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saben
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On fire! |
Registered: May 2003
Messages: 1537
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Curtis, JL went through this point by point and gave a well reasoned reply.
Read it, and read it again.
I'm in shock that someone, especially someone gay, could hold such views.
Imagine someone came along and said: "all fags have AIDS, it's a fag disease that started in the fag community". There's half truths and partial facts in a statement like that, as there was in yours. But it is still a comment filled with nastiness.
Do you really think that slavery is "more okay" just because African nations are in a state of warfare now? That's how your reply read....
Look at this tree. I cannot make it blossom when it suits me nor make it bear fruit before its time [...] No matter what you do, that seed will grow to be a peach tree. You may wish for an apple or an orange, but you will get a peach.
Master Oogway
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saben
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On fire! |
Registered: May 2003
Messages: 1537
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I've re-read my post 3 times and any edits would make it lose impact.
My other post was justified in its removal but this one?
My point is that Eldon, if he actually wants to change needs to look at this from another perspective. It's easy to be racist when one is part of the dominant group in society.
But as a "fag" he's already part of a minority, he could use that for perspective. It's not just blacks that people use nasty words about.
Or another way to broaden ones views is to be a minority in another country.
It's well and good to accept that one has a problem. But unless one endeavours to change the mindset then it's really only ever taking the first step towards change.
Look at this tree. I cannot make it blossom when it suits me nor make it bear fruit before its time [...] No matter what you do, that seed will grow to be a peach tree. You may wish for an apple or an orange, but you will get a peach.
Master Oogway
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13806
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There is "impact" and a harsh blow. You are capable of making a good revision.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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This thread has touched on some important points about religion, race, sexuality, etc... here are some points i noticed
Slavery was immoral and it took away the rights of people. There is no justification for "it" and its sad it happened.
People tend to associate with their own kind. its just the natural thing to do. It doesn't mean one is racist, its just how people naturally behave.
I live in a mostly Hispanic neighborhood, in which i'm the minority within the minority, bordered by Korea town. You can easily tell where one ends and the other starts. I can name of many other places where this is the case. One place that stands out for me is this neighborhood where people walk their dogs, green lawns, beautiful houses,etc. Then at some point, it just ends!. The line is sooo clear, on the other side are old apartment buildings, dirty streets, etc. Its pretty sad.
People like to be called different names, and not one term describe all groups. I think its best to politely ask how they prefer to be called when talking about race and stuff. other than that, use their name and it will keep you out of trouble. i personally prefer to be called Hispanic instead of someone refer to me as Mexican when i'm not. its very offensive to me, not because i have something againts Mexicans, its just not a correct description of where i come from. Mexican is not a race and definately not a language.
In my opinion, the best way (not the only way) to get a different point of view on the topic, is like Saben said, travel to a place in which you will be the minority and people will look at you as inferior and as an outsider. I will garantee its an eye opening experience to feel what other side feels. When i came to the US, and i did it legally, i felt obligated to learn two cultures. American culture and Mexican culture (among other cultures). I was outside my comfort zone, but it was the only way to understand the other side and relate to my peers. I never lost my background, and up to this day, i can go back to my country and it takes me a while to get used to it again. strange feeling.
Lastly but not least, we are ALL entitled to our opinion. We are all human beings, none better than the other, we all have our cultures, we are all different even within our culture, etc. All we can do is to respectfully be aware our differences and respect each other cultures. Nobody can make you change, only you can do that.
***this post was not aim at no one...just the thread in general.
[Updated on: Sat, 02 February 2008 00:06]
You don't love someone because they are beautiful, they are beautiful because you love them.
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Im sorry you misunderstood my post. I never said slavery was ok or even just, in fact i said the opposit. What I did say was that all great african culture was started and maintained by others, Such as the Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, etc. Yes I know the Egyptians are dark but they are Arabic.
For centuries african tribes have invaded other tribes and enslaved their prisoners. When the white man arrived they started selling thier own people into slavery. Dont act like the whiteman went over and snatched up africans and made them slaves. That didnt happen. There is enough evil to go around to everybody.
By the way some of the worse discrimination I have ever seen was between a dark skinned black and a light skinned one. Whats the biblical saying "dont look for the mote in your neighbors eye when there is a beam in your own".
Sweet dreams till sunbeams find you......
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saben
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On fire! |
Registered: May 2003
Messages: 1537
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Edited.
I couldn't work out specifically what you were talking about, so I reworked the whole thing.
If people have read it, they may want to re-read. I added a new point regarding the use of adjectives versus nouns in labelling people.
Look at this tree. I cannot make it blossom when it suits me nor make it bear fruit before its time [...] No matter what you do, that seed will grow to be a peach tree. You may wish for an apple or an orange, but you will get a peach.
Master Oogway
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13806
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Thanks. You achieved what I hoped you would achieve. Strength of expression without poking with a stick.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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saben
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On fire! |
Registered: May 2003
Messages: 1537
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I'm an Atheist so I tend to take the Bible with a grain of salt.
Regardless I don't actually think there is a beam in the eye of the black community. And the thing in the eye of the white community is far more than a mote.
Read what you wrote again, please. By applying that Bible saying you are implying that black people have done worse than white people. Do you really think that?
What colour was Hitler?
There is enough evil to go around to everybody. I agree with that. But whites have no right to wash their hands and get defensive by pointing out atrocities committed by blacks. We ALL need to accept responsibility for what we, as a race, have done. And I don't mean what the "white race" has done so much as the "human race".
We were discussing slavery, though, so when you bring up atrocities committed by black people it seems as if you are making excuses.
Then you don't even give credit to Africans for their own culture.
People were sold into slavery to bad people by bad people, people of their own kind. That doesn't mean the bad people that bought them should stop taking the full blame of their actions. Nor does it mean the people sold into slavery shouldn't receive our full compassion.
Look at this tree. I cannot make it blossom when it suits me nor make it bear fruit before its time [...] No matter what you do, that seed will grow to be a peach tree. You may wish for an apple or an orange, but you will get a peach.
Master Oogway
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JL
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Getting started |
Location: US
Registered: December 2004
Messages: 24
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What I did say was that all great african culture was started and maintained by others, Such as the Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, etc. Yes I know the Egyptians are dark but they are Arabic.
I've never heard this before either. Would you mind citing your source for this? There are black Egyptians and there were black pharaohs (check out this month's National Geographic for an article on this).
What exactly do you mean by "great" African culture? The reason Africa went without widespread agriculture and writing (which I'm assuming are the minimal requirements for "greatness") for so long has nothing to do with being primitive, undeveloped, immoral or otherwise deficient. It has everything to do with the the African climate and land being mostly unsuitable for farming. The lack of farming also explains the existence of tribes -- hunting and gathering (and animal herding) cannot support groups as large as farming can. Europeans, Sumerians (and others in the Fertile Crescent) got lucky (actually, they probably didn't, it's entirely possible that humans attempted living in other places between Sumer and Africa and failed) -- regions in those areas are flat, rain-filled and easily farmable. Also, these people probably needed writing systems, while the Africans did not.
Also, why do you keep equating Africans (both modern and slaves) with black Americans? Most black Americans are several hundred years removed from any African culture. Since the times of slavery both African and American cultures have changed a lot, and in many ways diverged. Additionally, there is probably no such thing as "African culture"; Africa is a huge continent, with significant linguistic, cultural and ethnic variabilities between regions even within the same country. The same is true in America. I'm not saying it's offensive to compare Africans and black Americans (descendent from slaves), I'm just saying that it's mostly inaccurate to do so.
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Let me put it this way. I treat others the way they treat me, its that simple. Im sure I have a lot of growing to do yet and my ideas and attitudes will change as I get older. I know this, I have never owned a slave and I dont plan on it. What someone did 200 years ago is not my fault nor did I have anything to do with it. So dont point a finger at me and tell me Im responsible for the struggle of the black man. The black culture is not my culture and to suggest that I embrace it is just plain wrong. Im not black and Im not going to pretend to be. As long as someone obeys the laws and treats others with respect then Im good with that.
[Updated on: Sat, 02 February 2008 23:31]
Sweet dreams till sunbeams find you......
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I happened to see this post and started reading it and it gave me such a headache that I had to stop.
This reply isn't to any particular post or person - just a reply in general as someone who as been a civil rights activist since I was in high school.
I grew up in the North in an affluent all white suburb and attended pretty much an all white highschool. But my parents always made sure that I was exposed to diversity from birth and enrolled me in countless activites that had kids from many races, religions, and social/economic backgrounds.
As a result, I have always had many diverse friends. In preschool one of my best friends for all 3 years was Georgie, who was african american and jehova witness.
In 6th grade I had the opportunity to go to Russia for two weeks with a children's choir. We got to choose our own roommates and I chose my best friend chris as my roommate (we chose each other). Chris was african american and just as much a "star" as me in the group. We both were soloists and dancers, both did a lot of tv commercials and theater, and had a love for Dave Berry's humor - from who's books we could quote PAGES and crack each other up.
In 8th grade, when my class went to a big amusement park on a field trip,I got to introduce my school friends to my girlfriend Kia who was there with her school. Kia is african american and none of my friends thought it was weird. Everyone loved her including my parents.
In highschool, my friend don used to come spent the weekend or I'd spend the weekend with him. All my skater/punk rocker friends in the neighborhood got along great with don. he went to their homes, skated and hung out playing video games, stayed for dinner. It was never a big deal.
Growing up, even in an all white suburb, I never experienced that whole "their culture" and "our culture" thing that is discussed on some of these posts.
I recently moved to south carolina to live near some of my band members. It has been a culture shock. My drummer, DLane still lives up in Pitts. PA and he doesn't want to move to the South. I don't blame him. It is sooooo different here.
DLane and I talk every night on the phone for hours. He misses me and I miss him but I respect his reluctance to move to the south. Right now he is in Brazil playing drums subbing for their reg drummer. and we "watched" the TV show Lost "together" via text messaging.
When my band and I stopped at Colonial Williamsburg one time when we were going past it on tour, one of the characters - some blacksmith or something - in colonial costume and wig was going on and on about how great it was back then and how much better things were compared to now and i yelled from the back of the crowd - "yeah my friend DLAne here couldn't agree with you more since he WOULD HAVE BEEN A SLAVE." and everyone laughed. the guy shut up about how "great" is was back then and we all had a good laugh - I mean, how stupid, to say something like that.
DLane and I love the same music. Don and I lived in exactly the same type of affluent neighborhoods only his was over on the opposite side of the city. Chris's family was exactly like my family - totally proud of his accomplishments and supportive of whatever he wanted to try next. I always thought he would be a politician or a comedian, but Chris grew up to be a brain surgeon. He studied at Johns Hopkins. Kia is married and is still such a beautiful sweet person.
Of course, these weren't my only friends. I've always been popular and surrounded by lots and lots of friends and I mentioned some of my african american friends only to illustrate how alike we are.
In the south, my experience has not been all that unpleasant, but I will say that being someone who looks "different" - I guess because I am in a rock band, I get yelled at and called faggot by people driving by in pickup trucks when I walk down a sidewalk in any small town. I wear tight pants, have long black hair, and apparently that equals faggot in south carolina.
Generally speaking, my experience has been that black people in the south are entirely approachable and friendly towards me. No one who is black has ever yelled at me yet or called me a name of any kind. I can walk up to a stranger to ask a question and if they are black, they usually smile and say and we strike up a friendly conversation whether they are from the area or move here. White people who have moved here from the north are friendly and like to talk to me. White people who live here are pretty hostile towards me unless I am with someone that they know, that they grew up with. It's almost like they are afraid to talk to anyone that they don't already know or something. I have a difficult time relaxing in public places like a fast food restaurant. I am on edge all the time because I never know when some stranger is going to start shit because I look and talk differently. It's very strange.
I find a lot of homophobia even among teens. Even among rock bands. I've talked with Elke Kennedy about it. Her son, Sean, was murdered in Greenville last year and my mother introduced me to her. My mom is the GLBT youth director in myrtle beach - which is another reason why I moved to south carolina - to be nearer to my parents. Elke Kennedy is working to try to get a hate crime law passed in s.c.
Another thing that I hear a lot is talk about the civil war. A lot of people that I've came across in s. c. refer to people from the north as yankees on a daily basis as though the civil war happened this morning. The first few times I heard the word yankee I almost laughed, because it was so bizarre.
In my entire life, I have NEVER heard anyone in the north refer to someone from the south as a "rebel" or a "confederate" or anything even remotely connected to the civil war. we studied it in school and then forgot about it.
Another word that I've heard is the "n" word and from the most unlikely sources. My bass player was pissed off about something and called it a g.d. "n" word - right in front of me! right in front of DLane! and he was soooo embarrassed and apologetic and he said - you have to understand that I grew up hearing my father use that word hundreds of times every day, every time he got angry, just in casual conversation - all the time. and now, even years later, as an adult who is not the least bit racist, that "n" word will slip out. We accepted his explanation and apology, but because of it, now he will NEVER EVER be allowed to do an interview with the rest of us.
oh well...i've written a book and I don't think I ranted and raveed even once! a new record in self restraint for me! huh timmy? haha
I'm such a freakin grownup these days! hahaha
"If you're born a lion, don't bother trying to act tame."
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13806
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The whole thing makes a hugely interesting set of observations.
Scuse me on one point. Does "one" say that an inanimate object is a god damned nigger? (Let's be unafraid to use words. Rather as in Harry Potter (!) using a thing does not give it power, and the words "nigger" and "negro" are really not "Lord Voldemort"). If one does, and ignoring whether it is pejorative towards black folk or not, how on earth does an intelligent being rationalise the fact that it's thing they are speaking about.
You've also opened a whole new area. You've shown a different north/south divide. Forgive my woeful knowledge of US History. The north won? This could explain apparent or real hostility from the south to the north. But is the gene pool in the USA truly that shallow?
So many more questions, I hardly know where to start.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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saben
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On fire! |
Registered: May 2003
Messages: 1537
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As I understand it (Americans correct me if I'm wrong)-
*The North wanted to abolish slavery.
*The South wanted to keep their slaves and decided to cede.
*The North realised that a lot of America's economy was tied to the agriculture of the South and refused to give the South independence.
*The North won, made the South submit to staying a part of America and giving up their slaves.
*Many in the South still believe they should be a separate nation as they don't have a lot in common with the North.
Personally, while I find slavery morally repugnant I think not giving the South political freedom to decide their own laws is the moral equivalent of slavery. Every group of people should have the right to form an independent collective in my opinion. But when resources are involved people can get quite stroppy.
Look at this tree. I cannot make it blossom when it suits me nor make it bear fruit before its time [...] No matter what you do, that seed will grow to be a peach tree. You may wish for an apple or an orange, but you will get a peach.
Master Oogway
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Well, Lance, I really enjoyed reading your post and maybe you have a headache but you seem to have got it straight - at least I think so.
More strength to your elbow! And we have something in common - I wear closer fitting clothes on my legs than you do - and in Bristol, England I have never been worse than teased about it.
Love,
Anthony
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unsui
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Likes it here |
Registered: September 2007
Messages: 338
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No Message Body
[Updated on: Fri, 24 October 2008 19:40] |
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marc
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Needs to get a life! |
Registered: March 2003
Messages: 4729
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There is a PBS biographical documentary on William Wilburforce.... The man who spearheaded the abolotionist movement both against the American tradition of slave ownership and the vast economic machine of the Brittish Empire the slave trade that was in their control.
Life is great for me... Most of the time... But then I meet people online... Very few are real friends... Many say they are but know nothing of what it means... Some say they are, but are so shallow...
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This is an interesting analysis from Michael and the lesson to be drawn from it and he makes it clear is that moral behaviour is very much tied to time and place.
This why the military action in Iraq (and also Afghanistan) by the US and Blair went so awry and really is doomed. They wanted to impose a system of morality and politics for which those nations have no tradition, background, knowledge, understanding or moral or religious disposition.
Hugs
N
I dream of boys with big bulges in their trousers,
Never of girls with big bulges in their blouses.
…and look forward to meeting you in Cóito.
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Nigel wrote:
This why the military action in Iraq ... by the US and Blair went so awry and really is doomed. They wanted to impose a system of morality and politics for which those nations have no tradition, background, knowledge, understanding or moral or religious disposition.
What I ask here does not necessarily deny this thesis expounded by Nigel, but takes the matter a stage further:
Does this mean that any nation or people is entitled to relate to any other nation or people strictly according to its own "tradition, background, knowledge, understanding or moral or religious disposition"?
J F R
The paradox has often been noted that the United States, founded in secularism, is now the most religiose country in Christendom, while England, with an established church headed by its constitutional monarch, is among the least. (Richard Dawkins, 2006)
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I was going to re-enter this discussion but now that we've descended into theories of International Jewry and Illuminati and the so-called One World Order I think I'll concentrate on school and homework. Everyone's entitled to their opinions, and has the absolute right to express them here, but I'm due back on Earth.
What's next? Quotations from The Protocols of the Elders of Zion???
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13806
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What on earth are the protocols of the whatever?
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13806
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You know, it's amazing how research taken together can be used to synthesise "Original Research" which does nto have the benefit of correct citations and is an incorrect interpretation, possibly maliciously, of the original and correct documents.
Synthesised research is deprecated in all academic communities, and even deprecated on Wikipedia.
It's reasonable to document that fact that someone has synthesised the research, but unreasonable to state that this synthesised material is factual, for such facts do not exist. The alleged facts always look good. They always have a popular acceptance with those who are tricked into believing in them or those who wish to believe in them, but they are as full of holes as the conspiracy theory which argues for the hypothesis of Controlled Demolition for the World Trade Center.
This alleged One World Order (or whatever it's called in fiction), were it to exist, can only be flagged as banal and wholly unsuccessful. Disproving it is, of course, as impossible as proving it. Even so, such things eventually fail, as did Erich von Däniken with his hypothesis "Chariots of the Gods"
Try very hard, Michael, not to get taken in by bollocks like that, or it will be Scientology next! I can't blame you for falling for it the first time around. It looks an attractive set of conspiracies to believe in.
[Updated on: Mon, 04 February 2008 13:24]
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13806
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Ah yes. Proper Gander. And wholly synthesised research. Ah well.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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I do not understand JFR's question.
My point with Iraq and Afghanistan follows from the idea that moral judgements are closely tied to their own time and place. One of the biggest mistakes with those wars is that they completely ignored the mentality of the people of those countries which means that winning hearts and minds is nigh impossible; or to put it another way, imposing democracy on people who haven't the slightest idea what democracy is is inept.
I don't think I want to go any further than that.
Hugs
N
I dream of boys with big bulges in their trousers,
Never of girls with big bulges in their blouses.
…and look forward to meeting you in Cóito.
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Nigel wrote:
I do not understand JFR's question.
I thought it was clear. Let me try again.
Your point, Nigel, was regarding OUR relationship with other countries such as Iraq. My question was how do we expect those other countries to relate to US - according to THEIR customs and mores? according to our customs and mores? according to some internationally agreed set of customs and mores?
J F R
The paradox has often been noted that the United States, founded in secularism, is now the most religiose country in Christendom, while England, with an established church headed by its constitutional monarch, is among the least. (Richard Dawkins, 2006)
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Well Tim, it's the first time I'd ever heard the "n" word used for an object. Hahaha. As for me using the word...I don't use it in conversations, either written or spoken. That's just my own personal preference.
I don't think there is a real hostility from people in the south toward people in the north.
In my experience, I think there is a real hostility from some people in the south toward anyone who is "different". I am different I suppose by my clothes. tight jeans. a black tee shirt, or whatever. Now in New York I couldn't get noticed on the street if I set myself on fire, but in the south, I must look unusual or something. I have no clue. I am different also from my speech because when I speak it is immediately apparent that I am not from the south. My pronounciation is more clipped and precise and I tend to speak very loud and very fast. I've been a DJ alot and thats how I talk -like an announcer. haha MY parents are from the south, so when I am in the north, people think I have a southern accent. haha Which I do compared to someone in Michigan or PA. I had a african american guy turn to me with a huge grin while we were in line at a burger king in georgia, extend his hand and practically yell, "BROOKLYN IN DA HOUSE!" And I was flattered! I laughed because I only lived in Brooklyn a couple years but apparently I picked up the accent unintentionally. We had a whole reunion about the old neighborhood! haha God I love NY!
People talk about southern hospitality, and say NY is dangerous. I've found it to be kinda the opposite and I'm not originally from either place!
Everytime I come off a tour, I live someplace new during my down time, while I write the next CD or get ready for the next tour. I've lived in Michigan (Detroit and Luddington), Chicago, NYC, Cleveland, Uniontown PA, and now Clemson.
One time I got finished writing songs and was waiting to be scheduled at the studio and I got bored with the small town where I was living, so on an impluse, I ran away with a traveling carnival just for some excitement and some new experiences. haha. Seriously, I went to a carnival with a bunch of friends, saw a "help wanted" sign, joined up and left that night with just a few clothes, a cell phone, and about 20 bucks. so I was a carney for about a month and a half until the studio called and said they were ready for me to come in and record. haha I learned to make pizza from scratch, put up and and tear down rides reeeeeally fast, and met some amazing people who live like this all the time. Once in a while now when I'm on tour I will come across a flyer from their show in some town and I'll go hang out with them for awhile.
When I'm on tour, there will always be a town or a city where I will meet people that I really like a lot... either fans or other bands or club owners, etc and we'll hang out and just "click" and we become friends. We'll stay in touch and when my tour is over, I'll go back and live there while I'm writing and recording my next CD. Being in a band, I can live anywhere and this is a great way to get to know the country and hang out with lots of awesome people from different backgrounds and cultures.
I'm totally comfortable being in a strange town/state/city walking into a situation where I don't know a soul. I always end up making a whole new set of friends that same day. I never travel with much money, I fly by the seat of my pants, and usually by the end of the night I'll have a bunch of new friends, a place to stay, food, a job if i want it, and usually a party! haha I thrive on new experiences, new places, new people, I'm really good at networking and I'm pretty open, friendly, and I hope, kinda cool to talk to. I'm in a relationship so it's not about sex. its just connecting with people as friends.
I don't know where the name-calling and hostility comes from that I constantly run into when I am in the South but I tour all over the country and this is the only region where I get that so I am on edge all the time. That's why I decided to live here. See if I can understand why this is the way it is. It seems almost defensive, sort of like people are compensating for an inferiority thing or something, although I don't know why. thats just how it seems from what I've experienced and seen so far.
Then there's the whole Bible belt thing. I meet a lot of kids who are jesus freaks and thats ok with me. I am real tolerant of other people's beliefs as long as they dont try to convert me. I dont like to talk about religion or argue about it in person. I believe whatever i believe and you believe whatever you believe and thats cool.
but here i've had people of all ages who dont know me at all, come up and try to convert me, ask me questions, and its weird. where's the respect?
I confess I swear a lot. My favorite word is fuck and I use it all the time - although I dont use it in public places where people might be offended. But there was a guy - total stranger to me - tell me not to swear in my OWN studio. he was in there with a bunch of local highschool and college boys who wanted to hang out with a rock band, hoping to snag a position as an intern at the studio, and i was setting up recording equipment and i couldnt get it working. so I was frustrated as all hell, and worried that a piece of really expensive equipment had gotten broken in the move to s.c.. I had it all connected correctly i thought and when I tried it, it didnt work and i said to myself through gritted teeth, "jesus h fucking christ" and some kid from way across the studio says, "could you please not take the name of my personal lord and savior in vain" and I was like "You're gonna tell ME what I can and can't say in MY own fucking studio? Get the fuck out of here. NOW" hahaa
Anyway, this year I'm experiencing life in a south carolina college town who's entire city culture revolves around their football team! They live and breath football all year round. I like football so we have common ground. It's been fun so far. Yeah Clemson! haha
[Updated on: Mon, 04 February 2008 15:13]
"If you're born a lion, don't bother trying to act tame."
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JFR, I'm going to start a new thread.
Hugs
N
I dream of boys with big bulges in their trousers,
Never of girls with big bulges in their blouses.
…and look forward to meeting you in Cóito.
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Timmy, your last post was short and I'm sure it was to the point, but I'm having trouble understanding just where that point was jabbed. Were you putting Eldon down? I hope not.
[Updated on: Tue, 05 February 2008 01:20] |
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Let me attempt to interpret here, just for the fun of it, Uncle Jim.
Proper Gander = whole bunch of crap.
And wholly synthesised research = the Chronicles were faked.
Ah well = what the hell.
And Eldon is aware of this, it's why he posted it. ;-D
Youth crisis hot-line 866-488-7386, 24 hr (U.S.A.)
There are people who want to help you cope with being you.
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13806
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Nail on the head. Eldon said as much himself. And no, this is not an attack on anyone, because the synthesised research is wholly believable. IT just happens to be total and utter bollocks. But, like all confidence tricks, it has great charm and beguiles those who read it into believing how authoritative it is
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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I don't know if I can do this. I don't know if I can go this deep into myself and write about these things that are so much a part of me and so deep in my heart. I'll try though, because again you guys have touched a few nerves, and I have touched some of your nerves, and I think things are better out in the open. I apologise that I haven't had a lot of time this week to just sit down and write what I want to say. School this semester is a real bear, and all four of our classes are AP, and one is Dual Enrollment so we're getting not only high school graduation credits but college credits as well, and I have to do well in it. Jon is taking the same classes, and not only is he as swamped with homework as I am, but he tutors Alan too, his freshman "Little Brother." But he and I have talked about all these things, and Alan gave his thoughts into the mix too, and so did Dan. We have done some talking at our lunch table and when we're with the girls.
Strangely, I'm not feeling angry or that I have to be defensive. I do think I would like to try and present the ideas of a reasonably well educated and thoughtful Southerner on some of these issues.
After talking with Jon about it, I think I would better describe myself as an elitist rather than a racist. Neither Jon or I, or any of our friends, would ever descend to the level of the KKK or the Aryan Nation, or any of the other neo-racist groups that are developing now in the United States. I don't consider the European-White-Southern culture to be better than other cultures. But I do believe that we're different from the black culture. One thing I resent though is the idea that if I am proud to be a white Southerner, and proud of that heritage and culture, then I must be a racist. There is more to white Southern culture and heritage than the fact that a hundred and fifty years ago some of us owned slaves. It's ok for blacks to have "Black Pride" and all the rest of it, but let me say that I'm not ashamed that my family owned slaves, and there's a furor.
I honestly didn't set out to be racist or elitist when I described black persons as Negroes or colored people. In fact we all routinely use "black" in general conversation. Older people like my mom and dad will use "colored" sometimes, but nobody takes offense because that's used nicely and not as a pejorative. In my defense and in my friend's defense, and our families defense, I have never heard the word nigger used. But yet black kids our age use it constantly among themselves. "Hey, ma nigga!" "Git yo ass ova heah nigga!" "Yo nigga you so be one dumb ass mu'thafuckin' nigga!" "Why yo go an' drap dat ball nigga, yo one sorry mu'thafuckah!" And you'd think it was just the males who say these things, but it's not! The girls are sometimes worse! I'm sorry, but my friends and I don't speak to each other like that. I guess that's just another of those cultural differences. JL said he had never heard a black person say things like that, but Curtis and Jordan mentioned in their posts that it's current in their high schools too.
I think I slipped into the use of Negro when I was looking through the books I mentioned, and through old family documents and ledgers. It was easy to fall into the history of the thing, and revert to the older names. If black persons want to be called black, that's ok with me. Personally, I have never ever in my life seen a "black" person. I've seen dark chocolate, cocoa, cafe-au-lait and nearly white "black" people, but I've never seen a black "black" person. The same way I think African-American is a ridiculous term. Blacks in this country as about as far removed from Africa as my family is from Yorkshire, and we don't think of ourselves as Anglo-Americans. Black kids call us white kids "cracker," "whitebread," "snow-boy" or "snow-girl," and other things and none of it bothers me. And again, it doesn't bother us because "we're over here" and "they're over there." I'll speak more to this as I go along.
I've pulled a few things out of other guy's postings, not because they were more important than other things, but because on one level or another I wanted to comment on them.
From Lance:
"Another thing that I hear a lot is talk about the civil war. A lot of people that I've came across in s. c. refer to people from the north as yankees on a daily basis as though the civil war happened this morning. The first few times I heard the word yankee I almost laughed, because it was so bizarre.
In my entire life, I have NEVER heard anyone in the north refer to someone from the south as a "rebel" or a "confederate" or anything even remotely connected to the civil war. we studied it in school and then forgot about it."
I can understand how this happened. Or at least I have a theory. The North won the contest of arms variously called The Civil War, The War of Northern Aggression, The War for Southern Independence, and lots of other things. Let's just call it the Civil War for now. The North won, the country was re-established as an even stronger Union, slavery was abolished, and the South was occupied. Once the period of Reconstruction was finished, the North moved on, and underwent a tremendous infusion of immigrant people with no concept of American history and the Civil War. The South had very little immigration, and sort of stayed the same population-wise until the upheavals of WWII.
But for us, here in the South, the Civil War is very real. We lost. Our entire economy was destroyed, our population decimated, our slave property taken from us without any compensation, other property stolen from us, and some of the finest architecture in the country wantonly and viciously looted and burned. For us, these things are not easily forgotten.
When Jon or I drive down the lanes that lead to our houses we pass the family cemeteries. Every day and every time we are reminded of the Confederate officers and soldiers our families gave for the cause of Southern Independence. When we cut the grass around the generations of tombstones we can't help but be reminded of those who have gone before us. Our forefathers and mothers whisper to us across the generations through the dim corridors of our ancestral memories. When I drive the tractor, or the corn harvester, or the combine over my family's lands it humbles me to know that I am the fourteenth generation to earn a living from this soil; ours since the days of the Lords Proprietors and Queen Anne, this beautiful piece of beautiful North Carolina.
Jonster and I are members of The Sons Of Confederate Veterans, as are all the male members of our families. Our mothers are Daughters of The Confederacy and members of The Colonial Dames. We're members of The Sons, and Daughters, of the American Revolution. Our friend Daniel is Jewish, and he and his family are in the same organizations. And we love him as a fellow Southerner, even if he was born a Virginian! The men in his family were all physicians in the armies of the South. The cultural heritage that is The South cuts across any boundaries of religion, which is one of the reasons that educated and cultured white persons don't associate with the lower classes of people you find in the KKK and the racist organizations, because who in their right minds could be anti-Semitic?? For people like us, and Jon's family, and Danny's family, history and the present are so interwoven as to be one piece of cloth.
All across the South, in the public squares, in front of county courthouses, in parks, there are monuments our Our Heroic Dead. There are Confederate National Cemetaries that are still lovingly tended. There are historical re-enactments of Confederate history. General Lee's farewell order to the Army is recited at memorial services. In churches there are stained glass windows commorating The Cause, and on Confederate Memorial Day the prayers are for the souls of President Davis, and Southern patriots, and the Confederacy.
There are tons of books published every year about the Civil War, and this passage from one of my favorites says alot about us as a people. It was written by Bruce Catton.
"We are people to whom the past is forever speaking. We listen to it because we cannot help ourselves. For the past speaks with many voices. Far out of that nowhere which is the time before we were born, men who were flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone, went through a fire and a storm to break a path for our future. We are a part of the future they died for; they are a part of the past, which brought the future. What they did – the stories they told and the songs they sang, and finally the deaths they died make up a path of our experience. We cannot cut ourselves from it. It is as real to us as something that happened last week. It is a basic part of our heritage as Americans."
I wrote:
I wish I could say "I have black friends," but I can't. I have black acquaintances, and I treat everyone with dignity and respect, but I don't have any close friends who are black.We no longer live in a society that is officially and legally segregated according to a person's race and I believe that is a good thing. But yet, but yet we do. In some ways Southern society today is more stratified than it was during segregation times. It's a hard thing to understand much less put into words. There is still, in the South, the idea that "we are happier with our own kind."
I honestly don't think that I'm a bad person. When I wrote that I treat everyone with respect I meant that, and since then I have looked at myself very carefully, and see no reason to change that statement. I hold doors for black men and women who are my seniors, and say "sir" and "ma'am" to them. I hold doors and do other courtesies for black girls in school and for black ladies in public. Jon does the same. Dan does the same. It's what a gentleman does. When a black person waits on me in a store or in a restaurant, I thank them properly and don't treat them like a servant. I greet my black acquaintences with friendliness and treat them respectfully and courteously. But while I treat my black friends the same as I treat my white friends, the black guys "change" when they speak to one of us. I hate to say something like this, but my black acquaintences "tone down" their "blackness" when they interact with we white guys. They don't do the gangsta thing as much and use mu'thafuckin' as every other word. They don't make these weird jabbing motions with their fingers and hands either like they are trying to be rap stars.
I am glad that the country is no longer officially divided along racial lines. I have no problem sharing water fountains and restrooms with my fellow citizens who are black. I go to school with black fellow students, I eat in the same places, and all the rest of it, short of inviting them into my parent's home and interacting with them socially. I don't invite the white trash kids either.
Now please, don't go all self-righteous on me about this. I have the right to decide who I want to be friends with, and those friends are naturally going to be guys and girls like me. Also, and I can't explain this either, but blacks are the only minority I feel this way about. Indian dudes have been to our parties, and Hispanic guys and girls, and Koreans and Vietnamese guys too. I just do not feel comfortable around blacks. I can't get past "they are SO different from us" blockage. I have to say too that Jon and I have talked about sex, and who we think is hot. We think Asian girls are just beautiful, and Asian boys are hot. We think Indian and Pakistani and Arabic boys are hot. Jon really likes Hispanic boys who have Mayan or Incan blood too. I think Hispanic boys are just hot, period Mayan, Incan or straight from the jar Spanish. We can't put into words how we feel about black boys. They have these incredible bods, and are great at athletics, but there's no sexual attraction there for either of us.
Jon has two sisters that are a bit older than he is. I asked him if he would mind Beth or Susan marrying a minority. He said he wouldn't mind any guy except a black guy. In fact, Beth is currently dating a Pakistani doctor named Prakesh who is uber kool. I asked the girls in our group if they would ever think of dating a black guy, and the responses ranged from "Ewww!" to "Are you kidding? Daddy would lynch him!!" and "I wouldn't ever think of it."
I wrote:
I believe with all my heart and mind that slavery was an evil from which this country might never fully recover. This is the viewpoint held by all persons of breeding and education in the South, and was a viewpoint largely held even before The War for Southern Independence.
This statement of mine sort of got left by the side of the road while everybody was falling all over themselves to let me know how damaging and catastrophic slavery was for the black population. I just wanted to repeat it, and to draw everyone's attention to it. I am not ashamed that my family owned slaves. I don't need to "excuse" them for being slaveholders. Nobody I know would say that slavery was good. It was the economic system of the times. When I say that blacks enslaved their own kind, and that American free blacks owned slaves, I'm not saying that those facts "excused" slavery on the part of the white slaveholders. Slavery was an evil thing, period.
I wrote:
I don't see how anyone can listen to the latest garbage black rappers spout, with all the obscenities and "cultural african-americanisms" and think that it is acceptable, while thinking my posting is "stereotyping black people."
JL replied:
First, rap is no more substance-less (or no less substance-filled depending on your perspective) than any other popular music. Second, I'm not really sure what you're trying to say here; I'm not sure how my tastes in music affect my ability to evaluate the validity of your post.
I will never, ever speak against stereotyping. Mentally grouping people according to a defining characteristic is a result of man's pattern-finding nature. It's impossible not to do. I will, however, protest allowing these stereotypes' impeding one's judgment.
Ok. I still don't like rap, rappers, gangsta, "urban music" or the "culture" that spawned them.
I wrote:
Timmy's friend was correct when he said that anything touching upon the issue of slavery immediately inflames the black population. As a race they need to preserve the idea that "they are victims" and anything that even hints that "the struggle" was anything less than catastrophic for black people as a whole is swiftly swept under the carpet.
JL replied:
The tone of this whole paragraph (and much of what follows) just screams racist/bigot/prejudice to me. I have a hard time seeing how was slavery not catastrophic for blacks. It seems to be what introduced segregation, and was the catalyst for many of the problems black people face today.
Ok. This country is now almost sixty years past the desegregation of the armed forces. We're fifty years past the desegregation of the schools. We've had Affirmative Action and other programs to advance the black community since the administration of President Johnson in the 1960's. In the interveening time, black people have received more government assistance, more private assistance, more special programs, more entitlement programs, more allowances in general than any other minority in history, and I feel compelled to say that any problems black people face today are largely of the black community's own making. I might not invite black guys to a barbeque, and we might not socialize, but I don't advocate holding anyone back just because of the color of their skin. This is my honest opinion.
And from JL:
(By the way, I'm not really sure why you started referring to blacks as "Negroes" in this paragraph, but it's really not an okay thing to do. You clearly weren't joking here, there were no sarcastic/mood-lightening quotes around it, nothing. Please don't use this word.)
I still think Negro is a perfectly acceptable word and is as proper as using Caucasian to describe white people. But since Negro is causing so much turmoil, I'll use black. I mentioned how I started using the word Negro a few paragraphs above.
I wrote:
Yes, the transatlantic transport was a bit barbaric, but generally once here life settled down to a better existance than they knew in Africa. I know that's not politically correct to state that, but it's the truth. They were Stone Age people living a hunter-gatherer life, and at least in this country, as slaves, they were taken care of.
JL replied:
Who are you to say that their lives here were better? A life of freedom is preferable to a life of enslavement. Period.
I still believe that the life of the average slave was better than the life they would have led in Africa. Better nutritionally, better medically and better from the standpoint of housing and much else. I will repeat, slavery was an evil system, but as practiced on the plantations in my direct ancestral experiences it was better than starvation, or of being a slave in Africa for example.
Also from JL:
They were not "Stone Age." Africans had very sophisticated social and governmental systems. There was no need for a writing system--though I think there's evidence that some groups may have written--and the land was unsuitable for farming (and still is without heavy usage of fertilizers).
If we accept the idea that the human race originated from Africa, in the region of the Great Rift Valley, and then groups migrated outwards from there, wouldn't it be natural to assume, or to theorize, that the "mother culture" of the place of origin would be the most advanced? I'm sorry, but in my opinion, the cultures of sub-Saharan Africa at the time slaves were being exported were significantly less advanced than those of the Asian, Indian, Arabic, and European cultures. It's almost as if Africa was the one place on Earth where human beings weren't successful by the standards of achievement of the other races and cultures.
Also, if the African cultures had such advanced systems of government and society, why is Africa such a quagmire today? Was nothing "retained?" Yes, I understand that the colonial boundaries need serious revision to account for tribal locations and liguistic groupings. Like the Allies redrew the Austrian-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires in 1919. But redrawing political boundaries isn't going to solve the basic problems.
Again, I guess I should apologise in advance for the storm this statement will no doubt unleash, but given the present situation, my opinion is that black people are simply presently incapable of governing themselves, and my further opinion is that the populations of every single sub-Saharan African nation were better off under the Colonial administrations.
Also from JL:
As far as blacks and Native Americans owning slaves goes, I've never heard this before, but that doesn't make it untrue. You seem to mention this as a way to justify the owning of slaves. Just because Africans were the original owners of many slaves in the Americas, and just because freed slaves "wanted a piece of the pie" doesn't make it okay that it happened.
I'm not saying that it's ok it happened, but slavery was a fact of economic life. Like poor working conditions in Northern factories, and child labor, and other evils generated by the Industrial Revolution.
I wrote:
I wish I could say "I have black friends," but I can't. I have black acquaintances, and I treat everyone with dignity and respect, but I don't have any close friends who are black.
JL replied:
No offense intended, but since you have no black friends, I'm wondering where your insight into black culture comes from. You don't really socialize with black people, you don't listen to rap, you don't watch black movies/TV shows (again, an assumption), so how can you say with certainty how black people view the world?
I can't recall where I made statements of how black people view the world. I made statements and gave my opinions of how I view black culture by what I see of it.
I wrote:
I just would never think of asking my parents, much less my grandparents, to entertain black people in their home. ... I accept that I live in a plural society, but "they" are over their with "their" cultural heritage and "we" are over here with "ours."
JL replied:
You probably have more in common with the average black person (of similar economic status) than you think. Both your cultures are probably American first, and Caucasian or black second.
I'm willing to admit this point. Maybe I do. Maybe we do have more in common than I know of now. Tell you the truth, I think college next year is going to open my eyes to alot of new experiences and alot of new chances for friendships. Jon feels the same. But still. But still, the black dudes I think I might get to like here in school, and around here, as soon as they get in a bunch of other black guys they turn into completely different people it seems like. You know, in our cafeteria and when we're out, we white kids talk to each other. I mean we have conversations. If you listen to black kids, they don't talk with each other, they yell at each other. When they're out in a group, they act out and strut around and as my grandmom would say, "they force you to dislike them."
I wrote:
Neither Jon or I or any of our friends "sag" our pants, we don't greet each other with "Hey, ma nigga" and we don't listen to rap or urban or gangsta music. We acknowledge that "they" are entitled to "their" culture, but we prefer our own, thanks just the same.
JL replied:
Pants sagging is becoming less and less fashionable in the north; I don't think I've never heard a black person greet another black person with "hey, ma nigga"; and listening to rap/urban/gangsta music is no longer a "black-only" phenomenon. 50 Cent didn't get where he is by appealing to a single group of people.
This is also true. I didn't mention this in the first posting because it's pretty nasty and inflammatory. But it's still true. We have kids in our school who are black-wannabes. We have goths. We have every shade and gradation that most every other American high school has. I don't know if Northern high schools have this term or if it's only a Southern thing. But here if a white kid "acts black" or "goes all yo-ma-nigga" they get called wigger. That's short for "white nigger."
JL wrote:
Black is the new... black. Black culture as a whole has become "cool" recently, so I find it interesting that you, as a middle-class, American, white male think your culture is completely separate from black culture.
I don't think my "white" culture is completely separate from "black" culture. I think the cultures are different. They sort of exist in parallel with each other and there's some interweaving going on at the edges.
JL wrote:
I don't really have much to say about the rest of your post because it's entirely about slavery and a culture to which I am not really connected.
And I see this as an issue, because at times you seem to be criticising me because of my lack of appreciation for black culture, while you are seemingly blowing off three hundred years of my cultural heritage. If blacks are who they are because of three hundred years of black experiences, then certainly I am who I am because of three hundred years of white experiences. I'm not saying one is better than the other. Above you made a comment about slavery being the root of all the black's problems, yet you admit you know nothing about the real history of black slavery in the Southern States.
I wrote:
But white people regard black people as different. North, south, east, west, gay, straight, white people in their hearts think black people are inferior.
JL replied:
I assure you, this is not a widespread belief. Especially in the North.
I assure you, it is.
White people, especially in the North, show their sense of superiority with their feet. My girlfriend's mom works in real estate, and I have also heard this from white guys who have moved here from up North. In every single American city, you can see areas that have homes that were once beautiful, in neighborhoods that were once beautiful, and that now are slums. The reason? White people do not want to live around black people. Black people move in, regardless of social or economic status, and white people start looking around for another all-white suburb. Pure and simple.
Don't even think I'm going to listen to rationalizations about how it was a phenomanon of the Fifties, or Sixties, and "Urban White Flight" is a thing of the past. When a man is transferred into a new area, and goes to the real estate agents, the first question out of his mouth is "how are the schools?" And that is still code for "how racially mixed are the schools?" Because it is an unfortunate fact of American life that the higher the black enrollment in a public school, the lower the overall academic performance. The higher the black enrollment in a school, the worse the discipline, the higher incidence of violence and the higher the drop-out rate. And all this in the face of all the Affirmatative Action for the last fifty years. Sure there are well off blacks living in mostly white suburbs, but once the balance starts to shift, and schools drift increasingly black, the whites leave. It's happened time and time again. Brittany's mom also told me that there's a new thing happening in cities where white people are moving into areas of the cities and rehabing old houses and creating white enclaves, so there's what real estate folks call the donut effect in urban areas. White and culturally rich center, a donut of blacks, then the white suburbs.
My school is almost perfectly divided half and half black and white. Same classes offered for everyone, same opportunities, same everything. But the AP classes are 95% white. We watched a DVD about the integration of the Little Rock schools in the Fifties. Because that was such an historic event, that high school, Central High is a national Historic Landmark and administered by the National Park Service. It gets an unbelievable amount of Federal money poured into it because it's the flagship for all the Federal entitlement programs for blacks since then. But there's a curious thing. It's also a magnet school, meaning that kids from outside the normal school area can go there, so they get the blacks from the school district, but because of the money and the classes offered, they also get kids from the suburbs who would go to private schools, or all-white suburban schools. They go to Central because of the wide variety of courses offered there with all the funding available. Nearly all the AP classes there are white. The school that should be the most integrated school in America, is really two schools. There's a black school and a white school in the same building. Just like where I go.
You know, the more things change, the more they really just stay the same. Back in the days of slavery, the Abolitionists were yelling about the evils of slavery and the North looked on the South as this backwards area of racism and chains and brutality. Then there was the period where we had the Jim Crow laws and we were legally segregated and the North was bleating about black's rights and forcing the integration issue and pointing fingers, and all the while the North was just as bad if not worse than the South about racism. So from what I've seen and heard, Yankees are just as racially prejudiced as we are down here, y'all just cover it up better.
Like my grandad said to me when I asked him about how the North and South think about blacks. "Yep, every Yankee is a damn Abolitionist until some colored boy wants to marry their daughter."
I wrote:
And if you think white people are racist, you should hear what the Asian kids in school say about black kids!
JL relplied:
This is not an adequate justification for your own racism.
Again, I never said that is was justification for anything. I take full responsibility for my own thoughts.
I wrote:
I'm a racist. There it is. I can associate with black kids on the athletic fields, in school and in general society, but not in my social life. Yes, I'm educated enough to change, but I see no reason to change.
JL replied:
In a job interview-like situation, do you think your racism would prevent you from acknowledging the abilities of a black person? Do you think you would be able to see around your prejudice to give the minority a chance? Also, what are your feelings on other minorities?
My feelings towards other minorities are described a few paragraphs above. I like and associate socially with everybody except for African-Americans. Other minorities invite me to their homes, and I invite them to mine. After college I will come home and help run the farm, and try new things I learned, and new methods. Any hiring I do will be for general labor and field hands, and a stockman or two. I have to be open and honest, and say that I will hire Hispanic men over black men any day. They are honest, work hard, are clean and polite and try their best. We have had excellent results with our Hispanic helpers and foremen. If they happen to come into the house for something they are unfailingly polite to my mom and grandmom and I really like working with them.
I wrote:
I feel better with them "over there" and us "over here."
JL replied:
Why?
I don't really understand why JL. If I did, we wouldn't be having this discussion. If I understood why black people and white people don't like each other enough I would run for President.
From Saben:
As for changing racism, Eldon, spending some time in an Asian country would help. I lived in Japan for 18 months and it taught me what it's like to be on the other side of racism. People speak to you as if you are dumb, say "I don't speak English" to you, even when you have been speaking to them in Japanese. And constantly you have people staring at you and muttering "gaijin" (literally outside person). Whites are seen as loud, obnoxious and smelly at best; violent criminals and monkeys at worst.
Then there's a whole nother side where Japanese social expectations don't apply because you are white- you're already an outsider that doesn't follow the rules so you can get away with a lot. Favourable racism... it still pisses me off. Of course the favourable racism doesn't really exist in South Korea or China- a lot of Chinese and Korean people just don't like whites in their countries, plain and simple
Also from Saben:
*The North wanted to abolish slavery.
*The South wanted to keep their slaves and decided to cede.
*The North realised that a lot of America's economy was tied to the agriculture of the South and refused to give the South independence.
*The North won, made the South submit to staying a part of America and giving up their slaves.
*Many in the South still believe they should be a separate nation as they don't have a lot in common with the North.
Personally, while I find slavery morally repugnant I think not giving the South political freedom to decide their own laws is the moral equivalent of slavery. Every group of people should have the right to form an independent collective in my opinion. But when resources are involved people can get quite stroppy.
I don't have any reason to doubt what you say about Asian nations and their ideas about race. I have heard that the Japanese are the biggest racists on Earth. They treat their own native population, the Ainu, like dirt.
PLEASE visit this site. Please. it is NOT my Camp of the SOCV, but one of the best sites around.
http://www.scv674.org especially please take time to read this section http://www.scv674.org/SH-Table.htm
The North DID NOT go to war to free the slaves.
And this from Lance:
I don't know where the name-calling and hostility comes from that I constantly run into when I am in the South but I tour all over the country and this is the only region where I get that so I am on edge all the time. That's why I decided to live here. See if I can understand why this is the way it is. It seems almost defensive, sort of like people are compensating for an inferiority thing or something, although I don't know why. thats just how it seems from what I've experienced and seen so far.
Well, for years the North looked down on us a provincial and bigoted area that was best avoided. Maybe we were are are provincial and bigoted. Most Southerners that I know would be proud to be called Confederate. You ever want to start a conversation with a Southern boy, ask him about how long his family has been in the town and what regiment did his people fight in. Er, let me change that to "most white Southerners." I might think that when we call you Yankee it's more teasing than name-calling.
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Gosh Eldon, I don't know if I can find anything in your whole long comments that I would really disagree with to any degree. Maybe some minor nit-picking but not anything major.
I am from the North and about as north as you can get up here in Minnesota. I was born and raised here and have been given the education in a public school by the side that won the Civil War. I have therefore been fed a biased view of the whole thing all my life. I am 68 and graduated from high school in 1957 so I was at the front end of the drive to end segregation in the South. In my opinion, my fellow citizens of Minnesota were mostly hypocrytes (forgive the spelling as I am a college graduate) in trying to always point out how badly blacks were always treated in the South and that we in Minnesota would not be racist in that way etc. In 1956 Carl Rowan, a renowned newspaper reporter, took a job with the Star and Tribune. He happened to be black and when he bought a house in a wealthy area of Mpls he had a cross burned on his lawn and his house and car peppered with paint and eggs etc. Hardly an indication of a tolerant society in my 17 year old mind. Yes, it was all fine to talk about how other people should respond to living with other races, but when it came to doing it themselves, it was a far different matter.
When busing of students in the public schools began to achieve racial balance in my state, white people with the means moved out of Mpls by the hundreds if not thousands. Today in 2008 the population of Mpls is still not caught up to what it was in 1957. It was 585,000 or so then and is almost 400,000 now, but I bet that the % of blacks is at least 10 or 15 times what it was then.
Yes, I will also agree (and the statistics and many black leaders will also affirm this) that crime in the black areas of the city is way higher than other areas. It is mainly crimes against blacks committed by blacks.
I suppose now I will be labeled as racist but in my defense I will state that I have had several black friends and never a black enemy. I hold no bias against anyone who a different race but will attest to the fact that there are many who will do others harm only for that reason. Be it black assualt on white or the reverse, it is a fact of life in most all large cities and in many other rural areas as well.
There is always some smugness coming from a lot of people in the North as we were so rightly motivated when it came to racial issues and especially the Civil War. But in my opinion, the war began almost 100% over states rights vs the federal government overruling the local states right to govern themselves. Slavery was brought into things to give the North some sort of moral reason to take over the South. If you read about the period after the war, you will find that Johnson was very nearly impeached for trying to carry out Lincoln's wishes to keep the North from having vengeance on the South. He missed being impeached by one vote.
I always thought it was too bad the South didn't win as far as the issue of states rights were concerned. I would never say that slavery was a moral thing to do to anyone, but I will agree that in most cases once those slaves were on the average plantation, they were treated well. It was indeed wrong to bring slaves into the country, but it had been the norm for almost all countries in the world to have slaves up until the Civil War. There were always those who spoke against it, but it continues up to this day in a lot of the world. Also, how do you hold with servitude by means of being an indentured servent who paid his or her way to the us by agreeing to serve a term working for no wage in return? Many of those people took years to free themselves of it and some never did.
I know many from the South and they are nice people and I think that a lot of those who were slave owners were exactly as Eldon has stated them to be. I think he used the Mammy thing exactly as it would have been done by that lady herself if she were still alive. I guess I grew up thinking about the same way about the racial issue as Eldon; I would have used the term negro when I was a kid but changed to using black when it was supposedly a bad thing to say negro. I dont think us white people will ever win on that one, but the blacks can use any term at all to describe others with no criticism by anyone.
Eldon is also right that blacks have blacks have been given more rights and privledges to make up for the segregation than any other group.
Personally, I think that the black community will eventually see that it is other blacks doing most of the crime to them and will disown those that follow that path. It will be much like what happened with the Irish from 1840 to 1900 or so. The Irish were the worst criminal element in the usa in the mid 1800's and by 1910 or so, the best cop in New York City you could find as a role model was Irish.
Anyway, Eldon, I would love to meet you in person some day. I bet we have a lot more in common with our moral viewpoint than we can guess. Great comment and dont give up your ground on what you said as I think it is right on the mark.
Ken
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Eldon, before I or anyone else says anything else, I wanted you to know that I appreciate your honesty, your forethought and your wisdom, which is far beyond your years. I applaud you for not only your clear thinking but the delicate and emotive way you have approached what is definitely a very sensitive subject in America even after all this time.
Having said that, I should point out that I am a "yankee" born and bred in the "north" and I've lived much of my life in the "south" as a consequence of my father's military service. I've seen a lot in my time, and I have to admit that you bring up not only a lot of valid points, but some that others might not be able to appreciate because they don't live in as racially diverse a society as America is. Before others jump on that, I did not say that other nations do not have racial diversity. Only that the particulars that affect Eldon's post and his life are different than those in other countries and are often more pervasive than in other countries.
But you are correct. There seems to be a growing rift between various "urban" sub-cultures and main stream society in America. Whether this is happening in other nations I do not know. All I can report and then speculate about is that it has happened and is continuing to happen here. I can't point to any one event that has led to this. I can't definitively say that it was the result of the rise of drug gangs and the music they influenced, or if it was the alteration of the political schema in rural areas (republicans becoming more of an influence in the south), or even if it was a simple responce to MTV influences on popular culture (that means Madonna as well as rap music in general, the rise of Alternative over Metal, the explosion of Electronica and Dance artists, and even the Boy Band Phenominon).
What troubles me is that this rift between black and white, and the growing rift between both black and white and the emerging latino populations in our country, that such things are accelerating. I don't know if this is just something cultural or if there is actual fear out there driving this. I don't like to think it is fear, although, as we well know, what is not understood is often first feared, and then hated.
And I'd very much like to see hate not part of the picture at all.
At one point, I could have said that I had black friends. And mean that they were actually friends, people that I might be willing to die for. I can't say that anymore. Not because I don't like them any more or less than I did in high school. We simply travel in different circles these days. And the circles we travel in don't bump. While that's sad to say, it could be said of a lot of friends I no longer have. Race isn't the issue in friendship, but the paths we take in life can have the profound effect of taking us away from those we value and respect and love. It happens all the time. It's just another mystery of life.
So, I guess what I'm saying is that it's okay to not be running around and fully integrating every culture and racial group into your life. As long as you are open to someone proving themselves as being a friend, then you can accept them as a friend, without it resolving into a matter of race. Personally, I've always found that if you let the person be the reason you like or dislike their company, then you've taken race out of the equation.
One further point and then I'll do the smart thing and turn over the soap box. Those of us of European heritage forget that the nations that espoused our parents and grandparents and so on, they had prejudices and cultural dislikes as well. Usually to other Europeans, for whatever reasons. We forget that the soil of that continent is soaked with old wounds and blood letting over "ethnic" issues, centuries old rivalries and economic difficulties. I can remember growing up and still hearing people talk in derrogatory (sp?) ways about Pollacks, Jews, Germans, Russians, etc., and that members of my own family used terms that I don't feel comfortable repeating here to describe such people. But you know what? they all are generally born with two arms, two legs, a pair of eyes and ears each and a single beating heart that pumps the same red stuff as mine does. Racism isn't limited to the obvious differences we have.
I honestly wish that people would grow up about this, though. Don't we have a lot more pressing issues to deal with than worrying about each other's skin color? And I don't say that meaning to jump on the people who posted here. I mean that about society in general. With AIDS, hunger, war and the environment all sitting there as issues facing the world, you'd think we'd worry more about survival than about dropping each other in boxes with convenient lables.
Sorry, I'll shut up now.
Seeya on the other side, my brothers
Robby
It's not the wolf you see you should fear, but all the ones he howls with. Don't be afraid of the song, but don't piss off the choir.
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I had a friend from north carolina once upon a time that i used to drive insane because he was a conservative and i was one of those tree hugging liberals that his daddy use to warn him about. haha
I used to tell him that I hope some day you attend college or live and work someplace besides in the south and that you fall head over heels in love with someone totally opposite of everything and everyone you've ever known. and he did.
It's hard to get a real hands on perspective on how the rest of the country thinks and behaves when your own personal experience is so wrapped up in history and limited to like-minded friends and a place where your family has lived for so many generations.
Just traveling won't do it because that's just being a tourist. IMHO it takes living in a place for some time to open your mind and heart,expand your thinking, and get a different perspective. At least it does for me.
That's why I am living in the south. Because I dont understand all the hostility that I constantly face when I tour through here. I want to create change even if it's one person at a time.
I honestly dont know why I am called faggot by strangers driving by in pick up trucks. I don't know why white people who live here (not the ones who moved here) are so threatened that they can't even smile and say hello when I speak to them. I don't know if they fear "outsiders" or they just resist any sort of change or what, but I hope to get some kind of understanding and perspective on it and hopefully it will be a mutual learning experience for both me and for people that I meet.
I am all about creating change and I firmly believe that one person can have a really positive effect on others. I have often said, that every time someone stands up against prejudice, racism, bigotry, homophobia, etc. you never know who's life you will touch. It is like dropping a pebble into still water. It may not make much of a splash and the ripples will start out small, but they grow larger and larger and spread wider and wider and you never know how far your one small act will reach or who it will touch or who's life you might totally change.
I've met more than my share of 'elitists' so far in the south. A really close friend of mine used to be one. It seems to be the "in" thing to be down here. haha. He and I used to sit up all night talking about what is really important to him versus what is really important to me. It made some very interesting conversations because we were so opposite and so passionate. Needless to say I won him over eventually (Of course, being me I cheated and flirted shamelessly. Anything for the cause I always say.) haha
I don't "get" the whole DAR/SAR/SOC/DOC/ references. As I have said, my parents are from the south. My family is also in the DAR and SAR and none of us care. I SERIOUSLY have never given a shit about that kind of thing and neither does anyone in my family. it's a meaningless piece of paper that I took to show and tell when I was 5 years old and we were doing family trees. Great great aunts thought it was "interesting" but not all that big a deal even way back then - not enough to go to a meeting. We also have family cemeteries and war heroes and ancestors who fought and died in the revolution... and in the civil war on both sides, North and South so we could be SOC and DOC but we never bothered. It's kinda interesting I guess if you're a history buff but otherwise we dont care and no one talks about it. I dont have stickers on a truck about it. haha I have band stickers and an equal sign from the HRC on the tour van haha. Thats waaaaay more important and relevant to my life than something my ancestors ever did. my family owned slaves. we have documents, census records, books written about it. we have books written about my family's ancestors. and they're all packed away somewhere. no one cares. there are a couple of plantations in the family in virginia. they are pretty and they have interesting history, and books written about them, and thats it. we're not PROUD of it and we're not ashamed of it. it's HISTORY and it's over and who cares? its a house. That doesnt make my family superior or inferior to anyone else imo. its just a fact and i didnt have any say in it so it certainly doesn't define who or what i am today.
I believe with everything in my heart and soul that ALL men are created equal. period. doesnt matter man, woman, black, white, gay straight transgender. we are all equal and we all deserve the same rights. It is so deeply imbedded into my soul that its a part of me, and theres nothing i could ever experience that would make me believe otherwise. its like breathing. it just IS.
and when i hear someone say that they feel like they are superior to someone less fortunate or just different because of their race, it hurts my heart. it really does. it just breaks my heart. i have spent my life fighting against discrimination. whenever a young person feels this way i just want to hug them and say, "come hang out with me for awhile and meet my friends."
It is difficult for me to understand how people can think that way, especially when they are in a minority themselves, whether they are gay or jewish or whatever. When an entire minority group of which you are a part has experienced genocide, discrimination, persecution...and to this day gays don't have the same rights as your straight siblings or your parents...how can a person turn around and look down on another minority because of language differences or economic differences? I can not understand that for the life of me. Looking at an entire minority group and saying ewwwwwww is exactly the same as someone looking at a gay kid and saying ewwwwwwwwww. Think about it.
Being born white or black, gay or straight, short or tall, left handed or right handed...it's all just an accident of birth. How can an accident of birth make anyone superior to anyone else? It doesn't.
Had I been born under different circumstances I hope that I would still be me. Nobody special...just me...Lance. I am just a very very small part of a much bigger picture.
I know in my heart that we are all equal. It's not money. It's not social standing. It's not who your great grandpa was. It's not race, religion, gender, sexual preference. We are all one race...the human race. and those of us who by an accident of birth have had advantages not afforded to all, should feel something inside us that wants to reach out and try to help others or at least try to understand them instead of gloating and swaggering around feeling all full of ourselves. granted i do my share of swaggering and feeling all full of myself, being an arrogant selfish bastard and a slutty rawk star but you know what I'm saying.
Kids who are black speak to one another using the "n" word and motherfucker just as gay men speak to one and another using "fag" and "bitch" or worse haha whatever (I dont want to offend anyone and if I do, I apologize). I hear it all the time among my friends (both gay and black). it is used with humor and affection and totally acceptable within that group context/setting. It is not the same thing as being called a faggot from some stranger in a passing pickup truck. Believe me, I know! haha It is not the same thing as being called the "n" word by some stranger.
The same kids may not be comfortable using motherfucker in front of white kids because they know you are not comfortable hearing it or saying it (assuming you dont go around saying motherfucker to your friends all the time like I do), so they are trying to be respectful of your feelings the same way gay guys don't go around calling each other or their straight acquaintances a sexy faggot or bitch (or whatever) when they are in a "mixed" crowd. They are being respectful and trying not to make anyone uncomfortable (and avoid a fist fight as well.)
It's like hearing kids in school use fag or "thats so gay" a zillion times a day. Some day, and I hope in the not too distant future, those words will be unacceptable in all schools and public places just at the "n" word is unacceptable now. That doesn't mean that gay guys will stop calling each other "fag" or saying "thats so gay" because they will just as black kids will use the "n" word and motherfucker because it's trendy for them to do so. It's not used to be hurtful to one another.
And dont even get me started on rap. haha just know that I'm an OG and kanye's pic is plastered all over my myspace page. you dont want to go there. trust me.
I've never in my life seen a white white person either. your point is what? that there isn't a word to describe this entire race that you are comfortable using except negro and even though the current generation of the entire race objects to this word pretty much unanimously, you think it is more appropriate than what they would choose to call themselves just because it is YOUR preference for them? is that what you're saying? Do you not think that is a bit insensitive? I seriously dont get what you are trying to say with the whole chocolate, etc
All across the south you see statues, etc, I see highways named the Strom Thurmond highway and the Jesse Helms Park and I have gotten out of my car and pissed on both signs...more than once. haha God, to come across shit like that named after two of the worst bigots and homophobes in the history of the US Senate and down here they're treated like heroes! You'll be driving down the road and all of a sudden you'll see something like the billy graham freeway or something and I'm like - damn, didnt they hear what he said about Jews? Hell, I threw parties when Jerry Falwell and Jesse Helms died. haha. The world instantly became a better place imho.
You should ask your classmates at school what they think about their older brother dating a gay guy or their sister being with a lesbian. I wonder if their reactions might not be the same because that is how they have been taught. Prejudice is a learned behavior. Babies are not born prejudiced, it has to be taught. A baby will love gay parents just the same as straight. A baby of any race will love parents of a different race. Prejudice is TAUGHT. And anything that is learned can be unlearned. (Is that a word?) haha
Each person has free will. One's learned prejudices do not have to define one as a person. If one doesn't want to be prejudiced, they can overcome that prejudice. If an individual wants to "fit in" and be accepted by their peers who have the same prejudices, they will continue to believe or pretend to believe and behave exactly the way their peers do because it is far easier to blend in than to stick out as a free thinker and take a stand against prejudice.
But here...
a present for you from me..
::hands you a pebble::
keep it in your pocket. and some day maybe you will choose to toss it in the water.
whether you do or not, you ARE a good person. don't ever let anyone tell you that you're not.
"If you're born a lion, don't bother trying to act tame."
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Wow, Eldon, thank you for a viewpoint on history that I never received - being born and raised a Northerner. But then we know that history books are always written by the victors and of course they make themselves to be the moral victors as well. I wish I had read that at a much earlier age so that my views of Southern culture would have been, I think, radically altered. I think it will be an eye opener for some other northerners as well - except for those intent on standing on the moral high ground.
I read something by Bill Cosby awhile back. It was an open letter to black parents. And he touched on just about every point you brought up about blacks holding themselves back. He has absolutely no tolerance for todays black, youth culture and believes it is demeaning to his race. I've googled like crazy but don't seem to be able to find it anywhere.
Myself, I'm confused about quite a bit in the racial issue. "Don't judge a man until you have walked in his shoes" is something we've heard numerous times. And since I'll never likely have the opportunity to walk in a black man's shoes, I really don't know what all he faces in his day to day existence. Do black youth act the way they do because they are bitter over the way they have been treated? Or are they treated badly because of the way they act? Is it a failure on our part for not assimilating them enough, or do they just resist assimilation? (Lol... it sounds like the Borg!) Is being loud, vulgar and obnoxious a black pride thing? I don't know, and I admit I don't spend a great deal of time pontificating on it. I simply treat everyone with respect unless I am disrespected. And like you, I get to choose whom I associate with. And I tend to associate with people that make me feel comfortable.
I suppose there can be 'niggers' and 'blacks' just as there are 'white folk' and 'white trash'. But black people can use that phrase in a whole different context than we can. My saying the 'n' word and Bill Cosby saying it would cause different reactions. And probably deservedly so. But I think there are a percentage of blacks that view Bill Cosby as an 'Uncle Tom' because he is rich, educated and speaks fluent 'white'. So even he isn't as free to bandy the word about as would be a rapper. I somehow don't think, though, that it is the word being used so much as the context in which it is used. It's probably more the 'intent' behind a word than a word itself. If a person uses a word out of ignorance I don't think it is received nearly so badly. But if the listener is prejudiced against you, for any reason, then you will be attacked for using the word whether it was from ignorance or not. I think I saw that in one poster's response to you. I saw a search for pretext rather than context.
In my view you are a moral, upright and extremely honest individual. I think if I were a black man I would rather deal with you than with three quarters of my contemporaries. I think you would always give a person an honest shake. And though you may have preconceived notions about things, there isn't a human alive that doesn't. You, I think, are capable of learning and changing; many aren't. But there are damn few with the honesty and courage to do an in depth analysis the way you have, and then to display it for everyone to see. You may have your detractors on this board, but they don't measure up to you in either character or moral integrity. I'm giving you the Schroder brownie button. Wear it with distinction.
PS I love the baby pic.
[Updated on: Wed, 06 February 2008 07:04]
Youth crisis hot-line 866-488-7386, 24 hr (U.S.A.)
There are people who want to help you cope with being you.
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13806
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The ability to distance yourself from the comments and then write honestly about your reaction to them is impressive.
This culture is alien to me and I have no insightful comments to make. I go back to being astounded that the US had segregation during my lifetime. It seems to me that the 60 years of progress has been somewhat delayed into maybe 50 years of resentment and 10 years of progress by those who had chips on their shoulders. Damned shame, because 60 years of real progress would have been somewhat better.
I can't help thinking "If the USA truly is the land of opportunity and the land of the free, why are there so many black folks and so few examples of highly successful black folk?"
I don't know the answer.
I do know one black guy in the USA reasonably well. We've emailed, over the years, chatted, phoned, met. It took him "half his life" to come out to me and tell me he is black. He was scared I'd run away. He's not in the South. He's a gentleman, working in a low paid job, and somehow unable to set his sights above that job despite being well capable of more. There seems to be a threshold that is too high to climb.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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Hey Lance, I know I am not as liberal thinking as you in all areas but if you were to talk with me for a while you would find I am quite a lot like you in a lot of ways. I am not really into dislike of anyone really, not even guys who would harrass me when I was a kid walking home from school. Mostly those guys would leave me alone if I just stayed away from them. I was not thought of as being gay (I don't think I was anyway.) but just someone small who could be picked on a bit. I have met some of those very guys later at school reunions and that aspect of things never comes up and we are just school mates meeting after 30 years or whatever.
I am not much into pushing any agenda so I also keep a low profile. I bend as much as I can to avoid someone who is obviously bigoted etc. I will make my thoughts known if it doesn't mean I could get the shit kicked out of me. I wait first to see which way it could go before saying much.
I am not afraid to express how I feel about God and I have my own ideas about it believe me. I am religous and go to a Lutheran church but that is about as far as it goes for me. I think God is what you make him and he gave us all free will so He is not messing with anything at the moment. He is waiting to see how bad it can get and I firmly believe He will step in to save us from ourselves someday. I personally can see a lot of what I believe in a lot of other religions. Where that religion will say you need to love one another or tolerate others who do not believe as you do, how bad can it be? I don't think anyone who lives his life loving all others as himself will be left behind by the God I believe in.
I look around in traveling around in other places in the world and just see how some struggle just to stay alive and figure I am a lot luckier than I think I am. I could have been any one of them and be sitting in a shack in Bolivia or starving in the Sudan. Yes there are a lot of people who figure they are more important than someone else simply because they have more money or a better name etc and they are so wrong.
I must say I dont have much love for rap as it just doesnt qualify as music in my book, but to each his own. I do like the fact that this present generation wears earphones a lot and doesn't make me have to listen to what they want to hear even if I dont like it. I would ask them to turn down the car stereo a bit though so I can sleep - even though it is winter and the windows are all closed and they are two blocks away.....lol
As to celebrating when anyone dies, especially someone who was a bigot or taught things like Falwell did, I tend to feel sad for them as they obviously did not get God's message correctly. I wonder where they will end up if they are sure there is a heaven and hell?
Ken
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Oh just one small point. I stopped using the word black in the 50s and used negro because I saw that was the way negros were called in the south and figured that they were referred to that way as a way of disrespect. So later on I had to go back to using black to refer to a colored person as it was now wrong to use the word negro or colored. Of course it is reasonable to see why colored was a wrong thing to use as that is how all the non-white areas were labeled there.
Ken
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Yes Timmy I have known several black people and that is one of the things they are up against sometimes. Even when someone black accomplishes something really great, it is not often talked about in the black community and held up for young people to see. I don't know exactly why, but it could be the fear that those that do that will be perceived as "uncle toms".
Just as an added bit, the first person to make the rate of E9 in the Navy ( Chief Petty Officer was E7 and E8 and E9 were first made a paygrade in the 60's) was a black guy I went to school with at the University of Kansas. We were both in a program called the Navy Enlisted Scientific Education Program and he was a super guy and got all A's in electrical engineering.
[Updated on: Wed, 06 February 2008 11:05]
Ken
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Dear Lance,
I'm British and don't get the initials. DAR/SAR/SOC/DOC/HRC/OG. Please excuse my ignorance. As you know I agree with your drift. I'd like to understand every sentence.
Love,
Anthony
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