I don’t have anything more to add to the OP.
However, I will add that some months ago, when poster mentioned a hypothetical situation with a Black woman given the generic name of “Shaniqua Johnson.”
He was summarily skewered and accused of being a racist.
The sense was something like “How dare you imply that a name like ‘Shaniqua’ probably belongs to a Black person.”
Rainbowcsr:
cite please?
Mjollnir: I’m going to try to sift back and find that thread, but I think that the offense was taken because in the hypothetical situation, the woman could have been of any race to further the point. But by using “Shaniqua”, the poster implied that, of course, in that situation it would be a Black woman.
Robroy:
It still doesn’t explain why blacks are still disenfranchised except that they will never be white and we seem to let all the groups (none of whom were enslaved in America …hello?) slip bast them into the middle class. It’s not some nebulous “attitude” thing or resentment - it’s about money and opportunity.
What about the Chinese? Sure they were not LEGAL slaves, but that did not stop them from being treated as such by the major corporations seeking cheap labor which they could virtually control, work to death and/or murder. They seem to have managed to established themselves quite well in the current society without managing to piss off everyone else concerning their past slave histories and civil rights or whining about ‘da man holdin’ dem daown.’
In the late 1800s killing a ‘China Boy’ was not necessarily punished and in the early 1900s they faced major discrimination and worked usually for less wages than a White person. Currently, many of them use BOTH American and Traditional names but none make them up, nor do they demand ‘created’ holidays for their flagging ego systems. Most fled their native country in the past where they were also terribly abused and exterminated by the thousands plus had their traditions and beliefs destroyed by changing factions of political power. They also lost their lands, had families ripped apart, their religions attacked and their wealth sacked.
Then, once here, they were treated like dogs, killed with virtual impunity, had their women raped, their goods stolen, forced to live in inhumane conditions and faced massive discrimination and suspicion but today they do not harp on it to every White person who wanders by and who had nothing to do with it, having not been born then.
They have their traditional dress anchored in actuality instead of being made up, their traditional religions instead of creating ones based on hate, and they don’t go around bemoaning the possibility that every woman might have been a Chinese Princess or every guy might have been a Prince in the ‘Mother Land.’ Nor do they claim to have been the seat of all knowledge, even though they had major scientific break throughs when Africans were still grubbing roots out of the wilds and not one White man had ever set foot on Black land.
It get tired of hearing how almost every Black woman could have been a NUBIAN Princess or Black man might have been a NUBIAN Prince and then they go a create names that MIGHT be African. (Black stores sell books of such names. In actuality, many African names were hard to pronounce!)
But, hey, I also get pissed off at people, White or Black, insisting on those awkward Biblical names like Isaac, Moses, Abraham, Leviticus and so on. I wasn’t all that crazy about the hippy tendency to name their kids Moon, Moonbeam, Star, Ragweed, or Dogshit either. Buffy, Muffy and Biff fall into that category too. I sneer at Francine, Angeline, am damn tired of Betty and Saffire, Ruby, Pearl and Rose also.
You can add Vinni, Vitto, Antonio to the list along with Tex, Bud, Harley, Harl, Betty-Jo, Billy-Bob, Jimmy-John, Peter, Russel, and Sara-Jane. Deter and Detrich get tossed in there also.
NightGirl44:
Much of what you have said regarding Asian immigrants is true. There are specific differences, however, between the Asian and African immigrant experiences.
The Africans were dragged here in chains. The Asians were lured here with promises of a better life. The difference? The Asians wanted to come, they were able to bring their families, culture, and religion with them. Africans were dragged here as individuals with no cultural connection, families were routinely (and often deliberately) broken up, and they were forbidden to practice their religion or maintain their culture.
Asians were “allowed” to live in ghettoes, but were generally free to live their lives as long as they “kept their place.” Africans (in the South) were distributed among the general population and blacks who “made good” were often punished for their effrontery. (Ghettoes for the black population are generally a Northern phenomenon.)
The discrimination that Asians faced did not include forcing them to abandon their culture. Asians who accumulated wealth were only occasionally deprived of it by jealous locals whereas a common story regarding the various race riots and lynchings that were directed at blacks is that the mob (expressing anger at some imagined slight from the black community) would sieze and murder a prosperous black citizen. That sort of (fairly common) activity did a lot to create a culture that said “Don’t do too well: they’ll kill you.”
Tom~
Here’s a WAG to question #2 from the original post.
Ignorance. (isn’t that why we’re all here?)
Incidently, my favorite current example is the R&B singer “Ginuwine”. He’s geuinely my favorite example. Another example is Tupac 
naming his last album “Makaveli”. Pretty sharp there, buddy. :rolleyes:
As Shaniqua and LaToya are already made up in the first place, I guess there’s not really a “correct” spelling to screw up and it’s no big deal how you spell it. But words like those above are legitimate words and historical names and it bugs the hell out of me to see that kind of crap.
<sigh>
And now my ass is gonna be roasted.
"genuinely"
(I doubt he came up with his name from a typo, though)
One more thought:
I think it might have something to do with “Roots,” when it was originally broadcast back in the 70s.
I think Blacks have always been more creative with naming. My sister had a friend named “Australia.” One of an uncle’s cronies was called “Zone.” I learned later that that was “short” for “Arizona,” which was his real name.
But I think that “Roots” and the ensuing greater identity with the African roots provided the impetus for more “African” sounding names.
Could be wrong, just another WAG.
Now to address some of the other mentioned above:
Blacks are 8 times more likely than Whites to commit murder.
Blacks are 7 times more likely than Whites to be murdered.
85% of White victims are killed by other Whites.
94% of Black victims are killed by other Blacks.
Among homicides, the breakdown is (about) as follows (graph doesn’t have good graduations):
Black on Black 42%
White on White 42%
Black on White 8%
White on Black 3%
(Source: US DOJ Statistics 1976 - 1995)
And to elelle, specifically, the poster mentioned something to the effect of “Who would get better medical care: Shaniqua Johnson in the projects or Bill Clinton?”
Some additional comments on why southern blacks moved north in the '40’s, '50’s, and '60’s:
It wasn’t just blacks who were moving north at that time, it was (as mr john has already pointed out) whites as well. The great industrial boom in the U.S. that lasted from the late '40’s to the late '60’s was going on, and most of the reasonably well-paid blue-collar jobs that were opening up were in the North. (Some opened up in the South too, but only later and to a smaller extent.)
If you’ve seen the movie Coal Miner’s Daughter, you’ll remember that just after their marriage (about 1948) Loretta Lynn and her husband moved to Washington State so that he could take a job at a logging camp. There was a lot of that sort of moving around happening at the time. I remember my father once talking (perhaps in the '70’s) about his co-workers at the Ford engine plant in Lima, Ohio that he worked at from its opening in 1957 till his retirement in 1983. He mentioned how the people working there, besides those like himself (those who had grown up in the nearby farms and small towns), there were “the blacks and the hillbillies” (and he meant this in an affectionate sense). (He should probably have added “the rednecks,” since besides the blacks from the rural South and the whites from Appalachia, there were also whites from the Deep South.) These people knew where the jobs were. Many of them, like my father, had been in World War II as young men, so they were already accustomed to moving around. When, in the late '40’s, they saw the industrial boom in the North, they knew that this was their one chance to escape near-poverty. It was not easy surviving in either the rural North or the rural South during the Depression. The factory jobs that opened up in the '40’s, the '50’s, and the '60’s might not seem like much to us now, but they were much better than what these people had known before. They paid well enough that, even without a college education, you could make it to something like a comfortable living (even if, like my parents, you were stupid enough to have eight kids). If you were lucky, your children might make it to college and into a reasonably secure middle-class existence.
Since I’m one of the products of this great social shift myself, I’m rather personally attached to it. My ancestors were not stupid people. The reason that they didn’t go to college (hell, my grandparents didn’t even make it to high school) wasn’t that they couldn’t have succeeded if they had been allowed to try. It was because that didn’t have the opportunity or the money. On the other hand, I and my brothers and my sisters and my cousins mostly did graduate from college (and I went to grad school), and my nephews and my nieces can even take college for granted. This is why it bothers me that the gap in wages between white-collar and blue-collar jobs has been growing again since the early '70’s. How is the next generation going to make it out of semi-poverty?
It’s not easy to remember that blacks, despite being in this country since the 1600’s, have only really been in the American mainstream for about two generations. The Great Black Migration started about the time my parents graduated from high school and ended about the time I graduated from high school. It’s pretty ridiculous to quote from current statistics on white/black differences and assume that these will last for all time.
I think that all names were “made up” at some point. If I remeber correctly, my name, Robert (don’t wear it out), means King or Royal One or something. Probably not, but you get the point. Robert doesn’t seem like a silly name, but Tiffany, LaTricia and Madison do? Maybe not in 100 years. My point is, there was always a first person to be named with every name. Perhaps some cultures are more creative than others.
No offense intended to Roberts, Tiffanys, LaTricias or Madisons.
johnnyharvard:
How does ignorance lead to population patterns?
And, LaToya is just as “legitimate” a word as genuine.
Oops - I meant question #1
Prov. 18:2, “The fool takes no pleasure in understanding but delights in airing his own opinions.”
In my most recent post, the sentence “It was because that didn’t have the opportunity or the money” should have been “It was because they didn’t have the opportunity or the money.”
aseymayo- do think that people should refrain from complaining about all type of racism, or just racism against whites?
I don’t think African-American is a proper term. When you say African-American you mean people with black skin, not Arab’s, or White South African’s and when you say African-American you are also insinuating they live in America. What if they don’t? What’s wrong with black?
Tupac Amaru (Shakur) is named after the last Inca Emperor - correctly, but then that doesn’t help anyone recognize it does it? hmmmm
And waht the hell does “Elvis” mean anyway?
Just thought this might be of interest to some…
http://www.servtech.com/~whitfitz/names.htm
This page contains funky names that the page creator found in the birth announcements of her local paper. They don’t necessarily adhere to any one nationality, but they’re all amazingly stupid. A sample:
Je’Mel Larmar Davis
Sa’Tasia Tajanique Morley
Mukuka Erika Bwalya Mulenga
R’Mani Mo’Ney King
And, for balance, the most Irish name on Earth:
Kieran Colin O’Halloran
Sorry, Max, but I didn’t see any stupid names on your list. I saw names that were strange (as in unexpected and unfamiliar), but none that were actually stupid. If you want a stupid name, try Armand Hammer (although the man was in no way stupid or trivial).
Tom~