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Innocencenonus
First Time Poster
Username: Innocencenonus
Post Number: 1
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, January 01, 2006 - 09:39 pm: | 
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Hey all,
This is gonna be kinda hefty so brace yourselves. There's so much I want to say, I don't even know where to begin...
Ok. I guess first things first. I'm a college student from UCSD at Thurgood Marshall college. We have a required coursed called Dimensions of Culture and first semester, the focus is on diversity [diversity of race, gender, class, sexuality, etc etc]. Well, during this class, I learned that the gap between the rich and the poor is getting ever wider, and the rich are continuing to get rich while the poor are continuing to get poorer.
We also learned from this class that education is what really makes or breaks an individual. If you have a great education, you really have a stab at the "America: Land of Opportunity" thing; however, if you lack the education/ resources, you're basically screwed.
Now, I went home for the holidays, ready to debate this with my friends and family. [I'm from GA but going to school in CA.] I mean, from what I read and from what I see, I think that's pretty true. I used to believe in an "America: Land of Opportunity" but not anymore.
Now, I feel like opportunity is given based on who you know in society and how high up you start on the social scale.
I was discussing that with my mother [she disagrees with me] and she told me that where you go in America IS based on hard work. She says that she, as a first generation immigrant from an Asian country, and my father and their families worked hard to get where they are. I responded that they were advantaged because they were given more opportunities than others [currently, we live in a predominately white and privileged neighborhood].
She responds that everyone is given the same opportunities.
Now, here's where it gets messy and where I want feedback.
We started debating the progress of minorities and she tells me that Asians get ahead because they consistently work hard and study hard. They can get ahead in just three generations.
But then I pointed out African-Americans in the US [those immigrated and even those in the US since the times of slavery [by the way, I'm not sure how "pc" i am with all of this. i apologize if i'm being rude]]. They've had lots of time but they still haven't been able to completely rise above the system.
I attributed this to structural racism. For example, schools that are predominaitely minorities tend to be poorer and unequal to that of privileged schools. ALSO, garbage dumps and sewage treatment plants are often located in areas of minorities rather than the privileged.
So, if you give minorities a poor environment and unequal education, of course they will not be on the same playing field as the privileged.
But my mom's argument is that the minorities stuck in the "slums" were there because of their own lack of self-motivation. She claims that Asians work hard and were able to leave slums but other minorities [ie poor African-Americans] don't try hard enough.
Now, I know this is a lot of generalizing, but stay with me [though feel free to correct me to be more PC. everyone deserves respect].
I can't believe that the minorites stuck in slums, minorities which just HAPPEN to be predominately Black and Hispanic, are there because of their own "lack of self-motivation." I think they work hard but because of the way our society is structured and the way minorites are portrayed, they are not given the same opportunities.
So, I guess what I'm asking is, "I'm sure Blacks work just as hard as us Yella folk to achieve. So why is it that Asians appear more privileged [you hear about all those asian doctors and scientists] and get more opportunities than African-American do? Why is it that Asians were able to get to the 'top of the heap' in three generations where as some African-Americans have been here for several generations and are still living in poverty?" It just doesn't make sense to me.
Also, another tidbit, I found Bush saying this about the Katrina disaster: Our third commitment is this: When communities are rebuilt, they must be even better and stronger than before the storm. Within the Gulf region are some of the most beautiful and historic places in America. As all of us saw on television, there's also some deep, persistent poverty in this region, as well. That poverty has roots in a history of racial discrimination, which cut off generations from the opportunity of America. We have a duty to confront this poverty with bold action. So let us restore all that we have cherished from yesterday, and let us rise above the legacy of inequality. When the streets are rebuilt, there should be many new businesses, including minority-owned businesses, along those streets. When the houses are rebuilt, more families should own, not rent, those houses. When the regional economy revives, local people should be prepared for the jobs being created.
Does that ring disturbing to anyone else?
And is it just me or is it very possible that there are other areas like New Orleans in this respect, where the privileged Whites live in one area and the unprivileged Blacks live in another?
I went to the Ninth Ward to do relief work, and just thinking about the racism there makes my blood boil. And I feel like this situation is tied deeply to what I'm trying to argue, but how do I prove that it's not the Black person's "lack of self-motivation" but really the structure of society? |
Kola_boof
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Kola_boof
Post Number: 1018
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, January 01, 2006 - 09:46 pm: |
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It's because in many quarters---Asians are "honorary" white people.
Therefore your theory is right.
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Renata
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Renata
Post Number: 326
Registered: 08-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, January 01, 2006 - 11:22 pm: |
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You must keep in mind also that, for black Americans, there is also something I call government subsidized laziness. For instance, where I live, AFRICAN owned businesses are thriving, seemingly more so than African AMERICAN owned.
People think I'm crazy, but I've always considered welfare to be the biggest bane on black people yet. Do you really think it's coincidence that black poor people were encouraged to get welfare just as America became integrated? They'll give us a little, to keep us from working for a lot. They gave us free apartments in the slums, to discourage us from working and being able to afford homes in more affluent neighborhoods.
On the other hand, Africans, Asians, Jamaicans come from places where laziness isn't subsidized by the government as freely as here. For them, working isn't such an alien concept.
Think about this the next time you hear those Nation of Islam men ranting and raving about people who receive welfare.
And don't even get me started on SUBSTANDARD SCHOOLS. I refuse to send my son to public schools. My nephew is RIGHT NOW in the 9th grade ... even though he reads at the level of a 3rd grader. But he goes to school everyday, so they pass him. (I'm so pissed at his parents for allowing it, but....)
Also, consider this, which I found interesting: For people (predominantly black) moving back to New Orleans, the government is giving away $140,000 MOBILE HOMES. One can easily buy a MUCH CHEAPER HOUSE for that price in the south. Why bother giving them something that's going to break down in 8 years, when for the SAME PRICE OR LESS, you can give them a permanent home?
I'm just rambling a lot of stuff that bothers me, I'm sorry. Hopefully, there was some information in there that's helpful to you. |
Renata
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Renata
Post Number: 327
Registered: 08-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, January 01, 2006 - 11:25 pm: |
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Also, something I've noticed in the South, Asians and Africans have a much bigger sense of community.
Asians will ONLY hire Asian help, Jamaicans will ONLY hire Island People (sorry if that's derogatory), Africans will hire black people, but usually if they don't know any AFRICANS who need the job.
(I know I generalize a lot.) |
Renata
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Renata
Post Number: 328
Registered: 08-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, January 01, 2006 - 11:31 pm: |
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I'm sorry for not mentioning this earlier, but I just thought of it.
Another thing that other societies have is the respect for the FATHER in the home.
Black people were (and for the most part are) the poorest in America. The government ENCOURAGED them to receive welfare to help with food, housing, etc.
Their FIRST requirement? NO MEN IN THE HOUSEHOLD. NO FATHERS, NO HUSBANDS, NO SONS OVER 18.
It's kind of hard to work for your family, when you're no longer part of it. |
Renata
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Renata
Post Number: 329
Registered: 08-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, January 01, 2006 - 11:41 pm: |
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I'll tell you something else, too. Call me crazy if you want, but I know for a fact that years ago the government would KNOW where black men worked, partied, lived, etc., and you could GO TO COURT and GET a child support order....but the law wouldn't uphold it. If the father didn't pay, so what.
Now there are more interracial marriages, and more WHITE WOMEN not receiving child support. NOW you can receive jail time for not paying child support. When only BLACK WOMEN needed child support, the courts told them to get over it and get on welfare.
Theory, my ass. |
Kola_boof
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Kola_boof
Post Number: 1019
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, January 02, 2006 - 01:33 am: |
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Well, I agree with you RENATA 100%
Of course, adding in all the psychological damage--it's even worse than that.
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Tonya
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 1171
Registered: 07-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, January 02, 2006 - 10:14 am: |
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I'm glad you mentioned psychological damage, Kola, because that's my thoery. If one look at poeple who suffer from depression, the first thing s/he'll notice is that depressed poeple are completely unmotivated to do anything, and in the more severe cases, MEDICALLY INCAPABLE of funtioning as non-depressed people do. S/he should also notice that it's not that these people don't want to achieve, most do, but some are clinically depressed to the point where they are UNABLE to stay motivated long enough to accoplish their goals. My theory is that black folk exhibit patterns of behavior that are strikingly similar to the symptoms & conducts of people who are diagnosed with severe clinical depression.
Tonya
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Yvettep
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 813
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, January 02, 2006 - 11:05 am: |
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Inno': I may have missed which field you are in, but are you familiar w/John Ogbu's writing about different types of minorities? I thnk the categories were something like "voluntary" vs "involuntary" vs "caste-like" minoroties.
ANyway his work (he is deceased now for several years but he left a large body of work) might shed some light on what you mention in your post.
But as an aside let me give my 2cents about bringing your college learnings to family gatherings during your school vacations: DON'T DO IT!
LOL--Seriously, tho, take it from someone who has been there. Your family is your family. They'll either change or not change--If they do change their views because of you and your education, they will do so in slight, subtle ways that may only be visible to you decades from now.
Have lotsa fun and relaxation on your school breaks. Enjoy home cooking. Bask in the attention and pride of your elders. Have faith that your family members--even those who did not go to college--have much knowledge to impart to you. Have faith too that the knowledge you're gaining at your university is worthwhile, too, but that you may have to "grow into it" like a pair of hand-me-down jeans.
Sorry to preach--It's been a while since I've been in the classroom teaching and I guess I miss the opportunity to interact with students!
Best of luck this coming semester! |
Yukio
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yukio
Post Number: 1128
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, January 02, 2006 - 11:57 am: |
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Interesting conversation. I think all of what has been said has merit. I would like to add a historical, economic, and political history to the mix.
It is not that this country does not respect “fatherhood,” it is that this country is determined but economic and political factors first and then it’ll reply on a respect of fatherhood to do its dirty work.
Welfare in the US is a product of new deal II. During the Great Depression, fathers and men had left their homes, sometimes searching for work and others because they decided to leave the situation. This was an international phenomenon, as you know. So that FDR gave welfare as a temporary concession because of both the domestic and international effects of the depression. Now, Hoover was reluctant to spend the money that FDR had for precisely the reason that Renata states about blacks. Hoover believed that welfare or “handouts” would make people lazy and dependent upon such. This stemmed from an ideology that hard work, thrift, and independence is what made people wealthy. Although these qualities had merit, it neither addressed racism nor that capitalism was responsible for the Great Depression.
Thus, the expectation was that once this country emerged out of the Great Depression, which was during World War II, women would no longer need welfare. The New Deal, as we know included many other initiatives, including social security, etc… All of sought to mend or fix capitalism. It was an economic response to the need of the country, and it was political in that it caused a great shift of people, especially blacks and the working class, to the Democratic Party.
Now, this seemed to work. But “every thing is not what it seems.” There were several factors at work here. At the moment when the economy seemed at its height, the country was looking jobs, and blacks, whites, and Mexican were moving throughout the country to respond to the boom, which had started during the Second World War. This is, as well we know, the same time that the civil rights movements began to take on its national effect. After FDR died Truman began to legally desegregation various government departments. This of course, had no real material effects on the larger black community and was again a political response to the Democratic Party’s new constituency.
Furthermore, deindustrialization was also occurring...folk were losing their jobs, plants were moving to areas where the land was cheaper...often to other countries. Thus, at the precise moment women black folk were moving at a greater pace than the first great migration (WWI), automation and capital flight had devastated the jobs market. And of course, racism reared its ugly head and whites received all the jobs. And since the Great Depression, blacks and white had been on welfare, though blacks always had a greater percentage. In the 50s but especially the 60s, the percentage was on an increase. At the same time, although deindustrialization was occurring throughout the country, it had yet to take on political significance, especially when some people, usually people who were already wealthy, were doing so well. This was an illusion, we now know.
This, finally, brings us to the question of respect for fatherhood. As I argue, it is not a question of respect or not for fatherhood but about economic initiatives and political objectives. Thus, in the late 1950s and 1960s, as seen by The Negro Family: The Case For National Action: Office of Policy Planning and Research, United States Department of Labor (1965) …otherwise known as the Moynihan Report, white and black leaders and politicians began to blame the preponderance of black women on welfare on black the structure of the black family. The report argued that a matriarchy, read dysfunctional, could not work in a patriarchal, read normal, standard, and functional, society. They called this the culture of poverty…what Renata calls “governmental laziness.”
They were, in other words, trying to argue that it was the black women and black family that did not respect the man and father NOT the United States. This culture of poverty thesis became, in the 1970s but especially the late 80s and early 90s, the underclass phenomena. This thesis was legitimated by a black sociologist, William Julius Wilson’s the Declining Significance of Race (1978), which argued that class changes and black behavior led to the underclass, created the new rising black middle class, and that economics not racism was the main factor. The political consequences was that the government could now claim itself non-racist, establish more government programs as Lyndon B. Johnson tried (The Great Society). This was a move to stress class factors not racism. The problem was that it did a poor jobs of stressing class, because it did not create more jobs, it created job training programs…it did address, in other words, deindustrialization and what we are now dealing with…outsourcing.
Now, that they could blame poverty on the structure of the black family and especially the black women, they were demanding that black men be more responsible, that black women let black men be men. Now, politically, this had to effects. One, if it was the Democratic party, it stressed economic liberalism without addressing racism and the lack of jobs (Consider Clinton’s welfare reform). Or if it was the Republicans, they used the Willie Horton case—black criminality—and Reagan used the welfare queen argument, that black women abused welfare when the society was economically afloat. Now, we know about deindustrialization and outsourcing. Now, we know that it wasn’t the structure of the black family, it was the intensification of racism because of the loss of jobs, and we especially know that the Reagan Era was not booming for most people. The moral of the story to me, racism has been a constant, but this country’s economic health has fluctuated, and at these times…when the country fluctuates is when it will create these programs. But it rarely addressed racism in its economic, political, social, and cultural guises, so that when it—this country—has to address these, it can claim that black people are responsible, and the new argument is that black people should not take the victim-hood position and do for themselves, like everyone else, especially the new immigrants.
Concerning the new immigrants, Asians and Africans as well as West Indians come from a majority society, so that they have certain skills that African Americans do not have. So, that people folk who are opening up businesses come from long histories of entrepreneurism…if we consider Nigerians and Senegalese, for example, they have been in urban areas during the transatlantic slave trade. They histories as entrepreneurs are old and legend. Neither African Americans nor white Americans can compete, if all is equal..resources, capital, etc.., with these two groups, I believe. Africans, and then Asians, are the oldest people in the world, so of course they have these skills. And coming froma majority society also helps in the US sense, because it masks the immigrants prior history. African Americans don't have certain skills because they were relegated to menial positions.
On the other hand, the majority of these folk--Africans, Asians, etc.. will not succeed, for that is not the nature of capitalism. And, let us not be crazy, Africans are black. And as the African population increases, especilly the unskilled and peasant, they along with the rest of Black folk—West Indiana and African Americana—will continue to catch hell. It will be interested to see if Africans will maintain continental ties as the population increases or if will be become a question of African cutlural and class differences. As these become factors, the solidarity that many Africans show may "fall apart." Finally, the majority of Africans who come here are poor and will remain so. Only a small percentage, because they are black, will be able to escape poverty in a real way. They will become naturalized, work in the civil service, and some will be build real wealth. The majority will be part of the working poor or the respectable working class. Those who arrive with entrepreneurial skills will do ok, most will not. African and Asian professionals—MBA, PHD, MD, JD,etc…will do better.
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Yukio
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yukio
Post Number: 1129
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, January 02, 2006 - 12:08 pm: |
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hmmm....my post is quite problematic though the substance of what i was trying to say is there...nevertheless, there are many, many typos, spellings, grammar...so xcuse me! |
Renata
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Renata
Post Number: 330
Registered: 08-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, January 02, 2006 - 03:15 pm: |
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That was interesting what you wrote, Yukio. I have noticed that most (90%) black engineers and doctors that I've met are African. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3215
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, January 02, 2006 - 03:43 pm: |
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Your analysis offers a lot of insight, Yukio, but doesn't offer much hope. I don't think The System and all of its bureacracy will ever right itself, and poverty and all of its negative ramifications will continue from generation to generation. Of course, the major problem is compounded by a root problem which calls for the behavior modification that involves changing the the mindset of single young women who have babies for all the wrong reasons and irresponsible young men who embrace the pimp/playa mentality. So the point is, is that until lifestyles change all the economic reforms and social programs in the world will not have any great effect on anything. |
Yukio
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yukio
Post Number: 1133
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, January 02, 2006 - 03:59 pm: |
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Cynique...yes. We need structural and behavioral changes.
Renata: Now, I'm not saying this doesn't mean that poor people, regardless of nation, will not become professionals, just that those who already come to this country with professional training or entrepreneurial skills are a step ahead. There are many folk who enter the stable middle class. I'm just saying that we need to consider a generational and on arrival educational attainment analysis.
But not all African Americans are products of plantation slavery. There are African Americans who are similar to professional and skilled Africans, Asians, etc...:
Some blacks had never been slaves or manumitted before the end of the civil war...throughtout the south, especially Charleston and New Orleans, there was a small but powerful middle class, who had property and education. This too is the case in the Northeast, where slavery ended in the early 19th century.
These are often those faired skinned, blue veined society, paper bag test, black folk...not all but many. These are folk with seveal generations of college graduates....the Martha Vineyard's crowd...not the new crowd. I mean folk who have vacationed there for 50 or so years or have relatives who have...get me?
I know one African engineer, but no doctors...I know more African economists and chemists. I know many African American engineers...may gaining their degrees from Morgan State in Baltimore. I also know many Africanists who are the first in their familites obtaining professional degrees and I also know African Americans, Africans, and West Indians from extremely privledged backgrounds.... |
Kola_boof
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Kola_boof
Post Number: 1021
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, January 02, 2006 - 05:25 pm: |
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Yukio is so sexy when he does these long winded speeches from THE PRACTICE.
I love it.
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Yukio
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yukio
Post Number: 1134
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, January 02, 2006 - 05:35 pm: |
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Kola, you are such an ass kisser...now uh... whats ya phone number? Lol! |
Kola_boof
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Kola_boof
Post Number: 1022
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, January 02, 2006 - 09:20 pm: |
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My phone number is
(sing along with me)
Beechwood-45789
And I'm flattered you think I'm an asskisser after so many people claiming I'm some "emasculating" bitch.
They'd be so shocked if they saw who the slave girl is at my house. Can't wait for them to read my memoirs.
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Serenasailor
First Time Poster
Username: Serenasailor
Post Number: 1
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 03, 2006 - 06:43 pm: |
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First of all, I am tired of one ethnic group being constantly compared to another ethnic group. Tell your ignorant ass mother that African Americans and Asians share a completly different history in this country. I live in SoCal and their are alot of Asian immigrants here. I have yet to meet one Asian immigrant that has come to this country with no money. Most Asian immigrants come to this country with millions of dollars. Did your ignorant ass mother know that over 80% of all government minority business contracts were handed over to Asians? That also explains why many Asians drive around in Mercedez Benzes and not speak a lick of English. Asians buy up all of the businesses. That is also why they can send their children to these fancy schools and colleges.
Asians share a completely different history in that they were not enslaved for 250 years. They did not suffer from a strict system of Apartied and Segregation the way African Americans have. Asians and other immigrants were not told they if they speak their language and practice their culture that they would be executed or sold off into slavery away from their families. Asians and other immigrants know there culture and their language that is how they are able to thrive unlike African Americans who don't know either. I am sick and tired of how these other immigrants come to this country and try to act like they are better than African Americans when if it wasn't for us they would not have a country to come to.
Also, I heard that many Asians have a strict agenda when they come to this country. First it is to make alot of money, get a good education, then marry up with whites. That explains why 22% of all Asian women in this country are married to Caucasion men. Tell your ignorant ass mother to go visit a black neighborhood sometime and talk to the people their instead of getting her false ideas from the racist white media. Also, why are their so many non-blacks on this website with their ignorant ideas? Why don't you guys go to your own websites and spout your stupid racist ideas thier?
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Yukio
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yukio
Post Number: 1137
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 03, 2006 - 08:22 pm: |
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Serenasailor:
Where I'm from, talkin about people's mothers is fighting words!
Indeed, the U.S. government has given contracts to certain groups based on its political needs. Cubans and Koreans are examples of this. And in general, immigrants come in two waves, the educated and professional and the poor. There are many reasons for this. Some include political persecution, lack of professional jobs, solicitation by the US government, U.S.'s reluctance to perform certain types of labor, and finally because U.S. citizens' labor is too expensive.
Also, Asians have been here since the nineteenth century. They are responsible for the laying and building the railroads on the west coast, and they toiled in the silver and cooper mines in the west. During the 1870s and 1880s, whites killed many Chinese people. White racism and violence and especially white labor unions were responsible for the passing of the Chinese Exclusion Act. The Japanese, however, had a different experience, since Rooselvelt tried to maintain affable ties with Japan after it demonstrated its military prowess when it defeated the Russians in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-5).
One should also consider that the Asian population has never been significant enough to threaten whites to a great degree. Also, during the twentieth century, Asians have, for the most part, toiled in industries that whites did not. Thus, they have not been economic competitors. Finally, one should also consider that though their experiences are significant different from African Americans, Asians still experienced governmental and civil societal racism. Again, not to the same degree and nor as long as long as African Americans.
Nevertheless, we can not forget the Japanese concentrations camps during World War II and that they received reparations, which could be a precedent for our attempts to obtain reparations.
We must be serious about the nature of U.S. racism, particularly as it pertains to African Americans. It was physical...our ancestors were murdered and worked to death. It was psychological...they tried to erase our history and cultural and psychic integrity, and it stripped us of the skills that many immigrants come here with...this is a fact!
The American Dream has been a myth for African Americans...we forget that until the 21st century, we were the largest group outside of white folk for four centuries and were used as the stepping stone for white folk. Even as European immigrants entered the US as Sicilians, German and Russian and polish Jews, as Irish, over time, they became white folk stepping on the backs of black people! This history is forgotten...and unfortunately, people are limited to their individual experiences as evidence of the legitimacy of the American Dream.
And the fact is, that there are too many cases of immigrants succeeding, too many instances of poor African Americans succeeding, and these success stories which in comparison to the failures, which are the majority of the cases, are used as examples of the validity of the American Dream.
We—humans—are creatures of what we see. When we work hard, and we see improvement, and after a generation we see a real difference and we see others who are lazy in front of us fail, and then we see others who are ahead, we believe that our efforts and work ethic is the difference. And, on a individual basis, it is. So that when immigrants come to this country, they have these same examples. They see ex-immigrants who have failed and succeeded. And generally, they live or at least maintain real social relationships with their own likeness. Thus, they neither know what African Americans’ contemporary experiences nor their past history. Also, since they have seen success and failures in their own native countries and they don’t necessarily want to criticize the country which has afforded them a significant change of life style, in terms of opportunity, consumerism, technological, governmental, and infrastructural differences, they are more likely to rely on the question of work ethic. It is visible and is logical and common sense. They see as we have, lazy black folk and successful black folk, and they make decisions…and it is an easy one!
They say:
Black people don’t work hard! So what they experienced racism! That was a long time ago! Slavery ended in the nineteenth century, we are in the twentieth, etc…
These are legitimate claims if viewed from an individualist perspective! Outside of a discussion of the differences and similarities between African Americans and immigrants, many African Americans will make the some comments!
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Renata
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Renata
Post Number: 334
Registered: 08-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 03, 2006 - 08:34 pm: |
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It wasn't as long ago as people like to pretend. Talk to black people over the age of 40 in the South, they can actually NAME relatives who were lynched or killed, or arrested for looking at a white woman, etc. In some cases, the person was younger than the person still living. Tell people who's own children had something happen to them that it was such a long time ago. This isn't something that happened SO LONG AGO, in SOMEONE ELSE'S lifetime. For many people, these are things that happened recently enough for them to remember it themselves, not to have people TELL them what happened. |
Yukio
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yukio
Post Number: 1138
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 03, 2006 - 09:27 pm: |
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Thats right, thats right!
Also, people limit racism to violence and jim crow signs, so that, again, these issues seems like the past. The various effects of institutional racism abound, particularly the preponderance of blacks and latinos in jail...what some call the prison industrial complex(pic). Interestingly, these same capitalists initiated pic are also replicated in Canada, Brasil, and Latin America. The U.S., of course, is used as the model.
At any rate, to my chagrin, it is difficult to digest and consider all of this when you see Bill Cosby, Oprah, and illiterate rappers and basketball players, as well as a poor black folk who are, indeed, laziness. The eye--what is immediately palpable--not what I have written is what is sufficient evidence to confirm and espouse Innocencenonus's mothers' allegations. This is, I believe, the folly of anecdotes...they are quite dramatic...are useful for emphasis, hyperbole, etc....but not addressing an entire history or the experiences of a people.
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Nels
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Nels
Post Number: 199
Registered: 07-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 04, 2006 - 03:44 am: |
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Yukio --
"hmmm....my post is quite problematic"
Say it ain't so... Just passin' time.
-\-
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Yukio
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yukio
Post Number: 1140
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 04, 2006 - 05:31 am: |
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Nels:
You're bored eh? |
Tonya
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 1177
Registered: 07-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 04, 2006 - 11:01 am: |
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***This isn't something that happened SO LONG AGO...***
Not only did it not happen long ago -- the very people who experienced these institutional rapes and lycnhings are the people who are now RAISING US!
Not long ago, I was flabbergasted when I found out that MY VERY OWN MOTHER picked cotton when she was a teenager. Yes, I said..
PICKED COTTON!!!
....I was like, "get the hell out of here!".... But it's true. I think it was called sharecropping back then, and black folk used to get paid (very little) for it. There are a lot of stories that my mother has told me about how it was when she grew up, which I find amazing. Her life is like a history book. But the only thing that I don't like about it is, she always tell me that I'm "spoiled" because I haven't experienced "hard times." I tell her I ain't trynna experience no "hard times,"
HELL NO!
...Cuz I know what kinda "hard times" she's talking about, shit!.... I'll just have ta stay spoiled!
Anyway, think about the psychological impact of having these kind of people raise us. And let's not forget that although racism doesn't come in the form of murders, rapes, and lynchings anymore, it's still very, very present.. it just changed form.. it's in media form now.
Tonya |
Serenasailor
Newbie Poster
Username: Serenasailor
Post Number: 7
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 04, 2006 - 05:39 pm: |
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I don't care what you say Yukio. Asians have never had a long history of racism and violence against them. Now I know the Chinese Exclusion Act. But it was nothing compared to the rigid system of Jim Crow/Apartied. Their is also alot of institutionalized racism against blacks in this country. |
Innocencenonus
Newbie Poster
Username: Innocencenonus
Post Number: 2
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 04, 2006 - 05:40 pm: |
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Hey Serena,
I just got back from a trip and was skimming through the board when your post caught my eye. lol- I guess for obvious reasons. I don't have a lot of time right now, but I'm gonna try and get a quick reply to you.
1. "I am tired of one ethnic group being constantly compared to another ethnic group."- I disagree. I think that when you compare ethnic groups and find incongruencies in how they're treated, you're able to find problems in society. We can learn from incongrueties.
2. "I have yet to meet one Asian immigrant that has come to this country with no money."- Well, that might just be SoCal. Most Asians, once they get to a country, will bring along family members to the same area. [Hence, why all Asians seem to know each other in one area.] BUT, there are a good number of Asians who don't come to America with much money. I dunno what "millions" of dollars you're talking about, but most of the Asians I've met don't have that kind of money, even now. I won't disagree that there are a number whose parents are rich and first generation, but my mother herself came to America with little to no money. In my mother's case, yes, she had to work hard and get above the system. Why else do you think she takes the view she does?
[And as for my mother and your term for her being "your ignorant ass mother," I'm gonna be understanding about that because if I were you, I know I'd be pretty pissed; however, I think it's fair that you could try and understand her position. It's not that she's ignorant but that she's been brainwashed and her own history with this country. I'm not excusing her racist standpoint just like I'm not excusing your terms for her, but I think it's fair if you try and understand her reasoning before judging her. After all, judgment on just action and not on thought process and history and situation- what type of judgment is that?
"Asians buy up all of the businesses. That is also why they can send their children to these fancy schools and colleges."- Some, yes. For others, it has been hard work. It's meant long hours behind a drive-through Chinese fast food counter and never seeing your kids and practically selling your soul to your job.
"Asians and other immigrants were not told they if they speak their language and practice their culture that they would be executed or sold off into slavery away from their families."- Instead, the Japanese were imprisoned in concentration camps during World War II and Muslims are targeted for terrorism. I'm not trying to make slavery or segregation any less of an issue; I'm trying to point out that racism has occured against every minority that has entered the US.
"I am sick and tired of how these other immigrants come to this country and try to act like they are better than African Americans when if it wasn't for us they would not have a country to come to."- I would attribute this to the media and years and years of brainwashing. When the Chinese first started coming to America in bulk to build railroads and send money back home, they were actually given the label the "model minority" because they would work hard for cheaper than almost everyone else and they wouldn't complain about it because they didn't want to lost the chance at the job.
"Also, I heard that many Asians have a strict agenda when they come to this country. First it is to make alot of money, get a good education, then marry up with whites."- Mostly correct. It's more like "make a lot of money, get a good education, then marry up with other Asians that share the same materialism and superficiality so you can breed other kids like that." [a mentality that I think is disgusting.]
"That explains why 22% of all Asian women in this country are married to Caucasion men."- Asian immigrant women or Asian-american women? I think you're getting dangerous in this area because first of all, 22% is NOT a large percentage. 77% of those women are probably married to other Asian men [most likely of their own ethnicity] while 1% are married to another minority. Do you want the honest truth, though? I've had it pounded into my head by my mother ever since 5th grade that she wanted me to marry an Asian man. Will I? Most likely not, unless he fits me, but with my personality, I think that's gonna be pretty hard. Most asians have the goal of marrying their own [or rather, marrying their kids off to their own] rather than marrying the "privileged race."
"Tell your ignorant ass mother to go visit a black neighborhood sometime and talk to the people their instead of getting her false ideas from the racist white media."- I did. APPARENTLY, working with black people at her various jobs makes her having "seen enough." I think she's just fooling herself, though. [The black woman she's currently working with is on welfare but drives a Benz and spends money left and right. I tried to tell my mother that she was NOT a staple of the race and not to judge the entire race on this one woman, but she says, "The other black people I've met are all the same as her." What a mess, huh?]
"Also, why are their so many non-blacks on this website with their ignorant ideas? Why don't you guys go to your own websites and spout your stupid racist ideas thier?"- ACTUALLY, I'm here to learn/ find the truth. If you want me to accept my MOTHER'S ideas and just roll over and play dead, sorry. I for one want to end racism and end structuralized hate against minorities. I'm trying to fight for an America where there is no African-American of Asian-American or European-American or Caucasion of HIspanic-American or whatever; I want an America that's an America for everyone to be proud of [Btw, that was paraphrased from a guy named Malik Rahim I met down in New Orleans. Really rad guy- his family had been living in New Orleans since slavery]. And I wouldn't call MY ideas ignorant; I'd call my mother's ideas ignorant. AND, I did go to a similar website and post my ideas there. I went to a website that was all for "America is the land of opportunity for EVERYONE!" and posted pretty much the same thing.
Also, I don't see why race should limit the people posting on this message board, especially if they're here to learn and prove wrong racist ideas. |
Renata
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Renata
Post Number: 347
Registered: 08-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 04, 2006 - 05:41 pm: |
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Also, keep in mind that the Chinese Exclusion Act was against those who CHOSE to come here. |
Yukio
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yukio
Post Number: 1141
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 04, 2006 - 06:21 pm: |
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Serenasailor:
My posts sought to provide an historical background. It also, to some degree, was organized in such a way that several conclusions could be drawn. Africans Americans and Asians have endured a different history; that racism is experienced differently for different groups; and that there differences are based on upon skills on arrival, choice of arrival, time of arrival, and economic and regional relatinoships with white folk.
The mention of racism of one group DOES NOT mean that the racism experienced by another is the SAME. It is not. Also, African Americans can not say that there experience is the SAME as Native Americans...it is similar, comparable, but not the same...
In this sense, people--this means you serenasailor-need to step up their analytical and conceptual tools, for I agreed with you more than I disagreed...I, however, lack the desire to disrespect folks moms...while I prefer not to cuss...talkin about folk moms, in my day, was equivalent to askin for an ass kickin!
Holla at cha boy!
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Kola_boof
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Kola_boof
Post Number: 1039
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 04, 2006 - 07:21 pm: |
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But what about my ass whoop'n Yukio?
You promised!
You said that after raquetball, you'd take the paddle and...
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Kola_boof
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Kola_boof
Post Number: 1040
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 04, 2006 - 07:22 pm: |
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Ooops. Kola Boof shouldn't be saying that kinda stuff.
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3228
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 04, 2006 - 07:36 pm: |
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Yukio, I forget, did you mention anything about how in the 1940s Japanese Americans were interred in concentration camps here in this country during World WarII because since we were at war with Japan, these citizens were regarded as possible dangerous subversives? And these people all went willingly without a peep. Years, later, America acknowledged this disgraceful behavior and paid the Japanese reparations. I don't know what the moral of this story is. |
Afroamerican
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Afroamerican
Post Number: 171
Registered: 08-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 04, 2006 - 08:00 pm: |
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I've heard this as well Yukio!
Asian immigrants normally come from nice middle or upper middle class families as most African immigrants do. What we see in America aren't "run in the mill" Asians or most of Asia the continent wouldn't be 3rd world it is (most of its homes lacking even running water).
As in any race/country, the poorer people lack the resources (money) to uproot their entire family and start over in another country.
Some Sengalese men I talk to often tell me that applying for visas were terribly expensive. Then after that you have to continue to pay for ID cards etc. You even have to PAY for the paper work to apply for citizenship after that. The hold process takes a long time and a ton of money. |
Kola_boof
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Kola_boof
Post Number: 1044
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 04, 2006 - 08:20 pm: |
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The "naturalization" process for Africans is horrendous.
My Black American father had to go to court to secure citizenship for me.
My parents, Marvin and Claudine Johnson, adopted me at around 6 or 8
---I didn't become a citizen until I was about 18!!!
But other foreigners are able to come here, legally, MUCH EASIER than Africans are.
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3231
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 04, 2006 - 11:13 pm: |
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Many, many of the Vietnamese and Koreans and Thailanders and Laotians who now live here were refugees known as "boat people" and they arrived in this country with little more than the shirts on their backs. I assume it is known that they are Asians. Today the second generation of these people are the ones who have achieved affluence. |
Kola_boof
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Kola_boof
Post Number: 1045
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 04, 2006 - 11:47 pm: |
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Immigration Services
By Elizabeth Grieco
Migration Police Institute
September 1, 2004
The African foreign-born population in the United States is small but growing. According to the US Census Bureau, there were approximately 364,000 African immigrants in 1990, and this population more than doubled to over 881,000 by 2000. The most recent estimates put the number of African foreign born at over 1 million. This Spotlight examines some of the key migration characteristics of the foreign born from Africa, using American Community Survey, census, and Department of Homeland Security data.
Click on the bullet points below for more information:
There are over 1 million African foreign born in the United States.
The African foreign born make up 3 percent of the total foreign-born population.
The largest group of African foreign born in the United States, by region of Africa, is made up of people from Western Africa.
There are over 100,000 foreign born from both Nigeria and Egypt.
Only one in every three African immigrants is a naturalized citizen.
Over half of all African immigrants are recent arrivals.
The African foreign born represented about 6 percent of all immigrants who obtained citizenship in 2002.
The African countries with the highest numbers of immigrants obtaining legal permanent residency in 2002 were Nigeria and Ethiopia.
Of the 69,000 refugee arrivals in 2001, 28 percent were from Africa.
Most of the African refugee arrivals in 2001 were from Sudan and Somalia.
____________________
KOLA said:
On my paperwork from UNICEF in London, England, they had me listed as being from "Egypt", because that is where I was when my grandmother turned me over, and she is an Egyptian citizen.
But I was born in Sudan, so the United States Court held my father up in red tape for YEAAAARS just over my nationality.
They do whatever they can to keep an African from gaining LEGITIMACY.
To show you how WONDERFUL my Black American parents are.....rather than doing it the easy way and having me naturalized as an "Egyptian-American"....
....they took into account how deeply I hated Egypt and wanted no part of that title....and they paid big money to fight in court all those years to have me recognized as SUDANESE.
My mother always said, "What people call you is important. If you don't like what people are calling you, then you shouldn't be called it."
Now THAT's love.
I am so blessed to be adopted by Black Americans, I can't help but cry and feel guilt about the ones left behind in SUDAN to suffer.
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Yukio
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yukio
Post Number: 1143
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 05, 2006 - 02:22 am: |
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Right...as I stated, not all immigrants are treated equally and they also come with different levels of education.
The fact is, many immigrants are poorer, usually those of African and indigenous indian ancestry, whether it be the stereotypical looking mexican or a black cuban confronting the racism of white cubans in miami.
Cynique:
Yes, I did mention the concentration camps. Not all accepted the concentrations camps...Also, the moral of the story for some of them was that they wanted to prove that there were true, patriotic Americans.
I would also add, that the darker asians--vietnamese, laotians, filipinos, etc... are not necessarily perceived as Asian by the Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans. Also, in many parts of the West Coast, the poor comprise blacks, chicanos, and the darker asians...There is a documentary about poor Laotians...if I can remember to find the title, I will share. And, as a matter of fact, the second generations was a poor as the first...
The difficulty, as I suggest, is to learn more, though learning is not, of course, the task of all of us. It is easier to speak of what we see rather than what we know... |
Anunaki3600
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Anunaki3600
Post Number: 129
Registered: 04-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 05, 2006 - 06:06 am: |
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Bank of America, based in California was started by a white family who were given money, farms, gold, etc by Japanese families who were being sent to concentration camps. These japanese families trusted them and expected to get back their properties when released. I was told this by the father of a Japanese guy with whom I worked and went to college. They lost everything to this conman who started Bank of America. I had a lot of Asian friends while I was in college (under-grad) and we worked in factories doing the night shifts. A lot of them were very poor and lived in small apartments with parents, brothers, sisters, etc. Most of them did well in college and are doing well now. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3233
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 05, 2006 - 01:33 pm: |
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Yukio, around here, the Korean and Vietnamese have a lock on the beauty supply and manicure shops, as well as the dollar stores and their owners can hardly speak English. But their second-generation children are all on their way to professional careers because their parents are doing so well with their enterprises. These people are not dark-skinned and the only way I can distinguish them from Japanese or Chinese is by their surnames. Incidentally, Koreans and Vietnamese are quick to tell you that their civilizations pre-dated Japanese ones and that Japan stole a lot of their culture.I agree that the Filipinos appear to be a little further down on the totem pole and seem to be concentrated in the nursing field. Also not all of the East Indians who, as we know, have cornered the 7-11 market are light-skinned. Many of them are have dark complexions. BTW, to me, the moral of the Japanese interrment episode during WWII was that these people with their "oriental inscrutabilty" stooped to conquer. They appeared meek but in the end, they got what former slaves have yet to receive:reparations. |
Kola_boof
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Kola_boof
Post Number: 1046
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 05, 2006 - 02:32 pm: |
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Cynique,
as Alice Walker will testify...and as so many books have essayed
...COLORISM is a "major" problem in KOREA.
Yukio is right.
The Koreans you see are the light ones. Nearly half that nation is populated by VERY DARK (brown to black) Koreans and they are greatly discriminated against in the Asian community because of it.
In Los Angeles, the KOREANS are intensely prejudiced against Black Americans.
Thai people, Mongolians, Cambodians---these are also very dark skinned Asians.
The Japanese are the WHITEST Asians and are the elite.
The Chinese are next, but have huge populations of "dark yellows" and are SQUAT skinny people with Thick Rind Features as a whole. They look more Ethnic than Japanese and are considered inferior because of it. Mongolia is in China.
Asians do not consider Filipinos to be a part of the Asian diaspora----they're mutt bastards with way too much White and Black blood. Many Filipinos don't even have the "eye fold".
Just as Ethiopia is a nation of nappyheaded blue black people....but only represented in the U.S. by the elite upper class Mixed Progeny who dominate Ethiopia by color caste (you noticed the stark difference in the people who were STARVING during the We Are the World Drive---or noticed the Track Medalists from Ethiopia who set the world record in Italy, but looked like Nigerians?), so it is with most of the Asians in this country.
Second Note:
East Indians and Koreans spend more on "SKIN BLEACHING CREAMS" than Blacks of the African diaspora do.
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Kola_boof
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Kola_boof
Post Number: 1047
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 05, 2006 - 02:36 pm: |
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Ethiopians in America
---restaurant owners in D.C.
This is what the general
population of Ethiopia really
looks like:
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3237
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 05, 2006 - 02:49 pm: |
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I didn't say colorism didn't exist in Korea. I meant to point out that the Asian community in the American midwest is so monolithic I have heard that, especially among the second generation ones, they actually have to ask each other what Asian country they are from because they are all yellow and all look alike. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3238
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 05, 2006 - 02:55 pm: |
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And why is it that colorism apparently exists across the board in all nationalities? Why does no one want to be dark? That is the question that continues to intrigue me. |
Kola_boof
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Kola_boof
Post Number: 1048
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 05, 2006 - 03:23 pm: |
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Cynique, as my Arab father taught me:
"White Supremacy is the world's only true religion."
Did you hear about the Asian country, the name escapes me, but it was in the news---where the President has now BANNED all "Western Media", because he says they have their own beautiful people and you must be a person of that country to be on t.v. or on a billboard now?
FORD car commercials, for instance, must now be shot with people of THAT country only.
There's your answer.
White folks created MEDIA. It did not exist before they began using "picture images" to condition the entire world with what is good and bad.
It used to be that if you looked like your family or the people of your specific town--you were considered attractive.
Christianity and the HOLY BIBLE also played a major role as it introduced the idea that---darkness is evil and light is good. It introduced the term..."fair haired" and "fair skinned"...it is written to emphasize the goodness of "light".
In SILENT FILM days, Cynique...Greta Garbo was a bigger star than Streisand or Michael Jackson were in their day.
BECAUSE...with silent film, a movie could play WORLD WIDE to any audience and no translations were necessary. SILENT FILM (ie. Birth of a Nation) was one of the biggest instruments in exporting the idea of "White Supremacy" theology.
The "Blond" as earth Goddess did not come into being until the early 1930's.
Before that, all of the paintings of "beautiful" women featured Brunette goddesses with thick, fleshy bodies...and even sometimes, as in GREECE and ITALY, "African" women were celebrated in portraits as being great beauties.
Most Americans liked PLUMP white women, of the looks of their local town, before Hollywood created a Template.
World wide---"white supremacy" has been imported. We are conditioned to "walk in the light"....try to be "fair skinned".....
Every story talks of "light" being good and "darkness" being bad.
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3239
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 05, 2006 - 04:01 pm: |
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I understand all of that. The question is why couldn't dark people who are in the majority counteract this??? Why did they allow this to happen? Why do they particpate in their own downfall? These are questions I once wouldn't have asked. But at this stage of my life, I don't give a damn. I search for truth. |
Renata
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Renata
Post Number: 356
Registered: 08-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 05, 2006 - 04:02 pm: |
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Kola, I think that was Thailand, where the people are QUITE dark skinned, about the same color as medium brown skinned blacks. But here, in the US, they end up marrying white people. |
Kola_boof
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Kola_boof
Post Number: 1049
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 05, 2006 - 04:20 pm: |
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The dark people, Cynique, are conditioned right along with everybody else.
Marita Golden tells the story of her son being born lightskinned...and her Nigerian mother-in-law being intensely happy about it, holding and cooing and kissing the newborn.
But a month later, as his color came in, this dark black Nigerian woman was heartbroken and put the baby down.
Dark People, of all races, are conditioned to see themselves as INFERIOR, connected to "evil", not beautiful, not deserving of happiness.
Their #1 dream is to aquire lightness--usually through a SON marrying a lighter girl. LATINO culture is very blatant about it--but not as blatant as Black culture outside Africa.
There have always been women LIKE ME who fight it with everything they have.
Now you can see why I'm so CRAZED and wild. It's because I'm fighting by myself and am aware of what is being done to me.
MOST people are not even conscious.
Dark Italian women that we would consider gorgeously beautiful---committ suicide because they look like Sophia Loren and not Brigitte Bardot. I read a book about the South Italian women and suicide. When I saw their photos, I was SHOCKED at how beautiful they were.
Thinking they're ugly, because ITALIAN MEN are notorious for their endless salavating over WHITE BLOND women with Nordic or Bolshevik features.
Ever noticed that almost every movie directed by an ITALIAN director features a Blond Non-Italian looking woman?? And these images permeate their societies on billboards, magazines.
They treat their own Italian beauties like "also rans".
And though Italian men LOOVE to "fuck" dark Black women--Naomi Campbell caused pandemonium when she visited and Vivica Fox is a top VIDEO RENTAL star in Italy....they rarely marry or acknowledge them outside illicit sexual fantasies.
But they will kill to marry the white blond.
The MOTHERS are the only ones who could bring a revolution against this, worldwide....but most females are usually weak, passive and do not buck the status quo.
Dark men of any group are "accepted" and "celebrated" no matter how dark they are....and they get to mate however they wish. So they don't CARE about the women's plight.
Few Dark skinned black women have the courage that TONYA or Kola Boof does. Most of them accept their "station" in life and let the society raise and condition their kids---and now the Light Skinned Black woman is deferring, as well, to the Latina and White woman.
It's tragic.
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Yukio
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yukio
Post Number: 1145
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 05, 2006 - 04:36 pm: |
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Updated:2005-12-07 16:52:29
The New African Americans: African and Caribbean Immigrants Are Changing Black Identity in the United States
By Carla Thompson, Special to AOL Black Voices
BV News
Courtesy of Lola Adigun
Lola Adigun (far left with dreadlocks), a Nigerian immigrant living in Atlanta, hangs out with a close knit group of Afro-Caribbeans and African Americans. They hold regular culture-sharing events like parties, dinners and game nights.
For almost their entire history in this country, black Americans have been debating the primacy of race as a building block for community and social relationships, often taking a cautionary approach about its importance: "Not everyone who is your color is your kind," they would warn their children, or repeating the popular Zora Neale Hurston maxim, "All of your skinfolk are not your kinfolk," they would remind themselves.
The wave of Carribbean immigration early in the last century, established a set of tensions between West Indians and native born black that persist to this day. But whatever differences existed seemed relatively minor in the face of a common history of slavery, racial segregation, and economic struggle. Several Caribbean immigrants and Caribbean Americans -- Marcus Garvey, Claude McKay, Harry Belafonte, Sidney Portier, Paule Marshall, George Padmore, etc. -- rose to high profiles in black America and remain icons today. Being black was defined by not being white. But the question of what it meant to be black was always a complicated one, and the neither passage of time, the end of segregation, nor the emergence of a robust black American middle-class has done much to lessen the complexity.
And now a new wave of immigration is deepening the complexity of the issues. There has been a 67 percent increase in the number of US residents, who identify themselves as Caribbean-born and a 167 percent increase in those who are "African-born," according to the most recent Census Bureau data. And despite the fact that foreign-born blacks remain a small segment of America's overall black population -- two percent for Africans and four percent for those born in the Caribbean -- their pattern of concentration make for disproportionately large impacts in certain places. Increasingly, black people born in the US are forced to confront black cultures very different from their own.
Take Nigerian-born Lola Adigun, who lives in the Atlanta, regarded by many as the capital of black progress in the American South. Whatever else she is. Adigun does not define herself as an American. In her mind, an American is someone born and raised in the U.S., with parents who themselves were born and raised here; someone, she says, who "can't be deported." But she also uses the term to differentiate herself culturally from native-born blacks: "We have holidays for the Yoruba God. We have naming ceremonies for children one week after they are born," says Adigun, a member of the Yoruba tribe and a 10-year Atlanta metro resident. "When people marry they have a 'bride prize,' like a dowry. We still celebrate these things in America."
Many of the new immigrants are settling in New York, Maryland and Florida but many are branching out to areas such as Minneapolis and Atlanta which, for example, has seen a 285 percent growth in its African-born population. African and Caribbean communities iving in America are more apt to use monikers to distinguish themselves from the larger black American community: One term in significant use by both groups is "American."
Adigun say she does her part to get the groups together by holding gatherings such as dinners, housewarming and game nights. She believes that as groups interact with one another they will begin to understand each other and have an appreciation for their differences as well as their similarities. "I like to learn about other cultures," says Adigun.
Adigun and two of her fellow Atlantans -- one black American and one of Jamaican heritage -- talked to Black Voices about some of the spoken and unspoken issues that color the relationship among people of these different bacgrounds.
I AM WHAT I CALL MYSELF
Self-idenfication is important to blacks brought to the United States by slavery. As the socio-political landscape has changed, so have the monikers from Negro, Colored, Black to African-American.
"African American" is the dressed up term for Black. I think it is a good attempt to attach our African heritage to our current state of living in America," says Odell Simmons, a 30-year-old black American artist. "But honestly, it does not mean that much to me. It is about the same term as black."
According to Michael Lloyd, 32, a mental health social worker, of Jamaican heritage "A lot of (Jamaicans) separate themselves from African-Americans when it is convenient, like when it comes to partying or socializing." Similarly, Simmons doesn't let cultural differences deter him from socializing with Caribbeans at events like parties and soccer games.
"I feel well-received at times. I think most of my friends assume that I am Caribbean because I hang out a lot with them," says Simmons. "I don’t really have a Northern or Southern accent and I talk real fast at time. Not to mention that I stay up on current reggae music and trends, plus I don’t fake a front. I tell them that I was a military brat born in Alaska and raised in Oklahoma and Alabama."
Simmons says that their celebrations aren't any different that those of Southern blacks. "Somebody's going to play the host. Someone is going to stay by the food. Somebody is going to drink up all the drinks. Just recently, I attended a house party with mostly West Indian people and they had a spades table set and I was on the domino table. Music was playing. It felt like I was at a house party in Montgomery."
Partying with other black ethnic groups may be acceptable on some level but many say marriage is another story entirely.
"Most parents don't want their child to marry Americans. So dating is very limited, says Adigun. "A lot of my peers only date Nigerians."
"When you settle down, you may want to have a Caribbean chick," says Lloyd. "When it comes down to the end, you don't want to settle down with a Yankee because too much teaching is involved. If you are Caribbean, you don't have to explain culture. (So) you can move beyond that part and deal with other real issues.
"I can remember growing up was that my mother telling my sister to never marry a Caribbean boy only because they were very passionate people, plus I think we had a cousin that married someone from the islands and they broke up. It wasn’t pretty," Simmons remembers.
Yet numerous African Americans have married blacks from the Caribbean and Africa. And there are increasing numbers of black Americans of mixed parentage. Philippe Wamba, a half-Congolese, half African-American writer who died in a car crash in Kenya in 2002, wrote extensively about his experiences as a bi-cultural African American in his memoir 'Kinship.' And J. Lorand Matory, a black American Anthropologist at Harvard who is married to a Nigerian woman, studies the points of synergy and disconnect extensively in his research. He says many times blacks from different backgrounds collaborate and identify with each other when it is advantageous to them, especially economically. But still, he argues, each group views the others with a fair amount of suspicion usually based on entrenched stereotypes and limited exposure. Immigrants, he says, depending on their outlook and experiences, chose to resist or embrace assimilation into the broader African-American category.
A subject rarely spoken about in mixed company is the stereotypes that each group holds of the other.
Say Simmons, for both groups, Caribbean and African, is that "they work all of the time," a stereotype popularized in the popular 'In Living Color' comedy skit 'Hey Mon.'
"With Africans, a stereotype is that they are all about the money. They all deal with bootleg movies and music," says Simmons.
On the Pulse
Then there are the persisting African-bad-hygiene stereotypes or African-American derisions for Africans like 'African booty scratcher' or 'Jungle Bunny' and 'Island Coconut Eater' for Caribbeans. The Yoruba 'Ikata,' which loosely translates to 'cotton picker' is a common derogation some Africans in urban areas reserve for African Americans.
According to Adigun and Lloyd among both Caribbean immigrants and Africans, stereotypes of black Americans are the same: They are lazy, don't take advantage of opportunity, don't take care of family, don't complete their education and are untrustworthy.
Adigun says that these beliefs are especially prevalent among the older generation of Africans. "But these ideas are waning, but slowly because it is passed down from generation to generation," says Adigun. "I don't like generalizations. You can't lump all Nigerians or Americans together."
Lloyd agrees. "Right now, you have a lot of West Indians that fit that stereotype," says Lloyd.
"I think it's unfortunate that most Caribbeans and Africans have a view that is shaped by the negative images put forth by U.S. media," says Simmons. "I feel there is no balance they only show negative and the negative images they show travels worldwide. So people in St. Thomas and Nigeria think we all behave like what they see on Rap City and MTV. Similarly shows like 'Tarzan' and numerous others have shaped the image of primitive Africans in the American imagination.
For many like Simmons, the bottom line is that no matter how we may view ourselves -- with all of our ethnic and cultural nuances -- it is the larger American society that will have a major role in determining our identity and ultimately our destiny.
"I feel that when you walk into an establishment not owned by a West Indian or African you are looked at as Black. The bank doesn't care that you are half-Indian and from Trinidad, you look black so you are black. Dark or light skin, full lips and hips and curly or wavy hair, you are looked at as black," says Simmons. "(We) are too concerned with distinctions -- Blacks have been like this for a while. We need to stop because there are so many other bigger issues that are facing us as black people."
Get Today's Top News Stories
About the Author
Carla Thompson is a New York City based freelance writer and author of the memoir, ‘Bearing Witness: Not So Crazy in Alabama’ which chronicles her adventures while living in Montgomery, Ala. For more information about Carla and the book visit www.cwritesabook.com
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Renata
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Renata
Post Number: 360
Registered: 08-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 05, 2006 - 05:03 pm: |
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That's what I LOVE about Atlanta!
In Mississippi and Alabama, Black Americans wouldn't be caught DEAD having AFrican and Carribbean friends.
But in ATLANTA, Black people of all nationalities try to love each other! Even if they don't get along, they really try to. You can go to a Jamaican restaurant, and none of the customers are Jamaican. Or go to the African fashions stores in the West End, and all of the customers are American, but they still know the difference between Ghanian and Nigerian fashions.
There is still just a little bit of separating from newer communities (Sudanese and Somali seem to separate themselves). And sadly, because they're both dark skinned AND shy, Sudanese people don't get to meet other people as much (people here are color struck, too).
Other Africans are more outgoing, and much more outspoken, so they interact with us more and aren't afraid to tell us where to go if they have to.
I don't know what the hell they're talking about intermarrying/dating. There's more of that between blacks/Africans/Carribeans, than there are of interracial couples...and there are quite a lot of interracial couples. I think it has to do with a lot of the people who marry Africans/Carribeans are so into their culture already, that you don't realize they're not the same until they tell you. There are women here married to African men who don't even own western clothing. And African women who don't want African men, but date/marry American and Carribean blacks instead.
But Sudanese are a relatively new group, so I'll give them some time. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3240
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 05, 2006 - 05:04 pm: |
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What you have described, Kola, is a situation where the strong dominate the weak. Is it any wonder the white race thinks it is superior? |
Kola_boof
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Kola_boof
Post Number: 1050
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 05, 2006 - 05:10 pm: |
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Nope, Cynique. No wonder at all.
But I've said that many times, too.
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Serenasailor
Newbie Poster
Username: Serenasailor
Post Number: 9
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 05, 2006 - 05:28 pm: |
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All I saying is that you can't compare one ethnic group to another. Racism against Asians, latinos, and other immigrant groups are different from the racism against African Americans. Racism against Asians, latinos, and other immigrants are based more on cultural differences. Whereas, racism against African Americans has always been and will always be rooted in skin color. So if you tell an Asian or Latino to "Americanized themselves" which means lose their accent,dress more American, and act like an American then the racism against them will subside. However, no matter how Americanized and African American will be. They will always look different, which means that they will always be perceived as different. Please understand that Asians came to this country by choice which means that they were allowed to hold on to their cultural heritage. African Americans where violently unrooted from our homeland, and told that if we tried to escape or practice our culture we would be killed. Our culture was suppressed, unlike yours. You people were freely allowed to practice your culture. And like I said before that any people that were allowed to practice their culture will thrive. Take for example the American Indians. Archeologist estimated that at one time before the white man came to this country their were an estimated 100 million Indians in this country. There are now in 2005 a little more than 2 million American Indians left in this counrty, and most of them live in dire poverty. That is what happens to a people when you take their culture and history away from them. They die off! Which is actually funny the same things that they did not the American Indians in this country they did not the African Americans. However, we thrived. The African American experiance is different in than any other people. Our story is one of slavery, racial oppression, poverty, and political self-determination. I also find it funny how you go to a college that was named after one of the most successful black men in U.S history. I guess this is a classic example of immigrants coming into our country that our ancestors built for the sweat and blood off of their backs, and stepping the necks of African Americans to get ahead and then turning around and spitting in our faces. Shame on Them!!Asian, Arabs, Jews, and Mestizos act like leeches on the black community. |
Yukio
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yukio
Post Number: 1147
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 06, 2006 - 01:57 pm: |
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Serenasailor,
I think your word choice is imprecise. You really mean to say that there differences are greater than there similarities, and that they are not the same.
These groups are, however, comparable. To compare does not require that the groups be the same. What they do share is comparable, in fact. A "minority" status and a racialized experience in the U.S. Also, you compare is necessary to see the differences. Seeing the differences, I think, are essential, in that, they point to the need to examine racism rather than use it as an explanation of everything. From you own example, you have compared and contrasted groups...this is all that I'm saying. |
Kola_boof
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Kola_boof
Post Number: 1058
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: 
Votes: 3 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 06, 2006 - 02:46 pm: |
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Yukio,
I refuse to be called a "person of color"---because I don't feel any solidarity with people who are red, yellow and tanned just because we're all minorities.
EVERYONE...worldwide...hates and despises Black people and black coloring.
The "barometer" is always----(a) are they willing to give birth to you and (b) their reaction to the darkest of us; the womb of us---the charcoal black woman.
If black people were SMART ENOUGH to use that barometer...then they would get a lot further without all the bullshit.
No one, no group of people on earth have been as institutionally hated, disallowed and erased as BLACK people have.
The whole race of MOORS was bred out of existence. The world slave trade existed for a combined 1500 years on both the East and West coast of the continent.
I am so SICK of these weak Black Americans trying to FORCE a phoney identification with "people of color"....embracing and pursuing these colored bigots who only want the WEALTHIEST from our community...to suck dry, get over and build their own nest. In the meantime, our own nest falls into ruin.
You don't have any BROWN BROTHERS (the latinos). We need to shut that shit up.
Because the truth is...when you're BLACK
you're on your own.
And we need to embrace each other, build and coalesce with each other...FOR BLACK PEOPLE...and stop begging for crumbs in everybody else's race.
This is the niggerism in blacks that I so frequently complain about. Their unwillingness to just be black and unite as black folk and shut everyone else OUT.
For when you shut these people out----they will fear you; and hence; they will give you what you want and YOU will be the one kissed up to.
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Blkamericanking
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Blkamericanking
Post Number: 133
Registered: 08-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 06, 2006 - 03:07 pm: |
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Kola, that was well said. I wish more blacks in this country would feel the same. I hate when blacks have the nerve to talk about "Our brown brothers and sisters, it's all BS!!! One day when we unite as black people, we will be respected and feared by everyone else. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3250
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 06, 2006 - 03:14 pm: |
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Oh woo-woo-woo. "People-of-color" is a very accurate description of non-white minorities in America, and that's why you hate it, Kola. You want to paint everybody with your brush. Why doesn't it register with you that if you had your finger on the pulse of those you want to "rescue" and convert, you would be making great progress. But you fall short because the best way to describe what you advocate is that every slave descendant who isn't dark-skinned should be disinherited, and care should be taken to make sure that white people don't steal the hip-hop culture they are so fascinated with. That's your platform. What a bust. You give no credit to the fact that black traits and black culture are not erased; they are all around you. They just don't conform to your self-devised criteria. |
Kola_boof
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Kola_boof
Post Number: 1059
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 06, 2006 - 03:19 pm: |
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Bullshit Cynique.
You're just an insecure old High yellow HAG who deep down doesn't want to be cast in the same category with any darkie nigras.
That's your problem, and everybody HERE knows it---so just sop that up in your doggy bowl with your long, drooling tongue.
The Arabs, Asians, Latinos, Indians are the "people of color". They are not sitting up in their communities giving a damn about black people or worrying about how they can help their black brothers and sisters.
And I give them credit for that.
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3251
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 06, 2006 - 03:31 pm: |
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Heh-heh, kola-nut. Ruffled your feathers did I? You sorry ol crow? Too bad the only way you can refute what I say is to resort to your same ol tired rountine. You big dork! If anybody is insecure it's you because all you can talk about is how "my daddy was a white Arab." Translated: "Lord, why couldn't my momma have been one, too, then I would be the happiest bitch on this planet." LMAO. You are such a pathetic phony. |
Tonya
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 1195
Registered: 07-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 06, 2006 - 03:34 pm: |
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*******You're just an insecure old High yellow HAG who deep down doesn't want to be cast in the same category with any darkie nigras.*******
That's so fucking true it's not even funny!
Tonya
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Kola_boof
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Kola_boof
Post Number: 1060
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 06, 2006 - 03:35 pm: |
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No, Cynique....that's YOUR fantasy, not mines.
And everybody knows that, too.
Don't be jealous just because I actually USE MY LIFE to make commentary on the world and its dilemnas.
There's nothing phony about me, and that's exactly what urks you.
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3252
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 06, 2006 - 03:38 pm: |
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Oh get a life, tonya. Maybe you and kola can hook up. I hear she goes both ways, and lord, knows you have to take what you can get, you sorry- assed loser. Wheeeeeeeeee. I luv it. |
Kola_boof
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Kola_boof
Post Number: 1061
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 06, 2006 - 03:38 pm: |
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And I'd rather be a Crow than a Red Rat.
Here, look at yourself!
WHY-N-CH
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Kola_boof
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Kola_boof
Post Number: 1062
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 06, 2006 - 03:41 pm: |
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No Cynique,
That's your two front teeth that go both ways.
Kola is strictly into MEN.
Everybody knows I love dick.
But then...your hearing's fucked up, too.
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3253
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 06, 2006 - 03:47 pm: |
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Why do you say "mines" instead of "mine", Kola, you dumb-assed ignoramous? And, puleeze, I have absolutely no reason in the world to have the same fantasy that you have. I am totally satisfied and secure with who I am. You have to convince yourself that anybody who doesn't take your nonsense laying down is insecure. I don't a worry in the world, babe, and you envy me. (If the IRS is spying on me, I take that last statement back. ROTFLOL.) |
Tonya
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 1196
Registered: 07-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 06, 2006 - 03:47 pm: |
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Kola, put her real picture up there -- she's ugly enough in real life. Seriously. |
Kola_boof
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Kola_boof
Post Number: 1064
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 06, 2006 - 03:49 pm: |
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OK. Her real picture:
BROO-Hagatha
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Kola_boof
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Kola_boof
Post Number: 1065
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 06, 2006 - 03:50 pm: |
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LMAO!!!!
Look at that RED bitch!
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3254
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 06, 2006 - 03:57 pm: |
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Jeeze, kola-nut, you don't have to be able to hear in order to read this board, you idiot. Your "insults" are losing their charm. None of them make sense. Anyhoo, maybe you can farm Tonya out to Thomas and you can watch them. EWE. |
Kola_boof
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Kola_boof
Post Number: 1066
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 06, 2006 - 03:58 pm: |
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Anyhoo, maybe you can farm Tonya out to Thomas and you can watch them.
Uh...
I would have never thought of that, Cynique.
But you did.
Uhn.
Keep talking, Mrs. Cravitz.
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Tonya
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 1197
Registered: 07-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 06, 2006 - 03:59 pm: |
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I don't know how she could've ever been married??? That man must've been dumb and blind cuz lord knows she doesn't have a nice personality. Poeple who look like her are s'ppose ta be nice, aren't they?
Tonya |
Kola_boof
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Kola_boof
Post Number: 1067
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 06, 2006 - 04:01 pm: |
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Oh, and
before you take pictures
like this one, Cynique:
WASH YOUR CRUNCH OUT FIRST!
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3255
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 06, 2006 - 04:02 pm: |
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It's funny that you keep saying that picture is me. If anybody cares, it really isn't. However, I dare you, kola, to print the picture of me on the back of my book if you haven't burned it. heh-heh. It may not be beautiful, but at least it's me in all of my golden-years glory! Ahhhh vanity. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3256
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 06, 2006 - 04:09 pm: |
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Don't be making me a widow, tonya. My husband is alive and well and me and him and viagra have a great time. Why doesn't it occur to you and kola that I'm nice to people who I like. My grandchildren loooove their nana. My kids, of course, think I'm nuts for wasting so much time on this board. And I am. See ya - but I wouldnt' wanna be ya. |
Kola_boof
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Kola_boof
Post Number: 1070
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 06, 2006 - 04:18 pm: |
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Not even VIAGRA
can lift a dick to the task of
wading through this
That's some nasty ass Crunch'n Munch,
OLD YELLER.
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3258
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 06, 2006 - 04:24 pm: |
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At least I have a husband and he's home with me. He ain't somewhere like Thomas is, bonin a younger more attractive girl, whose snatch ain't all cross-stitched like that chasm of yours. Now ol Cynique gotta go watch Jeopardy! I'm outta here for real. |
Kola_boof
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Kola_boof
Post Number: 1071
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 06, 2006 - 04:29 pm: |
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Touche
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Serenasailor
Newbie Poster
Username: Serenasailor
Post Number: 21
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 06, 2006 - 04:43 pm: |
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Kola Buf, I agree with you 1000%. You speak the truth my sister!! Preach On!! |
Serenasailor
Newbie Poster
Username: Serenasailor
Post Number: 22
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 06, 2006 - 04:58 pm: |
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First of all black people lets stop the insults. We are all black no matter what color we come in. As I said before Black is Black, And it is Beautiful. It is not our faults that some of us have the slave-masters features and some do not. Our women were savagely raped for 400 years. Is that a picture of you Cynique? If it is you are a beautiful women, who looks good for her age. That is what I love about black women. You don't age very much unlike other raises of women. |
Kola_boof
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Kola_boof
Post Number: 1073
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: 
Votes: 3 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 06, 2006 - 05:44 pm: |
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Serena, that is NOT how white features and high yellow people grew out of bounds in the black community.
Certainly, there was enormous rape and mixing during slavery times.
BUT AFTER SLAVERY ENDED.....Blacks spent the next 200 years actively discriminating against the very darkest females within the race (just like they do today). Deliberately marrying as "Light" as they could to achieve as much white blood or Indian blood as they could get.
This is well documented. And you don't know Cynique....a High Yellow woman who is from the BLUE VEIN "brown paper bag" way of thinking...and has no shame about it whatsoever.
Black African women may have been raped for 400 years......but they have been ACTIVELY discriminated against by Black Men and YELLOW women for the last 200 years and the majority of Black Americans are COLORSTRUCK, idealize LIGHT skin and white features and the average LightSKinned woman believes that she is superior to a Black woman just like a White woman does.
And NOT EVERYBODY with black blood...is black.
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3259
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 06, 2006 - 05:49 pm: |
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No, serenasailor, NONE of those pictures are of me. I understand your desire to play peacemaker but I'm not interested in your peace terms. The black american community is fragmented as evidenced by your totally agreeing with Kola and me totally disagreeing with her! I have no intention of backing off my stand in the interest of a fragile tenative truce, so we are left with no choice but to agree to disagree. |
Yukio
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yukio
Post Number: 1148
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 06, 2006 - 06:09 pm: |
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Kola: To use the term "people of color" is not to claim that I embrace all non-white people. I use the term both descriptively and to discribe my political allegiance.
I believe in and practice black unity and embrace people of color who share my political position, plain and simple. I am not, however, into excluding people from a political project. My position is embedded, as I stated elsewhere, in a long history of black internationalism and third worldists struggles and movements. My position, thus, is not different from many panAfricanists.
I believe in coalitions. I also believe in black unity, but that is not the same as being anti-coalition building.
Also, there are many black Cubans, Puerto Ricans, Panamians, Brasilians etc...who are darker than you and I and embrace their blackness.
The fact of the matter is, New World people of African descent can not, nor will not, accept your notion of blackness because (1) it is not embedded in their history and (2) people who will die for black people comprise the range of color! We have been through this before, so I'll leave it here.
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3261
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 06, 2006 - 06:58 pm: |
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Oh be quiet, kola. You dont know Cynique, either. But I know you, and I know how to push your buttons because all I have to do is throw a few well-chosen buzz words at you and you go out of your mind. What you say about me are lies that it makes you comfortable to believe. You are the most color-conscious person on this board but color ain't no big thing to me and it certainly does not determine whether or not I like or respect or accept a person. To me, knowledge is power and that's what I'm partial to. |
Serenasailor
Regular Poster
Username: Serenasailor
Post Number: 32
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 06, 2006 - 07:10 pm: |
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Actually Cynique I was not trying to be a peacemaker with you. I was simply trying to be an adult. Something you obviously know nothing about. |
Kola_boof
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Kola_boof
Post Number: 1076
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 06, 2006 - 07:25 pm: |
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Cynique,
I'm an extremely softspoken woman who bakes coconut cakes, chops vegetables and brines meant inbetween these posts...I am never "out of my mind" or even mildly upset.
My "words" sting because they're so precise---but I'm not upset or raising my voice.
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3262
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 06, 2006 - 07:41 pm: |
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Obviously, serenasailor, your idea of people being adult is that they go along with what you deem "acceptable". And you, kola, - never out of your mind? Gimme break. You with all of your profanity and bold-print rants and name-calling!! Whatver. Bear in mind that as long as you go on the attack, I will go on the defense. So be it. Now go back to cracking your coconuts. Jeeze. |
Schakspir
Regular Poster
Username: Schakspir
Post Number: 35
Registered: 12-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 06, 2006 - 08:52 pm: |
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"BUT AFTER SLAVERY ENDED.....Blacks spent the next 200 years actively discriminating against the very darkest females within the race (just like they do today). Deliberately marrying as "Light" as they could to achieve as much white blood or Indian blood as they could get.
This is well documented. And you don't know Cynique....a High Yellow woman who is from the BLUE VEIN "brown paper bag" way of thinking...and has no shame about it whatsoever.
Black African women may have been raped for 400 years......but they have been ACTIVELY discriminated against by Black Men and YELLOW women for the last 200 years and the majority of Black Americans are COLORSTRUCK, idealize LIGHT skin and white features and the average LightSKinned woman believes that she is superior to a Black woman just like a White woman does.
And NOT EVERYBODY with black blood...is black."
Is this woman mentally ill?
Every day she whines about the same old shit.
If she really was a militant in the Sudanese Liberation Army she'd gain access to some weapons and take out some of these crackers she whines about, but noooooo....
If she really did give a shit about the Sudanese she'd be shitting bricks about what the Egyptians did to them in Cairo a couple weeks ago, but noooooo....
And, of course, she keeps repeating herself: Arabs hate blacks, Asians hate blacks, Latinos hate blacks, etc., etc. My answer is this: SO WHAT? And another answer is: why? Most of these Asians, Latinos, etc. are totally brainwashed, honkified and messed up with white Western culture, so don't expect them to like us. THEY DON'T EVEN LIKE THEMSELVES! Iranians hate the Chinese who hate the Philipinos who hate the Mexicans who hate the Guatemalans who hate the Puerto Ricans who hate the Dominicans who hate us, and frankly, they can all suck cock! Americans are stupid assholes, anyway--what do you expect?
When somebody complains about a group of people as much as Kola does, you know she secretly yearns to be a part of them. If Kola woke up an Arab one day, she'd probably shit on herself with joy!
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Tonya
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 1199
Registered: 07-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 06, 2006 - 08:58 pm: |
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When I think about coalitions, unity, nation building, ect., one of the first things that comes to mind is, "what have you done for me lately?"
Tell me, Yukio.. in the history of our many, many, many struggles.. what have the poeple that you seemingly adore so much (namely: Hispanics & Asians, but also other minorities.. A.K.A, "people of color") done for black black folk lately?
And, more importantly,
why are black men so quick to assist other people, AND THEIR WOMEN, when they haven't even accomplished taking care of their own yet. Come on!!! When have we EVER been in a position to help someone else out? Ain't like we're a community of share holders -- the black man barely have a pot to piss in; and he damn sure ain't got no window ta throw it out. Yet he's hell-bent on feeding somebody else's kids when his ain't even full yet. WWWWWHY?
Tonya |
Kola_boof
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Kola_boof
Post Number: 1077
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 06, 2006 - 09:06 pm: |
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Shakspir,
You can whine all day long, but everybody here knows me---and have known me for years.
And the more you attack, the more you make people sympathize with me.
You should get a better strategy for deconstructing Kola.
Because as it stands now, you're no match for me.
You haven't got enough dick to sit on the edge of my bed, let alone put me in my place.
Bwoy.
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Renata
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Renata
Post Number: 370
Registered: 08-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 06, 2006 - 09:09 pm: |
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LOL... |
Schakspir
Regular Poster
Username: Schakspir
Post Number: 36
Registered: 12-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 06, 2006 - 10:00 pm: |
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"Shakspir,
You can whine all day long, but everybody here knows me---and have known me for years.
And the more you attack, the more you make people sympathize with me."
Please, you twat. I'm not the one on this board whining all the time. I've got better things to do with MY life than whine about some fucking Ayrabs.
And FYI, the main strategy the world is taking in dealing with Kola Boof is merely seeing her for what she truly is--an internet spoof. The REAL Kola Boof is on relief and eating out of the garbage can!! |
Kola_boof
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Kola_boof
Post Number: 1079
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 06, 2006 - 10:03 pm: |
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Oh please.
You can come better than that.
Eating out of the garbage can?
Why not at least have me sucking some dicks or something.
I mean, you are Black aren't you?
You play the worst dozens, negro, I swear.
Gimme something to cry about,nigga.
or shut the fugg up
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3265
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 06, 2006 - 10:56 pm: |
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Pay ol kola no mind, shakspir. You got her good. She's in denial and insulates herself against anything that besmirches her vaunted self-image. But she's easy to dismiss because she is a one-trick pony. LMAO. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3266
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 06, 2006 - 11:14 pm: |
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Wonder why tonya can't figure out that she is a detriment to "the cause" instead of an asset. Nothing constructive ever emanates from her vindictive brain. (And she has the nerve to talk about other people's personalities with her obnoxious self.)uh,uh,uh.
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3267
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 06, 2006 - 11:18 pm: |
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Yukio, I love how you keep these folks in check and the class you exhibit when you do so. You still my guy even if we do disagree from time to time. |
Kola_boof
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Kola_boof
Post Number: 1080
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 06, 2006 - 11:20 pm: |
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***yawn***
That was almost as boring
as this book you wrote, Cynique
I swear. Sometimes, waiting on
you to be interesting is like
watching paint dry.
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Kola_boof
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Kola_boof
Post Number: 1081
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 06, 2006 - 11:22 pm: |
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Oh, weeeee YUKIO
Cynique's in an ass-kissing mood tonight.
Isn't she hilarious?
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3268
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 06, 2006 - 11:25 pm: |
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It's hard to be interesting when you are the main person I talk about, kola-nut. You are the consummate bore. zzzzzzzzzzzzzz |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3269
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 06, 2006 - 11:28 pm: |
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Dat's right. I'm Yukio's number 2 ass-kisser, right after you, kola-nut. Smooooooches, Yukie. |
Kola_boof
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Kola_boof
Post Number: 1082
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 06, 2006 - 11:31 pm: |
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3270
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 06, 2006 - 11:33 pm: |
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BTW, Naima, if I hadn't shredded your book for cat litter, I would post its cover. It looked almost as bad as mine. |
Kola_boof
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Kola_boof
Post Number: 1083
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 06, 2006 - 11:38 pm: |
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Kola Boof's book covers:
***Sigh***
That was easy.
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3271
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 06, 2006 - 11:47 pm: |
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Hummmmm. With exception of the 2 featuring your mug, the covers are beautiful. T |
Kola_boof
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Kola_boof
Post Number: 1086
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 06, 2006 - 11:52 pm: |
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Well, your book was better than I said.
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Yukio
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yukio
Post Number: 1150
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, January 07, 2006 - 07:39 pm: |
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hmmm....I've always liked older, but young at heart, women, and now I have two cyberspace honies...lmao! |
Schakspir
Regular Poster
Username: Schakspir
Post Number: 44
Registered: 12-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, January 07, 2006 - 07:44 pm: |
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And don't forget to buy this guy's book when it comes out the 16th of this month:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0967195101/ref=pd_kar_1/002-8651930-6338437?n=2 83155 |
Yukio
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yukio
Post Number: 1151
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, January 07, 2006 - 07:52 pm: |
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Tell me, Yukio… in the history of our many, many, many struggles…what have the poeple that you seemingly adore so much (namely: Hispanics & Asians, but also other minorities.. A.K.A, "people of color") done for black black folk lately?
Tonya, I love people, firstly, regardless of their socalled race and nationality. What I don’t love is discrimination, and I don’t love racism—which is based on the notion that a race is superior and that it is the norm, and others are inferior, exotic, strange, etc…
Secondly, I don’t know what “people of color” have done lately. I actually, haven’t kept up with leftists politics as much as I used to, although I can identify people…individuals, who I know who are doing things for their community. I’m from Harlem and the South Bronx, and in both areas, Puerto Ricans and blacks have been neighbors for a long time, since the 1920s, so that there is a lot of intermarriage, etc…I my family is African American and Nuyorican. In New York, there was the black power party and the Young Lords, black and white puerto Ricans. The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture is named after a pan Africanists Arturo Schomburg, a Puerto Rican. This is my history, my family, how I understand the world… that J Lo. And others have Latinize popular culture in the mid 90s was my normal upbringing….so “latin” and “Hispanic” women or culture is not foreign and exotic…it is my family.
I answer you this way, because I don’t necessarily see “Hispanics” as outside of me and my culture, although both of my parents were African Americans. My sister’s husband, however, a black man is also Puerto Rican.
Thirdly, puerto Ricans, Cubans, and the Spanish caribbeans in general is if not majority people of clear phenotypical African descent, it is very close. And many of these people have a very clear black consciousness, as it is viewed on their particular island. The fact is, as is evident from our discussion, that there are many versions and understandings of blackness…the U.S. is one of many.
Thirdly, if Asians and Hispanics are racist then they are not my people, but neither are recognizably black people. I’m not caught up on “race,” because not all people who belong to the same “race” love their “race,” of course this is subjective, and secondly, there is no such thing as race…it is a question of racism against certain groups of people…I’m dark enough and my features are African enough so that I would never be considered mixed, regardless of where I go. But, I could be mistaken as Jamaica or Ghanaian or Nigerian….people from each of these nations have asked me such, and I have said, no…we share a geographical ancestry and blood, but we are different culturally, although of course, all of the Cultures of the Americas—US blacks and Afro-Caribbeans—emerged out of Africa. In this sense, even if we share culture that doesn’t mean that our political positions and how we understanding our station in life will be the same…besides being descendents of slaves and living on welfare Clarence Thomas and I have nothing in common. He is black, but what has he done for black people lately? I can’t answer, but a doubt if he is doing much. Bill Cosby is financially doing things for black people, but how he views poor black people, I’m not sure how many would embrace his brand of tough love.
----------------------------------------
And, more importantly,
why are black men so quick to assist other people, AND THEIR WOMEN, when they haven't even accomplished taking care of their own yet. Come on!!! When have we EVER been in a position to help someone else out? Ain't like we're a community of share holders -- the black man barely have a pot to piss in; and he damn sure ain't got no window ta throw it out. Yet he's hell-bent on feeding somebody else's kids when his ain't even full yet. WWWWWHY?
My post has nothing to so with being a man or woman. So, I couldn’t answer your question. I don’t know what context you’re talking about. Who are these other people? It seems, and seems is the key word, that you presume that to help someone is to be negligent of your own people. Similarly, you presume that helping someone else is not helping yourself.
I said that there should be coalitions. But before there is a coalition, there must be a group—association or organization that is concerned about it self, its own community interest. A group is based on issues not necessarily race. If it is a geographical community, then it would depend upon demographics. It can be all black, depending on the region, issue, etc…In Harlem’s past, it was African American, British Caribbean and Puerto Rican; now, there is a large African and Mexican and a spatter of middle class people of various “races” and ethnicities in Harlem, so that these groups along with the older three groups will have to learn how work together. At any rate, my point is, that there could be a group based on neighborhood that includes all of these groups…it would be different in Washington Heights, different in Prince Georges County, for example. But if it is all blacks, it would about issues that pertain to their issue. At any rate, if it is all black, and it is a question of “race,” then they would be organized for themselves first.
Secondly, if there was a legitimate reason to coalesce with Asians, for example, then it would be to help both groups out. For example, if there were poor Asians and Africans living in a neighborhood, and they wanted the streets repaved or they want better policing or that the privately owned social services employees are classist, nativists, and racist, it would make sense for the groups to come together…not because they love each other, but because they need changes in the community. It is a question of numbers, strength and resources. Why else would groups work together?
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Yukio
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yukio
Post Number: 1152
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, January 07, 2006 - 07:53 pm: |
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Schakspir
....is this your book? |
Schakspir
Regular Poster
Username: Schakspir
Post Number: 45
Registered: 12-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, January 07, 2006 - 07:58 pm: |
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Yes, it is. ;o) |
Yukio
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yukio
Post Number: 1153
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, January 07, 2006 - 10:40 pm: |
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i will read it then. Hmmm...i was very reluctant to ask, since when and if I publish my book of short stories, I may remain anonymous. |
Innocencenonus
Newbie Poster
Username: Innocencenonus
Post Number: 4
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, January 07, 2006 - 11:08 pm: |
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SERENASAILOR:
"All I saying is that you can't compare one ethnic group to another. Racism against Asians, latinos, and other immigrant groups are different from the racism against African Americans. Racism against Asians, latinos, and other immigrants are based more on cultural differences. Whereas, racism against African Americans has always been and will always be rooted in skin color. So if you tell an Asian or Latino to "Americanized themselves" which means lose their accent,dress more American, and act like an American then the racism against them will subside. However, no matter how Americanized and African American will be. They will always look different, which means that they will always be perceived as different."- Now I see what you mean and I agree; however, I think that African-americans are considered much more Americanized than Asians. [After all, when was the last time any popular culture field was dominated by Asians? Or even shared equally by them?] BUT, Blacks are discriminated against in society because [like you said] of their skin color and the lies that the media has tied on to that.
"I also find it funny how you go to a college that was named after one of the most successful black men in U.S history. I guess this is a classic example of immigrants coming into our country that our ancestors built for the sweat and blood off of their backs, and stepping the necks of African Americans to get ahead and then turning around and spitting in our faces."- Excuse me? Have you been READING my posts?
I'm trying to find a way to prove to my mother she's incorrect; I agree with many of the things you say. Yet you sit there and antagonize me and condescend me simply because I'm of a different race and my mother is racist while I am not. Is that incorrect? Why is it "funny" that I go to a college named after the esteemed Black Supreme Justice Thurgood Marshall who presided over the Brown v. Board of Education case among many others? Why is that funny? Do you think you hold him in a higher regard than I do because you're African-American and I'm Asian? Do you think you have any more admiration for Black History and Culture and Literature than I do because I'm not African-American?
True, Black History and Culture and Literature may not mean the same thing to me, but it doesn't mean I can't love it or respect it as much as you can, especially if you're basing it on race.
And I have in no way turned around and spit in your face. I have in no way disregarded you or disrespected you. In fact, you had a lot of my respect despite your ugly remarks about my mother because I RESPECTED what you had to say. And although you clearly didn't read through everything I wrote, I still ignored that and tried to look for things I could learn from you.
But why can't I get the same courtesy from you? Why is it that a first-generation Chinese-american girl cannot post in a predominately African-American forum to find out a way to explain the truth to her mother without being racially judged herself? Is that at all equal or right?
What is the price of equality?
I think it's funny that you sit there and become impassioned over the trials and injustices the African people have faced- the same trials and injustices I feel impassioned about [enough to start several fights with my mother in my TWO WEEKS at home] and have FELT impassioned about and continue to FIGHT AGAINST- yet you antagonize me because of my race and because of my mother.
SO, because of my race, I should NOT post here? I have no right to seek justice and truth and to show my mother what lies she has been told? Because of MY RACE? Because I AM an immigrant?
It's people like you, the ones who only believe in fighting for their own race rather than joining hands and fighting together, that make me sick. I may JUST be in college, but I know that unless people understand each other and overcome differences, truth cannot reveal itself.
I'm not trying to say the injustices Asians faced are the same as the Africans. I know they aren't- not even close. Asians by far get it easier. But you know what? Even if Afircan-americans do have more of a cause of be impassioned, does that mean we can't fight together for more rights and more equality?
Where is the America that's just America and not the White's or Black's or Yellow's America?
"Shame on Them!!Asian, Arabs, Jews, and Mestizos act like leeches on the black community."- And an African-american woman who haven't the maturity and understanding to help a woman of another minority because of the other woman's race is likewise a shame to the black community. Because she doesn't understand that the fight isn't "Blacks against everyone else": it's against the evil that is racism.
It's called solidarity. We work toward a better world for everyone, not just ourselves.
There are just so many things I want to say about this situation that just make me sick.
I mean, I've experienced racism before. I just never though I would from a woman fighting against it.
I believe the term is "hyprocrisy."
By the way, before you start going all "martyr" on me and saying how you have a right to discriminate against me because I'm Asian and because my mother's racist, let me give you a little history lesson about Thurgood Marshall college at UCSD.
Thurgood MArshall college was orginally Third college. Third college was founded by a group of minority students who wanted a college that would address the injustices of the modern world and would reveal the racism structured into our society. They FOUGHT for Third College to form, and they won. The name was changed several years later, likewise fought for.
BUT, the college was founded on priciples of solidarity and fighting injustice. There's a strong sense of community service and "debt to society" [meaning that because we were given chances and opportunity, we give back to the society that has given us those chances]. We are a college that seeks to reveal truth and cast away propaganda. We want the equality, freedom, justice, and truth that America believes in but isn't standing on. We want to fight for those values and to have those values be our country's true foundation- not the lies of the privileged.
And I am proud to be a Thurgood Marshall student because my college reflects that part of me. I believe in justice and equality for everyone NOW. I'm fighting for a better America where everyone really is on equal ground- where minorities of all races won't have to question why something happens because of their race.
My question is, "How're you fighting for it?" |
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