like some people get homesick for New England or the praries, other people get homesick for Dixie.
trandallt, welcome to you and your wise words!

gobear, I just love you! I can’t help it. And I, for one, appreciate knowing when someone has a degree in a certain field. It’s not always fool-proof, but it adds weight IMO. Thanks for the link to the “Cornerstone Speech.” I had never read it, but pulled this plum from it:

100

This part is just wrong. I appreciate the need for advocacy clubs and cultural awareness, but computer labs and other university facilities should be available to all students.