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kola@aalbc.com
Moderator
Username: Kola
Post Number: 240
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: 
Votes: 2 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, March 06, 2005 - 12:48 am: | 
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I was challenged by a white Professor and a White student (separately) at Cornell College in IOWA to explain my "comments" about BEAUTY in America.....and how these STANDARDS effect black women and the black community.
The WHITE STAFF and I were in total disagreement, but I think you will truly appreciate reading this.
Here is what I said by Speaker Phone--my statement was Pre-written:
_______________________
First of all...just like "race"--"beauty" is a social construct.
But COLOR is not a social construct.
Therefore, before you can understand "beauty"....you must understand "status" and the fact that STATUS...overrules beauty.
For instance, no matter how beautiful the lips are on Lauryn Hill and Angela Bassett....those lips gain STATUS once you put them on Angelina Jolie.
No matter how magnificent and superior Phyllis Yvonne Stickney's rear end is...a smaller version of her rear end is celebrated and gains STATUS once you attach it to Jennifer Lopez.
No matter how lovely the "tan" is on Jennifer Beales....that tan aquires STATUS once it appears on a white woman, and is especially valuable....because it's TEMPORARY on a white woman and does not pass into the womb to color the child.
The White-skinned beauty of JAPANESE...is given STATUS and considered superior...although the dark-skinned KOREAN and THAI are in actuality...far more beautiful and better built. Still, STATUS overrules Beauty.
In communities of Color---Whiteness alone often makes a woman beautiful, no matter how FAT she is, no matter how many teeth are missing or PLAIN she is---whiteness itself is beauty, because it carries the ultimate STATUS.
That's Number one.
Toni Morrison said that a "Paradise" or a "Utopia" can only be made into such by defining those things which are to be excluded--therefore making it a paradise.
Those in charge, with power and who rule are the architects deciding exactly what the paradise will be, which is why a very dark skinned black woman in EUROPE is considered beautiful, desirable and "visible" in media.....while the opposite is true in the United States, because of rigid STATUS perimeters that must adhere to the history and goals of the country.
As a pre-concept related to the outcome of this opinion, please note that "sexism" cannot dominate a society unless the majority of the citizens (both male and female) are...sexist. Both the father and the mother reinforce, through daily living, the tenets of "sexism", passing it into the children as "acculturation"---thereby making it a mode of thought that is normal, where as the idea of "equality" between sexes is given lip service but is not truly considered...normal. And that is because, most people on both sides are sexists. Not just men. The religions and churches and the Bible itself back up the sexist ideology of the society and confirms that the systematic structures of Patriarchy are not just correct---but are "natural".
Man is to be valued and his humanity is protected....Woman, while loved emotionally, is expendable and her humanity is recognized only as a subtext for his birth.
Everyone in the society, male and female, supports this ideology because it's "natural order."
Ditto for White Supremacist Ideology.
America is a nation that originally was supposed to be a "paradise/utopia" for White Europeans and was founded and built on slavery--an institution that was justified through very strict principles of White Supremacist Ideology. Black African slaves were brought here and deemed to be only 3/5ths of a human being.
A single drop of their blood has the power to compromise whiteness....and because of this, and because White men greatly enjoyed the freedom of being able to rape their property (just as any man would, including the Africans who do the same thing to slaves), the Whites realized that they would have to create a STANDARD by which Whiteness would always be PRO-CREATED and PROTECTED under the normative tenet of "purity". For more on that, just read the Dictionary Definition for Black (evil/ugly) and then read the Dictionary Definition for White (good/clean).
This is why, regardless of Sexism, "White Supremacy" benefits White Females just as much (in fact, more) than it benefits White Males.
And THE REASON...that White Supremacy benefits White Females more is because in order for a White Male to be born...he can only do it from a White Female.
People of color, however, can be born from any female (although, Authentic Black People going by the Pre-Colonial African standard, cannot be born from a Non-African tribe).
So this genetic fact forces the White Male to elevate the White Female as the World Standard for Pro-Creation.....because out of her comes....(A) White Males, (B) White Acculturation of all those who born from her, including coloreds.....which in turn, because of the genetic weakness of White Blood, sets her as the ultimate White Power STATUS symbol, being motherseed of the White Race and its only way into existence.
As well.....MARRIAGE and HAVING A MAN....is the highest STATUS for all races of females, for without it----the sexist societies worldwide consider them to be "deformed", and therefore, when a White woman marries out of her race---she is trading one STATUS for another STATUS.
On the other side of the Spectrum is The Black Man...who has been conquered and dominated by the White Man (both Arab and European) for so many centuries that the Black Man now has no memory of his worth or beauty---purely as himself. He has been acculturated by his masters and lives in a world where he has very, very little power---except over the Black Women (who create him) and the Black Children (who come from him).
Because COLOR is not a social construct----but race is---the Blacker the Black Man's Skin, the more Authentic he is.....then.....the less STATUS he has in a world that agrees that "Whiteness" is normal and superior and more HUMAN than all others.
**Beauty is the second social construct (after race)....it backs up White Supremacy (and this is worldwide, because in Arab Nations, those Orange Skinned Arabs are classified on their identification cards as "White"--the same for Japanese and Chinese and Brazilians and Argentinians and Mexicans. EVERY SOCIETY...has a White Elite at the top that calls itself "White").
If you go to a Black Nation in Africa...and especially visit Black Americans and West Indians...you will find that a "Mulatto" mixed Status Symbol has been created to sit at the TOP of those various people to represent their version of "Whiteness", "the Elite". While the Very darkest charcoal and Blue Black blacks----the Authentic blacks----are relegated to the bottom rung and "disallowed" as the Representative Face to be presented to the world, because the darker they are----the less STATUS they have and the less HUMAN they are considered.
This is the reason why Black Men will pass over a Beautiful Chocolate Skinned Black Woman to marry an Unattractive, Fat White Woman or an Ugly "High Yellow" Black Woman....because....the lighter the woman's skin is, the lighter the man's children will come out and the more STATUS he will aquire through the woman's Whiteness (regardless of what color she is). No matter how beautiful a very black skinned woman is---her beauty has no STATUS, because her beauty only creates more blackness.
Let's use this example:
Vivica Fox is considered a dark skinned woman in America. But if you put her next to Phyllis Yvonne Stickney, Vivica is suddenly 8 shades lighter and has less Africoid facial features. She, therefore, becomes the woman considered more desirable---because she has more STATUS. Or think of Cicely Tyson's beauty...then think of Diahann Carroll's beauty, and although I personally find Cicely's African beauty exquisite and superior....Americans will find the lighter brown skin and European features/hairstyles of Diahann Carroll to carry more "STATUS".
But then add Halle Berry, who is Bi-racial and much lighter than Diahann Carroll or Vivica Fox and has straight hair and facial features that are even less black.....and now she has more STATUS.
The Color Paradigm is leveled almost exclusively towards the WOMEN in the Black and Latino and Asian races----because the men rule the societies and the men do the choosing, contrary to the claims of Matriarchy.
And let me just say that if Matriarchy were really and truly a reality in Africa...then we would not have to get our vaginas infibulated just to be "marriagable". The real truth is that Black women do not rule Black Communities, for if they did, then the power of Colorism would be greatly---greatly reduced.
The men are usually exempt from the Colorist Caste System (notice that most Black Male Sex Symbols are chocolate and brown with nappy African hair and clearly Black Features---and both the very dark skinned Male and the light skinned Male are DESIRED and considered VALUABLE by the black community). On the other hand, the Dark Skinned Black Woman (the mother of the race and the authentic origin of the race) is almost never embraced as the standard of beauty or desirability and is the Least Valued image in the black community....and this is mainly because she is the one who makes black people BLACK in the first place. It is her womb, genes and especially--her acculturation----that TAKES AWAY the people's STATUS by making them "truly black".
Therefore, a Mulatto or Bi-racial mixed FEMALE is risen as the Standard of Beauty---because she makes the black people LESS BLACK and gives them STATUS by giving them lighter skin, watered down facial features and a straighter texture of hair. She helps to bring "whiteness" to the group....and for this, they appoint her over their real mother.
A White Woman can make them even Whiter....thereby delivering even more STATUS.
These same exact dynamics are used in Latin cultures, Asian cultures...worldwide. In other words, women are not seeking a "common goal"--that's bullshit. What women are trying to seek is the worldwide Hollywood Goal that they have internalized from more than a century of film, magazine and literary images. Please notice that before the advent of Silent Films....women were prized for being very round, full figured and brunette......and most people had very LOCAL ideals about what was beautiful, their conclusions reached by their own cultural tastes and traditions and mostly...by their desire to see their own looks reproduced in the offspring of their kind. Which, in actuality, is what real beauty might be.
But the Hollywood beauty standard is dictated now to the PLANET via MEDIA. Mass Media. Which has become the most powerful weapon that America has to charm, solicit and influence the rest of the world in its quest for dominance and survival.
White Supremacy is the root and stimulus of that weapon...because the vast majority of the world is colored, and therefore, the Whites must brainwash other races into valuiing and worshipping whiteness----so that they won't want to destroy it, but rather protect and covet it.
The One Drop Rule in America is proof of those fears...and as well....validity.
Increasingly, as more and more black men are now allowed to mate outside their race, there are many Black Women in America who are so dark skinned and African featured that they're not even considered women .....and I've met many, many extremely dark skinned African looking black women who have forced themselves to become lesbians---so that they can know love----and they are devastated by it, but NOBODY...and especially not Black People give a shit.
White and other races of Light Skinned Straight Haired women are well aware of these dynamics....and overwhelmingly support them....because this allows the low self-esteem in White and other races of Light Skinned women to be assauged and placated by the self-hatred of Black and other Dark races of men. It also gives these women a Surplus of available men, and because MARRIAGE and HAVING A MAN is the highest "STATUS" for a woman-----these women trade in their color status to attain the status of marriage/having a man. In general, White and other races of Light Skinned women do not care, truly, about black people---and especially don't care about black women---and delude themselves into noble, romanticized ideals of "true love", "the evil non-worthy black woman with attitude" and "opposites attracting". In other words, they support and protect the White Supremacist Beauty Aesthetic.....because it benefits and favors them.
In closing, let me just say:
Black Is Beautiful.
Kola Boof
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ABC News
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, March 06, 2005 - 10:17 am: |
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Wow. I never hurd it put quite that way
interesting
20/20 just did a news report on shade-ism in black community
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cynique
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, March 06, 2005 - 12:35 pm: |
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Here we go again, Kola Boof. You are using your own color scale here in attempting to make your points. Vivica Fox is not considered a dark-skinned woman in anybody's caste system; she happens to be the most envied of all colors: golden brown. And Halle Berry's hair is not naturally straight;its's curly. Or does she have caucasian features, check out her snub nose. All black men who bypass sisters don't end up with fat ugly white women. The athletes prefer the slim "beautiful" white groupies. All light-skinned women are not ugly, and all dark-skinned women are not beautiful. This is why your arguments always lose their effectiveness because your selective analogies are always "colored" by your desperate need to believe that the color of your skin is more beautiful than the color of anyone else's in the world. And, yet, you continue to salivate over the prospect of that blond, blue-eyed woman of privilege Hillary Clinton becoming President. tsk-tsk. I'm outta here. |
kola@aalbc.com
Moderator
Username: Kola
Post Number: 241
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, March 06, 2005 - 02:27 pm: |
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#1) I don't WANT Hilary Clinton to be elected President---but given a choice between her and BUSH, then YES, I would vote for Hilary.
~~my favorite President of all time is Bill Clinton.
#2) Like any good African mother, it is my hope that Black children will be born BLACK and that our people will find strength and unity within the nature of the place that strength and unity are found----WHOLENESS.
As a person who comes from two nations that were literally DESTROYED by "bastardization"--Egypt and Sudan---what other conclusion would I come to??
You think I wish to see the Black Americans perish into bastard-hood and be born looking like Arabs and Mexicans?
Black people are TOO GOOD for that.
This whole 32 flavors bullshit is overrated and it's the CORE part of our destruction, preventing us from having unity and from being a people.
You think I can't see HATE...no matter how they call it love?
#3) Many of the comments you made (ie. all light skinned women being ugly and Dark Ones all beautiful)....are things that I would NEVER SAY and DID NOT SAY. But overall, I respect your opinion about ME and your right to it.
#4) I certainly do believe that Black Skin is the most beautiful and healthy skin in the world, that's true. I don't think that Mulattos and Bi-racial people are as beautiful as Black people, that's also true. I would not choose to have the mulatto and bi-racial child when I can have my own beautiful Black children, that's true.
And it's only natural for a healthy person to want their own reflection, their own children, their own beauty. To want to BE what they are.
Because being a nigger is NOT NORMAL--I don't care how many liberal black people sing "We are the World" and try to tell me it is. It's NOT.
And I stand by my assessments.
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kola@aalbc.com
Moderator
Username: Kola
Post Number: 242
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, March 06, 2005 - 02:41 pm: |
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Also---you didn't read the part about Vivica Fox, Cicely Tyson and Halle Berry correctly.
I made the point that compared to Halle Berry...Vivica Fox is "dark skinned" and therefore has less STATUS on America's TotemPole of COLOR.....but then again.....Vivica Fox has more STATUS than INDIA ARIE who is much darker than Vivica with pure African features.
India Arie, in turn, has more STATUS....than blue black Alek Wek who....is pure Cushitic and generally considered "ugly" by most Black Americans of dating age.
NOTE that "dark" models like Alek Wek, Naomi Campbell and Iman....ALL....got their start in EUROPE and were made celebrities abroad FIRST, where they could rise to the top....then they were introduced to America.
Dark skinned models in America, however, rarely rise to the top. Beverly Johnson and Roshumba have both talked about that fact----extensively.
The fact that when we get a very dark skinned black beauty....they are usually FOREIGNERS.
Not home grown.
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cynique
Unregistered guest
Rating: 
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, March 06, 2005 - 03:08 pm: |
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Even that analogy is flawed because if skin color is essential to the plot of a movie or story and a point is trying to be made about color, then Viveca Fox may very well take precendent over Halle Berry in a role. You have concocted this little pat formula to advance your argument but it is not necessarily aligned with they way things play out. There are a lot of variables involved. And if indeed there is a pecking order, about who gets what, it does not only apply to black people. The powers-that-be who control the purse strings are influenced by ratings and box office receipts. That's why dark-skinned Sidney Portier portrayed light-skinned Thurgood Marshall in a movie about the chief justice. That's why darker-skinned Whoopie Goldberg portrayed lighter- skinned Merlie Evers the wife of Medgar Evers in a movie about his life, why dark-skinned Cicely Tyson portrayed light-skinned Marva Collins in a made for TV movie about this innovative Chicago school teacher who became nationally famous for her teaching techniques. |
kola@aalbc.com
Moderator
Username: Kola
Post Number: 243
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, March 06, 2005 - 03:35 pm: |
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CYNIQUE---I totally agree with your last post.
What I'm talking about is the SOCIAL STRUCTURE of the U.S. Color System. The Totem Pole of Color.
James Baldwin and Josephine Baker said the same things about America after having lived in France where White Europeans, to their astonishment, did not try to WHITEN their Black Images, but preferred them as black as possible. The French were still "racist"---but they did not fear the actual color or try to suppress or disguise it, and Lena Horne wrote that when she was in France, they refused to call her "black" and considered her more white than black---which is true.
In 1934 France--Josephine Baker was starring in "Princess TamTam", a role fit for Jean Harlowe....while America's Hattie McDaniel (and ALL dark skinned female actresses) toiled as a MAMMY-MAID...and in American films, ONLY a Mulatto or Mixed black woman was allowed to be depicted as "pretty". The emergence of Cicely Tyson in the 1960's was TRULY...revolutionary.
The system exists just as I described it, but as you noted above---MANY OF US do not honor it and there have been exceptions to the rule.
But we are regressing.
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cynique
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, March 06, 2005 - 04:11 pm: |
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Regressing is right. This is 2005. |
Yvette Perry
Regular Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 43
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, March 07, 2005 - 10:18 am: |
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Don't know if this is relevant to this topic or not, but it puts in writing what many of us have probably thought coming out of the movie theater: "Why Can't a Black Actress Play the Girlfriend?" http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7102437/site/newsweek/ |
kola@aalbc.com
Moderator
Username: Kola
Post Number: 250
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, March 07, 2005 - 11:32 am: |
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Yvette.....THANK YOU.
That article, in a small way, points out exactly what I was saying--although what I wrote took it a lot deeper. And I truly don't believe that most AA male actors (ie. Wesley Snipes) even want to be paired with AA actresses----just like the "old days" when they REQUESTED to be paired opposite the most high yellow, stringy-haired woman, because it was a symbol of STATUS.....in the black community.
When the movie "SHAFT" played in Ghana---the Ghanians threw Fanta bottles at the screen on the grounds that BOTH of Richard Roundtree's love interests were "WHITE" women----and if you ever sat in a theatre full of Ghanians (or Ethiopians for that matter), you would see WHY they thought the first woman he "fucked"......was "WHITE".
Black men mainly choose their mates to impress other black men. We all know that. And although they bitch and whine about "racism" and CLAIM to be so PROUD to be black......they almost never create images in our community whereby they affirm and CHOOSE the image of their own race----which is wholly exemplified in a black woman who LOOKS black.
And the reason is.....nobody wants to give birth to Richard Roundtree, Michael Jordan or even Denzel Washington nowadays.
We want our kids to have more STATUS--and as 20/20 pointed out last week---black American children now "WORRY" that they look like Africans, which one boy said was the worst thing you could call him.
Remember the "COTTON CLUB"? How 'bout the 1920's saying--"I don't haul no coal"---which was stated by men who mostly looked like pieces of Coal and whose mothers and sisters looked like Coal. It's a long, long tradition in the black Post-Colonial diaspora.
And the MASS MEDIA has become the new PLANTATION PORCH---killing off black images and re-casting them as "diluted", "weaker", "neutral".
Nothing has changed, and as usual---most OLDER black folks prefer denial and "looking the other way". We still refuse to honor our ancestors and to truly LOVE our children enough to demand for them their own aesthetic.
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Nyibol
Newbie Poster
Username: Africanqueen
Post Number: 13
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, March 07, 2005 - 12:19 pm: |
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I come from the darkest nation in skin color and in the world, the southern Sudanese. I never saw racism against one's skin color until I was out of there. Of course the reason I moved was because of war, but I didn't know the reason for it at the time since I was a child just following my mother and father. I never questioned why we moved, or the reasons for bombs and gun sounds afar. I just knew that it wasn't safe to be there and watched the adults scream and cry... it was all chaotic. It sickens me to death how people could hate so much just because I am black.
I would have never discovered this outraged hate against the color of my skin if it wasn't for the war. As far as America goes, I think that if the black community taught themselves and their children to love the color black, then maybe, just maybe they would not go out and make fun of an african dark child. I'm so sick of it, so sick...
Well at least I know am black and beautiful! Of course if I stayed in the village of Sudan without being force out of there I wouldn't have to say this because it wouldn't be necessary to identify color because skin color doesn't matter to me nor do I find white people or yellow people less than me. This is all evil; and it makes me more sick that my own black people once and continue to make fun of me. A black American kid once asked me as he joked and laughed with his friends, "Why are you black, is it because you mother is black?" And I answered him saying, "Well yes, of course. And so is the generation of my mother and I am proud!" As I answered this question I can still remember wanting to punch the kid for hating me, for hating me, me... and I wish I could say "himself" but if he feels I am not attractive then obviously he doesn't want to be black like me. While in Africa a group of kids at a Kenyan primary school always made fun of me; and I would have died if I talked back and try to defend myself. Those Kenyans don't play and they would burn me to death if I told them I was beautiful because I am black. It's hillarious and I feel deeply sorry for the ones in deny of themselves for being black! |
kola@aalbc.com
Moderator
Username: Kola
Post Number: 251
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, March 07, 2005 - 01:17 pm: |
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Nyibol, that just breaks my heart.
And while I don't consider White or Yellow people "inferior" to black people (and I do see them as beautiful and equal).....I DO hold them responsible for creating this FURNACE of "color-hatred" and I hold them liable for their constant perpetrating of Superiority and their digressing and complacency....which FEEDS and CONTINUES the color hierarchy and literally KILLS the joy and the lives of MILLIONS of Black People, specifically Black Women, worldwide.
I am not afraid to blame and scorn these Oppressors and I do not agree with the adage--"love thine enemies" or "turn the other cheek".
CORRECTION: "I prefer to love my enemy after they're dead or paralyzed and can't hurt me anymore."
I definitely blame people Michael Jackson for making it COOL to hate blackness and black skin---and for making it COOL to embrace "self-hatred" and to spread it to other generations under the guise---"it doesn't matter if you're black or white" and "no color lines".
What they REALLY mean is---"no more black people".
After all, we can't STOP our children from bleaching their skin until we locate the sources of why they feel they have to.
I wish to God that I had been there in KENYA with you or could be with you in the South U.S.A. to protect you from those BLACK ANIMALS that hate black people so much.
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cynique
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, March 07, 2005 - 01:23 pm: |
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The problem I continue to have with you ladies is that you are mired in your own self-interest, and you feel it's all right for you to glorify who you are, while always trying to invalidate people who are not the same color as you. You not only think that black is beautiful, but that black is infallible. You insist that you are right and everybody else is wrong. But who is to say whether one color should be favored over another? Things evolve and nature takes its course. It's not about color, it's about inexolerable change. Just like white supremists, you fool yourself into thinking that you can turn back the tide. But the human condition is a state of flux and nothing stays the same forever. The one constant is that "Life is not fair."
BTW, there a movie coming out with a story line wherein white Austin Kitchner falls in love with a black woman and has to go home to meet her parents and win the approval of her father played by Bernie Mack. Obviously this movie is shamelessly pandering to a broad audience. And it just reinforces the idea that the film business is about making money, not placating racial slights. |
cynique
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, March 07, 2005 - 01:33 pm: |
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Oops I did it again! I meant "Ashton Kutcher", not "Austin Kitchner". Anyway, the guy who is Demi Moore's boy toy! |
Yvette Perry
Regular Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 44
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, March 07, 2005 - 01:48 pm: |
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Hi, Cynique: The movie you are talking about is an attempt to update "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?" It will be interesting to see how they portray Kitchner's character. If you recall, in the original, Sidney Poitier's character was truly a "Super Negro"--world famous doctor, Rhodes scholar, finalist for the Nobel Peace prize. (I may have the details wrong, but you get the idea.) And still these liberal White folks were not sure if they wanted him marrying their daughter.
If in "Guess Who?" Kitchner plays just a regular old White guy--or even somewhat of a dufus, like many of the characters he plays--then I'd have to see that as support for Kola's point about Whiteness conferring status in and of itself. Blackness, on the other hand, needs "extra help."
I do agree with you about change being inevitible. But I think we make a mistake to think that change is some independent actor, with a will and force of its own. Development moves at its own pace (think seasons, growth from infancy to old age). But change occurs through the actions (and inactions) of masses of individuals and the institutions, laws, art, customs, etc those folks create (or don't create). |
cynique
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, March 07, 2005 - 04:13 pm: |
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From the previews I've seen, Yvette, this movie gives all indication of being a broad comedy with no "social messages." Ashton appears to be relegated to the buffoon role, and Bernie Mack serves as the nemesis that Ashton plays off of.
As for change, you are right about development. And trends seem to be developing as far the color issue is concerned, trends that have bi-racial overtones. Since the black presence in America is not monolithic, I don't know that AAs can come together and stem this tide, or if they even want to. But - there is also a trend in regard to how black culture is infiltrating white society. So, there's really no telling how it will all turn out.( A little voice inside of my head keeps mocking me, reminding me of the old adage about how the more things change, the more they become the same.) |
Anonymous
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, March 07, 2005 - 06:18 pm: |
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Guess Who's Coming to Dinner was about an interracial relationship/marriage and not about super-achieving but the hypocricy of bourgeois respectabity when filtered through race. It was released in 1967, the summer of love and aimed at middle America, not the youth culture, which didn't have that particular problem. Spencer Tracy was 67 years old at the time, Katherine Hepburn was 60. They don't represent white liberals but the old generation. The hippies had a saying, Don't trust anyone over 30. Sidney Poitier himself was 40 at the time. The Beauty Standard did not cross Stanley Kramer's mind. |
kola@aalbc.com
Moderator
Username: Kola
Post Number: 252
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, March 08, 2005 - 01:01 am: |
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Cynique---I agree with much of what you say.
But I DISAGREE with the notion that there is anything normal, natural or "developmental" AT ALL with the "bastardization" of the BLACK AMERICANS.
It is PLANNED, it is PROGRAMMED and it is DELIBERATE.
What I see....is an epidemic of Self-Hate and what I see...is that Black Americans are INDEED Monolithic when it comes to being "complacent" and "trusting" whiteness and not protecting that which is sacred to a human being--its own children and its own soul. It's identical to the Post Traumatic Colonialism Syndrome that blacks in Africa have. Your people have a "slave" mentality---many Africans have a "colonialist" mentality AND a "slave" mentality combined.
Change and development....that come about through self-destruction and MASS HYSTERIA.....
SHOULD BE CHALLENGED. And that's what we're doing.
Many Black Americans are connecting with Africans like us...and we are doing the same "think-tanking" that Harriett Tubman's groups and Sojourner Truth's groups did. We are figuring out what EXACTLY is wrong with our community thinking and what is wrong with the SYSTEM....and we are developing new ways of MOLDING and CREATING our children.
Millions of slaves, according to Harriett Tubman, could not be convinced that they were "slaves".....and most of them could not envision a different reality from slavery and inferiority.
But especially people from Africa---we KNOW that there is a better, superior reality for Black People and we know that EXTINCTION and Bastardization are not acceptable.
Like WHITES...most of us feel "entitlement" and most of us do not come from a legacy of slavery.
Therefore, both Africa and the Black Americans CAN and MUST BE saved from total obliteration, and especially, from bastardization.
And many "dark skinned" Black Americans are beginning to see exactly what is happening to them as a people.
They are being systematically ERADICATED by the same SYSTEM that brung them here 500 years ago and said that they were 3/5ths of a human being.
And, as always, as black culture infiltrates white society....White People are just as White as they ever were.
Only 13% of this country is black. You can't possibly expect a mere 44 million blacks to change the face of 206 million WHITES and 45 million LATINOS (the #1 Minority group in America after only being here 25 Years!!).
But over decades...blacks can be watered down and watered down and PHASED OUT.
Which is what happened to the American Indians.
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cynique
Unregistered guest
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, March 08, 2005 - 01:12 am: |
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Hummm. I don't necessarily agree with you, Anonymous. You are blurring the lines between the the stars and the roles they played in this movie. As I recall, the white parents portrayed in the movie by Hepburn and Tracy were liberals. That's why they were so conflicted by having to confront their own prejudices by practicing the tolerance that they preached. Sydney Potier was, indeed, a "super negro" in this 1960s picture, and back then his character inadvertantly ended up conveying a messsage that only a highly-accomplished black man should entertain the idea of marrying a well-to-do white woman. In fact, the whole concept of the movie kind of back-fired in the black community. |
cynique
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, March 08, 2005 - 01:18 am: |
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OK Kola Boof. My final comment is that you never seem to consider that when blacks and whites mix, whiteness is also lost. If the bi-racial trend continues, the "white" race will also disappear. |
kola@aalbc.com
Moderator
Username: Kola
Post Number: 253
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, March 08, 2005 - 01:26 am: |
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Only 13% of this country is black. You can't possibly expect a mere 44 million blacks to change the face of 206 million WHITES and 45 million LATINOS (the #1 Minority group in America after only being here 25 Years!!).
But over decades...blacks can be watered down and watered down and PHASED OUT.
Which is what happened to the American Indians.
The only thing being LOST are the White Trash lower rung.
The 206 million whites in America still look just like their ancestors did 500 years ago.
Black Americans, as a whole, don't look a damn like their ancestors.
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cynique
Unregistered guest
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, March 08, 2005 - 02:14 am: |
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Jeeze. If black people have a history of slavery and racism, then what is the incentive to try and preserve our legacy? If the black race becomes bleached out, then so the fuck what? Color will no longer be an issue. How bad can that be considering the negative effects color consciouness has on the black community. Since AAs don't know what their African heritage is, what is there to cherish about it? Your dream will never come into fruition in America because you have to change people's minds and the alternative you offer ain't that great; just a promise that guarantees more struggle and strife. |
kola@aalbc.com
Moderator
Username: Kola
Post Number: 255
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, March 08, 2005 - 04:00 am: |
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Cynique said;
If the black race becomes bleached out, then so the fuck what? Color will no longer be an issue.
I say:
That's the stupidest most UN-true statement I've ever read.
The white-looking CREOLES right here in the U.S. prove it's untrue.
And there are many nations--Sicily, Spain--the Arab nations, Iran and Latin America that prove that color problems INTENSIFY once colored people become bleached out.
The bleaching is NEVER ENOUGH, you see. Mixed race people are the most miserable, most identity-obsessed people on earth and COLORISM pervades their societies and poisons their lives far worse than any black or white society. Just go to Ghana (black)...then Morocco (mixed)...then Sweden (white)....and you will see that your CLAIM is
the OPPOSITE. It's worse in an all-mixed society, because they know they are "Extractions" (not whole) and they always suffer a special "emptiness"---while all the while pursuing the STATUS of getting "whiter".
Bastardization does not end colorism in the least. It only isolates and haunts mixed race people, and usually, they become resentful of their BLACK origins, hating blacks and coveting whiteness.
Arabs are the PERFECT example.
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Nyibol
Newbie Poster
Username: Africanqueen
Post Number: 14
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, March 08, 2005 - 08:16 am: |
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I agree with Kola. And as far as Cynique, my opinion is that you're just like the rest of the black race who are proud of being totally whiped out and mixed, bleached and totally ashamed that they came from Africa. You're like the black kids who jumped me in middle school when I tried to tell them that I was proud of being black. And when I told them they were just as black as me, after school they followed me home and tried to fight me. It was 5 of them and most of them were boys and I was only one girl. I couldn't do anything but keep quiet and power walk away. I tried to do everything I could to avoid them, including pretending to go call 911 when I saw a phone booth. But even so, the kids snutched my back pack off of me and threw it on the road. The only thing that saved me was a police car that passed by, and it didn't even stop, but these kids said, "oh shit, police!" and they ran. As they left, I walked home with fear, only couldn't wait to get to my room and cry on my pillows. When I saw your words, I could do nothing but this comparison. You're like the black Americans who continue to spit on Africa, hating the "African" features.
There is no way that the white community will disappear, I mean as Kola said, 13% of blacks isn't enough to erase a white community. It's only enough to make white people continue what they started. It's enough to continue the slave trade. There is not enough black people in America, it's not even you see... And well aside from mixings, there's also blacks bleaching and there is no resolution, very less chance of keeping a black race. The right thing to do is to try and remind these people of where they came from, and to at least be proud and STOP hating themselves! Are black people so angry at themselves and Africa that they must loose their identity?
Back in the day, black people were nothing but 3/5ths as Kola has already pointed out. There was no voting allowed; and well I think that if black people can vote, black people have a right to have a black president in America; but I don't think it's going to happen. If there's ever going to be a black president in America, I know that he or she will be mixed and white complected, not "African" looking; and that's where the white people are trying to get in my opinion. And now I see why most whites are voted for to become president is because there is not enough mixed race, a compatible mixed race the white man need. Halle Berry has been the "first" black woman to win Oscar but she is mixed. To white people, they found it was ok to do that since she is not completely black, but because she is mixed, to them she's automatically black. Why is it that she is black to the black people, why isn't she also white? I would like to see a black woman win Oscar, not 3/5th of a black woman.
I'm sure that when there is a Halle Berry running for president that white people will vote! It'll take a mixed black man (black and white) for the majority of the white race to vote for a black man running for president. I know that when there's enough black community (white community), Like Halle Berry, there will be more black female Oscar winners.
I've come to realize that when a child is mixed black and white, like Halle, she automatically becomes black, her status in America is black. There is no "mixed" status in a college Application. Halle is black in America and so are the rest of mixed babies. But in Africa, Halle would be considered white. Slowly, but surely the white people will finally justify the "right" of a black man to be voted for is when he has "whiteness" in him.
There might have been a first black woman to win Oscar to the black race in America; but in my opinion, there was only 3/5th of the black woman, and even less than that. Halle is NOT African American in my opinion, she's just another white barbie doll!.
I hate the words, "The first "black" man or woman to become______________" because I never hear them say this line about white people. Is slavery really over, is 3/5ths really over? And in my opinion, It is still there! I feel sorry for my man, MLK because no one seem to remember what he said, "that one day, whites and blacks will be equal". Instead, I only see white people continue there slave trade; and they murdered our only hope, my man MLK. Wow, I've started to see racism closely as I live.
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cynique
Unregistered guest
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, March 08, 2005 - 10:36 am: |
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Oh blah blah blah. Why don't you two don't get together and organize a movement and foist your superior African views on any recruits you are able to lure into joining it by telling them you know what's best for them because who you are and what you are are such shining examples of success and what you represent is so desireable. >yawn< I'm not impressed with all of your bellyaching. You are voices crying in the wilderness, begging everybody to "please love me and want to be like me." Black DNA will never disappear in American and the African American influence will forever be manifest in the dominate culture. If this ain't enough for you 2 color-obessessed foreigners, spouting a lot of crap about bastardization in a country that is the "great melting pot", then tough shit. Get outta Dodge.
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kola@aalbc.com
Moderator
Username: Kola
Post Number: 256
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, March 08, 2005 - 12:20 pm: |
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But we are much stronger women than you are, Cynique.
We don't ("get out of dodge").
Blacks should be "entitled" to much more in this country, because they built this country---and they should be who they are.
IF they won't accept you with "black" skin---they will NEVER accept you, no matter how mixed you become. You would be WISER to stay Black and rule as your true self.
Nobody respects a nigger. And to eventually be hated by your own motherseed (Africa) is a fate worse than hellfire.
Don't you realize that you're TOO GOOD for these Caucasoid Riff-raff in the first place? They're nothing but Europe's lowest trash who couldn't cut it in Europa.
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Slow Poke
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, March 08, 2005 - 01:03 pm: |
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To Cynique:
I guess it was just "change" that wiped the American Indians off the landscape of America?
It took about 450 years for them to be eliminated from North America. It was carefully planned and gradually carried out by white settlers.
No biggie.
So my question to you is this Cynique. If you have no problem with white aggression and white superiority and feel it is just part of life not being fair, then why do you have a problem with these women advocating black supremacy and black aggression? After all, you said yourself life ain't fair. So why not get in Kola's line when life isn't going to be fair anyway? Why defend white supremacy yet diss Kola and Nyboli's black nationalist stance?
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cynique
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, March 08, 2005 - 05:37 pm: |
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Excuse me but the last time I looked, a substantial population of Native Americans are still alive and kicking, collecting reparations from the America government, not to mention making money, running gambling Casinos.
And who's "defending" white aggression???? Stop manipulating my words to support your view. I happen not to be Afro-Centric. OK? I can't be bothered with a a lot of self-righteous people preaching to me about what Black people in America need to be doing, especially when it comes from the mouths of those who have no credentials or any roots in this country. If you have a problem with that, slow poke, then try and solve it, if it's not too fast for you. |
Slow Poke
Unregistered guest
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, March 08, 2005 - 06:11 pm: |
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LMAO
Cynique I'm on to you. I notice you like to come in and play Devil's Advocate with people on the various boards. You wait for somebody to get all worked up about their Wittle iSH-U and then you pounce with totally opposite vibe.
LMAO
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cynique
Unregistered guest
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, March 08, 2005 - 10:18 pm: |
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How about that. |
Medusa
Newbie Poster
Username: Medusa
Post Number: 10
Registered: 03-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, March 15, 2005 - 11:56 am: |
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Kola wrote:"Mixed race people are the most miserable, most identity-obsessed people on earth"
Sorry but I have to say this,that this includes you. You are not blue-black like you said your mother was,because why? you have a arab Egyptian father,a white man.And here you are breaking it down,the color wheel for all of us.
It is not just mixed people who have identity crisis though. All black people no matter how dark or light.Because point blank if your an African,your inferior in racist mentality,and an African is an African no matter how light. |
kola@aalbc.com
Moderator
Username: Kola
Post Number: 292
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: 
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, March 15, 2005 - 12:12 pm: |
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MEDUSA,
You're 100% right.
I spent MOST of my teenhood in Psychiatric Care.
My White Arab father--who became a heroin addict, because the Africans would not accept him as "black" (Arabs come from Africans), passed a lot of the pathology of OUR PEOPLE into me.
Girl, you are going to LOOOOOVE my autobiography when it comes out.
Also, you will be surprised that out of my 8 brothers and sisters (in adopted home)---the two that I bonded with most and remain the closest to are my brain surgeon brother who could pass for white....and my sister, SPRING, who is extremely light skinned.
So you make a good point. I see them as "black/black"--because they understand me.
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Anonymous
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, March 19, 2005 - 11:38 pm: |
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>> Just look at the images in the Music Videos that Black Men make. It's the COTTON CLUB all over again--as blacks use "colorism" the same way they conk and weave their hair. A nose job and a white wife is the new...CONK. >>
Here I agree with you about the images in the music videos, however, the Cotton Club was a Harlem club where the culturally-imposed white standard of beauty has a face: it was owned by the Chicago mob. THEY set the beauty standard by hiring the tall, tan, and terrific women in the chorus and they set the discriminatory whites-only (with occasional exceptions for celebrities) admission policy. They originally wanted to hire the "hot" black Chicago band of King Oliver (I don't remember why they didn't just order him to go to NY like the ganster Frankie Foster did a few years later to Louis Armstrong) but they settled instead on the "sweet" sound of Duke Ellington's band which did not look much different than the dancers; it had Creole band members like Barney Bigard, a Cuban, Juan Tizol, etc. By comparison, if you look at the photo of King Oliver's band on the cover of Juneteenth by Ralph Ellison, there's a saxophonist (whose name I've forgotten) who looks a lot like James Baldwin -- his facial features I mean -- plus they had a woman musician, Lil Hardin. But of course there was also colorism among men; Miles Davis explains in his autobiography that his first professional band -- Eddie Randle's Rhumboogie Orchestra -- would not hire one of the best saxophonists in St. Louis because he was too dark. Colorism has been a part of the history of jazz at least since 1894 with the enactment of Code 111 which invoked white supremacy and evicted Creoles from south of Canal Street and in order to make a living the Creole musicians had to go uptown and mix with black musicians. That's really how jazz came into being.
I wouldn't call Jean Toomer an octoroon, for the same reason I wouldn't call Alexandar Pushkin one. It's out of context, he was a borderline southerner from Washington, DC born in the 1890s. I agree with you about Cane though, and the next time I read Go Tell it On the Mountain I'll have to look for the character you mention.
All I'm saying is that since black men were refused admission to the Cotton Club and the beauty standard was set by the mobsters, then the music videos featuring black men with fair-skinned African American women but also white and Latina women, is not at all like the Cotton Club.
Plus, where did the "conk" come in? In the first professional band I ever played with (a long time ago, I know I'm old), the youngest member of the group straightened his hair (until, of course, the older guys in the band encouraged him to lose it). He was my roommate for half a year on 64th street and he was into Hendrix when most black people were not. He was a really sensitive kid and one of the best musicians in the group. What does that have to do with a white girl and a nose job?
Yes, Marita Golden mentions that there are always Latina, white, or light-skinned black women in videos by rappers of various hues and I understand what she is saying throughout the book about the feelings of rejection that young women internalize for being considered too dark and the lack of personal role models for these girls in particular. That's messed up and that's the terrible thing. Of course we know that black women are beautiful but it's no good unless they feel that way about themselves.
I respect what she's saying and what she says is happening among the young women she observes. However, politicized hair is part of the legacy of the '60s and I'm skeptical about it. The cultural standards for black hair (I can't believe I'm talking about this!) are not necessarily imposed by whites, but the assumption is that they often move toward making black people look "less African," and I believe Malcolm X even stated that it shows "they want to be white," which I don't agree with at all. Anyway, there in no standard for "black hair" for black women in all their variety and I believe she says that in the book.
About the book. I liked it and as a memoir or autobiography, I think it falls squarely within the African American narrative tradition of a Booker T. Washington (as do books as diverse as Along This Way by James Weldon Johnson and Black Lies, White Lies by Tony Brown); 'Up from' colorism, perhaps. She begins with her mother's advice, "don't play in the sun," which reflects an internalized belief in colorism, and ends with a section about Zora Neale Hurston, whose mother's advice was to "jump at the sun." The author is very achievement-oriented and there's a certain amount of self-mythologizing (her mother "anointed" her writing career, at age twelve her parents either "consecrated" or made a "temple" of her woman's body, etc) and self-promotion: a former Black Panther, writer, professor, and world traveller who's witnessed the effects of colorism in Africa and Cuba, shared an International Coffees moment with Jean Luc in Cherbourg, etc. (I thought that part was sweet). I think this would be a good book for mothers and daughters. I'm not her target audince, but I liked that she explained why she writes and who she writes for.
Interestingly, she says that women like Lena Horne and Halle Berry may be considered more beautiful than either white or black women (my words). Because they appeal to both white and black men I guess, although I've forgotten the reason she gives. She also wonders why Zora Neale Hurston chose to make her "alter ego" in TEWWG a light-skinned woman, rather than someone who looks like herself (however, she doesn't mention that Zora also made her character younger than herself and also reduced the 21-year age difference between herself and Percival Punter, so I don't see Janie as her "alter ego" any more than I see "the College" in Invisible Man as Tuskegee or "Ras the Exhorter" as Marcus Mosiah Garvey). Interesting quote about Zora though: "She took her rightful place on the train of life, rejecting the Jim Crow car." Also interesting that she uses the trope of invisibility (usually associated with Ralph Ellison) to describe her own purpose in writing: "I . . . write myself into being visible to a world dedicated to turning me into a phantom." This is interesting because you might say that Zora Neale Hurston writes her woman protagonist into visibility twice: both as an African American and as a woman.
She talks about the Grammy Awards the year that Alicia Keys and India.Arie were the nominees. I don't really listen to them, by the way (but why should I let that stop me now that I've gotten this far?). Both women are talented and neither can help the way they look, however, Alicia Keys took home all the awards and she implies that this might reflect the influence of white standards of beauty since the CD-buying public is largely white. I didn't really follow that argument, but I read it quickly. It may seem logical but it's not really. Maybe she's not aware that the Grammys are decided by bloc voters, for instance, Columbia tells all of its employees who to vote for (Columbia and Sony-related nominees, of course). So naturally, a recording artist not affiliated with a major corporation can't even get nominated and those with the most influential corporate machine end up winning the awards. But the main point is how do you separate talent from beauty in pop music, especially among women vocalists?
Likewise, the cultural standard of beauty is closer to Gwyneth Paltrow than Lauryn Hill, but many people would say that Gwyneth Paltrow is not exceptionally beautiful whereas Lauryn Hill is. That's called beauty racism (although they're both talented, which is another story). Take NFL reporters Pam Oliver and Melissa Stark. Same thing, they're both beautiful, however, they're both Barbie Dolls who only a tiny percentage of women look like. The cultural beauty gap between Beverly Johnson and Kathy Ireland has some meaning, but not to me.
The sad thing about this country is that you'll never have the same musical argument about Dianne Reeves and Diana Krall, Nneena Freelon, Cassandra Wilson, Karrin Alyson, Judy Niemack, or many others because this country doesn't appreciate its most talented (and beautiful in the case of these women) musicians and NEVER puts them on television. Although many jazz musicians are white, white America rejects the musical style because it is taken as a black form of music. |
kola@aalbc.com
Moderator
Username: Kola
Post Number: 315
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, March 20, 2005 - 10:36 am: |
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Anonymous---
I believe that because "colorism" only primarily devastates the lives of "black females" and is doled out by other blacks----therefore, it is not treated seriously or truly considered for its long term effects (as it slowly ERASES "authentic" black people from the society and replaces them with "neutral" looking mixed people--the ultimate defeat and murder of our ancestors).
I think your post PROVES how much people are in denial and try to WAVE IT AWAY as not very serious...not all that important. Especially Black Men.
If you are a girl who looks like ME or Lauryn Hill or India Arie or Alek Wek.......then it is the #1 MOST IMPORTANT thing in your life--because it literally RULES your life.
It determines your options for romance and procreation----it determines your Job Status if you try to seek employment with other Blacks----it determines your place in the family photos---it determines whether or not Black Men will nod hello to you on the street or ignore your presence IN MASS---it determines how you will be treated in the old folks home.
FOR US...it is still 1932.
And all the women that I just named are "representative" of the Mother-Womb of the Black Race. Through them...comes the Authentic Black Child...which is a very TELLING fact of the USEFULLNESS of colorism in maintaining White Supremacy.
I am an African and I TOTALLY disagree with your American claims that Black Women (and people) naturally come in a vast variety of mixtures and looks. That's Black American "Bullshit" that you tell yourself to feel like its normal to have a bunch of yellow kids who look nothing like your people.
Black people are rich in pigmentation and have African hair; nappy (which is pure Protein/it actually protects the brain by eating the sun)--blacks have either NEGRO features or NILOTIC features.
Any deviation you see on the continent is from thousands of years of Black Kings selling East African women and North African women to Arabs and Persian traders as dancing girls/slaves/concubines---and the eventual invasion and colonization by the Arab and Asiatic world in East and North Africa. Later, the White Europeans came and raped thousands more African women. Blacks in Africa are generally NOT united with the Mulattos, Berbers, Beja or mixed people---almost all of whom DO NOT consider themselves "black".
Swahili...is NOT an African language.
Colorism is the actual thing that causes "racism". It is all about COLOR. And for the Black Man's Mother--it remains that way.
And the White Man's Mother--Benefits from it, which is what allows him to stay in power.
Black People AFFIRM the White Man's Mother (even through women like Alicia Keys and Lena Horne--they AFFIRM whiteness)....and Kill their own.
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s
Newbie Poster
Username: Ancestry
Post Number: 18
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, March 20, 2005 - 11:09 am: |
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There is a tension, here, that really needs to stop if this is indeed a dialogue. Both Africans and African Americans generally have a tunnel vision, which often only allows them to see the world through their own cultural, national, gendered, classed, continental, tribal eyes and perspectives.
Now, this practice is normal, but limited...very limited. This route, which often flows to name calling and streams of arrogance, WILL NOT lead to cooperation, engagement, or even a real dialogue...
Nyibol and Kola:
Your comments about slaves being 3/5ths of a human is incorrect.
Here is a comment that a historian made about other historians:
A widely used textbook of American history, written by very distinguished historians, summarizes teh three-fifths clause of the US COnstitution(article 1, section 2) thus: 'For both direct taxes and representation, five blacks were to be counted as equivalent to three whites.' The three-fifths clause does not distinguish between blacks and whites--not even, using more polite terms, between black and white people. (Indeed, the term black and white--or, for that matter, Negro and Caucasian--do not appear anywhere in the COnstitution, as it is not surprising in a legal document in which slang of that kind would be hopelessly imprecise.) The three-fifths clause distinguishes between free Persons--who might be of European or African descent--and other Persons, a euphemism for slaves. The issue at stake was whether slaveowning citizens would hold an advantage over non-slaveowning citizens; more precisely, whether slaves would be counted in total population for the purpose of apportioning representation in Congress--an advantage for slaveholders in states with large numbers of slaves--and of assessing responsibility for direct taxes--a disadvantage. The Constitution anwered saying yes, but a ratio of three-fifths, rather than the five-fifths that slaveholders would have preferred for representation or the zero-fifths they would have preferred for taxation. When wellmeaning people affirm, for rhetorical effect, that the Constitution declared Afro-Americans to be only three-fifths human, they commit an error for which American historians themselves must accept the blame.
Sorry for the length.
Anonymous: Interesting comments. Your points about the logical that Alicia Keys won because of her complexion is also quite flawed. (1) black people, according to Nyibol and Kola, have internalized American white beauty standards. Consequently, black folk are also voting for the lighter alicia keys. (2) even if all blacks voted for India Arie, white people generally make up the majority of a companies work force (of course, it is very possible that some whites would vote for India Arie). |
kola@aalbc.com
Moderator
Username: Kola
Post Number: 316
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, March 20, 2005 - 11:30 am: |
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WHITE AMERICANS would be more likely to see the beauty in India Arie----before Black Americans.
And it is India Arie who looks very much like the millions of West African women that were brought to this country in chains. Yet she is "disallowed" to borrow Toni Morrison's word and Mariah Carey is "treasured", because she is white.
I have lived in America over 25 years, and I have seen it here. It's like a disease and it is NOT NATURAL for black people to so thoroughly hate their own reflection or to kill their own mother.
Lastly "S"---
being someone who was put up for adoption for having "dark skin" by an Egyptian grandmother trying to pass for Turkish-Arab, I find myself literally obsessed and haunted by this issue.
How many "black newborns" have to be DROWNED in Egypt's Nile River before we acknowledge that OUR RACE has a sickness?
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kola@aalbc.com
Moderator
Username: Kola
Post Number: 317
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, March 20, 2005 - 11:30 am: |
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How many "black newborns" have to be DROWNED in Egypt's Nile River before we acknowledge that OUR RACE has a sickness?
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kola@aalbc.com
Moderator
Username: Kola
Post Number: 318
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, March 20, 2005 - 11:45 am: |
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Anonymous,
I also "straighten" my hair, on rare occasions, because I was raised in an American family where we used Hot Combs and curlers to do our hair.
It would be a different story if black women wore their natural hair and "occasionally" straightened their hair...
...but the fact is......many black children in America have never seen their mother's REAL hair. It must be weaved, straightened or covered with a wig---or the community calls them "ugly", "mannish".
So Malcolm X was right.
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Phil Henderson
Newbie Poster
Username: Plewis
Post Number: 2
Registered: 09-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, April 08, 2005 - 02:01 pm: |
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Anonymous, what you wrote concerning Duke Ellington, the Cotton Club and Joe "King" Oliver was pure, unadulterated BULLSHIT. The band that you see on the cover of "Juneteenth" is Oliver's 1921 Frisco band--a far cry, indeed, from his 1927 band, which was the DIXIE SYNCOPATORS(have you really heard their records???)--and which featured, of all people, Albany "Barney" Bigard(on tenor sax). Bigard was a CREOLE fron New Orleans, NOT Cuban. There were even more light-skinned members in Oliver's 1927 band than in Duke's, which had the extremely black JAMES "BUBBER" MILEY, JOE "TRICKY SAM" NANTON and HARRY CARNEY as three of his feature soloists. More importantly, Oliver was initially offered the Cotton Club gig, but turned it down because he felt the pay was too low(Oliver was very proud). Duke Ellington, a relative newcomer to the jazz scene(his band was only 4 years old)quickly accepted the offer, and became a household name.
And another thing: Juan Tizol did not even join Duke's band until 1929.
If you're going to talk about jazz history, please make sure you don't get your info off the internet!!!!!!!!!!!!! |
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