| Author |
Message |
    
Mrs_hart
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Mrs_hart
Post Number: 247
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: 
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, January 28, 2006 - 11:56 am: | 
|
There's a comfort level for white people when they deal with black people. Generally, this comfort level is born of illusion, inspires its own notions of white supremacy and then rationalizes it as necessary and proper. The late New York Senator Daniel Moyniham once said that whites have castrated blacks for so long that the blacks now do it to themselves. That castration occurs in many different forms.
I watched one example of this social castration first hand and up close in the nation's capitol during the heated federal courtroom arguments and disagreements in the black farmers' case. I was fascinated and disgusted by the openly patronizing, racist attitude of many white government functionaries toward my poor black farmer clients and worse the acquiescence in all this degrading racist nonsense by black government functionaries.
On the other hand, I have witnessed even blacks who try to be Republican and white sometimes yield to a deeply instinctive human impulse and fight back. They might pick the wrong targets, but they sometimes lash out in unexpected bitterness and hatred. I was startled by one example in another federal courthouse, this time in Montgomery. We had completed the arraignment of Jamil Abdullah Alamin alias H. Rap Brown and I stopped in the hallway to answer questions from Alvin Benn, a reporter. A black man dressed in Muslim garb stood to the side and listened intently.
Jamil was already under sentence of life without parole for murder in Georgia and that sentence was on appeal. I merely repeated to Benn what I had said in court, i.e. the government brought Jamil back to Montgomery only because officials view him as a dangerous black radical and wanted to tack a few more years on to his sentence in case he won his appeal in Georgia. The charge in Alabama of shooting at federal officers in Lowndes County, Alabama was hardly worth the trip from Georgia. Naturally, the government denied my claim and said Jamil was being tried in Alabama because, "If you shoot at one of ours, you will be prosecuted!"
After Benn left, the Muslim brother and several other blacks angrily called the government vile names and another Muslim brother said in an agitated voice said, <b>"You see, these damn government people view all people of color differently and as the enemy. Today is the first time in history that the government has tried to add some years on to some one already serving life without parole. They would only do that to a person of color. This white government has always hated black people. It is government for, by and of white people!" A dignified but very pregnant black woman said amen and called the black prosecutor assigned to the case, "a college educated Tom, a black misfit who sold his damn soul for a second class government job."
Among other negatives, racism distorts our belief system, and to varying degrees we are all held hostage by racism. A fundamental difference between blacks and whites is that most blacks would effectively address the problem of racism while many whites deny there is much of a problem. I hear white people in Selma self-righteously blame one of my attorney colleagues and activist Rose Sanders for racially segregated schools and damn near everything else that is wrong in this town. For the record, local schools were created segregated in the 1860s and remained so until I filed suit to integrate them more than a hundred years later in the 1970s
As long as Americans place a value on skin color, regardless of how ridiculous, white supremacy will reign if only in secret. Indeed, white supremacy has reigned all these centuries because it is American to the core, and it is inseparable from American history. As I look around today in 2006, it is almost as if the civil rights movement was a mistake. Many who battled at Ground Zero in Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia in the 1960s have now lived to witness the really reactionary mood of the country today and the government's unceasing efforts to undo much, if not all, we achieved with great sacrifice in race relations and civil rights.
The march backwards really began with George Wallace, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan.
http://www.counterpunch.org/chestnut01272006.html
|
Mrs_hart
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Mrs_hart
Post Number: 249
Registered: 01-2006
Rating:
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, January 28, 2006 - 12:41 pm: |
|
Black is a nigger, regardless of behavior, earnings, goals, clothing, skills, ethics, or skin color.
Finally, if continued use of the word lessened its damage then nigger would not hurt or cause pain now. Blacks, from slavery til today, have internalized many negative images that white society cultivated and broadcast about Black skin and Black people. This is mirrored in cycles of self-and same-race hatred. The use of the word nigger by Blacks reflects this hatred, even when the user is unaware of the psychological forces involved. Nigger is the ultimate expression of white racism and white superiority nomatter how it is pronounced. It is linguistic corruption, an attack on civility.
Nigger is one of the most notorious words in American culture. Some words carry more weight than others. But without trying to exaggerate, is genocide just another word? Pedophilia? Clearly, no and neither is nigger.
After a period of relative dormancy, the word nigger has been reborn in popular culture. It is hard-edged, streetwise, and it has crossed over into movies like Pulp Fiction (1994) and Jackie Brown (1997), where it became a symbol of "street authenticity" and hip-ness. Denzel Washington's character in Training Day (2001) uses nigger frequently and harshly. Richard Pryor long ago rejected the use of the word in his comedy act, but Chris Rock, Chris Tucker and other Black male comedy kings, use nigger regularly and not affectionately. Justin Driver, a social critic, makes a case that both Rock and Tucker are modern minstrels shucking, jiving, and grinning, in the tradition of Stepin Fetchit. White supremacists have found the Internet an indispensable tool for spreading their message of hate. An Internet search of nigger using Netscape or Alta Vista locates many anti-Black web pages: Niggers Must Die, Hang A Nigger For America, Nigger Joke Central, and many others. Web searchers find what most Blacks know from personal experience, that nigger is an expression of anti-Black hostility. Without question nigger is the most commonly used racist slur during hate crimes.
No American minority group has been caricatured as often, in as many ways, as Black people. These misrepresentations feature distorted physical descriptions and negative cultural and behavior stereotypes. The Coon caricature, for example, was a tall, skinny, loose-jointed, dark-skinned male, often bald, with oversized, ruby-red lips. His clothing was either ragged and dirty or extremely gaudy. His slow, exaggerated walk suggested laziness. He was a pauper, lacking ambition and the skills necessary for upward social mobility. He was a buffoon. When frightened, the Coon's eyes bulged and darted. His speech was slurred, halted, and stuffed with malapropisms. His piercing, high-pitched voice made whites laugh. The Coon caricature dehumanized Blacks, and served to justify social, economic, and political discrimination. Nigger may be viewed as an umbrella term, a way of saying that Blacks have the negative characteristics of the Coon, Buck, Tom, Mammy, Sambo, Picaninny, and other anti-Black caricatures.
Nigger, like the false impressions it incorporates and means, puts down Blacks, and rationalizes their abuse. The use of the word or its alternatives by Blacks has not lessened its hurt. This is not surprising in a racial hierarchy four centuries old, shaping the historical relationship between European Americans and African Americans. Anti-Black attitudes, motives, values, and behavior continue. Historically, Nigger more than any other word capture the personal hatred and institutionalized racism directed toward Blacks. It still does.
In 2003, the fight to correct the shameful availability of this word has had positive results. Recently Kweisi Mfume, President and CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), gave a speech at Virginia Tech. There everyone was informed that a landmark decision was made with the people at Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Recognizing their error, beginning with the next edition the word nigger will no longer be synonymous with African-Americans in their publication.
|
Renata
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Renata
Post Number: 570
Registered: 08-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, January 28, 2006 - 01:09 pm: |
|
Synonymous? Wow! |
Ntfs_encryption
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Ntfs_encryption
Post Number: 144
Registered: 10-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, January 28, 2006 - 03:46 pm: |
|
There ya have it! Couldn't have said it better. |
Mrs_hart
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Mrs_hart
Post Number: 253
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, January 28, 2006 - 11:24 pm: |
|
We seem to be the only members of this board who are not "KOLA CHARACTERS."
Perhaps I am wrong. But I appreciate your thoughtful and intellectual pieces, Ntfs_encryption. |
Roxie
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Roxie
Post Number: 614
Registered: 06-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, January 29, 2006 - 09:18 am: |
|
"BLACK SELF-CASTRATION OCCURS IN MANY DIFFERENT FORMS.....
.....take our subject 'Mrs. Hart',for example...." ^_^ |
Mrs_hart
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Mrs_hart
Post Number: 268
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, January 30, 2006 - 09:56 pm: |
|
"...that whites have castrated blacks for so long that the blacks now do it to themselves.
|
|
Email This Page