| Author | Message | ||
     Roxie "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Roxie Post Number: 447 Registered: 06-2005 Rating: N/A |
I just recently recieved the lastest issue of Time Magazine. Bill Gates and his wife are on the cover as is Bono. But what did they do to beome "person of the year"? Well, from what I read the Gateses visited poor Indian families in the slums and fed babies in hospitals (as if they were the first to do that). And Bono did what he's always done: the concerts,the speeches, the charities, etc. What is so sickening about this? Well, as I read further into the magazine, mere PARAGRAPHS were given to people who did far more incredible things. One of those people was even the little New orleans boy who protected his toddler relatives that Kola mentioned a while back (What took TIME so long to find the boy? -_-!). But why are these people situated to the MIDDLE of the magazine? Does it have to do with the fact that the majority of these people are NOT WHITE? Is time magazine trying to perpetuate the "White Saviour" message onto us pathetic coloreds once more? Well if that wasn't enough they have in the VIEWPOINT section four pictures of celebrities (Richard gere, Jessica simpson, Angel from "buffy", sean penn) in various acts of charity, not to mention a page about Angelina and Zahara. Televison and hollywood (no suprise) is doing the same thing. You got that Ted danson movie with him saving poor black and hispanic children with chess (didn't Merryl Streep star in a similar movie?). And while I was at the movies watching "Rent", they had a trailer for a film starring Antonio banderas, and guess what? He plays a high school dance teacher who reaches delinquent students with the art of spanish dance ( feel free to laugh). And if anyone has seen it, the film "Born into Brothels" is in video stores, which has the same scenario of a white photographer saving poor brothel children with the gift of photography.Of course she does this by editing her movie to make the indian social services look more incompetent than they really are and to make herself look more like a saint appearing as the only one responsible for getting the kids into a boarding school. More suspicion aroused when I learned this woman won an academy award and ADDED THE FOOTAGE TO THE FRICKIN' DVD. Yeah real selfless. I don't condemn their acts of charity. I'm glad something is being done. But I'm sick of this media ignoring or pushing all of the non-white people to who do as much or do so much more into the shadows of these celebrities, self-serving "artists", and guilt-stricken millionaires. I mean when are we going to get a movie about Mekhi Phiffer playing a man who saves his own people in the ghetto with chess or dance so they can make it out like he did, or an Indian filmmaker helping his or her own people in the brothels? How about all of the indonesians that did someting to help their own people in Banda Aceh? Why do the ultra rich and famous whites get the attention? Why does everyone thry to keep us thinking that you have to be white to be able to save the world? I expected a little better from Time Magazine, but now I'm a little wiser if not a little more dissollusioned. http://www.time.com/time/ | ||
| Babygirl "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Babygirl Post Number: 164 Registered: 04-2005 Rating: N/A |
Roxie: I mean when are we going to get a movie about Mekhi Phiffer playing a man who saves his own people in the ghetto with chess or dance so they can make it out like he did, or an Indian filmmaker helping his or her own people in the brothels? Babygirl: When WE have the financial resources to write, produce, and distribute our own on the same scale as the movie makers who are doing so can. Roxie: Why do the ultra rich and famous whites get the attention? Babygirl: Because they're RICH and ultimately, GREEN will always be bigger than white or not white will ever be. It's a sad fact, but money makes our world go round and lack of it keeps most scraping at the bottom whining, crying, and asking themselves and others WHY? | ||
| Tonya "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Tonya Post Number: 1133 Registered: 07-2005 Rating: N/A |
Excellent essay, Roxie. You know my POV--It's somewhere in the middle of white power dynamics (ie White Supremacy) and "it's all your fault, blame yourself." Whatever my view, though, I think your questions are very wise. Tonya | ||
| Chrishayden "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Chrishayden Post Number: 1693 Registered: 03-2004 Rating: N/A |
Roxie: It is only natural to want to toot your own horn. The readers of Time relate to Bono and the Gate's more than they do Mehki--how many of them know who he is anyway? Thats why we have Ebony, Jet, the Source, etc | ||
| Nels "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Nels Post Number: 183 Registered: 07-2005 Rating: N/A |
"Thats why we have Ebony, Jet, the Source, etc." This kind of reminds me of what Morgan Freeman just said while interviewing with Mike Wallace on 60 Minutes this past Sunday - (i.e., "Why do we need a black history month?"). "Ebony, Jet, the Source, etc." Some still ask, "Is that all there is?" | ||
| Chrishayden "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Chrishayden Post Number: 1696 Registered: 03-2004 Rating: N/A |
Nels: No there are dozens of other black publications. You pick up the Jewish Light--they don't have no gentiles as person of the year. You go to the Weekly Standard--they ain't touting no liberals. You go to Ms. Magazine, they got women. That's it. The way it is. This is America. Nobody gives a damn about nobody else but his or her own. Why do you think this site exists? Get with the program. | ||
| Nels "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Nels Post Number: 186 Registered: 07-2005 Rating: N/A |
Chris -- I'm not lost on the other publications you've mentioned, and why this site exists is quite obvious. | ||
| Rustang "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Rustang Post Number: 217 Registered: 04-2005 Rating: N/A |
In all fairness it should be pointed out that Bill Gates has reached into his own deeeeep pocket and pulled out about ten billion dollars to fight HIV, develop a malaria vaccine,etc..This not a country or goverment we are talking about.One guy just decided to throw about ten percent of the largest personal fortune ever amassed at alleviating the suffering of the poorest people in the world.The non-profit foundation he set up is, by all accounts, the most efficiently run charitable organization in the world.He has done and is doing more to relieve the suffering in third world countries than any one government, our own included.He has also hired a bunch of lobbyists to go to Washington for his foundation, the reasoning being that, since the politicians are so easily bought off, why not bribe them to do good?But, any way you care to slice it, ten billion dollars is an awful lot of money for any individual to throw at a cause.That's a mighty fine thing for anyone to do.It should come as no suprise that many people consider this to be an exceedingly generous thing to do. | ||
| Nels "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Nels Post Number: 194 Registered: 07-2005 Rating: N/A |
Rustang -- Point well made. | ||
| Rustang "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Rustang Post Number: 218 Registered: 04-2005 Rating: N/A |
There is a man here in Houston, a black man, that, every year at christmas, feeds a whole bunch of seriously under-priviliged children out of his own pocket.He feeds what appears to be an entire neighborhood.This year he took it up a notch and, along with feeding this poor neighborhood, he also gave this broke black family of Katrina evacuees a 3-bedroom house for christmas.A black man giving a black family a new house.I saw this on the local evening news yesterday.It isn't like acts like this go unreported just because they don't involve any white folks.I try not to let my perspective become so skewed that I don't even notice stories like that because I already know up front that you have to be white to get any coverage for acts of kindness. | ||
| Ntfs_encryption Regular Poster Username: Ntfs_encryption Post Number: 38 Registered: 10-2005 Rating: |
Roxie wrote: "Why do the ultra rich and famous whites get the attention? Why does everyone thry to keep us thinking that you have to be white to be able to save the world? I expected a little better from Time Magazine, but now I'm a little wiser if not a little more dissollusioned." Because as group, they put their money where their mouths are. Until black people decide to take control of their own media and sources of information, they should expect a spin from others who have agendas and aspirations that are different from theirs. Instead of always whining, belly aching, name calling and wallowing in the gutter of victimization, establish your own media infrastructure and take control of the information and images you want to disseminate and portray. | ||
| Serenasailor Newbie Poster Username: Serenasailor Post Number: 2 Registered: 01-2006 Rating: N/A |
This is another example of the racist white media machine at work. They want us black people and the world to believe that white people are the Saviours of the world. Fuck Bono, Bill Gates, and all those other white dudes who think that they are going to heaven because every year they go to the little " po colored" side of town and hand out old clothes and toys that the whites children don't want anymore because they puked and shit all over them. The truth is white people never have and never will give two shits about black people. (Also see the movie Knights of the South Bronx in which Ted Danson plays a school teacher who teached a group of black and latino children how to play chess. Resulting in them becoming one of the top ranking chess teams in the country. Did you know the in the real story it was a black man who did that?) | ||
| Cynique "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Cynique Post Number: 3223 Registered: 01-2004 Rating: N/A |
Blacks have always benefited from the philanthropy of rich whites. All of those grants and scholarships and prizes and stipends and fellowships come from white corporations or from foundations set up by wealthy white families with a social conscience. This is charity, yes, and also condescending, but financial aid is neither black nor white, it is beneficial. | ||
| Kola_boof "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Kola_boof Post Number: 1029 Registered: 02-2005 Rating: N/A |
As Somali novelists Nurudin Farah points out: it's time for us to stop accepting welfare and hand outs, no matter how good the intentions He was speaking to the people of Somalia in his book "GIFTS", but it applies as well to Black Americans. We (as black folk) have more than 60 nations on the earth---we number a BILLION people----and yet we have not banded together, as any sensible people would do, to pool our talent, knowledge and financial powers. Africa is bar none the richer in natural resources than most of the rest of the world put together. We have everything we need to form a Black SuperPower. We need to move more into this realm of thinking. | ||
| Renata "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Renata Post Number: 338 Registered: 08-2005 Rating: N/A |
That's what I'm talking 'bout, Kola. Now, how do we do that? Even more, how do we encourage our men to do that? Self hating black men aside, what do we do as women, and as a people in general, to promote black men who will help us in this quest? I'm not Muslim, but I must say that men in the NOI (here in Atlanta, at least) are for men who take care of his black family, and for men to be hardworking, not receive government aid, and to be over their own community. Now how do we get other men, regardless of their religion, to be as self-respecting? | ||
| Serenasailor Newbie Poster Username: Serenasailor Post Number: 12 Registered: 01-2006 Rating: N/A |
And Cynique, whites have alway benefitted from the free labor of blacks. So what is your point? I'm just saying tell an accurate story of what is going on. Also you must be married to a white man or like white men because you are always defending white people when in many cases they simply can't be defended. | ||
| Cynique "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Cynique Post Number: 3245 Registered: 01-2004 Rating: N/A |
What is your point, serenasailor? Whites have not always benefited from the free labor of blacks. Slavery ended in 1863. Get your facts straight. Lower income blacks have had to struggle along on menial wages and that is why they have had to depend on the philanthropy of wealthy whites to further their education. Can you ever deal with reality instead of emotion? | ||
| Renata "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Renata Post Number: 362 Registered: 08-2005 Rating: N/A |
Welfare? Hardly philanthropy. There were more black owned businesses and more self-respect among blacks before whites decided to give us enough money to live on from day to day, but not enough to compete in the real world against every one else who didn't receive such philanthropy. Slavery ended in 1863, but slave mentality didn't. Many blacks before integration furthered their education, thanks to Morehouse, Spelman, and other black colleges and due to the United Negro College Fund (some still do). But because so many people decided to take advantage of white "philanthropy", they and their families are still lower income. Keep in mind that such philanthropy as the government assists you with is SUDDENLY taken away if you get ANY job, regardless of the wages. My own mother lived on welfare when we were growing up, she got a job as a MINIMUM WAGE maid, and SUDDENLY, without any waiting period, no longer qualified for housing, food stamps, or medical care for her three children. What did she do? She quit her job. She couldn't afford all of that on what she was being paid. Now if instead they LOWERED the amount to be used in conjunction with what she was earning, it would have been enough to enable her to keep her job and take care of her children until she got a raise and no longer needed their help, or found another job. But instead, they apparently would rather just give her aid with a requirement being that she not try to get above NEEDING aid. That's hardly aid at all. And that's why so many black people today are wary of receiving such aid, because they know when you're on, there's no getting off of it. | ||
| Renata "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Renata Post Number: 363 Registered: 08-2005 Rating: N/A |
OR, in other words: "why do you have to work and afford to live in your own home, and send your kids to the school you want them to attend? Wouldn't it be better to not work, live in a free apartment (out of our own neighborhoods, and we can make you leave when we feel like it), and send your kids to the school in that area (which is the worst school in the state, you didn't think they would be going to the same schools our kids go to, did you)? Oh, by the way, you're not allowed to marry while we 'take care of you'. But we do encourage you to have more kids so that you can continue to receive it, because as soon as the youngest one turns 18, you all have to get out. What happens to you after that is your own damn business." Um, thanks, but no thanks. | ||
| Cynique "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Cynique Post Number: 3257 Registered: 01-2004 Rating: N/A |
Oh stop editorializing, Renata. So what else is new? I've heard your spiel before. I simply corrected a misstatement that serenasailor made. | ||
| Serenasailor Newbie Poster Username: Serenasailor Post Number: 23 Registered: 01-2006 Rating: N/A |
First off, Ignoramus. There are more white people on welfare than there are blacks. Secondly, Those rich whites would not be rich if it wasn't for our 250 years of free labor. You white ppl in blackface need to get your facts correct. You sound like David Duke or some other stupid white supremacist racist redneck who uses welfare as a tool to further there racism against African Americans. Keep in mind there are alot of hard-working black ppl out there who pay there taxes too. The media likes to portray these white men as gods who help save the colored ppl from there own destruction. When in essence alot of the problems facing these ppl are the problems the White man created. You house niggers need to get your story straight. | ||
| Serenasailor Newbie Poster Username: Serenasailor Post Number: 24 Registered: 01-2006 Rating: N/A |
Africa would not be in the situation it is in if it wasn't for colonialism. Don't forget there was slavery over there as well by the British,French,Portuguese, and Spaniards. Do you know how H.I.V/A.I.D.S got spread in Africa. It was through a group of British and French doctors who "mistakenly" thought that they were giving immunization for Polio. "Rolleyes" Yeah these white ppl should be giving back to Africa sense they are the ones that robbed it. | ||
| Renata "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Renata Post Number: 368 Registered: 08-2005 Rating: N/A |
There are more white people on welfare, but it doesn't affect their community as it does ours. They don't put white "ghettos" (if there are any) in the worst parts of town, with the worst schools. There are more hardworking black people now as a result of watching what it did to the black community and we're now REFUSING to accept welfare anymore. And what I'm doing is giving the reasons why black people shouldn't accept it at all, even the few (now) who do. Look around and see what's happening instead of just following statistics. | ||
| Cynique "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Cynique Post Number: 3260 Registered: 01-2004 Rating: N/A |
LMAO. What happened to serenasailor, the peacemaker? As a newbie to this board, you need to stop throwing your weight around. This is a forum for debate, and obviously we do not all hold the same views. So just quit getting all bent out of shape because everybody doesn't fall in line with your way of thinking. |
